I King 17.17-24                                                                                                                      Carol A. Solovitz

Psalm 30                                                                                                                 Pentecost 2C

Galatians 1.11-24                                                                                                                  June 10, 2007

Luke 7.11-17

Defending Your Reputation

 

 

Ole came home from work one evening and slammed the door.  “Oh, Ole,” said Lena, “what’s the problem?”  Ole said angrily, “That doorman – that Sven Svensen!  He is always bragging.  He just told me that he managed to get access to the bank accounts of all but one woman in this building.”  “Oh,” said Lena, “it must be that snooty Mrs. Peterson up in #5.”

It’s all about reputation.  Whether you’re the doorman or snooty Mrs. Peterson, you have a reputation.  Maybe you earned it, or maybe it was placed upon you.  However, you are usually stuck with it.  I had decided on this sermon theme 2 weeks ago, so it was a strange coincidence this week when Harvey Mackay’s column in the Post-Bulletin was about reputation. “Once lost, a good reputation can’t be recovered,” he wrote. “If you don’t have a positive reputation, it will be difficult to be successful… Reputation is one of the few assets that your competition cannot undersell or destroy.  You can’t put a price on a good reputation.”  The writer of Proverbs said, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” [Proverbs 22.1]  In Ecclesiastes 7.1, the Preacher said, “A good name is better than precious ointment…”  Mackay writes, “A good name is like a second inheritance. Life is for one generation; however, a good name is forever.”  Yes, it is all about reputation.

A friend of ours has been a faithful lay leader in his congregation from the time he was a teenager.  He also is an avid volleyball player.  One night after a volleyball game, he went for a hamburger with some of his teammates.  He happened to mention that he had a meeting at church the following evening.  One of his teammates blurted out in disbelief, “You go to church?!  You sure don’t seem like the church-going type.”  Our friend was embarrassed and, yes, ashamed.  He talked with the man and asked why he made that judgment of him.  The man said that he seemed too happy and easy-going to be the “churchy type.”  But he also said that he couldn’t really tell from the way our friend talked and acted at work and on the volleyball court.  Our friend spent the next months trying to learn from this experience.  He considered what he said or did to give this man the impression that he was not the church-going type.  We noticed, too, that he began to be more intentional about being a servant rather than having to be the leader in all things.  Even today he tries to make sure that he does not project a negative image – not so that people will be impressed but so that they aren’t shocked to learn that he is a man of faith.

In our Scripture readings today, we meet three men who had well-known reputations.  There was Elijah, prophet of God who faced the challenge of King Ahab’s wife Jezebel and her pagan god, Baal. And there was Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, whose authority was questioned by the original disciples of Jesus.  And of course, we hear about Jesus, whose identity as Son of God was always in question.  Let’s take a brief look at each of them.

Elijah was tired.  In fact, he was just about burned out.  He was no longer sure what God was calling him to do, if indeed God was calling him at all.  In the entire biblical history, no one but Jesus performed more miracles than Elijah.  Yet God made it very hard for Elijah to remain confident.  When Ahab became king of Israel and married Jezebel, she brought to the marriage and the nation the worship of the idol Baal.  Jezebel challenged the prophets of the Hebrew God. God sent Elijah to the king to announce that no rain would fall in Israel until the foreign god was no longer worshiped there.  Then God sent Elijah to – of all places – Zarephath, a city just a few miles south of Jezebel’s hometown of Sidon.  There, Elijah stayed in the home of a poor widow and miraculously provided a jar of flour and a jug of oil that never ran out.  Elijah, the widow and her son continued to have bread while the rest of the area went hungry and thirsty.  That was good for showing the power of the God of Israel, but it was hard to proclaim the godship of the LORD when the nation was under sanctions and land and water were drying up.  Still, God left Elijah in Zarephath as if nothing were wrong.  Suddenly, the widow’s son became ill and died quickly.  Both Elijah and the woman were shocked, and the widow turned on him.  But Elijah took her son, carried him to his own bed, and prayed for the intervention of the Lord God, saying, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”  And God answered by reviving the dead child.  Upon seeing her son alive again, the woman said, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”  Elijah’s reputation was restored; his God was celebrated.

Next, we go to a little town called Nain, not far from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth in Galilee.  Jesus went there after healing the slave of a centurion in Capernaum.  People still had not figured out who he was, but they were fascinated by him and desired to see and receive his miracles.  Just as he arrived in Nain, he met the funeral procession of a widow’s only son.  He stopped to show compassion to the widow, then touched the funeral bier, saying, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”  That is exactly what the dead man did!  The crowd was amazed and seized with fear, for they knew the story of Elijah and the widow’s son.  Now, after centuries of waiting for Elijah to return, they saw Jesus raise another widow’s son from death.  “A great prophet has arisen among us!  “God has looked favorably upon his people!” they shouted.  Jesus was gaining a popular reputation as the new Elijah.

About 20 years later in Asia Minor, Paul was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Galatia.  But he was running into trouble, not from the Romans but from the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem – Peter and James.  They were not happy that Paul baptized Gentiles without insisting that they first be circumcised.  Paul argued that Jesus did not require a person to do anything but believe.  Peter and James responded but spreading the word that Paul was not a true apostle because he had not seen Jesus face-to-face nor been taught by Jesus as they and the other disciples had been.  Paul had to argue fervently that he had been confronted and converted by the risen Christ.  In most of his letter to the Galatians, Paul fought for his reputation by spelling out all of his credentials.  If his reputation became tarnished, the faith of many converts would be in jeopardy.  He fought for his reputation and for the people he had introduced to Jesus Christ.  He did not want them to go back to their pagan ways because of rumors about his integrity.  It is a passionate defense that shows us the painful rejection experienced by this faithful servant and missionary of the risen Lord.

So how is your reputation?  Has your integrity ever been challenged by enemies, or even by friends?  Have you felt the need to defend your intentions, your words and actions?  Have you felt the need to repent of them?   I certainly have, and it is not a comfortable spot in which to be.  Even when the intentions have been pure and the words and actions misunderstood, it is not easy to win over the critics.  It helps if the lines of communication are open, but that is not always the case.  What does one do when a reputation is at stake?

Harvey Mackay quotes Abraham Lincoln when questioned about his reputation: “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.  I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end.  If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything.  If the end beings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.” 
            For a Christian, one’s reputation affects the entire church.  Who hasn’t heard someone say that they don’t go to church because so many Christians are hypocrites?  My response to that statement is, “Thank God, hypocrites are welcome in the church!  Thank God that all kinds of sinners are welcome in the church! Thank God that Jesus actually listens to our repentance and provides forgiveness, or there wouldn’t be a church to complain about or defend!”  The real truth is that we do not have to defend our reputations.  We have only to point to our Lord and Savior, Jesus, who revives dead souls and gives new life even to people he has just met.  And like our friend who loves the church and volleyball, we repent and change our ways so that the world knows that a relationship with Jesus Christ truly does make a difference.  You see, it is not our own reputations, but the reputation of Jesus, that we must defend by our faithful living and serving in his name.

 

Shall we pray?    You are our life and salvation, O Lord God.  May our every step be a reflection of you.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

 

HYMN OF THE DAY          “Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service”                                                        ELW 712