Sin: A Realistic Understanding

Are we always destined to be ruled by fear and hate?

While the church surely trivialized sin into simple categories of misbehavior and moral failings (like drunkenness and cussing), so as to avoid the larger categories of power and abuse and war and greed (which would have upset the Ruling Class of Clergy and Capitalists), the concept of sin needs to be maintained and revived!

For many people, to even mention the word "sin" conjures up images of Medieval Priests, candles, incense and bells ... or at least, sawdust trail preachers whooping and hollering and threatening little children with hellfire and damnation.

Yet ...

The Genesis stuff of Adam and Eve hiding (fear) and Cain killing Abel (hatred) are part and parcel, it seems, of the human story, and we're not likely to get rid of these twin evils any time soon.

If Christians hope to have any voice in today's world, this might just be it. We've got to talk about sin.

To call things as they are ... the great evils of greed and war and class inequality ... things that respond to and generate fear and hate ... as well as the deeper reality, the mystery ... that humanity fears many things that go bump in the night, and we easily come to hate that which inspires fear.

And with enough hate, violence erupts - Cain kills Abel again and again, and the Ruling Classes send Jesus to the Cross.

Slobbering preachers going on and on about the evils of "demon rum" and tobacco, have done great harm to the truth of sin, and when sober society rejects such stuff as nonsense, as it truly does, society sadly denies itself a tool in understanding itself - though "understanding" is always qualified by the reality ever so much larger than our intellectual and spiritual abilities to grasp it.

Sin is a mystery ... in the classic sense, sin is our four-fold alienation from self, from others, from the natural world around us and from God ... four fundamental alienations that cripple the human race and leave a wake of destruction in their path.

Denying these alienations, or at least trying to sugarcoat them, doesn't help one bit.

And continuing to preach about lesser things as sin is even worse ... better to not even mention the whole thing if we're not prepared to come to grips with it for what it is. Though preaching about "getting ahead in life" and "Five Steps to a Healthy Family" doesn't help either. Turning the pew into a therapy couch cheapens those who sit there, and those who preach such nostrums.

We do well to maintain the word "sin" and the mystery it represents ... a deep and penetrating darkness of spirit and mind - best described in the words, fear and hate.

These exist, abundantly.

In all of us.

Rich and poor alike.

No sense denying it.

No sense pretending that:

Meditation.

Prayer.

Bible reading.

Incense.

Yoga.

Charity and mission work.

Will expunge it from our DNA.

Honest and forthright confession helps: the Jesus Prayer, for example:

"LORD Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon me

A Sinner."

And with some such awareness, to keep ourselves vigilante against the perennial forces of hate and fear.

Honest reckoning and clear-headed thinking will help ... and one of the sources of good reckoning and thought remains Christian Theology ... when humbly held and offered with kindness and sympathy.

Christians, at this point, have something terribly important to offer ... keeping in mind how easily it has been corrupted by cheap preaching and shallow thinking ...

Sin ... that which so easily fears and hides from life, and sooner or later, erupts in hatred and violence.

And what parts of it we cannot understand, at least to say, "There is it ... in all of its ugly reality - fear and hate."

For Christians, then, to be reminded of the angels who counsel mortals, "Fear not" and when hatred raises its ugly head, to choose the Beatitudes and the ways of love - with Jesus clearly in mind, "Take up your cross [the truth about sin] and follow me."

It's not easy to deal with sin ... but failing to deal with it only heightens its power to instill ever-greater levels of fear and hatred into our heart and into our life together.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

"Once to Every Man and Nation" - James R Lowell, in the Bos­ton Cour­i­er, De­cem­ber 11, 1845. Low­ell wrote these words as a po­em pro­test­ing Amer­i­ca’s war with Mex­i­co.

Special and General Revelation

As a life-long Calvinist, I have lived peaceably with special/general revelation categories, and haven't thought much about it, until reading this article ...

http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-07/meeting-god-movies

... and asking myself some questions, like: what is "special" about special? And do not all coherent groups have some sort of "special" source for self-definition and ethics? Does Christian "specialness" trump all others? The article ends with an encouragement to broaden, I suppose, and reaffirm "general revelation." And again, some of the same questions - what does "general" really mean? Does it carry sufficient weight, or, in the balance of things, is it found wanting, and, thus, in need of something "special"?

