THE REAL DRAMA

1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28

A few months ago, I received an email from a member of the church here--an email I've since lost track of, and unfortunately I can't remember who sent it. But in the email, the person made the suggestion that I preach about gossip. And, I hope that if the person who sent that email is here today, they won't be offended when I say that my initial reaction to the suggestion was sort of: "thanks for sharing." I thought, what would I do with that topic? What would I say? You know: "'Gossip: it's bad. Don't do it."'

But, strangely, that suggestion, this business of gossip, kept nagging at me. I began to think that that person was wiser than I at first thought--that it was a very wise suggestion. Because I began to see that there really is a relationship between gospel and gossip; there's a sense in which the gospel in some strange way even depends upon gossip. And yet, on the other hand, gossip is, can be, part of a whole set of behaviors and ways of being that can "trip us up," can make us stumble, and miss the message of the gospel.

So--today, let's look at gossip. Today's a kind of "drill-down" sermon on that very narrow topic.
I want to start by sharing a story with you. A few weeks ago, Catherine and Will and I went on a day trip to New York City. And, when we headed back, we just barely caught one of the New Jersey Transit trains that was about to leave, and it was one of those Saturday rush-hour trains; so, it was packed. And we were walking down the aisle, trolling for seats, but they all seemed to be completely full. But, we came upon this nice group of guys, whose seats were facing in toward each other, and they offered a seat to us. So Catherine sat down, Will in her lap, and we headed off.

So, there I was, standing in the aisle and holding on to the luggage rack, trying to mind my own business, have my own thoughts. But, there's this strange phenomenon with which I'm sure those of you who commute are familiar; it's about how any conversation you're trying not to listen to, any conversation you're overhearing, automatically becomes very interesting by virtue of the fact that you're overhearing it. And so I'm trying not to listen, to overhear, but the conversation is suddenly very interesting. And even more so, because these guys were so excited about what they were discussing. I can't even remember exactly what it was. It was about the work they were doing, selling identity theft insurance or some such thing. But they were so excited about it, it seemed so compelling, I almost interrupted them, almost felt compelled to join in. And, interestingly enough, when they got up to go, and we got other seats, one of the guys handed Catherine a CD and some promotional material about what they were selling. And I got to wondering: maybe this is their sales tactic? They know nobody wants to hear a sales pitch directly, so they go about selling their stuff by being overheard.

Philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard (who you probably know is one of my theological heroes, since I find myself quoting him so often) writes about how we come to faith, to know the experience of faith, not so much by direct communication--by preaching directly, as I'm doing now--as by indirect communication. We come to faith by rubbing up against someone else who is having that experience, by overhearing what it is they are so excited about, by being drawn in by it, because it's indirect. We come to faith, in a sense, through "gossip": by overhearing the gospel.

I know I might have mentioned before--I've been here less than a year, and already I fear I'm repeating myself!--that a friend once told me that becoming a Christian is like catching a cold. You "catch" it from somebody else. If you're fortunate enough to know someone who is having the transformative experience of knowing Christ, you somehow rub up against that and it affects you; infects you, if you will, with that spirit.

So, the gospel is spread by gossip! We read in today's scripture lesson that Jesus does these miraculous things, and at the end of the passage today, Mark is careful to say that "his fame spread throughout Galilee." Jesus' power transforms people he meets directly, and it creates a kind of buzz that people talk about, gossip about. That's how the message spreads.

If you look at this section of Mark, it's very interesting: Jesus' creates this buzz, and what's his response? It's not to franchise on his success. You know, "I've got to get myself out there--people are loving me." No, his response is to hide. In the section after this story for today, we hear about the disciples looking all over for Jesus, they can't find him, and when they finally do, they tell him, hey, "everyone is looking for you!" Where you been?

In fact, in Mark, there's this business called "The Messianic Secret." For example, shortly after this episode, Jesus does a miracle for someone, he heals a man with leprosy, and he charges him to "tell no one." And then what does the guy do? He goes and blabs it to everyone in town. As if somehow Jesus knew, the gospel message itself is aware of the fact that when we say that something is a secret, it becomes very interesting. The gospel uses this very human weakness, gossip, our very human tendency to want to share what's secret and flashy and sexy, in order to spread itself.

Those who have done research on gossip (and I've been doing a bit of study of it myself this week--a very hard subject to study, because it's so hard to quantify)--but those who study gossip speak of how it does play in many ways a positive social function. It frames reality for a social group, so that the reality can't be controlled by what's said in public; the real reality is what's said in private. So, you know, the real sermon today isn't what I'm saying right now from the pulpit. The real sermon is what you say afterward. The real sermon is what takes place between your ears and in your heart, in whatever way Christ's presence might be mediated by these words and this experience together; and then what you say about your faith afterwards, at the dinner table, around the water cooler the next day, around the PTA table.

I think there's something so brilliantly paradoxical about all this--so brilliant in a way it could only be divine. That the gospel doesn't use our strength, our heroic human qualities, but more often, it uses our weakness as the place where we come to know it, to experience it. The gospel uses gossip, of all things, as the means for the message.

