Snake oil religion and tunnel vision
Commentary
Browsing through a friend's collection of antique botties I came across a bottle of patent medicine. The label proclaimed the benefits of Dr. Townsend's Compact Extract Of Sarsaparilla. Under a picture of the good doctor surrounded by angelic figures, the promises of this elixir were listed.
For the Removal and Permanent Cure of all Diseases arising from the Impure State of the Blood, or Habit of the System, Vix, Scrofula or King's Evil, Rheumatism, Obstinate Cutaneous Eruptions, Pimples or Postules on the Face, Blotches, Biles, Chronic Sore Eyes, Ring Worm, or Tetter, Scald Head, Enlargement and Pain of the Bones and Joints, Stubborn Ulcers, Syphilitic Disorders, Lumbago, Spinal Complaints, and all Diseases arising from an injudicious use of Mercury: Acites, or Dropsy, Exposure or Imprudence in Life. It invariably cures Indigestion or Dyspepsia, Neuralgia, General or Nervous Debility, Palpitation of the Heart, Liver Complaint, and Inflammation of the Kidneys. Ladies of plain complexion and Consumptive habits, and such as are debilitated by those obstructions which Females are liable to, are restored by use of a bottle or two to bloom and vigor.
The price of this cure-all was listed as one dollar a bottle or six bottles for five dollars. The snake oil vendor and traveling medicine show are a bit of Americana. Bunkum and baloney have always found a market, not just among us but in human history. Frank Baum enshrined the great humbug in our memory with his delightful tale of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz.
Gullibility is a common human disposition. We recall P.T. Barnum's comment that "a sucker is born every minute." He also commented on the profitability of grandiose promises. "Every cloud has a silver lining." Even in matters spiritual there is a market for the peddlers of snake oil religion. The prophets of Israel encountered it in the form of baalism. Today's Old Testament reading gives us one of Jeremiah's powerful indictments of cheap faith and its hucksters.
All sorts of peddlers of snake oil religion were prowling around in the days of the early church and the writer of Hebrews, as did other leaders, warned his flock to be wary of strange teachings. Both he and Jeremiah were concerned about the ways we can be taken in by ideas that, like cracked cisterns, just do not hold any water. There is one who is our helper, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Today's epistle reading omits some words that I would certainly include. "Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured" (Hebrews 13:13). These can be associated with Luke 14:12-14 in a powerful way.
The gospel reading turns us from snake oil religion to tunnel vision. Tunnel vision is a metaphor for a visual defect resulting from a self-absorbed agenda that excludes others from our field of vision and concern. We can aH be afflicted by it in one degree or another.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Jeremiah 2:4-13
There are human hungers and anxieties that are constant and these in part explain the attraction of snake oil religion. When the Israelites came into Canaan and started to cluster in villages, it was a time of major transition for them. They ceased to be nomads and became settled farmers. Their social security and recognition now depended on land and crops, family and fertility, seedtime and harvest. The magical cultus of the local Canaanite deities exerted a strong appeal. The disastrous result of their turning to the baalim was to void the moral and ethical dimensions of the Divine/human relationship as represented in the Covenant. The expositor can tie all this into the ongoing appeal of grandiose religious promises, cut-rate gospels, mental tricks and techniques for control, and simplistic answers to complex problems.
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Christian travelers often depended on receiving hospitality along the way from other Christians. An underlying reason for this practice was that lodging places were often rough places with attached brothels. It seems that some were growing tired of providing bed and breakfast for fellow believers. It is also possible that the heat was on the church and some Christians were wary about entertaining other Christians who might be having problems with the authorities. Verse three could well refer to Christians jailed and tortured for the faith.
As I noted above, a most suggestive phrase is not in the prescribed reading. "Let us go to him outside the camp." Read Numbers 5:1-4. Here a priestly hand is at work justifying exclusionary dogmas in the name of Moses. By the time of Jesus all sorts of persons were proscribed. Throwing people out of the camp was one way of getting them out of sight. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus died outside the camp. All this links up in a most powerful way with Luke 14:12-14.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Verses 11 and 14 are the key for interpreting both the parable Jesus told to the invitees and the words he spoke to the host. In neither context is he suggesting humility as a technique for success. Uriah Heep in Dickens' novel, David Copperfield, is the servile sycophant whose humbleness is self-serving. There is also such a thing as an inverted snobbery that feigns humility.
Verses 11 and 14 are a call to see the values of the culture around us in the perspective of eternity. That is how I read the eschatalogical context these two verses give to the words of Jesus in this reading.
We share the same world of values as the guests who covet places of honor and the host who caters only to those who can be of personal help. We all get involved in these games. We entertain hopes of upward mobility; we network when we are engaged in a job search; we seek out contacts and circulate our profiles. We can all fall into the trap of valuing others only in terms of their utility for us.
Set the words of Jesus in the context of what can be called tunnel vision. Tunnel vision is seeing only those who can serve your own agenda. In any social gathering have you ever noticed the person who will concentrate only on certain people and bypass others without even a hint of recognition? The social dimension of tunnel vision is the way the poor, the lame, the crippled, and the blind can all fall outside the pale of our collective vision.
The ecclesiastical shape of the self-advancement game is triumphalism, the quest for political dominance and recognition. The opposite of triumphalism is the church under the cross, the church as the advocate of those outside the camp, the church seeing the world through the eyes of the man from Nazareth who in the light of God's new age turns our world of values upside down. Or should we say right side up?