As I sit here this morning, suddenly these words lose all of the traditional meaning, especially when it comes to claims of moral or theological superiority, or having some kind of an inside track to the truth and reality of god - "my god is bigger and better and brighter than your god because my god has chosen to reveal truth to me, in a very special way, and, sorry, not to you. I'l be more than happy to share my special part of it to correct and finish your general stuff."

Perhaps, in truth, it's all just revelation ... and no one group can claim its share of the prize as "special." Or maybe, it's all special, which is why folks can so profoundly experience the "divine" in movies and other sources. And who's to say, then, that "my experience" in church is of a more profound quality than that found in a movie, or a novel, or a symphony, or on a hike? Which is to say, finally, that we do well to listen to everyone's story and to celebrate the power and the glory that comes our way, in all sorts of media, ways, times and places.

Ever since Constantine, the Church has sought to bolster its claims to power with all sorts of theological tricks, and this morning, it suddenly seems that claims to "special revelation" are just one more example of those tricks, played upon ourselves (to drive away doubt) and thrown into the face of the world (to shame them, and then perhaps convert them), ultimately meaning that the church has something up its sleeve that no one else has (which is partly true, if all forms of revelation are special), but if it's all just revelation, and if humanity both succeeds and fails to understand and live up to its own truth, then whatever share of the prize we might have can never be used to trump anyone else's share.

This is a fine article that raises more questions that need to be answered if the Western Church is going to find humility before the Creator-God who loves the world and walks within the many gardens seeking humankind in both its glory and its shame, and via the Creator-God's own suffering, passion, love, to tease out the frightened, the lonely, the battered, to give them to them God's own hand-made clothing.

If history tells me anything, it's this: the Church has no more or less succeeded with its revelation than any other group. Our claims to "special" revelation crash on the rocks of history! We are but one group among many, and what we have in Christ is worthy to know and to love, there's no need to play our cards as if we held all the trump cards.

But rather to live our lives as musicians - each playing an instrument whose unique sound is needed by all the other instruments in order to produce the fullest possible sound - and encouraging each instrument to play a solo now and then, or join in a duet or trio, but knowing that the greatest sound of all is when every instrument has joined in, making a joyful noise to the LORD.

Friendship on Facebook

I have some friends who see the world very differently than I do ... we've been friends long enough to know that we've learned from one another just about all there is to learn. In that respect, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have nothing in which I'm interested - that was determined a long time ago. For my fb friends who find Limbaugh and Beck of value, so be it. You can read my stuff and simply say, "I don't agree!" and that'll be fine. But don't post the usual conservative jibber-jabber rebuttals - I'll delete most of them, and maybe all of them. 

If I want to hear what a disgrace the President is, how wonderful Gingrich and Reagan and Bush are, how terrible Nancy Pelosi is and how wonderful is Sarah Palin, I'll go to Fox News. But when it shows up in my threads, it'll be gone when I see it.

A lot of other friends are more than willing to raise good questions and challenge things I say, often adding substance to what I've written. And when I've learned greater things, that's added to my world. If I've lacked accuracy, then I'll remove it, or rewrite. Heck, as a preacher, I've done that all of my life.

From good friends, comments and interests are constructive, coming from a compassionate heart, and a mind seeking the larger truths that have shaped this nation at its best and shaped humankind's aspirations for justice, from the beginning. 

I've got some wonderful friends, and we stand together for a better world. And those are the friends I listen to, carefully!

"How's Your Soil?" - Matthew 13

HOW’S YOUR SOIL?  

(A personal reflection on  Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 by Robert C. Orr, July 2014)

Here’s the way the first book of the Bible, Genesis, speaks of our beginning . . .

 the Lord God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life.  Genesis 2:7  CEB

While not to be understood literally, still we are to see the profound connection of human life and the earth on which it was born.  We, you and I, are living, breathing animated topsoil! 

And a bit later in the story of our beginning in God we learn of how we’ll live and how our end will be. 

    by the sweat of your face you will eat bread—
       

 until you return to the fertile land,
 

 since from it you were taken;
 you are soil,
  to the soil you will return.” 

