Caught in Sin

I have been reading and rereading an excellent essay by Dr. Timothy Keller on Forgiveness and Reconciliation.  It was brought to my attention by Lorna and can be found at http://www.thrivingpastor.com/serving-each-other-through-forgiveness-and-reconciliation/index.html.  It is the best exploration I have read on these topics. 

There is much in this essay I would like to reflect on in the coming weeks but today I would like to focus on one phrase that Keller explores, ‘caught in sin’.   In his exploration of forgiveness Keller looks at Galatians 6:1 “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”   When you first read this you may understand this statement of St. Paul to mean a gotcha, you have been watching the behaviour of someone and caught him or her in a sin or what you consider a sin.  Perhaps you were hoping that you would be able to catch that person in some misstep or mistake and be able to condemn them as a sinner and lord it over them. 

On reflection you will probably realize quite quickly that this is not the way that St. Paul approaches others.  Although he can be quite critical of the behaviour of others, as in his epistles to the church in Corinth, he is not out to lord it over others.  Indeed he is very quick to condemn himself; as Keller notes, “When Paul says he is the worst among sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), he is not exaggerating. He is saying that he is as capable of sin as the worst criminals are. The gospel has equipped him with emotional humility.”  Keller clarifies that this is “the image is of being trapped in a pattern of behavior that will be harmful to the person and to others.”

Being caught in a pattern of behaviour is putting into sound psychological language what a person may be doing with their life.  There is a danger of psychologizing behaviour these days and not treating the behaviour as sinful i.e. being out of relationship with God and not living the life God intends for us.  However, two thousand years ago Paul addressed a human condition that people struggle with just as much today as when Paul wrote to the church in Galatia. 

Being caught in sin has the essence of what people struggle with in their lives.  It can encompass both conscious and unconscious behaviour (to use more psychological language).  We can be caught in an addiction which of beyond our ability to control by our willpower.  It can also encompass decision we make because of the desire to be in control or to win in a situation which happens when our egos run our lives. 

In all these cases, whether knowingly or unknowingly; whether these things that we do are done consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, we are in a sinful state.  As it says in the confession in the Book of Common Prayer, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done”.  I have deliberately left out the next phrase, "And there is no health in us," because that raises a whole different can of worms that I don't want to address at this time.

Often there is a moral judgement which is made in the context of sin and declaring that someone has sinned.  However, that is the beauty of the phrase ‘caught in sin’.  It puts the emphasis on being in a state of sin and not in the act.  We are caught in a condition or circumstance that leads us to be and do something God does not want for us.  We are called to amend our foolish ways and to repent i.e. turn around and aim once more at living the lives God calls us to.  The wonderful thing is that we are offered and assured of God’s forgiveness. 

Thanks be to God. 

A Life Well LIved

Last Friday Lorna and I attended the funeral of Rev. Dr. Eldon Hay.  Eldon was a cousin—you could say a double cousin as he was a cousin to both my father and mother.  The exact relationship was not that easy to classify.    The funeral was held in the Mt. Allison University Chapel.  Eldon was professor of religious studies at Mt. Allison for many years.  The chapel was a beautiful setting for the celebration of the life of a wonderful man. 

I was aware of Eldon being part of the family for a long time but our paths did not cross until a few years ago.  We connected though this venue i.e. the News and Views that I send out.   Since then, Lorna and I had the joy of getting to know Eldon and his wife Anne Pirie.   We visited with them in their home in Sackville New Brunswick on our way back to Ontario from the cottage.  They also visited us at the cottage when we had an open house to celebrate the beginning of our cottage life on P.E.I.

To do justice to Eldon’s life would take many more words than I can manage here by people that knew him better than I did.  He was much more than a professor of Religious studies; although that would have been enough by itself.  For me, the best indication of who he was, was in the care and support he showed me by always reading and replying to my News and Views without fail—I could say religiously—and always provided a comment on what I had written as well as the sermons I sometimes included with the message (as I am doing today).  I must admit that this was always a bit of a boost to my ego but more, it was an indication of the love and care he held for those in his life.  Indeed, when I hadn’t received a response for a couple of weeks I thought something might be wrong and discovered, sadly, that he was dealing with terminal pancreatic cancer.

In addition to being professor emeritus, Eldon was an ordained United Church minister as was my father.  He was also the author of many article, books and letters.  His letters were, apparently, the source of some consternation to those who didn’t always agree with the position he took.  He was a strong advocate for many causes including PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) begin the founder of the PFLAG support groups locally and was the first national president of PFLAG Canada.  He received many awards in recognition for his committed work in support of justice issues including the Order of Canada.

As it was noted in his obituary, “He made a lasting impression on the lives of many students, parishioners, and persons in the community at large.”  This was very evident in the celebration of his life that we attended. In all that he did, I believe that Anne and his family were most important to him.  The love, warmth, and respect that his family had for him was evident in the eulogies given by two of his children and the music provided by another. 

