Sorry for this sobering message on this day of “Thanksgiving”

But, I know all too well what it is like to be enjoying a Thanksgiving weekend celebration with family – to then have it shattered by a phone call with the news that drinking and driving has led to a horrible accident and incarceration. It will change the course of the lives of everyone involved.

Destructive Behavior Taken to Another Level

Our culture universally condemns the destructive behavior called “Drinking and Driving”. There are harsh laws and severe penalties for being caught. Would anyone argue that this isn’t a bad thing? Yet, I know people who do this, justifying in their minds that they are masters over alcohol. It’s only a few drinks. But, they are willing to subject everyone they encounter on the road to the dangers of their impaired driving. They don’t believe they are “drunk” but make no mistake they are impaired.

Taking it to another level of thoughtless selfishness, some parents after partying with family and friends and enjoying more than just a drink or two of alcohol, will responsibly strap their young kids into their safety seats and then climb behind the wheel to drive home, subjecting their own family to very real danger.

Frankly, it makes me sick and angry. While stewing in my anger over this behavior, a phrase popped into my mind,

“Parents – You Drink, You Drive . . . You Suck Eggs”

My initial impulse was to blush for using this kind of harsh language. As a Christian I am compelled to exercise self-control over angry impulses. I offer my apology if you find this too offensive. After meditating on it, though, I wondered if it was something Jesus might say? Did he? Would he? I concluded – quite possibly.

Jesus Spoke Some Harsh Words

Jesus’s harsh words were almost exclusively directed at the Jewish religious leaders. Why? Because they embodied the word Jesus first used to perfectly describe them in the Greek – hupokrites: an actor, stage player, a dissembler (liar, bluffer, fraud, charlatan) pretender.

The word hypocrite, as thrown around today suggests that if you believe something and fail to always live up to it, you are a hypocrite (BTW – that makes us all hypocrites). But, Jesus took the name used for actors and applied it to the Pharisees. What was he saying? He was saying the they were just actors in a play. Fakers. They didn’t believe or live the lines they were saying but used their play acting to manipulate others. They were wittingly being phonies and frauds.

When addressing the Pharisees hypocrisy Jesus used Plain Speaking, i.e. “They say, and do not do”, Descriptive Language, i.e. “Whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones”, and Name Calling, i.e. “Serpents—brood of vipers”

Let’s focus on Jesus’ use of name-calling – “Serpents-brood of Vipers”. Sounds pretty harsh and vindictive. But, what was Jesus saying and “how” was he saying it?

In old western movies, there was nothing more derogatory than to spit on the ground and growl, “You’re a no good, low down, dirty snake!” Is this what Jesus was doing and saying? Being vindictive and spiteful?

No. Jesus’s use of certain language is not about retaliation to vindictively inflict pain on those who have hurt him. Jesus doesn’t just use the word snake; he calls them vipers and a brood of vipers. Now, we use this term for a group of bad and nefarious people. But, what would the first century Jews have been hearing when Jesus declared the Pharisees a brood of vipers?

Hidden in a safe, innocent, and seemingly innocuous setting is something that is dangerously prepared to strike out when you least expect it. Jesus was using common language and imagery relevant to the audience to drive home a point. This was exactly what Jewish leaders had done to the prophets and what they were planning to do to Jesus. Just like a brood of vipers who lie amongst a pile of sticks and branches waiting to pounce on their victim collecting firewood.

The Apostle Paul experienced this very thing as documented in Acts 28:3 – “But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.”

Now listen to this description of the Pharisees: Luke 11:53-54 says, “And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things, lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him.” Sounds like a brood of vipers.

Harsh Truth but Spoken in Love

I have done a study that focused on the words that described “how” Jesus spoke. Without going into the details, Jesus was never recorded as angrily quarreling or yelling. We find that the Gospel description of how Jesus spoke is consistent with the prophecy in Isaiah 42:1-4 that Jesus quoted in Matthew 12:18-19 where it says that Jesus would never be described as having quarreled or to have angrily cried out.

Furthermore, in perhaps the most famous prophetic scriptures about Jesus, it says in Isaiah 53:7-9 that Jesus will never do any violence, nor have any deceit in His mouth. With this prophetic word, we know that Jesus never spoke just to defend himself, never acted or spoke with intention to be harsh or violent, nor did he ever say anything to deceive anyone.

So, would Jesus have told someone that they Suck Eggs?

When I was a young kid, before we learned about “real” swearing, one of the common insults we would fling at one another was, “You suck eggs!” or “Go suck an egg!”

It was actually kind of innocent. As far as I knew it meant that you were doing something disgusting or your breath stunk, or I imagined them straining to suck Easter eggs with the resulting ugly contortion on their face.

But, where did the term come from? After a little research, I discovered that the most likely meaning is derived from animals that sneak into a nest, puncture the eggs with their pointed snout and suck the egg out – e.g. a weasel.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED2) records the term “to suck the eggs of” meaning to extract the goodness of, cause to be unproductive, relating to the association of sucking eggs with stealing them.

All in all, from earlier literature, the term’s use seems to add up to a sense of “sucking eggs” as a dishonest, contemptible, or foolish activity. Examples:

• From, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, chapter 1: Tom is arguing with a stranger and one of them said “I dare you to knock it off-and anybody that’ll take a dare will suck eggs.” (will be foolish and contemptible)
• Dating back to 1599 and Shakespeare’s play, Henry V, he writes “The Weazell (Scot) Comes sneaking, and so sucks her Princely Egges.” (sneakily stealing something of value)

Jesus Called the Pharisees Snakes, would he have called someone a Weasel?

I must admit that I was tempted, but I have decided not to put words in Jesus’ mouth. The truth is that Jesus reserved this confrontational language for the Pharisees because of how they misrepresented God and His spiritual goodness, righteousness and truth.

For us and our common failings Jesus declared in John 12:47, “. . . for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”

My own parable of the ‘Bird and the Weasel’:

• The bird stands guard protecting their eggs but he is enticed away by the other birds soaring and playing. He joins them for the thrill. But, the weasel has been watching and when he sees the unprotected nest he crawls in, breaking the eggs and sucking the life from them. Where was the treasure in the bird’s heart?

However, in this parable, the alcoholic is not the weasel. The alcohol is the weasel. Don’t be willing to let it suck the very life from your own children. For those who are willing to drink and drive with your children in the car, this is perhaps the clearest indication that you have a drinking problem.

How can one declare that their love for their family is the most important thing in their life but still be willing to put them in danger – making drinking and alcohol and their ego more important? What to think if the person driving who will not relinquish the keys when a loved-one suggests that it would be safer for another to drive? Perhaps the hypocrisy is in saying all the right lines but knowing you are not living them out – maybe even in thinking you are a better person than you are?

Here’s the Good News – God loves you and Jesus is waiting with open arms to enter into your life to give you the strength to overcome your addiction. We live in a world where our moral values are crumbling around us. Still, our society today celebrates and even considers heroic those who face their problems with the determination to overcome.

True love is the self-sacrificing love of Jesus. For the love of God, love your family and love yourself. Be heroic. Don’t suck eggs. Put away the weasel.

Going back to that sad thanksgiving from years past; we can now give Thanks that in spite of 2 completely totaled cars, all involved were spared with little physical injury. And even more so, that while emotional scars are still healing, we have seen God’s restorative handiwork throughout it all.

The thanks be to God! Have a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving.