3rd Sunday of Easter, 2023 - Rethinking Sin

Sin. It’s a term every church member – and most nonchurch members – know and uses. In most churches, it is a term that is used every Sunday. It is a normal part of and often the focus of most sermons.

Originally, before it became a religious term, the word sin was an archery term. It meant to miss the bull’s eye on the target. It carried the idea of falling short of the target.

This original meaning was an accurate way of describing our human condition. We all fall short, that is, there is always a gap between what we know to do and what we do. We fail to do what we know to do.

The apostle Paul expressed this common struggle in his letter to the Romans: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,” Romans 7:15, 18-19. We fail to do what we know to do.

As he reflected on this struggle, Paul concluded that “sin dwells within me,” Romans 7:17, 20. He saw himself as a “captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members,” Romans 7:23. He understood sin to be more than wrong behavior. Rather, it was an inescapable part of our human condition. He spoke of it as a law, that is, a principle of life, like the law of gravity. He described it as a power that controls us. Drawing on the imagery of Israel’s experience in Egypt, he spoke of being “sold into slavery under sin,” Romans 7:14.

Paul used the word “wretched” (Romans 7:24) to describe his condition. He was trapped, caught in a hopeless situation. He despised what he did and loathed who he was. Yet he was powerless to change his situation. He cried out “Who will rescue me?” Romans 7:24b.

Paul’s cry of despair reflects the question, “how do we deal with the issue of sin?”

The way we commonly deal with this falling-short-dimension of our humanness is by focusing on the target, i.e., what we “ought” to do. We create moral standards that describe the good we are to do and laws that describe what we are not to do. (Think the Ten Commandments.)

This approach to dealing with our sin problem focuses upon behavior – what to do, what not to do. It centers on guilt and shame. After all, as Paul said, we inevitably fail to do the good we know to do and do the evil we know not to do. This approach carries the threat of condemnation and judgment for any failure, using fear to motivate. It depends on self-effort – trying harder to do better.

This approach to dealing with the issue of sin is an expression of our ego-centric nature. It keeps the focus on ourselves. It leaves us in control. It allows us to feel a sense of pride when we measure up to the standards and a sense of being better than those who fail to measure up. It provides us an avenue by which to judge, condemn, and exclude others.

Paul said this way of dealing with the issue of sin does not work.

And yet, it seems to me, the church today is obsessed with what Richard Rohr calls “sin management.” We talk about sin. We condemn sin. We hold up “the good” we are supposed to do. We repeatedly are called to try harder to do better. (It seems to me this “try harder, do better” is the underlying theme of many/most sermons.) We live with the awareness that we fail to measure up, carrying a nebulous sense of fear and a not-so-nebulous sense of guilt and shame. In spite of our obsessive focus on sin, we remain essentially unchanged – superficially changed, at best. In fact, this obsession with sin management often leaves us in a worse condition. It produces spiritual arrogance in which we judge and condemn others for their failure to measure up along with spiritual blindness in which we cannot see the spirit and attitudes of our own hearts.

In other words, our obsession with sin has not stopped sin – just like Paul said.

Surely, there’s got to be a better way.

And there is! This better way of dealing with this dimension of our human condition is God’s way.

God’s way of dealing with sin is with forgiveness. The psalms proclaimed,

            (The LORD) does not deal with us according to our sins,

            nor repay us according to our iniquities.

            For as the heavens are high above the earth,

            so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear hm;

            as far as the east is from the west,

            so far he removes our transgressions from us.

            As a father has compassion for his children,

            so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.

            For he knows how we were made;

            he remembers that we are dust, Psalm 103:10-14.

God relates to us out of who God is, not out of who we are or what we do. Like a loving parent, he responds to our failures with compassion. Knowing our nature, God is not surprised by or offended by our failures. He accepts our failure as normal. In other words, we expect more of ourselves than God does!

The way we commonly deal with the issue of sin reflects our merit-based way of thinking and living. God’s way of dealing with our sin reflects God’s ways of grace and forgiveness. Paul had God’s grace and forgiveness in mind when he wrote, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1. God’s grace and forgiveness, expressed in Christ Jesus, set us free from condemnation, judgment, guilt, shame, and fear.

