Sermon:
July 18, 1999

Scripture:
Exodus 20:1-17

A couple of weekends back, when my grand niece was sleeping over at our house and "vegging out" in front of the television, I learned that there is a cable station that offers nothing but non-stop game shows. A lot of them are very old game shows ... like Password, which hasn't been around in ages. But it was on Password that I once won $300 and a set of World Book Encyclopedias. I owe it all to Kitty Carlisle, with whom I could have gone on winning indefinitely. Alas, however, they made me change chairs and play with James Mason. I am here to tell you that " British reserve" and the game of Password do not go well together, especially if you want to make any serious money.

I do not know a great deal about the game show industry, because I do not know a great deal about the television industry. If the average kid watches five hours a day (and the average adult, three), then I am hopelessly below average. Not that I am a snob where television is concerned. I am not above it. I am simply away from it ... the television, I mean. I am seldom where "it" is. And what little tube time I have available must be carefully allotted to baseball games, football games, basketball games, hockey games, golf games, women's World Cup soccer games, etc. Although I do occasionally sneak a Monday night glance at that show which features the anorexic-looking lawyer ... just to see where Gen-X professionals' heads are these days.

Where game shows are concerned, I'm lost ... once you get past Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Which was why it took years for me to catch on to the Vanna White phenomenon, which surfaced (big-time) in the mid-eighties and has stuck around eternally, elevating the lovely Ms. White from the status of flash-in-the-public-pan, to pop-cultural icon. Much of which happened because of a commencement sermon (I almost said "commencement speech" ... but it really was a "sermon"), delivered by Ted Koppel to the graduates of Duke University, May 10, 1987. In a world where commencement speeches have shorter lives than those bugs which mate, breed and die in an hour and a half, people are still talking about Koppel's sermon a dozen years later. Which may have something to do with the fact that people are still talking about Ted Koppel, a dozen years later. Talk about pop-cultural icons. In later years, my daughter ended up going to school with Ted's son. But our paths never crossed. Although I recently re-read the speech in which he said:

America has been vannatized! That's "vannatized" as in Vanna White, who is Wheel of Fortune's vestal virgin. The young lady may have already appeared in one of those ubiquitous lists of most-admired Americans, but if she has not, it is only a matter of time. For, through the mysterious alchemy of popular television, Miss White is roundly, indeed all but universally, adored.

But if there be a handful of you who have not thrilled to the graceful ease with which Miss White glides across our television screens, permit me to tell you what she does. She plays with blocks. She turns blocks, on which blank sides are displayed, to reveal another side of the block on which a letter of the alphabet is displayed. She does this as a part of a game. The game is called Wheel of Fortune. It is hosted by a most amiable chap named Pat Sajak. Which surprises me, given that I keep expecting to see Bob Barker. I thought Bob Barker hosted all television game shows. I figured it was a law or something.

Wheel of Fortune is not unlike a game that we used to play as kids. The name of the game was "Hangman." It, too, involved letters of the alphabet. We would cry out, "Does it have an `A'?" Sooner or later we would guess enough letters to form a word. If sufficient misses punctuated our guesses, the little man was hung and the game was lost. Wheel of Fortune is like that. It is a game that utilizes the alphabet as the players search for certain words and phrases. Vanna White is the one who turns the letters. She does it beautifully, fluidly and with obvious enjoyment. She also does it mutely. Vanna says little. Sometimes, at the end of the show, you can see her lips move as she talks with the winners. But the rest of us can only imagine what they are saying to one another.

Perhaps, suggests Koppel, it is important that she not speak. Speechless, she can be whatever we want her to be: daughter, sister, wife, lover, even the girl next door. She is an image onto which we can project a thousand different personalities, and she accommodates them all.

Even her autobiography (can you believe that Vanna White wrote her autobiography?) offers little in the way of clues. It does tell us that one of her greatest nightmares is running out of cat food, and that one of the complexities of her job entails making proper allowance for the greater weight of the letters "M" and "W," as compared (for example) with the letter "I." Once, in her less experienced days, she failed to take this weight differential into account and broke a fingernail.

Don't get me wrong. Vanna White is probably a very lovely person. She understands her role and fills it. For all I know, the real Vanna may be an intellectual giant. If she isn't, that's all right. Into every life a little beauty must fall. And a little fantasy, too. Lest you deem my judgments snide and critical, let me remind you that this is precisely how Miss White is packaged ... as a little food for fantasy. Therefore, if I've gotten that impression, I have probably gotten the impression that was intended. It's all a matter of packaging.

