Like a roaring lion

Not too terribly long ago, a YouGov poll came out which asked the big questions. It asked, reasonably enough, which of the following animals you think you could beat in a fight.  An unarmed fight, Mano a Mano, so to speak. The animals are : Kangaroo, Eagle, Grizzly Bear, Wolf, Lion, gorilla, chimpanzee, king cobra, elephant, crocodile, goose, rat, house cat, medium sized dog, large dog. As you may guess, most people were confident in their chances against a rat. That size difference would come into play really early, I guess. But things fall apart a bit as you continue to read, where you find that 61% of American men think they could beat a goose (still believable), 30% of American men think they could beat an eagle (highly unlikely), and 17% of American men think they could beat a chimpanzee. Unarmed.

No you can't.

Those 17% of men are delusional. There isn't one man in a thousand, possibly one man in a million who would stand a chance against a chimpanzee unarmed. The injuries they cause are immediate and horrific, and anyone thinking that he can just go toe to toe with one is delusional. Shockingly, only 14% of men believe they could beat a kangaroo, which is odd, given that we have literal video evidence of a regular guy winning in a fist fight with a Kangaroo, and as far as I can tell, no evidence whatsoever of a human being winning a bare knuckle brawl against a chimpanzee. 

So what would lead these gentlemen to this conclusion? Truly, a lack of humility. You overestimate your abilities, and you way way underestimate the abilities of a chimpanzee, which is perfectly capable of tying your neck in a knot. I'm not even going to include a link to chimpanzee caused injuries, but they're not pretty.

In that survey, 8% of american men and 2% of British men believe that they could beat a lion in an unarmed fight. That number is really zero percent. But you know who would be happy with that overconfidence? The lion would. 

Truly, the lion would relish the idea of easily killed food showing up and posturing, trying to start something. The lion would be thrilled if you showed up and started swinging at it. After all, most prey runs, hides, swims or flies away, and the lion has to chase it. Most prey has worked out by now that a lion will make you go away pretty quickly, and you don't really want to try tangling with it. But that 8% is a godsend. A very tasty godsend. 

We are enjoined by the reading from 1 Peter to humble ourselves, and to be realistic with ourselves. We are told to humble ourselves in the presence of the great shepherd of the sheep, for good reason. The reason given is that there is a roaring lion prowling around seeking whom he may devour. Friend, do you fancy your chances in an unarmed fight against a roaring lion? Sure, you don't. Hopefully you're not in that 8%. Hopefully you're in the 92% of people who know that a lion would devastate you very very quickly indeed. That's why you take precautions, of being where lions aren't, of avoiding them and arming yourself. That's why you, if you were to be in the area where they are, would travel with someone experienced and armed themselves. If you go out into the savanna with chest puffed out daring the lion to fight you, it'll destroy you right away. 

If you know that about the lions, you should also know that about the devil. The devil is a roaring lion, prowling around, seeking whom he may devour. He's very interested in dragging you away, and removing all trace of you. If you are full of yourself, if you believe that you are the 8%, the devil is happy for you to try your luck. And I would wager that the numbers for people who believe that they could take on the devil is far far higher than those who believe they could take on a lion. Lion numbers are 8%, devil numbers have got to be around 40%, or even higher. Humans vs the prince of darkness, and humans believe that  they can win. Part of the reason that church attendance is down, that observance is reduced, is because people legitimately don't believe that there is a risk. They believe that they can overcome the devil and all his works and all his ways with their own force of will. 

But a great deal of what we acknowledge is that from the beginning until now, the serpent, the dragon, the lion are things that overwhelm us when we fight them alone. When it's just us, with our plucky attitudes and dismissal of any danger at all, we get destroyed rapidly. And that hubris and overconfidence is what the devil wants. What he doesn't want is for you to be careful, cautious, prudent, and humble. He doesn't want you humbling yourself and being obedient to the great shepherd of the sheep. He would much rather that you trust you own strength. But humble yourself, understand who you are, who the devil is, and who Christ is, and you will find yourself, rapidly, in a space of protection. Why do we get baptized, why do we take the Lord's Supper, why are we in worship at all except to acknowledge that we are people who cannot free ourselves, who cannot protect ourselves, and who are incapable of fighting against the one who wants to destroy us. But Jesus has overcome the devil already. He insists on calling himself the shepherd because he knows how much we need his help and assistance, and how helpless we are on our own. But with Christ, with his weapons and experience, with his skill and strength, we can make a stand against the evil one. 