Two anecdotes that were shared captured the essence of Eldon for me—I will give the essence of them to the best of my recollection.  Once he was asked by one of his children why he went to meetings of groups who were opposed to the justice positions he supported.  He replied that once he was able to talk with them they began to be more open to hear what he was saying; and beside they might like him more.  Another time one of his children shared that they could not understand how someone could hold a particular belief or position on an issue.  Eldon replied, “Well, you can try.”  

Eldon was a true gentle-man in every sense of the word.  However, he was also passionate about what he believed and was not shy in sharing that with others.  For me he was a reflection of who we are called to be as Christians.

Rest eternal grant him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him; well done good and faithful servant.

Who’s in and Who’s Out

No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

King Lear Act 5 Scene 3: Lear to Cordelia

Who’s in and who’s out—that is the question (with apologies to Prince Hamlet).   That question has been resonating with me recently.   I have had three encounters with that question in the past couple of weeks.  The first, and most timely for today, was in an interview with American theologian and Episcopalian Diana Butler Bass on the CBC program Tapestry.  The subject of the talk was Religion and Spirituality.  Bass noted that she first truly realized why people were turning their backs on organized religion was on the tenth anniversary of 9-11 which fell on a Sunday.  She was hesitant to attend church as she was fearful it might turn into a celebration of nationalistic triumphalism.  She was assured by the priest that the service would have very quiet, reflective liturgy.  She decided to attend and was reassured when the liturgy was all the priest had promised and quite appropriate to the solemn occasion.  The preacher, who was not clergy, but rather someone, who had been working at the White House that day spoke in his sermon of the four thousand people who had lost their lives in the decade following that event.  She was at first incredulous and thought, it is fifty thousand; it is a hundred thousand!  Then she realized he was referring to the American lives lost in Iraq.  (Note: a Google search puts the actual count has the loss of life at of up to 190,000 people including 134,000 civilians).  Bass walked out of that service and when her husband texted her and asked if she was coming back to church, she replied, “I don’t know.”

Another example of who’s in and who’s out was in an article in the Globe and Mail on September 2^nd which was entitled, Hell and High Water.  It was addressing the seeming resistance to actually preparing for the ever increasing ‘floods of the century’ which are occurring with increasing frequency.  The article noted the example of the Mississippi River’s Great Flood of 1927.  The article noted the official death toll was 246.  However, that was only the people that officially mattered.  It didn’t include the lives of African Americans—Negros as they would have been classified—which brought the death toll to over one thousand.  Who’s in and who’d out; who’s counted and who doesn’t; who’s lives matter and who’s lives don’t.

The last example was inspired when I read the article and I recalled the passage in the Gospel of Matthew regarding the feeding of the five thousand by Jesus, “And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children”.   Oh by the way there were women and children but we don’t need to mention how many.  That is a recurring situation in the bible where women are often not named e.g. the Syrophoenician woman or the woman at the well.  People in the bible are often not named in the bible even when they are central the story.  This is true for men as well as women e.g. the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal son.  However, perhaps we should be thankful for all the people who are named and bring life to the stories.

However, the question I place before you today is, when does a person count and when do they fade into the background of the story of our lives?  We have made progress in recent years to address this question.  The response of Black Lives Matter is addressing the frequent impunity with which the police treat people of colour non-people who don’t count.  This is not restricted to the United States. In Canada deaths by police action is much rarer, thank God.   However, we still have police insisting that ‘carding’ is necessary for them to do their job.  People carded just happen to be mostly non-whites.  In Canada we have the hopeful move of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which reviewed the institutionalize mistreatment of aboriginal Canadians.  The institutions of the people who were ‘in’ treated aboriginal people as objects rather than as people.

Of course it is easy to sit back and point fingers and judge events and attitudes of actions of the past by today’s standards and values.  How do we examine culture, our governments, and our institutions including the churches, and above all ourselves, in how we view others?  Who do we hold as being in and who is out. Who counts and who doesn’t?   Some years ago I attended a conference on a group of mostly white men who were trying to deal with white middle class male privilege in ourselves and in our society.  Unfortunately the group tended to look mostly at society and not at ourselves.  The conference was attended by two Inuit men from northern Canada.  One of them noted that in their culture they believed that, “no one was bigger than anyone else.”   At resonated with me then and it still does. 

How do we treat no one as bigger than anyone else; everyone as the same importance as everyone else?  As a Christian, how do I treat each person as a child of God?  How do I relate to each person as someone who is “in” and not as someone who is “out”?  If I do not I truly am in the prison that Lear and Cordelia are going to—however they are aware of their prison walls unlike the rest of us.   I know I am going to fail; in a state if sin; I am going to miss the mark.  Fortunately I am offered forgiveness and can start again.  That is the mystery of things indeed. 

Thank be to God.