Sensing Online
Monday, March 18, 2024
Immigrants and criminality
Every study on the subject has shown that since 1960, immigrants are much less likely than native-born Americans to be arrested or convicted of crimes (excluding crimes associated with entry into the country). The right highlights a few cases of murder committed by immigrants, but as Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute shows, undocumented immigrants are 27.7 times less likely to commit homicide than natives, and legal immigrants are 57.1 times less likely.
[Basel Bassel] Ebbadi said in a sworn interview after his arrest that he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served as an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years, the documents show. Ebbadi’s training focused on “jihad” and killing people “that was not Muslim,” he said.
Another reason Charen's argument fails is that Charen never even mentions of per-capita rates of crime of native-born Americans compared to the per-capita crime rates of legal and illegal immigrants. That is, what is the percentage of native-born Americans convicted of felonies in relation to the total number of native-born Americans in the country? And the same for legal immigrants and illegal immigrants.
- In 2020 (the latest year of Stanford's study), the total population in the US was 325,268,000. Of these, 57.8 percent were White, or 188,004,904.
- The total native-born population was 280,361,000 (the Bureau rounded the numbers).
- That means, according to Stanford's methods, that in 2020, the 92,356,086 non-white, native-born Americans committed no crimes!
- However, in 2020, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, "about 48% of inmates held in local jails were white, 35% were black, and 15% were Hispanic. American Indians or Alaska Natives; Asians, Native Hawaiians, or Other Pacific Islanders; and persons of two or more races accounted for 2% of the total jail population." In fact, "In 2020, the [overall] imprisonment rate was 358 per 100,000 U.S. residents, the lowest since 1992."
- To claim that foreign-born persons in the United States are less likely to commit crimes than native-born white men simply borders on gaslighting. It is not a relevant comparison.
- In 2020, the year ending the Stanford chart, there were 280,361,000 native-born persons in the country. What is the incarceration rate of native-born persons per 100K for all native-born Americans? Stanford simply ignores this.
Since January 2021, a minimum estimate of nearly 1.7 million gotaways have illegally entered the U.S.Based on earlier projections and including Office of Field Operations data, former CBP chief Mark Morgan told The Center Square the gotaway data is likely to reach or exceed one million for fiscal 2023 alone.In fiscal 2021, there were at least 308,655 known, reported gotaways; in fiscal 2022, 606,150 were reported. According to preliminary data obtained by The Center Square, Border Patrol agents reported at least 769,174 gotaways at the southwest border alone.
- Newsweek: Terrorists Using Fake IDs To Cross Border Raises Red Flags for FBI Director
- ABC News: FBI director warns of 'dangerous individuals' coming across southern border
- MSN: FBI Director Wray warns of ‘wide array’ of dangerous threats stemming from border
- CNN: FBI director warns senators he sees ‘blinking lights everywhere’ on threats against the US
Monday, February 19, 2024
NASCAR is boring now
I am currently watching the rain-delayed Daytona 500 NASCAR race and it has already made me think of an essay I wrote after the 2012 race. And though today's race is only a few laps on, nothing has changed since then.
From 2012, with edits for today; let's see if it still rings true by the end of today's race:
_______________________________________________
Saw most of the rain-delayed 2012 Daytona 500 Monday night, and I have to say that it was an incredibly boring race - except, of course, when driver Pablo Montoya blasted into a jet-engine-blower truck and everything blew up. No one was injured, incredibly, and so I can guiltlessly say that the episode was the only truly entertaining period of the race.
The problem is not new. NASCAR races became boring when NASCAR mandated that every Sprint Cup driver had to drive the "Car of Tomorrow" racer beginning in 2008. That means that all the Sprint Cup races - the big leagues of NASCAR - are basically just one big IROC series, a now-defunct racing series in which, "Drivers raced identically-prepared stock cars set up by a single team of mechanics in an effort to make the race purely a test of driver ability."
The problem with using the COT in NASCAR is that brand distinction (Ford, Chevy, etc.) now means nothing at all. It did back in, say, Richard Petty's day. The cars now are all the same except for very minor and immaterial differences. In Daytona there was a field of 30-plus cars that all had almost exactly the same performance envelopes and so most all the race looked like this [and this is exactly what I am looking at on the screen right now]:
This is only a giant clump of cars in which almost none of the drivers are actually racing except for the handful at the front. Inside the gaggle there is no real racing, just each driver awaiting a screwup by someone else to leave an opening. The problem is that the screwups turn out this way - this was on the 5th lap today:
In the 2012 race, there were several such wrecks. Again, no one hurt, thankfully. In the old days it was rare for NASCAR wrecks to wipe out eight or so cars at a time. It happened, but not much. Now, it's rare when wrecks don't do so. All this does is stop the race (well, what little racing there actually is) for many laps under the yellow. What it does not do is make the race a race when the green flag gets waved again. There are fewer cars to clump together at 195 mph, but it's still just a clump. And so: another such wreck. In fact, the last of these wrecks of the evening in 2012 took place mere minutes before the end, and when it started I thought for a moment that Fox was replaying a wreck from earlier in the race.
