The Trinity, or the Dogma is the Drama

Ah, dogma.  We Lutherans get charged quite frequently with being overly dogmatic, which is like being overly dramatic but without all the table flipping.  But this is the trouble, is that Lutherans are so dogmatic that it gets in the way of Jesus Christ, or so people think.  The usual charge is that Jesus of Nazareth had some good ideas about social justice, nuclear weapons, greenpeace, and that the church has just gotten in the way of that with its dogma.  The idea was that Jesus preached a simple message of peace, love, goodwill and fun times, and then his disciples got in the way of it, and ruined it for everyone.  They added all the stuff about divinity, about holiness, about belief, and then St. Paul really got his teeth into things, and absolutely ran roughshod over the whole thing.

So what happened to the simple Jesus of peace and love, man, and how did the church manage to hide him behind so much dogma?  Well, sensibly enough, it's a good time to talk about this this week, because it's Trinity, and never has the dogma been laid on thicker than it is this week.  Because you know what creed we used on Sunday?  Sure you do.  The Athanasian Creed.  The Athanaisan creed is long, it's long-o.  It is about two pages in the hymnal, and we only use it twice a year.  But why do we use it at all?  Well, we use it because it's never been more necessary.  Probably in the twelfth century, most people who were in western civilization (the aptly named Christendom), would have been right up on their knowledge of just who this Jesus fella was, and they would have known full well that he was fully God and fully Man.  He was both, at the same time, all the time.  No problem so far there, I suppose.

But then something strange started to happen.  People began to do on a huge scale what they accused the apostles of doing - making Jesus into something that he clearly isn't.  You see, Jesus Christ is less of a polarizing figure, and more of a Gordon Freeman, if you catch my drift.  The reason that he has been so uncontroversial lately is for the same reason that Dr. Freeman remains so popular - he has no personality of his own.  That is to say, as Gordon Freeman stands for whatever you want to place on him, so too does Jesus Christ - he is whatever you want him to be.  He is the ultimate tabula rasa, the ultimate blank slate upon which you can project whatever your wants, needs, and desires.

That's how you can have George W. Bush praising Jesus Christ even while bombs are dropping on Iraq, and you can also have Jimmy Carter praising Christ while denouncing Bush's foreign policy.  It's how you can have Jesus simultaneously being on side with warhawks and doves, those in favor of disarmament and deterrence, capitalists and socialists, Christians and Muslims, Atheists and believers, and all points in between.  In fact, if you poll a room, 99% of people will be fundamentally convinced that Jesus Christ agrees with them on pretty much everything.  He loves who they love, and hates who they hate.


It helps that Freeman is the savior of the whole world, and you can essentially take over for him, without all the nagging existing personality getting in the way.  Unlike controlling Fenix, or even Master Chief, you really put yourself in the shoes of the silent Gordon Freeman.

There's one small problem with this, though, and that is that Jesus certainly is not a blank slate.  Gordon Freeman is, because he never speaks, and you can imagine yourself taking his place.  It also are Freeman, and he does exactly what you want him to do.  And everyone loves him.  But Jesus does talk.  A lot.  And when he does, as he did in the reading on Sunday, people find that he doesn't agree with them.  At all.


When Jesus talks about serious stuff, the people who are there break into tears because of their own sinfulness, or they hide their faces, they fall to their knees in worship, they disappear altogether, or they pick up rocks to stone him.  Nobody sort of rubs their chin and is vaguely thankful that Jesus agrees with them.  No, if you love Christ and you've never picked up rocks to throw at him, then you haven't listened to a word he said.  For example, and this is a movie moment that has stuck in my head for years.  Skip ahead to 1:11 of this trailer if you're easily bored, and watch an incredibly brief encounter between Mark Whalberg and some girl.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Yeah, she claims that Jesus is never mad as long as we live with him in our hearts. Marky Mark replies that he most definitely is.  And you know who you should believe?  Marky Mark.  He has a funky point.  And the point is this - If you live long enough, Jesus Christ will denounce you.  And that's what a lot of the Bible is for!  It's for you to not read through and find the points that you agree with, it's for you to read through and find where it is you are weak.  When you think you're doing a great job, if you read through the Scriptures, it'll point out that you aren't.

If you were paying attention to the news this week, you would have seen that Pope Francis spoke to the media, and somehow or another, he mentioned that atheists could be saved as long as they do good.  And all the atheists on Reddit exploded with delight - Finally, a Pope who tells us that we will all be saved!  We will all be saved because we all do good all the time!

