Sunday, July 6, 2014

July 6, 2014 - Proper 9A


O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
          In our first reading this morning we heard the wonderful story of the first meeting of Rebekah and Isaac. Isaac needed a wife from his own people, and Abraham had instructed Laban to find a woman with a compassionate heart for his son. He finds the prescribed woman at the well one day, and they lived happily ever after. Except, they didn’t. As the story continues, we learn that Rebekah is unable to conceive a child. And though this was disheartening to the couple, it also put God’s promise into jeopardy. Abraham was promised that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars, and Isaac was the heir. The entire fate of the Hebrew people was dependent upon this marriage between Isaac and Rebekah. As we all know, life is never quite as simple as “happily ever after.” Life, for all of its joys and blessings, is also full of trials and challenges. Most of us can handle good news, but how we respond to the struggles of life will not only say a lot about who we are, but will also dictate how we experience life.
          St. Paul sums up this struggle which we all know: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” He is writing to the church in Rome, defending the idea of justification by faith through grace. And as he does so, you can see some of his own inner struggle. As you  know, for years he was a fierce Pharisee and saw the Law as the inerrant and perfect will of God. If one simply kept the law, all evil and sin could be avoided. It was simply a matter of the will. But one day, Paul was thrown off his horse when the Risen Christ appeared to him and his life was never again the same. He, like all of us, needed to reevaluate his life in light of the Resurrection. And as he did, he saw that even the Law itself was susceptible to sin. As he writes earlier in chapter 7, “While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” Paul struggled with sin, and so do we.
          There is a strip from the comic Calvin & Hobbs that shows Calvin asking Hobbs “Do you think that babies are born sinful? That they come into the world as sinners?” Hobbs responds, “No, I think they’re just quick studies.” And so it is. Sin is pervasive, as Paul writes “when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.” Though we Christians proclaim that in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, our sins were atoned for, never do we proclaim that Jesus put an end to sin. Sin very much remains a part of our lives.
          What do I mean by sin? Consider the Confessions that we use in our liturgy. “We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” And, “we confess that we have sinned against you, opposing your will in our lives. We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created. We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.” The root of the word “sin” in the Bible is “to miss the mark.” Sins are things that we do, but know that we should not; and they are things that we do not do, but we should. And sin is a part of the systems which we complicity live into. We see the plate of cookies, and know we shouldn’t, but we do. We know that we shouldn’t fudge the numbers on the tax return, but we convince ourselves that we’re voting with our dollars. We know that we shouldn’t visit that website, but we do. We want cheaply made goods, but neglet the rights of those who work in sweatshops. We want to pray and read Scripture, but it doesn’t happen as often as we’d like it to. We tell ourselves that we’re going to focus on being an optimist, but negativity creeps in.
          This is where the rubber hits the road for discipleship. In his classic work, The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis writes of a demon who is coaching another demon on the ways of leading humans away from God. When the human is getting closer to God, the advice comes “as long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much the thinks about repentance.” Even the demons know that our actions speak louder than words.
But each of us echo the words of St. Paul- “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” And it’s just not that we have a tendency to slip up and stumble, but rather that we have an active inclination to break things- promises, rules, moods, and relationships. Sure, some sins are accidental and can be blamed on ignorance, but we’re only fooling ourselves if we think those are the only sins that affect our lives.
          So what do we do with this reality? Do we lament that we are wretched and helpless sinners in the hands of an angry God? Do we drop to our knees and pray that God spares us from the wrath that is to come? Do we lock ourselves away in a room to avoid situations in which we might encounter sin? Throughout history, many people have sought to answer this question with the doctrine of Original Sin, making an excuse for sin as something that is unavoidable. The very concept itself implies that there is a logical origin to sin. But as one theologian has said “sin is not an event but the failure of an event, namely, the event of choosing rightly.” Sin will not be dealt with by understanding, qualifying, or judging it, but rather by our response to it.
          Let’s explore three possible responses to sin. The first is confession. A good look in the mirror can go a long way, but so can open and honest conversations with people you trust. We all sin, we all fall short, but we don’t like dealing with the guilt and shame that goes along with this fact, so we find it easier to ignore it. It’s interesting that when we gather for prayer and we leave intentional time for people to add their own prayers out loud, people often do- they say the names of family and friends who are sick. But when we leave silence between the phrase “let us confess our sins” and the start of Confession, you can hear a pin drop. Is it that we are so deep in denial about our sin that we struggle to name one, or are we so ashamed of them that we dare not speak them?
          Many of you know that I was at a CREDO conference recently, a great opportunity that the Episcopal Church provides for its employees. While I was there, I attended an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, before the rumors start to fly, I am not an addict. But one of priests who was at the conference is, and she invited anyone who was interested to join her, so I did. As a side note, from what I saw, AA does a better job at being the Church than the Church does, but that’s another sermon for another day. But what was striking about the meeting was the sincere and open confession that happens. Each person introduced themselves by saying “I’m an alcoholic.” And, as you may know, the 12 steps begin with the confession that we are powerless over addiction and that only a greater power can restore us to wholeness. It’s not a stretch to apply that language to sin.
          Confessing our sins is healthy and healing. I would commend the practice of Confession to you, and remind you that our own Prayer Book has a service of Confession for individuals. I’d be happy to talk to you more about that opportunity if you are interested, and would also suggest, that if you feel more comfortable doing Confession with someone that you don’t know, that you contact one of the other Episcopal priests in town and avail yourself of this practice.
          The second of our responses to sin is to consider our habits. One of the major aspects of all CREDO conferences is the creation of a rule of life. Rules of life are designed to help us to frame our lives with a sense of order and purpose. You might include daily prayer, intentional discussions over dinner, or exercising as a part of your rule of life. But the theory behind the practice of developing a rule of life is to get into the practice of keeping holy habits.
          There is a story of Native American origin in which an elder speaks with a younger member of the tribe about two wolves that dwell within each of us. One wolf is full of light and goodness; the other lurks in the shadows and is evil. They fight each other constantly. And the young person asks, “which wolf will win the fight.” The elder says, “the one I feed.” What do your habits feed? The good which you want to do, or the evil which you hope not to do?
          And the final response to sin is to remember and celebrate the grace given to us by God through our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Augustine wrote “Almighty God, himself supremely good, would never allow anything evil to invade his works, unless he were so almighty and so good that he can bring good even out of evil.” Again, this isn’t a question of why there is sin, or why is it that God did not make us infallible, but rather the question is- what is God doing to bring good to the fact that in our freedom, we fall? How are you able to be an instrument of God’s peace and goodness? Though the freedom that God gives us also leaves room for sin, God gives us opportunities to grow more deeply into goodness through grace.
          In the timeless words of John Henry Newton- “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see… ‘tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” The grace of God is not a tool for us to use in combating sin. This isn’t about having enough faith in Jesus or doing Christianity “correctly.” Instead, grace is about our identity, about being found in Jesus, about who we are. We are the beloved of God. We are redeemed. And we are called to be a blessing to the world.
          Grace is knowing that the transforming words of God, spoken through the prophet Ezekiel, are true- “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” In Jesus, we know the love of God and have received the gift of the Spirit. And if we can know that we are enough, that we are loved, that we are good, then sin will not find any ground in us in which to take root.
          Yes, there is sin out there, and it is a force to be reckoned with. Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” When we walk with Jesus, we open ourselves to having grace rule our lives. As we go through the ups and downs of life, striving to do the good which we want to do, if we yoke ourselves to Jesus through Confession and holy habits, indeed, his Grace will lead us home.