Cotton-Eyed Joe

If it had not a' been for Cotton-Eyed Joe, I'd have been married a long time ago.

Some songs tell stories.
Often sad stories.
Stories of disappointment in love.
That folk song Cotton-Eyed Joe which has been kicking around for generations expresses this disappointment. The song has been around for at least a hundred fifty years. About a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe.
Interesting thing about folk songs. A song starts in part of the country with one set of words. Then it gets picked up and carried to another location and winds up with some different words. Then the song moves somewhere else and gets the words changed some more. And so it goes. Sometimes they wind up with thirty or forty stanzas.
The words I remember to Cotton-Eyed Joe went something like this:
Don't you remember, don't you know?
Daddy worked a man they called Cotton-Eyed Joe. 
Daddy worked a man they called Cotton-Eyed Joe. 
If it had not a' been for Cotton-Eyed Joe,
I'd have been married a long time ago.
I'd have been married a long time ago.
If it had not a' been for Cotton-Eyed Joe,
I'd have been married a long time ago.

As I remember it sung by groups such as Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys or Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, we didn't get many details about what happened. There's just enough to let us know the singer lost his lady love, and he blames old Cotton-Eyed Joe for it.
Had not a' been for Cotton-Eyed Joe, 
I'd have been married a long time ago.

Yes, Cotton-Eyed Joe ruined the life of the man who sings the song.
The man's life would have been different if it had not been for Cotton-Eyed Joe. That scalawag is to blame for this man's unhappiness.
Cotton-Eyed Joe drifted into the community:
Blew into town on a travelin' show 
Nobody danced like the Cotton eyed Joe.

Daddy put Cotton-Eyed Joe to work.
If only Daddy hadn't hired Cotton-Eyed Joe.
If only Cotton-Eyed Joe hadn't met the singer's girl friend.
If only she hadn't been swept off her feet by Cotton-Eyed Joe.
If only the singer could have done something about the situation.
If only. . . .
If only. . .
If only. . . .

This didn't happen last week or last month or even last year. One stanza says . . .

Eighteen nineteen, twenty years ago, 
There was a man called Cotton-eye Joe.

Somebody else added more stanzas, about how long it's been since Cotton-eyed Joe did him in:
O Lord, o Lord, come pity my case,
For I'm gettin' old and wrinkled in the face.
If it hadn't not a' been for Cotton-Eyed Joe,
I'd 'a been married forty years ago. (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1478981)

This guy has carried his burden forty years because of Cotton-Eyed Joe.
Don't you feel sorry for the guy who sings the song?
I don't.
He comes across as a wimp who has gone through life blaming other people for his misfortunes. There's no indication the singer made any effort to save the relationship with his fair lady. 
Daddy put Cotton-Eyed Joe to work.
Cotton-Eyed Joe went to work in wooing the fair young lady. 
And the singer found himself out in the cold.

I could have been successful if it had not been for that guy who got that good job I applied for. I could have been much better off in life if it had not been for Daddy favoring my brother.I could have been much happier in life if it had not been for my husband taking that job in another town. 
I could have made better grades in college if it had not been for professors who had it in for me. 
I could have gotten a promotion if it had not been for that other worker who buttered up the boss. 
I could have been . . .
I could have been . . .
I could have been . . .

Now, listen:
Sometimes things get in our way which we can't help, despite our best efforts.
Sometimes other people do get the breaks and leave us wishing.
Sometimes things just don't work out.
But sometimes we just make excuses for ourselves.
Sometimes we just point our fingers at someone else.
You know about the man who was praying about a situation in his life, and he prayed, "Lord, show me the solution to my problem." When he opened his eyes, first thing he saw was a mirror. The man in the song had responsibility for himself. He shouldn't go through life blaming Cotton-Eyed Joe.

JOHN 5:1-18
Our Bible story today is about a man who has gone through life blaming other people, the way the man in the song blamed Cotton-Eyed Joe.
Thirty-eight years of blaming other people for his physical condition.
Like the singer who spends forty years blaming Cotton-Eyed Joe.
We will see the man shift responsibility away from himself three times in the Bible passage 
(Influenced by William E. Hull, "John," Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 9. Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1970, p.260ff).

This poor man is crippled, and the first example of shifting his responsibility has to do with his condition.
He has been crippled thirty-eight years. 
Jesus sees the man lying alongside a pool in Jerusalem.
The pool is known for its healing properties. 
A legend says an angel comes to the pool from time to time to stir up the waters. And when the angel stirs the waters, the first sick person to scramble into the pool will be healed.
The pool is called Bethesda or Bethzatha. 
Bethzatha means "olive place" or "the place of the olives," probably because there had been an olive grove before they built the pool. 
On the other hand, Bethesda means "House of Mercy," a most fitting name, if people flock there with the expectation of finding healing for their bodies.
(E. G. Kraeling, "Bethesda," Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by James Hastings. Revised Edition by Frederick C. Grant and H. H. Rowley. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963, p. 99.)

So the crowds swarm in hopes of being first to get in the pool. The man, who is the central figure in story, cannot walk. Someone brings him to the pool day by day, but this has gone on for thirty-eight years, and he is no closer to healing than he was thirty-eight years ago.
Jesus sees this man and comes over to show his concern. Jesus asks the man, "Do you want to be healed?" 
That may sound like a strange question. But when Jesus asks it, we hear the man's first excuse.
Actually, two excuses rolled into one:
First, the man says, "I don't have anyone to help me."
Then, he says, "When I try to get to water, someone always beats me there."
If only somebody would help me onto my feet when the angel troubles the waters.
If only I weren't this poor crippled man when the angel troubles the waters.
If  only so many other people didn't get ahead of me when the angel troubles the waters. 
If only. . . .
If only. . . .
If only. . . .

