October 13, 2024

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Mark 10:17-31

Ah, you who turn justice to wormwood and bring righteousness to the ground!

They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.

Who do they hate? They hate prophets, like Amos, those who are telling them they are doing something wrong. The Book of Amos is not a frequent flier on Sunday mornings. It is most notable for being quoted by Martin Luther King in one of his speeches: “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Amos is also notable because it is thought to be one of the earliest books in the Bible. Earliest meaning that an existing copy of the Book of Amos dates from well before most other parts of the Hebrew scriptures. Other small pieces, like Psalm 29, are thought to be older, but Amos and the first part of Isaiah are the oldest major works. That does not mean that there are not older stories in the Bible, but some of those stories were carried on for centuries in oral tradition rather than written down right away. Amos was likely set down because it was a religious indictment of Israelite society.

The message of Amos is a sharp critique as the prophet denounces the subversion of justice and the loss of righteousness. The poor are being abused and wealth is being heaped up by the rich. This is an ancient and recurring theme in the Bible: we need to take care of the poor and to live righteously.

Now let me pose a question for this morning: what is the Bible about? What is the message of the Bible? This morning the message is about caring for the poor and living righteous lives. Is that the message of the Bible?

You might think for a moment and say, well that and other things. Other things like what?

To be fair, the Bible is complicated and there are many different stories in it. And when we read the Bible, we have to navigate those many stories and themes because there are differences. There are even inconsistencies. People who value the Bible have been making such judgment calls for thousands of years.

And, people then repeatedly make choices in life that reinforce the need for the prophets to call out for justice and righteousness. Not because everyone is being just or righteous, but because people are cherry-picking the Bible for the passages and ideas that instead make them comfortable, that reinforce the selfish life choices they are making.

I will come back to that problem.

This week we are considering another film. A comedy, or more accurately a parody. A parody of a series of older films that in turn were based upon an even older book. The movie was Young Frankenstein, directed by Mel Brooks, starring Gene Wilder, Terri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman and a host of other comedic actors from the 1970s. It is a humorous take on many older Frankenstein movies.

I am guessing that most people have an image of Frankenstein – a large monstrous man with scars across his body and metal bolts on his neck. He is often portrayed with green skin. He is not able to speak clearly or at all. He was the product of stitching together body parts, with a corrupt brain, whatever that means. His creator, Dr. Frankenstein then zaps everything with a bunch of electricity and, poof, new life is formed.

In the movies, the creature is often shown as an innocent giant who is treated badly by others, causing him to become angry and lashing out at his tormentors. He does accidently kill a young girl because of his childlike lack of understanding. Then a mob forms, torches and pitchforks are gathered, and the hunt is on for the misunderstood monster.

How tragic, how sad. Isn’t it terrible when people try to play God? That is the general flow of the movies, with a few twists and turns, though there have been some variations from that plot synopsis. I wondered if the movie adaptation was true to the underlying book by Mary Shelley. So, I picked up a copy.

The title of the book is Frankenstein: the 1818 Text. That date signifies the original publication. I had not realized the book was that old. Then I looked at the back cover and read: “the original 1818 text, which preserves the hard-hitting politically charged aspects of Shelley’s original writing, with its strong female voice and unflinching wit.”

I read this and thought, What? That description does not seem to have anything to do with Boris Karloff clomping about. And it certainly does not have much to do with Mel Brooks’ comedic take on the monster movie genre.

One way of interpreting the original story of Frankenstein is that this is what would happen if men could create life. Men, not women, because creating life is not the same as nurturing life, caring for children. In the book, Frankenstein creates this creature not by sewing together body parts and zapping it with lightning, but by somehow discovering a secret technique for bringing inanimate matter to life. He succeeds in this mysterious experiment, but his creation is repulsive to him, with yellowish translucent skin and watery eyes. Frankenstein rejects the creature and runs away.

And what might happen if you were to abandon a newly born human being, one with the mind and body of a gigantic adult but no understanding of the world around him? It does not turn out well. The creature tries to gain acceptance from human beings, but they are repulsed by him, and he becomes bitter from the rejection and seeks vengeance.