NASCAR blames its multiyear attendance drop on the 2008 recession. Problem is that attendance peaked in 2005 and has shrunk every year since. Both 2009's and 2010's attendance were less than 2003's.
Why? Because the drivers aren't racing anymore; the winner usually just turns out to be the luckiest of the last men standing, having missed being wiped out in a pile up. That means the "race" is boring because viewers are not actually watching a competition, just a high-speed game of Russian Roulette.
Even the wrecks are not entertaining, not because drivers don't get hurt (that's a good thing) but because they are so predictable and frequent that there is no longer a surprise factor in them and all they do is interrupt what little racing there might be. "Look, honey, twelve cars are spinning out of control again. I'll go get that popcorn for you now."
Update: Surely to no one's surprise, this happened today with eight laps left in the race. Seventeen cars were removed from the race. As I said, NASCAR races are now just endurance and luck to be the last man standing. And there was another wreck with two laps to go, taking out four or five cars.
Sunday, February 11, 2024
Let's hear it for hypocrites!
But at one point the panel and other attendees generally agreed that one of the main reasons the unchurched are well, unchurched is because church people are such hypocrites. I personally think that is maybe the oldest excuse in the book and I am morally certain that one day in Corinth a man approached Saint Paul and told him, “Well, Paul, the reason I won't join your new church here in Corinth is because there are so many hypocrites in it.”
The hypocrisy excuse for staying away from church has got to be the oldest there is. Which only proves what Mark Twain observed, "When you don't want to do something, any excuse will do." And to borrow one of Yogi Berra's malapropisms, if people don't want to come to church, nobody's going to stop them.
But I say, "Hooray for hypocrites!" If you're a hypocrite, you're just my guy or gal. To reverse what Marc Antony said about Caesar, I come to praise hypocrites, not bury them. I am unashamed to admit that I am a Christian hypocrite, and furthermore, I hope every one of you are also.
"Hypocrite" is derived from the Greek, "hypókrisis," or "play acting." It was the description for actors in the Greek theater and refers even more specifically to the masks that certain actors wore to denote different roles, multiple roles being quite common in ancient Greek theater. Members of the chorus - a sort of on stage narrator group - also often wore masks to correspond with the mood, emotion or tome of what they were singing or narrating.
So a hypocrite is literally a "mask wearer," one who hides who s/he really is. It is, as the Greek denotes, play acting. Jesus had a lot to say about play actors, and none of it good. The Jewish prophets spoke against those who made sacrifices one day and cheated their neighbors the next. Isaiah 29.13 says, “The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men'.”
The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, part of the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple that was destroyed in 70 c.e. by the Romans. The Western Wall is all that remains of the Temple. Today, Jews of all religious convictions go there to pray. I prayed there, too, the same day I took this photo in October 2007.
Jesus preached stoutly against religious hypocrisy. For example, he said: "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others."
Very, very rarely is this kind of person found in a church. The church-attending hypocrites over which the seminar attendees clucked-clucked so sadly are not actually hypocritical in the usual meaning of the word: "a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess." Yes, they fall short of what they intend, but their striving is real, not phony, and they try to do better. If they are hypocrites, then so was St. Paul.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.It is deceit that makes hypocrisy what it is. Absent this deceit, there is no hypocrisy, just error or human frailty. That's what the hypocrisy-excuse people don't understand - or pretend not to understand - about church people. What may appear to be church people's hypocrisy is almost always just simple failure to meet the standards of our faith rather than deceit. Why? Because the standard is so high.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what we were when Christ called us. Not many of us were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many born with a silver spoon. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that we are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Cor. 1.26-30)
I have not yet obtained perfection; but I am moving on to perfection because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Friends, I have not reached that goal, but I am not letting my past control me. I press on to what lies ahead, towards better fulfilling heavenly call of God through Jesus Christ.
Sunday, February 4, 2024
What's your pearl?
Here is a true story that I read a few years ago. An aging woman decided to move into the city to a retirement home. She had a big sale to downsize. One thing she did was slap a "for sale" sign on her late husband’s pride and joy – a 1963 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing that he had bought in 1972. She remembered that he had told her the Mercedes was collector’s item worth one hundred thousand dollars not long before he had died fifteen years ago, so that’s what she priced it.