Jesus doesn't ask him about his circumstances. Jesus doesn't even acknowledge the crippled man's excuses. Jesus simply asks the man if he wants to get well. That sets off the excuses.
Now, the man may feel the question is too obvious to deserve an answer. Anyway, we have no answer to the question, "Do you want to get well?"  Instead of answering the question, the man puts up his defenses.
We may feel the question is inappropriate. Who wouldn't want to get well if we had been crippled all these years? But Jesus bluntly asks: "Do you want to get well?"
Jesus follows that question with a command: "Get up. Pick up that pallet you've been hanging on to all these years. Get up and walk."
And the man gets up! . . . and walks!
He's probably as amazed as everybody there. Everybody except Jesus. When Jesus sees the man get up and take his bed with him, Jesus steps back into the crowd. Attention has been diverted to the healed man, so Jesus slips away unnoticed.
The Gospel writer tells that this healing takes place on the Sabbath. This causes a stir because the strict observers of the traditional Sabbath would not permit healing on the day of rest. If you were able to heal someone, and if you did in fact heal on the Sabbath, that would be a form of work, and that would violate the commandments.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet."
The staunch religious leaders are so hung up on rules, rules, rules, that they overlook the miracle which has occurred almost before their eyes.

When they tell the man he mustn't carry his pallet on Saturday, he tries for the second time to pass responsibility to someone else.
"Oh, but the man who healed me told me to pick up my bed and walk."
"Don't blame me. I'm just doing what the man told me."
Perhaps the religious leaders press the man to tell them who broke the law of the Sabbath by healing him. But he doesn't know. He must have convinced the religious leaders that he really doesn't know who healed him because they let him go.
Then, after a time, Jesus finds the man in the Temple. For the second time, Jesus speaks rather plainly. We might even say, bluntly, to the man.
This time, Jesus warns: "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you."
In other words, You are healed. You're also forgiven. I have set you on a new path in more ways than one.
So, this is the second time Jesus tries to get the man to accept personal responsibility: first to stand on his feet physically, now to stand on his feet spiritually before God. Acknowledge God as the source of his healing.
But what does the healed man do?

He evades responsibility for the third time.
The cured man finds the Jewish leaders who got on to him about carrying his bed. When they asked him earlier about who healed him, the man didn't know. But, now that he knows, to keep on the good side of these men, he says, "I didn't heal myself, and it wasn't my idea to break the Sabbath by carrying my bed. That teacher Jesus healed me. It wasn't my fault."

Still fearful to stand on his own, spiritually and legally. He has been dependent on others so long. He has far to grow in his faith. . He still evades his responsibility.
At this point in the story, the crippled man, now the healed man, fades to the background. No indication that he ever takes responsibility. First, second, and always, when we see him, he is making excuses, refusing to be responsible for himself. Because he is so preoccupied with his own problems, he is probably unaware of the larger dynamic between Jesus and the religious leaders and the fact that his healing is a factor in the escalating trouble Jesus faces with the religious authorities.

Now, let's move forward with this concern about taking responsibility for our actions.
There was a play in New York some years ago about a group of men who had been high school basketball stars. Their team won the state championship, and team members and the coach meet each year to celebrate That Championship Season. In fact, that's the name of the play, That Championship Season. As the play unfolds, you realize these men all are frozen back in that time twenty years earlier when they were basketball stars. They are unable to face life in the present. They cannot accept their responsibilities for living constructive lives.
You say, That's just a play. Well, yes and no. It IS a play, but it isn't just a play. I saw the play in lower Manhattan, and I took a subway back uptown toward my hotel and wound up on the same train with one of the actors. He told me that, as they were working on the show, the playwright took the whole cast to his home area in Pennsylvania, which is a basketball capital. The cast went around to some taverns there in Pennsylvania. They heard middle-aged men, much like the men in the play, fussing and cussing each other out for dumb plays they had made on high school basketball teams. Men in real life blaming other people for things which haven't gone the way they think things should.

I've been giving mostly negative examples. But let's take a positive turn.
A man who attended a small school wrote about the daily chapel experience. This was a school for boys in the first six grades. The chapel was small and crowded. First graders sat on the very front rows, the second grade came next, and so on through grade five. But the chapel was too small for all the boys to sit down for the service. So the sixth graders had to stand up during chapel.
As he wrote about this experience years later, this alumnus saw a parable in the standing. For him, sixth grade was the time he first saw the necessity for standing on his own two feet before God.
This man refused to be like the crippled man in the Bible who passed his responsibilities over to other people. Forget about old Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Think how you can stand on your feet before God:
This may be physical, it may be intellectual, it may be emotional, it may be spiritual.

I remember a young man who enrolled in a night class I taught at what is now Anderson University. He had been out of high school a while and had an explanation or an excuse for why he wasn't in college. He was from a middle class family in which it was just expected that a son or daughter would go to college somewhere. . But this young man had a great fear of crowds. He didn't think he could sit in a room with thirty or forty other students and take notes or do things a professor might assign.
After a couple of years, though, he decided to give it a try. But he was like that crippled man by the pool who met Jesus. This young man had his defenses up, but he agreed to enroll in a night class because there wouldn't be a room full of people. There were only twelve to fifteen people in that class. Even so, this young man sat over near the door. 
During a break in the first class, he came up to my desk and discussed this with me, explaining that he was more comfortable near the door, a row or two away from the rest of the class. That way, if things started closing in on him, he could slip out and go home. I told him that would be okay. 
Just as the man in the Bible was probably timid the first step or two after Jesus told him to pick up his pallet and walk, this student was nervous the first class session or two. But he stuck with it and took additional night classes. Then I started seeing him on campus in the daytime. One day, he told me that he had overcome his fear of crowds and his dependence on his parents and others who had sheltered him. 
In a few years, this young man got a degree from what was then Anderson College, and he is out in a career. Once he laid aside his worries and his excuses, he found he could walk into a room full of people and not feel threatened. He parted company with old Cotton-Eyed Joe.