Well, here's the juice.  If you heard Francis' words, and were elated, because it means that you can be saved by what you do, then I have some crushingly bad news for you.  Francis is right - as long as atheists did good, they could be saved.  But it comes down to the notion expressed in the scriptures, that there is none righteous, not even one, and that all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.  Or, if that's a bit esoteric for you, then ask yourself this - why do you lock your cars and doors and bikes up constantly, because petty criminals are prowling?  Or is it because everyone is one temptation away from being a total scumbag.

The one thing missing is an open stocktaking of one's own life, looking seriously at what you've done, and what you've failed to do.  If you're that great, then how come the world is still a mess, how come nobody trusts anyone else, how come the world is heating up, children are dying in Asia from simple diseases to cure, and everyone hates everyone else.  Why does that happen?  Because other people are jerks?

No.

You have a Bible.  Pick it up.  Open it once in a while.  Put yourself in the shoes of the rich young ruler, who asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus gave him a laundry list of commandments, and the rich young ruler said he'd done all of those.  And what did Jesus say?  Not 'well done,' but 'then sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow me.'  If you think that Jesus would honestly approve of your life, then you haven't been paying attention.  And, to quote Marky Mark, I hate to break it to you, but Jesus is most definitely mad at you.  And if you dare to disagree with me on this one, or you figure that this doesn't apply to you, then my answer to you is to let the man talk.  Let Jesus say what he say.  Don't put words in his mouth, don't talk for him or over him, don't make him agree with you, let him speak.  If he does, he'd be critical of you.  And he'd be critical of me.  I'm a pastor in God's holy church, and I mess up worse than anyone.  Actually, I probably don't, but I only see my own failings, and I know that they're a bit of a problem.  If I let Jesus speak, instead of speaking for him, he has a lot to say about why I'm a mess, and about why I disappoint people.

That's the bad news.  But if I let the Dogma speak, it says something wonderful.  If I let the creed speak, instead of me speaking it like a robot, if I let the dogma be what it is, it says something amazing. It says that everyone is a failure.  That's why the world is as bad as it is.  It says that the problems in the world are not just of my making, but we all make them.  It says that my failings are part of a bigger pattern, and that we all have work to do.  But if we know that we have work to do, if we admit that we have dug ourselves into a big ol' hole.  And that's a problem.  And here, I am speaking to whom?  To all of you, but most especially to those of you who believe that the problems in the world are the fault of everyone else.  Whether Atheist or Christian, you both think the same way - that you are righteous, and that heaven is a given.  And as long as you believe this, sincerely believe this, you're damned. 

Damned.

Go ahead, pick up the rocks, but that's the issue.  Your choices are to either become numb to God and his goodness, or to look through the scriptures, and find out where it speaks to you.  Don't worry about the parts that speak to someone else, they're not for you, and you don't need to worry about them.  But if you get through the entire New Testament, and Jesus never skewers you once, go back, and read it again.  And yes, you can go through and say that Jesus' words don't apply to you, and then it doesn't matter at all.  But if you respect Jesus, love him and cherish him, if you think he was a neat guy, and he had something important to say, then listen to him.  Because he's going to skewer you with his words, if you'd listen.  And if you notice that, then take heart.  Because the dogma tells you something else.  You're a scumbag, I'm a scumbag, we all know that, of course.  And if you know that, it's wonderful, because the big promise of the Holy Scriptures is that you don't have to be perfect.  You just have to know how imperfect you are, turn to God, and apologize to him, and to each other.  It's the greatest gift of all that was given - it frees you from yourself.

And that's what we all want to be freed from.  You seek out friends, a mate, a spouse, God himself, a family, a community, because you don't want to only be with yourself for forever.  And that's where God comes in.  He removes all those things that separate you from each other, and from him.  You get laid bare by Christ, and he restores you.  He puts you back together where you have gone wrong.  Jesus is most definitely angry with you, but he doesn't stay that way.  As long as you let go of your nonsense, he'll take it away.  If you let Jesus speak, he'll speak to you in words of both Law and Gospel, and ignore either of those at your peril. Let him speak, and he'll point out your sin, and give you his grace.  Let him speak, and he'll be more than a silent protagonist - he'll be a savior.

PJ.

Pentecost

Remember the great and terrible day of Pentecost? If you don't I'll take a moment here to refresh your memory, because it's a good story.   It's long, but I don't really want to cut any out.

