Light and Darkness

This week, I was reading Wesley's sermon entitled A Caution against Bigotry.  It was written in 1750 and is based on this passage:

And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not us. And Jesus said, Forbid him not.  Mark 9:38-39

At first blush, would we say that there is no modern relevance to this passage? The disciples have seen someone "casting out devils" who wasn't a follower of Jesus, so they told the person to stop.  Do we spend much time casting out devils?

I like Wesley's perspective on this. If we remove the idea of a concrete devil, and think instead of sin, or even darkness, then we can bring this into our own world. What do we do? We bring the light of Christ to people's lives.  Or to put it as John does in 1 John 1:5, "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all."

Wesley goes on to write, "If we willingly fail in any of these points, if we either directly or indirectly forbid him 'because he followeth not us,' then we are 'bigots.'"  Would we stop someone from bringing light to darkness because they do not attend our church? Believe as we do? Would we leave someone in darkness?

Wesley says, "Encourage whomsoever God is pleased to employ, to give himself wholly up thereto. Speak well of him wheresoever you are; defend his character and his mission. Enlarge as far as you can his sphere of action  Show him all kindness in word and deed. And cease not to cry to God in his behalf, that he may save both himself and them that hear him. "

Will we bring that kind of light to the world? I hope so.

 

Afraid of Grace

In Sunday school a few weeks ago, the question arose,  "Won’t we just sin if the slate is wiped clean?"  If grace is grace, and God forgives and removes sin from our lives through sanctifying grace, then doesn't that encourage us to sin again? If there are no consequences, then won't we sin?

It's a logical question.  It's a parenting question.  We realize as parents that if we remove consequences for wrong doing, or if we never set boundaries or implement discipline, then will a child ever learn right from wrong, and won't the child make the wrong choices again and again?  We know we have to be the parent and enforce discipline to teach our children.  In addition to that, we have an sense of fairness - we can't imagine that wrongdoing can be forgotten or forgiven.  It doesn't seem fair.  

And then there is this: if God forgives sins - without grudges or points lost - then we have to do the same.  We don't want to.

Paul said this in Romans 6:1-4:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Forgiveness isn't meant to be a "get out of jail free" card.  Forgiveness doesn't remove consequences.  What we do has consequences, and even as forgiven people, we have to work through them. 

We sometimes equate forgiveness as "washing away our sins," as if we threw a towel in the washing machine with bleach and if came out clean and white.  The purpose of forgiveness isn't cleanliness - it's change.  It is part of sanctification - grace that moves us closer to the image of God.  It doesn't reset us to where we were - it should change us.  As a person made new in Christ, our desire to sin is changed.  

Don't misunderstand what I am saying. I don't mean that once forgiven, we no longer are tempted to sin, and that we have a magic sin-resistance field around us.  What I do mean is that as we are experience sanctifying grace, we are changed by love. Changed so that we might say as Paul says  in Romans 7:19, " For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."  I believe our desire to sin decreases because our love of God and gratitude towards God increase.  Forgiveness doesn't motivate us to sin more; forgiveness, because it is love and grace, changes us so that we do not want to sin more.

And, as we are changed by sanctifying grace, our willingness to forgive others, without grudge, increases. That doesn't mean we can forgive without the help of God, but our desire to do so will increase.

God of the Mess

Bishop Steiner Ball preached at our church a couple of Sundays ago.  The basis of her sermon was the Jacob's ladder story. Do you remember it? Jacob has tricked his father into blessing him instead of Esau, effectively disinheriting his brother. Esau is (understandably) angry. Jacob's mother warns him, and Jacob runs away. 

He ends up in a place with no name. The Bishop said, "he was a mess."  And yet, this is when he encounters God.

Do we sometimes try to get out of a mess before we approach God? Have you ever heard someone say, "I can't go to church: I do too many bad things."?  

Jacob is a mess of sin and guilt. He's running for his life. And he has gotten no where.  God stands at the base of the ladder with him, even in the mess. 

God will do the same for us - and for those around us. Be reassured that you don't have to be "out of your mess" in order to reach for God. In fact, in our weakness, we are the most ready for God.

Contrition

Contrition.

