Cover art
Commentary
Object:
I wonder who the first person was who said, "You can't judge a book by its cover"? My hunch is that it was some parent or teacher encouraging a child who was put off by a book that, on the surface, looked tedious or austere. The adult encouragement, therefore, was a reminder that the content within the book might be a great deal more compelling and engaging than the cover suggested.
The saying has been around for generations. Yet, even though the principle has reached the status of truism, nothing about our culture suggests that we believe it. On the contrary, we have become more and more obsessed with "the cover." Indeed, more than any generation in history, we have made an art and a science of making "the cover" as appealing as possible. In our day, therefore, the concern is not that the content of a book is better than the dull cover might suggest. Rather, the content is not likely to live up to the appeal of the cover.
The issue is not limited to books, of course. The larger pattern has to do with "packaging" in general, and it applies to every imaginable product. The chef in the restaurant knows that "presentation is everything." The realtor talks about "curb appeal." A routine walk down any aisle in a grocery store reveals a culture preoccupied with packaging. For the seller knows that the buyer will judge the book -- cereal, soup, or soda -- by its cover. So the cover had better be eye-catching and attractive. Who knows? The cover may sometimes be the best part of the product.
You and I know that the packaging culture has infiltrated the church, as well. We are less and less encouraged to focus on content as the growing preoccupation is with surface things. I don't mean to dismiss the concern for doing all that we do with excellence. We ought to brush our teeth and shine our shoes just like the world around us. Yet Jesus calls disciples, not consumers, and it's hard to make the former when we are cultivating the latter.
Finally, the concern for packaging is perhaps most diabolical in its impact on the individual. In the midst of a superficial culture, it is hard to avoid a superficial mentality. "When in Rome," after all. And so we pay more attention to the cover than the content even with ourselves.
But that's not what God pays attention to.
1 Samuel 8:4-11 (12-15) 16-20
Samuel strikes me as one of the most remarkable characters in scripture. He is a miracle baby, who is born into Israel in a time of great spiritual malaise. The people are distant from God, and what leadership they have is effectual at best and wicked at worst. In the midst of that context, however, the Lord discovers that Samuel is a young man who will listen to him.
Eventually Samuel becomes the undisputed leader of Israel. Not because he is the next in some natural succession, however, like the son of a king. Neither is he publicly ordained to lead the people, as Joshua was by Moses. Nor does he earn the role and recognition by military achievement as, say, Gideon did some years earlier. No, Samuel evidently becomes the undisputed leader in Israel simply because God spoke to him and the whole nation recognized that God spoke to him.
He is also remarkable inasmuch as he is the great transition figure from the dark days of Israel's judges to the monarchy and the golden age of David. He becomes the king-maker in Israel, though it is a particular task he does not desire or approve. And, in some respects, we also see him as king-breaker during the reign of Saul.
Still, for all of his marvelous distinctions, he is not perfect. I sense in this pivotal passage that some of his humanness comes through and clouds the issue for himself and for his people. The people want a king for their nation, but Samuel seems to let it be a bit too much about him.
The people introduce their request in a less-than-winsome way: "You're old and your sons are no good." That probably wasn't the best way to get Samuel to warm up to their request. The narrator is clear that "the thing displeased Samuel."
When Samuel took the matter to God, however, we discover the possible fault in the prophet. "They have not rejected you," the Lord tells him, "but they have rejected me." So it is that Samuel had perhaps taken too personally the development, and in the process he may have overlooked the larger issue involved.
That is always the profound risk of our fallen self-centeredness. When we let any issue become too much about us -- our feelings, ambitions, preferences, egos, and so on -- then we cease to see the matter clearly. The ego is naturally myopic, but the would-be man or woman of God must be able always to see things from God's perspective.
The people who came to Samuel, of course, were shortsighted, as well. For rather than seeing and rejoicing in what they had, they wanted what all the nations around them had, instead. Like Esau swapping his birthright for the pottage, Israel's transaction is incalculably foolish. They were able to claim no less than the Lord of hosts as their king, yet they somehow preferred the sort of ordinary and flawed monarchs that they saw around them. Jesus' characterization of the people for whom he prayed seems to be true in every generation: "They know not what they do" (Luke 23:34 KJV).