Rank communism

When our reading from Acts comes up, as it does every few years, it's time to talk about communism. For when you read through the pericopes from Acts, communism rears its red head. 

Now, there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) of generally conservative Christians who will be opposed to communism in all its forms, which is a big ask, given what is contained within the readings. When it says that the disciples were distributing all the proceeds of all the property that people had as any had need, it's hard for anyone to say that the principle 'from each according to his ability, to each according to its needs' is against God and scripture. It's not. Like it's really not. But if you have a knee-jerk reaction against communism, you'll find that you're rejecting, you know, something that the disciples directly did in scripture. The foundation of the community that the disciples led in the first century was communistic, plain and simple. You may not like the label, but it was exactly that.

So why does communism fail, if it's in scripture, and is part of the first community of believers? Well, it's all about the base assumptions, and we'll move on from there.

You essentially have to start out from realistic principles before you can go any further.  If you don't, then you literally can propose a universe in which chimpanzees will be likely to be observant communists. Which they won't. They'll be far more likely to be good cannibals than good communists. But they won't all work, combine all their resources and so on and so on. It won't come together. If we're going to look at communism, and to discuss why it won't work, the reason for it is that it's based on a lack of understanding in human nature. The idea was that people would work, and work collectively for the good of everyone, and would be content to socialize profits and so on. But any conception of communism sort of falls apart at the first hurdle of human nature. 

In the church, we understand that human beings are by nature sinful and unclean. That is, they cannot be trusted to share and distribute properly without the idea that they might very well steal and keep for themselves. The essential problem with communism isn't that the individual workers would be bad at being communists - in many ways they'd be okay. If you're working in a factory, it doesn't matter to you too much who owns it. But the real rot settles in at the top. 

The criticism of communism from the 20th century and beyond was always that those on the top, the commissars, the politburo, would always have a world that was unequal to the max. All animals, as they say, are equal, but some are more equal than others. The ordinary soviet was expected to be a good hard worker, and expected to give his labor to the society and so on, but those in charge would get awfully comfy. It became very quickly caviar and champagne for the politburo on the top, but nothing but grinding labor and breadlines for those on the bottom, and that didn't change much over the course of the soviet union. Essentially, if you're counting on someone to distribute goods and resources equitably, you're going to have to count on them to be good, well meaning people. Which they probably aren't. 

That's not fair. They probably start out with the absolute best of intentions, but the world has a habit of getting in the way. And what that means is that things start out well enough, but when you give people power and authority over others, there's a good chance that they'll fall apart, as they do. They literally can't be trusted not to take all those goods and services, and funnel them to themselves. 

The only real prescription is to understand from the beginning that even the people who you have in charge to help out with everything won't be doing a very trustworthy job with it. You have to start understand that literally everyone is a flawed human who is essentially up to no good.

Once you figure that out, then everything else makes more sense. If communism is built up off of the idea that a utopia is possible, and that you will one day not have the poor with you, then you'll be disappointed very rapidly, given how the ideals run smack into the reality of humanity. Your utopia runs aground because it doesn't deal with the harsh world of humans as they are.

But the scriptures do. Which is why the Bible, and the disciples, will tell you that it's very unlikely indeed that people will do things out of the goodness of their hearts. People are sinful, and that's why they need the governance that they get. They literally cannot be relied on to do the right thing, which is a fact of life, and the sooner we work that out, the sooner we can get past the communism vs capitalism idea, and get back to the idea from scripture: that you are called upon to do what you have to do with those who are around you. In reality, the Christian faith is less concerned with capitalism vs communism, and more concerned with what you do as an individual person. That is, you have a chance in this world to do the right thing, to be a neighbor to those who are directly around you. At any moment you have been placed in an environment where helpful, important things are right in front of you to do, and you can do them, or not. But you know that it's not up to the politburo or the commissars to take care of all utopia for you, but rather for you to step boldly into the world that you have been placed into. Whether a communist or capitalist society, your neighbor will need you regardless. Don't wait for all things to be made right. If you believe that resources should be distributed, you have resources to distribute. If you believe that the poor should be fed, you have food. If you believe that things should be more equitable, then make things more equitable .If you don't want that to be your problem, then you'll understand how the very very rich feel. But they have the same responsibility that you do, just on a larger scale. To provide for the needs that they see.

Come out

 I heard a sermon about the raising of Lazarus that talked about how even though Jesus of Nazareth called Lazarus out of the tomb, Lazarus still had to decide how to react to such a command.

Which is wrong.  I'll explain why.