I feel it 

as the ashes placed on my forehead

dust down onto my face.

My sins.

Obvious to the world.

My faults.

Staining not just my skin

but the life I lead.

Oh, God, 

Our God,

My God,

Forgive me.

Clean the ash from my face

as you clean the sin

from my life.

And may you cover me

May you cover us

in your sanctifying grace,

so that tomorrow

we might say,

I am doing better.

Doing Bad vs. Being Bad

This afternoon I was reading in Eugene Peterson's Psalms: Prayers of the Heart.  The Chapter centers around Psalm 51, which is attributed to David following his actions with Bathsheba.

Peterson writes this:

Our experience of sin does not consist in doing some bad things but in being bad. it is a fundamental condition of our existence, not a temporary lapse into error. Praying our sin isn't resolving not to sin anymore; it is discovering what God has resolved to do with us as sinners.

What are your thoughts?

1. We often thing that granting someone forgiveness hinges on their commitment to not hurt us again. If our prayers to God do not hinge on such a condition - and if what Peterson says is true, then this is the case - then why should we only grant forgiveness to people who resolve to not sin again? Is it possible to promise to not sin again?
2. Doesn't grace gain a bigger meaning if what Peterson says is true? God isn't granting us pardon for what we have done - God is working within us to change us.
3. And is this what sanctifying grace means? 

Sinner

These were the people who wore their brokenness on the outside, people whose indiscretions were so other, so uncommon, their entire personhood was relegated to the category of sinner.  They were the people the religious loved to hate, for they provided a convenient sorting mechanism for externalizing sin as something that exists out there, among other people with other problems, making other mistakes.  (Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans).

Have you ever been in the hospital and heard someone refer to a patient as the "infected arm in room 201"?  I think some nurses and doctors might do that in order to stay detached from the patient.  It's easier, isn't it? To see the patient as only the aliment instead of a person?

What Rachel Held Evans is talking about is a little of that, but it also includes something much for sinister, much more sinful.

Do we see a person and judge them by the sin we believe they have, rather than seeing the person? Do we do that in order to feel better about ourselves?

If I call the person in front of me an addict, am I saying - at least subliminally - that "I don't sin like that."

If we see label a parent as a "poor mother," - because in our eyes, her children aren't behaving the way we would expect them to, or she isn't doing what we think she should be doing - are we feeling better about ourselves?

When the Pharisees scoffed, and called someone a prostitute, or a tax collector, or an unclean leper, did it make them feel better?

At least I'm not like that person.

More Ourselves than Ever

If you read the blog, this post may sounds familiar. I took a post I had written for the blog and adapted it to be used as a Conference Lenten devotional. Since it is a little different than before (hopefully more polished), I'm posting it here in its finished form.

Have you ever said, “I’m only human, after all.” We say it when we make a mistake. We say it when we sin, as if our humanity creates in us an inability to choose to follow the leadership of God. We say it as if our humanity is an acceptable and understandable excuse for our selfishness and self-centeredness.

I’m listening to a series of lectures about the work of C.S. Lewis. In the lectures, Dr. Louis Markos speaks of Lewis’s assertion that when we choose sin over obedience to God, we lose a small piece of our humanity. “Each time we choose ourselves or our sins over God and others, each time we close another inner door on the life-giving (but also revealing) light of Christ, we surrender another spark of our humanity. We (literally) dehumanize ourselves.”

The truth is it is not our humanity that causes us to sin. We are created in the image of God – human and good. The sanctifying grace of God – through the Spirit of God living in us - does not make us less human; it moves us closer to the humanity that God created. God’s sanctifying grace moves us toward the perfection and wholeness of true humanity.

In the Screwtape Letters, written by C. S. Lewis, Screwtape, a senior demon, writes to his nephew, Wormwood, a junior tempter, “When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamor of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”

Prayer: Creating, sustaining God, help us to become more ourselves than ever. Forgive us when we choose to disobey, and move us closer to what you have created us to be. We pray in your son’s name, Amen.

Passover Freedom

This morning I read Luke 22:1-13.  In these paragraphs, Judas plots with the chief priests and the officers of the temple police to betray Jesus.  Following that is the paragraph about the preparation for the Passover meal, and Jesus' instructions concerning it.

