THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART I
My wife had this dream not long ago in which she and I were killed in an automobile accident. Naturally, we went to heaven and we were met at the Pearly Gates by none other than Saint Peter himself. Peter said to us, “Heaven is not what you think it is. In heaven you are actually chained to another person based upon the life you lived on earth.”
The next thing she knew she was chained to a 400-pound man. He was toothless and hideous and mean. He looked an awful lot like Shrek…that’s Shrek from the Disney movies, not Frank Schreck from the Crawford Central school board. In any case, she was mortified. She said to Saint Peter, “Why am I chained to this hideous man?” To which Peter replied, “Leslie, you had sin in your life. Your punishment is to be chained to this ogre for all eternity.”
Crestfallen, she began to look around for me. Much to her surprise, she saw me chained to none other than Marilyn Monroe. She cried out to Saint Peter, “Why am I chained to this hideous man while my husband is chained to Marilyn Monroe?” To which Saint Peter replied, “Marilyn Monroe had sin in her life…”
We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously that he sent his son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly: as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul…a soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.
We are fast approaching the season of Lent. The church has traditionally seen the season of Lent as a time of repentance and fasting. In other words, in the season of Lent we are called to turn away from our sin and to focus on Jesus Christ. Such is the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.
Now Lent doesn’t actually begin for two more weeks. Thus, you may be wondering why I’m beginning a Lenten series of sermons so early. The answer is twofold. First, this sermon series consists of eight sermons. Since Lent is only six weeks long I have to start a little early. Second, I didn’t want to spend Easter Sunday talking about sin. I’d rather talk about the resurrection on Easter Sunday. Thus, today we begin a sermon series on sin that a friend of mine suggested I call The Superficial Saga.
Once upon a time, there was One who came to us. He touched the untouchables, he turned his back on the bright baubles of the world, he loved us all the way to the cross…and he never turned his eyes away from God. And we hated him for it. He came to us with arms wide open in gracious invitation, seeking us…patient with us and hotly pursuing us at the very same time. And in the process, he brought out the very worst in us.
We figured that things between us and God were not really all that bad. But when he spoke to us of God and of ourselves, and rubbed our noses in the filthy rags of our self-righteousness, we had to do something about it. He called upon us to attempt great moral feats, then he watched as we fell flat on our faces. He invited us to sign on as his disciples, but then he set the demands for discipleship so high that when it came time to stand up and be counted, we fled…slithering into the darkness. He said, “Follow me, and take my yoke upon you.” And we, with one voice, cried, “Crucify him!” No one wants to see themselves as sinners.
A recent television documentary entitled, “The Changing Face of Worship,” took us into dozens of growing, innovative, “postmodern” churches. Sunday mornings at many of these churches was upbeat, energetic and shallow. It was just what you might expect from a well-furnished, modern, seeker-sensitive church. Yet one young pastor on the West Coast, the leader of a growing, mostly young adult congregation, was asked to explain why so many people flocked to his church. He said, “Too few young adults have had anyone look them in the face and say to them – with a sense of concern and compassion – ‘You really stink.’”
I’m not going to say that you stink in this series of sermons. But we are going to look at the truth. As Dr. Phil once put it, trying to explain his remarkable success, “People are ready to be told the truth about themselves, even when it hurts…because they know that without getting the truth, they won’t get life.” Yet perhaps 19th century Russian physicist Anton Chekov put it best. He once wrote, “Man will only become better when you make him see himself as he really is.”
Who really are we, then? We are sinners…each and every one of us. As C.S. Lewis once said, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us; like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Perhaps the place to begin is to explore just exactly what sin is. Humanity was created in the image of God for fellowship with God. Yet humanity fell from its destiny, as we saw in the passage Howie read earlier from the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve are persuaded to defy the command of God by a twofold argument. First, the word of God is questioned. The serpent says to Eve that if she eats of the forbidden fruit she will not die. Second, the serpent argues that if they do eat of it, their eyes will be opened and they will be like God.
Christian theology sees here the basis of sin as unbelief and pride. Humanity’s sin begins when it doubts God’s word, and culminates in its attempt to make itself like God. Yet the ultimate irony of humanity’s revolt against God is that it begins by declaring its freedom from God…and it ends by falling into servitude to a variety of idols of its own creation.