More examples: 
Our local YMCA attracts all sorts of people, young and old, fat and thin, healthy and otherwise---all of us trying to lay aside our excuses for the way we look, how much we weigh, and so on. I go to the Y early in the morning.
Some people at the Y get my attention every time I see them. One is a friend who has one natural leg. I usually walk in the heated pool. Sometimes, I walk the indoor track and this friend is up there. With his metal prosthetic leg, you can hear him coming way back behind you. I walk, he runs. So he passes me several times during my walk. 
There's another man who was severely injured in a wreck. He's almost having to learn to walk all over again. And he has difficulty trying to talk. But he's at it regularly. 
Both these men could make excuses and just stay away from the Y. But, neither one is willing to let his loss be a limitation. Unlike the man in our Bible passage, these men don't wait for someone to help them into the pool or wait for the angel to come down and trouble the water. They don't blame Cotton-Eyed Joe.

We may make excuses for the crippled or crippling aspects of our spiritual life. It is possible to be physically or intellectually robust and be spiritually crippled. Yet, I almost hesitate to talk about the spiritual apart from other dimensions because all aspects of life are intertwined. You are accountable to God. Every part of your life has spiritual implications.

The Serenity Prayer, written by Reinhold Niebuhr, is widely used by Alcoholics Anonymous and others who want to quit making excuses.  Here's what it says:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed,
And the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.
(Reinhold Niebuhr, "Serenity Prayer,"  http://www.geocities.com/~spiritwalk/serenityprayer .htm)

One other story: 
Back when Anderson was a textile town, I visited in the home of one of our church families. They hadn't been faithful. They'd quit coming to church. As we talked, the wife said, "Well, you know, it's hard for us to get to church with my husband working the third shift at the mill."  That seemed logical to me. If he worked from eleven to seven, it would be rough coming to Sunday school at 9:30 and preaching at eleven. But without any prompting on my part, the woman looked kind of embarrassed. And she grinned and said, "Actually, my husband doesn't work the third shift any more. I was just making excuses." She quit acting like old Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Watch Therefore

Listen carefully to these words from Matthew, chapter 24:

36 ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. .  .  .  ⁴²Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Pansy and I were in the North Carolina mountains a while back.  It was summertime, and we found temporary relief from the oppressive heat that was gripping our part of the world.  In a little town near Boone, we went into a cheese shop.  
They had cheddar and Swiss and American and Pepperjack and I don't know what all. And, there, among the various cheeses, I saw a box of CDs, with a sign indicating they were free.  The CDs were a recording of a sermon by a preacher in a church not far away from the town with the cheese shop.  The sermon title was “The Coming of the Lord.”  I was interested to see what this preacher had to say about the Lord’s return.  So I took one of the CDs and listened while we were in the mountains that week.  
The sermon lasted two minutes short of an hour.  During the course of his sermon, the preacher said again and again and again, “The Lord is coming soon.”  I didn’t try to count, but he must have said that fifteen or twenty times.  Just every few minutes: “The Lord is coming soon.”  He quoted a verse: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
But then, the preacher said this: “You can’t know the day or the hour, but you can know the season.”

With that last statement in mind, please read what another preacher wrote (Broadus 492f):

It is mere quibbling to say that still we may ascertain the year and month.  .  .  . The saying  [of Jesus] ought to repress all curious inquiry as to the precise time of his second coming, to prevent reliance on any arithmetical calculations, and also to foster confidence in [Christ]. The disciples greatly wished to know the precise time; in every age many have been eagerly seeking to determine, and some fancying they have ascertained it, only to be disappointed; but [Jesus] expressly warned against this from the outset, and impliedly bade us be reconciled to an ignorance shared by the high angels, and (Mark) by the Son himself. .  .  .  And if [Jesus] left this and many other things (20:23), to the Father alone, how cheerfully should we rest in ignorance that cannot be removed, trusting in all things to our Heavenly Father’s wisdom and goodness, striving to obey his clearly revealed will, and leaning on his grace for support.

By the way, that warning  is from a book published in 1886, written by a seminary professor named John A. Broadus.  It’s been in print over a hundred twenty-five years, but it could have been written yesterday to counter ideas such as the preacher in North Carolina.  As Dr. Broadus pointed out, “in every age many have been eagerly seeking to determine” the day and the hour of Christ’s return.  You may remember the predictions by Harold Camping out in California last year which got wide media coverage.

(John A. Broadus, “Matthew,” A Commentary on the New Testament, Volume I.  Philadelphia:  The American Baptist Publication Society, 1886.)

One of the next big predictions is for just a couple of months from now.  The calculations in the ancient Mayan Indian calendar supposedly point to a great catastrophe.  It isn’t expected to be the literal end of the world, just civilization as we’ve known it.  Supposedly, a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and the sun will be blocked out for forty years by a cloud of volcanic dust (Brouwer). 
ABC Television News ran a story three or four years ago about a man in Belgium who had already quit his job with a French oil company because of this prophecy. He'd saved up just enough money he thought will last him until December 2012.  After that, he thought, he wouldn't need it anyway.  This man started gathering materials necessary to survive — water purifiers, wheelbarrows (with spare tires), dust masks, vegetable seeds and other supplies.
The Belgian isn’t the only one expecting terrible things in December.  A projects manager at Home Depot out in Phoenix came up with a special 2012 website to sell gas masks, knife kits, bullet-proof vests and more. This man is a savvy marketing rep with Home Depot.  He admits he doesn’t necessarily believe in the Mayan calamity, but his website urges customers to “be smart, be ready.”  He’s sold lots of emergency medical supplies and water purifiers.