Genesis 3:19 CEB

Then in the New Testament, the apostle Paul is teaching about who we are in God and how we are to live. 

19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Don’t you know that you have the Holy Spirit from God, and you don’t belong to yourselves? 20 You have been bought and paid for, so honor God with your body.      1 Corinthians 6:19-20 CEB

Before Paul, there was his Lord, the Messiah. It’s to him we look now. 
Jesus tells a story.
There’s a sower, 
And there’s soil.
God’s the sower.
God’s word is the seed.
We are the soil. 
We’re receivers (that’s another way of defining grace).
We’ve always been the receivers,
And we are today.
We may have many questions about this parable/story Jesus tells.
His first listeners did for sure.
Some of their questions may be ours also.
Here’s the bottom line -
    Because of God’s extravagant grace, and profound generosity, we are given in the 
course of our life, dozens, maybe hundreds of chances to hear, respond to and 
share what God gives us.  What do we do with those moments?  

How’s your soil Adam?
How’s your soil Eve?
There’s hard soil,
There’s rocky soil.
There’s soil where there are so many weeds and choking vines that we can hardly see the soil underfoot.
Then there’s the rich soil with all the right nutrients and minerals, with sunshine and shade, with rain and gentle breezes - in short, perfect growing conditions.  

I was on the coast of Maine once and had a conversation with a local man about garden fertilizer.  I had heard that old-timers gathered seaweed.  I asked about it.  He said that he did a little gardening and after a big storm, he’d go down to the shore with his wheelbarrow and gather  seaweed the storm had broken loose and thrown up on the beach.  I asked him if it helped his vegetables grow.  He bent low then gestured with both hands and arms in an upwards manner, and said it nearly made the plants jump out of the soil!

How’s your soil Eve?
How’s your soil Adam?
Anything growing?

I want you to think of a time, a person, an experience when you were be able to say “God gave me something in that moment, through that person, when that happened and look where I am now . .  because I listened, I responded, I took it and ran with it!”

 When I was in my last year in college I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  Going to graduate school or seminary or the Peace Corps were three options.  
I learned of a weekend program at a nearby Presbyterian seminary for college students like me. The invitation was to come and meet some faculty, share some time with men and women my age who were preparing for ministry, listen to panel discussions, ask questions.  I went.  I listened. I questioned.   One of things I heard was a professor tell of going on personal retreats at a nearby Catholic Trappist monastery.  I heard the name Thomas Merton mentioned,   He came to be know as the 20th century’s most celebrated American monk.  The Abbey of Gethsemani  in Kentucky was where he lived his life in community with other monks embracing a vow of silence but writing many books, carrying on a correspondence with hundreds of people around the world and keeping a  voluminous journal. 

The summer after I graduated college, seminary was not my choice.  I took a different path, but even that changed and by the end of August I was enrolled in seminary in Chicago.  As I look back on it,  was that a monastic “seed” God planted in my life?  Maybe.  I didn’t think of it that way at the time, however I can report to you today,  forty-seven years later that I went off to seminary, was ordained as a teaching elder and practiced ministry for thirty five years.  I can’t count the times I’ve been back to that monastery,  mostly for silent,  solitary retreats but sometimes taking a friend along to introduce them to monastic life. That “seed” has grown in my life in ways I never expected.

I speak of my own life only to invite you to think today about seeds you have received, people who have guided you in the way of Christ, times you have been shaped in God’s way.  

To be honest, there  were  other  “seeds”  which came into my life.  Did I respond?  Sometimes,  but sometimes not at all.  There were times I didn’t even recognize a seed.  Other times I recognized a  seed, watered it, tended it for a while but it withered.   

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.
 
1. The Road Not Taken
 
 
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;
        5
 
Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,
        10
 
And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.
        15
 
I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.
        20
 

What kind of soil are you Adam?  Eve?

Being prepared, being fertile, being receptive is what this story is all about. 
What makes your soil hard as stone?
What makes the path that is you full of rocks?
What chokes the life out of you?
What can we do to prepare our soil, ourselves for God’s grace?