For the Removal and Permanent Cure of all Diseases arising from the Impure State of the Blood, or Habit of the System, Vix, Scrofula or King's Evil, Rheumatism, Obstinate Cutaneous Eruptions, Pimples or Postules on the Face, Blotches, Biles, Chronic Sore Eyes, Ring Worm, or Tetter, Scald Head, Enlargement and Pain of the Bones and Joints, Stubborn Ulcers, Syphilitic Disorders, Lumbago, Spinal Complaints, and all Diseases arising from an injudicious use of Mercury: Acites, or Dropsy, Exposure or Imprudence in Life. It invariably cures Indigestion or Dyspepsia, Neuralgia, General or Nervous Debility, Palpitation of the Heart, Liver Complaint, and Inflammation of the Kidneys. Ladies of plain complexion and Consumptive habits, and such as are debilitated by those obstructions which Females are liable to, are restored by use of a bottle or two to bloom and vigor.
The price of this cure-all was listed as one dollar a bottle or six bottles for five dollars. The snake oil vendor and traveling medicine show are a bit of Americana. Bunkum and baloney have always found a market, not just among us but in human history. Frank Baum enshrined the great humbug in our memory with his delightful tale of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz.
Gullibility is a common human disposition. We recall P.T. Barnum's comment that "a sucker is born every minute." He also commented on the profitability of grandiose promises. "Every cloud has a silver lining." Even in matters spiritual there is a market for the peddlers of snake oil religion. The prophets of Israel encountered it in the form of baalism. Today's Old Testament reading gives us one of Jeremiah's powerful indictments of cheap faith and its hucksters.
All sorts of peddlers of snake oil religion were prowling around in the days of the early church and the writer of Hebrews, as did other leaders, warned his flock to be wary of strange teachings. Both he and Jeremiah were concerned about the ways we can be taken in by ideas that, like cracked cisterns, just do not hold any water. There is one who is our helper, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Today's epistle reading omits some words that I would certainly include. "Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured" (Hebrews 13:13). These can be associated with Luke 14:12-14 in a powerful way.
The gospel reading turns us from snake oil religion to tunnel vision. Tunnel vision is a metaphor for a visual defect resulting from a self-absorbed agenda that excludes others from our field of vision and concern. We can aH be afflicted by it in one degree or another.
Sermon Seeds In The Lessons
Jeremiah 2:4-13
There are human hungers and anxieties that are constant and these in part explain the attraction of snake oil religion. When the Israelites came into Canaan and started to cluster in villages, it was a time of major transition for them. They ceased to be nomads and became settled farmers. Their social security and recognition now depended on land and crops, family and fertility, seedtime and harvest. The magical cultus of the local Canaanite deities exerted a strong appeal. The disastrous result of their turning to the baalim was to void the moral and ethical dimensions of the Divine/human relationship as represented in the Covenant. The expositor can tie all this into the ongoing appeal of grandiose religious promises, cut-rate gospels, mental tricks and techniques for control, and simplistic answers to complex problems.
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Christian travelers often depended on receiving hospitality along the way from other Christians. An underlying reason for this practice was that lodging places were often rough places with attached brothels. It seems that some were growing tired of providing bed and breakfast for fellow believers. It is also possible that the heat was on the church and some Christians were wary about entertaining other Christians who might be having problems with the authorities. Verse three could well refer to Christians jailed and tortured for the faith.
As I noted above, a most suggestive phrase is not in the prescribed reading. "Let us go to him outside the camp." Read Numbers 5:1-4. Here a priestly hand is at work justifying exclusionary dogmas in the name of Moses. By the time of Jesus all sorts of persons were proscribed. Throwing people out of the camp was one way of getting them out of sight. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus died outside the camp. All this links up in a most powerful way with Luke 14:12-14.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Verses 11 and 14 are the key for interpreting both the parable Jesus told to the invitees and the words he spoke to the host. In neither context is he suggesting humility as a technique for success. Uriah Heep in Dickens' novel, David Copperfield, is the servile sycophant whose humbleness is self-serving. There is also such a thing as an inverted snobbery that feigns humility.
Verses 11 and 14 are a call to see the values of the culture around us in the perspective of eternity. That is how I read the eschatalogical context these two verses give to the words of Jesus in this reading.
We share the same world of values as the guests who covet places of honor and the host who caters only to those who can be of personal help. We all get involved in these games. We entertain hopes of upward mobility; we network when we are engaged in a job search; we seek out contacts and circulate our profiles. We can all fall into the trap of valuing others only in terms of their utility for us.
Set the words of Jesus in the context of what can be called tunnel vision. Tunnel vision is seeing only those who can serve your own agenda. In any social gathering have you ever noticed the person who will concentrate only on certain people and bypass others without even a hint of recognition? The social dimension of tunnel vision is the way the poor, the lame, the crippled, and the blind can all fall outside the pale of our collective vision.
The ecclesiastical shape of the self-advancement game is triumphalism, the quest for political dominance and recognition. The opposite of triumphalism is the church under the cross, the church as the advocate of those outside the camp, the church seeing the world through the eyes of the man from Nazareth who in the light of God's new age turns our world of values upside down. Or should we say right side up?