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues^[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,^[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia,Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

¹³ Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Peter Addresses the Crowd

¹⁴ Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. ¹⁵ These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ “‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
²⁰ The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
²¹ And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’^[c]

²² “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. ²³ This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,^[d] put him to death by nailing him to the cross. ²⁴ But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. ²⁵ David said about him:

“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
    Because he is at my right hand,
    I will not be shaken.
²⁶ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest in hope,
²⁷ because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    you will not let your holy one see decay.
²⁸ You have made known to me the paths of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence.’^[e]

²⁹ “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. ³⁰ But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.³¹ Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. ³² God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. ³³ Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured outwhat you now see and hear. ³⁴ For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
    “Sit at my right hand
³⁵ until I make your enemies
    a footstool for your feet.”’^[f]

³⁶ “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

⁴⁰ With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” ⁴¹ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

How lengthy!  But Pentecost has always been an important festival for us as Christians, because of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Who is the Holy Spirit?  He's the part of God that lives in us and goes with us always.  He's the part of God that is a permanent presence in our lives.  So what's the deal with him?

  And with Pentecost?  

Well, you Christians need to be aware of the nature of Pentecost.  Because we all want to fulfill the initial pursuit of Pentecost, to know Christ and to make him known, to take his name and his word to the ends of the earth, as he commanded us to do in his own testament.  Now what we want to do is to take Christ's words, and make sure that they have access to it in Africa, and in Asia, and in those funny Australian islands where mammals lay eggs and stuff.  And how do we do that?  By replicating Pentecost, and making sure that everyone has access to God's word in their own language.  They need to have the Bible in their own tongue, so they can see God and hear him in their heart language.  

Of course, the Bible is available to 98% of the people on earth in a language they're fluent in, so really, how pressing is the need to make sure this stuff is translated?  Odds are it has been.  But what language has it been translated into in this nation?

 Well, the biggest language that the Bible has recently been translated into is 'church.' That is, the language of the scriptures, and the language of the Gospels, the good news, is now in the language of church.  

Speaking of the Gospels, have you ever asked yourself why there are four of them?  Why we have Matthew, Mark, Luke as well as John?  Couldn't we just have one?  Or perhaps two?  Granted, you'd need John, as he tells of different events than the other three, but why not just have John plus one of the others.  They weren't written in different languages, they were all written in Greek.  They weren't written at vastly different times, all within a few decades of the death of Christ.  But the reason we have

 different Gospels is because they were written for different people. This is a point that is so big that we in the church seem to have missed it quite significantly in recent years.  Think about this: the events of the life of Christ were told in the language of four men, some of whom saw the events (Matthew, Mark, John), the other of whom complied it from eyewitness accounts (Luke).  Given this, Matthew was writing to those who had an idea of Jesus as one who was foretold in the Old Testament.  Mark focuses on the deeds of Christ, his miracles and his activity. Luke's Gospel is a book of the church, written for the church and to be used by the church in a proclamation of the Gospel to the baptized and the unbaptized.  The intended audience for Luke is the church itself.  John's Gospel is the mystical book, the one that holds the divinity and humanity of Jesus closely within it.  

And yet, they're all telling the same story of the same guy, believe it or not.  They're all telling the story of Christ, the savior of the world, who came into it to teach, live, die, and rise again for everyone.  But what in the world does that mean in the big picture of everything?  It means that in addition to translating the Bible into Tagalog, or Xhosa, or Urdu, it means that we have to translate the message of the Scriptures into the languages of single parents, of working poor, of atheists and agnostics, of doctors and scientists, of university students, of teenagers, of the broken and the wounded.  And yes, I do know that's harder than translating it into Swahili.  

If you want the Bible in a foreign language, you can translate it word by word and idiom by idiom, and then just drop it off with a foreign language speaker.  But if you want the Bible to be relevant to someone who is foreign to God, that's a different matter entirely.  But that's our call as post-pentecost Christians.  We have a duty to take God and bring him to those who don't know him.  

And no, that doesn't mean dropping a Bible off with someone who doesn't go to church and assuming that it'll somehow work through osmosis.  That's what the Jehovah's witnesses do, and you and I both know you don't read the Watchtower cover to cover. It means making the Holy Scriptures, and God himself, relevant to people who don't speak church.  People who have perhaps never been to church, and who don't know what it's all about.  People who have no idea about the small or large catechisms, who have never heard of the formula of Concord, who check out churches only for Christmas, Easter, and the odd wedding.  Those are the people that you have to deal with now.  They speak English, to be sure, but they don't speak church.  

