I have been an optimist most of my adult life, but I would not call myself naïve. No matter how bad things may have been seen by others, I have always tried to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. Lately, however, I am beginning to lose confidence in my own optimism. It seems that the world I have known seems to be sinking into a morass of confusion, chaos and anger in the last ten years. Worst of all, there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it no matter how much preaching I do, no matter how much writing I do, no matter how many social change organizations I join or how much positivity I try to project!
I
have been praying about what I can do personally to survive without giving into
that pull of negativity or being corrupted by it! That’s why my eyes landed on our second
reading today and its message about the importance of personal change, rather
than organizational change.
Wow! As I reflected on those words, I kept coming back to an old expression that I came across several years back. It goes like this! “It is easier to put on slippers than it is to carpet the world!” The more I thought about these words, the more I understood that it might not only be easier to put on slippers than it would be to carpet the world, but it might even be a more effective way to survive what I cannot control.
For the first time, I finally understand clearly my path forward in the years I have left. I understand that I need to change myself and resist the pull into the mess developing around me. You might say, I finally realized clearly that “if I can’t beat them, at least I don’t have to join them!” Yes, I have come to the conclusion that it is not only “easier to put on slippers than it is to carpet the world,” it is a more effective way to survive in a world that I am powerless to change!” I will, no doubt, continue to teach and preach and do what I can to inspire others, but I have learned at 80 years of age that I can be more effective in helping others if my main focus is on changing myself and teaching others by modeling good behaviors rather than trying to become a rabid crusader in yet another “cause!”
In a world that had strayed from the way of Jesus, Paul identifies three things that a Christian needed to turn way from: perosis (the normalization of wrong doing), aselgia (a lust for pleasure) and pleonexia (insatiable greed). Paul saw three patterns of his day that Christians needed to assiduously avoid: (a) the normalization of wrong doing, (b) a lust for pleasure and (c) being driven by a desire to accumulate more and more to the point that they no longer cared who they hurt to get it.
These behaviors are exactly the sins of our world today as more people lose their close connection to “the way of Christ” and take on “the way of the world!” These are the old behaviors that Paul tells the people of Ephesus to “put away” so as to “put on” new behaviors as followers of Jesus! These behaviors are exactly the sins of our world today! Let me point out some pertinent examples of the old behaviors we need to “put away” and why they can only be corrected by personal individual change rather than institutional changes – by “putting on slippers, rather than trying to carpet the world!”
Perosis: The Normalization of Doing Wrong. “Following the herd” and “doing what everybody else is doing” is the most obvious way I can think of to “normalize wrong doing!” The normalization of wrong doing is insidiously subtle since once you start down that path, it gets easier and easier to “up your game” and “feel better about” more and more wrong doing! It can be as small as acquiring and misusing handicapped parking stickers to something as dangerous as regularly speeding, running redlights and cutting corners on everything one sets out to do; from something as small as “taking a little something from work” and petty theft to something as serious as engaging in marital infidelity; something as small as gossiping on Facebook to something as serious as accusing someone falsely of sexual abuse as personal revenge. Since it is so subtle at its beginning, normalizing wrong doing is on an insidious down-hill slide with no end in sight! God knows that fewer and fewer people are stopped simply because Scripture says that it is a sin!
Aselgeia: The Lust for More and More Pleasure. This drive to experience more and more pleasure and avoid as much ordinary pain as possible is obvious in the ever-expanding use of recreational drugs, a national overeating problem and a constant obsession with recreation. Without self- discipline, and the ability to stand up to these trends, all decency and shame evaporates and people end up not caring what they do or who sees them doing it.
Pleonexia: An Insatiable Greediness. I have noticed a steady decline in service professions and a growth in a cut-throat love of possessing in particular and hoarding in general. If you don’t believe me. Count the TV shows that glorify extravagant homes and antique collections among the rich, as well as shows about hoarding among the poor. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. There are now 735 billionaires in the United States, there are beggars in more and more intersections while credit card debt and scamming are out of control. There is even a whole TV show called “American Greed.”
St.
Paul wrote about these temptations facing new Christians in the first century
in Ephesus. These are the behaviors that Paul addresses when he tells the
people of Ephesus to “put way their old self” and “put on the new self” as
followers of Jesus! These behaviors are exactly the same behaviors in our world
today that he wants us to “put away!”
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