A sociology professor said predicting the end often reflects much larger nervousness about the state of our society.  He cited “Terrorism, 9/11, ecological disasters, floods and earthquakes." He said, "[There is] a sense that modern civilization has had its run. Those kinds of anxieties are much more widely shared than simply among people who believe in the exact date" ((Christine Brouwer, “Will the World End in 2012?”  ABC News, July 3, 2008.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=5301284&page=1)

         We've seen sad examples in the past of those who do believe in exact dates:
In 1992 about twenty thousand people in a sect in Korea were so convinced Christ would return on October 20^th that year, they sold their homes, quit their jobs, and left their families.  Some women had abortions in anticipation of going to heaven.  (Richard Kyle, The Last Days are Here Again.  Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books,1998, p. 139).        

Two years later, 1994, forty-eight people committed suicide in Switzerland because they felt doomsday was coming soon (Kyle 139).  
A cult in Japan in 1995 set off nerve gas in a Tokyo subway to sparkl a final world war (Kyle 139).
Anyone who believes what the Bible teaches should be reminded of this Commandment from Matthew 24:42---Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  And, as we’ve noted, we shouldn’t try to wiggle out of that by saying, “You can’t know the day or the hour, but you can know the season.”  Lots of seasons have come and gone, leaving disappointed people who thought they at least knew the season of the Lord’s return.

TWO WORDS OF WARNING; SEVEN EXAMPLES
Our key verse has two parts: a commandment and a warning.  We’ve been emphasizing the warning: you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But let’s also notice the Commandment:  Two words: Watch therefore.  With the warning which follows, we could paraphrase the verse: “Watch for the return of the Lord, but don’t get hung-up on trying to set the date for it.”
Because we really can’t accurately set the date, we should give attention to the first part of the verse:   Watch therefore.
This command verse is set in the context of two rather lengthy chapters, Matthew 24 and 25.  Jesus makes this point of watchfulness in a whole string of ways.
In the verses for today, that point of watchfulness is made in three different ways:
First, the coming of the Son of man will be much like the days of Noah:  [38] For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, [39] and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man.
Jesus says, people in Noah’s day were eating and drinking and getting married, just going about the routines of life.  A general lack of watchfulness.
Second, Jesus gives examples of two men at work and then two women at work.  In both cases, one in each pair is prepared for the Lord’s coming, the other is not:
[40] Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left.  [41] Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left.  [42] Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
Some people believe this describes the Rapture: one man will be in the Rapture, the other won’t; likewise, one woman will be and the other not.  But this neglects the whole series of alerts Jesus gives--all illustrating the lack of watchfulness.  The example of Noah’s time just before this and a third example right after this about a thief’s breaking into someone’s home:
[43] But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into.  [44] Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 
So three examples: negligence in the time of Noah; negligence of men and women going about their work; and the futility of predicting when a thief might break into your house.
In the rest of chapter 24 and all through chapter 25, we have four more examples of the call to Watch therefore. A total of seven illustrations. You may recall, seven in the Bible is the perfect or complete number. So we have a complete number of calls to be ready for the Lord’s return.
If you have your Bible, you can follow along as I summarize these four stories:
The end of chapter 24, verses 45-51, Jesus tells of a servant left in charge of the master’s household while the master is away.  The man has been faithful, looking after the rest of the household.  But because his master is delayed in returning, this man beats his fellow servants and is gluttonous and drunken.  In the midst of this, the master comes back, and he sends the disobedient servant to a place where men will weep and gnash their teeth.
Next, the first thirteen verses of chapter 25 tell of ten young women who are invited to a wedding dinner.  They are waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom.  All ten women took their lamps, but five neglected to put any oil in their lamps.  When the bridegroom arrives, word goes out that the women should meet him so they can go to the feast.  The five women who filled their lamps lit them  and met the bridegroom.  The other five didn’t have enough oil to light the lamps.  So they went to a merchant to buy oil.  By the time they got the oil and came back, the doors to the banquet were shut, and they didn’t get in because they had not prepared.  The story ends in verse 13 with these words we’ve heard before: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. 
The next story, in verses 14-30, is about three servants.  Their master entrusts each man with some of his money -- a different amount to each man, with each man expected to invest the money allotted to him and present the interest when the master returns.  Two of the men double the amount in their charge.  The third man didn’t even try to invest the money left to him.  So, this is another example of someone who was not prepared when the master returned. 
Our seventh and final story begins in verse 31 of chapter 25.  In this case, Jesus looks ahead to the final judgment of humankind.  The nations are gathered before the Son of man who sits on His glorious throne.  Before the judgment begins, He separates the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, [33] and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. 
In verse 34, the Son of man is now the King, who commends those on the right.   They inherit the kingdom which has been prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
The reason they receive this inheritance is because they have given Him food when He was hungry, drink when He was thirsty, welcomed Him when He was a stranger, clothed Him when He was naked, and went to see Him when He was sick and when He was in prison.  
Those on the right are surprised.  They have no memory of helping the King in any of these ways.  Then He explains that they have reached out to people in need, and, in so doing, they have ministered to Him.  These actions are their inheritance right.
After this, the King turns to those on His left and condemns them because they neglected Him in all those situations.  Now, these on the left have no memory of neglecting the King.
So the King tells them that they had opportunities to help the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner.  But they neglected these needy people.  In their neglect, they also turned their backs on the King.  Then in verse 46, the King declares the future of both those on the left and on the right:
And [those on the left] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." 

