Brothers and sisters, I heard last night that you are angry.
The television man said that you hollered at your Congressman for letting the
debt ceiling be raised. Is that right? Are you as angry as the New York Times
reporter — the one the television man gets his news from (8-12-11) — says you
are? Are you? Are you? [great roar, "Yes!"]
In that case, watch out, brothers and sisters. Take a minute
to read your Bible. Do you know what it says about anger? Do you? Do you?
[silence] It says (James 1:19), "be slow to get angry." It says
(Proverbs, 14: 29), "Those with a hasty temper will make mistakes."
It says — listen carefully, brothers and sisters —it says that "your anger
can never make things right in God's sight" (James again).
Do you want to do right in God's sight? I wonder. Who are
you angry at? Your Congressman, of course, because he didn't fight hard enough
to hold down spending. Maybe at those senators who won't hold down spending
your Congressman's way. But most likely you're angry at President Obama, who's
behind all those Democrat spenders. Is that right? Is that right? [great roar,
"Yes!"]
What does it mean, "to do right in God's sight"?
Have you asked yourself that? Have you looked into your Bible? Really looked into
it? Paid attention? Close attention? Have you? Have you? [silence]
Sure you have. You've just forgotten. Doing right in God's
sight is doing what Joseph did in Egypt. He got the message from God that seven
lean years were coming, preceded by seven fat years. And what was he supposed
to do during those fat years? Lay up! Lay up! Food of the field, food in the
cities, corn like the sand of the sea, into the granaries "against the
seven years of famine, that the land perish not."
That's what you do in fat years, lay up. Our fat years were
the 80s and 90s. What were you doing then? About the deficit. About Social
Security. About all the entitlements that are killing us now. Did you think
twice about a trillion-dollar war? It would have been easy then for a President
to reduce spending. Plenty of money, jobs easy, no recession. Did you read your
Bible thinking fat years in Egypt had no connection with fat years in the
United States? Did you think God's message had nothing to do with you? Did you
expect him to communicate in some other way? Great Heavens, brothers and
sisters, you stand in front of the world holding up the Bible. When in God's
name are you going to look into it? Are you going to rely on me, just me, or
some preacher on television, to tell you what's in it?
Well, since that's the way it is, I'm going to tell you. I'm
no Jeremiah or Isaiah, I'm a frail reed, but I've got their message, and they
give me strength to deliver it. It's this: you have sinned in the eyes of the
Lord, sinned to high heaven. You sinned then in your profligacy and you sin now
in trying to blame somebody else.
Now you might have missed the first sin but I don't see how
in the world, if you had read your Bible, you could have missed the second. The
Bible is full of scorn for those who try to shift the blame. There's Adam, a
worm squirming under God's gaze: "This woman whom thou gavest to be with
me, SHE gave me of the tree, and I did eat." There's Aaron, claiming that
the "mischievous" people made him make a graven image. "They
gave me the gold and out came this calf." What do you know, out came that
calf. There's Saul, trying to blame "the people" for denying God
"the best of the sheep and of the oxen" on his sacrificial altar. And
finally there's Pontius Pilate washing his hands to show that the blame for
Christ's death falls on "the multitude."
You (help me, Jeremiah) are Adam and Aaron and Saul and
Pontius Pilate. Why? Because you are trying to avoid the personal
responsibility you're always out there making so much of.
And you know this. You know in your heart that you are
guilty, and it's a burden to you. I can see it in the way you try to lighten
that burden. You'd see it too if you would just go back and look at the way the
Israelites tried to lighten their burden of guilt. They put "all their
iniquities" on a goat (called "the scapegoat") and sent him
"into the wilderness."
That's what you are doing. Your choice of goat varies but I
see that your goats do have one thing in common: they all work in Washington.
That's where the sin is. Not where you live.
And you know what? I believe that you love virtue and hate
sin. And you have an intense desire to show that, to others and to yourself.
That's why you are so strict about frugality and austerity and discipline,
today's great virtues.
The thing is, your timing is terrible. And that changes
everything. You want frugality just when imposition of it will damage the
budding prosperity that you also want. Twenty years ago you could have had it,
and been happy with your President. Now you can't have it unless your
President, that goat, commits a lot of the sins you hate.
I have searched the Bible, brothers and sisters, for
comparisons to what you are now, people who have betrayed the ideals of their
religion, neglected their Holy Scripture, and acted like the pleasure-loving
heathens they scorn. And who in their hearts know this.
That leaves you feeling guilty, doesn't it? You're not as good as your
grandfather. Well, you'll show
him, and his demanding spirit. You
may not have practiced the old virtues for a while but by God you'll come out
for them now. Twice as
loudly. You'll give these unfrugal
Democrats the beating of their lives.
Of course it's the beating you should have been giving
yourselves in the 80s and 90s.
Only with what psychologists call "compensatory exaggeration."
You're the watchdog who, missing the stranger until he gets to the door, barks
the place down. "See, I'm just as good at watching as I ever was."
The trouble is, that's a personal-virtue problem, with both
you and the dog. And sometimes personal-virtue problems fit the nation's
problems and sometimes they don't. Right now the fit is terrible. I mean to the
point of your committing new and greater sins. If you bring the house down to
save your virtue you've injured a lot of your brothers. The Bible has a lot to
say about that, my friends, injury to brothers. Look into it, brothers and
sisters. Look into it closely.
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