And make no mistake about it, the package is important. It is far more important than the personality. Why do you think she doesn't speak? If they let her talk, you see, she would take on a particular personality, and we would have to relate to that. The neutrality would be gone and, with it, much of the fantasy.

The world of appearances is not primarily concerned with personalities. Neither is it overly concerned with truth. It is concerned with how something looks. The primary questions become:

What kind of look are we going for?

How can we package this so it will sell?

How can we put a good face upon this, so that it will be accepted by a majority of the people?

All of which I might have disregarded as being dated, had I not heard Mitch Albom, Mort Crim and George Cantor (a trio of local icons) say virtually the same thing, last April 15 ... at a conference on "Media and Values" that we were privileged to co-sponsor, and I was privileged to emcee. Which turned out to be a great day ... but a most unsettling one.

I was interested, however, in Ted Koppel's treatment of this issue, not only in terms of his self-perception about what it means to be a television journalist, but also in terms of his understanding of our American culture and psyche. The "Vanna Factor," as Koppel calls it, is our preoccupation with appearance over substance. "And," adds Koppel, "the primary appearance to project, at least in my business (which is television news), is the appearance of neutrality."

That surprised me. I watch Koppel's show fairly often. I am generally awake at 11:30 p.m. What's more, I am almost always at home. In watching Koppel's program, I have found him to be incisive, knowledgeable and hard-hitting. He is certainly anything but bland. I cannot picture him being overly concerned with appearances, or with neutrality for that matter. But listen to what Koppel told the assembled graduates at Duke:

We have been hired, Vanna and I, to project neutrality. In my business, which is communication, we are now able to communicate with everybody and say absolutely nothing. We have reconstructed the Tower of Babel and it is a television tower - throwing out a thousand voices, which produce a daily (and perhaps deadly) parody of democracy, in which every opinion is afforded equal weight, whether or not it has substance or merit. Indeed, it can even be argued that opinions of real weight tend to sink, with barely a notice, in television's great ocean of banality.

But what interests me most is what he said next:

That Vanna Factor (this preoccupation with how things appear, and whether they can be made to appear neutral) plays a most dangerous game with truth, especially truth of a moral and spiritual nature. Out society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. For, in its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder; it is a howling reproach. What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not ten suggestions, but ten commandments. And not were, but are.

I found myself both surprised and amazed by Koppel's sudden leap from the material of his field to the material of mine. He made the shift so fast, I'm still not sure how he got there. But, then again, I'm not all that sure that it matters.

What does matter is that Koppel wanted to talk to the graduates of Duke about the Ten Commandments. What does matter is that he views the Commandments as statements of truthful substance, in a world where language is often packaged and neutered so that it will become palatable to the many and objectionable to the few. What does matter is that, in a world where it has become fashionable to justify almost anything by saying, "Well, it's all in how you look at it," it is important to raise a thought or two as to how God might look at it.

I just finished a wonderful book by Tex Sample entitled The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World. In it, he said that one of the signs that told him he was getting old, was when he realized how frequently his students were using the phrase "That's true for me" ... with its strange (albeit implicit) suggestion that truth is only verifiable "if I get it," or "if I buy into it." If I don't ... get it or buy into it (I mean) ... maybe it isn't (true, that is).

I suspect that this creeping subjectivity (where truth is concerned) is behind the current legal brouhaha concerning whether the Ten Commandments can be framed and hung on a courthouse wall. I know there are tons of constitutional ramifications that accompany such an act. And I would not, for a minute, diminish them. But I doubt that most people are worried about such issues. Rather, they fear that too much has already been relativized by too many, for too long.

After spending three hours with an insurance adjuster the other day, he found out what I did for a living. Which led him to explain that he has been shopping for a new church of late, as a prelude to relocating his membership. I suspect he has a number of reasons. But the only thing he shared was this.

Nobody ever talks about the Ten Commandments any more. I haven't heard a sermon on the Commandments in 20 years. Don't they teach them in seminary?

He seemed pleased when I told him I was leading a study class on that very subject ... every Wednesday morning ... over donuts and coffee ... at the crack of dawn. To which he responded: "I wish I could join you. But it's a long drive down from Petoskey." Which it is ... over 250 miles. But his initial question (about the role of the Ten Commandments in contemporary Christian preaching) revealed far more hunger than it did anger. He wanted somebody to tell him that the Commandments were still valid ... and relevant.

