The Waking Dreamer: Sin

Showing posts with label Sin. Show all posts

Monday, April 27, 2026

What Joy!

Psalm 32[1]

Christian worship can seem strange to people who aren’t used to it. Especially a traditional service like ours. Everything we do in worship has a reason for it. But because the way we worship was shaped literally centuries ago, it can reflect a mindset that some people just don’t connect with. I think that’s especially the case with our unison “Confession of Sins.” Even if we’re actually praying the prayer as a way of confessing our sins to God, and not just “saying” the words because that’s what comes next in the service, it might seem strange that we all “pray” the same confession. As I said, the way we worship can seem strange to people who may not be used to it.

Some of us these days may be uncomfortable simply admitting that we have sinned. Some of us are even more uncomfortable admitting that we are sinners. But from the biblical perspective, both are true: we have sinned—that relates to our actions. And we are sinners—that relates to who we are. But it’s not something that’s easy for us to admit. Especially out loud. The pride that can lie at the heart of our personal insecurities can also lead us to make our own selves the most important thing in our world. We name that choice “sin” because it means turning away from the love that shapes our true humanity and therefore it means turning away from God.[2]

I think this can be a problem even and especially for those of us in the church all the time. In the evangelical world, people can tend toward the thinking that “I’m saved, I asked Jesus into my heart and confessed my sin on such-and-such a date.” They may feel the need to confess “really bad” actions here and there, but they tend to think that they’ve already confessed to being a sinner. They’ve got that part covered. In our branch of the Christian world, we can tend toward the thinking that “I’m a good person, I go to church, I try to help people and be kind to them, I volunteer my time.” Given all of that, some of us may feel like the demand to confess that we “are” sinners is offensive and even harmful. Rather than confessing our sin, some think we should be affirming that we are good enough just as we are.

In the midst of all this incredibly complicated approach that we have toward the simple fact that we all can do and say things that we regret, the Psalmist in our Scripture lesson for today insists that confessing our sin is something that’s important for our spiritual health and well-being. Despite the fact that this lesson was written before Christ was even born, it still remains a truth of our human existence that when we refuse to acknowledge our wayward behavior, it tends to fester inside us and comes out in all kinds of ways that aren’t pleasant. Pride, anger, and bitterness are just some of the ways that we can behave when we try to repress a feeling of guilt for what we have done.[3]

From the Psalmist’s perspective, refusing to clear his conscience by admitting his wrongdoing made him feel like God’s hand was “heavy” upon him (Ps. 32:4). I think most of us can relate to that “heavy” feeling. And it’s one more clue that we all need the relief and release the Psalmist says comes as a “blessing” when we confess our sin (Ps. 32:1-2). And that is precisely what the Psalmist promises in response to the heartfelt, genuine confession that “I have sinned, and I am a sinner”: relief from the burden of guilt. That’s why the confession of sin is so important. As long as we hold back, as long as we refuse to acknowledge who we really are and what we’ve really done, we will always have lingering doubts about whether God really accepts us as we are. But when we admit our wrongdoing, we find God’s love embracing us, God’s grace abounding, and God’s mercy healing us. More than that, when we come to God with the confession, “I have sinned, and I am a sinner,” and we experience not condemnation or rejection but acceptance and love and forgiveness, we walk away from that experience with a stronger sense of trust in the God whose love for us never fails.

Unfortunately, for too many of us, “confession” is only something we do at the beginning of a worship service. And even then, because we do it every Sunday, in the same way, and at the same time, it can begin to feel like something routine. But for confession to be genuine, it has to be more than a routine. It has to be something that is heartfelt. It cannot be relegated to a few words we mumble on Sunday morning. Ongoing confession is an integral part of the life of faith. If we need to be reminded why it is so important to confess our sin, all we have to do is remember that, as we say in one of our Presbyterian Confessions of faith, it is God’s love poured out for us in Jesus’ death on the cross that exposes our sin.[4] Jesus’ death on the cross shows us that there is something about sin so damaging to us that God felt it necessary to die for us in order to do something about it. If our sin is that serious to God, maybe we should take it more seriously.

The way the New Living Translation of Psalm 32 words our lesson is with the exclamation, “what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven” (Ps 32:1, NLT). It might seem like a strange thing to some of us. We have a difficult and complicated relationship with aspect of ourselves at times. And admitting, even to ourselves, that we have fallen short in some way, can be deeply disturbing. It can challenge our sense of self-worth. But when we take that approach, we let our own pride get in the way of the acceptance that God offers us freely. We’re only harming ourselveds. The very words, “I am a sinner” get caught in our throats as we say them. Yet, they are so important for us to say. Only when we confess—to ourselves, to one another, and to God—that we have done what we regret do we fully experience the joy of God’s unconditional and unfailing love for us.[5] But as the ancient words of Scripture promise, if we’re willing to take that step, we find what people of faith have experienced for millennia. When we confess our sins, we know the joy of being embraced by God’s acceptance and love. A love that claimed us “before the foundation of the world” as Paul says, and a love that will never let us go, world without end! And what joy it is to know that our God loves us in that way. What joy indeed!

[2] Cf. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, II:50, where he defines sin essentially as “hubris” or pride.

[3] Cf. Karl Menninger, What Ever Became of Sin?, 178: “I believe that all the evildoing in which we become involved to any degree tends to evoke guilt feelings and depression. These may or may not be clearly perceived, but they affect us. They may be reacted to and covered up by all kinds of escapism, rationalization, and reaction or symptom formation.”

[4] Cf. The Confession of 1967, 9.12: “The reconciling act of God in Jesus Christ exposes our sin in the sight of God.”

[5] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 146: “God’s way is to forgive sinners, and we do not acknowledge his grace unless we present ourselves to him as sinners.”

Wednesday, May 01, 2024

Original Blessing

1 John 4:7-21[1]

One of the things that we in the church are “known” for is our emphasis on “sin.” Many would call it an “obsession.” You simply don’t find the word “sin” used much in our culture outside the church. So it’s no wonder that the church has come to be associated so closely with “sin.” And that’s not necessarily a good thing. People who have no church background tend to view our emphasis on “sin” with a kind of puzzled curiosity. They know that we “confess” our “sins.” But the whole concept just doesn’t compute. It’s almost as if they wonder why, with all the challenges that life in this world brings, anyone would choose to add to that burden by heaping guilt on themselves with all this talk about “sin”!

