Sunday 16th November 2014
Confronting Culture
Some years ago I went round a university campus with a video camera asking students what their
number one goal in life was. The overwhelming majority came back with one answer: ‘To be happy.’
The pursuit of happiness has been unofficially imported into our cultural values from the American
constitution and movies like Will Smith’s that explore what that means in practice.
The film is the moving tale of one man’s struggles to educate himself and succeed in business in
order to lift his family out of poverty. One of the movie’s most famous quotations is this:
‘If you want something, go get it. Period.’
The whole sentiment of the film is that although people and circumstances will conspire against you
fulfilling your dreams, it is your right to pursue this thing we call happiness.
Yet in 2005 Anthony Kennedy, who is a US supreme court judge spoke out about the fact that when
the writers of the declaration of Independence wrote about the pursuit of happiness in 1776, the
phrase had rather a different meaning than it does today. Originally, Kennedy said, “happiness
meant that feeling of self-worth and dignity you acquire by contributing to your community and to
its civic life.” In other words it was much more tied up with community spirit than the individualism.
He warned about the increasingly hedonistic view of happiness which equates it to pleasure. If you
put the word happy into Google images, many of the results picture individuals smiling to
themselves.
Pharrel Williams’s song happy – the most downloaded tune ever is all about independence
and self satisfaction.
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The troubling thing is not so much that our culture is growing increasingly individualistic and
self-satisfied, but rather that we in the church are not sufficiently distinctive to present a
credible and challenging alternative.
Today’s talk is entitled ‘Confronting Culture’ and during this term we have been looking at
Paul’s last letter to Timothy in the Bible. We’ve seen how this relatively old man, locked in a
prison cell facing imminent execution doesn’t moan about his own situation but rather
encourages and exhorts the young church leader Timothy to lead the church with courage
and tenacity.
In the first section of the letter Paul addresses matters of Timothy’s personal faith and
integrity, but in this second half, this letter addresses challenges to the mission of the
church. For example last time we saw how destructive internal arguments and unresolved
bitterness can easily undermine the church’s life and witness.
But Paul now turns his attention to a serious warning about our cultural distinctiveness. It
makes uncomfortable reading, not so much because it is so direct and challenging, but more
so when you realise it is directed to people within the church, not simply to ‘people out
there’.
So let’s bite the bullet and read this section from 2 Timothy Chapter 3:
Godlessness in the Last Days
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves,
lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without
love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash,
conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-- 5 having a form of godliness but denying its
power. Have nothing to do with them.
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who
are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never
able to acknowledge the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men
oppose the truth--men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9 But
they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
The story is told of a young man who was the son of two attractive parents and grew up with an
over-inflated sense of ego. In time he was noticed by the girls and a young lady by the name of Echo
tried to win his affections. The man didn’t think she was attractive enough for him and rejected her
which left her grieving and with a broken heart. The man continued to look for the perfect partner
and one day caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the sunlit surface of a still pond. Excitedly he
bent down to look more closely at the image. As he stared he was captured by the sense that this
was what he had been looking for, someone equally attractive, someone who would help him be
comfortable with himself. Of course as he got closer and closer to the water, he eventually slipped
and fell in. Unable as he was to swim, the man drowned alone and was never found.
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I’m sure you are familiar with the Greek legend of Narcissus, as retold by the Roman poet Ovid. It is
one of the stories we learn which have inspired numerous artworks over the years like this one by
Caravaggio:
The psychologist Alfred Binet in 1887 coined the term Narcissism and later Sigmund Freud
further described the unhealthy love of self that he observed as the root cause of many
mental disorders in the life of his patients.
Dr Jean Twenge published a book recently which highlights a disturbing increase in
Narcissistic tendencies within the young adult population of Western democracies that she
calls The Narcissim epidemic.
According to regular studies of college students over the last 25 years the incidence of
Narcissim has increased dramatically which is a worrying problem for any society wishing to
be cohesive and caring.
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Some people maintain that you only have to note that ‘selfie’ was last year’s most popular
addition to the Oxford English dictionary and that our most viewed TV programs are things
like ‘I’m a celebrity’ to see that we are becoming more tolerant of self-centeredness in
others.
‘In the Last days’, Paul warns in our bible passage today, ‘People will be lovers of
themselves, lovers of money... lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God’
The Last days is the Epoch of the time between Jesus’ first and second coming. Even 1900
years after this was written, we are still living in the last days as God patiently waits for
more and more people to turn to him. During this period of history, Paul tells us there will
be particularly difficult spiritual and cultural seasons, and the implication here is that things
will get worse or at least more polarised as we draw closer to the end of the age.
In the Anglican baptism service we often say ‘Fight valiantly against sin, the world and the
Devil’ – that triad of evil that we must fight against as Christians. But Paul mentions another
triad of three false loves to guard against in this passage, and these are the ones that subtly
infiltrate our thinking and priorities:
Love of Self, Love of Money, Love of Pleasure
Love of Self
Love of Money
Love of Pleasure
Now don’t get me wrong, we all need some self-respect, we all need money and we all need
to enjoy pleasurable experiences. But if we allow these to define what happiness means for
us, then we are chasing after the wind. These are the three false loves that become
substitutes for the true fulfilment of loving God.
As well as the triad of false loves, the long list of characteristics that Paul highlights is
remarkably similar to a psychologists text book of symptoms to look out for in those with
Narcissistic personality disorder.
‘boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous,
rash, conceited’
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Maybe we think that these descriptors only apply to people out there. But if I change the
language slightly for a moment, perhaps we start to recognise pride creeping in.