"Relevant," Koppel cries, "of course the Commandments are relevant." As if to prove his point, he walks us through a few of them. Consider number six. Consider how much blank space there would be in our newspapers, and how much empty air time on our televisions, were it not for the routine violation of the Sixth Commandment. Murder, which was once sensational in its deviation from the norm, has now become routine, and borders on becoming boring. We respond to the news of yet another killing with hand-wringing resignation. Violence has become not only accepted, but expected. Yet, I will never forget the response of C. Eric Lincoln, noted Black theologian and former professor of Union Theological Seminary in New York, who, when asked his position on the abortion question, said:

Everything in my training, my heritage, my ethics, and my understanding of the Gospel would cause me to espouse a pro-choice position. But I find myself growing weary of our tendency to employ violence as a solution for everything.

And what of number seven? Without it, marriages would be relatively unthreatened ... and political careers, largely unsullied. Or would they? Recall, if you will, the old cartoon which depicts Moses descending from Sinai, tablets in hand, sheepish grin on face, with a telltale shrug of his shoulders. He is addressing the elders of Israel:

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I've got Him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery's still one of the ten.

Alas, many haven't heard. Double-alas, many who have heard (that adultery is still in the ten), think it's bad news.

Relevant? Of course the Commandments are relevant. Consider the Eighth Commandment in the light of credit card theft, computer fraud and insider trading on Wall Street. Theft is not just the work of shoplifters and cat burglars any more. There must be a million ways to steal stuff.

Consider the Ninth Commandment in the light of recent lies told from some very public places ... including the White House. In an age in which the spoken and written word pales before the visual imagery of a televised moment, how many years will it take us to forget the President pointing into the camera and saying: "I did not sexual relations with that woman ... Miss Lewinsky." Of course his statement was defended, given his rather narrow definition of "sexual relations." Let me take a risk here and share one of the stories that has circulated since. `Twas said that the President's wife was having a conversation with the President's daughter about her newest collegiate boyfriend, leading Hillary to ask Chelsea if she and the boy had had sexual relations. To which Chelsea is alleged to have responded: "Not according to Daddy." Which is not a true conversation, of course. But which powerfully demonstrates the implication of "bearing false witness" ... even if the truth is shaded rather than fractured.

At least, when Bill Clinton was caught in his lie, it made some of us forget Ollie North's defense for misstatements, made under oath, during the Iran Contra hearings. You remember how he thumped his chest and said: "I lied, and I'd do it again." Which many excused by saying that "it was for a good cause." Maybe so. But I prefer my liars, when caught dead in the act, to express a bit more contrition and a lot less arrogance.

Then there's the Tenth Commandment, which gets right to the heart of what Stan Hauerwas calls "our affluenza epidemic." This is the commandment concerning covetous desires, which dares to suggest, "Thou shalt not drool over anything that is thy neighbor's." For it is hard to strike up an authentic neighborly relationship while drooling. It is also darned hard to strike up an authentic neighborly relationship while killing, lying, stealing, or sleeping with someone's spouse. Such things violate community. They are not rules that we break, so much as they are rules that break us.

And what of the earlier Commandments? I would suggest to you that the earlier Commandments set out to describe nothing less than the jealousy of God. Consider the argument:

I brought you out (from the land of Egypt).

I brought you up (from the house of bondage).

Don't forget it.

Don't forget me.

Don't cut my rank.

Don't dilute my influence.

Don't settle for something that looks and sounds like me, but isn't.

Pay homage to me with regularity, not because I am vain and need the flattery, but because you are forgetful and need the continual reminder.

What's more, honor your parents. Why? Because they represent me to you. (Ah, what a twist that is. What is to be honored is not maternity and paternity. What is to be honored is the divinity which is supposed to shine through maternity and paternity.)

"What a bizarre journey," says Koppel, "from sweet, undemanding Vanna White to an all-demanding, jealous, Old Testament deity." It is the difference between a mute goddess and a highly-opinionated God. In Vanna White's world, appearances are everything and truth is a polite tap on the shoulder. In God's world, substances are everything and truth is a howling reproach. At least that's what Ted Koppel said.

It bears looking into.