One of the great challenges throughout the ages for thinkers of all varieties is how to explain human nature. It’s obvious that we have great potential for good. And many people maximize their potential for good in so many ways. But at the same time we also all have potential to cause harm. It’s this combination of our inherent goodness with our inherent capacity to misuse our potential in ways that harm others that creates the mystery of sin.[2] Sadly, we tend to want to simplify that mystery. We either blame it all on the “devil,” or we blame it on human irresponsibility, or some combination of the two. But the mystery remains: people can be both incredibly good, kind, and loving, and also incredibly selfish, mean, and cruel.[3]

One of the ideas that the church has used to explain this mystery is “original sin.” In the Bible, the stories about the origins of sin emphasize that sin includes everyone, and it always has, but that’s not what we were created for.[4] But the church’s teaching has been very different. Due to a mistranslation of the book of Romans in the Latin Vulgate, the idea arose that Adam’s sin was literally handed down to each generation through the physical nature of human sexuality. Although that idea could not be more contrary to biblical teaching, it has persisted to this day. To this day, thousands of people take vows of celibacy as priests, monks, and nuns, in the notion that they are devoting themselves to a “more spiritual” life. Despite the Bible’s teaching that our creation in God’s image is something “very good,” including our sexuality, these notions of “sin,” and particularly “original sin,” continue to make people believe that being fully human is something “bad.”

While the Bible clearly emphasizes that we’ve all fallen short of our potential for goodness, that whole way of thinking couldn’t be more contrary to biblical teaching. I think we see this to some extent in our lesson from 1 John for today. To be sure, the Elder John is dealing with internal divisions in his community, where Christians are turning against one another. And he sees this as something that contradicts God’s love. But I think if we only look at that part of our passage, we may miss out on something more fundamental that could help us with all of that wrong-headed thinking about our being sinful creatures by design. I think we miss out on what I would call the “original blessing”: God’s essential nature as loving, and the gift of that love to the whole human family from the beginning.[5]

We see this reflected in our lesson for today in various ways. The Scripture says that “love comes from God” (1 Jn 4:7). I think we can read that statement to include all love. The reason why “love comes from God” is because “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16). That’s the most fundamental statement about who God is in the whole Bible. More than that, we see God’s love reflected in Jesus: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son” (1 Jn 4:9) to “give up his life for us (1 Jn 3:16). That love defines who God is, always has and always will. And one of reasons why God sent his son was so that we all would share in that “original blessing” of love. The whole purpose for God giving us his love in the first place is so that we would reflect it in the way we show love in our lives. Notice that the Scripture says, “Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God” (1 Jn 4:7) Anyone who loves! While I do believe that statement is meant to be interpreted as broadly as possible, I would say that we shouldn’t read this to mean that anyone who shows love in any way is a follower of Christ. But I would say that it means that any time anyone shows love in any way they are reflecting God’s love, because God’s love is the source for all love. So it is that Scripture can say, “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (1 Jn 4:16). Not only is God’s essential nature defined by love, but God’s love defines and shapes our love. And the point of it all is that our love is to reflect that “original blessing”: “if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us” (4:12). God blessed us with his love in the beginning so that we would love others.[6]

You may have noticed that I don’t talk a whole lot about sin. I don’t care to heap burdens of guilt on people and browbeat them into breaking down and admitting they’re sinners in need of salvation. I think the world does more than enough of that. I much prefer to focus on God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s love that never fails. That’s an intentional choice on my part. As I’ve said before, where you start out with your theology makes all the difference in where you wind up. If you start with the message that all people are “sinners” by nature because we’ve all been infected with the “curse” of “original sin,” that’s inevitably going to lead to a response of guilt, shame, and fear toward God. The focus on “original sin” leads to the very “fear of punishment” that our lesson warns against (1 Jn 4:18). We’ve had far too much of that already. By contrast, the Scripture teaches us that when we truly understand and experience God’s “perfect love” for us, it “expels all fear.” Think of it, what do we really have to fear if God is love and God has given this love to us all?

I much prefer to emphasize God’s “original blessing.” It was God’s love that motivated him in the first place to create all things and us as his human partners. It was God’s love that kept him coming back to a wayward people he had chosen to share his love with the world. It was God’s love that Jesus lived out though his mercy and compassion, and in giving his life for us all. And it’s God’s love that is the “original blessing” we can all claim as the true purpose for which we were created. That’s why I prefer to focus on God’s love as the “original blessing” that we’re all learning to live into. For some of us it may take a lifetime to fully embrace the good news: God loves us all, unconditionally, undeniably, and irrevocably! And whenever we show love to anyone, brother or sister, parent or child, friend, neighbor, or stranger—and I would even say to any of God’s creatures as well—we’re participating in God’s “original blessing”: the love that the Bible tells us God bestowed on the whole human family before anything was created!

[2] In part, of course, the “mystery” of sin goes beyond that which is human. There is a cosmic dimension to it that is also a mystery in the context of God’s “very good” creation.

[3] Cf. Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 192-215. After a thorough analysis, he concludes: “Sin is still as mysterious as before: a senseless and mortally dangerous rebellion against the purpose of God.”

[4] Cf. Berkhof, Christian Faith, ?

[5] I realize that I am taking this passage in a direction that is likely very different from the theology of 1 John. In I John, love for one another is a mark of a true believer. He is arguing against those he would consider “false believers” or “antichrists” because they have broken the bonds of love in the community. And yet, I would insist that, despite the conflict in the Johannine community and it’s influence on the theology of the Johannine writings to the effect that he sees the “world” as a threat, 1 John can still recognize that Jesus Christ died for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2). While the rhetoric against “outsiders” is harsh in 1 John, when taken in consideration with the Johannine writings as a whole, it must be acknowledged that the term “world” is complex in this context. I would also argue that while the intent of 1 John is influenced by the situation of conflict, the theology of God’s love transcends that particular setting. Even if 1 John cannot recognize the full expression of the theology of God’s love to the whole human family through their creation in God’s image, it is a point that theologians have recognized in 1 John (cf. e.g. Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, 5.2; cf. On the Making of Man in P. Schaff, H. Wace, & H. A. Wilson, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers series 2, vol. 5: Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, 391).

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 250: “For Christian experience, the spirituality of the love of God is to be found in the vitality of true human love.” He applies the same approach to friendship with the “wholly other” God and friendship with the “other” whoever that may be (ibid., 259). He applies this line of thinking to human love in general, asking (ibid., 260), “In experiencing human love, are we not supposed to think of the experience of God? And in experiencing God, are we not supposed to think of the experience of love?”

