June Conversations with the Culture

So instead of Reading Your Report, They Covered it Up. They Said “We Need to Put This Behind Us”. 

 They Said It’s OK to Just Blow People Up: So, The Ends DO Justify the Means. Isn’t that right?

Digging Deeper

In the movie Class Action, Jedediah Ward (Gene Hackman) is a legal services attorney who specializes in lawsuits against major corporations.  His client has suffered the loss of a family member driving a car with an alleged defective gas tank that explodes under certain conditions.  He is bringing a class action lawsuit against the car manufacturer, which is being represented by Ward's estranged daughter, Maggie Ward (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio).   Jedediah and his daughter discover an engineering study demonstrating the company knew about the defective gas tank, but calculated that the cost to recall and repair the car would cost more than the probable cost of any lawsuits the car manufacturer might be required to pay.  When Maggie learns this, she must decide if she should defend the car company, using any means necessary to suppress any evidence that the study exists, or provide a copy of the study to her father as part of the legal practice known as "evidentiary discovery."  To learn more about the movie, you can watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1_EqTja4Pk
 

Maintaining Relationships Requires Justice, Compassion, and Attention to People

In Second Samuel 13 - 14, we read of the tragic events involving King David's sons Amnon and Absalom.  David's oldest son, Amnon, falls in love with his half sister, Tamar. When she rebuffs his advances, Amnon tricks David into ordering her to come visit him and fix him a meal.  At the behest of the king, her father, Tamar does so, and Amnon rapes her.  Tamar reported this event to her blood brother, Absalom, and, evidently, made the matter known to her father, David.  We read David's reaction in II Samuel 13:21-23:

Now when King David heard of all these matters, he was very angry. But Absalom did not speak to Amnon either good or bad; for Absalom hated Amnon because he had violated his sister Tamar. Now it came about after two full years that Absalom had sheepshearers in Baal-hazor, which is near Ephraim, and Absalom invited all the king's sons.  

The key thing to note here is that while David became angry, he did nothing - for two full years!  Finally, Absalom takes matters into his own hands, and contrives a plot to murder Amnon.  After badgering his father, we read in verse 27 Absalom is finally able to persuade David to send Amnon and all his other sons with him to the sheep shearing festival.  Notice that David does this, even though the two brothers haven't spoken to each other for two full years.  Absalom uses the occasion to take revenge for his sister Tamar and murder Amnon, and afterward flees to hide for three years with his mother's relatives in a town called Geshur.

This escalation of events created several camps within the kingdom.  Some wanted to take blood revenge against Absalom.  David, torn by the grief over the loss of Amnon and, perhaps, a recognition that he was partly to blame for never seeking to provide justice in the case of Tamar's rape, wanted to forgive Absalom.  But, again, David could not bring himself to reach out and mend broken relationships.  Into this vacuum stepped one of David's closest advisor, Joab, who contrived a set of circumstances whereby he brought Absalom back to Jerusalem.  In Second Samuel 14:23-24 and 28 we read:

So Joab arose and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. However the king said, "Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face." So Absalom turned to his own house and did not see the king's face. Now Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, and did not see the king's face.  

Once again, David fails to take control of the situation.  He does not seek to reach out and heal the broken relationship between himself and Absalom.  Nor does he seek to follow a process to provide justice in the entanglement of family feuds, hatred, deceit, rape and murder.  David simply abdicates his responsibility, as both the King and a father, to provide leadership which seeks the good of the kingdom as its chief end.  By following of a policy of "moving on" and not addressing the escalating series of offenses, David actually made the situation worse, not better.  And so, as we saw in last month's Conversation With the Culture (The Sum of All Fears), Absalom eventually led a revolt that tore the kingdom apart.   

In the movie, Class Action, Jed Ward is a lawyer who has an eye for the ladies.  His daughter, Maggie, will barely speak to him.  In one scene they exchange these words: 

JEDEDIAH:  If your mother could hear you now.

MAGGIE:  Well she can't, can she? She finally got out of here and wherever she is, she's gotta be much happier than she was with you.

 Late in life, Jed Ward realizes that his goal in life was to do whatever he wanted to do, without concern for the consequences.  To make things right, he must reach out to Maggie at a time when reconciliation is the furthest thing from her mind.  For her part, Maggie's goal had been that of a good family relationship.  But, because of her anger at her father, she had entered her father's profession, become a good lawyer, and NOW discovers that she represents a client who possesses no scruples.  She realized that she has become what she hated - and in the movie, realizes that to make things right, she must work with her father to make things right.  At the end of the movie, they reconcile and all is well, but then, that's Hollywood.

Recently, Pastor Kevin Bausman of Southport Presbyterian Chruch preached on goal setting in a sermon titled "The Bottom Line".  In that sermon, he said the following:

How we reach a goal is just as important as the goal itself. ... In God’s economy and His way of doing things, the end never justifies the means, no matter how noble a goal may be. … Many will reach a goal by hurting, manipulating, or destroying people along the way.  They’ll do this to reach a goal, without looking at the ramifications and the honesty of those changes, and how they impact people and truth.  (Pastor Kevin Bausman, The Bottom Line, preached April 25, 2010. Access at http://www.southportpc.org/services/sermons/ .)

 Where There Is No Guidance, The People Fall.

Whether it's a king, a CEO, a pastor or a father, those in leadership must look out for the good of those whom they are called to shepherd.  Proverbs 11:14 says:

Where there is no guidance, the people fall.  But in abundance of counselors there is victory. 

Building and maintaining relationships is tough work.  Ignoring people with whom we'd rather not speak, or worse, speaking disparagingly of them, can quickly lead to destruction.  Sometimes, we focus on external issues, problems and threats so much that we ignore the need to take counsel on how to keep our internal house in order.  We need friends and advisors who will risk our wrath to set us straight when we engage in actions that can destroy the relationships we've worked so hard to build.  In his book, David: A Story of Passion and Destiny, Pastor and Teacher Chuck Swindoll begins Chapter 18 on David and Absalom with these words:  

A family in trouble is a common occurrence, but it's never a pretty picture.  There are two kinds of trouble a family can experience; trouble that comes from without and trouble that comes from within.  Though both can be devastating for a family, the more difficult of the two is trouble from within.   

What about you?  This Father's Day, as you work to make a living, to advance a career, to make a name for yourself, are you minding the home front?  Are you nurturing, or destroying, relationships?  Without guidance, the people who depend on us will fail.  Without the Lord, we will fail.