I'd wager that you haven't heard of this movie outside of me talking about it, but there was a movie from the 1980s called 'return to horror high.' This movie had in it a very young George Clooney who, before he was a big star, got written out of the film first. The film is all about the making of a film, a film within a film, as it were. In this film, while the cast are being horribly murdered, the cast are still trying to make a movie, and do so with the usual director / cast interplay. And this interplay is at its most interesting in a discussion between the director and a cast member who is portraying a corpse in the scene.

Corpse: What's my motivation in this scene?

Director (Exasperated): You're dead. Dead people have no motivation. They don't do anything! They just lie there!

Fin.

I'm sure I have now spoken more about 'return to horror high' more than any of the cast or crew in the last two decades. But be that as it may, the content of the conversation is very important to talk about Lazarus in relation to it. What do dead people do? Nothing. They don't do anything. Importantly, they have no motivation. When we talk about Lazarus and his decision to respond to the call of Jesus, you have to think about his status as a corpse before we think about anything else. If he is incapable of motivation on account of being dead, then he is also incapable of responding to any kind of call. Go ahead, give commands to the pork chops on your table, and see what transpires. Pretty much nothing, right? Being dead meat, they don't get to decide how to respond to your commands. In order for the decision to be made, the individual must first be able to decide, which necessitates them being alive in the first place. In other words, you're going to have to be alive to make any choices, including the choice to listen to Christ or not. He literally can't make any decisions about how to react to Jesus before Jesus makes a key decision for him - to make him alive. 

That is the choice upon which every other choice depends, and in reality, it is the choice that none of us can make. Oh sure, we can decide to stay alive, to avoid death and thereby to continue making choices, but the choice to be alive is a choice that only someone else can make for us. In the first birth, that was our parents, as we were all born by the will of parents, but in the case of the second birth (being born again), it's of the will of God. You see, the scriptures talk about us as being dead in our trespasses, and there being no health in us. That may seem like bad news, but it's surprisingly good news. 

It's good news because it takes the responsibility for salvation away from you and your responses, and places it where it belongs. With God. The Lord doesn't have a reasoned discussion with Lazarus, allowing him to decide where he falls on the life or death equation, rather Jesus grants him life, and then all further decisions from Christ will proceed from that one. When we're talking about our Christian life, we're talking about a life that begins with Baptism, with us being called out of our death in trespasses and to new life in Christ. Once we have been awakened to Christ, then any excellent decision we make can flow from that first one. Not without it. Any decision that we can make that is good and God pleasing flows from that in the same way as Lazarus walking from the tomb is predicated on being alive in the first place. 

Once you work that out, then the grace of God carries a lot of weight - it is the difference between death and life, you know. The reality is that you're not going to make a lot of decisions if you're dead, and you're not going to make a lot of decisions for Christ if you're dead in your trespasses. That's why Jesus calls it a new birth, being born again. That means that your life in Christ is his will not yours. So you don't have to worry about if you did it right, or decided correctly. You did not choose him, he chose you. That's why the rest of the decisions you can possibly make all flow from that. 

Adding

 Okay, remember how I mentioned Pierre Berton's 'the comfortable pew' on Sunday? If you don't remember that, I'd like to mention that in his recollection of what he didn't like about going to church as a child was that he was hungry in church. Not that unusual, of course, but what was unusual was that he was hungry because he wasn't allowed to eat anything before he had Holy Communion that day. That is, Holy Communion had to be the first thing to pass his lips that day. 

Okay, but why?

Who asked you to do that? It wasn't God, you know. And so too, we have seen twitter users recently claiming that for Lent they're going to stop using twitter, and then when they inevitably get on and tweet more than they ever did before, they remind everyone that lent isn't about giving something up, guys. It's about spiritual discipline, and so on and so on.

Okay, but why? And who asked you to give up twitter? Or anything?

The thing is, as a Christian, you have to think about what it is Paul wrote in our Epistle reading from Sunday - you have to discern what is pleasing to God. It's tough to do, you know, to work out what it is that God wants, and it's all the harder when you are listening to two voices on the topic. And it's not necessarily the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. In fact, frequently, it's God on one shoulder, and you on the other. You may very well conflict with God based not on what the devil wants, but based on what you want. And that's tougher. 

By and large, that gets so conflated that you end up evangelizing not with the pure Christian gospel, but instead the Gospel as filtered through you. And that ends up being a major problem, given that you are going to present to the world a Christian faith that is very particular to yourself, and likely not as particular for the person to whom you are presenting it. And that makes it a very difficult sell. The reason it's such a hard sell is that if the faith that you are bringing to someone is the faith about you not the faith about Christ, then you're asking people to believe in the idol that you've made for yourself.