SUMMARY
We’ve seen how Jesus seven times over has stressed being prepared to answer to God at the end of life.  Not once in these stories does Jesus project a date for the end of life.  Most of these stories have to do with individual responsibility.  The example of the way people lived in the time of Noah involves a broad swath of humanity.  So does the final story of the division of the sheep and the goats.  But the others all come down to individuals:
*Two men working side by side, one watchful, the other not
*Two women also working together, likewise one watchful, the other not
*The individual homeowner who needs to be watchful for possible burglary
*The supervisor who was kind and merciful to people in his charge but became vicious 
*Ten young women anticipating the bridegroom’s arrival, watchful, the other five unprepared
*Three men with the master’s money, each individually accountable for his use or misuse
As we survey these seven stories, the central message, then, is Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
It’s futile to try to set the date.  The central message is “Get prepared to meet the Lord.  Watch therefore.   Though we cannot know when we will meet God, we can make preparation for that moment, whenever it comes.
Some people are eager to go sailing through the air like a jet-powered hang-glider.  I know people who full well expect to meet Jesus in the air and will be disappointed if they realize they are lying on their death beds rather than swooping off to meet Jesus in a grand dramatic fashion.
The important thing is not how you go, but how you get ready to go.

MOST BASIC
Jesus tells seven different stories about the need to Watch Therefore.  Every story is about people much like those in Noah’s time.  In every case, people are just going about their daily routines, like Irving Berlin’s old song, “Doin’ What Comes Naturally.”
In the last story, the climactic story, two different groups of people are called to account for what they have been doing in their daily lives.  The first group were busy meeting human need: feeding people who were hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, giving clothes to people who were naked, taking care of sick folks, and visiting people in prison .  By contrast, the other group neglected people who were hungry or thirsty or strangers or naked or sick or in prison.
Jesus commends the ones who reached out in love and compassion.  They are the ones Jesus welcomes into His eternal blessings.  These folks weren’t all caught up in trying to figure the season when Jesus is coming back.  They, too, were caught up in the routine of daily life, but their daily life was filled with concern for others.
In the last week or two, I’ve gotten e-mails from some caring people in our First Baptist Church. One e-mail went out mainly to the fellows involved in the Men’s Ministry.  A couple with a new baby didn’t have a crib and didn’t have money to buy one.  So the writer of the e-mail asked whether anyone on his e-mail list had a crib or knew where to find one.  In just a matter of hours, somebody offered the crib to the needy family.
Last Friday, another plea went out for two families on the ragged edge.  One couple seeks custody of four children ranging from two years to twelve.  They have one bunk bud set but need another set of bunks before the Department of Social Services will let them have charge of these four children.

The other couple with a four-month-old baby girl needs a two-ton heating and air window unit.  They lived in an old house with no insulation.  The dad works and pays the bills but doesn't have anything extra to buy a heat and air unit. They can't use kerosene heaters with the baby.

In asking help in finding this heating and air unit, the director of Threads of Hope said, “I know this sounds impossible, but we serve the God that says nothing is impossible.”  She goes on, ask people to search and pray for them to find this unit.  And she believes they can find one, as she says, “at a ridiculously low price.”
I don’t know whether either of these two recent stories has a happy ending yet, but these are examples of Christians from our First Baptist Church who interrupt their own routines and help people in deep need.  William Wordsworth called such actions “little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love,” “the best portion of a good man’s life” (William Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey,” http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/WordsworthTinternAbbey.htm.)

That’s the kind of people Jesus says will share in the blessings of His Father.  They don’t get all caught up trying to figure when our Lord is coming back.  They are watchful for occasions to love and help others.

CONCLUSION
We began by thinking of a sermon in which the preacher was absolutely sure the Lord is coming back very soon.  Of course, that preacher doesn’t know that.  We don’t know that.  And we’ve tried to say, that’s not what matters.  What does matter most of all is that we commit our lives to the Lord for however long or however short our remaining days may be.  Commit yourself to love God and to live for others.  Then you’ll be ready.  So follow this Commandment: 
Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

My Defective Sports Gene

I have a defective sports gene.

I suspected this long before I knew what to call it.

Daddy loved sports, everything from football to dominoes---a fiercely competitive game in West Texas.  I've seen physical fights break out over bad plays.

My two brothers I grew up with -- Lee Roy and Leonard -- loved sports.  If we had been in school during the fall months instead of the cotton patch, Lee Roy, four years older than me, would have gone out for football.  Leonard, four years younger, did play basketball.

Lew, our “baby brother,” born the year I started to college, played football in high school and apparently did well at it.  I only saw Lew play once.  Pansy and I were back in Texas for a visit, and we went to a game with Daddy and Mother, Lew and my proud parents.

Jeff and Don, our “adopted brothers,” who married our sisters, Leta and Marie, also loved sports.

So I knew by now: Daddy and all “The Boys” loved The Game while I said, "No comprendo."  My sports gene was defective.

Across the years, at family gatherings -- especially at Christmas -- after the sumptuous spread provided by Mother and all the daughters (by birth and by marriage), the women, in gender stereotype, repaired to the kitchen to clean the dishes and rearrange the leftovers for supper.  Then the menfolk congregated around the TV for The Game.  

I wouldn’t have felt comfortable in the kitchen, but I was no more comfortable as I endured The Game.  If perchance the Dallas Cowboys were playing, the room would explode with excited yells every time the ball moved three inches toward the goal or when Landry's movers and shakers stopped a play by the unworthy, insignificant opponents.

Funny how these genetic things can jump generations.  Russell, our firstborn, inherited his father’s weakness.  Jonathan, our younger, apparently has a direct line back to his Grandpa Webb and all The Uncles.

Jonathan loves various animals, including The Dawgs from UGA and Da Bears in his adopted hometown of Chicago.  I think his firstborn, Ethan, may have a direct line back to his Grandpa Webb (yours truly).

About seventeen miles from our home in Anderson, South Carolina, is Death Valley, home of the Clemson Tigers.  Loyal Tiger fans note proudly, “I hear tell our Team has a pretty decent university.”