One shopper saw the for-sale sign in the car’s window,
and he immediately wrote her a check for twenty-five hundred dollars to hold
the car for him for the day. Then he went to the bank and opened a home-equity
line of credit. On the way there he called his broker and cashed in mutual funds.
Then he maxed out his Visa card on a cash advance. He wound up with a certified
check for $100,000 and drove back to buy the car. He knew what the widow did
not: in the years since her husband died the car had increased in value to $250,000.
That man was willing to take risks to obtain something of tremendous value. I knew a man in Nashville who told me a long time ago that he was offered the opportunity to become one of the original investors in the franchise license for all Davidson County for Wendy’s restaurants. He turned it down because he did not want to be diverted from the business he had already built up. Later, of course, he wished he had invested.
Would you pay a hundred thousand dollars for an ordinary orange?
Eleven millionaires drowned when the Titanic sank in 1912. One who survived was
Arthur Peuchen, who left $300,000 in a lockbox in his cabin. "The money
seemed to mock me at that time," he said later. "I picked up three
oranges instead." A hundred thousand bucks each.
What is of ultimate value to us, so much so that we would
sacrifice almost anything else to obtain it? Jesus spoke about that Matthew 13.44-45:
44 “The
kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he
hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that
field.
45 “Again,
the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he
found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought
it.
In the ancient world a large, flawless pearl would have been
something like the Hope diamond of its day. Ancient literature tells of single pearls
worth millions of dollars in modern value. When this merchant found such a pearl,
he cleaned out his stock and sold his personal possessions to buy it. The
merchant apparently did not come out ahead financially; he just changed assets
at even value. There is no hint that he sold the pearl later. For all we know,
he simply kept it.
But this story is not really about an actual pearl, is it? What
Jesus seems to be trying to communicate is the importance of knowing first,
what is of ultimate value and second, what will it take to obtain it.
Contrast this parable with the story of a young man, also told in
Matthew, who asked Jesus what he needed to do to gain eternal life. After a
short conversation, Jesus tells him, "Sell everything you have, give the
money to the poor, then come and follow me." But the man said no. Matthew
says he went away sorrowful because he had “many possessions.” Jesus offered him
ultimate value but the young man declined because, he thought, the price was
too high.
Today is interactive sermon day. I would ask that everyone take a
moment, turn to your neighbor and talk briefly about what this parable means
for you. Pause
Matthew 13 is a series of parables, one right after another. Parables
are narrative stories that set up a situation at the beginning, show a kind of
“twist” in the middle, and end with a punchline. This parable does that, too,
although not very obviously. In fact, I think that all of Matthew 13 from start
to finish is one long parable about the kingdom of heaven and what it takes to be
in it with the punch line in verses forty-nine and fifty, which tell of severe
judgment at the end of the age. It’s quite grim.
So, for anyone who understands the parable of the pearl to mean, “The pearl is the gospel, and we should be willing to surrender everything for the sake of the kingdom,” I shall not disagree. But I also remember what our bishop, Bill McAlilly, likes to say about his son’s soccer coach, who would always ask his players after a goal was scored, whether by his team or the other: “So what? Now what?”
So, say the parable of the merchant is about doing whatever it takes to be
in the kingdom of heaven. That’s fine. So what? Now what?
That is the hard part for me because it forces me to ask, “What is
my pearl right now?” Because you see,
everybody has a pearl. What’s mine? What’s yours?
What is it that I treasure more than anything else – so much that,
like the merchant once he gets the pearl, I am not willing to part with it,
ever? That’s my pearl. Everyone here has a pearl, also. So, take a moment now
and think about the answer to this question: What is your pearl? What is more
important to you than everything else? What is it that would make you give up
almost anything else to keep? If you are inclined, turn to your neighbor and
talk it over.
-----------
When I served a church is west Nashville, I did some volunteer
ministry at Lighthouse Ministries, a live-in center for men suffering from
addiction issues or homelessness. I remember counseling a young man who just
would not follow the rules of living there. He said in one session with the
director and me that he really wanted to go home to visit his mother over
Christmas but of course he had no money even to take a bus to Jackson,
Tennessee, where she lived. The director said that funding could be provided,
but it was not simply free. He had to follow the rules and go through the
process of making his life better. He said that was too hard and there were too
many things out of his control. I asked him, “You can make your bed tomorrow
morning, right?” He nodded. “Well,” I said, “that’s in your control and it is
one of the rules here. Don’t worry about what you can’t control. Do the things
you can control.”
