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Mamaroneck United Loving God and Neighbor... |
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Third Sunday after Pentecost Karma? Genesis 6:11-22; 7:24; 8:14-19 Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28 The Reverend Richard E. Allen, Jr.
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If you were paying attention last week, you know that the fashion company Christian Dior decided to drop Sharon Stone as its advertising face in China because of her comment at the Cannes Film Festival a few days earlier. Ms. Stone’s faux pas came in the form of a brief extemporaneous comment: “I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And then the earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?” You are likely not surprised to know that her remarks provoked a quick, hostile Chinese response.
Christian Dior had spent time and millions to connect Stone’s “Fatal Attraction” image to their fashion line. So last week the company dropped the actress before Chinese buyers had a chance to drop them. The head of a large ad agency commented on the quick decision. He said, “They had no choice…. Obviously, she crossed the line.” (NY Times, Friday, May 30, 2008, Section C (Business Day), page 8.)
In fairness, both Stone and Dior have apologized, and the actress has pledged to “wholly devote” herself to helping earthquake victims. Still, I couldn’t help but think that her initial remarks are not merely in bad taste, not only thoughtless, or nor bad politics. Her remarks were bad business, as suggested by the NY Times’ placement of the article on page 8 of section C, the business section. While Ms. Stone’s comments are all those things, worse, to my mind, is that her statement shows a bad theology, too. Or maybe I should say “primitive theology.”
But again in terms of fairness, I note that such theology is all too common. And her thinking often prevails, not just among celebrity theologians, but also among us all. I call her theology “primitive” rather than “bad” because I think her thinking is very common, but very immature. It is childish.
Simply put, this common “primitive” belief is that bad things happen to people who do bad things. And if such consequences don’t happen quickly, they’ll happen by and by, when God finally and fully settles all our felt grievances. It’s a commonly held assumption about our world, one we affirm with the truisms, “What goes around comes around,” or the nearly equal, “You get what you deserve.” Again, this is not a sophisticated belief, nor would I call it “Christian.” But it is quite common in our culture.
Sharon Stone gave a voice to what many believe, at some level: “You get what you deserve.” Like many of us, though, she had turned the equation around: “You deserve what you get.” In fact, “karma” is just a way of affirming that finally people get exactly what they deserve, for better or for worse, in the very long run. Karma is a way of saying that our world, finally, is fair.
This need for fairness is very deep in our hearts, and strong. And not easy discarded. Look around at the world and it’s clear that many don’t get what they deserve; they get far less. And all too many don’t get what they deserve; they get far more. Still, we yearn for fairness. If you’re a parent, you may have noticed that we learn to think this way, it seems. By the time we are about two years old, we begin a focus on fairness that can last a lifetime unless our spiritual lives mature.
As a child I believe that I understood the story of Noah and the ark as one of fairness. The earth is violent and corrupt, so God, as our lesson says, “determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them….” (Genesis 6:13, New Revised Standard Version) It’s justice; it’s fairness. The storm comes, and everyone in its path dies. Yes. They deserve what they get. All but Noah and his family are killed. This is justice, both poetic and prophetic. The score with violence is settled. It’s right. It’s karma.
But while I long took comfort there, such a faith feels, well, too primitive to me now. Lately I hear the story of Noah as less about retribution than about rescue: the rescue of humanity via Noah’s family, and the salvation of all living things in pairs, animal families, as it were. All of them survive by God’s design, on the ark. So these are survivors, not victims. And while this is a story of death, it’s also the story of renewal. The whole earth begins again, and as at creation, all is good. There is death, here, yes. But there is also resurrection. Noah’s ark is about the life that remains in it, and the love of God who invites its construction and whose hands guide its journey safely afloat the killing water. This is a story of hope in the face of despair.
Hope, not despair, is also what motivates the builders of a different kind of ark in Norway. A seed vault containing millions of plants has recently been constructed in Norway’s archipelago of Svalbard. Located just 620 miles from the North Pole, and dug 425 feet into a frozen mountain, the vault will protect seeds from climate change, war, and other disasters. Maybe it seems unnecessary. But so did Noah’s ark. God, as always, calls to visionaries to prepare against the ravages of both nature and human destruction.
And hope is the keystone of the story of Jesus: his is the story of death, of course, a death most cruel because it is most unfair. He was killed in spite of his goodness. But his death, even its injustice, only connects him to us the more tightly. He shows us that God’s love is richer and more significant than “karma,” or any other kind of retributive justice. God, in Jesus Christ, calls us to grow into another paradigm. We’re called to love God, neighbors, and even enemies. We’re called to celebrate resurrection, not to wallow as victims. We’re called to live our lives with hope, instead of praying for vengeance through our clenched teeth. Or, as Paul reminds the Romans, “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by [God’s] grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 3:22b-24, New Revised Standard Version.)
Our world is at times beautiful, and at other times terrible. Cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes persist in our world, and, sad to say, they take their toll. But we need not add to the pain they inflict by blaming the victims of natural disasters. There have been times in our immature religious past when we saw the world, and God, in just that way. But in Jesus we see God differently. Or we can, if we will. Jesus works and teaches, lives and dies, to embody the simple but profound truth that God joins us in our suffering and raises us to glory. Need for retribution dies with our experience of resurrection. That is our hope and our truth.
When we break the bread, we share in the suffering and death of Christ. When we drink from the cup, we remember his blood shed for the world. And we remember that we are called to continue in a broken world, working in Christ’s name, that where there are hurts we do all we can so that victims may have new life and new hope as victors. For in Christ we are called to no less. God is at work in our world. That is our faith, in Christ our Lord.
So God is our hope, and our world’s hope. Not karma. We’ve grown beyond that primitive belief. Thanks be to God, who shows us the way, the truth, and the life.
Amen.
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