An Andersonian faces possible deportation if he is discovered to be a closet supporter of The Dawgs in Athens or the Gamecocks in Columbia.

During The Season, my defect makes it a bit difficult for me to enter conversations with other men at Lions Club, at church, at the Y.  They just assume I saw The Game and am just as excited if “We” won or just as angry at the refs if “We” were cheated out of a win.

When our boys were growing up, Russell had no interest in going to games, but Pansy and I let Jonathan go to some games when his buddies’ dads took them.  I never quite knew how he wound up asking, “How ‘Bout Them Dawgs?” instead of being a Tigers fan.  But he also likes Georgia basketball, and I took him across the border a few times for games.

I well remember the last time I was in a stadium.  1980 in Waco.  We spent a year with Mother in her apartment before I returned to Anderson College, now Anderson University.  

Jeff, my older sister’s husband, now deceased, had an extra ticket for a Baylor game.  I went because Jeff invited me.  He was more brother than in-law, so I was glad to spend a few hours with him, whatever the environment.  

The Bears must have had a pretty good team that year under Grant Teaff's coaching.  Word around town was that they were winning.  But I don’t remember who the opponents were.  I don’t remember whether Baylor won or lost.  

My only specific recollection from that afternoon in 1980 is that moment -- probably during the singing of “That Good Old Baylor Line,” to the tune of “In the Good Old Summertime” -- when right arms all around me shot straight out, with fingers curled to represent bear claws.

Rah.

A Puzzling Passage

I was about fourteen and interested in girls when Jack Higgins asked me if I wanted to double-date with him.  His girlfriend had a friend.  So I said, “Sure.”  Then he said, “Could you loan me four dollars?”  That was a small fortune in 1948.  About all I had, except enough to buy the movie ticket for my date and have enough left for Cokes afterward.  

I loaned the money, but I thought Jack Higgins never was going to pay back my four dollars.  First, he said he didn’t get paid on time.  Then, he said he had to pay somebody else back.  Then he said he had to help buy groceries for his family.  All the while, I didn’t have any money to do anything I wanted to do.  Jack finally did pay me back, but it took forever.

Bottom line: I was pretty gullible. My world was limited.  Lot to learn. Keep the story about my naiveté in mind.  That may make sense before we’re through.

Until I was thirteen or fourteen, Daddy worked as a farmhand out in West Texas.  Every time he changed jobs, we moved because a house for the farm worker was always available as a perk.   Daddy changed farm jobs a lot. I mean a whole lot.  We usually moved at least a couple of times a year.  

Then, when I was still an early teenager, Daddy decided to change the kind of work he did.  So we moved into Sweetwater, the county seat town.  He got a pretty steady job with a contractor in the building trade. Bud Harris was a sub-contractor who did cement and brick work, and he hired Daddy as his assistant.  Daddy made more money in this work than he did working for farmers, but it may have been a tradeoff because we had to pay rent instead of living for free in a farm house.  

We still moved from time to time when Daddy would find a house he thought was better.  So, even in Sweetwater, we kept changing places where we lived.  But Sweetwater is a small town, so we always  managed to live just a few blocks from downtown.  

Our Bible passage today, from Luke, chapter 16, begins with perhaps the strangest story Jesus tells in the Gospels.  The central character is a worldly wise man in a place of responsibility.  He works for a wealthy land owner and is supposed to be keeping track of the owner’s business affairs.  

The owner is a gentleman farmer, and the man in question is the on-site manager--the person you go to see when you want to do business with the company.

The rich man trusts his manager and has left him to run the company.  But, now, the owner gets word that the trusted worker really isn’t to be trusted.  He is mismanaging the wealth.  Apparently pocketing some of the money which is supposed to go to the boss.

With this word, the absentee owner realizes he hasn’t supervised the man closely enough.  He thought the man was reliable, but he finds out that isn’t the case.  So he calls the man in, confronts him with what he’s learned, and tells the man he has to let him go.  

The boss doesn’t tell the manager to leave right that minute.  He gives the man time to pull things together.  It seems the owner prefers, even at this point, that things be done in an orderly fashion, rather than abruptly.

With this leeway, the manager analyzes the situation.  He’s a white-collar man who’s never done hard physical work.  He says to himself, “I’m not strong enough to do hard manual labor, and I’d be ashamed to go out on the street and beg.”  Then he says, “I know what I’m going to do.  I have to make some arrangements so I won’t be out on the street without a job when the boss tells me to leave.”

His master has extensive land holdings, and the man rents out land to tenants and collects rent from them in such forms as oil or wheat.  An in-kind arrangement or barter system, if you will. Out in Texas, tenant farmers did farming “on the halves.”  The land owner would let a man work the land and be responsible for all the expense of bringing in the crop.  Then when the crops were gathered, the farm worker would give an account of his stewardship.  He would get half of what he took in, with the other half going to the land owner (Wellford).

(Eleanor Lee Wellford, Life in the Kingdom, "A Kaleidoscope of Hope," A Sermon for the 17^th Sunday after Pentecost  Proper 20 - Year C - 23 September 2007.  Wellford is Assistant Rector, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia.  : ewellford@stmarysgoochland.org)

Our story here appears to be something like that.  But the manager has not done his job. So he decides to ingratiate himself to the men who owe the boss some pretty high stakes.  He hopes one of these sub-contractors will take him on when he has to leave the land owner.  With this in mind, the manager calls his major debtors in, one by one, to settle their accounts.

He asks the first man, “How much produce do you owe that I haven’t collected?”  The man says,  “A hundred jugs of olive oil.”   Did you hear? That’s not a hundred little bottles of olive oil.  That’s a hundred jugs.  The word for jugs indicates each jug contained eight or nine gallons of olive oil.   We’re talking about eight or nine hundred gallons of olive oil.  The renter probably is a wholesaler if he has all that olive oil from trees on the big man’s property.  So the manager says, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and change it to fifty gallons.”   (http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/luke/luke16.htm United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, New American Bible, Luke 16.