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

(Re)Turning

Psalm 25; Mark 1:15[1]

The language of “sin” and “repentance” doesn’t get much traction in our world these days. For quite some time now, we’ve been much more concerned about enhancing self-esteem than confessing that we’ve done wrong. Even, and especially among those of us in the church, there are many who bristle at the notion of gathering every Sunday and praying a prayer of confession together. There are those who not only reject the language of sin, they also object to any kind of admission that they are fallen, or broken, or less than whole just as they are. It would be nice if that were true, but if we’re honest with ourselves and with each other, we have to admit that we all fall short. And we do it far more often than we’d probably like to admit even to ourselves. Confessing our sins together week after week may not be the most comfortable part of our worship, but it is necessary.

To some extent, I understand what motivates those who object to the language of sin. Over the centuries, church leaders have used that language like a club to beat people over the head. They’ve used guilt to manipulate and control people. Especially in traditions a particular leader is the only one “authorized” to “dispense” forgiveness. And I understand the importance of maintaining a healthy sense of self-esteem. The fact that we have sinned makes us human, not worthless or shameful. Unfortunately, the language of our worship has at times created that impression. Even some of our beloved hymns have lyrics that can undermine a healthy sense of self-worth when taken to extreme. Phrases like “a wretch like me,” or “such a worm as I” don’t exactly resonate with a healthy self image. Even acknowledging our unworthiness can communicate to some people that they are “worthless.”

I would insist that we don’t have to abandon our sense of self-worth altogether to recognize and admit that we all fall short. In fact, I would suggest that part of a truly healthy sense of self-worth includes admitting that we all have room for improvement. Our lives are a journey, and in part that means we never stop growing. But in order to grow, we have to be willing to admit that there are areas of our lives that we could change. Again, the fact that we all fall short, that we all have room for improvement, that there are areas in our lives where we could change and grow, means that we are human, not shameful or worthless. It also means we acknowledge that, for all our efforts at following Jesus, none of us follows him perfectly. And we never will until we’re standing face-to-face with him and his love has made us completely whole.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Mark tells us that Jesus’ message was “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mk. 1:15). Or as the version we read today puts it, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” I think we’re familiar with the “good news” of the “kingdom of God.” I’m not so sure that the language of repentance connects with us these days. It’s just not a word that we use in everyday life outside the church. I would imagine there are many in our day who might not even know what “repentance” means. One of the ways for understanding passages that have language that is unfamiliar or difficult I recommend to people studying the Bible is to compare different translations. I personally use the Bible Gateway website, because it makes it easy to compare many English translations at once.

When you compare translations of this verse, you find an interesting interchange in a couple of the translations we use on a regular basis. One is the Good News Translation, or “Today’s English Version,” first published in 1966. It translates the word “repent” in our Gospel lesson as “Turn away from your sins.” The other is the Contemporary English Version, first published in 1991. It translates the word “repent” as “Turn back to God.” What makes that interesting to me is that both of them were published by the American Bible Society. While the second translation wasn’t meant to be a “revision” of the first, there is a sense in which the Contemporary English Version was meant to be the successor to the original “Today’s English Version” or the Good News Bible. I think that makes it even more interesting that one translates “repent” as “Turn away from your sins,” while the other translates it as “Turn back to God.”

I point this out because I would say that based on my study of the Bible, I think they’re both right. Calls to “repent” in the Bible are meant to call people to turn away from their sins. At the same time, they are meant to call people to turn back to God. “Repentance” includes both movements: turning away from that which is harmful to us and to others, and returning to God, who is the sole source of life that is full and free. But that can be hard for us to do. We have to acknowledge that something we’ve done is “sin” in order to “turn away” from it. And we have to acknowledge that in choosing to sin we have turned away from God in order to return to him. It can be humbling to make either of those confessions, even to ourselves.

Again, I would say that humility can be a part of a truly healthy sense of self-worth, as long as it doesn’t turn into shame. I think that’s part of what our lesson from the Psalms is about. It’s a prayer of humility, recognizing that we all need help in order to truly follow God’s ways in our daily living. And that’s what the Psalm promises: God’s help. Our lesson says it this way, “The LORD is good and does what is right; he shows the proper path to those who go astray. He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way” (Ps 25:8-9, NLT). Notice, it doesn’t say that God shows the proper way to those who are already in the right, but rather to those who go astray! As a person who is fallen and flawed and who “goes astray” more often that I’d like to admit, I find that to be a great comfort! The promise of Scripture is that God shows us all the “proper way” and leads us in what is right.

The language of sin and repentance in the Bible isn’t meant to shame us or to beat us down with the notion that we’re worthless. It’s meant to inspire us to “change our hearts and lives.” That’s the way the Common English Bible, the version we used for our Gospel lesson today, puts it: “Change your hearts and lives.” This is no easy task. Sometimes we have to “hit bottom” before we’re even willing to admit that we need to change. Making changes in our lives means recognizing that we fall short. It means taking responsibility for what we have done as well as what we’ve failed to do. It means, as the Psalmist says, admitting that we need help to follow God’s ways in our daily living. It reminds me of what Jesus said in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Matt. 5:3). I like the way the Message translation puts it: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” Being willing to confess our sins and repent, both in the sense of turning away from what harms us and others, and in the sense of returning to God, isn’t about thinking of ourselves as worthless or shameful. It’s simply about being humble enough to recognize that we need God’s help. And the promise of Scripture, is that to those who are humble enough to acknowledge we need help, God provides it time after time after time.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Oppportunities

Opportunities

John 9:1-42[1]

It doesn’t take long for those of us who live in this world to learn that bad things sometimes happen to good people. In fact, sometimes what happens to good people in this world is downright evil. I personally think that makes praying “deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s Prayer all the more relevant for all of us. For me, at least, one of the reasons I look to the Lord’s Prayer is because the evil in this world can cause us to struggle with our faith. In fact, more than one good soul has turned away from faith because of the evil that has come either into their life or the life of someone they care about. And there are many sensitive souls among us who struggle to believe in a loving God simply because there is just so very much violence and injustice in our world.

I would say that one part of this experience that makes it particularly challenging for faith is the pain and fear we may have to carry as a result of the bad things that can happen to us. When those “bad things” truly rise to the level of “evil,” they tend to leave a wound. And wounds like that can run deep and sometimes they never fully heal. Or if they do heal, they remain very sensitive to certain triggers. And that kind of pain naturally leads to fear. But I would say, from my experience with fear, that it always cuts us off from the one source of true healing: our God whose love for us never fails. We cannot know what the future will bring, whether good or bad, but if we’re going to live in faith rather than staying shackled to our fear, we’re going to have to learn to find the good that God brings even out of the hard things in life.