The study Bible I read makes a point to emphasize that this meal is Passover, "with its emphasis on the exodus as liberation for the marginalized and oppressed..."  Remember when Passover was established in the book of Exodus, during the time when the Israelites were freed from the control of Pharaoh in Egypt.

I remember when I was taking the Bethel Teacher's class.  Chuck Echols (the minister who was teaching it) and the curriculum reminded us that Jesus came to the world when the time was right -- in God's time.  There has to be some link in the timing of the crucifixion for it to fall right at Passover.  This act of God frees his people, once again.  We are freed from the bondage of our sin. There is a line in the United Methodist Communion ritual that says, "free us for joyful obedience." It is at the end of a confession.  Through our communion with Christ, we are freed from our sins.

Considering that I read today from Luke, with his emphasis on the fact that salvation is for everyone, and that Christ came for the oppressed, it's no wonder that he makes it perfectly clear to us that this last meal will be Passover.

God's suffering

Yesterday, I wrote about the image of God, and how our relationship with God moves us closer and closer to reflecting the complete image of God.

Carder, in the next chapter of Living our Beliefs, talks about how sin is the opposite of this.  Sin is the reflection of something other than the image of God.  When we sin, we fall short of our potential -- short of what we were created to be.  If you look at yesterday's list, sin means that we fail in our ability to have understanding and free will, to be good stewards.  It means we fail to discern right from wrong and that we fail to be holy.  When we sin, our actions and thoughts reflect something other than the face of God.  We fail to be what we were created to be.

Now read this quote from the book:

The consequence of persistent denial and betrayal of the divine image is suffering – the suffering of God.  God so closely identifies with the human family that God assumes the suffering and death inflicted upon it.  The cross of Christ, then, represents sin’s tragic consequences upon humanity and upon God.

Have you ever thought of your sin as bringing about the suffering of God?  So often I think we believe that our sin doens't really hurt anyone else -- or at least we fool ourselves into believing that about certain of our sins.  But what about the idea that our sin brings suffering to God?

Of course, obviously, our sin brought about the suffering on the cross, but what about today?  Think about God suffering today because of your sin.  My sin.

Sin

I still have some thought about the video I posted, but I keep getting distracted.

Today I read Genesis 4.  Genesis 4 is the story of Cain and Abel.  The commentary and notes I read highlighted how this chapter parallels Genesis 3 in some ways -- another story of sin and its consequences.

Cain was a farmer.  He cared for the land, as his father had done.  This was a traditional role for the older son.  The younger son also had a traditional role -- that of the son who took care of the animals.  The hearers of this story would have heard a story of an Israelite farm -- a story about people living much like they themselves lived.

The passage doesn't really speak to why God favored one sacrifice over another, and it's not really important or the point of the passage.  What is important is the model of the effects of sin.

Cain killed Abel, and the rest of the chapter parallels the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 3.  God gave instruction, humans disobeyed.  God confronted them, and the humans protested, casting blame in another direction.  God then banished them, but does not abandon them.

Cain is sent to Nod, which just means "the wilderness."  He loses his inheritance. The blood of Abel -- the sin -- makes the land unusable. Because of his sin, he loses his future, his potential, his family. 

However, even though he is sent away, he does not lose his God.  God marks him with a mark of protection.  God still cares about what happens to him.

It is a story we can apply to sin in our lives. 

Sin

I read Genesis 3 today -- the story of the sin of Adam and Eve -- and some commentaries about it.  It occurs to me that we can learn much about ourselves, our sin and our God from this story.

• God warns Adam and Eve of their death if they eat from the forbidden tree. They don't die, and I don't know whether God's warning was metaphorical or if he changed his mind, but either way, there is much that dies as a consequence of our sin.  There is death because of sin -- death of relationships, innocence, trust.
• Their sin is the result, in some ways, of their pride, as is ours.  They attempt to take control of something that should have been left in God's hands.  How often do we do that?  How often do we think we know best?
• After their sin, they are aware of their nakedness.  Sin leaves us vulnerable, guilty, fragile, afraid.  We hide from God just as they did. 
• Their sin interrupts their relationship with God but also with each other.  They blame each other.  Don't we do that?
• Because of their sin, the open door to paradise is closed to them.  What opportunities do we lose because of our sin?  What wonderful doors does God open for us that we turn away from?