Unlike us, God does not focus on sin – on how we fail. God’s focus is on our growth spiritually. God’s desire and objective for us is Christ-like spiritual maturity – “conformed to the image of his Son,” Romans 8:29. God’s forgiveness does not indulge our sin. Rather, it allows us to learn from it. God’s forgiveness frees us from our obsession with our failure so we can see beyond it to see why we keep failing. God’s forgiveness frees us from guilt, shame, and fear so we can learn from our failure.

God’s way of dealing with our sin actually moves us beyond it. Paul wrote that “the just requirements of the law” are fulfilled in us who walk “according to the Spirit,” Romans 8:4. The Spirit empowers us to move beyond our sin and failures by helping us learn and grow spiritually. As we learn and grow, we learn to live in glad dependency upon the Spirit for the power to do what we cannot do in our own strength. As we grow up spiritually, we are set free from the power of sin.

God’s way of dealing with sin actually works.

Easter Sunday, 2023 - The Unexpressed Message of "Christ is Risen!"

Christ is risen!

That’s the greeting we exchange on Easter Sunday. Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Our greeting carries an unexpressed message: “and that changes everything!”

Death is for us an inescapable, unavoidable reality. It marks the end of life for us . . . at least, life as we know it . . . life in this physical, time-space realm. Death is often our greatest fear, our ultimate enemy. It destroys our body. It seemingly strips us of our life and our identity. Who are we in death other than someone who once lived, perhaps remembered by a few who loved us - a name on a forgotten headstone? Death robs us of everything we value and for which we have worked. It takes from us everyone we loved.

Except . . .

Christ is risen! Christ has broken the power of death . . . and that changes everything!

Christ has been raised from the dead and we with him! Death is no longer the end. It is but a transition into life in another, fuller dimension. Death is simply another birth experience. The apostle Paul used a financial term to speak of death. He described death as “gain” (Philippians 1:21) – interest and dividends paid from an investment. For Paul, dying meant receiving more of the life he experienced in Christ, with compounded interest. Death is no longer a loss; it is gain because Christ is risen!

Christ is risen! Death no longer has the last word. God does.

Christ is risen . . . and that changes everything! Even the “little deaths” we experience in life are transformed – all the defeats, failures, setbacks, losses, pain. These experiences no longer have the last word. They no longer define us. God works in them and through them for our good. God uses these painful experiences to mature us spiritually-emotionally-relationally.

The reality is, we cannot grow into maturity apart from these “little deaths.” They are a necessary component of growth. Such experiences, however, are not a guarantee of growth. They only provide us the opportunity to grow. Our openness to how God works in these experiences – that is, our response to them - determines whether we growth from them or not.

God’s power – the power that raised Jesus from the dead, Ephesians 1:19-21 - is at work in us through the Spirit. That power redeems and transforms our experience of life’s “little deaths,” using them to mature us into the likeness of Christ.

Christ is risen . . . and that changes everything . . . including the attitude and spirit with which we live! Trusting God’s faithful love and transforming work, we move beyond the anxiety and fear that inherently shape our lives. We live with joy and peace, with deep gratitude expressed in generosity, with confident expectancy of what God will do with life’s challenges and pain, with love for God expressed in love for others.

Christ is risen . . . and that changes everything!

Good Friday, 2023 - Missing the Meaning of the Cross

 Good Friday – the day Christians focus on Jesus’s death on the cross. It is right for us to remember and reflect on Jesus’s death on the cross. There is great value in doing so. It seems to me, however, that in our thinking about the cross, we get it wrong. Think with me.

Our default, unconscious way of thinking is oriented around merit – what I call merit-based thinking. It is the way the world (society, culture, family) trained us to think. It is the way the world functions. Merit-based thinking is oriented around earning and deserving. What we receive is determined by what we have done, i.e., what we deserve. Merit-based thinking is deserving-oriented thinking.

Because merit-based thinking is our default way of thinking, it shapes the way we think about Jesus’s death on the cross. We unconsciously view his death through the lens of merit.

This way of thinking understands Jesus’s death in terms of punishment. The wrong that was done, i.e., sin, had to be punished. It also understands Jesus’s death as a substitute for us. He received the punishment we deserved. It was our sin that was being punished. He took our place, dying the death we deserved. This way of understanding the cross views God as an angry God. Our sin wronged God, stirring his anger. The wrong had to be made right. Jesus’s death was the means by which God’s anger (some speak of God’s wrath or God’s righteousness) was appeased. His death was the atonement paid for our sins. In other words, Jesus had to die so God would forgive us. This popular understanding of the cross, shaped by merit-based thinking, is known as substitutionary atonement theory.

