A Stone for our innocence

Thursday September 9, 2010

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Mark 14:38

Why, with the best of intentions, do we sin? The body of course, is a metaphor for the sinful nature that invades both flesh and spirit. As Paul says, “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Romans 7:15. Calvin put it this way; we sin necessarily, yet without compulsion. We all sin, but nobody makes us do it.

Despite this, if Jesus today asked the one without sin to cast the first stone, there would be plenty of us bending down to arm ourselves! At least the Jews of Jesus’ day had the humility to recognize their own sin and walk away. The greatest rogues are often the most self-righteous: Iran is conceited enough to want to “push Israel into the sea,” yet proclaims its sinlessness by taking up stones against an adulterous woman!

Saying we have no sin is a contradiction in terms. It is a lie for it is inspired by the greatest sin, arrogance or pride. It is precarious, because pride usually comes before a fall! Furthermore, it is cowardly. We find sin in others to protect ourselves against a subconscious acknowledgment of our own sin.

Where Do We Look for Help?

I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Ps 121:1-2

Some translations give the impression that we look to the hills for our help. For those under siege in biblical times, that is exactly where they looked. It was on the hills surrounding a city where a relieving army would first appear. When the Lord opened the servant of Elisha’s eyes, “he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

But that’s not where this psalmist was looking. While he would naturally look to the surrounding hills for help, he knew that his help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Whatever is happening in the earthly realm, God is our final provider.

When it comes to making a living, we often have a skewed mindset. We need a job so our employer will provide an income. Or we scratch for some income from the government for disability, retirement or unemployment to enable us to pay our bills. In doing so, we look to the hills!

It was an eye-opener for me to realized that these resource people and agencies were simply God’s means for our supply. He is beyond and above the hills—He is their Maker—and is our ultimate resource. This is what Jesus had in mind when He told us not to worry about today’s needs, for “your heavenly Father knows that you need them.”

Our problem, of course, is translating faith into practice. Can we trust God when other resources fail?

Are We Really Depraved?

This is what should have been posted last Thursday, but I was otherwise engaged!

Thursday September 2, 2010

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7.

If there is one principle of the Christian faith deplored by non-believers, it is human depravity. It flies in the face of the good people do, and of course, undermines our self-pride.

Today’s text comes from the story of the woman taken in adultery. The story assumes her guilt, and sentencing—death by stoning—is the penalty. Would Jesus agree? The dilemma rested on the fact that Roman law did not recognise Jewish religious law regarding the death penalty.

As in other altercations, the Jews were hoping Jesus would commit Himself to one side or the other—a Jewish rebel or a Roman sympathiser. In fact, Jesus cut through their arguments with the idea of total depravity—we are all guilty of breaking God’s law.

If there is one error that plagues humankind, it is belief in the essential goodness of humanity. History and current events tear this idea to shreds; but many accept it! We are not good people who occasionally fail; at best, we are

law-breakers who are trying to improve our reputation. 

The saying goes, we are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. While we have a sense of justice—necessary to keep social order—that too is corrupted by our innate sinfulness. Social justice is a hit and miss affair, undermined by inadequate knowledge of the facts and by personal biases and agendas.

On a personal level, we may need to protect ourselves from those we suspect of destructive acts and attitudes, but God is the final Judge—of them and ourselves!

Time Out

Hi folks.

Sorry we have have fallen behind our planned schedule, but I had to take a few days out for a heart attack. After a lightning ride (lights and sirens) from Lethbridge to Calgary, angioplasty and a slower ride back to Lethbridge, I am home again. 

I am recovering well, especially now I'm home again. Will be catching up in the next day or so. See us then.

Check out our daughters website for more details, Still Enjoying the Journey at this link. 

Bryan

Where did They Go?

“As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?” Ezekiel 34:17–18.

Although earlier verses in this chapter indict the shepherds of Israel, in these verses, the Lord is concerned with the actions of the sheep! Some of the sheep and cattle of Israel were hogging all the good pasture for themselves and souring it for others.

This raises the question whether those of us long in the faith are not mature Christians, but just fat cats. We’ve had a lifetime of spiritual food and feel secure in our status before God. Yet we are often intolerant of others coming to faith who contravene the carefully manicured traditions we have built around the Gospel.

John Bowen, of Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto, in his book published this year, Growing Up Christian, finds hypocrisy among Christians the first reason given for leaving the church. This includes personal self-righteousness, refusal to face the difficult questions, and a lack of concern for social issues.