I know, I know, our compulsion is to make sure that people are fully fluent in church before they come to our congregations, but that's a Pharisee way of thinking, really, trying to make sure that only the 

people who are already in God's good graces can get to God.  The real reality of it is that Jesus went looking for those who were so far from church, so far from respectability, that they were in some cases about to be killed for their immorality.  And yes, we say that everyone is welcome in our churches, of course, but let someone wear jeans, or have dyed hair, or be gay, and all of a sudden, the tut-tutting begins.  

So, for heaven's sake, (literally ,for the sake of Heaven), let's do our best to drag the Gospel out from where we've hidden it.  Those of us who are in Canada, it's a good idea to translate the Bible into a wide variety of languages, but it's also a heck of a good idea to translate it from church back into English.  Because it tells the most incredible story ever told.  It tells the story of a God who made everything, and who came into his own creation, lived by its rules, and died trying to make everything better.  But death itself couldn't hold him, and so he came back from the dead, promising that we all could as well, and that even the eventual heat-death of the universe won't stop us from being alive forever.  He left part of God here on earth, and that part of God lives with us always, and has promised to never leave us.  

You present that to people ,and they may not believe you, but hopefully they may see that at least there is something worth believing.  

This is most certainly true.

PJ.

Mother's day featuring exploding disciples.

If you were in church on Sunday, you would have heard me talking at great length about how silly it was that there was essentially nothing in the readings for Sunday about mothers at all.  Oh, sure, there was a little bit, but almost nothing at all. I believe at one part it mentioned that Mary is the mother of Jesus.  And yes she is.

But the readings concentrated way more on the suicide of Judas Iscariot than they did on what a blessing mothers are.  Only a passing mention of Mary, nothing on Lois or Eunice, nothing on Elizabeth, nothing on Hagar, or Sarah, or gosh, any other mother all the way through scripture.  Instead, we have Judas bursting open.  Here's a cartoon about it.

(c) Stephen Notley, used with permission.  www.angryflower.com

Yes yes yes.  It's one of those incredibly lulzy things that comes up.  Judas bursts.  But hold on there, mother's day.  What in the world are we actually talking about here?  Why all this stuff about exploding Judas? 

Well, long story short, as you would have heard on Sunday, it's about sin, really.  What is sin?  It's the collective junk our mothers passed on to us.  And our fathers, too.  You see, we have in mind this notion that sin is just some stuff we do that we shouldn't.  As in, we feel as though sin is an action.  It's like if you're committing adultery, that's sin, but if you're sleeping, that you're not a sinner for that time. And if we think about it that way, we get it all cockeyed.

Here's the juice.  I wear glasses.  Sometimes.  When I feel like it.  But my eyes require some degree of corrective vision enhancement.  I take the glasses in question off to sleep at night.  Now, that doesn't mean that my eyes are superduper whilst I sleep.  That just means that I happen to not be wearing my glasses for a time.  We all do, or perhaps all should understand that I have a genetic weakness built into me, by my mother mainly, that states that I'll be putting those glasses back on unless I want to spend my days looking like Squinty McGoo.  

It's the same thing with sin.  It's not just what you do, like the individual actions that you do.  And it's not just what you fail to do, like the stuff you should be doing but ignore.  It's a bigger issue than all that.  It's a matter of your entire will being corrupted.  You get that from your parents.  And they got it from their parents and so on and so on.  It's like a genetic deficiency that gets passed down to all the successive generations, and it is one dominant gene.  It rudely pushes everything out to one side, plops itself down, and makes itself at home.  What a hog.  

Now, apparently, the universe is about to implode or something, because I'm actually about to quote Martin Luther.  I know, I'm scared too.  

The word of God testifies that in divine matters the intellect, heart,

and will of a natural, unregenerated man is not only totally

turned away from God, but is also turned and perverted 

against God and toward all evil.  Again, that man is not only weak,

impotent, incapable, and dead to good, but also that by original sin he is 

so miserably perverted, poisoned and corrupted that by disposition

and nature he is thoroughly wicked, opposed and hostile to God,

and all to mighty, alive and active for everything which is displeasing to God

and contrary to his will.  

'the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth' (Gen 8:21)

'The heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked' that is, it is

so perverted and full of misery that no one can fathom it (Jer 17:9).

