Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Which is the greater evil?

Jesus was at a party and this woman, which all commentaries suggest was a "lady of the evening," came in and washed his feet with her tears and dried his feet with her hair. According to the story, that act evoked a massive discussion about the purity of Jesus and his prophetic powers because he did not recognize who she was and he allowed her to do those things. But Jesus turned that discussion into a debate about who has the greatest sins, and who gets forgiven more, and who might love more. Jesus says that the woman, whose sins were many, had been forgiven much, so loved Jesus much. The people at the party did not think they had sinned much, so did not need to be forgiven much and so did not love Jesus much.
This question about "which is the greater evil?" flashed to the top of the screen this week as the debate about the evil of one person's homosexuality raged in one place and the report of the fraud of Bernard Madoff was being reported in another place. Which is the greater evil? One person's personal sexual activity or one person's deceit, fraud, and greed. Who has done the most harm to life, to others, to society, to the whole work of doing good?
The Bible does call them both sins. The list of things that are contrary to the will and providence of God include both the homosexual activities and the greed, false witness, the stealing, and fraud. But certainly the actions of Madoff are far more evil and destructive than one person's sexual activities. Certainly the impact of the deceit, the betrayals, the destruction of so many charitable foundatons, the fraud that involves major banks from across Europe far exceeds the impact of one person's lesbian encounters. Madoff is a Jew and he has ripped off and destroyed a vast number of charitable foundations which had been established to help Jewish people.
The Bible does call them both sin, but Jesus suggests that there are some evils that are greater than other evils. The Catholic church has categories of sins. They are both sins, but the fraud of Madoff is certain greater than the sin of one person's homosexual life style. But you would never know it from the preaching of the Christian community. The fraud may get mentioned once or twice, but the sin of homosexuality will be a constant part of the preaching in many congregations. The evil of homosexuality will be forever mentioned, but there will be little mention or focus on the sin of greed, stealing, fraud, and bearing false witness. There will be little preaching against the greed that motivated Madoff; little preaching about the greed for greater and greater returns that brought so many willing people to his funds; little preaching about the greed, self-centeredness, betrayals, that allowed Madoff to carry out this deceit and exploitation of his Jewish friends and foundations.
Lets see the sin of one person with another person of the same sex or the sin of destroying more than 50 billion dollars in investments and altering the lives of hundreds of people, foundations and European banks? Now let me see which one should I preach about? Which is the greater evil?

2 comments:

aprilfool said...

I would be interested in how you might apply the message in this weeks mumble to the controversy in the news today generated by Obama's choice of clergyman to give the invocation at his inaugural . . .

Unknown said...

Of the Ten Commandments which is #1