His pearl was to spend Christmas with his mother. It was a good
goal. I remember a discussion about this parable by Vanderbilt Professor
Amy-Jill Levine. She said that after class one day where they talked about this
parable, a young female student came to her and said, I know what my pearl was.
I did give up everything for it – all my money, all my possessions, I even
ended my marriage for it. It was alcohol. I was willing to give up everything I
had to get the next drink.
When I ask myself what my pearl is, I also cannot avoid asking, Is
that what my pearl should be? Is my pearl a good one?
Professor Levine also talked about leading a Bible study at River
Bend Prison and discussing this parable, where an inmate told her that his
pearl was freedom, to be released from prison. Another said that his pearl was
simply staying alive while he was in prison.
Viktor Frankl wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning not long after he was liberated from a
Nazi concentration camp near the end of World War Two. The Library of Congress
lists this book as one of the most significant books of the twentieth century.
Frankl lost his entire family in the camps – his wife and children did not
survive.
But Frankl wrote about all the things the Nazis, with all their
evil designs, could not take away. He wrote of people who entered the gas
chambers praying the Lord’s Prayer or the ancient prayer of the Jews, the Shema
Israel. He told of starving prisoners who went through the huts giving their
meager bread ration to others near death. Such acts convinced Frankl that a
person’s ability to choose one’s attitude, to control one’s inner life, no
matter the circumstances, was the single human freedom that no earthly power
could ever destroy. So even the worst that this world can throw at us cannot
take everything. Frankl did not talk about parables, but he did find his pearl,
to be in control of his inner life. And that was how he found freedom in the
camps, even surrounded by death at every hour.
What’s your pearl? Should it be?
The error I have made so far in talking about this parable is
individualizing it, as if Jesus was talking to and provoking thought in
individual persons. Yes, there is a lesson for each of us in this parable and
my lesson and yours won’t necessarily be the same. But there is a lesson for us
together also, with the same focusing question: What is the pearl of our church? What is the centering and central focus of our life together
as the body of Christ? Is that focus what should be our focus?
So, I would ask each of us right now to answer this question: What
is it that we do, that if we stopped doing it, would lead us to think we had
surrendered a central, vital element of being a church belonging to Jesus
Christ? Please discuss with your neighbor.
Here is a second question: Is there anything that we are not
doing that, by its omission, is already surrendering central, vital element of
being a church belonging to Jesus Christ?
And here is the third and final question, not for discussion but
for answering for oneself: Does it matter – does it really, truly matter enough
for all of us together – as a church – to do whatever must be done to take hold
of that pearl?
These are hazardous questions. If we are honest with ourselves
individually or with ourselves as a congregation, we would have to admit that,
as W. Edwards Deming pointed out, the main purpose of human organizations is to
maintain the status quo.
The first time I thought about this for myself, I came to
understand that my pearl was just that: preserving the status quo. I understand
that the prospect of change can be disturbing. At the outset it can seem like
entering a dark room blindfolded. Yet as Sam Cooke sang in 1964, “A Change Is
Gonna Come” whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not, whether we
are prepared for it or not. And there are only three ways to deal with change:
1.
Make things happen,
2.
Watch things happen, or
3.
Wonder what in the world just
happened.
Over time, I came to realize that no matter how wonderful the
status quo feels, it is not possible to maintain it. The only place the status
quo is maintained is a cemetery. As Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead”
and, “God is the God of the living.” To be alive is to change.
So, discuss briefly with one another this question: In the coming
months and years, what changes to our status quo are coming? And what would we
like the changes to be? Here is a template I use:
First, rediscover and renew our calling from God as Christian ministers
and lay people, as individual disciples and as connectional Methodist church
people. Jesus told Peter he would make him fish for people. Do we remember when
we got hooked by Jesus? Is it still fresh? Or did we get stuck in a rut, which
is to say, did we devote our energies to preserving the status quo?
Second, are we intentionally making disciples or just accepting people
into membership? We should discern together and put into place together an
intentional path to discipleship. It cannot be enough any longer simply to
accept people into membership and leave them free lancing afterward. No longer
can we say, “We have Sunday School classes and Bible studies and women’s groups
and community ministries, and we hope that one of them is right for you.” Jesus
did not give us the mission of making church members, but of making disciples.
Of course, we will have to figure out just what a disciple is, but
I will leave that for another day.
Third, do we see all the people, including both the people of our
fellowship, whether members or not, and the people of our larger community? William
Temple observed, “The church is the only cooperative society in the world that
exists for the benefit of its non-members.” I think that’s a bit of an
overstatement, since I think we would agree that police, fire and rescue
departments and the US military also exist for the benefit of non-members. But
Temple’s point is still sound: Jesus didn’t begin the Church in order to convey
member-benefit packages to church people.
