The Perils of Bad Company
Proverbs 1:10-19; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Matthew 9:9-13

Let's begin with a practical problem. What should a Christian do on halloween. Should we dress up and join all the witches and goblins out there trick or treating, or not? Lots of folks -- especially parents -- agonize over this. There are alot of representations of evil out there -- and there is some real evil out there. If we participate, are we endangering our children and condoning evil. And if we don't, are we depriving our children of one of the staples of American childhood, dooming them to a candy-less gloom?

There are no shortage of opinions on Halloween, and we could get wildly different advice all from people we like and respect. On the one hand, there are people who will tell us to have nothing to do with it. If you can get away to the Bahamas during halloween, by all means do. If you can't, stay inside and keep your porch light off. Halloween has become a pagan celebration -- it has been completely taken over by the occult. It is a big deal to Wiccans and Satan Worshippers. Christians should have nothing to do with it. It cannot be redeemed. There are plenty of horror stories to back this argument up [As in: "Whatever you do, be sure to keep your cat indoors."] And there is scripture too:

2 Corinthians 6:14-17 ". . . what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkenss? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."

But there are other Christians who will say, "Why should the devil have all the good parties? What's wrong with costumes? What's evil about pumpkins and candy and bugs bunny costumes? Besides the whole thing started as a Christian holiday. And then there's the argument that is supposed to trump all: "If JESUS was here, he would be out where the people are. He didn't withdraw from the world. He went to bars and weddings and parties." Why my Bible just happened to flip open to Matthew 9:10-13:

"While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice." For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

How are we supposed to be like Jesus if we walk away every time there's a party? That's not like Jesus -- that's like the Pharisees.

And then there's folks who aren't quite sure what to do -- so they dress up as Jesus with his disciples and hand out tracts.

Halloween is not the real issue here. But it is a useful place to start, because it illustrates a big dilemma Christians face: How do I respond to evil in the world. Halloween only comes once a year. But we have to deal with sin around us most every day. In our work, or school, or dorms we are constantly meeting with people who are angry, people who are lustful, people who are gossiping, people who cheat, people who slander their employers or their employees, people who are violent. How is a follower of Jesus to respond to sin in OTHER people.

If we look at the book of Proverbs, we seem to get a pretty clear answer: Bad company is perilous. Stay away from it. Have nothing to do with such people. For example:

13:20 Whoever walks with the wise, becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

22:24 Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.

23:20: Do not join with those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves with meet for drunkards and gluttons become poor.

Some of the Psalms are even more emphatic: 26:4-5 I do not sit with deceitful men, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I abhor the assembly of evildoers and and refuese to even sit with the wicked. And Psalm 139 "Lord, Don't I hate those who are your enemies. Why I hate them as if they were my own enemies."

We can find similar things in the New Testament (e.g. 2 Corinthians 6). The message seems pretty clear: Bad company corrupts good morals. Stay away from bad company. It's not all that different from what your mother has been telling you for years.

And there's alot of good sense in this. Sin is enormously dangerous. It has horrible destructive power. So it makes sense to stay away from anything or anyone who is likely to draw us into it. If you know you are in danger of alcohol addiction, don't be so foolish as to hang out with a drinking crowd. If you want to keep your mind pure, don't hang around with people who are absorbed with pornography. If you want to avoid gossip, avoid people who are constantly gossiping.

It seems like common sense. Maybe we should imagine sin as a virus. If you don't want to catch a cold -- stay away from people with colds. If you want to stay away from sin, why, stay away from sinful people. And IF we think of sin this way, then the natural response will be to isolate ourselves. If we read Proverbs on its own, it would be quite natural to think that we should do everything possible to keep ourselves away from "sinful" people.

And alot of religious people take this attitude. The Pharisees of Jesus era were very concerned with purity. They would have nothing to do with someone who was a sinner. One of the chief motivations of Christian monasticism -- in fact monasticism of any kind -- is to escape the evil influences of the world.

And it's not all in the past. Nowhere have Christians been so successful at creating an independent subculture as in America. Even in New England, it is possible to go from a Christian home to a job in a Christian organization, listen to Christian radio, go to a dinner party at a Christian friend's house and a PTA meeting at a Christian school. If this is what it means to be separated from the world, then it is quite possible to do it. In my brief stay in Texas some years back I discovered that this attitude toward purity was conveniently summarized in a rhyme: "I don't smoke or drink or chew, and I don't go with boys who do."

And it just makes so much sense. If you want to stay pure, why expose yourself to impurity. But then we meet up with Jesus.