Samuel gave the people fair warning about what a human king might bring. Moses had presented a similar warning several generations earlier (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). All of that wisdom notwithstanding, however, the people were "determined to have a king over us" and "to be like other nations." That's a pretty low ambition for the people of God, but no one in this moment, it seems, was seeing very clearly.
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Any passage that begins with "but" requires a bit of introduction. It clearly has some larger context that needs to be explored. So, before we can unpack these verses, we need to have a sense for what preceded them.
The preceding section of chapter 4 features the much-beloved reference to "treasure in clay jars" or "earthen vessels." That captures the grand paradox Paul has in mind. It is this strange and lovely business of something so valuable being entrusted to something so very ordinary.
The larger context of our assigned passage is a profound and lovely discussion of the work of the gospel. It is a spiritual work with eternal results, to be sure. Yet that work takes place in time and is done by human instruments. "Immortal tidings in your mortal hands,"1 as the hymn writer says it. That compelling paradox is the theme, then, which Paul has introduced in the preceding verses, and he continues here in our passage.
In his exploration of the paradox, Paul's thought moves next to the two parts of a human being. For we are not only physical creatures -- "clay jars" -- we ourselves have a spiritual component. In that sense, we are a microcosm of the larger paradox: the mysterious marriage of the spiritual with the physical, the eternal with the temporal. So Paul distinguishes between the experience of our "outer nature" and our "inner nature." The former is the victim of suffering and death -- a theme that pulses throughout the larger passage. The "inner nature," by contrast, enjoys growth, renewal, encouragement, and hope.
As pastors making hospital calls, we routinely see the difference between the outer and inner natures. Most folks we see in hospitals are there because of some trouble with what Paul would classify as the "outer" part of their persons. Tet we have observed that people who share a common "outer" malady demonstrate very different "inner" conditions. And it is so that "inner" state that determines how they go through the "outer" struggle.
Paul's strength, resolve, and joy in the face of so much suffering, opposition, and difficulty was not the product of some personal Stoicism or uncommonly high threshold for pain. Rather, it was attributable to the reality that his "inner nature (was) being renewed day by day." That is a lovely picture in his testimony, as well as a lovely prospect for us. It is consistent, of course, with a God whose mercies "are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23). It is an important reminder for those of us who tend to try to be self-reliant and tough it out. No wonder we complain so much about burnout, for we are not allowing the Lord to renew us within day by day.
Finally, as we noted above, the spirit-flesh paradox is accompanied by the eternal-temporal paradox. And that comes into play, too, in this matter of our suffering and the struggles of the "outer nature." "For this slight momentary affliction," Paul declares, "is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure."
Paul's theology is brilliantly captured by his syntax. "Momentary" is balanced by "eternal." "Slight" is juxtaposed with "weight" and "beyond all measure." The "affliction" is set against the "glory." In the end, his one sentence delivers an authoritative trumping of all our present difficulties.
As an aside, it is worth noting one particular detail in Paul's language. He refers to glory's "eternal weight." While his epistle is written in Greek, Paul's ethnic heritage was Hebrew. And in Old Testament Hebrew, the word for "glory" shared the same root consonants as the word for "heaviness" or "weighty." Perhaps this linguistic backdrop factored into his theology: namely, that the troubles of the present age are not only temporal but also lightweights. The glory of God, by contrast, is never-ending and it is substantial: solid, heavy, weighty.
Mark 3:20-35
In this unnerving episode from Mark's gospel, Jesus is almost universally misunderstood. His family endeavored "to restrain him." The people were calling him "out of his mind." And his antagonists were accusing him of being in league with the devil himself. This is hardly the sort of passage we naturally cherish, such as Jesus blessing the children or healing the sick.
On the other hand, we do recognize that there is a larger pattern involved. We recall, for example, that the Pentecost crowds mistook the influence of the Holy Spirit for drunkenness (Acts 2:12-15). We remember in the Old Testament that David's bravery (1 Samuel 17:22-29) and his worship (2 Samuel 6:14-22) were misunderstood and maligned by those around him. We think of the folks in the crowd who thought the voice of God was merely thunder (John 12:28-29). We recollect Isaiah's apt prophecy that "we held him of no account" (Isaiah 53:3b), as well as Jesus' indictment that Jerusalem "did not recognize the time of your visitation from God" (Luke 19:44).
In light of the larger picture, then, we see that this episode from Mark is nothing unusual. On the contrary, this seems to be standard operating procedure. Again and again the things of God are not only unrecognized but actually criticized. So it was that Jesus' work -- marvelous work! -- was so badly misunderstood by those around him.