Now, we do benefit, and very richly. But not in ways awarded by
other organizations. Jesus put it this way to his disciples just before he was
arrested: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as
the world gives. So, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Fourth, how shall we preserve that of our church which is excellent and gives
glory to God, of which there are many examples? It is true, that as Sebastian says
in The Tempest, “What's past is prologue,” but it is also past. We cannot plan
for the past, only for a church we will bequeath to our children and
grandchildren.
Personally, I am optimistic! After all, Jesus said, "Do not
worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we
wear?' For people who don’t know God wear themselves out themselves over such
things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. So, seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, then all those other things will be given to you
as well."
Good words to live by and plan with. Thanks be to God!
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Who knows? What we can learn from ancient Nineveh
Jonah 3:1 10
1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city a visit required three days. 4On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned."
5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.
"9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
Jonah visited Nineveh during the glory days of the Assyrian
empire. From about 885 to 625 BC, the Assyrians dominated the ancient world. As
early as 841 BC, Jehu, King of Israel, was forced to pay tribute to the
Assyrian ruler, Shalmaneser III. This kind of harassment continued for over a
century. Then Assyria brutally conquered Israel in 722 BC.
God called Jonah to go to the heartland of his people’s worst
enemy. It was a radical order which would have taxed the obedience of any
prophet.
Once there, Jonah goes straight to work. He doesn't look for the
local Holiday Inn to drop off his luggage. He doesn't buy a paper to check up
on the local news. He doesn't request an audience with the king. He shows no
interest in the power structure of the city. He just marches in and for three
days he shouts to the Ninevites that their time is limited. Whatever the
Assyrians may have thought about him, Jonah got their attention.
Jonah foretells gloom and doom, death and destruction. His voice
is not one of woe, but of triumph. Nineveh, the capital of Jonah’s hated enemy,
will be overthrown. This is a good deal! These pillaging, plundering and
looting Assyrians are finally going to get what’s coming to them, and it’s
about time, too!
Jonah is a man of judgment, certitude and certainty. In Jonah’s
world there are actions and consequences. This is how things are. No wriggle
room, that’s Jonah. How can we argue with that idea? It’s true, isn’t it? if
you work hard, you get ahead. If you make good grades, you get into a good
college. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Actions have
consequences.
In fact, the promises God are often found in scripture phrased in
“if-then” terms. In Deuteronomy we read, “If you fully obey the Lord your God
and carefully follow all his commands, the Lord your God will set you high
above all the nations of earth. However, if you do not fully obey the Lord your
God and do not carefully follow all his commands, all these curses will come
upon you.”
At the beginning of the story, Jonah learns that the wickedness of the Ninevites has come before God. Jonah pronounces doom for the Ninevites, but he never tells them why they deserve it. Presumably, the Ninevites understood why an Israelite and an Israelite’s God would condemn them. There is no word of grace in Jonah’s proclamation. Throughout scripture and in our own experience of knowing God, God’s grace is always pre-eminent. It is prevenient, to use the Wesleyan term. God’s grace always goes before his messengers and prepares the receivers of the message to hear it. As things turned out, Jonah’s imperfect prophecy didn’t prevent the Holy Spirit’s work. The Ninevites were convicted of their wickedness by Jonah’s warning. The whole city repented and was spared.
Despite Jonah’s imperfections, we need people like him. It’s far
too easy to become morally, economically, culturally and religiously lazy, even
wicked. Especially when things are going pretty good, as they were for the
Ninevites then and are for most Americans right now. I am pro-prosperity. I see
no inherent moral virtue in poverty. We have nice homes, good schools, good
jobs, nice clothes and a high standard of living. These are good things. We
have a good life. I don’t mean they are good in some sort of double talking,
theologically wisecracking sort of way. I mean genuinely, truly good. But how
easy it is to be seduced by the siren song of secular success and forget whence
comes our wealth and good life. It’s all on loan from God.
One of the richest persons in the Bible realized this. When Job
lost all his wealth, he honestly acknowledged, “I came naked from my mother’s
womb, I will leave this world naked. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. May
the name of the Lord be praised.” The Bible is clear about who gives us what we
have. Deuteronomy records God’s admonition to the Hebrews in chapter 8. I’m
going to slightly—but only slightly—paraphrase it:
Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to
keep his commands. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build
fine houses and settle down, when your companies grow large and your stock
holdings increase and all your stock investments beat the S&P 500, your heart
will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God and you may say to
yourself, “My power and knowledge have produced this wealth for me.” But
remember the Lord your God, for it is God who gives you the ability to produce
wealth. If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and bow down
to them and worship them, you will surely be destroyed.