It's so easy to fall into as well, these extra steps that seem so good and so necessary. Don't drink any wine, don't dance, no playing cards, no staying out too late, no dating, all this stuff that seems so good and helpful but in reality is a barrier to the faith. You will find, over and over again, that people will disagree not so much with the faith of the scriptures, but with the extra steps that you show to them. You will show them that Jesus loves them, he cares for them, he dies to forgive their sins, but then you add to it with your cool fun political takes that don't belong. And that's the hard part. It's hard to admit sometimes that the thing you add is what actually subtracts from the appeal, but we all have to understand that sometimes things are just right, and that if you add anything to it, it can only get worse.

This is evident in film, of course, where you have a classic film, like Ghostbusters or Psycho or whatever, and someone decides to remake it. Some films are so good that nothing can be added to them without making them worse. The only question in making those films is to ask 'if it is different, then your changes made it worse. If it is the same, your film was unnecessary.' Even the original filmmakers come back and work on their projects again, if the project was any good in the first place, it will almost always turn out worse.

Part of what you have to understand, and it's hard, is that you are an ambassador of Christ. You are there to represent him as your savior. And if you represent him as your savior but with certain strings attached, all you'll do is to hold him back. You won't make it good or better for everyone if the Lord exclusively works within your paradigm. Instead, you will present to them a very small God indeed. A God that is exclusive to you.

One of the things that the Israelites learned was that unlike the nations around them who worshiped very small gods, the Israelites worshiped a God who seemed to know that other nations existed. A God who made moral pronouncements that affected the nation within as well as the nations without. A God who was truly and genuinely concerned about the welfare not just of one people, but of all people. And every time they tried to put strings on that, the story got worse, the same that we do. But God does call them back, to repentance, to clarity, and to his word, so that they can see that in its purity, the grace of God is sufficient.

It's all been done

 Yeah, today we have John 3:16. It's one of those readings that, as a pastor, you sort of dread, because what kind of new and fun spin can you put on John 3:16? What more are you going to say about the reading that pretty much everyone knows to death? In reality, there's not too much you can do with it, you know? Not much that you can say that everyone doesn't already know about. This isn't an obscure story about a judge who accidentally promised to kill his daughter, or a story about a king being so fat that when he got stabbed in the bathroom, his fat closed over the dagger. No, this is John 3:16, the 'Bible in a nutshell.' Everyone knows it. It's on tea towels, stickers, hats and jelly bracelets. You can find it on absolutely everything, and it's the one verse that everyone seems to know. 

But let's take a quick peek at how it shows up in the overall readings for Sunday. Because the readings have Abram being called by God, and being told that God was going to make of him a great nation, and that his descendants would be like the sand on the beach or the stars in the sky. All good news so far. And Abram, as an old man, does eventually have a couple of kids. Ishmael, and Isaac. Through Isaac comes the lineage of Israel, and eventually the birth of Jesus Christ, the messiah. That means that the words that God spoke came through, that through Abram all the would would be blessed.

But spare a thought for your friend and mine Nicodemus. We like to get a bit smug about this, as people who live in a baptism world, but it's easy for us to look at Nicodemus who asks a reasonable question like he's just a bozo. He asks 'how can a man be born again? Can he go back into his mother's womb when he is old?' Ha ha, doesn't he know about baptism? 

Well, no. 

Not only does he not know about baptism, which he doesn't, but he also has a realistic reaction. Think about the crowds gathered around Jesus who say 'we are children of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to anyone.' Think about the accusations towards Peter in the New Testament, that he ate with gentiles. The people of Israel were set apart by God for a reason. They were set apart to ensure that they would not mingle with the Gentiles. Not just as a matter of decorum, but as a matter of holiness. The people of Israel saw themselves as distinct, and not just worthy due to their faith, but due to their genes. They could trace their line back to Abraham, and so when they thought of themselves, it was as being of the house of Israel conferred special status according to the flesh that spilled over into the spirit. Paul puts it this way:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

When Paul writes this, he is tapping into a reality, you know. A reality that the people of Israel assumed was 100% there. Because of passages that talked about Abram's seed being a very big deal according to God, the people of Israel assumed that their lineage was evidence of being blessed and chosen by God. This has continued to this day with the phenomenon of secular Jews, who identify as Jews, though not believing in God at all. Because of the ethnic and cultural aspects of Judaism, it is possible for someone born to a Jewish mother to be considered as fully Jewish whether or not they even believe that God exists.  So what does that mean? It means that due to a lack of defined faith being required, just as God breathed life into Adam, he would be able to raise up from the stones children for Abraham. And Nicodemus, who knows that Jesus is 'from God' as he says, he's going to want to work out which is the right house and line to be born in. From his perspective, it makes perfect sense. God has blessed the world through one family, but Jesus says you have to be born again. How you gonna pull that trick off when it's clearly too late for you, as you had one shot to be born, and you were born wrong.

