The Barfly, the Barrister

and Ned Flanders

Text: Romans 1:18-23;  2:1-4
January 30, 2005, Dave Philips

 

 

 

 

            In Lake Wobegone, as you undoubtedly know, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. 

            It is very human to want to be above average.  To be called “just average” or to be deemed “below average” is a terrible thought.

            And so, when we consider our place in the human race, many of us, perhaps most of us, want to think of ourselves as above average.

            I heard an urban legend which is supposed to be a true story.  A man in San Francisco set out to rob a bank.  He walked into a branch of the Bank of America and wrote on the back of a deposit slip,  "This is a stikkup.  Put all your muny in this bag." 

            While standing in line, waiting to give the stickup note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller’s window.  So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to the Wells Fargo Bank.          

            After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller.  She read it and, speculating from his spelling errors and his general demeanor that he was not the brightest light in the harbor, she handed the note back to him and told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip.  So, he would either have to write his note on the back of a Wells Fargo deposit slip, or go back to the Bank of America. 

            Looking somewhat dejected, the man said “OK” and left the Wells Fargo Bank.  The Wells Fargo teller then called the police who arrested the man a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at the Bank of America.

            Now, how could anyone be so stupid?  It’s possible, I guess, but how could anyone be stupid like that?  I could never be that stupid, could you?

            So, a story like this makes us feel good, because we know we’re above average.  We may do some stupid things from time to time, but we could never do anything as stupid as that.

            In the first chapter of Romans, Paul shows us the pagan world.  It’s a pretty sordid sight.  People bow down to idols.  They get involved in gross sexual sins.  They are, as Paul puts it, “. . . filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. . . . they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”¹

            Now, I could never be like that.  Could you?  We’re above average spiritually, aren’t we?  I’m a minister! 

            And if that doesn’t give me some spiritual and moral superiority, I don’t know what does!  Right?

            So, now let me introduce you to the Barfly, the Barrister, and finally to Ned Flanders.

 

THE BARFLY

 

            The Barfly is the individual Paul is talking about in Romans 1.  He’s your typical, unreconstructed pagan.  He has no use for church, he’s given up on religion, he’s just decided to sink to the depths of degradation. 

            I call him “the Barfly” because he hangs out in bars, gets drunk, tries to pick up girls,  gets into fights, turns on with alcohol or even more dangerous stuff, has no sense of responsibility, and is thoroughly reprehensible.

            He has as his goal in life having as much pleasure as possible.  The ancient Greeks called this person a hedonist.  Pleasure was the hedonist’s highest good in life. 

            We know this person.  Some of us have been this person for periods of our life.  But now we’re O.K.  We’ve straightened out our lives, and we’re no longer “that kind of person.”

            The Barfly is an easy target.  He’s so obvious.  The majority of us are not barflies.  If we were, the country would collapse in a hurry.  Industry couldn’t operate, farms couldn’t produce, everything would degenerate into chaos.

                                                                                                                       

THE BARRISTER

 

            O.K., now let me introduce you to the Barrister.  I call this person the Barrister because barrister starts with a “b” and it sounds good with barfly.  But also because barristers, in the British system, are attorneys who have the privilege of arguing in the higher courts.  Barristers are not your run of the mill lawyers.  They’re several cuts above the average ambulance chaser.  Barristers would not be the butt of the typical lawyer joke — you know— about no skid marks next to the dead body of the lawyer who has been run down in the road.  Barristers are above that sort of thing.

            Actually, Barristers are way above average.  Barristers are so far above average that they’re in a position to pass judgment on other lesser people.  You might say that all of us are amateur barristers.  We are not the dregs of society.  We’re above the dregs by quite a bit.  Oh, we do some bad things, but not all that bad.  That time we cheated on the spouse was in a moment of weakness in a far distant city.  The little bit of fudging on our expense account was nothing everybody else wasn’t doing.  The little story we repeated about a work associate might not have been true, but it probably was, and when she got fired, it was really because of her gross incompetence.

            But, as we say, we barristers are above average, far above average.  Some of us are church people, some are not, that doesn’t matter.  The important thing is that we barristers are good people — well, pretty good.  Yes, pretty darn good!  Certainly in a position to pass judgment on other lesser people.

 

NED FLANDERS

 

            Finally, I want you to meet Ned Flanders.  Ned who?  O.K., Ned Flanders, for those of you who are unacquainted with the television show, The Simpsons, is Homer Simpson’s next door neighbor.  Ned Flanders is a religious nut.  He’s a zealot.  He’s got his religion on his sleeve at all times.  He never does anything wrong.  He always keeps his nose clean.  He’s always in church.  He’s always cheerful.  Never gets upset at anything.  Even though Homer Simpson has borrowed all his tools and never returned them, he doesn’t demand them back.  He’s the perfect doormat.  Walk on him, and he’ll cheerfully turn himself over and say, “Okele dokele, neighbor, go right ahead and walk on my other side.  It’s my Christian duty to let you walk all over me.”

            Ned Flanders is not an attractive Christian.  No one takes him seriously.  No one is drawn to Christian faith because of his witness.  Who would want to be him?  He never tells you that he’s looking down on you because he’s good and you’re not.  But you sure get that impression!

