Last year’s Page for this day incorporated the odd and fearful experience of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira. They were guilty of lying, violating integrity, finding hypocrisy, embracing greed, and distorting the meaning of Christ and the Church. Their approach was not unlike a modern pattern for many persons who learn how to work the system for their own benefit at a cost to others. Many of us have found those who avoid their own responsibility to a fair system by playing it their own way in conflict with the integrity of a program. Many social programs that are meant to serve needy persons are stretched beyond their resources by those who spend their time working around appropriate guidelines for their own presumptuous benefit. When successful, it amounts to ill-gotten gain, and belongs to a context of thievery. Manipulations are perceived more easily in personal circumstances than those in large social situations. Whether in large or small contexts we are informed about human depravity – a constant problem.
The nature of man is commonly conflicted between idealism and conduct. Confliction may hold some intellectual/emotional ambivalence about the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, we know persons are broken, and may find the gospel of forgiveness with acceptance from God for spiritual healing. Usually the convert (real or hypocritical) does not expect that Christian faith will mean relief from the vagaries of natural life, but does expect matters to improve. They do go better in the genuine context, but that better may relate to the way a person begins to manage difficult life experience. Life problems may be made more difficult in treatment. The following summary helps understanding the complexity of the context.
In a well written article by Tom Verducci, in Sports Illustrated, the story is told of the drug culture in professional baseball that has become a scandal, reducing the respect of the public for many stars of the sport. As I write this, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, Roger Clemens, is in court defending himself against charges of lying about his use of stimulants to enhance performance. (He seems to have prevailed.) But, my interest here is the story of Dan Naulty, a promising rookie pitcher in the Minnesota Twins organization in 1994, and moved along to the point of becoming a New York Yankee, an ideal assignment for numerous players. He lost everything, taking on narcotics, becoming an alcoholic, thinking seriously about suicide, living a party life, losing interest in baseball – and receiving a World Series ring as a Yankee.
In the pits he attended the devotionals held informally by the Christian players of the Yankees. There were eminent Yankee players in the group. Permit Naulty’s words to summarize the story: I never heard the gospel before. I walked to the front of the room and accepted Christ as my Savior. But nothing happened. My lifestyle didn’t change. Naulty could not figure out why men making so much money, having everything they wanted, and the plaudits of the public, would need God. By day I would hang out with the Christians and talk to them about God. . . .When I left the park it was a Jekyll and Hyde thing. I’d run around Manhattan with my head cut off all night and just get loaded up and start the whole process again. Later, when his name appeared in a report on steroid use, he was surprised to see the names of some of the men he had admired. The years have gone by, the riches are gone in programs to recover life normalcy, but the way to integrity and life wholeness was found. Naulty is attached to the ministry of his church to serve Christ, and to teach the biblical concepts of Christian life. His story is common enough to those who have served in counseling ministries. Counselors sometimes find the Ananias/Sapphira syndrome in counselees, or some other context just as ugly. The awareness of personal sin and the birth of faith need commitment of life to righteousness, and the Lord who can assist in the program. We regret that the hypocrite model is sometimes taken as standard, even though Christian models far outnumber the caricatures. As Jesus tolerated Judas, so giving him his freedom of choice, we too are hurt by tolerated renegades in life contexts. Hypocrisy does not exist only in religion. It is found in culture in matters like prejudice, or excess in even favorable factors. The withholding of those who have from those who have not is a kind of hypocrisy in the promise of abundance for all. We may be authors of shame. God’s answer is that we serve each other. In doing so there is answer to human desperation. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020