Praise, Blame, It’s All the Same

A son called from out of state to check with his mother to see how she was doing. His mother, a widow, lived alone. So he called regularly to stay in touch.

“How are you, Mom?” “Oh, I’m fine, but the pipe under the kitchen sink broke.”

“Did you get it fixed?” “No, the plumber said it would cost $305.”

“Mom, I’ll send three hundred dollars right away.” “Thanks, son.”

“Okay, bye.” “And, son?”

“Yes, mom?” “Don’t worry about the other five dollars. I’ll find a way to pay for it myself.”

A great cultural prophet once wryly noted that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Again and again, over and over, it seems that only those who stick their necks out get their heads chopped off.  And people wonder that we are cocooning in an increasingly cloistered and anonymous society?

Technology is making it easier than ever to keep everyone at arm’s length – for the sake of our own safety, of course.  Instead of attending a party or risking a blind date, we meet prospective friends in on-line ‘chat rooms’ – where your identity remains as secret as you want it to be.

Instead of going on shopping excursions where we get out into the real world and deal face to face with actual people, we use Amazon – never leaving our own living rooms.  Even when we are moved to do good for others, to reach out to another, isn’t it far easier to write a check than to volunteer to be actually present?  It is safer to offer money than to offer a smile, to offer an opinion, to offer a shoulder to cry on.

No one knew this more, and yet disregarded it so massively, as did Jesus.  Jesus flouted social convention and stuck his neck out when he talked freely with a Samaritan (and a woman Samaritan at that [John 4:7-26]), when he welcomed women of ill-repute and tax collectors to his table (Matthew 11:19), when he reached out to those groups most opposed to him: to Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36) and a member of the ruling elite, Nicodemus (John 3:1).

Like his Savior before him, Paul’s penchant for proclaiming the truth, for plowing into the middle of prickly fields, for refusing to compromise the claims of the gospel to better suit the whims and wishes of his first-century world, stands out in page after page of the biblical drama.  It was Paul’s willingness to stick his neck out that helped establish a worldwide church from out of a handful of confused Jewish and Gentile believers.  But his stick-the-neck-out actions and attitudes also earned Paul a lot of jail time.

Today’s Lesson from the Acts of the Apostles is only one example of how Paul could go from preaching to prison with just one sermon.  In fact, he did this so often we might describe the phenomenon as “The Paul Principle.”  That is, if you speak the truth, you should be prepared for whatever comes: either adulation or accusation, loving or loathing, thrones or prisons, recovery or relapse, plaudits or audits.  When Paul recognized that the spirit possessing the young girl was confusing his listeners and drawing attention away from the gospel, Paul banished that spirit using the power of Jesus’ name.

Paul risked the truth – and was prepared for the consequences.  Who hasn’t heard of “The Peter Principle” – the notion that everyone will eventually be elevated to the level of their incompetence?  The Paul Principle means the better you are at proclaiming your witness and speaking the truth, the better your chances are of finding yourself swimming in a very large kettle of hot water.

How many of us are willing to do the same – to speak a word of truth without expecting any reward, in fact knowing full well both you and your message will be rejected, ridiculed, maybe even relocated?

When your concern for an addicted coworker leads to an intervention, don’t expect him to thank you.  Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.

When you lunge at your three-year-old and bat her hand away from a hot stovetop, don’t expect her to thank you.  Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.

When you confront your best friend with evidence that he is cheating on his wife, don’t expect him to thank you.  Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.

When you point out the illegal practices or immoral attitudes present within your company, don’t expect your boss to thank you.  Expect to be yelled at, kicked at, and rejected.

When you call out “the emperor has no clothes,” don’t expect emperors to thank you.

Back when I was a deputy sheriff, I was sent on many a disturbance call.  At one of these, the wife met us at the door and complained that her husband had been beating her again.  A fellow deputy and I went into the house.  When we confronted the husband, the fight was on.  After a rather spirited tussle and roll-around on the kitchen floor, we cuffed him and stuffed him into my patrol car.

The wife was indignant.  “What are you doing?  I just wanted him out of the house.  If you take him to jail, he can’t go to work in the morning.  And I don’t have the money to bail him out!”

As the old saying goes: No good deed goes unpunished.

How does one hold nothing back in life and still survive “The Paul Principle”?  Paul himself kept his focus on the truth by adopting an attitude post-moderns have short-handed in the mantra: Praise, blame, all the same.

Paul didn’t depend on the feedback he got from his listeners for his sense of purpose and vision for the future.  If he had, the apostle would have quickly given up his ministry in despair.  But Paul knew that doing good really is its own reward.  It has to be, for the chances of someone’s praising you, blessing you, rewarding you for doing good and speaking the truth are increasingly rare in this world.  The reward Paul looked for was not in this world, but in the next.  The power of a boldly spoken truth is that it has an extremely long fuse.  If need be, the fuse of truth can reach across the other side of eternity.

Paul and Silas receive the blame for putting a stop to the slave girl’s soothsaying.  When she decides to follow God, her employers lose money.  Later, the missionaries receive praise for invoking that same Savior’s name during their earthquake sing-along from the depths of their prison cell.  Praise?  Blame?  It was all the same to Paul.  It was all the same truth spoken, all the same gospel proclaimed, all the same Spirit manifested that kept Paul in and out of trouble.

Each time he entered a new community, Paul knew his words might land him in prison.  Each time he entered a new prison cell, Paul knew the gospel message might earn him a death sentence.  Each year that he endured yet another round of conflicts, criticisms, cruelties, and curses, Paul knew his body was more frail, the beatings more damaging, the prison floors colder, the days of freedom shorter.

But praise and blame remained all the same for Paul.  He concerned himself not with his own position.  His eyes were fully fixed on that flaming fuse of truth that was burning into the future.  He knew that the foundations of this world are out of this world. Do we?