Favorability Rating

Colossians 3:12-17

^NRS Colossians 3:12 ¶ As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³ Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴ Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Well now, have you heard the news? Heard the news, have you? Tiger Woods favorability rating is down to 38%. Two weeks ago it was 56%. Two years ago it was 83%. Now here’s the thing: apparently well-paid football stars like Payton Manning and Tom Brady, they can’t get to 83%. Tiger Woods was at 83% and now, there he is: 38%.

It raises a couple of questions in my mind. The first question being, “Why do we know that?” And how do we find out? I mean for goodness sakes, who answers the question when they call you? I mean if somebody calls me and wants to ask me questions like that, I hang up! So I’m thinking maybe the information isn’t even accurate, it’s a skewed sample. Ok, 38% of the people who were willing to answer the phone and answer those questions approve, and the rest don’t, but the rest of us . . . . I don’t know; it raises that question for me. What do we know? Why do we care?

Do you know how easy it was for me to find out that statistic? I didn’t remember it, I just Googled “favorability rating” and “Tiger Woods” and there it was. It’s easy for us, isn’t it? There’s something about humanity that wants to look at somebody coming down, that wants to look at somebody that’s been accused of something and say, “Oh, that’s bad, I don’t approve of that. Not only do I not do that, but I disapprove of it, so I’m doubly righteous.”

I have a feeling we’re doing that with an eye to our own favorability rating in our head. How do we measure up? Am I up from him? Down from him? “Well I don’t do that, but I do other things . . . ” We’re looking at our own favorability rating, and it makes us incredibly judgmental and self-righteous. Maybe sex isn’t your sin. I love Billy Graham, he used to say, “Well sex just doesn’t happen to be my sin. It’s not the thing that really gets to me. So I’m lucky, I get off the hook from the way the other televangelists do.” He says, “Greed is my problem and it’s socially acceptable.

Not more acceptable for Paul you understand – greed, fornication were the same category for him, but we manage to find a way to find a way for ourselves to be self-righteous, to be judgmental. We’re looking for some way that our favorability rating is going to go up.

So some people meditate. That really puts their favorability rating up, right? And most people don’t meditate. I don’t know, couple of rungs do. Monday through Thursday, I do for half an hour; I think my favorability rating is up until I read about Buddhist Monks and then I go, oh well.

Favorability rating in front of whom? Some sort of internal development? Some sort of image of who we’re supposed to be that’s been set up by some combination of society and our parents and our own particular biology? Is that what we think we need to justify ourselves to, measure up, and become something that we’re supposed to become. And if we can’t become it, well at least we can get closer than some other people, especially famous, rich people.

Anyway, that’s the first question that comes up. And when people are judgmental and self-righteous, and looking at other people trying to figure out where their favorability rating is, well that’s the kind of thing that divides people. It’s the kind of thing that tears people apart because if you feel as though judgment has come crashing down upon your neck, you’re apt to fight out and fight back, because you want to rebuild your favorability rating – at least in your own mind’s eye.

This business about judging other people, suggesting that well, “He’s rotten but I’m good,” we all know that’s a bit of a lie. Everybody has a secret. Everybody has some thing that they carry that makes them feel somewhat ashamed, wondering why they don’t measure up.

My second question, not even mine really, but it’s a question that has been asked a lot in the last couple of weeks. I can’t even avoid it. I try to avoid it. “Was he stupid?” “What was he thinking?”

Well thinking didn’t come into it. Thinking doesn’t come into it. A lot of things come into it. One of the things that comes into it is a fact that we want to enjoy our lives. I’m no different, he’s no different. And we happen to be doing so in a society that does not support commitment in marriage relationships. We do so in a society that just assumes this kind of thing is going to go on all the time; where sexuality is just promoted so much that the human body is attuned to it all the time. The guy’s away from his wife months out of the year, he’s surrounded by all of this. He wasn’t thinking. He was looking for personal fulfillment, if we want to put a positive spin on it.

But the trouble is when we do that it hurts other people. It hurts other people. That’s why one of the steps in the 12-step programs is to make amends. We can recognize the impulses we have, the things we do when we’re not thinking, they hurt other people, and they divide people. They tear people apart. But what are we supposed to do? I mean, the way I just spun it, Tiger was helpless. Wasn’t much he could do in a culture like this, in a situation like he was in. Not much you can do either, if somebody treats you in a way that hurts you, you respond to something and they had done that too, because we are not completely isolated from one another. Oh, I know, there’s such a thing as free choice, but it has limits.

Well the apostle apparently had some difficulty with the people in Colossae. They were apparently struggling with this thing. They couldn’t think and they were self-righteous. You can tell that from the list of stuff that he wants them to stop: ok, no more fornication, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and greed, please! Billy Graham, you are not off the hook. Uh huh. No anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language shall come from your mouth, and no lies. Well now, the self-righteous move within us is beginning to be judged.