Mary Shelley was using her life experiences to flesh out this story. Her father, William Godwin, was a progressive political philosopher who had married a progressive feminist philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft. She died soon after their daughter Mary was born. And when Mary the younger began a relationship with a married man, Percy Shelley, an English Romantic era poet, Mary perhaps expected acceptance, due to all that progressive thinking in the household. But instead, her father rejected her and the relationship, even though Mary considered her father to be her ideal man and a perfect parent. The bitterness of the creature is her own bitterness and her criticism of the creations of men, actual and intellectual, is seen both in her book and across her life.

Why was the book from 1818 different from the book in later years? Because people were scandalized. It was at first published anonymously and its message about someone taking over the powers of God to create a human being was deemed blasphemous. That reaction only got worse when they realized the author was a woman – how could a woman be a writer in the 19^th century? The very idea.

So, it was Mary who reworked the original novel, which is said to be the first science fiction novel in the English language. The book has been repeatedly reworked, such as when it was popularized into a stage play. You might imagine this is how the story lost most of the social commentary and philosophizing. The story was then adapted as one of the early silent films and as one of the early films with sound.

The underlying framework of the story remains, but the content is different. In the movie, the creature is child-like, not intelligent and articulate. The creature is violent in reaction to his mistreatment, but it is like an animal lashing out, unlike in the book where the creature is clever, cruel, and vindictive.

And the movies often have relatively happy endings. In the 1931 movie, one girl is accidently killed by the creature when he throws her into a well in innocent imitation of her dropping flower petals in. In the book, the creature goes on a killing spree of everyone his creator knew. Frankenstein then chases him around the world trying to put an end to the creature’s schemes of revenge.

The more recent comedy, Young Frankenstein, is multiple steps away from gritty social commentary about the nature of creation and the risk of neglectful fathers. It is also wildly not feminist in its story telling, with women being the butt of many of the jokes and basically serving as movie props for comedy sketches. But this was also a very popular, financially successful film, that is considered one of the top comedic films of all time. And all that success and popular opinion is without any of the high-minded themes and messages of Mary Shelley in 1818.

Even she softened those themes and messages in her redrafting of the book. Why? Because she needed the money. Her husband Percy Shelley died before he inherited his family’s wealth, leaving her to raise her surviving child, also named Percy. She also wanted to be taken seriously as an author, which was difficult in 19^th century Victorian England. The original message changed because she wanted people to listen to her, even if that meant altering the story.

Which brings me back to that earlier question: what is the Bible about?

Again, the Bible is complicated. Some religious groups think that the Bible is a connected story, from beginning to end, from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation. Just follow along and you will be able to make it out. However, that is not true in my estimation. The Bible is not a single cohesive story. It is complex and inconsistent. Even if you were to read only the New Testament, you might quickly notice that the Gospel of Mark disagrees with the Gospel of John.

What do I mean by disagrees?

In the Gospel of Mark, for example, Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. That is how it ends. The disciples find an empty tomb, but it is not entirely clear if he was resurrected. There is no mention of Jesus coming back and speaking to the disciples. The last line of the Gospel of Mark is, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

We are left with a mystery about what happened. And that is not the sort of mystery that Early Christians wished to remain unresolved. In the three subsequent Gospels, because Mark was indeed the first one written, there is no mystery. There are extended explanations of what happened along with accounts of Jesus speaking and even eating with the disciples.

The Gospel of Mark was eventually edited to add on short accounts of Jesus personally sending the disciples forth to preach the good news. But these were clearly added on after the fact. Meaning, someone edited the Gospel of Mark to match the other three Gospels, because…because why?

Perhaps if you do not spell things out, the mystery could be interpreted in unexpected ways. Maybe that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Maybe that Jesus continued to live on rather than rising up into heaven. Or maybe some other story would be told to fill in the gap left by Mark. This is a literal example of the Bible being changed to reflect the views of those who did not write the Gospel of Mark.

But many such changes are not quite so literal. They are matters of emphasis or selective ignorance. For example, our readings this morning are both about taking care of the poor. Here is a line from Mark: “[S]ell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

This message was not well-received by the man who had asked how he could obtain eternal life. Jesus then famously says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Maybe that is what the Bible is about? Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus? I am guessing that few if any of us gathered here this morning have done that. I have not done that, and this is my day job.

Why not? Why not listen to what Jesus said? Because Christians often ignore what Jesus had to say.