We are the wealthiest nation ever to exist. Stupendously endowed with enormous natural resources, fresh water and fantastically productive soil, we have formulated an economic and political system unmatched in all history for material production and comfort. Are we blessed by God? You bet! Yet I fear that as a nation we say, “Our power and knowledge have produced this wealth for us.”
A few years ago survey by the Barna Group discovered that almost
two-thirds of Americans agreed that the purpose of life was enjoyment and
personal fulfillment and that each person’s responsibility is to oneself.
Robert Wuthnow wrote in his book, God and
Mammon in America, that Americans are, as a culture, spiritually adrift in
making decisions in economics, career choice, workplace commitment, consumerism
and charity. Those who described themselves as committed churchgoers often said
they had their materialistic and workaholic tendencies reinforced by their
religious beliefs and faith training. They live, they admitted, “pretty much
the same as those who have no faith at all.”
In his “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
lamented, “The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an
uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from
being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the
average community is consoled by the church’s silent, or often vocal, sanction
of things as they are.”
It is sometimes a Christian’s responsibility to stride like Jonah
into the hearts of our cities and the boardrooms of the powerful and proclaim,
“You are forgetting the Lord your God and are following secular idols like
consumerism, perverse entertainment and secular pride. You worship and bow down
to them, but the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Jesus said judgment comes
to those who store up things for themselves but are not rich toward God. Life
is more than good food and the body, more than fine clothes.
The Ninevites believed what Jonah told them. From king to pauper,
they repented and called upon God. They gave up their evil ways and violence.
“Who knows?” they declared. “God may yet relent and with compassion turn from
his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw they had turned from
their evil ways, he had compassion and did not destroy them.
Now how can that be? God went to a lot of trouble to get Jonah to
the Ninevites and now they are spared? Just because of a little sackcloth and
ashes and fasting? What’s the deal? Actions, consequences, right? Not here! The
dirty, rotten Assyrians beat the rap on a technicality. Jonah sulked and left
town.
Well, not so fast. The Assyrians were never ones for small gestures. Their army’s effectiveness would have made William Tecumseh Sherman green with envy. Nineveh was the largest city in the world at the time, almost sixty miles around. Its walls were so thick that three chariots could be driven abreast on top. Fifteen hundred watchtowers were set along the wall, each tower two hundred feet high—oh, yes, the Assyrians made big plans and did things in a grand way.
So it’s no surprise they went for big-time repentance. Their
repentance was no pro-forma, half-hearted, mealy-mouthed,
“Dear-God-we’re-sorry-please-forgive-us” ritual. It was Super Bowl level,
Nobel-prize caliber, Neiman-Marcus catalog, total quality repentance. No public
opinion polling. No encounter groups or sensitivity sessions. No city council
meetings or legislative deliberations. No Sunday School series or committee
meetings. There was no temporizing or excuse making. There was only a
collective shock of having been judged by the ultimately righteous God and
their desire to turn away from sin.
I’m not sure we know how to do that kind of repentance today.
Many of you may remember a best-selling book of the nineteen seventies called, I’m Okay, You’re Okay. I’ll bet the
Ninevites said that to one another before Jonah showed up. It’s hardly a
clarion call to repentance. We typically plead for God’s intervention in the
mess we’re in now, as if God is a cosmic lifeguard who exists to bail us out of
our self-made predicaments.
The Ninevites’ repentance was deep and profound—a genuine
conviction of ignoring God and going their own way, doing their own thing. They
urgently called upon God, giving up their sinful ways.
Jonah knew what kind of God he was representing. The forty days
came and went. Nineveh was still standing. Jonah was so mad he wanted to die.
He yelled at God, “I know this would happen! I knew you were a God of love,
gracious and compassionate. That’s why I didn’t want to come here is the first
place.” The Assyrians knew something about God, too. They knew something about
God that it’s easy to forget. God responds to humble, genuinely contrite
appeals for mercy. “Who knows?” they cried. “Perhaps God will relent and show
compassion.”
The Ninevites took a chance on God. They bet on God’s mercy and
love. We should not deride their faith.
Jesus told the story of the prodigal son who sank so low he
slopped hogs for a living. The pig slop was better than his own meals. He set
out for home, penniless, to ask his father to accept him as a servant. Who
knows? Maybe his father will say yes.
A Roman centurion approached Jesus of Nazareth. The centurion’s beloved servant was desperately ill and near death. Who knows? The centurion thought. Maybe this Galilean rabbi really can heal my servant.