Our Gospel lesson raises this issue for us right from the start. The lesson tells us that as Jesus “walked along, he saw a man blind from birth” (Jn 9:1). The fact that this man was born blind led Jesus’ disciples to ask him what must seem to us a strange question: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Jn 9:2). I think the question must sound strange to our ears because we don’t see a disability like blindness as a punishment from God. But it was common in that day to think of the suffering in this world as a direct result of somebody’s sin. And so they could entertain the possibility that a person could sin even before they were born in order to explain something like this.

That kind of cause and effect approach to sin and suffering had a long history with the Jewish people. It started with the Ten Commandments, which say that God punishes “children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation” (Dt 5:9)! And, of course, it was the premise for much of the history of Israel in the Hebrew Bible: when the king did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so did the people, and they suffered for it. And it’s the assumption that Job’s so-called “friends” made: if you’re suffering in any way you must have done something wrong. So they stubbornly kept trying to convince Job to admit his sin to find relief from his suffering.

But Jesus explodes that assumption about sin and suffering. He refused to accept the premise of the disciples’ question, that someone must have sinned to cause this man to be born blind. Instead, he answered them bluntly, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned” (Jn 9:3). I think Jesus was carrying forward a point that had already been made in the book of Job. Job maintained his innocence, even though God reminded him that when he asked the question “why?” he was asking more than he could begin to understand. But God upheld Job’s integrity. In fact, at the end of the story, God’s anger was kindled against the friends for insisting that God was punishing Job for something he’d done wrong. God rebukes them, saying, “you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). Even Job’s questions were more true to God than their assumptions about sin and suffering.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus not only denied the assumption that suffering must have been caused by sin. More than that, he pointed his disciples in a completely different direction. He insisted that this man was born blind “so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (Jn 9:3). Now, I would have to say that this point of view could also be abused. But I think what Jesus was trying to do was to turn people away from obsessively looking for someone to blame when things go wrong in life. Instead, I think Jesus wanted them and us to look for the good that God can bring even out of the worst things that can happen to us. Of course, in this particular situation, I think Jesus said what he did in part because he knew he was going to restore this man’s sight.

One of my favorite parts of the Study Catechism that we use with the Confirmation Class and in worship is the affirmation that God brings “good out of evil, so that nothing evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend finally to the good.”[2] It’s a wonderful promise that helps us look for the good that God can bring out of suffering. But it can also present a challenge for our faith. After all, not every blind person has their sight restored. And more often than not it can be very difficult, if not impossible, when something bad happens to us or someone we love to even consider that God could bring good out of it.

But I would say that this is one of those places where our faith becomes more than just words we recite together on Sunday morning. To be able to look at this life, this life with all the suffering and hardships it can bring, and put our faith in the God whose love for us never fails is perhaps the greatest challenge we will face. Partly, that’s because we may never see the good that God brings out of the bad things that may happen to us. The catechism does say that God bends the evil that occur “finally” to the good. To leave open the possibility, the hope, that God will bring good out of even the worst things that have happened to us in this life is to take a step beyond a life of pain and fear into a life of trust. To do so is to recognize that our lives are in God’s hands, and that we may never know what opportunities, what good things, God can create from the hardships we suffer in this world.

[2] “The Study Catechism: Full Version with Biblical References,” Approved by the 210th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA (1998), question 22.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Good For the Soul?

Good for the Soul?

Psalm 32[1]

I’m not sure, but it’s my impression that we have a comical relationship with privacy. We may take great offense if someone knows “too much” about our personal lives. But at the same time, we may publish details on social media that nobody really wants to know. I don’t think this started with the internet, though. Gossip has always been a feature of any community of people. Whether it’s on the computer, or over the phone, or sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch drinking coffee, we seem to take keen interest in talking about the private lives of others. But at the same time we take offense when others talk about us. I find a great deal of irony in that.

I also find a great deal of irony in the fact that we come to worship, week after week, and we “confess” our sins together. Out loud. In public. So other people can hear us. Of course, we’re all saying the same thing together, so that takes some of the sting out of it. And when something is printed in the bulletin, it’s easy to just “read” it rather than actually “praying.” I find that ironical because I would say that most of us are uncomfortable actually admitting that we have sinned, and even more so that we are sinners. But from the biblical perspective, both are fundamentally true: we have sinned—that relates to our actions. And we are sinners—that relates to who we are. By contrast, we tend to think of ourselves as good people who try to be kind to others. Confessing that we are sinners may be offensive to our self-image, given our efforts at living the Christian life. We may endorse the adage that “confession is good for the soul,” but I’m not sure we really believe it enough to practice it!

And yet, in our lesson for today the Psalmist insists that admitting our sin is something important to an ongoing relationship of faith in God. In fact, he warns that when we refuse to acknowledge our sin, it tends to fester inside us and comes out in all kinds of ways that aren’t so pleasant. Pride, anger, bitterness, and perhaps even behaviors that relate to more “psychological” issues all may come from repressed guilt. From the Psalmist’s perspective, refusing to admit his sin made him feel like God’s hand was “heavy” upon him (Ps. 32:4). I think we can all relate to the sense of dread when we know we’ve messed up, and there are going to be consequences. That’s one more clue that we all need the “blessing” we receive when we confess our sin (Ps. 32:1-2).

And that is precisely what the Psalmist promises in response to the heartfelt, genuine confession that “I have sinned, and I am a sinner”: relief from the burden and release from the sense of guilt. That’s why confessing our sin is such an important part of learning to trust in God. As long as we hold back, as long as we refuse to admit who we really are and what we’ve done, there must be some doubt in our minds about whether God really accepts us. But when we stop fooling ourselves and let go the burden, we find God’s love embracing us, God’s grace abounding, God’s mercy healing us. When we make ourselves vulnerable by approaching God with the confession, “I am a sinner,” and experience not condemnation or rejection but acceptance and love and forgiveness, we walk away from that experience with a stronger sense of trust in the one who loves us. As it turns out, confession truly is “good for the soul.”