Now, you may agree with this.  You may say to me 'pastor Jim, people aren't bad people, they're all pretty much good people, they just have some minor issues that they need to work out, but they're all basically good people.'  Okay.  I understand that, I do.  But then my return question to you then is this:  If everyone is basically good, and they're nice folks then why do you lock your house, your car, your bike, your backpack, your phone, and your everything else?  You see, when we say that everyone is basically a good person, what we really mean is that we think that we're okay, but we know, not even that deep down, that everyone but me is a jerk.  And if we think that, then odds are other people think it about us.  

I do hate to keep on going back to this, but it's always so much like the Vancouver riots.  You remember those, when Vancouver lost a hockey game, and their citizens decided that the smartest thing to do would be to trash the town in revenge.  In revenge for a bunch of Russians, Swedes, and Finns who are paid to play hockey in vancouver not playing as well as they could have.  

Okay, I've mentioned this before, and it's real easy for us to armchair quarterback this, but the people who are in the middle of rioting and looting don't see themselves as scumbags.  They see themselves as generally good people who make bad decisions.  Don't believe me?  Then hear from Timothy Lau, convicted Vancouver rioter.

"I wish I could turn back the time and never have joined into the shocking and shameful carousing occurring that night," wrote Lau. "Why I joined in the relentless stupidity of the mob, which was tearing apart the heart of Vancouver, is a mystery to me, but I know what I did was wrong and there is no excuse. For this I am deeply sorry."

Here we have someone coming flat out and saying 'this was dumb, it was wrong, I didn't think it was the right thing to do, and I have no idea why I did it.  I know better, so what's my deal?'  What your deal is, is that your will is corrupt, and given half the chance, unless you've really come to grips with it, you will fall right off the wagon.  That deficiency, that sinful nature that exists within you, the better you think you are, the worst you may very well be when push comes to shove.

That's the bad news.  The good news is better.  You see, my mother, who knows me better probably than any other human being, is well aware of my sinful nature.  She knows that I'm a preposterous liar, that I'm a bit of a mess, and so on, and because she knows this, she has worked as hard as possible to seek to overcome these weaknesses.  Partly by working on me temporally, as a human being, by reproving me, correcting me, and seeking to get me going the other when when I'm messing up, and partially by bringing me to God's house, Lois and Eunice style, to have my sins forgiven, and my will restored.  If my mother would have gone the entire way insisting that I'm perfect, and I have no failings, I would have turned out as more of a monster than I already am.  But because she took me to a place with some regularity where I was told I was a sinner, and asked to confess my sins, I came out all the better.  Not that I'm actually good, by no means.  But that I'm forgiven, and repentant.

Thanks, Mummy.




PJ.

Then what are you for?

The question that makes up the title of this post was a question posed during a debate between atheists and Catholics, namely Stephen Fry and the late Christopher Hitchens on one side, and Ann Widdicomb and Father Onaiyekan on the other.  Guess which side was which.  Anyhow, I've seen the entire debate, and there is one bit that seems to be the stand out soundbite for those who are watching.  I was going to describe it, but thanks to the power of the internet, here is the clip for you.  I'll discuss it after you've watched it.  Go ahead, it's not long.

Wonderful.  There's the clip.  Now Stephen Fry has I suppose a point, and a reasonably good point too.  What is the purpose of the Catholic church, or indeed any other church?  You may find that question a bit strange coming from someone like myself, who is in the business of promoting church, and you may find my answers a bit strange too.

People join churches for all kinds of reasons, and lurking in the background is frequently the desire for morals and values.  That is, you want to have someone tell you, or help you, to be a better person.  You want and need someone to impel you to do better, to be better, and all that.  This should come as no surprise, since the daytime airwaves are full of this.  It's a constant barrage of people who are telling you tips and tricks on how to live, on being moral, what to eat, what to drink, all that stuff.  No problem, basically constantly.  

And the church would have a very hard time in such a crowded marketplace.  If the church was to wade into such a situation or a scenario, into such a packed house with a whole bunch of tips and tricks from the bronze age, it would get laughed out of the room.  Strangely enough, the Bible is not crammed packed full of a whole bunch of overly moral teachings, which is odd, because you think it would be. The teachings of Jesus, weirdly enough, don't tell you a whole bunch about internet etiquette, or about dating, or about any of this stuff.  It doesn't tell you what to do when you wake up, when you go to bed, it doesn't tell you about business or driving, nada.  There is a part of the Bible that does, but you find it to be hopelessly out of date and quaint. Or, to put it another way, 'it's uh very boring.'  

