Drew Carey of The Drew Carey Show, Whose Line Is It Anyway, and The Price Is Right fame has his own blog. An incident of late has made good reading.
Drew Carey, from TPIR
Drew posts on Twitter as @DrewFromTV. He was approached by @Drew, who wanted to sell his Twitter name to Carey for $25,000. @Drew is a cancer survivor and was going to donate the 25k to LiveStrong, Lance Armstrong’s cancer foundation.
Carey as he tells it was in a great mood, didn’t want to sell his name, but upped the stakes. He announced that if 1 million people started following him on Twitter (at the beginning he was at 13,000), he would donate one million dollars to LiveStrong. Later, he revised to say he would donate $1 for every follower he has at the end of 2009, so that LiveStrong wouldn’t get the shaft if Carey only got 999,999 followers.
Monday he got hit with the Law: the Biblical kind. Drew writes:
This is from the New Testament, Matthew 6:1-4 (NIV) “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
I’ve always used that as the general rule for my charity giving. It’s tough to do when you’re famous though. I get invited to a lot of things involving a charity auction of some kind where I have to announce to everyone how much I’m giving just to be able to give money and get the auction item. But I still think it’s better to just give the money and shut up about it whenever you can. Don’t take out an ad. Which is why I’ve been feeling the way I’ve been feeling.
But I’ve also been thinking a lot about the meaning of that passage lately, and maybe I got it wrong.
Jesus is talking about intent here as well as action, no? If the intent of your charitable contribution is to let everyone know what a big man you are, then verily I say unto you that the good karma stops there. But if you would just do all your giving in secret, well then… problem solved without even thinking about it. Theology students and bible scholars, feel free to chime in via the comments section.
Drew, you got it right, but it doesn’t stop there. Everything we do has sin in it. Isaiah 64:5-6 reads:
You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Even our most charitable actions are tainted. If we’re lucky we get the sense of guilt that comes from seeking recognition for our actions. My show, Time Out, got 50 fans the first two days it was on facebook, but I wanted more. Despite it being one of the holier shows out there, there’s still sin attached to it. Drew is right not to deny it. The Law condemns our every move. There is no sin too small to keep us out of heaven.
But God doesn’t leave us in such a state. Christ on the cross bears the Christian’s penalty for placing our Twitter accounts, our blogs, and our podcasts above God. There is no sin too small or too large for the death and resurrection of the Son of God. We are thankful that justice is meted out in the whips, nails, spear, and crucifixion of someone else. Because of this, we are left free, to help our neighbor as best as we can, to donate a million dollars whenever we are able. If you still believe and are baptized, Drew, you are free. Our sins are real, but our redemption is that real and more.
From a letter to Martin Luther to Phillip Melanchthon, dated August 1, 1521:
If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.
I don’t see his offer as self-righteous or self-serving at all. In fact, he’s hinging on the actions of others. He will match with dollars the number of people following him. It’s up to you and me how much he donates. And it’s the other Drew (Olanoff) who’s set the parameters of the offer. I’ve been following this thing from before day one, back when few followed Drew Carey. Too bad people try to throw in the law, when its proper use is to convict sin. Joining in this fundraiser is no sin. Thanks for highlighting!