And yet, God remains the same.  He is merciful and caring, even in the face of their sin and of ours.  He does not abandon his creation; he does not stop loving them or us.  He cannot stop loving them.  He will not stop loving us.

Iniquity

In Sunday school today, we discussed a passage from Exodus 34:6-7

The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed,
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’

Marv began his lesson by asking how we rectify the image of a God that requires adherence to law in the Old Testament and a God of grace in the New Testament?

What about the contradiction of a God who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin and yet does not clear the guilty, visiting iniquity to the third and fourth generations?

Betsy had an excellent explanation. Consider littering. Consider a person who tosses a plastic water bottle out the window of a car. You will be forgiven for the sin, but the consequence of the sin remains for generations.

God forgives our sins and yet he does not promise to remove the consequences of the sin.

I also think we can be reassured by the description of a God who will love us for 1000 generations. I think that might just be another way to say forever.

Greater than our sin

I went to graduation this evening for one of our local high schools.

Graduation is a celebration. It's a ritual right of passage as kids who have worked their way through 12 years of school prepare to take the next step.

At this particular graduation, the students' names were called, and they walked across the stage, shaking hands with Board of Education members, principals, etc. As each name was called, family members and friends applauded.

I noticed for some of the students, the applause was larger, the cheers were louder. I'm sure some of that had to do with the personality of their families, the number of family members present, the popularity of the student, etc. Some of it, though, I imagine had to do how close the student came to not graduating.

For some of these students, with great grades and high test schools, graduation was a foregone conclusion. I imagine that for some of these students, not graduating was never even considered.
For others, graduation was not expected. Reaching that milestone was a struggle. Grades weren't high, absences were many. When they walked across the stage, family members who had shared their struggles couldn't hold the joy in at the accomplishment before them.

‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus* said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Luke 7:41-43

For those of us who have lived in sin, and who are aware of how far we have been from God, when God appears, there is great celebration. Those of us who believe God will never forgive us, that God would never grant us grace, find ourselves stunned by God when he appears. Our joy is great -- greater, perhaps, because of our sin.

The risk is worth it

I sometimes hear, when I teach a class, certain ideas about grace and forgiveness that I disagree with:

• God won't forgive sins that are horrible. The more horrible and evil, the less likely God is to forgive.
• In order to be forgiven, there are certain things we must do -- we must change our ways, we must ask for forgiveness, we must be sorry for what we did.

I think we try to create God in our own image. We limit grace, because it doesn't seem fair or just to us.

It isn't fair. It isn't justice. It's grace.

Philip Yancey, in his book What's So Amazing About Grace?" talks about loopholes. Have you ever thought "why don't I go ahead and sin because God is going to forgive me anyway."?

We might not admit to that rationalization. What we might say, though, is that "God must not have meant to establish this kind of system -- forgiveness for everything - because the opportunities for abuse are just too large!

The risk is huge. God takes the chance that we will sin and sin and sin, seeking forgivneness. He opens himself up to become vulnerable and abused and taken for granted because what he is seeking is love.

Love. If I love, I will respond to grace with grace. I will desire not to sin, I will choose to obey and love God.

If he gives us the opportunity to choose freely, then he risks we will choose sin. The love, though, is worth the risk.

Washed by the blood

I was listening to a Sunday school lesson today led by a young woman who had been a member of a Kairos team -- a Christian growth experience in prison.

She said that most of the prisoners she was around had been found guilty of drug related charges, but that a few were crimes like murder. She confessed that she had been able to overlook the former "sins" but not the latter ones, and that bothered her. She confessed that she was disappointed by her own judgmental nature.

She wanted to have the eyes of God, who didn't see any of the sins because of the blood of Jesus.

We are all sinful, but God doesn't see the sin. He sees the person. He sees the lovable child he created. He aches for the sin, and for the pain is causes, but the blood of Christ has washed away the guilt and removed the sin.

It was a moment of grace for me.

On an unrelated note, go check out this sermon by Songbird, Adopted by God.