So, to quote Stephen Fry, 'then what is it for?'  Once you realize that the pinnacle of moral teaching in the Bible is 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' you have to ask yourself what is the Bible for, what are the scriptures for, what is the church for, any of it.  Well, GK Chesterton, that monarch of wit, was once asked why he joined the church, and his answer sort of hit the nail on the head, really.

To get rid of my sins.

That, my friends, is why we have a church.  To get rid of our sins.  And I'll be the first to admit that it's not just atheists that get this wrong.  It's an awful lot of Christians too.  Most of them, I'll wager.  In a church building, you are not going to find better people than you do outside.  You will find people every bit as bad as on the outside.  They may pretend that they aren't, and they may only really engage in church-appropriate sins like bigotry or pride, but they're just as bad as anyone else.  So what do you get from the church?  Forgiveness.

Forgiveness in two ways.  Firstly, you bring before God all your disappointments, all your wrath, your pride, your bigotry, your racism, your laziness, your rampant pride, your weaknesses and frailties, all that, and he promises to forgive it.  Anything you confess is taken away, up to and including when you confess just being a bit of a goofball in general.  That gets taken away.  Forgiven.  But there's a second part of forgiveness that happens in a church, that is woven into the fabric of the Lord's Prayer.  When Jesus gives his disciples the Lord's Prayer when they ask how to pray, he says this:

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And in case you missed it, or in case that wasn't clear, pretty much two verses later, Jesus says this:

If you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father

will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their

trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

But here's the juice.  I happen to know, based on the scriptures, that the congregation, as Christians, don't get to choose whether to forgive me or not.  I get to choose whether or not I want to confess, yes. I can hold onto my sins for as long as I want.  But when Jesus says that we have to forgive our brother who sins against us seventy times seven (thank you Jacob Ulrich), and if we won't forgive then we won't be forgiven, that gives me immense confidence in going before people, laying myself bare, and telling them that I'm a bit of a goofball, I shouldn't be, and they all deserve better.

Get that? I hope so.  On Sunday, I confessed sins to the congregation.  You'd have to think that I'm nuts, right? Going in front of a room full of people who pay my salary, and tell all of them, including ones who have no idea, that I'm a goofball, that I haven't called on people I should have, that I'm a bad administrator, and a dreadful organizer.  Ordinarily, that would be a silly thing to do.

So what is the church for?  It's for us to get rid of our sins.  It's for the atoning sacrifice of Christ to be made clear, so we can come before God with confidence and joy, so we can come before others and repair our broken relationships through mutual confession and forgiveness.  Because we must forgive.  

The moral teaching of the messiah, Jesus Christ, do tend to boil down to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' but that's not what Christianity is for.  You know it,  I know it, dogs know it.  You have known that this is a good idea for forever. You don't need the church to tell you to be nice to each other.  You need the church to pick your pieces up when you fail.  You need the church to be a safe place to come with your actual sins, confess them, and be sure of forgiveness from God, and from your fellow Christians.  Just like in a twelve step program, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.  If we are going to be better people, step one is to confess that we aren't as good as we would like to be, that we're bad at keeping the rules we set for ourselves.  

It's a sad fact that I would say the vast majority of Christians have forgotten what the church is for.  It's a social club, most of the time, where you can go to be around other people who have the same view as you, who hold the right opinions, who believe the right things, and who have problems, but they're approved problems.  But that's not what the church is for.  The church is for sins to be forgiven.  You see that in the reading from Revelation from Sunday, in which John gets a vision of the holy city, the new Jerusalem, and in it, there is no temple.  No church.  Because the whole reason we have a church now, the core of our church experience is to have somewhere to go, confess our sins, and be forgiven.  In heaven, no need for it.  But boy oh boy, do we need it now.  We have lots of sins, and we have lots of confession to make.  Let's try our best to remember that church isn't supposed to be a place where you go to remind yourself of how good you are, but a place to go where you can be openly and honestly imperfect, where you can sin boldly, where you can admit before God, and before each other that you're not perfect, and you have some serious problems.  And where you admit that in a room full of otherwise respectable people who are admitting the same.  And where you can be guaranteed that you will be forgiven by both God and man.  

You already know the moral law.  But you need to know what to do when you break it.  Come to church.  Have your sins forgiven.

PJ.