Then he asks another man what he owes.  He replies, “A hundred containers of wheat.”  Each container holding ten to twelve bushels. So that would be a  thousand to 12-hundred bushels of wheat.  This time, the man who’s about to be out of a job says, “Cut your bill down from a hundred to eighty.” 

Relieved that they will owe less to the big boss, the men start telling their friends what the crooked manager has done.  As the old Clairoil commercial used to say, “They told two friends, and they told two friends.” Word quickly spreads about what this dishonest manager has done.  Before long, word gets back to the owner  Then comes the puzzling part of the story.  Instead of  having the workman thrown into debtor’s prison, the owner commends the man for being a shrewd operator.

Why would the owner praise his subordinate for dishonesty?  And why would Jesus tell the story about a deceptive man who is commended for his dishonest ways?  Let’s consider the first question first:  Why would the owner praise the man’s dishonesty, rather than have the man punished?

Perhaps the owner realizes his own failure.  He’s been too much of an absentee landlord.  He has been unwise in not keeping a closer eye on his own business. 

Or, perhaps, the owner, as a man of the world, can’t help but admire the craft and cunning of another man in the world of business.   

In one article I read, the writer wasn’t surprised that the guy was fired.  What was surprising . . .  

was that shrewdness was valued just as much and maybe even more so than faithfulness

because when the steward reduced the amounts of rent that the tenants owed to his master, 

to the detriment of his master, the master praised him instead of punishing him further  (Wellford).

Perhaps that explains why the man isn’t ordered to leave the farm at once.  But why would Jesus tell this story about a deceptive man?

We see the answer in the latter part of verse 8: [F]or the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 

Jesus contrasts two groups: children of this age over against those He calls the children of light.

Children of this age are people whose orientation is secular, selfish, concerned only with the physical and material aspects of life.   By contrast,  the children of light are oriented toward the things of God.   Recall how the Bible often contrasts darkness and light.  Here, Jesus could as readily have called the children of this age “children of darkness,” in contrast with the children of light.

Jesus says Christians can learn from the dog-eat-dog business world.  He doesn’t say we should adopt dog-eat-dog ways, but we should be aware of how the children of this age do their business.  We can learn lessons from negative ways of the business world as well as from the positive ways.  

Ralph Wilson says, “Jesus doesn't applaud dishonesty, but he notes that ‘the people of the light’ aren't as smart as worldly people when it comes to securing their future."   Maybe like a naive teenager who loans his buddy four bucks with no guarantee of being paid back.

(Ralph F. Wilson, “#69. Parable of the Dishonest Steward (16:1-15),” Jesus Walk Bible Study Series, http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/16_1-15.htm) 

Another interpreter, Mark Shea, also helps us understand this strange story.  He says Jesus is NOT saying we should be cynical weasels to save our skin.  But you and I as people of faith “should be at least as proactive about saving [our]souls as this worldly guy was about saving his skin." Scoundrels often have something hidden which holds promise, while we as Christians often are careless about God has entrusted to us.

(Copyright 2001 - Mark P. Shea, The Parable of the Dishonest Steward  http://www.mark-shea.com/steward.html)

Shea also cites a corrupt businessman in Nazi Germany, Oskar Schindler, who was featured in a book and the movie, Schindler’s List:  “Oskar Schindler was the Nazi arms merchant who .  .  . saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust while remaining the less-than-savory character he always was .  .  .”

We admire Schindler’s shrewdness in saving the lives of Jews in Hitler’s Germany, even though he went on with black market work and was morally corrupt in his personal life.

Anne Robertson draws a modern parable which may help us understand why Jesus told about a shrewd worldly wise man:

A  man is convicted of murdering his wife.  As he is being escorted to prison, he sees a burning house where a child is trapped inside.  The convict gets the officers to let him go into the house.  In he goes and brings the child out to safety.  

The crowd who are watching include a bunch of people from the neighborhood church, but they simply stand and watch.  As it happens, the pastor comes along and learns what happened.  So, the next Sunday, in his sermon, he raises the question:   "Why is it that this murderer can figure out that saving  a child is a good thing and the 16 churchgoers who were there watching the fire burn did nothing? This convict is smarter than all of them. Use the opportunities life presents to you to enhance God's reputation. The one who risks his own life to save another is living out the Gospel."

(Anne Robertson, “The Shrewd Manager in Luke 16,” Bible for Thinkers, Tuesday, October 05, 2004.  

http://www.annerobertson.com/2004/10/shrewd-manager-in-luke-16.html)

Here’s a real-life example of con artists being sharper than the children of light.  A man came to the church where I was one of the ministers. His story:  Needed some help.  His mother going into the hospital tomorrow for surgery in the local hospital.  After paying enough to guarantee the surgery could proceed, he needed some cash to get groceries until his next payday.  Could we help him?  

He took his story a bit further.  His mother’s illness had made him realize he needed Jesus in his heart, and he wanted me to pray with him so he could have assurance of his salvation.  I had a question in my mind, but  I prayed with him, and then we wrote down his mother’s name and gave him money from our benevolent fund.  

The next day, I called the hospital to check on his mother so we could make a follow-up visit.  They had no record of a patient by that name.  I called the next day as well.  Still no one by that name.

This is a small example of the kind of double-dealer Jesus tells about in his story.  We can’t commend the man for his dishonesty, but we realize he is one smooth operator.

