Saturday, June 26, 2004

Sermon June 27, 2004 As many of you know next week will be vacation week for me. So, this week I decided to preach about sin. This will provide plenty of opportunity to skip town until things blow over. Preachers get a bum wrap for always talking about sin. The truth of the matter is that most sermons I hear and read seem to soft-pedal the whole idea. I would not want to do a word search of my sermons on how many times that I have mentioned the word sin. So, I will make up for it here. Sin seems to have gone quite out of fashion. I suspect not without reason. Just look at what happened in this morning’s scripture and you can see why people might want to avoid too keen an interest in Sin. James and John are ready to bring down the wrath of God on the poor Samaritans.  But he was on his way to Jerusalem, so the people there refused to welcome him.   54When the disciples James and John saw what was happening, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy these people?"  Sin in the hands of the wrong people can be a pretty lethal concept. I imagine that we all carry around a heavy enough load of guilt to keep us busy without the likes of these two making things worse: without having to worry about the skies opening up with a deluge of fire and brimstone at our slightest misstep, as if God was perpetually carrying around a red teachers pencil. I understand that the largest single grouping of people coming into the United Church of Christ is something called the de-churched. I rather suspect that has to do with folks who have been burned by some churchly concepts of sin. Which may explain some reluctance of preachers to mention this “s” word.           Just where did these folks go wrong? After all for the most part in Luke’s gospel the Samaritans come off pretty well: the good Samaritan and the one of ten lepers that did thank Jesus was a Samaritan. What is different this time is that Jesus is heading for Jerusalem. It is the place according to Scripture where Sin with a capital S will be addressed. Like Peter these folks seem to think that there is some way of getting around this trip. Can’t things be resolved at a lower level?           However I suspect that most of us believe as well that things can be dealt with on a lower plane: Dr. Phil on television, the talk shows in general, every third person with a Doctorate on the self-help book shelves that seem to be saying that there is an easier way. If you know enough, have enough, buy enough of their books, or watch enough of their programs then you will probably be able to deal with enough of your problems to get along in life. I suppose that most of us do believe that “Foxes have dens, and birds have nests,” but then there ought be a place where we could be safe enough to hang out and secure our lives. As one observer put it, “We acknowledge the destructive effects of sin and recognize that sin pervades all of life, but we have subtlety redefined it. Sin is now attributed to a series of poor choices, mischances or, at worst, a personality disorder. Thus we reduce it to a size that can be managed with common-sense advice, a pep talk, and perhaps, counseling. "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy these people? There are days when it might not be a bad idea. For we are only kidding ourselves if we think that we can resolve the deepest issues in our lives without setting our own faces toward our personal Jerusalem. It is that place in our lives where, as Jesus did in his, we face the truth that we have torn apart what God has joined together and no amount of filler will cover the whole. Of course we do say Yes, Lord, but let me take refuge and seek safety in family. Yes, how we put so much on our families. Let us all be perfect at the wedding, avoid the touchy parts at the reception, and be determined to be on our best behavior even with our worst relatives. Or we expect marriage to be a refuge from the world rather than a launching pad into the world. Or we try to bury our anger and rage either in frantic activity or being a couch potato until we explode. Or we do try to plow ahead by looking backward over our shoulder less anyone is gaining the advantage on us. “Yes, Lord if I can be safe enough, have enough, be strong enough or in general watch out for my enemies carefully enough, then this sin business will take care of itself, I will be able to live well enough: Thanks but no thanks for the Jerusalem trip. At best see you when you get back. That Jesus is making for Jerusalem is a sign that the deepest issues in our lives requires something that looks like Good Friday if we are to live at all, let alone have our lives take on the contour of something that looks like eternal life. Jerusalem means that before there is going to be life something is going to have to die. That has the issues about right. Sin does not get taken care of without death. We simply cannot keep alive the myths that we maintain about the world. Sin dies when the myths die of violent Arabs, arrogant Jews, lazy Mexicans and the list could go on and on. This usually involves the death experience of facing our own violence in the west that has killed Moslem and Jew alike. Myths die hard because they are usually maintained by maintaining a myth about ourselves. We are not violent they are, we are not lazy they are. If the sin is going to be dealt with that stuff is going to have to die. If sin is dealt with then the idea of an eye for an eye will have to die for as Gandhi said then the whole world is blind. The trouble with the current mental map of the world held by our national leadership is that the great evil in the world comes not from the world being divided into us verses them but from the fact that we all share in the axis of arrogance and ignorance far too much for the good of any of us. If you were to believe most advertising you would be hooked on the myth that most of our trouble comes from not having more rather than letting go of more. Jerusalem reminds us that it is the letting go that we gain. Hardly common sense at all, but then sin is resolved at a deeper level than the sense that is common to most of us. This past week on one of my runs I learned the lesson all over again. In general running is about letting go and letting a deeper rhythm and beat take over your life. Getting in tune with the deeper rhythm of life has a way of tuning you up. Letting go to the stress and strains and let the miles do the rest for an hour or so. This past week on one of my runs I came upon four deer that were clearly frightened that I might successfully out run them. But letting go seeing those deer being in harmony with a deeper pattern of life that God chooses, beauty that I cannot create but that I can enjoy, did more for the Sin in me than all the lectures and fire and brimstone that could be hurdled at me. I suspect that crocheting, quilting, and any number of ways of loosing yourself for an afternoon has done as much if not more to limit sin in the world than all preachers that have harangued the world. Now in our world or at least the part that we inhabit we tend to think that the deepest issues in our lives can be resolved by offering people choices and equipping them to make their choices. No doubt offering choices touches some issues but not all. Jerusalem is a reminder that things would come that easily but something more profound is required. Attending a breakfast of service providers for youth in our community it seemed it was not the lack of choices that cause trouble for our youth. If anything, it was too many choices in many cases that often left them paralyzed and unable to choose for fear that they would make the wrong choice and be doomed. Yet when people feel chosen and precious no matter what choice they may make then their paralysis can be overcome. Sadly for many youth it is not having too few choices but feeling that they are not nor will they ever be part of the chosen, if they failed once, if they did not win the gene pool at birth, because they did not get to choose the parents they have, if they blow the SAT tests, or have an unsuccessful relationship then they feel that it is all over. Good Friday and Jerusalem is about proclaiming that what looks like a hole turns out to be an opening into what God can do with God’s chosen, which is everyone of us. Jesus took a path here that many preachers do not. He went down the road that James and John did not go down. He took the path that did not involve incineration but inspiration. He chose not the weapons of mass destruction but the weapon of mass attraction: a love that would go through death in order that new life might arise, a love that was willing to let go in order to let God in, a love that reminded people that what ever choices they made they would be chosen and precious in God’s sight. As the Gospel of John has it behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by taking us all on the journey to Jerusalem. Go there.                       5:19:37 AM    comment []

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