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.