There is a subtlety of language that you might notice when I preach. I will more often say “follower of Jesus” than “Christian.” That is quite intentional. Not because I dislike the term Christian, but I often find that it is a word that people use as a shorthand for their religious identity without digging down deeper into what is meant by it. Jesus taught many lessons that modern Christians ignore. And that willful ignorance is often guided by religious leaders who focus on certain ideas to the exclusion of others.

Modern Christians tend to be fixated on the idea of eternal life, like the man in the Gospel reading. But the answer to the question of how to attain eternal life has changed at least for American Christians. It is now accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. That is the textbook 20^th century theological answer to the question of how to attain eternal life. But the textbook answer is notably different from the Biblical answer, sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus.

Why? Why do we ignore what Jesus said and gloss it all over with faith statements about accepting Jesus?

Because Christians are not always followers of Jesus.

Followers meaning those who look to what Jesus taught as a way of understanding what they are supposed to do in this life. Put another way, if you think you only need to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, and not do anything else, you might be a Christian and you might not be a follower of Jesus. Those terms are not religiously or theologically identical. By the way, saying that in a roomful of clergy is an easy way of starting a brawl.

Imagine if you will, a photocopy machine. I have a photo that I want to reproduce. The first time through, the copy looks pretty much the same. Copy it a few more times, and the picture quality begins to go down. It gets more and more fuzzy and grainy. You can no longer make out some details. But you still can make out what the photo shows, broadly speaking.

Now, imagine doing the same thing with the Bible. The earliest copy of the Book of Amos dates to 2,800 years ago. The earliest Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, was written in about the year 65, almost 2,000 years ago.

Over the centuries, the books of the Bible have been copied and copied, translated from ancient languages into modern languages. Some were even translated from Hebrew or Greek into Latin and then in English, French, or whatever. Copies of copies.

And the Bible is unusual in that a single word can be expanded upon to make some grand pronouncement upon the nature of God or the meaning of life. So, any copying mistakes or distortions can change dramatically how we interpret God or life.

Even when the text is clear, like our readings this morning, they are not always treated with the degree of clarity you might expect. Jesus was not being subtle and was telling this man and his followers how to obtain eternal life. And for centuries people have tried to explain away that clear message by focusing on other passages of the Bible or swapping in explanations of religious figures who think we ought to focus on something else.

And I must admit that I am no different. Do I think you should sell everything you own and follow Jesus? No, I do not. I think we should follow Jesus and his commandments, but I do not think it is possible to follow everything Jesus taught and to live in our modern world. I do not think it is reasonable or healthy. The Bible is filled with advice that might have made more sense a few thousand years ago, though even the man in the story thought Jesus was asking too much. Maybe I am just in love with all my stuff. Maybe.

Here’s what I think. I imagine the teachings of Jesus as a set of concentric circles, like a bullseye. In the center of this target are the primary and therefore the more essential teachings. And as you move out from the middle, the teachings are still worth bearing in mind, but with a greater concern for the middle.

And if you have heard more than one sermon of mine, you can probably predict what is in the middle. To love God and to love one another. Why are Jesus and Amos concerned for the poor? Because they are poor and, therefore, they are suffering. If they were not poor, meaning not hungry or homeless or otherwise in distress, we would have met the expectation of taking care of the poor, whether directly by us or the way we organize our society.

Love means alleviating the suffering of others, of caring for others. And there can be no concept of wealth when people are in need. Wealth in this instance means money you have not spent to take care of the poor. Wealth in this sense is to ignore the needs of others. Not the wants, not the desires, but the needs of others. The food, shelter, clothing, water, and so on that they need to live and to thrive. In the present age, there is no reason in the world for hunger to exist. There is no reason for human suffering unmet by the care and concern of others, notably those who claim to follow Jesus.

You do not need to sell everything you have and join the ranks of the poor to help alleviate the suffering of those around us. You need to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the bullseye we all must aim for if we are to be counted as followers of Jesus. And if that means we place aside some of the modern interpretations of Christians, such as accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior to the exclusion of the actual teachings of Jesus, then I am just fine with that.

Because if you love God and love your neighbor as yourself, I am confident that you need not be worried about obtaining eternal life. I have no way of proving that to you, mind you, but I am in fairly good and universal company because no one else can prove that to you either.

Besides, you can accept Jesus into your heart, without ignoring what needs to be done. Without ignoring what it might take to make the world a place filled with love rather than one filled with suffering. Because that would truly make us into monsters. Amen.