Unfortunately, for most of us, “confession” is only something we do at the beginning of a worship service. And even then, because we do it every Sunday, in the same way, and at the same time, it can begin to feel like something routine. But for confession to be genuine, it has to be more than a routine. It has to be something that is heartfelt. It cannot be relegated to a few words we mumble on Sunday morning. Confessing our sin is an important component in an ongoing relationship of faith in God. When we come to God on a regular basis, perhaps even daily, and sincerely confess that we have fallen short, we have failed, we have sinned, we find that practice strengthening our faith. When we admit to ourselves and to God that we have sinned, we receive the “blessing” of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.

Sometimes, however, we need to take it a step further. It’s one thing to confess our sin to God. It’s another thing altogether to confess our sin to another person. The Bible actually teaches us to do both. Now, of course, we have to be wise and thoughtful about this. I’m not talking about airing all your dirty laundry on the internet for the whole world to see. I’m talking about sharing a burden with a trusted friend. Something incredibly healing takes place when we share our deepest secret with a trusted friend, and instead of the criticism or rejection we may have expected, we find understanding, acceptance, and love. Confession is indeed “good for the soul.”

If we need to be convinced of the importance of confessing our sin, all we have to do is remember that it is God’s love that exposes our sin. There is something about sin so damaging to us that God felt it necessary to die for us in order to set us free. If our sin is that serious to God, maybe we should take it more seriously. I’m not going to say that any of this is easy. The very words, “I am a sinner” get caught in our throats. Yet, confessing our sin is a necessary step for us to experience the unconditional love and acceptance God offers us all. And when we take the risk, when we make ourselves vulnerable, then we know the release and joy of the new life that God offers all of us as a free gift. Then we find that confession really is “good for the soul.”

Monday, October 01, 2018

The Stone is Lifted

Mark 9:38-50[1]

I wonder whether we as a people have become immune to scandal. In the days of Watergate, when the Senate hearings were broadcast on TV every day, we were shocked at the abuse of power that went all the way to the top. These days, it seems we have lost our ability to be shocked. We have grown so cynical about power and those who use it or abuse it, that we almost expect anyone in such a position to be caught in a scandal at some point. I might go even farther, and venture the opinion that many of us don’t care about scandals any more. We’ve heard so much about Iran-gate and Nanny-gate and Whitewater-gate that our eyes glaze over and we tune out at the very mention of another scandal.

Perhaps I should amend that opinion to say that we don’t care about the scandals that apply to the people we support. We pay plenty of attention to the abuses of power on the part of those we see as the “bad guys.” But if someone is on our “good guy” list, we will suspend judgment and give them the benefit of the doubt over and over again. As a fan of world class cycling, I myself didn’t want to believe the accusations that Lance Armstrong was using performance-enhancing drugs to win an unprecedented 7 consecutive titles in the Tour de France. That is, until he publicly admitted that he had done so and was stripped of his titles and awards.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus talks about what happens when we abuse our power to take advantage of others. It might not seem obvious at first glance, because this is one of the most difficult passages in Mark’s Gospel. It talks about stumbling blocks and self-mutilation and being thrown into hell and being “salted with fire.” And the combination is confusing to the best of us and difficult to sort out. But the central concept in this passage has to do with “stumbling,” either causing someone else to do so, or stumbling ourselves. The Greek word is to “scandalize,” but the meaning is different from our understanding of a scandal. It’s talking about causing others to sin, or falling into sin ourselves.

I think in order to understand any of this, we have to have a clear perspective on the biblical concept of sin. While many religions have identified sexual outcasts as the chief of sinners, the Bible points instead to the “wicked” ones who abuse their power to take advantage of others. As some have put it, the Bible is more concerned about what happens in the boardroom than what happens in the bedroom. Jesus followed this pattern by saving his harshest criticism for those promoted injustice, those who diminished the lives of the least and the lowest in society. And, sad to say, typically those who were guilty of this kind of behavior were the “leaders,” both religious and political.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus says that “it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” than to “put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me” (Mark 9:42). I think you would have to say that Jesus was serious about confronting those who used their power to take advantage of others. And to emphasize the point, he follows this up by saying that if your hand or your foot or your eye causes you to take oppress someone in this way, you would be better off simply removing that part of your body! Now, Jesus knew that “sin” isn’t located in any particular body part. He was exaggerating to make a point: spare no effort to avoid the selfishness, the unbridled greed, and the total lack of concern for the welfare of others that leads to this kind of abuse.

Unfortunately, we are surrounded by the monuments memorializing the fact that our society has had its fair share of “captains of industry” who made a fortune and rose to power on the backs of thousands who labored in poverty. Names like Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Hearst, and Vanderbilt can be found on buildings all over the country as testaments to their “generosity.” But I doubt that the people who had to endure harmful working conditions, substandard housing, and malnutrition would have seen them in that light. The simple truth is that they used their power to enrich themselves by taking advantage of others.

It’s easy to look back and point out those who have abused their power in the past. It may be harder to recognize that we have tycoons today who are enriching themselves by taking advantage of others. But even more difficult is the realization that all of us have diminished another person at some time in our lives. And we’ve felt the weight of our misdeeds like a heavy stone around our necks. I think that’s why Jesus said it’s better to be drowned in the sea than to carry the burden of knowingly taking advantage of another human being. It’s a burden that can be crushing to bear for those of us with a conscience.

It’s also easy to point an accusing finger at “others” as the culprits in the predicament we find ourselves with our fellow human beings. But Jesus didn’t come to bring release to the oppressed and heap vengeance on the oppressors. Injustice of any kind oppresses both those who have to endure it and those who perpetrate it. Jesus came “to free the oppressors and the oppressed” from the burden of injustice.^{^[2]} When we allow the weight and the “fire” of our guilt to cleanse our hearts, we find freedom from the need to take advantage of others. Then the stone of injustice is lifted from us all.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 307.

Monday, April 03, 2017

No Comparison

Romans 5:12-19[1]

I think one of the worst things to happen to the Christian faith was when sin became the primary focus of attention. That might sound like a strange thing for a preacher to be saying on the first Sunday of Lent. Of course, I’m not trying to say that sin is unimportant. But whatever you make the starting point for your faith is going to have a significant effect on what you believe. You know what I’m talking about: you’ve been to other churches where people are constantly made to feel guilty. And as a result, God’s love comes across not as unconditional, but as something that depends on what we do. If we make the right choice, then the “good news” is that we’re in the clear. If not, well, the “news” is not so good.

