By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver
©The United Church of Canada, 1985
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-88622-196-X
7M/12/85/APL
Used with Permission
Thursday
Why trust what can't make alive?
Galatians 3: 21-29
A lot of people think that Christianity has a thing about sin. Of course they're right. Some others have tried to get Christianity out from under this characterization. These often blame Paul for turning an optimistic believe-in-the-basic-goodness-of people "Jesus religion" into a pessimistic people-are-rotten-to-the-core salvation cult. I think these people are mistaken. A wedge can't be driven between the gospel writers and Paul.
I think people who wish Christianity didn't have a thing about sin have been put off by a distortion of what is meant by sin. I don't think the Christian preoccupation with sin is an arbitrary put-down of all human striving for goodness. It is not a way for a bullying God to browbeat everyone into submission. Rather, it is a helpful insight into a perverse human predicament. To get one's puzzling situation named right is to receive good news, not a put-down.
I remember a very strange discussion that took place at the time of the moon landing. The world stood in wonder at the accomplishment. And some interviewer was stuck on the question, "How could people ever again say that human beings were some kind of lesser breed?" This day was going to mark the end forever of the Christian doctrine of human depravity.
- I think the moon landing illustrated the Christian doctrine of sin. Here was a race that could land on the moon, but not live on the earth in peace. That same species which can make unbelievable technical accomplishments cannot seem to prevent its technology from destroying the earth, its home. The human condition is cursed with contradictions. Life is full of situations where you cannot make unharmful choices. Good schemes do harm. Remedies create new problems. Institutions, built to serve us, enslave some. What are we
doing being thankful when we benefit but others do not? On the other hand, what are we doing being ungrateful for the gifts of life? Life cannot be lived without rules, yet rules put us in a position where we cannot keep one without breaking another. Life driven by desire is a disaster; life driven by a bad conscience is a disaster. Human life is caught in a dilemma that defies most cures. - I think Paul's refreshing little sentence makes the telling point:
If a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would have indeed been by the law. - There's that word righteousness, or justification, again.
If we could have been put right by a law, then it would have happened! The human condition is in deeper trouble than striving to obey laws can fix. But striving to obey laws can lead you to know you need a better cure. It can put you in a position to hear the goodness of God's remedy for sin.
Confession
Father and Mother of all,
the Bible tells us you have a way with sin and sinners.
Here we come.- Hear us and see through us.
We come, bearing our most bothersome regrets: the ones closest to the surface that spoil everything else.- Hear us as we name them...
We come bearing our neglects. We have responsibilities for people and tasks that aren't getting attended to.- Hear us as we name them...
We come, bearing the burdens that you did not place with us but that we assumed in pride or in the vain undertaking of punishing ourselves.- Hear us as we name them...
We come bearing our blindness and the trail of harm we leave that we know not of.- Hear us as we recognize this...
We come bearing our deafness to your word and to the cries of people that sound forth around us.- Give us ears to hear.
We come bearing the evil that our institutions do, the benefits that benefit us at great cost to others.- Hear us as we name these...
We bring our self-righteousness and our zeal to be innocent, which leads us to wash our hands of corporate sin and turn our backs on the troubled world.
Sin-bearer of the world, receive us as we unload all this.
Sin abounds, may grace much more abound!
Amen