Dunbar UCC

November 13, 2011

Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123

Matthew 25:14-15

Grace

I.      Recently the Wall Street Journal reported that Rajat Gupta, a former director at Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble, was charged with “six counts of securities fraud and conspiracy.”  Among other crimes, he passed on illegal tips to hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, who was sentenced last month to 11 years in prison.   That just seemed like regular news to me -- we read these kinds of things every day.  What was surprising to me in the article is when it said “Wall Street was stunned” by this news -- because Rajat Gupta was considered “one of America’s most respected corporate directors.”

II.     I’m amazed when people are surprised by the bad things humans do. Are we that naive?  People doing bad things is all we read about in the Bible!  It seems that 9/10 of everything people do in the Bible is bad!  And if you don’t read the Bible -- then you must at least read the newspaper, or see the news on tv.  And most of it is about people doing bad things.  It’s either about the economic crisis in our country-- which is a story about greed.  Or it’s about someone running for president who’s being accused of sexual harassment, or about one of the most respected football coaches in America who’s just been fired because one of his coaches is a sexual predator of young boys.  In the Middle East Iran is making an atomic bomb and many believe they will use it.

III.    I’m not surprised to hear about people doing bad things.   Look at our reading in Judges this morning.  It says, “The Israelites AGAIN did what was evil in the sight of the Lord...”  Again it says because they were always doing evil.  Ever since Cain killed his brother -- on page 4 of the Bible -- page 4! -- generally, people have not been kind to each other.  Or as Genesis says on page 6, “...the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth.... their every inclination was to do evil continually.”

IV.    The puzzling thing here is that when God created everything -- the earth, sky, oceans, animals -- and especially, human beings -- everything was good.  And human beings were “very good.”  But, my God, something happened.  And, no -- it wasn’t because Eve ate the fruit.  It was because she couldn’t tell who was telling the truth, God or the devil.  It’s not that we’re bad -- we just can’t tell the difference between good and evil.  You’ve heard the saying:  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  That’s another way of saying we can’t discern right from wrong.   

V.     The psalm we heard this morning says:  as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, .... so our eyes look to the Lord our God.”  And Jesus often told stories about slaves and masters.  In these psalms and stories, we’re the slaves.  If that feels too humiliating for you, the Lord’s prayer, which begins with  “Our Father...”  suggests we are children.  The point is, we are not independent.  The point is, whether we listen or not -- whether we follow the voice of truth and goodness, which says: love and forgive and serve others -- or not -- the point is, we are bound to our creator and there’s nothing we can do to destroy that bond.  Even when we do evil, as the Israelites often did -- when we turn and seek God’s mercy and help, God will help us, always.  And that’s what grace is.