Readings from the Christian Lexicon Feb 25th, 2013
Reading 1: Daniel 9:4b-10
“Lord, great and awesome God,
you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you
and observe your commandments!
We have sinned, been wicked and done evil;
we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws.
We have not obeyed your servants the prophets,
who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes,
our fathers, and all the people of the land.
Justice, O Lord, is on your side;
we are shamefaced even to this day:
we, the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem,
and all Israel, near and far,
in all the countries to which you have scattered them
because of their treachery toward you.
O LORD, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers,
for having sinned against you.
But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness!
Yet we rebelled against you
and paid no heed to your command, O LORD, our God,
to live by the law you gave us through your servants the prophets.”
Reading 2: Psalm 79:11-13
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name’s sake.
Let the prisoners’ sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
Reading 3: Luke6:36-38
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”
Our Reflection: "Sin is not a popular topic"
Many don’t like to talk about the existence of sin, or that certain things or thoughts are sinful. We live in a culture and time when to have such conversations are considered foolish, archaic, judgmental and dangerous. To consider certain things sin is to be consider religious, narrow minded, un-enlightened.
However, we are surrounded by sin – constantly. I haven’t read this morning’s paper yet, and I’m sure they will be a feel good story or two, but that isn’t what makes up much of the first two sections of the paper. It will be about what terrible things one person has done to another – or one nation to another. It will contain how leaders, governments, and companies have been caught in lies, behaviours of dishonestly and self interest. It will also identify the stark contrast and differences between the worlds of the haves and the have nots.
The struggle we primarily have is with those things, that we as creatures consider sin – and those things that God identifies as sin. Too often they are not the same thing. We don’t have to read the New Testament long to discover that the way the religious leaders and lawyers saw reality was much different than how Jesus and therefore God knew that same reality to be. We read in a number of places where Jesus says such things as “you say, do not commit murder, I tell you, if you hate your brother and you have committed murder. You say, don’t commit adultery, I tell you if you view another person with lustful thoughts you’ve committed adultery already”. Our task is to be so acquainted with God and His Word that we seek His heart and vision of reality and we are willing ‘put to death’ our own.
One of the things that messes us up when thinking about this unpopular topic is how God Himself seems to view the nature of sin. It seems He doesn’t have a measuring scale where He determines, ‘well, this one isn’t has bad as that one or this one is a little one, so I can over look – but that one, that is way bad that really is on my naughty list. It appears God view the world in pretty black and white terms. The wages of any and all sin is death – and the crucifixion of Christ is the only sufficient payment. That’s a good news, bad news story for us. The good news is that all our sin is confessable and repentable – we can all receive the gift of God – the bad news is, we must see the world as God knows it to be, not as we wish it was and subsequently confess and repent our sin of not seeing the world as He does. We must acknowledge His Lordship and authority to identify what is and isn’t considered ‘against Him and his purpose’ – or sin.
I had a conversation not too long ago with someone who stated their view of sin was when a person wasn’t being truthful to themselves. There wasn’t much sense in trying to convince this person otherwise because they were not interested in a conversation – but in justification – he had already determined what was the nature and standard of sin. I think however, that too many Christian could be accused of the same – they’re not so interested in conversation either, as they are in the condemning – they equally have already determined that nature and standard.
I think that is part of the warning that comes with Jesus statement “be careful how you judge, for when you try to take a speck out of your neighbours eye you may have log in your own”. God is not saying here that there isn’t any way to determine right or wrong – he just saying we have to be very humble, and gentle and prayerful that we are seeking His heart and not responding out of our heart.
I thought about what my friend said, about sin not being true to oneself – and perhaps he’s not completely wrong - the primary difference is how he and I define ‘being true to oneself’. It goes to the very Origin of the Species. If I am a creature of chance and purposeless beyond what I can manufacture, he’s mostly correct – mostly I say because the conversation of the nature of sin becomes a moot one – there’s nothing absolute to judge sin against in his case – good, bad are completely subjective. At best ‘sin’ is social constructs and at worse it is defined by the survival of the fittest.
However, if I’m a creature of design, the whole universe shifts. And, in essence my friend is still correct in that sin is ‘not being true to one self’. But, the nature of that oneself Being is completely different. We are a Being created in the image of God by design and for a particular purpose. It is that realization that causes David to declare when he finds himself drowning in his sin – “O Lord, against You and You alone have I sinned”. If then God is our Good and Holy Designer, although sin has consequences for us – and certainly it impacts others, sin is first and foremost a violation of God's purpose and vision of ourselves. God doesn’t just arbitrary determine what he doesn’t like it and therefore calls it sin – it is the cost and impact of that sin, of the terrible cost of not being true to how and why God has created those creatures whom he loves and has created by design and for a purpose. All sin has a cost that someone ends up paying for it – or in the case of the one who comes to Christ – Someone.
As I read these passages for this morning, something else about the nature and declaration of Sin is revealed that I think we even as follower of Christ we have lost.Not only do these passages speak of individual ‘sin’, but of the corporate reality of Sin – that WE have sinned, we have rebelled, we have not done what is right in the eyes of God. WE, as children of God just as the people of Israel and Judah where, have a corporate responsibility to God that transcends just the individual. I know we love to accuse the Church of this that and the other thing – the Church as failed, the Church as gotten it wrong, the Church is obsolete - but here’s the rub “WE” are the church. God doesn’t see the separation of denominations in His kingdom – He only sees “His Church”
“I can’t control and change what the church has done” you say. I have in mind all the things the Church has been accused of, not all, but way too much has credence, - the crusades, how it has dealt with gender issues, residential schools, colonialism – failures in its communities to address poverty and racism issues etc etc. – (the Church has done many right things as well, but that’s a conversation for another time) but here’s the truth of it, you can control and change what the Church does --for Christ himself calls us ‘his church, his royal priest hood a people belonging to God” his bride. In reality bashing the church makes about as much sense as hitting yourself in the head with a brick. You are bring pain and destruction to yourself.
Are there things that we are to repent of? To declare as sin as injustice against God and his children? Yes. WE have rebelled, we have not done what it is that God would have had us do. It comes back to all of us, as we make up the church and do not define sin in a way that suits us or makes sense to us, or protects us – but in a way that God truly revealed it to be.
We also come to discover God does not identify sin to destroy us, or condemn us, or so he can punish us – But he identifies it so that He can free us, that we can find an abundant and grace-filled life – he identifies it so we may know that he has fully and completely paid the wages and debt of our sin, not only ours, but the whole worlds.
We all know John 3:16, but not so much the following verse,
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
We also discover, Sin and death do not have the final victory – God’s compassion and forgiveness does.
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sin is only a problem when we refuse to acknowledge and deal with it as God defines it – it is when we refuse to confess and orient our lives under the presence and Being of God that we need to be concerned.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. 1 John 1:9-10
Closing Prayer: A Prayer of the Early Christian Church
Look upon us, O Lord,
and let all the darkness of our souls
vanish before the beams of thy brightness.
Fill us with holy love,
and open to us the treasures of thy wisdom.
All our desire is known unto thee,
therefore perfect what thou hast begun,
and what thy Spirit has awakened us to ask in prayer.
We seek thy face,
turn thy face unto us and show us thy glory.
Then shall our longing be satisfied,
and our peace shall be perfect.
(Augustine, 354 - 430)
Anyway, I was just thinking,
Neil
1 comments:
Thanks Neil, good sobering meditation.
Bless you,
Deborah
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