Text: 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
February 27, 2000
James R. Gorman
There is a saying that goes, "Sincerity is the most important thing in human communications. And if you can fake that, you have it
made."
Is it not the case that we live in an age of so much faked sincerity? One current candidate for the Presidency of the United States tells us that if he is elected to the office, he will never lie to us. And why do so many of us think that that is his first lie? The handlers and the spinners and the media people are running the campaigns in such a way that will make things look better than they are. They address the issues in ways that make us think that they are on our side even though we are really on the opposite sides of things. It is not so important what they say, but that they seem to be saying it so sincerely.
It's all about image and wealth and good looks and style and not about a coherent political program for the next four years.
In a certain way, it is a comfort to know that this problem is as old as the Church.
The Apostle Paul's second letter to the church at Corinth is a letter written by a man who is deeply disappointed in the bad taste of the congregation that he had founded. Paul evidently has serious competition from other preachers who have style, who speak in tongues (I Cor. 14:14), who are good looking and physically appealing (2 Cor. 10:7, 10), who have a demonstrated genealogical pedigree (11:22). Paul calls them the Super Apostles later on in this letter (11:5) . These Super Apostles must have come to the Corinthians with impressive letters of recommendation from high places and famous faces (3:1). They are masters of rhetorical style (10:10; 11:16), they flatter their financial supporters into giving more money (12:14; 2:17). They report apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world, perhaps to scare folks into believing (12:1-10).
Evidently, some have said of Paul that while his letters are weighty and powerful, "in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing." (10:11).
Poor Paul.
Even back in the days of the early Church, folks wanted game show hosts for pastors. And the burden of Paul's second letter to his beloved Corinthians--the church he himself founded, is filled with a sarcasm born of a deep disappointment and sadness. His competition is made up of these blow-dried preachers (do you suppose they had blow-driers then?) who are just so self-evidently grand. Good looking men, they could persuade just by the power of their voice, the style of their rhetoric, the cut of their clothes and the pleasantness of their appearance. They said things that their listeners wanted to hear. They were deceitful magicians who ministered with smoke and mirrors.
Paul may not have any of those advantages but even if he did, he refused to play the game and he is deeply disappointed with the shallowness of the Corinthians, that they would be persuaded to follow these guys and leave behind the Christ whose whole ministry was to reach out to the unlovely and unlovable. The contradictions and ironies of the situation in the Corinthian church are just too great for him.
"I have no letters of recommendation," Paul says to his beloved.
"You are my letters of recommendation. You are a letter from Christ himself, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on stone tablets, but on the tablets of the human heart."
You are sincerity itself. You don't have to fake it and you don't have to follow those who do. Just listen to your own heart and don't pay attention to the crowd pleasers. Look for that which is truly reflective of Christ and his love and don't be persuaded by superficial things. But alas, in Paul's time as in ours, superficiality and insincerity reigns.
There is probably no more tribute to the superficiality of our own times than the recent outrageous TV show on the Fox network, "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" I didn't watch it (and there is no attempt at a false nobility here, I just didn't watch it) but from the descriptions I read and heard, it was just about as cynical as any show the Fox network has put on, and Fox has always done their best to pander to the viewers' basest qualities. The millionaire turned out to be a less than admirable human being and the chosen young lady is no star of wonder.
The reaction has been a universal Bronx cheer aimed at Fox for their stupidity. Even in our age of superficiality, not many could stand the idea of turning marriage into a side show. One radio talk show host said that he heard that Fox was going to do a sequel and call it, "Who wants to marry a hard-working stiff with four kids and one hundred dollars in his pocket?" The title's a little long, but they think it'll work.
Naw. Fox isn't likely to be that stupid twice. Their producers may be cynical about marriage, but most of us still believe somehow in its sanctity and hope. And we find shameful the idea that somehow marrying for money on TV could be a voyeuristic--and therefore, ratings--success. Marriage is the last bastion of sincerity, and marrying for money seems to be a kind of ultimate blasphemy.
The bottom line here is that you can't fake sincerity.
The line from Paul's letter just before the assigned reading this morning goes like this, "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." Our hair is not blow-dried and our suits are rumpled. We have only a word from God.
And I trust that most people know when other people are sincere and when they are not. It has something to do with transparency. Transparency before God--which is a hallmark of what we like best about marriage; what we like best about all human relationships. And marrying someone sight unseen just for their money or physical appearance is the exact opposite of transparency. It is its very opaqueness that is just so troubling.
It makes the covert overt. It is marriage as a great joke--a big beauty pageant. There is no hiddenness, no mystery, no love. It's just about superficiality and I'm glad at least that the American public was outraged by it all and made their outrage known. "What were they thinking?" one talk show host was heard to rant, "What were they thinking?"
Well, in some ways it's good to know that this is no new problem. Imagine poor Paul's disappointment. The congregation he had founded had now found themselves attracted to charlatans and hucksters. They liked the eye and ear candy that they heard their new preachers and teachers uttering. They had lost their capacity for sincerity. They had lost their capacity for transparency before God. They had lost their ability to see through the opaqueness before them. They had, most of all, lost their ability to be their own letter of recommendation from Christ. And Paul had every hope that he could win them back.
We don't know how this story comes out. We don't know whether or not the church at Corinth got turned around. And maybe it is really not ours to know in the final analysis. It is enough to pay close attention to our own life and work and ask these fundamental questions of ourselves. Are we paying attention to the sincerity of the Gospel? Are we ourselves transparent before God? Or are we attracted to things that are not really of the Gospel?
I get a ton of material across my desk that instructs me on how to grow a successful church. The successful church must have a big parking lot. It must have an advertising budget at least one third of its total spending. It must seek out famous folks in the community to be members and lift them up in its advertising (but try to make such advertising sincere). It must be homogeneous in its membership which no one is willing to spell out in detail for fear of being called racist. The Church must not engage in too much controversy. It must use rock music in its liturgy to attract the young and Lawrence Welk music to attract the old. It must celebrate the principles that people hunger for even if those principles cannot be easily supported in the Scriptures. The list is endless and many items on the list are contradictory. And I have the sense that the advice is more about beauty pageants and less about the work of the Church.
And I, like Paul, find the pressures disheartening and depressing.
It is better, in the final analysis, to do what we do best as honestly and sincerely as we can and let the chips fall where they may. It is best, finally, to be the best letter of recommendation we can be and not worry too awfully much about how that letter is received by those who crave insincerity.
The ones who are struggling to come to faith in Christ will recognize our sincerity. Those that don't, won't. As Jesus says in another context, if not, shake the dust off of your sandals and move on.
Sincerity in the Gospel is the most important thing we have going for us. And we can't fake that.