Do we have the faith even to ask, “Who knows?” It is true that
the Ninevites had a deadline to meet to get right with God. Forty days is not a
long time. But how much time do we need? We would be alarmed if we knew we
would not live another month, but we are careless even though we don’t know
we’ll live another day.
Who knows but that there are people sitting here who are not
right with God and realize it? There’s no reason to wait any longer. No more
time is needed. Christ’s grace has already brought you to this place, and not
by accident. This is a church of the crucified and risen, living Christ, not a
social club or civic organization. Our founder was a homeless Jew who was
executed as a criminal insurrectionist and religious heretic. He was never on
the social “A” list and he wouldn’t have been invited to the Swan Ball. Yet it
is through this Christ Jesus that God accounts us as righteous. If you confess
with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will be saved. Today is the day. Now is the time.
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Jesus's Catch and Release
Luke 5.1-11
1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."
5 Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."
6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"
9 For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people."
11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
I've always wondered whether Peter knew Jesus, or at least knew
about Jesus, before they met this day. If not, Peter seems terribly compliant
for a total stranger. But anyone who drew large crowds would have had a
well-known reputation, so even if Peter and Jesus had never met before, Peter
had surely heard plenty of gossip and rumors and reports about Jesus of
Nazareth.
Jesus asked Peter a question then gave a command. First, he asked
to use his boat as a speaker’s platform. Peter could have said no. But Jesus
did not ask Peter to sail into deep water and deploy his nets. He ordered him.
But the command was also a promise. Jesus didn't tell Peter to
sail to deep water, let down the nets and maybe you'll get a catch of fish. No,
all of this is matter of fact to Jesus: Sail the boat, let down the nets, catch
the fish.
Perhaps the certainty of Jesus' voice compelled Peter to comply.
The first word he said was, "Master," so Peter willingly put himself
under Jesus' authority. He told Jesus it wouldn’t work but he would try it
anyway.
So Peter and crew sailed to deep water and let down their nets.
Right away they caught so many fish that the nets began to break under the
strain. Peter called the boat of his partner to come help. By the time it got
there the fish were so many that they filled both boats to the point that the
boat started sinking.
What was Peter going to do with all those fish?
That question was not actually on Peter's mind. He fell at Jesus'
knees and told him, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful
man!"
Peter would later be the first disciple to announce that Jesus was
the Christ, the Son of the living God. The germ of that confession formed on a
boat foundering from the weight of the fish Jesus caused to be caught. Yet
there had been no dramatic command from Jesus' lips; he never stretched his
hands over the sea and yelled, "Fish! Come forth!" Jesus simply gave
three simple commands, all to Peter, not the fish: sail the boat, let down the
nets, catch the fish.
Peter knew who Jesus was all right. And Peter knew who he was
himself. He and Jesus were like water and oil to one another in the holiness
department and Peter knew it. Jesus knew it, too, but Jesus knew something
Peter didn't. Peter saw only his own sin. Jesus knew that inside every sinful
person is righteous potential.
Invoking that potential was the trick. Suppose Jesus had gone
aboard Peter's boat to preach his sermon to the people on the lakeshore, just
as the passage relates, and then, instead of telling Peter to sail the boat,
let down the nets and catch the fish, Jesus had merely said, "Come and
follow me." Would Peter have gone with him? I think not.
What was different about the enormous catch that made Peter leave
everything behind? It was not that Peter realized he was a sinful man; he
already knew that, though after witnessing the fishing miracle he knew it more
urgently than before. It's not that Peter suddenly knew Jesus to be a holy man
worthy of obedience: Peter had already called Jesus, "Master."
I think what made Peter follow Christ after the catch when he
almost certainly would never have followed him beforehand was that Jesus gave
abundantly to Peter before Peter
confessed his sinfulness.
"While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That proves
his loves for us."
There is a story of Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York City
during the Great Depression and all of World War II. He was a colorful
character who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with
the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever
the New York newspapers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read the
Sunday funnies to the kids. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the
mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia
dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.
A tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing
a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter's husband had deserted
her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the
shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges.
"It's a real bad neighborhood, your Honor," the man told the mayor.
"She's got to be punished to teach other people around here a
lesson."
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, "I've got
to punish you. The law makes no exceptions – ten dollars or ten days in
jail." But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching
into his pocket. He extracted a bill and said, "Here is the ten-dollar
fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this
courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a woman has to steal bread so
that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to
the defendant."
The following day the New York City newspapers reported that
$47.50 – worth 973 dollars today - was turned over to a bewildered old lady who
had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of
that amount being contributed by the red‑faced grocery store owner, while some
seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City
policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing
so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
Do you think that the grandmother voted for LaGuardia next
election?