And that thing within us that looks to increase our favorability rating, no, no the apostle wants to get rid of all of that. And it gets to the heart of it when he talks about an “old” self and a “new” self. That an “old” self is one that which is caught up in that kind of pattern, looking for self-fulfillment, looking for enjoyment, and then also trying to deal with its favorability rating. When you’re caught up with all that, that is, all of it, an “old” kind of self; a self that has an identity in a strange kind of place. Its identity is all about itself.

But Paul sees that there is a “new” self, there is something else going on. And he talks about being “raised with Christ,” whatever that means. “Raised with Christ”, hidden in the life of God. Well we talked about being “in Christ” about Christ through which all things cohere a couple of weeks ago. We talked about that 14 billion year story of creation that we’re caught up in, we’re about to enter the next moment of it as the Spirit of God moves forward.

One of the things I like about the fact that we’ve finally dated the universe, is that we recognize that it’s simply not possible in 14 billion years for human beings to have arrived by accident. What that tells me is that something is driving this; some creative move is driving this. Call it an evolutionary impulse. Call it the creative heart of God. Call it the Word, the Logos. Call it a strange attractor, that thing that seems to bring beauty and order out of the most unbelievable chaos. Whatever it is, it’s what’s moving forward in creation. It’s what’s moving forward in our own lives. It’s what’s unfolding in the world around us.

And what Paul says is that when you identify with that, when you are attached to that, well then these other things can fall away. These other things can disappear, because instead of your identity being wrapped up in a culture that you react to, your identity is wrapped up in the presence of the God who can do nothing but bring something beautiful and holy from your life. That’s what Paul is after, a new identity. No more jockeying for a better favorability rating. It’s just not an issue. Because when you have an identity that you are a part of the world that God is bringing into the future, when you have an identity and you can stand within that wholly, well then the thinking you do – or the not thinking you do – carries you along in an ethical path. It carries you along in a way that does not divide you from other people. It carries you along in a way that becomes more and more beautiful.

But the thing is it takes practice. It really takes a lot of practice, because there is a whole lot of everything surrounding us all the time that’s telling us, “No, it’s all about you. It’s about whether you behave properly, it’s about whether you enjoy yourself, it’s about whether you are fulfilled, it’s about whether you live up to an expectation.” You get that message often enough and it gets confusing. No, it’s not about you; it’s about the next step the Spirit is bringing about in our world. And oh, does the world need a next step today. It doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past. There’s no “favorability rating” that some God up there, like Santa Claus, is checking and trying to figure out. Instead there’s a movement of the Spirit of God, one that wishes to hold onto our life and hide it in the bosom of God, so that it can be transformed, so that you can be identified in that place, and make beautiful and wonderful things. But it’s a habit to get to that place.

I’ve mentioned this before and I’m going to keep mentioning it, until the church eventually catches on. I think we’ve lost something when we gave up the confessional in the Protestant church. I think we lost it. I mean we’re giving a little more time to our prayer of Examen and silence. I’ve got you up to 40 seconds now. We’re giving a little more time to it. Don’t raise your hand, but I’m really curious to know how many of you were actually thinking about anything, examining your life. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’m just counting.

I want to bring back the confessional, because that’s the moment to move your identity from one place to another – from old self to new self. And it happens in a serious way when you are confronted with another human being who listens to you and says to you, “you are not identified by those things that you do. You are not identified by the world that surrounds you, but rather you are identified here in the arms of God.”

And you know how when you were a kid you used to hear your friends, or maybe some of you did go to confession, and the priest would say, “Ok, you cussed at your brother, so you say five Hail Mary’s’.” Some people look at that as though you say five Hail Mary’s to pay back God for this cussing you’ve done. That was never the point. The point was always to say five Hail Mary’s as a way of allowing yourself to re-identify with the presence of God, so that you would no longer need to cuss at your brother. It was never about improving your favorability rating!!!!

I feel like we ought to bring back a kind of confessional. Or at least a way for one another to speak and be held accountable, because it’s when we’re able to release those things that we haven’t thought about, the fear that we have that our favorability rating isn’t high enough – It’s when we say those things out loud, and we hear from one another that, no, you are identified by the presence of the Christ, that which makes all things cohere; the Driving force of beautiful, creative love that is unfolding within you.

It’s a habit, getting to that place. And when you’re in the habit, you can put away fornication, impurity, passion, evil, desire, greed, idolatry, lies, anger, wrath, malice. If you find those things are in your life, all it means is that you need a little more practice. We all need a little more practice.

I wonder what my favorability rating would be. I’m thinking probably 83% for those who don’t know me; it would probably drop down just a little bit, for those who know me a little better and well, don’t you dare ask my wife. Thinking about things in that way makes us defensive. Feeling like we’re low instead of valued and held in the hands of God; it is discouraging and keeps us from growth. Well the good news is that Christ is unfolding and living within us, and it does not matter one bit what secret shame you carry within your heart. God will still be God. God will still hold your life in God’s hands, and allow you to grow and identify with the wonder and the beauty of the next step of creation. That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to get into the habit of knowing that prese