This way of understanding the cross makes Jesus’s death about us. His death is the means by which we can be forgiven for our sins. His death opens the door for us to eternal life. Because of his death, we get to go to heaven when we die.

This understanding of the cross, based on merit-based thinking, creates what my major professor called man-centered Christianity. It is all about us. It is an ego-centric form of Christianity – what’s in it for me.

It seems to me this merit-based understanding of the cross misses (or ignores) what Jesus taught about God. It ignores the character of God as well as how God relates to us.

The witness of scripture is that God is merciful and gracious (Exodus 34:6-7; Psalm 103:8; Jonah 4:1-2). Rather than responding to sin with anger and judgment, God is slow to anger. God “does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities,” Psalm 103:10. Rather, God forgives sin – freely, unconditionally, lavishly. The core of God’s character is steadfast, faithful love – love that does not waiver, that does not give up on or abandon us. The writer of 1 John captured this reality when he wrote “God is love,” 1 John 4:8.

Jesus knew God to be merciful and gracious. Thus, he responded with compassion to people who were hurting. Jesus knew God was more willing to forgive than we are to receive forgiveness. Thus, Jesus proclaimed the forgiveness of God to be a gift given freely to any and all. Jesus knew God to be a God of steadfast, faithful love. Thus, he refused to give up on or abandon any.

How might we understand the cross differently if we viewed it through the lens of God’s character rather than through the lens of our ego-centric self-interest with its merit-based thinking?

Viewed through the lens of God’s character, the cross is about God, not us. It is about the steadfast, faithful love of God that never gives up on or abandons us in spite of our sin. The cross portrays how far God’s love will go without abandoning us. The cross proclaims the grace of God that joyfully and freely forgives our sin.

This way of viewing the cross leads to a God-centered Christianity – a Christianity that nurtures a love for God that runs deeper than the love of our own ego-centric selves. Such a love for God leads us to joyfully abandon ourselves to who God is (hallowed be thy name), to eagerly embrace God’s ways (thy will be done), and to wholeheartedly participate in what God is doing in the world (thy kingdom come). This kind of love is what Jesus identified as the greatest commandment. “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’” Matthew 22:37-39. We love God by loving others, particularly the most powerless and vulnerable.

When we love God, we become like God. As we become like God, we love as God loves. We love those whom God loves.

How we view the cross is important. When we make it about us, our what’s-in-it-for-me nature remains essentially unchanged. Our Christianity is about believing the right things so we can go to heaven when we die. When we make it about God, we run the risk of being transformed at the core of our being. We just might fall in love with God – with who God is, with God’s ways, with what God is doing in the world. Our Christianity would then be about loving God by loving others, here, now, on earth as it is in heaven.

How we view the cross is important.

Palm Sunday, 2023 - A Sermon for Palm Sunday

Jesus's royal entry into Jerusalem that Sunday before Passover – what we celebrate as Palm Sunday each year - was a sermon. Jesus followed the example of Jeremiah and Ezekiel in acting out a sermon to proclaim a truth the people could not and did not want to hear. His entry into Jerusalem was one of three acted-out sermons he “preached” that week: his entry into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the Temple, his reinterpretation of the Passover meal. In acting out his sermon, he guaranteed that we would remember it. His use of an acted-out sermon worked – at least to some degree. We still remember his entry into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the Temple, his reinterpretation of the Passover meal. We remember the sermons, but do we hear their messages?

At the heart of the spiritual journey is the challenge of hearing what we don’t want to hear. That challenge was why Jesus reverted to an acted-out sermon. The ways of God Jesus taught confront and challenge the ways the world trained us to think and live. When what Jesus taught is at odds with what we believe, we inherently resist what he taught, clinging to what we already believe.

 

How we deal with this challenge determines our progress – or lack of it – on the spiritual journey. Embracing what Jesus taught leads to progress. Resisting what Jesus taught keeps us stuck in how the world trained us to think and live. It keeps us stuck spiritually, in a state of spiritual immaturity.