But there is a new birth. Every bit as valid as the first, but the new birth is one that absolutely anyone can partake in. There is still a family, you know, and the family of Abram is still the one through which all the world will be blessed. But there is an important, non-genetic component that goes along with this.

Abram believed, and God credited it to him as righteousness.

So let's say that's true. Which is more important after all? Is the story of the Bible a story in which God just happens to like one group of people more than literally anyone else? Is it the story of God arbitrarily choosing one people and saying to them and of them 'these are my people and I love them best' the same way you would do with a dog? Or is it the story of God saving the entire world, and wanting all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth?  It seems that it's a key aspect of the teaching of Christ that you have to be born again, not born of the flesh, which you have been, but born of the spirit. Born not into a family of skin and bone, but born into a family of faith, where you believe and it gets credited to you as righteousness. 

Squeak

 There's a line out there that tells you to build a better mousetrap. But why? 

Honestly, Ol' faithful has worked fine for a hundred and fifty years. The simple spring trap has been effective, still snaps mouse necks, still kills em dead, and they haven't figured out how to avoid it. Same trap, same mice, same results. So why change the approach?

I talked about this on Sunday, but I do think that it bears repeating, that sometimes, frequently, the predator / prey arms race doesn't change too terribly much, because certain tactics keep working. The humble mousetrap is simple and effective, and as long as you bait it, mice will keep blundering into it. They want the peanut butter real bad, and will kill themselves to get it. But they don't know that they're stepping into a literal death trap. All they think is "free peanut butter."

Likewise, the temptations of the devil really work that way too. The devil has shown and dangled before you certain temptations, and you keep on going for it. You don't see the consequences, all you see is 'free peanut butter.' And the devil doesn't change his approach much, primarily because he doesn't need to. If it keeps working, why change it? And it does keep working, oh boy does it ever keep working. As faith has become more and more esoteric for people, their understanding of what is or is not sinful, and what does and does not lead to damnation changes, then the trap becomes fuzzier and fuzzier in its consequences. But that doesn't make it any less dangerous. In fact, it's more so. The trap is more effective the less it looks like a trap, and if you can see mice blundering into the same trap even though it's obvious to you, you can see why the devil's traps keep working.

The trap that is set is obvious only to the one that set it; not to the prey. Prey are prey because they blunder into the traps that are set. Spiders' webs, mousetraps, angler fish lures, all these things are painfully obvious to the one setting the trap, but to the one who falls into it, they don't see it as a trap. Instead, they are frequently killed by it.

The thing we have to remember is that the Devil doesn't need to change his tactics because they keep working. We keep going for painfully obvious bait, over and over again, and because it keeps working, the Devil can keep on using it. And he does. And why does it keep on working? Because the temptation is to put to you as a Christian the big question 'did God really say.....?' That question was the one issued to Eve in the garden, and it tweaked a simple reaction in her that it continues to tweak in us. Did God really say to avoid that fruit? Well, she should have responded by saying 'yes he did say that,' and walked on. But she didn't, and she added her own cool fun twist to it. If she would have responded with the word of God, then the problem would have gone away. But she didn't. And nor do we.

Most of the time, we react with our own cool fun opinions about things. We react as though avoiding the trap isn't the issue, the trap not being a trap is the issue. But folks, the trap is going to be a trap whether we want it to be or not. You can't by force of will decide to not be in the trap once it's been sprung on you. You can't elect to not be stuck and just to get free peanut butter out of the deal. And the less you think of the trap as a trap, the more likely you will be to blunder straight into it. 

On your own, you're not going to avoid those traps, And the penalty for slipping into sin is death and damnation. How on earth are you going to avoid that? By relying on God's word? That would work, but you're unlikely to do it. Is the question 'is this in keeping with God's word,' is asked less often than 'is this good for me?' And when the devil tempts you, your response is to say 'does this benefit me? If so, then free peanut butter!'

