Picking Your Friends

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Psalm 1

Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

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Bad company, and I can't deny,
Bad company, 'til the day I die.

"Bad Company" by the band Bad Company from the album Bad Company

Scripture reminds us that we are to treat all people well, because we never know when we will be treating angels without being aware that we are. We never know. We are all children of God, even the least of us, even the wicked. But that doesn't mean that we should be hanging out with the wicked.

So how do we walk this tightrope? How do we serve God's children while not hanging out with bad company 'til the day we die? The answer is that this is not the question we should be answering. This question is a smoke screen. The very first Psalm gives us a better answer, from there we can come up with the more fitting question.

Happy are those who who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.

The questions are "Who do you follow? Who do you serve?" Serving God, serving creation, delighting in the Lord, we serve all creation. This is how we serve all facets of God's good creation. Trying to serve humanity without serving God, it may be its own noble goal, it's just impossible to live that way with any certainty. When we do, we end up serving other masters to the detriment of those we seek to serve.

We can follow the wicked, we can be bad company 'til the day we die, but there is a better way. Following God, even in service to the weak and wicked we will be like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.

So you see, there isn't a tightrope, serve God and we will be doing God's work, serving angels unawares, without serving the wicked.

Mr. Bad Example

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Matthew 15:1-9 (NRSV)

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”

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I'm very well aquainted with the seven deadly sins
I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in
I'm proud to be a glutton, and I don't have time for sloth
I'm greedy, and I'm angry, and I don't care who I cross

I'm Mr. Bad Example, intruder in the dirt
I like to have a good time, and I don't care who gets hurt
I'm Mr. Bad Example, take a look at me
I'll live to be a hundred, and go down in infamy

The title track from "Mr. Bad Example" by Warren Zevon (1991)

Jesus gets ticked off over hypocrisy more than any other type of sin. People who should know better, people who are called to be better, people who have received all of the benefits life has to offer--and then forsake the call to do God's work with these benefits are never spoken of well in the gospel.

The Scribes and Pharisees had a good thing going, and they knew it. They were the holy of the holy and their place in the temple and society were secure, until Jesus came to muck it all up.

Jesus came and called them out on their hypocritical behavior. Simply men themselves, they held others in far lower esteem. They had a system or rules and laws that placed a burden on people that could not be managed. They took their own rules, which began innocently enough as ways to keep the Law of Moses, and turned them into a horrible cross for the people to carry.

They tithed to the temple-which ultimately came back to themselves-instead of helping the poor and infirm. They actually caused more distress than they relieved. They would tithe spices, keeping silver and gold for themselves.

Warren Zevon is known for the images he is able to create with words and music, Mr. Bad Example is a great example. The Bad Example here describes the Scribes and Pharisees well. They knew the sins, and exercised many of them. They knew their status, and protected it at all costs, including the death of Jesus.

"I don't care who I cross." In this context, there is a bit of double-entendre that both the Lord and Warren are smiling over in heaven.

Where the Devil?

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Job 1:6-7 (NRSV)

One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

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Very superstitious, nothin' more to say
Very superstitious, the devil's on his way

"Superstition" written and recorded by Stevie Wonder from "Talking Book" 1972

One of the more liberal ministers and preachers from the 70's and 80's, William Sloane Coffin believed that as there is a real God--not just a concept of God--there was also a real Satan--not just a concept of Satan. Frankly, this isn't a belief that you would associate with a very liberal protestant minister, and reading his reasoning was amazing.

This is not the place to discuss the "reality" or the "truth" of an embodied devil called in Job "Satan." As far as names go, "Satan" means accuser. Specifically, in the Hebrew scriptures, this character is known as The Satan, The Accuser.

Is he "real?" Is his physical existence "true?" As for me, it doesn't matter, that's right, I think that it really doesn't matter whether we believe in a physical satan or not. I believe this for the simple reason that even if a physical satan isn't real, The Accuser is all too real. In our world there are people who try to convince us that things that are real aren't and vice versa. There are people who tell the children of God that they are not loved. There are people who believe that the only way to give love it by abuse, and even worse are those who have been so abused that they believe it is the only way to receive love. There is danger and evil used to separate us from God. There is addiction and abuse separating us from one another.

Even if there is no Dante's "Inferno" version of the Devil, it is still True that Satan, the Accuser exists. It may not look like you, or me, or a Satyr, but the truth of Satan is quite real. There are accusers ready to harm us. Yes, Satan is “going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” Of that, there is no doubt.

The joy of it all is that even when the devil's on his way, the Lord our God is on the stay. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Beware for it is as Stevie sings, "When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer, superstition ain't the way." Not sin, not death, not the worst Satan can dish out, not the worst our friends can say about us. That is just one of the important lessons from the story of Job.