How defensive do we feel if someone suggests we might be incompetent or lazy?

Do we honour our parents? Do we actually make time to honour the older
generation?

When we help people do we do it out of love or because we want to feel better
ourselves?

Are we ever tempted to enjoy other people’s misfortune to make ourselves feel
better?
Well if you are anything like me, we are all guilty to some degree.
The main danger for the church in the grip of Narcissism is Paul’s last statement that they
‘have a form of godliness but deny its power.’
Religious practice is not enough to prevent us from being swept along by cultural currents
and the me-first movement. In fact Jesus reserved his hardest words for those who were
ritualistic and religious rather than humbly reliant on God’s power. Paul gives the example
of these two slippery characters Jannes and Jambres. There were traditionally the Egyptian
magicians who produced counterfeit miracles when Moses was appealing to Pharoah to let
the Israelites go. Then later it was said that they incited Aaron and the Israelites to make
their own Golden Calf to worship rather than be obedient to the Lord and wait for his
instructions. Society crumbles when we start to define our own morality and depend on our
own achievements rather than trusting in God’s power – even though it all might sound so
reasonable at the time!
Yet the good news is that the power to change is right here with us, if we will only reach out
and humbly acknowledge our need of help.
Many of the psychologist’s articles I have read say that there is no cure for Narcissism. But I
believe there is. His name is Jesus, and we in the church are in the business of life
transformation by the Power of His Holy Spirit. So how do we begin this change?
Jesus said in Matthew 6v33 ‘But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these
things will be given to you as well.’
It means letting go of the false loves and seeking the kingdom first.
Take money for example. Today is one of the couple of Sundays of the year when I want to
mention it specifically. It took me a number of years to not worry about money. But that
freedom only came as I started to give it away. The bible encourages us to give money away
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regularly in proportion to our income. Is that only because the church needs the money? No
it’s because giving money away is one easy way to seek first the Kingdom and experience
the joy of God’s provision for you. You see the Kingdom principle is that whatever you give
for the glory of God is multiplied back to you many times. I encourage you to give, for the
joy and freedom it will bring you. When Jesus died on the cross, he gave everything
physically, but gained everything spiritually.
For the joy set before him Christ died for us on the cross for us. The King who could have
called legions of Angels to vanquish all his enemies and crush those who opposed him,
chose instead the way of the servant, loving through sacrifice and humble compassion. The
Key to living is giving. The Holy Spirit and all the resources of heaven are on hand for those
who ask him for help.
Paul says ‘I want to know Christ and the power that raised him from the dead.’ He wrote in
Romans ‘But if Christ is in you, ... And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is
living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies
because of his Spirit who lives in you.’
The Holy Spirit enables us to confront the rip currents of the cultural tide that undermines
our distinctiveness as Christians. If we are honest before the Lord, admit our weakness and
avoid the characteristics that promote love of self instead of our design purpose which is
the glory of God, we will overcome the world and help others to wake up before they
sleepwalk into disaster.
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