“Deceptively Simple” Rev. Larry Leister July 11, 2021

 

 “Deceptively Simple”

Rev. Larry Leister

July 11, 2021

 

As a baseball fan I found this bit of history interesting. Charles Eliot, who was president of Harvard from 1869-1909, frequently expressed his misgivings about sports, including football and baseball, both of which he sought unsuccessfully to abolish at Harvard. At the end of one Harvard baseball season he announced that he was thinking of dropping the sport. Pressed for an explanation, he said, "This year I'm told the team did well because one pitcher had a fine curve ball. I understand that a curve ball is thrown with a deliberate attempt to deceive. Surely this is not an ability we should want to foster at Harvard."

Well, times have changed at Harvard. A Wall Street Journal article some years ago reviewed teaching practices at Harvard’s School of Business. Instructors added a new dimension to their courses designed to familiarize students with various unethical business practices used by corporate America. The article questioned if students might view the new course content as tacit approval of unethical behavior. 

Maybe modern-day Harvard could stand more of Dr. Eliot's concern about teaching deceptive practices, which seem to be so prevalent in our society.  While his call for integrity was admirable, I'm not sure Dr. Eliot understood the place of the curve ball in the rules of baseball. Can something be truly deceptive if opponents are actually looking for it?

By contrast something is truly deceptive if opponents have no inkling it’s on the way because deceivers violate the rules of the game. Sticking with baseball, for example, when a pitcher throws an illegal pitch such as a spit ball that's clearly deceptive. 

In life we are thrown deceptive pitches every day... false advertising claims, doctored resumes, email scams, and pyramid schemes, fake news...to name only a few deceptions pitched our way every day.

The O.T tells of God's judgment upon the deception of Ahab & Jezebel.  Ahab wanted Naboth's vineyard and made a fair offer to buy it. Naboth tried to explain it was an entrusted ancestral inheritance... so Jezebel with Ahab's complicity, chose to violate the rules of the game by breaking the terms of God’s covenant.  Jezebel threw Naboth an "illegal" pitch he couldn't hit. With the help of some "respectable" scoundrels Naboth is cheated out of not only his property but his life as well. They resorted to perjury, theft, and murder to satisfy Ahab's greed.

It’s amazing how easily we are taken in by deceit! On a flight out of Philly, a passenger was seated next to a packaging engineer who was jubilant over a project he had just pulled off.  A manufacturer had retained the engineer’s services to help him push several thousand coffee makers that weren't selling, even when the retail price was lowered to cost:  $20 per unit.

The packaging engineer told how he had succeeded in peddling the percolators at a handsome profit by having them gilded with a thin layer of imitation gold, placed in a large white carton lined with imitation purple velvet, and topped off with a glistening, dome-shaped plastic cover.  The aesthetic effect was, to hear the packaging engineer, something akin to "turning a sow's ear into a silk purse." 

Though the gilding and carton added less than a dollar a unit to the percolator's cost, the coffee makers sold out in less than a month at $49.95 each. Deception did the trick. One could argue that consumers ask for it because time and again deceiving consumers seems Deceptively Simple. Yet we're also reminded by Psalm 5:6 that God condemns such deception, "...the Lord abhors blood-thirsty and deceitful men."

Even though we know how easily deceived we are, there are times when we’re tempted to be deceptive in our own dealings with others. We may even justify it as in the other person's best interest.

Example: a college town pub frequented by students ran an ad in the campus paper in the days leading up to Parents' Weekend: “Bring your parents for lunch Saturday. We'll pretend we don't know you!" The clever ad was humorously countered by the school chaplain who posted a similar one on the campus bulletin board: "Bring you parents to chapel Sunday.  We'll pretend we do know you!" 

Both amusing notices, however, each was really a deception within a deception. The fact that they were  humorous doesn’t mean the deceit was harmless.

Paul warns us to be neither deceived nor deceive, nor can we escape consequences: "God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows that will he also reap."  A  Deceptively Simple warning!  He knew we may be able to deceive others but we deceive ourselves too if we think we can pull the wool over God’s eyes.