One of the things I like about the way we approach the faith in our tradition is that we start with God’s grace. We see that in the sacrament of Baptism: it demonstrates that God’s love chooses us before we even have the capacity to make a choice for ourselves. We see it in the sacrament of Communion: God’s love continually strengthens us so that we can follow Christ. Obviously, we don’t ignore sin. We have a confession of sin at the beginning of every worship service. But we confess our sins with the confidence that we’re approaching a God of grace, whose love for us is unconditional and irrevocable. In my mind, that makes all the difference in the shape of our faith.

This might also seem like a strange introduction to a sermon about our lesson from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. In this passage, Paul reminds us that the “original sin” of our first parents had consequences for the whole human race. Something about that just doesn’t seem right to our way of thinking. How can one act have such widespread effects? Part of the explanation is that one sin has a tendency to lead to another. And another. And another! St. Paul looks at the whole sweep of human experience, so full of violence and greed and hatred and abuse and corruption and exploitation and injustice and oppression, and he says in effect that it all started with one sin.

For most of us, the idea that the “original sin” of Adam and Eve could be held against us all seems to be unfair. How can God hold us all accountable for something we didn’t do? The reason why we can’t claim that it’s unfair is that we all have our own history of sin.[2] None of us can claim never to have done anything that might contribute to the spread of sin’s effects on the whole human race. In fact, each and every one of us, in some way or another, at some time or another, has done our part to extend the grasp of sin on the human race a little farther. In a very real sense, what Paul is trying to do is move us to the Lenten discipline of confession—to acknowledge that our sin has far-reaching consequences.

I think we also have a problem with St. Paul’s assertion that one sin brought death to the whole human race. But what we have to understand is that Paul isn’t primarily talking about the physical limits of human mortality. I think he’s talking about death as a spiritual condition. He’s talking about those actions that affect the spirit, the heart, the mind, the very the soul of who we are as human beings. Even still, we might not like the idea that one sin could lead to the death of a person’s very soul. But I think if you ask a victim of any kind of violence or addiction you will find that it can! I think what the Apostle Paul wants us to consider is that every sin you and I commit has the potential to spread death and destruction much farther than we can imagine. And there are some sins that have the potential to destroy the whole human race.

But if we stop there, we run the risk of completely missing the point! St. Paul’s point is not just to make us all keenly aware that each sin has far-reaching consequences. I think the main point of this passage is that however powerful the effect of our sin may be, there is no comparison with the powerful effect of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Paul insists that while one sin brought “death” to the whole human race, the one faithful act of Jesus Christ, humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross, brought God’s grace to the whole human race. And God’s grace is far more powerful than our sin. Through that one act, God’s generous grace was poured out on all humankind, healing the destructive effects of our sin, restoring the hearts and minds and souls that have been subjected to all kinds of death, and replacing it with the gift of life.[3]

Throughout this passage, St. Paul insists that there’s no comparison between the one sin of Adam and the one righteous act of Jesus, giving his life for us all. As he contrasts the two, he repeated says that the gift of grace and life through Jesus Christ “much more surely” outweighs the effects of our sin. I like the way The Message puts it: “There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift” (Rom. 5:16). And so Paul concludes, “just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all” (Rom. 5:18).[4]

I think the reason for all of this is that, while St. Paul certainly doesn’t minimize the problem of sin, God’s grace plays a far more important role in his understanding of the gospel. His faith is based on the conviction that God acts in each of our lives to bring us new life before we are even aware of what he’s doing. In fact, God is always working in each of our lives, constantly surrounding us with his love and mercy, drawing us to trust in him and so to find that his grace by far overcomes the consequences of our sins. When you think about it, how could our sin ever be more powerful than God’s love? As serious as our sin will always be, when you set it alongside God’s grace, there really is no comparison.

[2] Cf. Paul K. Jewett, Romans, 376. Ernst Käsemann, Romans, 148, cites the Jewish apocalypse 2 Baruch 54:19, “each of us has become our own Adam.” Cf. also James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, 290, “Death continues to dominate humanity not solely because of one primeval act but because of humankind’s continued acts of sin.”

[3] Regarding the issue of whether Paul’s language of redemption applies universally to the whole human race, Dunn, Romans 1-8, 297, acknowledges the problem, but asks the question, “How, after all, can grace be ‘so much more’ in its effect if it is less universal than the effect of death?” Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:333-35, where he speaks of the “alteration of the whole human situation” through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Cf. similarly, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “The Cosmic Power of Sin in Paul's Letter to the Romans” Interpretation 58 (July 2004): 240: “The gospel Paul proclaims is that God has not left us alone and powerless. In Jesus Christ, God has already broken Death and Sin and will finally crush Satan on our behalf. Confidence in that word is the beginning of peace and joy and the obedience of faith.” See also Jan Bonda, The One Purpose of God, 103-107; and Jewett, Romans, 370, 379-80.

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 205, where he points to the divine righteousness as an event that takes place in the cross and resurrection of Jesus as “the universal gospel, which is oriented towards the new creation that fulfils all things, sets them right with God and so gives them status and being.” He continues, “Divine righteousness ‘happens’ here, and the gospel reveals it by proclaiming the event of the obedience of Jesus even to the death of the cross, by proclaiming the event of his surrender to this death, and by proclaiming his resurrection and his life as the coming of the divine righteousness to the unjust.”

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Hear Our Cry, O Lord!

Psalm 130[1]

When I was in Seminary, I worked as a Security Guard to help pay bills. The good thing about it was that I could study on the job. The bad thing about it was that when I showed up for work, I never really knew if I would get off on time. There were many a night when a four-to-midnight shift turned into a four-to-midnight-to eight in the morning shift! Of course, I usually brought extra homework in case that happened, but those were some long nights. Talk about watching for the morning to come! It always seemed like the last hour was the longest hour of the night. It felt like eight o’clock, when I would be released to go home and sleep, would take its own sweet time getting there.

Sometimes I think waiting for God to answer our prayers may feel like that. We pour out our hearts to God in the times when we need his help the most, and it can seem like the answer never comes. In fact, I think that our struggle with waiting for God to respond to our prayers may be one of the great challenges of our faith. It seems the exception to the rule when God’s deliverance comes when we think we need it. More often, the answer may come long after we’ve given up on praying, given up even on God. And when it does come, if we’ve given up on God, we may not even notice that God has indeed answered our prayer, if not in the precise way and at the precise time we expected.