 

As I have said multiple times (am I sounding like a broken record?), spiritual progress is tied to learning to think differently – what the apostle Paul called the renewing of the mind. “Stop being conformed to the way the world trained you to think; be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” Romans 12:2 (personal translation). The writers of Ephesians and Colossians echo Paul, saying that moving from the old self to a new self occurs as were are made new in the spirit of our minds (Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:9-10).

 

Jesus’s acted-out sermon in his entry into Jerusalem that Sunday reminds us of our inherent resistance to this process. We cling to what we know and believe, resisting what Jesus taught.

 

Our resistance to what Jesus taught, our clinging to what we already believe is rooted in a deeper resistance – the resistance to change. If we change how we think and what we believe, it requires us to change how we live. For example, how I think about and view another person determines how I treat him. If I change how I think about and view him, that change in thinking in turn leads to a change in how I treat him.

 

The Spirit’s transformation of our lives begins with changing how we think.  

 

The message of Jesus’s acted-out sermon is an example of what we don’t want to hear.

 

Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem was one of two parades that entered Jerusalem that Sunday morning.  History tells us about the other parade. This little-known parade entered Jerusalem through the western gate. It was a Roman military parade, led by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. 

During most of the year, the Roman governor lived on the Mediterranean coast in a port-city called Caesarea on the Sea. This seaport city was the seat of Roman authority in Judea. Each year during the week of Passover, the Roman governor would make his way to Jerusalem along with military reinforcements for the Roman garrison located in Jerusalem. This garrison – Fortress Antonio – was located alongside the Temple compound. This location allowed the Roman soldiers stationed there quick access to the Temple should any disturbance, any rebellion occur within the Temple complex. Such disturbances were common during the week of Passover when the people’s desire for independence from Rome ran high. Bringing reinforcements to this Roman garrison was the occasion of this annual military parade. Under the eagle standard of Roman, flying the Roman banners, led by the Roman governor, the armies of Roman – cavalry and foot soldiers - marched in step into Jerusalem dressed in full armor with weapons clearly displayed. 

 

Jesus designed and orchestrated his parade to correspond to this military parade. As the Roman army marched into Jerusalem through the Western gate, Jesus and his parade entered through the Eastern gate.

Both parades were designed to make a statement. The Roman military parade proclaimed that any who dared to challenge the power of Rome would quickly feel the death-wielding wrath of Rome. The power that was on display would be used to break and subjugate, to destroy and dominate any who dared to opposed it.

The parade Jesus designed made a radically different statement. His statement – and the message of his acted-out sermon – centered in the donkey upon which he rode. The donkey was designed to call to mind the words of the prophet Zechariah:

Lo, your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he,  

humble and riding on a donkey.

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim  

and the war horse from Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be cut off,  

and he shall command peace to the nations,” Zechariah 9:9-10.

Jesus came in peace, to bring peace. The peace he offered came by using power to serve, addressing the needs of people, particularly the powerless, oppressed, and exploited. Jesus proclaimed a radically different way of using power from that of Rome.

Jesus’ parade was a political statement.  It was an act of political protest. The residents of Jerusalem understood Jesus’ parade to be a political protest and feared the reaction of those Roman reinforcements stationed in the Fortress Antonio. “The whole city was in turmoil,” Matthew 21:10.      The word translated as “turmoil” carries the imagery of a major earthquake shaking the foundations of the city. 

The message of Jesus’s acted-out sermon was about power and peace. Jesus’s parade proclaimed the way to peace – authentic, lasting peace – comes through using power to serve. Peace does not come by using power to conquer and dominate, by using power to control, subjugate, and destroy.  Such peace is a false peace that benefits the few powerful and privileged at the top.  This kind of so-called peace is but a fragile stability. The way to peace is found in the ways of God, in the ways of the Kingdom, in the ways of the servant. Peace – true peace - is only possible when power is used to serve.  Peace, lasting peace, grows out of using power to address the needs of others – particularly those with little or no power, those with little or no resources. 

We remember Jesus’s acted-out sermon. We recall it in our worship every Palm Sunday. But do we remember the message of his acted-out sermon? Do we resist (ignore) his message because it challenges how we think and what we believe? Do we resist his teaching because it would require us to change, not just how we think and what we believe, but how we live – particularly, how we use our power in relation to others?

Resisting what Jesus taught is an inescapable part of the spiritual journey. How we negotiate this part of the journey determines the progress – or lack of it – we make on our spiritual journey.