 

A often cited quote on the subject of deception by A. Lincoln usually omits the equally astute last phrase: "You may deceive all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time (but then there's the part that’s frequently omitted) and not God at any of the time."

Isn't that the point of the Jezebel and Ahab story? They appear to get away with their conspiracy with no one but their fellow conspirators any the wiser. That is until God's word of judgment comes through Elijah. Nor was it the first time he confronted the king's sin.  Ahab sees it coming "Have you found me, O my enemy?" God's judgment: Ahab's house will be exterminated.  Jezebel will die within the walls of Jezreel (the scene of her conspiracy) and her flesh will be eaten by dogs.  The prophecy is born out proving to those with ears to hear that "God is not mocked!"

Like Elijah, Paul's message from God is similar, but it brings not only words of judgment but also of promise "For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life...do good to all men... in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart."

Knowing how Deceptively Simple people can be, and how vulnerable those who’ve been deceived can feel, Paul goes on to assure his readers that his letter is no deception...he ceases his dictation to the person actually penning his letter and pens the closing words himself, "See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand."

Paul is not done.  He turns his attention to those within the church who’d been intentionally deceptive by undergoing circumcision and encouraging others to do the same, "in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ." This was written during a period when Judaism was tolerated by Rome but Christianity wasn't. So some Christians underwent circumcision to escape persecution by passing themselves off as Jews. It was doubly deceptive, Paul said, because it not only hid one's Christianity, it mocked Mosaic Law which they did not otherwise keep.

Neither circumcision or un-circumcision counts for anything with God. What does is being: "a new creation ...Far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

It’s easy to fall prey to living by this world’s rules and to wink at deceptions that violate God's ways. Only a change within can we lead to straightforward, honest lives that point to Christ. It's he who transforms us through faith in his death for us and our salvation.

Paul concludes, "Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule." Christians know the way that leads to eternal life.  Our lives are to be lived so as to produce not deceit but "good to all." We can live by the world’s rules of deception or we can surrender to God who sees thru our deception and live by his rules.

If we deceive and our deception is discovered we are not only embarrassed, we are held accountable as a story out of Japan demonstrates. In Japan a man of wealth and influence demanded a place in Japan's Imperial Orchestra, a select group, because it played for the emperor. The rich man  insisted even though the he couldn’t read music or play a single note.

Under pressure the conductor relented and allowed the man to sit in the second row of the orchestra.  When the music began he would raise the flute to his mouth, pucker his lips and go through the motions of playing but never make a sound. The deception continued for two years, apparently fooling everyone, until a new conductor took over who required personal auditions from each player. One by one each orchestra member played a solo. Then came the fraudulent flutist's turn. Frantic with worry he feigned sickness. A doctor was called and declared him well. Shame-faced he had to confess he was literally unable to "face the music."

We are all held accountable for our lives.  We must all face the music one day for like the new conductor in the story, "God is not mocked" or deceived.  Others may be deceived by falsehoods we perpetrate or the lies that we live, but God is not. Numbers 32:23: “Your sins will find you out” if not by those around you than by God. That’s the point of Ahab and Jezebel’s sordid tale, as well as Paul’s message.

But herein lies the Good News...news Paul proclaimed which Elijah could not: not only does God see through our deceptions, God also offers us a way out that is in itself Deceptively Simple– Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ, who did not feign death but died on the cross for our salvation. Jesus Christ, the only one who can truly leads us from a life of sinful deceptions into a life of joyful obedience. Jesus who, if we surrender our lives to him, will transform us into new creatures and by the Holy Spirit empower us to walk by the rule of God. 

When that transforming power shapes our lives, our lives become our witness.  Our lives point to the very one who transforms us...to Jesus.  The last thing any of us thus transformed should want is to deceive others as to who and whose we are really are.  Rather we should seek to proudly proclaim, as did Paul in the verses that follow, that we “carry the marks of Jesus.”

So that when it comes right down to it, our message to those around is, like Paul's, a Deceptively Simple one if by the grace of God we live the lives to which he's called us.