Our Psalm for today presents us with an example of someone who is desperate for God to hear his prayer. The specific prayer he cries out is for God to set him free from the consequences of his sin. Though it’s not hard to pick up on the note of distress in this Psalm, we really don’t know much about the circumstances. We don’t know why the psalmist is crying out to God. It would seem that he has somehow sinned against God and is feeling that burden deeply. But we don’t really know what that sin might be. We don’t know how long he may have been praying this prayer for deliverance. This may have been a prayer written at the very beginning of a wrestling match with God. I must say that I doubt that’s the case. The note of distress and desperation sound to me more like an urgent plea from someone who’s been pouring out his heart for quite a while, and is at wit’s end holding on the hope that God will have mercy and release him from his distress.

When I read this Psalm I wonder what it was that kept him praying through such difficult times. I think we could all ask ourselves the same question: what keeps us turning to God when we feeling like we’re drowning in distress? I think the Psalm points us to an answer: it’s God’s character.[2] No matter how long the psalmist has to wait for an answer to his cry, he remains confident that God is the one who forgives sins. Despite the fact that he can describe himself as being “in the depths,” a place where there is precious little hope and one can truly feel lost,[3] he continues to trust that “with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption” (Psalm 130: 7, TNIV). This heartbreaking cry for mercy comes from one who trusts that the God to whom he prays is the God whose love never fails.

In fact, this is the central truth about who God is in the Bible. God is the one who is completely faithful, completely dependable. This is the “revelation” that came to Moses in the cleft of the rock: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7).[4] This refrain echoes throughout the Bible over and over again. And the point of it is that God loves us with a love that will never let us go. That remains true no matter what we may do or where we may find ourselves in life. Even in “the depths” we can trust that God is the one we can depend on to love us with a love never lets us go.[5]

And yet, that same gracious and compassionate love is the very thing that can drive us to the kind of distress this Psalm expresses.[6] The reason for this is that God’s grace which never fails also never leaves us in our sins, whether they may be sins of mild neglect or blatant transgressions. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it’s all too easy for those of us who have been intentional about living out our faith to slip into the pattern of thinking that this kind of distress over sin primarily relates to others, while our failings are only “minor shortcomings.” And yet this Scripture will have none of it. Even if we have become blind to our sins, the Psalmist recognizes that we all are subject to wrongdoing. He says it this way: “If you kept track of sins, LORD— my Lord, who would stand a chance?” (Ps. 130:3 CEB). The implied answer is clear: nobody. The sometimes difficult truth is that God’s steadfast love and unfailing grace creates in us the very distress over sin that finds such moving expression in this Scripture.

But it is also God’s unfailing love and “full redemption” that makes it possible for us all to turn to the Lord and find forgiveness.[7] No matter what we’ve done, no matter where we find ourselves, we can cry out to God in prayer, knowing full well that we can trust him to set us free from our sins. Even if it takes weeks, months, or years of crying out to God, we can continue to hope in his word, which assures us that his love never fails and that he is the one who forgives our sin.[8] No matter how deep our distress may be, no matter how dark the situation may seem, we can turn to God in the assurance that God always hears our prayers.[9] I think this is especially true when we cry out to the Lord with the kind of urgency and fervor found in this Psalm. And the promise is that God does indeed hear our cry.

[2] Cf. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV:1205: “The psalmist’s waiting is based on the conviction that God is fundamentally gracious and forgiving.”

[3] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 406, where he says that the “depths” is a metaphor that “represents drowning in distress, being overwhelmed and sucked down by the bottomless waters of troubles … . To be in the depths is to be where death prevails instead of life as prospect and power, where the authentic word about existence is ‘I am lost’.” Cf. also McCann, Jr., “Book of Psalms,” NIB IV:1205, where he says that the “depths” “names the chaotic forces that confront human life with destruction, devastation, and death, and are regularly symbolized by water.”

[4] Cf. McCann, “Book of Psalms,” NIB IV:1205, where he refers to Exodus 34:6-7 and says, “God reveals the divine self to be ‘gracious’ … and ‘abounding in steadfast love’…, and these attributes are manifested concretely in God’s forgiveness … of the people’s ‘iniquity’.”

[5] Cf. McCann, “Book of Psalms,” NIB IV:1206, where he says, “Israel’s future does not depend on its own worthiness or ability to save itself but on God’s faithful love and ability to redeem. … No sin or setback will be of sufficient depth to separate God’s people from God’s amazing grace and faithful love.” Cf. also Bernhard Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for us Today, 59: “Unlike the capricious gods of the ancient world, the God whom Israel worships is true to promises made, constant in faithfulness, consistent in behavior.” Cf. further Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 115: “God is the same God all the way from promise to fulfillment.”

[6] Cf. H. -J. Kraus, Psalms 60-150, 467: “Yahweh is the holy God even in his grace.” He quotes from Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.1:361-2 in support: “as the gracious God He affirms Himself over against the one to whom He is gracious by opposing and breaking down his resistance … . … If we refuse to recognize and , as is right, to suffer this His opposition to us, we are also repudiating His grace.”

[7] Cf. Anderson, Out of the Depths, 94: “the presence of the Holy God in the midst of the people is experienced as both inescapable judgment … and gracious acceptance.”

[8] Cf. Kraus, Psalms 60-150, 468: “To fear Yahweh means to wait for his word of forgiveness, in straining attentiveness to look forward to the moment in which Yahweh grants salichah [deliverance].”

[9] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 76-77: “Wherever the cry from the depths is heard, the Spirit who ‘helps us in our weakness’ is present. … The sighs of fettered creation are taken up by the sighs of the Spirit who dwells in it, and are brought before God. … There is a cry from the depths at the beginning of every experience of God-given salvation … . And God hears the cry from the depths of desolation.”

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Truly Alive?

Ephesians 2:1-10[1]

When I look at the way we as a people live our lives today, I have to wonder what happened to the concept of “sin.” Now, I would be the first to insist that, contrary to what some may say, sin is not the basic truth of our existence. I firmly believe that our basic truth is that God loves us unconditionally and irrevocably.[2] And yet, if we take a good look at the way we live our lives, I think we’d have to say that there’s plenty of sin going around. I’m not much for some of the typical approaches to sin: the “devil made me do it” doesn’t hold much water for me.[3] And I don’t believe it’s some deep stain or flaw that defines us. I think that sin is what we do when we’re trying to avoid the real truth of our lives.[4]

I think most of us would have to admit that we really, really don’t want to have to face the facts of our lives. We’d much rather just let the television wash over us, or lose ourselves in busy work, or just simply escape with alcohol or food or shopping. Not all of those things are “evil” in and of themselves. But when we lose ourselves to them in an attempt to avoid having to deal with what’s going on with us and especially what’s going on inside us, these things can leave us feeling profoundly lost and empty. When we’ve done everything we can to avoid feeling the pain of life, we also lose the capacity to feel anything. It’s as if we’re dead inside. I have to ask the question I think we’ve all sensed at one time or another: when we live our lives that way, are we really living at all?