But you're a Christian. And that means something. And it doesn't mean that you just have to work harder to follow the word of God and avoid the traps. It means you have to understand how the trap works. The cross of Christ was where Jesus took death on and descended into Hell. And when that was done, it wasn't something esoteric that happened, it was practical. He triggered that trap for us. The trap went off, boy did it. Jesus was killed, he descended into hell, and the devil though that he won at that moment. The trap worked. But Jesus rose again, and the trap remained sprung. That means that when you look at the cross, it represents death emptied of its power, and the trap no longer able to kill you. It already did what it was there to do, and can do it no further. The wonder of the work of Jesus is that it defeats death making it so that those who believe in him can't be caught in that trap again, because the trap no longer works. That means that when your sins are on the shoulders of Christ, any time the Devil tries to accuse you based on your falling into his trap, you can remind him that the trap has been sprung already, and the hell that you deserve is the hell that Christ arose from. The trap is sprung, and you get to walk free.

Follow

 There are all kinds of people who have all kinds of ideas on how best to find God. And the thing is, that they'll by and large give you a list of things to do that are typically non Biblical, and they'll tell you 'just do that, and you'll find God.' But the problem with all of that is that very few people have gone to heaven and ever been seen again. That is, very very few people have been to where God is, and have been seen again. 

And those people didn't tend to leave a whole lot of instructions afterwards. If you want to spend a hot minute thinking about it, Lazarus comes back from the dead, is unwrapped, and is released, and then is seen in the story again but doesn't have any more dialogue. That is, his perspective on death isn't shared with any of the readers. The only one who goes to Heaven, to where God is, and returns and talks about it is Jesus Christ himself. 

The way it works, is that if you have a list of things to do in order to get to God, given to you by well meaning people, those things will always pull you towards that list, and you're going to get into troubles when those are things you're not doing. Sure, the list may seem innocuous, but no matter how small the list is, you're going to find yourself smashing through that problem in morality. I'll explain why I mean.

In Star Trek, there's an episode in which the Enterprise crew goes to a paradise planet, where there are no problems, no issues, and no crime. There's only one rule, the rule changes every once in a while, and if you break the rule, the sentence is death. Of course, Wesley breaks the rule by falling into a flowerbed, and is sentenced to death. "Fortunately" Wesley gets beamed back to the Enterprise, and they all move on, leaving those primitive people to their primitive ways. But it does suggest that the essential core morality of the Bible is predictable, really. That is, it doesn't matter how simple the instructions of God would be, you're still not going to do it. 

I want you to know that the story of Genesis, where God only has one rule for humanity, is the story of people not sticking to that one rule, which wasn't particularly difficult - that is, God says to not eat only one kind of fruit, and people did anyway. Whether or not you think that story literally happened, hopefully you will gather that as far as morality goes, it doesn't matter how simple a task or rule would be, eventually you'd run up against breaking it. 

That's why the 'follow me' mentality has to be configured properly. For to follow Jesus doesn't actually mean that you obey a set of dictats, but rather that over the course of a lifetime, you follow where he would lead. And where might that be?

Paul talks about his own preaching, and he says to the people 'I came to know nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified.' He talks about the cross, about how it is folly to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God. The cross. The cross. You see, when Jesus is moving about, a generous part of what he wants is for his disciples to literally follow him - to walk where he walks, and to go where he goes. He wants them to follow where he goes in order for them to see what it is that God has in mind for them to do. Yes, he clearly has advice, guidance and so on, but we miss so quickly that his advice is so big as to be laughable - he wants you to pull your eyes out if they lead you to sin, to cut your hands off if they cause you to sin, to give without ever wanting back, all that, and deep down we all know that all of that is true, of course, but when he says 'follow me' he means to follow where he leads, and to see what he does.

He heals the sick, raises the dead, comforts the ill, makes the blind to see and the deaf to hear, multiplies loves and fishes, dies and rises from the dead, and says to you not 'do all this, and you will live,' but instead, 'repent and believe in the Gospel.' That's our work, you know, to repent and believe in the gospel, to see our sin and turn from it, and to believe that our sins can be forgiven. If we follow Christ, we will follow him to the cross, that's where the entire plan of God leads to. God knows that no matter how easy his rules are that we're not going to do them perfectly, so he deigns to call us to follow him so that we can see where Salvation comes from. 

Paul is a teacher and preacher, and he does have things that we should either do or avoid, but he, like all the preachers in scripture, show you your sins not as more things for you to do to find God, but as things that show the grace of God when you come to him for forgiveness. Because that's what the story of the scripture is all about.