Allow me to simplify. Sin is defined as separation from God. The way I like to describe it is this. Obedience to God draws us closer to God. Sin is nothing more than turning our gaze in the wrong direction. So if that lectern over there is God, my obedience draws me closer to it. Sin is turning one’s gaze in the wrong direction. So what does my sin accomplish? All it does is lead me away from God. Sin…is separation from God.
Here we come to a closer understanding of what makes sin sin for Christians. For those of us who are trying to take Jesus seriously, sin is not a foible or a slipup. It is an offense and a rebellion against our Creator. Sin is that which separates us from a just and holy God. Jesus makes the rather astounding claim that, when it comes to sin, it’s the thought that counts. Sin carries with it its own punishment. It erodes the soul. It severs the intended relationship between Creator and created.
Eleventh century theologian Thomas Aquinas noted that the problem is that people never seem to see evil as evil. People are conditioned to seek that which they perceive to be good; that which adds to the joy of life; and to avoid that which they believe to be evil. Therefore, if someone pursues some harmful course of action, it is because of a failure to perceive it as wrong. He believed that our sin is mostly a matter of a failure to know what’s good for us. In other words, in the mind of Thomas Aquinas, sin is more often a failure of the intellect than it is a failure of willpower. Some would top that statement off by saying that biblical illiteracy is the scourge of our age.
The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on what we call the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins were first known as the seven mortal sins. Perhaps the word “mortal” sounds less lethal than the word “deadly,” but the result is essentially the same. And why seven deadly sins as opposed to, say, six or eight? Well, seven is kind of a sign of biblical perfection. Seven is the number of days in a week, there are the Seven Last Words of Christ, Seven Gifts of the Spirit in the book of Isaiah, Seven Hills of Rome, and…Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Make of it what you will.
The seven deadly sins are as follows: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. We will look at each in turn. Yet perhaps most importantly, we will note that along with the seven deadly sins are the seven holy virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is kindness. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity, or purity. You see, the way to conquer evil is to replace it with something better.
Of course, that tends to run against the grain of human nature. The great fourth century theologian Augustine described our penchant for sin in his epic treatise, entitled, Confessions. He talks about stealing some pears as a boy. By this time in the account of his life, Augustine has fathered a child out of wedlock and hinted at many other youthful indiscretions. Yet when he comes to describe the prime example of his deep perversity, of his own sinful nature, he gives as evidence an episode of stealing a few pears as a boy.
Augustine and some of his friends stole a few pears from a neighbor’s tree. They stole not because they were hungry or because they needed the pears in any way. They stole the pears, as he put it in Latin, eo liberet quo non liceret. It means literally, “that which is not permitted allured us.” In modern day vernacular we might say they stole the pears just for the heck of it. Ah, the important thing to Augustine was not the transgression, for that was relatively minor. The real problem here…is the inclination – or the desire – to sin. Perhaps the way to conquer evil then is to replace the desire with something better.
Along those lines, I think of something Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote in a book entitled, The Manhood of the Master. He wrote:
Only by a stronger passion can evil passions be expelled, and a soul unoccupied by a positive devotion is sure to be occupied by spiritual demons. The safety of the Master in the presence of temptation lay in his complete and positive devotion to his mission: there was no unoccupied room in his soul where evil could find a home…for he knew what Dr. Chalmers called, “The expulsive power of a new affection.”
When Ulysses passed the Isle of Sirens, he had himself tied to the mast and had his ears stopped up with wax that he might not hear the sirens singing; a picture of many a man’s attempts after negative goodness. But when Orpheus passed the Isle of Sirens he sat on the deck, indifferent, for he too was a musician…and could make melody so much more beautiful than the sirens that their alluring songs were to him discords. Such is the Master’s life of positive goodness – so full, so glad, so triumphant – that it conquered sin by surpassing it. Have you such a saving positiveness of loyal devotion in your life?
The secret to facing the seven deadly sins is to possess the expulsive power of a new affection. One can only conquer sin…by surpassing it. Remember that as we embark upon our superficial saga. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment