Whistle-blowers

By

Reverend Litton Logan

August 19, 2007

Luke 12:49--56 (NRSVA)
⁴⁹“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵²From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; ⁵³they will be divided:

father against son

and son against father,

mother against daughter

and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

⁵⁴He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Sermon:

In today’s scriptures, Jesus is instructing his disciples. He has just come from a several encounters and conflicts with the Pharisees and a Lawyer and they have become hostile towards Jesus. Jesus has in effect publicly blown the whistle on their hypocrisy and their spiritual shallowness.

I would like to share with you a portion of an article from USA Today written July 29, 2004 by Jayne O’Donnell, concerning Whistle-blowers. Whistle-blowers are people who blow the whistle—signal foul or penalty--against corporate executives, government officials, or Church leaders for criminal acts, unsafe practices or other things that adversely affect the lives of others.

Whistle-blowers form a breed apart

By Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON

…

Whistle-blowers persist because that's the way they are — a breed apart, driven by a desire to expose dirty executives, protect consumers or avenge wrongs they feel have been done to them.

…

With or without the backing of the federal government, some people can't imagine keeping quiet when they witness what they believe is wrongdoing. For some, it seems, whistle-blowing becomes almost a way of life.

Things rarely turn out that well for whistle-blowers, who speak out against corporate misdeeds and cast themselves as company pariahs. Whistle-blowers might be heroes to people tired of the scandals that have swept Corporate America, but they often find themselves near-penniless, their home lives and emotional well-being in shambles, and followed by private investigators.

They are very ethical people who follow through on what they were taught as children," says Donald Soeken, a Laurel, Md.-based psychotherapist and an expert witness who specializes in psychological issues in whistle-blowers. "But if someone came to me beforehand, I'd tell them, 'If you can't do it anonymously, don't do it, because you'll be sacrificing yourself.’ "

I find this last statement simply amazing—“…don’t do it, because you’ll be sacrificing yourself.”

Where did we get the naïve idea that doing the right thing was without negative consequences? Where did we get the childish notion that confronting the immorality, the corruption, or indifference of the powers that be in society, government, or in the Church would invoke God’s protection and make us bullet proof along with earning us the praise and appreciation of others? This has never been the case. Look at the great whistle-blowers in Scripture, for example, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus, Paul, and all the others in Christian history that have confronted the corrupt or indifferent powers of Church, State, society, and suffered because of their testimony and witness to God’s moral and spiritual claims on human existence.

Confronting the powers that be as well as the average person with God’s truths tends to alienate and aggravate even the people one is trying to help. It can turn co-workers, friends, and family members against the whistle-blower. God’s truth may lead us in the right moral and spiritual pathways and set us free but it may also bring conflict and controversy.

Luke knew this as an unpleasant fact of his faith. He understood the controversy the Gospel of Jesus Christ was causing and would continue to cause. Jesus knew this also from his Jewish history as well as from his experiences. Luke, like Jesus, knew that people who blow the whistle on immoral behaviors, religious hypocrisy, indifferences, and insensitivities run the risks of persecution, or being ostracized by family and friends.

Luke tells us that Jesus actually wanted to foster such conflicts.

“I’ve come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything right-side up… [Implying things as they are wrong side up] Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront! (TMNT)

Jesus declared that his purpose in life was to pit God’s kingdom values against the values of this world and to call people to repentance and conformance to kingdom values. Kingdom values will cause friction at all levels of society.

Jesus says that people may be smart enough to read the signs of changing weather or cut their losses in a law suite before it’s to late but they can’t seem to grasp the significance of the signs of conflict surrounding his ministry. The signs of the times are clear indications that a major storm is brewing, a storm that will end in the final judgment of the Day of the Lord. A storm of moral and spiritual conflict is coming that will blow out the corruptions of this world and blow in the kingdom of God.

Too many times, we want to characterize the kingdom of God in idyllic and serendipity terms, failing to understand that peace and reconciliation maybe the final character of God’s kingdom, but its coming will bring divisiveness and conflict. Therefore, Christians who are living their faith, on fire for God, should expect and be experiencing opposition, resistance, and even personal danger as they proclaim the Good News of God’s Kingdom. Sometimes opposition and resistance may even come from people that love and care for them.

Dr. William H. Beljean, Jr., in a Sermon titled: “An Interesting Letter", tells a story about a “A Weird New Religious Cult”.

A sociology professor every year begins his course on "The Family" by reading to his class a letter, from a parent, written to a government official. In the letter, the parent complains that his son, once obedient and well motivated, has become involved with some weird new religious cult. The father complains that the cult has taken over the boy's life, has forced him to forsake all of his old friends, and has turned him against his family.

After reading the letter, the professor asks the class to speculate what the father is talking about. Almost without exception, the class immediately assumes that the subject of the letter is a child mixed up with the "Moonies”, or some other controversial group. After the class puts out all of the possible conclusions they can think of, the professor surprises them by revealing that the letter, was written by a third century father in Rome, the governor of his province, complaining about this weird religious group called "The Christians."

Jesus says that the Gospel confronts people with God’s absolute claim on all aspects of a person’s life. It is a claim that frequently requires a person to make a stand against the value references of his or her generation, their families’ values, and the world’s values in favor of divine values.

Jesus’ message confronted a generation of people, not unlike our own, with staid religious perspectives that had clear lines of institutional authority and expectations of others and of God. However, he turns people’s expectations and hopes of the kingdom of God and their place in it upside down. The least shall be the greatest, the last shall be first, and the kingdom of God is not like anything people expect—it’s like a thief that comes in the night.

My friends, God’s revelation, and the work of the Holy Spirit are not static—they are dynamic. Therefore, we must not give in to comfort, familiarity and past successes at the expense of the evolving processes of God’s work in our lives and the Church. We must trust that God is moving us onward and upward, just as the people of Scripture and Christians across history have trusted God as they were moved into divine change. We must trust God as we are called to move out of our comfort zones and into the fray of divine change and growth in our personal lives and in the world.

We are fortunate in Western Christianity to live in a time when Christians as a rule don’t risk organized persecution by other religions or by our government. Yet, I think this has taken some of the fire out of our bellies for the cause of Christ. We are reluctant to disturb the tenuous, peaceful coexistence of the opposing forces of morality and immorality, justice and injustice, conflict and tranquility. Moreover, because Christians and Christianity has become timid or tenuous in confronting sin and evil in our world, our world has grown foul with injustice, war, corruption, immorality, and apathy. We no longer seem to experience the exciting unfolding of the kingdom before our eyes. Christians just seem content with the status quo, which by the way, I imagine makes God very unhappy.

My dear friends, we must be whistle-blowers. As Christians, we need to be a breed apart, distinguished by proclaiming God’s word of grace, justice, and yes, judgment of a world that is hell bent and hell bound. As Spirit filled people, it is our responsibility, to proclaim and give witness to the Gospel for the next generation of people so they will have faith, hope, and the Holy Spirit in their lives.

In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, we hear Jesus say, "Whoever is near me is near fire; whoever is distant from me is distant from the kingdom" (Gospel of Thomas 82).

Remember, if we are standing near Christ, we should be feeling the heat--are we? If we are cool and comfortable, we may be distant from the kingdom.

If we are standing near Christ, proclaiming and giving witness to the Gospel there may be consequences, so let’s seriously considered whether we want to get into the kitchen if we don’t think we can stand the heat. Remember to blow the divine whistle in this world may be to sacrifice ourselves.

Let me add that the heat of standing with Christ is nothing compared to the heat of not standing with Christ.