Light Service Sermons for the Month
Faith/Light/Celebration
DATE: September 3, 2000
TEXT: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Light Service Sermons for the Month
Peekaboo Babies
Faith/Light/Celebration
DATE: September 3, 2000
TEXT: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Do you know that you're being watched. And not just in banks or department stores. In many cities, it could mean getting a ticket for speeding. Photo radar vans sit beneath freeway underpasses snapping your picture as you speed by. The gun records your speed while the camera focuses on your license plate. The traffic cop doesn't need to be there, and you won't know you're caught until you get the ticket in the mail! School districts are installing cameras in school buses to document to unbelieving parents how their children behave. YMCAs have mounted security cameras in weight rooms, mirrored aerobic rooms, gymnasiums, child-care centers and indoor tennis courts and tracks. You can't pause to scratch yourself when you take a break in your workout without the act getting caught on camera. In London, cameras have been posted in some neighborhoods, two or three to a block, putting citizens under constant surveillance. Yet, most people seem to approve. Now day-care dads and minivan moms are getting into the act using hi-tech tools to monitor their, precocious - or atrocious - children while they are away at work. With Webcams (show the congregation my webcam) positioned strategically throughout the child-care center, parents can log on to the Internet to see what's happening with their babies. Parents like this peekaboo technology for two reasons: They can be sure their children are safe, and they feel more connected with their kids. Jane Rolon logs on about once a day for a few minutes, just long enough to check in on her son Kenny and his 4-year-old brother Andrew. On days when her sons are upset at the time she drops them off, she finds the video images particularly comforting. "I can see if they're adapting," she says - adding that it's also reassuring to check on teachers. Webcams placed in strategic locations put people on their best behavior. No matter how they might be feeling at the time, no matter what they might be thinking, their behavior is always accessible for public viewing and evaluation. In other words: Virtual morality. This seems like a sure-fire way to create a well-behaved society. But outward behavior doesn't necessarily reflect inward character. When the cameras aren't rolling, we're more likely to drop the role we've been playing and just "be ourselves." And that's what we call character - who we are when no one is looking. Jesus says, "Not so fast." The YMCA is watching our workouts. Government is watching in London. Parents are watching in day-cares. God sees what is in our hearts and minds. God has - God is - the ultimate Webcam, an all-seeing Holycam perched inside our souls and pointed in our direction. Maybe we've been playing to the wrong camera. Jesus says, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile" (Mark 7:15). It's the unclean stuff in there that causes trouble when it gets out. On Tuesday, August 24, 2000 the final "Survivor" episode aired to reveal who would be the ultimate survivor of the final four. By that time, everyone watching could pretty well tell the character of each of the final four. So it was quite a surprise for everyone when Richard, the egocentric, manipulative gay won the game over Kelly, the "low on the radar" waitress and fitness instructor, Rudy, the crusty and blunt 73 old former Navy Seal and Susan, the sneaky "redneck" truck driver. When it came time for the jury to make the final cut, who will forget the speech by Susan who called Kelly a rat and Richard a snake. Then there was Rudy who had made an "alliance" with Richard even though he would refer to him as a "queer" for the benefit of his watching "Seal" buddies. Finally, there was Kelly who still didn't show much affection for Susan four months later at the reunion show that followed. O what a million dollars will do to bring out the hidden character of a person and in front of 40 million viewers too who saw it all. Yes, what we do matters - but where that doing comes from matters more. What's its source? If the TV cameras were to turn on us for 39 days, what would they discover? Jesus cautions us in our Good News text not to be like some Pharisees who passed themselves off as pious, always performing the right rites, but whose inner lives were polluted with the stench of the graveyard. These Pharisees were all flash and form, performing outward works that people could see. Playing to the crowd, they went for the applause, inspiring Jesus to say, "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (7:6). Just as Susan's speech to Kelly and Richard came as a shock to us the viewers, Jesus' words to the public were a theological bombshell: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). While Richard may have won a million dollars, I wonder if being the final survivor will one day win him eternal life. For most of Jesus' listeners, such a statement functionally excluded them from heaven. No one was more righteous than the Pharisees! If heaven was reserved for only those whose righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees, then there was no hope for most. But Jesus redefines what it means to be righteous. It means playing to the right camera. It means that true holiness is not defined just by what we do, how we play the survival game, but by who we are. One need not do adultery to be adulterous, he says. One need not do murder to be murderous. One need not do unkindness to be unkind. Acts of adultery, murder and unkindness, however, come from hearts that are adulterous, murderous and unkind. The one gives birth to the other. The acts of the hands are inexorably linked to the character of the heart. A Wall Street Journal Workplace Ethics Quiz revealed that: • 34% said personal e-mail on company computers was wrong. • 37% said using office equipment for schoolwork was wrong. • 49% said playing computer games at work is wrong. • 54% said Internet shopping at work is wrong. • 61% said it's unethical to blame your error on technology. • 87% said it's unethical to visit porn sites at work. • 35% said a $50 gift to the boss is unacceptable. • 12% said a $50 gift from the boss is unacceptable. • 11% said they lie about sick days. • 4% said that they take credit for the work or ideas of others. -Michael J. McCarthy, "How one firm tracks ethics electronically," The Wall Street Journal, October 21, 1999, B4. On August 12, 1985, 520 people died in the crash of a Japan Airlines plane, the world's worst single plane disaster. Two months later, the president of Japan Airlines faced the relatives of the victims and bowed low and long. After turning to a wall, covered with wooden tablets bearing the victims' names, he bowed again. And in a voice that sometimes quavered, Yasumoto Takagi asked for forgiveness and accepted responsibility. One by one, people walked up to the altar, left a chrysanthemum for remembrance, bowed and turned away. Families, dignitaries and airline employees walked up to the altar for more than an hour, pausing to pray, wipe away a tear, or stand silently. For Japan Airlines, this service marked the culmination of a two-month exercise in accountability. In the days right after the accident, when family members traveled to a small mountain village to identify the bodies, airline staff stayed with them, paying all expenses, bringing them food, drink and clean clothes. Staff people stayed with the families to arrange for funerals or to block intrusive reporters. Japan Airlines set up scholarship funds for children whose parents died. It spent $1.5 million on two elaborate memorial services. Executives attended every victim's funeral, although some were turned away. The airlines will split compensation payments with the Boeing Company that will probably exceed $100 million. The airline felt it had to perform these acts of conciliation, for otherwise it would have been accused of inhumanity and irresponsibility. Naturally, the airline's self-interest was at stake. Its quick admission of responsibility and its personal help to family members created a web of gratitude and obligation that discouraged legal remedies. A cumbersome legal system in Japan also made families reluctant to sue. But how striking it is to see a corporation bowing down low, occupied with forms of penance. -Harlan J. Wechsler, Ph.D., What's so Bad about Guilt? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 196. Although late in coming, Russian president Alexander Putin accepted blame for the sinking of one of his country's newest submarines. It was an act uncharacteristic of the Russian government. Was it real or was it virtual morality? Only time will tell. Regardless of which is the truth, however, we may think we can get away with appearance-based virtual morality, and that no one will be the wiser. We might fool the wife, or the husband. We might even hoodwink our business partners or coworkers. But not God. So smile my friends, because we're all on God's webcam. All I can say, "Thank God for Jesus Christ who knows who and what we are and still, amazingly, loves us to eternal life."
AMEN