            Now, let’s take a look at Romans.  Few people who first read Romans would argue with Paul’s contention that the pagan – the Barfly as I call him – needed to shape up.  You can’t run a world with barflies.

            But the next person Paul speaks to is the Barrister.  The Barrister is the moralist who thinks he or she is above it all.  This is the person I hear about a lot.  Frequently, I hear people say, “She’s not a Christian, but she lives a better life than the people at your church.”

            The Barrister might very well agree with this assessment.  “Why do you want me to become a Christian?” is something I hear from some barrister types.  “I don’t see that Christians are living lives that are any better than mine.”

            There were a lot of people in Paul’s time who would agree with his unflattering picture of pagans.  These people lived good, moral lives, kept their noses clean, and avoided pagan excesses.  You wouldn’t find them lying in the gutter sleeping it off.  You wouldn’t find them plotting murder.  You wouldn’t find them involved in gross sexuality.

            Or would you?  And here Paul’s critique of the non-religious pagan is pretty devastating.  Paul has been speaking of the grossly immoral pagans as “they.”  Now he addresses the barrister.  And he uses the singular “you.”  “You, O man, are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge another human being.  For in judging another, you condemn yourself.  Because you, the one doing the judging, are doing the very same things that you condemn in another.”²

            I don’t like to hear that — I don’t suppose any of us does.  But I think Paul’s right on target.

            In Paul’s time a good example of a moral pagan was the philosopher Seneca, the tutor of the emperor Nero.  Seneca was so virtuous that later Christian writers called him “our own Seneca.”  He seemed to be a Christian without ever having believed in Jesus.  People today might say, “He’s a better Christian than the people at your church.”  He exposed hypocrisy, he preached the equality of all people, he ridiculed idolatry, and he set himself up in the role of a moral guide.

            But — as Paul would point out — Seneca had clay feet.  He tolerated in himself the vices he condemned in others.  For example, he approved the emperor Nero’s plan to murder his own mother.³  Seneca told people that wealth was a terrible burden, and that he didn’t care whether he was rich or poor.  But he did his best to get rich, sometimes by dishonest methods.  And once he was rich, he hung onto his wealth with all his might.⁴  Seneca was a hypocrite.  He was a barrister who claimed the right to pass judgment on others.  But he, the judge, was doing the same things he condemned in others.

            What’s Paul’s point?  No one is in a position to judge anyone else.  No one lives a good enough life to stand before God.  All of us are sinners.  All of us need God’s grace.

            Even religious people, even those who believe the true religion.  In Paul’s day that would be the Jews.  They were the Ned Flanders of their time.  They were so good that everybody hated them.  They wouldn’t even touch Gentiles or enter their homes for fear of getting contaminated.  “God,” they said, “loves Israel alone of all the nations of the earth.  God will judge the Gentiles with one measure and the Jews with another.”⁵

            Paul will wind up his argument in the third chapter of Romans, and we’ll get to that in coming weeks, when he says that everybody, religious and non-religious, pagan, Jewish, and Christian, are under the power of sin.⁶

            Max Lucado in his book, In the Grip of Grace, winds up his first chapter commenting on the people I’ve called The Barfly, The Barrister, and Ned Flanders.  He says, “Quite a trio, don’t you think?  The first on a barstool.  The second in the judge’s chair.  The third on the church pew.

            “Though they may appear different, they are very much alike.  All are separated from the Father.  And none is asking for help.  The first indulges his passions, the second monitors his neighbor, and the third measures his merits.  Self-satisfaction.  Self-justification.  Self-salvation.  The operative word is self. . . .

            “Paul’s word for this is godlessness (Rom. 1:18 NIV).  Godlessness.  The word defines itself.  A life minus God.  Worse than a disdain for God, this is a disregard for God.  A disdain at least acknowledges his presence.  Godlessness doesn’t.  Whereas disdain will lead people to act with irreverence, disregard causes them to act as if God were irrelevant, as if he is not a factor in the journey.”⁷

            Paul is showing us that all of us —  whether we’re barflies, barristers, or people like Ned Flanders — all of us need a savior.  There’s only one person left standing after Paul’s devastating diagnosis.  That person is Jesus, God’s Son.  And God, far from wanting us all to feel bad, to feel condemned, to feel rejected, is merely diagnosing our condition like a good doctor.  Because God wants to heal us.  God wants us living in his amazing grace, not depending on our own efforts. 

            And you know, learning the diagnosis is really a great relief!  When we feel bad but don’t know why, learning that we are genuinely sick is the cause of some rejoicing.  Especially when we learn that there is a cure for our human condition.  The cure for our condition is in what Jesus Christ did for us at the cross. 

            Stay tuned, we’ll be exploring God’s solution to our godlessness in weeks to come.

 

PRAYER: God, we don’t like to hear that we are sinners.  We don’t like to hear that we’re anything but above average spiritually.  But we read in your word that we are all dead average, and dead in our sins apart from your grace.  Teach us today and in coming weeks our need for a Savior, and help us, wretches that we are according to your diagnosis, to seek your amazing grace from our kind and compassionate Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.