It was Jesus' grace, undeserved and in fact unasked for, that
overwhelmed Peter. So, Peter fell at Jesus' knees, protesting that he didn't
deserve the abundance Christ offered. Jesus said don't worry, from now on you
will be catching people for me. Jesus was a fisher, too, but he fished for
sinners like Peter, like you and like me.
Here’s another fish story by novelist Frederick Forsyth called,
“The Emperor.” It told of Roger Murgatroyd and his wife, Edna, who went to the
former French colony of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean for a vacation one
summer. Myrgatroyd, a bank branch manager, had never done anything particularly
challenging in his life. He became intrigued at stories of an immense swordfish
in the offshore waters. The Emperor, as the locals called the swordfish, had
often been hooked but never caught, even after titanic battles lasting hours.
Experienced deep-sea fishermen were certain that the swordfish was of
world-record size: twelve hundred pounds and at least twenty feet long.
Myrgatroyd decides to give deep-sea fishing a try and as luck
would have it, he hooks the Emperor about 9 a.m. By noon Myrgatroyd's lips are
cracked from sun and spray. His arms are burning with exhaustion from fighting
the great fish. Two hours later the charter owner, Kilian, pleads to relieve
him at the line for awhile.
"Myrgatroyd opened his mouth to speak. A split in his lip
cracked wide and a trickle of blood ran onto his chin. The cork grip of the
pole was becoming slick with the blood from his palms.
"My fish," he croaked. "My fish."
More time passed, reeling in and out, keeping the line taut so the
Emperor couldn't spit out the hook. "His vision was blurring ... And his
body was one searing ache. Shafts of sharper pain ran through his right
shoulder where he had torn a muscle. ...
"For another ninety minutes they fought it out. ...
Myrgatroyd's exhaustion was moving close to delirium. Muscles in his calves and
thighs flickered crazily like light bulbs before they fuse."
After eight hours, though, the Emperor had nothing left. He wore
out only slightly before Myrgatroyd would have. Myrgatroyd reeled in the line
until Kilian could seize the steel trace that held the hook. Then he slumped in
his chair, spent. The boat's crew heaved the huge fish toward the deck, where
Myrgatroyd suddenly realized, shocked, that a boy was about to plunge a gaff
hook into the Emperor's head.
Myrgatroyd's "voice came out more a raucous croak than a
shout. "No!"
"The boy froze and looked down. Myrgatroyd was on his hands
and knees looking at the tackle box. On top lay a pair of wire cutters. He took
them in the finger and thumb of his left hand and pressed them into the mashed
meat of his right palm. With his free hand he hauled himself upright and leaned
across the stern.
"The Emperor was lying just beneath him, exhausted almost to
the point of death. ... From two feet away the fish stared back at Myrgatroyd.
... it was alive but had no strength left to fight. ...
"Deliberately, Myrgatroyd placed the jaws of the cutters on
either side of the steel trace where it was spliced into the hook. He squeezed.
Blood came out of his palm and ran into the salt water over the marlin's head.
He squeezed again and the wire parted.
"The Emperor stared at Myrgatroyd as another wave washed over
him. He shook his tired old head and pushed his spike into the water. The great
crescent tail rose and fell and pushed the body forward and down. The tail was
the last they saw of him, driving the marlin back beneath the waves."
Kilian turned the boat toward shore. When they docked a boat boy
jumped off and ran to the village. Kilian secured the vessel, then helped
Myrgatroyd walk onto the pier. "The hem of his shorts had fallen to below
his knees and his shirt flapped open about him, dark with dried sweat. A number
of villagers were lining the narrow jetty, so they had to walk in single file.
"The first person in line was Monsieur Patient. Myrgatroyd
nodded to him and smiled. "Merci," he said.
The old man pulled his hat from head. "Salut, Maitre,"
he replied.
Myrgatroyd walked slowly up the jetty. Each of the villagers
bobbed his head and said, "Salut, Maitre." They reached the end of
the planking and stepped onto the gravel of the village street. There was a
large crowd of villagers grouped there. "Salut, salut, salut, Maitre"
they said quietly.
"What are they saying?" Myrgatroyd whispered to Kilian.
"They're greeting you," came the answer. "They're
calling you a master fisherman."
"Because I caught the Emperor?"
The captain laughed softly. "No Englishman, because you gave
him his life back."
Do you remember when you got hooked by Christ? And do you remember
that he gave you your life back? He suffered immensely while you and I fought
him, but we finally yielded. And then an amazing thing: he let us go because
the grace of Christ gives us life – our true life, more abundant than ever.
Jesus said, “If the Son of God makes you free, you will be free indeed.” And so
we are.
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