God’s plan is still sowing. . .  hundreds of seeds,
Thousands of seeds. 
Blowing in the wind . . . of the Spirit. 
Don’t allow the stones, the weeds, the boiling sun, the torrential rain,
and the distractions of modern life to take your eyes off the prize. 

“All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, ‘I am the way.’ “
Catherine of Siena and John 14:6


The pathway you’re on today, if it’s the path Jesus invites you to travel is one filled with hope, opportunity, life, and heaven on earth.  

How’s your soil Eve?
How’s your soil Adam?
Never forget God made you, and God is the Master Gardner.
What’s growing in your life today?

Living in Fear - Christian Reflections

Been having a "chat" via Text Messaging ... he's expressed a lot of fearfulness about the times. I'm uneasy with such fearfulness because it distorts the way we see our world.

So, I sent this note off today ...

Living in fear is a choice we make ... and history makes it clear that our times are no different than ever - what we have is the news, the constant play and replay of world disorder. But WW1 was hideous and millions died across the world ... and WW2 ... the Boer War in S. Africa ... the Colonial Wars ... British in Afghanistan (1839-42) - horrible and hideous ... tens of thousands dying ... nothing different ... so to choose the Christian Way for me  is what counts - to tell the fear-peddlers to take a hike - they're not telling the truth; they're playing upon our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and they want us to be afraid - fearful people are not likely to think too well. 

Americans are the safest people in the world - war, famine and disease are rampant, but not here; not even close. 

Nothing new under the sun - Ecclesiastes 1.9 - what's new is us; we've never been here before, but our situation, the human condition, is what it has always been - war and rumors of war. So, the angels say, "Fear not!" because fear is the enemy of love ... and a perfect, complete, love casts out all fear - 1 John 4.18. 

Like God said to Elijah - (my translation): "Get outta your cave and get work! There is no room for fear in my Kingdom and those whom I call." - i Kings 19.15. 

Like Elijah in the cave, it's fun to shake our heads and talk about how bad things are - makes for great pulpit chowder, but it's hardly the Word of the LORD. Yes, things can be bad - as they were for Judah in Jeremiah's time, but fear is never the right response. 

And the times, well, they're neither worse nor better than any other time ... so, we get up in the morning with a smile on our face, and hope - because in Christ, all is becoming new, love prevails, and whether we're at the Table with the LORD or carrying our own cross to a sure and certain death, we do so in faith, listening to the LORD with all our heart, and not the fear-mongers in our midsts.

"Jesus Died for Our Sins" - Misleading

To simply say, "Jesus died for our sins" removes the offense of the gospel.

If "dying for our sins" is the whole sum of the matter, then Jesus might have done well to let the hometown folks throw him off the cliff - "Here, we have some stones we'd like to introduce you to."

Or, better yes, follow Satan's advice and jump off the temple pinnacle, because he knew full well that, in spite of what Satan said, no angels would come to his defense, and he would die.

Or why not simply join up with John's denunciation of Herod and gone to prison to lose his head with John.

If "dying for our sins" is the sum of the matter.

But, if we say, accurately, that he died "because of our sins," then we might well have to ask: "What were the sins that killed him?"

If Rome killed him, for what reason?

For being a nice guy?

Saying nice things about love?

No, for raising serious questions about Rome itself, and how some in Israel had simply become a client state of Rome, enjoying Rome's largesse, settling for the god of mammon and adopting a cruel life style - like the forgiven servant who refused to forgive a fellow servant ... or the disciples who wanted to send the hungry away to fend for themselves.

It was the sins of Empire that killed him ... the power of the Empire to show who's boss, and the sins of those who signed on with the Empire to enjoy its benefits.

To say, "Jesus died for our sins" retains the offense of the gospel and opens up doorways of understanding that can only service to both humble us before Jesus and compel us to think serious before we say, "I'm a follower of Jesus."

The Cauldron of Little Places

A dear friend of mine wrote a poem about a small church wherein it just kept bubbling a way ...

So I wrote the following as prose ... he suggested I put it into a poetic form ... which I did:

sometimes the cauldron of little places, 
with little people fussing around 
with little things becomes an impossible soup … 
best to push the bowl of soup away 
and let it cool, 
or maybe just congeal …