St. Paul addresses this question in our lesson for today. He faced this spiritual deadness head-on. He made it clear that, on our own, we are “dead through our trespasses” (Eph. 2:5). In fact, he uses some language that may seem strange to us. He says that our deadness comes from “the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world” (Eph. 2:1-2). That’s not the way we tend to describe our lives these days. We might say that we have a weakness for something, or maybe we struggle with some bad habits, or perhaps we are dealing with certain issues. But we don’t tend to describe our lives in terms of “trespasses” or “disobedience.”[5]

But St. Paul won’t let us off the hook at this point.[6] When get lost in those pursuits that leave us feeling dead inside, he calls it following the “course of this world.” I like the way the Phillips translation puts it: our problem is that we’re drifting “along on the stream of this world’s ideas of living.” Paul is quite blunt about what that constitutes: sin. When try to ignore the real truth of our lives, the truth that is rooted in our very souls, we are living in disobedience. Paul makes it clear that living that way is the cause of the sense that our lives are empty. If it seems like we’re not truly alive at all, it’s because we’re trying to avoid the truth we’d rather not face.

Fortunately, that’s not the end of the story. Paul makes such a strong point of emphasizing how dead we can be in order to point us to the fact that God is the one who makes us truly alive.[7] In fact, Paul insists that, just as Jesus was dead, but God made him alive again, so also God exerts the power of the resurrection to bring back to life all of us who are living in a kind of spiritual deadness.[8] In our lesson for today, Paul says that the basis for this amazing transformation that we can all experience is God’s grace.[9] It is because God is “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4) that God steps in to do something about the emptiness of the way we live. Just as death didn’t keep God from raising Jesus from the dead, so the reality that we may be “dead through our trespasses” (Eph. 2:5) doesn’t prevent God from giving us new life. In fact, Paul’s whole point is to assure us that God has already “made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5). By the power of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, we have the chance to become truly alive.[10]

I realize that my approach to being “dead in sins” is probably a bit different from what St. Paul had in mind originally. I would imagine he was thinking of other kinds of behaviors, like pleasure seeking, immorality, promiscuity, and other vices we still have with us today. But I wonder if it isn’t the case that, then as now, those excessive behaviors aren’t just another way to escape from the emptiness and the pain we suffer in the depths of our soul. While we may use more acceptable ways of avoiding what’s really going on with us and inside us, the result is the same: we’re dead inside. By keeping ourselves from feeling the painful truth of life, we lose the capacity to feel anything. Unfortunately, all those things we work so hard at avoiding have a way of coming back to haunt us. I find this is especially true in when we’re sleeping—or trying to sleep. That’s when the truths we’ve been trying avoid come back to remind us that we’re not really living.

But this is where the power of the resurrection can make all the difference in the world for us. Think about it: if God’s power is great enough to overcome even death, then what part of your suffering can’t God overcome? I think the answer is obvious. The new life of Jesus’ resurrection is so powerful that it spills over into our lives. It gives us the courage to face the struggles we’d rather avoid. When we do that we can come alive in a way that we may never have thought possible. As we face the reality of our lives, the pain that can haunt us slowly loses its hold over us. Through God’s mercy and love, by the power of Jesus’ resurrection, we can come back from the emptiness of trying to escape from life and instead we can become truly alive!

[2] Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible IX:394: “Ephesians has placed its description of sin in subordinate clauses. The focus of the opening period is God’s grace and love experienced by the redeemed.”

[3] Cf. Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, 117, where he recognizes that the text speaks of the spiritual power that influences humankind toward sin. Nevertheless, “This explanation of sin does not, however, do away with human responsibility, for in the next breath the writer can say that not only the readers, but all believers, were at one time those who chose not to obey.”

[4] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.2:260, where he speaks of the human condition as a self-enclosed “imprisonment” where “we only fulfil [sic] our own possibilities and only believe in our own possibilities.”

[5] Thomas G. Long, “Just As I Am,” The Christian Century (Mar 21, 2006):18, where he says of Paul’s language that we are “dead in sin” and in need of salvation: “To see this statement as applicable to us, to swallow even one ounce of this claim, we must admit a cluster of truths about ourselves we would rather not face—that we are captive to cultural and spiritual forces over which we have no control, that they have drained the life out of us, that we are unable to think or feel or crawl our way free, and that we are in urgent need of a God who comes to rescue. In short, we need saving.”

[6] Fred Craddock, “From God to God,” The Christian Century (Mar 22, 2003): 18. He says, “The language is vivid: You were dead. This is to say, you were caught in a futile way of life obedient to desires of the flesh, seeking the approval of your culture, heeding every inclination that led away from God, aimless and helpless to extricate yourself.”

[7] Craddock, “From God to God,” 18: “For all their power to cripple, control and alienate, all hostilities in the universe will not only cease ultimately, but will be reconciled. For redemption in Christ to be complete, it must range as far and wide as the forces of evil. And his liberating work has already begun in setting free the person caught in the passions of the senses and enamored of this worlds offerings.”

[8] Cf. Lincoln, Ephesians, 116: “the parallel he draws between the supreme demonstration of God’s power in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ (1:19–21) and his activity on behalf of believers. He wants them to realize that just as Christ was physically dead but God raised and exalted him, so they were spiritually dead but God raised and exalted them with Christ.”

[9] Cf. Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, 32, where he offers what I think is an excellent definition of grace: “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more” and “there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.” Cf. also Barth,Church Dogmatics 2.1:278: “God’s love is not merely not conditioned by any reciprocity of love. It is also not conditioned by any worthiness to be loved on the part of the loved.”

[10] Cf. Lincoln, Ephesians, 118: “With grace as its ground and faith as its means, this salvation can have nothing to do with any notion of merit. That it is ‘by grace’ means that it has not originated from a human source but comes from God as a gift. That it is ‘by faith’ means the exclusion of human effort and, therefore, of any pride or boasting in the presence of God. The writer wants his readers to be absolutely clear that it is God, and not humans, who is to be given the credit for salvation, and that means the whole of salvation, including believers’ good works.”

The Waking Dreamer