However, John found that many gave up on the church, not their faith. Although they were dissatisfied with pat answers, or that some major questions were considered illegitimate, many continue in areas of ministry the church frequently neglects.

Truth may not always be obvious, but censorship will not aid the quest for it. Are we sufficiently unsure of our faith to need simplistic answers to guard it? If so, have we been instrumental in “muddying the waters,” so deterring others from pursuing their faith through the difficult question?

Staying Together

“Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." Mark 10:9

It seems to me that the Bible is long on instructions for living, but short on the reasons for those instructions. The response, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!” is insufficient for the inquisitive, and rejected by those without faith in the Bible. For most of us, the sure-fire way to find out why Scriptural injunctions are critical is to flout them; cause and effect are good teachers.

In today’s quote, Jesus emphasizes the necessary permanence of marriage. For His reasoning, we have only to look at the chaotic state of marriage in Western civilization and the trauma of children and adults from broken homes, to realize the necessity of stable marriages. Numerous studies consistently show that in general, those from broken homes compete poorly with children of established heterosexual marriages, are less likely to do as well in the market place, or establish stable marriages of their own.

That is not the end of it. Every action has cultural consequences, and fractured marriages threaten a free society. Government steps to “assist” by enacting laws to govern break-up, support single parents, provide daycare and counsel or fostering for wounded children, is both invasive and expensive. Anyone going through divorce will experience the heavy hand of government dictating what he or she can and cannot do.

Yet marriage break-up is a symptom of a greater underlying malaise. Integrity in our current culture is being true to oneself rather than to others. In fact, the argument runs, I cannot be true to others until I am true to myself. I should leave the marriage if I am not content or happy in it; it’s more authentic than living a lie; besides, a fractious marriage is no good for the kids!

This attitude, like the US constitution, is based on a false premise: the pursuit of happiness. In fact, happiness is a by-product: Goodness and mercy will follow me (Psalm 23:6, emphasis mine), suggesting it is the Shepherd’s path that inherits this blessing. In marriage, satisfaction follows service; sacrifice is necessary to ensure both stability and joy in the relationship. That pattern is set in the ultimate sacrifice that God endured to guarantee our relationship with Him.

The loss of Christian faith in our culture has resulted in a deficit of sacrificial care in our relationships, and the prevailing cult of self-obsession will continue to erode marriage and make resolution of failing marriages more difficult. While this attitude, and the ease of divorce that fosters it, persists, marriage break-up will continue. It takes two to make a marriage, but only one to break it up. It is the giving of sacrificial love—a practical rather than emotional gift—that is the active ingredient in joyful union.

Hope in Extremity?

 
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23.

The scale of earth’s tragedies is difficult to comprehend. It is only the snapshots on television that expose the individual suffering in the Pakistan floods, the Haitian earthquake, and other recurring catastrophes. They provide a glimpse of the devastation that millions of earth’s inhabitants endure.

So many lose everything of meaning, home, land, and often members of their loved ones killed in the disaster. Left with no means of sustenance, many more face death from starvation, exposure, and sickness, unless aid comes quickly. The initial calamity is only the beginning of a mounting struggle for survival.

While natural disasters are tragedy enough, it is unconscionable that millions more are forced into grim poverty and death due to rebellion and terror. Places like Dafur and Congo are household names due to the infamy of political or military perpetrators, or greed of the powerful.

In Jeremiah’s time, Judah and Jerusalem were in a similar predicament. The Babylonians had overrun and devastated the land, burnt the city and exiled the leadership of the land. Peasants were left to forage for food. Lamentations is Jeremiah’s record of the degradation and misery that remained.

Young and old were fainting and dying in the streets from hunger, bodies left unburied, and mothers ate their babies to stay alive. There was no aid from neighbouring countries. Few knew about it, and those who knew didn’t care, or even rejoiced in Judah’s suffering.

Today’s text is remarkable because Jeremiah wrote it during this calamity. Despite all this devastation and apparent hopelessness, he was convinced of God’s ongoing compassion for his people. He had no visible evidence to support this claim; he could only find it in the unseen reality of God’s faithfulness.

I doubt those of us in the relatively secure west will face such extremity, but most of us will face personal difficulties that seem just as intractable. I have to ask myself, would I respond with such assurance of God’s care? A verse later, Jeremiah responds to the question: The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.