Preposterous!

(The Sinning Christian)

 

2^nd in the sermon series,

Jumbo Shrimp Christianity:

Oxymorons for Christian Living

 

Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?

By no means!  How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

(Romans 6:1b-2)

 

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, September 30, 2007

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

 

 

You may not recognize it at first glance, but today’s title is another Latin oxymoron, a most unusual example contained within a single word of fascinating etymology, Preposterous.  “Preposterous,” of course, means silly, absurd, ridiculous.  But the reason for the absurdity of the thing being described is more precise than current usage of the word, its meaning revealed in its two primary components; “pre,” which means before; and “post,” which means after.  The longer form of post, “posterous,” meant that which comes after, that which is next.  

 

Put it all together and Preposterous literally meant, “before that which comes after,” “before what comes next.”   It refers to something out of order, something inverted.  Preposterous is described in an English dictionary from 1589 as the act of “setting the cart before the horse.”

 

Something Preposterous, then, is something out of order.  Now, two words in our text stood out for me this week  – “in order.”   “Should we continue in sin IN ORDER that grace may abound?”  Let’s think this morning about the order of sin and grace in our lives  Christian theology is clear that our first and natural state is that of Sin, and that Grace allures us, opens us to God’s redemptive work through his Son, Jesus Christ.  While Christians may quibble as to the theological details of sin and grace, this order is basic.

 

So Paul poses a question based on the reversal of this fundamental order.  If sin if prior and grace is after, shall we continue in Sin after Grace has won our hearts?  Preposterous!  By no means!  To do so is to take the basic theological order and flip it upside down.  Preposterous!  “How can we who died to sin go on living in it?”  

 

And yet, as we read on into Romans 7, Paul allows us into his inmost heart, confused at how Preposterous he finds his own actions.  “I don’t understand my own actions,” he says.  “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

 

For Paul, the logical order is clear – Sin our natural condition, and Grace is “what comes after.”  Is it not logical, then, that what was prior, Sin, should be left behind?  Yes, and so Paul confesses the preposterousness of it all, that Sin, what should have been left behind, won’t let him go.  Or is it that he won’t let Sin go?  Or both?  We faced this question in our Addictions study this Spring, asking why human persons are so prone to embrace the very thing that is diminishing us. Isn’t it preposterous that we would do so?  Perhaps the uncontrollable allure of the past to defeat our own resolutions for the future is best expressed in the ballad of Garth Brooks, “Longneck bottle, let go of my hand.”  

 

Paul finds this a Preposterous reality.  “I should be living the reality of ‘that which comes next,’ growth in grace and abundant living in Christ.  Instead, I struggle with ‘the before of what comes next.’  It’s preposterous, this continual experience of ‘the before of what comes next!’  I feel stuck.”

 

Speaking of being stuck, may I introduce you to another word this morning?  Perseveration is a neurological condition that causes people to get stuck in a particular response or pattern of behavior.  Perseveration is an uncontrollable, involuntary, inappropriate repetition of a previous response or behavior.  In some cases of brain trauma such as strokes, and in some children (a particular feature of autistic children), it may be evidenced in the way a patient answers a sequence of questions.  Once the first question is answered, all following questions receive the same response, a phenomenon famously seen in the 1988 film Rain Man.  The doctor asks Raymond how much a candy bar costs.  Dustin Hoffman, playing Raymond, said, “‘Bout a hundred dollars.”  The doctor continues, “And what does one of those new compact cars cost?”  “‘Bout a hundred dollars,” Raymond responds again.  No matter how many items are listed, the answer is the same.  Such involuntary repetition is usually seen at less chronic levels, our susceptibility to this seen in things like doodling, drawing circles, or ripping paper – especially when under stress. 

 

Now, to be sure, at some level perseveration has positive connotations – so described in a similar word which we know better, perseverance.  Perseverance is that stick-to-it, don’t quit attitude that is a positive trait essential to success.  The question becomes, when does perseverance (a positive behavior trait) become severed from reality, becoming perseveration?  In the 1996 film, Tin Cup, Kevin Costner plays a golfer named Roy McAvoy, a miracle entry into the U. S. Open.  On the last hole on the last day of the U. S. Open Roy, who is in the lead and has an excellent opportunity actually to win the Open, chooses to try and hit his second shot over the water and onto the Par 5 green against the advice of his caddie, the announcers in the television booth, and the spectators.  He could have played it safe and won the Open, but he chooses not to “lay it up” and play it safe, but to go for it.  After hitting the first shot into the water he continues to play the same shot, hitting one after another after another into the drink, repeating a previous behavior to his own detriment, losing the U. S. Open.   In that clip we see perseverance, a positive trait, shift into perseveration, a detrimental behavior.  While proper once, Roy’s actions become illogical.