And Jesus does not seem to have read Proverbs this way. He breaks all of the rules. He was intimately involved in sinful people's lives. He talked with prostitutes, he partied with corrupt officials, he drank with sinners, he livened up weddings. There were monasteries around in Israel when Jesus lived. He could have modelled a life of isolation and contemplation. It would have made it so much easier for me if he had. But he didn't sit in a nice quiet office waiting for people to come to him -- as I often do -- he was out in the streets, in the bars, at parties, hanging out with sinners.

And he calls us to do the same. To separate ourselves physically and socially from the world around us is a perversion of the Gospel. To pull ourselves out of the world in the name of purity and to live in a religious cocoon is a denial of our Lord. We are called by his example and command to be intimately involved in the lives of people around us -- to be at their weddings, at their funerals, at their parties, in their houses, sharing their joys and sorrows.

We have two non-negotiables here: Purity is non-negotiable -- God calls us to come out and be separate -- to be a holy people. But involvement in the world is also non-negotiable.

The separation God calls us to is not a physical separation but a moral and spiritual one. And there's a big difference. Let me try to illustrate with two contrasting examples:

First example: I'm walking in Northampton on a winter night. I pass by a homeless person huddled in a doorway. He's clearly drunk. But he's also cold and hungry. So I take him to Burger King and buy him a burger and a coffee. I try to persuade him to come with me to a shelter.

Second example: I'm at an academic conference and meet up with some friends from grad school. We go to a bar together. I have a few drinks, but not enough to get drunk. Everyone else gets quite smashed. I don't want to be a wet blanket, so I join in the drunken humor, talk loudly like everyone else, and order another round of drinks.

In both cases I am physically with drunken people. But in one case I maintain a moral separation. I see the sin for what it is, and I have no desire to join in. In the other case I become a moral accomplice to what is going on because I want to belong to the group.

Being with someone who is drunk, or with someone smoking a joint, or with someone who is gossiping is not the danger. Sin is not a virus I catch from the outside. ( None of us need to catch sin from anyone else -- we already have the disease.) The danger when I am in the presence of sin is that I will become a willing companion in sin. If I join in the drunkenness, or share the joint with my friend, or consent to the gossip -- then I am in grave peril. The moral separation that God calls me to has broken down, and I am no longer a representative of Christ to that person -- I am an accomplice in their destruction. I am encouraging them over the precipice.

God calls us to be separate from the world -- but NOT physically
God calls us to be involved in the world -- but not to belong to it.

The warnings in Proverbs are not against involvement IN the world, but against ENTANGLEMENT with evil.

Once when I was in high school I was involved in a group activity that nicely illustrates entanglement. We were on a retreat -- the kind where on the last night you throw pine cones into a fire and tell how your life has been changed forever. At this particular retreat we did something more creative. We crowded into a room and instead of throwing pinecones, we threw a ball of yarn around the room. The rule was that before you threw the ball of yarn, you had to say something that you appreciated about the person you were throwing it to. It was a very heart warming time. And at the end of the evening, the room was a huge, tangled web of yarn binding us to each other. It was really quite effective as an illustration of our belonging to each other.

I'd like you to take that picture and change it. When you are with friends or co-workers who don't share your faith they are constantly tossing you balls of yarn. They want you to join their world, to belong to it. A colleague starts griping about your boss. She's throwing you the ball of yarn, hoping you'll catch it and throw it back. Someone makes a lewd joke about someone else. They are throwing you the ball of yarn -- inviting you to laugh and show that you are one of us. It's enormously tempting to accept it. Join with the griping. Join with the laughter. Throw the yarn back. Show you're one of the crowd. You belong.

But you don't belong! To act like you belong is a denial of the one you DO belong to. Flee from entanglement with sin. To be WITH sinful people is not the problem -- it is unavoidable. But to become entangled in the sin is a very big problem.

Two very simple facts we need to remember to avoid entanglement:

1. Remember WHOSE you are. You belong to Jesus. And that belonging is far more lasting and satisfying than any belonging you can get from joining in sin.

2. Remember what you are here for. We are representatives of Jesus to the world -- ambassadors. Our job is to seek to free people from bondage to sin, not to act as accomplices to their destruction.

One final warning. If I cannot be with a particular group, or with a particular crowd, without becoming entangled in sin -- if I know that I am just too weak -- then I must stay away. I must flee from temptation. Not because I am too good for them -- heavens no. The problem is that I am not good enough. I don't have the strength to remain morally separate. I do them no favor, and I do myself no favor by risking entanglement.

Should you go trick-or-treating this halloween. I cannot and will not answer that for anyone. Some of you may be isolating yourself from the world, and living in a religious cocoon. It may be necessary for you to break out of that cocoon and to go to where the people are. Others may be at risk of entanglement and will find it necessary to flee from that danger. There is no cookie cutter answer.