The Burr in the Burbs

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Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD,

There is a German word which I will probably pronounce badly but I will do my best to wrap my anglicized tongue around it: Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude refers to when a person takes pleasure or enjoyment from the hardships of others.

A whole genre of comedy is based around schadenfreude. On rainy afternoons as a child I would find old movies on television, back in the (Paleolithic) Mesozoic era when the television had just 3 or maybe 4 channels to choose from. Among my favorites were Laurel and Hardy. They were just slightly more urbane than Moe, Larry and Curly. For the younger set you had Tom and Jerry, or today it would be Sponge Bob Squarepants. What is it about watching someone slip on a banana peel that makes us want to laugh?

Seeing a skilled physical comedian fall off a ladder on Saturday Night Live is one thing. We understand that it’s supposed to be funny and it is. But it’s different when you’re walking along Coliseum Blvd and you see a worker fall off a ladder to the hard pavement below, with pools of blood around his helmet. Then your reaction is likely to be quite different. You ring 911 and hustle on over to see if you can assist.

I am far too refined to laugh at you if you stumble down the stairs, but in the inner chambers of my heart, I delight to see you fail. And there is a germ of perversity inside of you that delights to see me fall flat on my face too. Oh not always, but sometimes. You can be happy for a friend who is promoted ahead of you while breathing curses behind your smile.

Medical science has identified sadistic personality disorder as deriving gratification, perhaps even sexual gratification, in the humiliating, demeaning or physical injury of others. Have you ever enjoyed the act of demeaning another person? .

All except for the most corroded consciences feel pricked at this point. And yet, how quick we are to assign these most corrupted impulses to the God whom we profess to love. When bad things happen, you will point your finger at God. You will accuse Him of not loving you. Even if you don’t, you really do. You might be pious enough not to vocalize the sentiment even to yourself, but you blame God anyway. You blame God when you resent the wrongs that are done to you. You blame God because He is supposed to prevent those things from happening to you. Your bitterness toward the world or society or your parents or the Masons or the Jews or the liberals, the right-wingers really just poorly disguised, badly misplaced umbrage toward God. We become annoyed or indignant with other people because we feel like we are above them in some way.

In the context of Ezekiel 18, there was a saying going around Israel that went: The fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. The gist of that homey kernel of wisdom is that we don’t deserve the bad things that are happening to us. We are innocent victims. It is the fault of our parents. Blame the potty training, the lack of a demonstrative father, the perils of poverty.

Even those closest to Jesus panicked on the waves of Galilee and said to Him, “Teacher, Don’t you care if we drown!?” The most common sin, in fact the root of all sin, is to doubt that God loves you. Unbelief. You start to question Him. And you question His motives and His intentions for you.

I happen to be part Cherokee. That is something most of you probably did not know about me. And we native Americans have a saying. “Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins. That way if he gets mad at you, you’re a mile away and you’ve got his shoes.” Don’t think you can judge the motives of another person, certainly not the heart of God.

While our approaches to moral problems may result in temporary fixes and cosmetic solutions, like a Band-Aid on a gaping head wound, while our efforts to vindicate ourselves and put ourselves into God’s good standing are pathetic and detrimental, God is able to get to the root of the problem. Unbelief. When the massive weight of your guilt was grinding Jesus into a messy pulp, He called to Heaven, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” In a cosmic mysterious way, that was you. At that moment Jesus became the ultimate unbeliever. And at that moment, Jesus epitomized repugnant human egotism. He became for us the angriest rebel, the most ridiculous narcissist, and the silliest fop in the world. Everything that you hate about the world and everything that you despise about yourself was condensed upon Jesus into a black hole of hatred, a black hole from which no light could escape, even great Helios in his chariot went into hiding. Terra Mater quaked in the pains of labor birthing up her dead children outside of the Holy City.

You have no right to be indignant, to question God, to balk at the Creator. Bitterness is not a right any more than cynicism is a virtue. God is not a sadist. He does not delight in your sufferings. He is not indifferent to your crying, your moaning, your self-pity, either justified or not. No, God loves the broken hearted. He is nearest to you precisely when it feels like he is most distant. He is not sleeping in the bow of the boat, or away on vacation. God is present for you with mercy and grace and consolation exactly right here and now through these words preached into your ears.

It is said that film star Doris Day began to demand that her shots be filmed in soft focus where a gauzy filter would be placed over the lens. Soft focus is a film term that refers to any technique which reduces the clarity or sharpness of focus, blurs the image, and produces a diffused, hazy light; often used to enhance romantic or dreamy scenes, or to remove wrinkle lines from an actor’s face.

The people of Israel wanted a soft focus religion. The people today, in fact you and I, prefer a soft-focus religion and soft focused preaching that gives the impression that everything is romantic and dreamy and wrinkle free. We must have clear focus in our preaching and in our lives, illumined as we are by the sometimes harsh, and always healing, glare of God’s Word such as the blunt assertions in today’s lesson.

Righteousness and wickedness – the righteousness which God approves and the wickedness which He abhors – are summed up finally in one man, my neighbor, my brother, Jesus, born of Mary, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, son of Adam, yet Adam’s Lord. And it is in Jesus that the great reversal occurs, the felicitous exchange, the sweet swap. Our wickedness for His righteousness. Our “no” for His “yes.” And it is in Him that the Old Adam is killed and the new man comes forth. It is in Him that God’s wrath is expended and it is upon Him that God smiles in favor. That is to say, it is upon you that God smiles. For those things happened to Christ and you are in Christ. Amen.