 

So, when contained and within proper limits, perseverance is a positive quality of purpose-driven, goal-oriented behavior, most praise-worthy.  God give us the wisdom to see when the positive shifts to negative, when the logical reaches absurdity, when – not knowing when to quit -- determination becomes selfish, insisting on continuing what should have been left behind. 

 

This is the hallmark of eccentric behavior.  The story is told of Albert Einstein, that he and an assistant were searching for a paper clip.  He finally located one, but it was too bent to be used.  Searching for something to fix the clip, they came across a large box of paper clips.  Einstein is said to have opened the box, took out a new paper clip, and began to make a tool out of the clip so that he could fix the original, bent clip.  His assistant was puzzled and challenged Einstein’s illogical course of action.  “Why bother with the bent clip, for goodness sake?  You have a whole box of good ones.” 

 

Einstein is said to have replied, “Once I’m set on a goal, it becomes difficult to deflect me.”   Surely this is an eccentric course of action and, well, Preposterous. 

 

Perseveration can be detrimental not only to one’s self, but to others.  You’ve heard of Dead Man’s Gulch?  It was named because of the perseveration of a novelist named Vladimer Nabokov, who visited the poet and publisher James Laughlin at his home in Utah.  Nabokov was an ardent lover of butterflies, always wandering landscapes wherever he visited to add to his collection.  Laughlin told the story that Nabokov, while visiting his house, went looking for butterflies.  When he returned at dusk, he told Laughlin that during a hot pursuit of a butterfly over Bear Gulch, he heard someone groaning down by the stream.  “Did you stop and check it out?” asked Laughlin. 

 

“No,” Nabokov replied, “I had to get that butterfly.”  Sure enough, the next day a prospector’s body was discovered there and it was renamed, in Nabokov’s honor, Dead Man’s Gulch.   

 

In other words, one’s Perseveration can affect others, for example, a business or a church, in negative ways.  I almost sub-titled this sermon, not The Sinning Christian, but The Lagging Church.  We need always remember our Purpose Statement – “To Build a Christian Community where all people are welcome and accepted and led to become deeply committed Christians.”  If Roy McAvoy had remembered his Purpose Statement – “To win the U. S. Open,” his actions might have been more sensible.  He might have listened to the advice of his caddie and laid up, been less selfish, less Preposterous in his insistence on continuing in the before of what should come next.  We should always be asking, as any healthy church does, “what’s next for us?”  But Roy forgot his purpose, embarking on a course of action that became irrational, unable to let die his desire to hit that majestic shot across the pond, apparently for no other reason than that he knew he could, without regard to whether it was wise or not.  

 

How does that story speak to our church?  We, must always ask, “What’s next?”  We must be willing to hold our programs accountable to that purpose, making certain our actions move us toward fulfilling our Purpose in the most effective way.   It’s natural to resist, when a choice becomes apparent that we may not personally like.  But then we remember that it’s not about us, but about building the Kingdom, about being the best we can be in “Building a Christian Community where all people are welcome and accepted and led to become deeply committed Christians.” 

 

The Lagging Church is a church unable to make these changes, a church resisting the new with the canard, “It’s never been done that way before.”   May God give us the wisdom to know when Perseverance as a good trait becomes Perseveration – severed from reality, and Preposterous.  Churches, too, can chase the butterflies of our whim, leaving behind us a world moaning in its need for Christ.  I’m a traditionalist at heart, and my ministry leans in that direction, prone to continue in the Before of What Should Come Next.  So I have to fight that urge, to remember that it’s not about my preferences to hold on to old styles and patterns, but about being the best we can be at Building a Christian Community that is equipped to reach out to our world in the most effective way.

 

I’m proud to be a part of a church with such a forward vision, a church trying to balance the roots of our tradition with the wings of our future.  May God give us the wisdom to be those who persevere, not those whose perseveration becomes . . . Preposterous.   

 

 

Sources and notes:

“Fatal Fixation,” a sermon in HOMILETICS, May-June 2005.

 

Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto, Arcade Publishers, 1990.

 

Various websites found in a Google search of “perseveration.”