And yet. (I guess I always have to complicate things; they can never be that simple!) And yet...gossip, we need still to speak about it as a human weakness; there's a dark side to it as well. It is part of a whole set of behaviors, a whole way of being that can, instead of enabling us to get the message, cause us to miss it. In language of the New Testament, these are called "stumbling blocks." Those of you doing "Year of the Bible" will no doubt often come upon this word--it's a very common word in the New Testament. Stumbling blocks stand for those things that make us miss the meaning and the message of the gospel; those things that make us slip and stumble instead of heading down the path that leads us to truth.

In the language of the New Testament, Greek, the word that's usually translated "stumbling block" is the word skandalon. From that word, we get the English word scandal, or scandalize. And so, gossip is one aspect of all these items that can scandalize, that is, trip us up. The irony and the paradox of the gospel is, as I mentioned before, that the same thing that can enable us to get the message (such as gossip) is the thing that can also make us stumble. Apostle Paul, in his letters, speaks of the cross itself as the biggest stumbling block--some of course found it hard to believe that the Messiah had come, the messiah, who was supposed to usher in a thousand year reign of peace, and he was crucified, like a criminal; like someone in the electric chair. How could that be possible? It was a scandal for many of those who heard it. And yet, Paul says that unless you understand the mystery of the cross, the self-giving love revealed through it, you'll never understand the gospel; it is essential to get the meaning of it.

So, if we're talking about gossip, the key is, I suppose, in how we use our tongue. In the excerpt from T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which I excerpted for you on the front of the bulletin, there's this wonderful line: "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo." You see, the poem is about a guy, Prufrock, who's kind of a wimp; he can't make a decision about really participating in life. He wants to make an overture toward a woman, to engage her, but can't decide. So, he just sort of lives on the edges of life, without really participating in it. And that line is about a party where the women are just idly talking, gossiping, chattering, about Michelangelo--someone who really lived life. The irony is that they are living life like a parlor game--chattering about real life, and not really participating in it, living it.

Another way to put it--this is from another of my theological heroes, Gil Bailie--is to ask ourselves the question: Is my life focused on the real drama, or on the melodrama? Where am I spending my energy? Am I giving in to that human weakness that tends to be fascinated by melodrama--telling secrets, fixating on the salacious and scandalous aspects of life--or on the real drama, which is God's work of claiming the world through Christ's love? Am I playing a part in that drama?

Am I focused on a molehill, or on the mountain of God's mysterious grace and love?

The situation that Paul describes in this section of First Corinthians describes a kind of melodrama that's happening in the church there. It's over whether one should eat food offered to idols. You see, Corinth was in the center of the pagan Greco-Roman world. Ninety percent of the meat sold in the marketplace would have been offered up in honor of some god, like Zeus or Athena. And Paul says that we who are mature Christians know that it doesn't matter--it's a meaningless ritual; we can go ahead and eat it. Pagans may believe it means something, but we know better. But the fact of the matter is that some who were new to the faith were scandalized by it--by eating such foods. And without going into the complexity of Paul's ethics here--what Paul is basically saying is that all Christian ethics are guided by the question: what is going to communicate the self-giving love of Christ through my actions? If someone else is scandalized by eating meat--don't eat it! Don't go there! That's how I show my love, not in some melodrama in which I try to convince you I'm right, and you're wrong. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."

But the problem is, we do get sucked into it, don't we, into the melodrama of life. Office politics. Road rage (people are killed over the stupidest things--getting cut off on the freeway, or over a mean gesture). And of course, church politics. Churches are often prime breeding grounds for melodrama; we are certainly not immune.

I guess I'll be a little vulnerable and use myself as an example here. I remember one situation I faced shortly after I was ordained. There was a woman I found hard to get along with. And I got into something with here--we had it out. And I find it now so ironic to consider what it was over: whether I had the right to be on a certain committee. (Looking back at it, I marvel at that). And in the midst of it, somehow the sense came to me to say--you know, this really doesn't matter. What matters is how we embody the love of Christ. And I gave it up. (I am remembering the very powerful words that Tom Baker, our Parish Associate spoke to our young people last week, in a different context--when he was speaking to them about drugs and alcohol, and how we find hope when we give in; how we win by losing, and how Christ won by losing and submitting to death on a cross). But that's it, I think: we win by losing, by being willing to give up my need to control this, to be right, to prove that my version of the truth is correct, to participate in that kind of melodrama. We win by asking ourselves the question: what will communicate Christ's love? Am I living in the real drama of Christ's love, rather than the smaller drama that makes us stumble and fall? Am I staring at a molehill, instead of lifting my eyes to the mountains of God's incredible grace and love?

What am I talking about around the water cooler, and after the PTA meeting, and at the dinner table?
To use George Bernard Shaw's powerful words once more: am I that feverish little clod of grievances and ailments complaining the world didn't make me happy, or am I a force of nature and a splendid torch?
Do I come and go, talking of Michelangelo, or is mine one of those thousand tongues singing my great redeemer's praise?

Am I in the melodrama, or in the real drama?

January 29, 2006

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