William Barclay brings this comparison into the church, noting that if Christians “would give as much attention to the things which concern as souls as they do to the things which concern their business, they would be better men.”  Dr. Barclay notes:  

.  . . over and over again a man will spend twenty times the amount of time and money and effort

on his pleasure, his hobby, his golf, his garden, his sport as he does on his church.  

Our Christianity will only begin to become real and effective when we spend as much time

and effort on it as we do on our worldly activities.

(William Barclay, “The Gospel of Luke,” The Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955)

I thought of that comparison a while back when some of us in the Anderson Lions Club took part in a project sponsored by our District Lions organization.  About twenty men and women from Lions Clubs around the Upstate took training sessions and then called on business leaders in Spartanburg and Travelers Rest. Our efforts resulted in the formation of new clubs.   

Churches could learn from such concentrated -- and consecrated -- efforts on the part of the Lions.  This is the central point about the shrewd manager.  He saw a need -- albeit a self-centered need -- and developed a strategy to get out of the fix he had gotten himself into.  More positively, a church could learn from this Lions project: seeing things which need to be done for Christ and applying our minds and hearts and energies to getting those things done. 

When the church learns from the world, there can be both negative and positive fallout.  Some ministers don’t have a whole lot of business smarts.  I include myself in this category.  Because that’s true, churches can get in all sorts of messes. A bunch of church members may see the church building needs some repairs and decide to do the repairs themselves.  That’s fine if one or two of them are handy with clean-up, paint-up, fix-up.  We see this in Habitat for Humanity projects.  But turn people like me loose on that work, and the people we’re trying to help wouldn’t set foot in the place but once.  Same thing with upkeep of church property.  If you have some church members who know how to do maintenance work, they can save the church money and gain personal satisfaction through such practical service.  So the church can apply business principles and do good things for the church and community.

On this matter of children of this age being wiser than the children of light, let me say a word to my fellow senior adults who listen to this Baraca Class.  Some folks will take advantage of seniors.  So let me offer a few suggestions about wising up to some of the ways of the world.

Someone calls and says he’s from your bank.  Says there are some problems with your account and they need to get your account number so they can be sure everything is OK.  May even says you need to take all your money out of the bank for a little while and let them keep it for you while they fix the problem.  If you get that kind of phone call, it’s a phony call.  Don’t believe a word.

Likewise, don’t give anybody your Social Security number on the phone.  Your government agency or bank already has your Social Security number.  Don’t give any personal information about yourself to anyone other than a family member or a trusted friend who helps you on a regular basis.

On the Internet, people will ask for your Social Security number or your bank number.  I’ve gotten official-looking e-mails from banks.  If I were to give what they ask for, they could clean me out financially.  In one case, I don’t even have an account at that bank, but if I gave them my account number, they could tap into my bank.  When I get those e-mails, I look up the legitimate 8-hundred phone number for the bank they claim to represent and I report this scam.

And then, those e-mails claiming to represent a multi-million dollars account in Africa.  If you will send your financial information and a couple hundred dollars of good-faith money, you can share their wealth.

Another scam involves repairs on your house or yard.  A guy shows up and says your roof need some work done.  Or your gutters.  Or you need to have some painting done.  Then he asks for a down payment to show you’re serious.  Don’t believe it.  There’s a good chance you’ll never see the so-called repairman or your money again.   

If someone shows up at your door uninvited, ask him to leave.  If he doesn’t leave,  lock your door and call the police.  Don’t let anyone into your house or apartment if you don’t know the person.  There are criminals looking for the opportunity to take advantage of you and me because we’re old, and they think they can get away with it.

I began with a true story from my teenage years of how a shrewd, fast-talking buddy got me to loan him some money and probably had no intention of paying me back.  But he finally did repay.

Let me tell you another story from those early years to illustrate my naiveté.     Our family never had a car while we kids were growing up in the country, so my brothers and sisters and I rarely went much of anywhere besides school and church.  I guess other kids were aware of our limited experience.  One day, a boy my age started to ask me whether I knew another boy.  But then, he stopped and said, “Oh, you wouldn’t know him.  He doesn’t go to church.”

This boy probably didn’t intend that as a putdown.  He just saw it as a fact.  But it stung when I heard him say that.  Here’s the point: it’s great to be deeply involved in church and religious activities.  But if that’s the only thing we do, we may need to branch out and get a better understanding of life beyond the church, lest we fall prey to people who try to take advantage of us.

[F]or the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

In conclusion, consider these basic lessons from this parable: 

First, in the owner, we can see two sides to God:  God is the Righteous Judge who will call us to account.  But God’s judgment is tempered with mercy as He looks past the man’s dishonesty and sees potential for good.  

Second, as Christians, we are challenged to learn from the dishonest man’s resourcefulness.  But, rather, than follow his example of dishonesty,  we should learn from his creativity.  We should be strive to be as alert and active for Christ as the dishonest steward was for his selfish interests.

George Buttrick gives examples of children of this age being wiser than the children of light:

The worldling thoroughly cares for his senses, while the follower of Christ is casual about 

his soul.  The golfer takes lessons and reads books, while the religious man forgets his prayers.

The salesman becomes an evangelist for some gadget, while the disciple of Jesus rarely

mentions the Savior of the world.

(George Arthur Buttrick, “The Gospel According to St. Luke Exposition,” The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 8.  New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1952)

Then, we see a third application as Jesus rounds out the story of this shrewd but selfish manager in verse 9:  So I say to you, use your worldly wealth to win friends for yourselves, so that when money is a thing of the past you may be received into an eternal home (New English Bible).

If we are children of light who use our money wisely to win friends, that means we will reach out to the hungry, the homeless, the sick, those without clothes, those in prison, and others in need.  When we do this, we will hear the commendation of our Lord: When you have reached out in love to those who cannot help themselves, you have ministered to me (Matthew 25).

Then we will be welcomed into God’s eternal home.