Jesus' response to the Beelzebul accusation is perfectly logical, as well as familiar to many of us because of Abraham Lincoln's quotation of it. Of course Satan does not cast out Satan. Whatever his opponents wanted to make of Jesus, theirs was a foolish assertion. Jesus showed up their illogic in his response.
Then he went a step further. It turns out that their offense was not merely fallacious reasoning. No, they were involved in something much graver. So Jesus introduces the principle that we know as "the unpardonable sin."
We are thoroughly uncomfortable when we hear Jesus say that certain persons "can never have forgiveness." That cuts across the grain of what we think of the nature of God and the teachings of Jesus. How is it that someone still living could be ineligible for the forgiveness of God?
The narrator's explanation of this most serious of sins is found in his brief insertion at the end of Jesus' teaching. At the end of verse 30, Mark notes: "for they had said, 'He has an unclean spirit.' " This, then, is how we are to understand the blaspheming against the Holy Spirit: to call his work the work of the devil.
That sounds serious, indeed but no modern standard would naturally conclude that this is the worst sin an individual could commit. Yet the answer to our difficulty may lie in a bit of theological pragmatism: namely, that a person who so mistakes the work of the Holy Spirit cannot properly respond to the work of the Holy Spirit. The ineligibility for forgiveness, therefore, is not the result of a begrudging God but rather of a person who has placed himself out of position to receive what God offers.
Application
The cherished Christmas song asks, "Do you hear what I hear?" Variations of the question are famously asked by the night wind, a lamb, a shepherd boy, and a king. We are far-removed from Christmas, of course, but perhaps this Sunday we might contemplate God asking us, "Do you see what I see?"
After the disappointment that was King Saul's reign, anticipated in our Old Testament passage this week, the Lord sent Samuel to anoint a son of Jesse to be Saul's successor. Samuel, we are told, was impressed by the physical appearance of Jesse's first son, Eliab, but the Lord had to correct his prophet's superficiality. "The Lord does not see as mortals see," God told Samuel. "They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
So it was that even so esteemed a man of God as Samuel did not see what God sees. Samuel saw stature; God sees heart.
That same struggle is at issue in the teaching that Paul shares with the Corinthians. The natural human preoccupation is with the external -- the "outer nature," as Paul calls it -- and thus we tend to focus on superficial things. And those superficial things are also temporal things. But the things of God are eternal, and therefore we are challenged to focus on them, instead.
Here, though, is where New Testament Christianity does not track with ancient Gnosticism. It's not that the superficial, material, physical, or external world is condemned or dismissed. No, but rather it is elevated, inasmuch as God utilizes such ordinary instruments for his eternal cause.
In the end, therefore, it is the content that gives importance to the package, and that's as it should be. The package itself is not the point, however, which is a perspective you and I must keep in mind in the midst of a package-obsessed world, for if we put the accent on the outer needs and struggles, we will forgo the inner renewal. If we make the physical a priority, we will fail the spiritual. And if we fixate on the temporal, we will miss eternity.
Alternative Application
Mark 3:20-35. "If He says so." Early in my ministry, I preached a series of sermons on God's creation and what we can learn about him from what he has created. One of those sermons dealt with the subject of variety, and I shared my conviction based on what I see in creation, our God must take great delight in variety. Interestingly, while the sermon was not explicitly about race, one man in attendance perceived a disconnect between what I was preaching and what we had always believed.
After the service, he said to me, "Pastor, I've always taught my daughter that it would be a sin for her to marry a black man. Am I wrong?"
"Billy," I replied, "you and I don't get to define what sin is. Only God can do that. So if God says something is a sin, we can't say that it's not. And if God doesn't say something is a sin, we can't say that it is." Then, with that groundwork laid, we began to talk about the particulars of his question and beliefs.
In our contemporary relativism, we have largely lost sight of this principle. We unquestioningly assume that we get to define reality -- as though the batter gets to determine what's a ball and what's a strike, or the outfielder gets to say whether a ball is fair or foul. But the standard exists above and outside of the players themselves.
So it is with this profound matter of sin. We can't make it disappear by coming up with euphemisms for it. We can't change the foul lines according to our own liking or convenience. This is uniquely the province of God, for sin is not ultimately defined by what offends us, but by what offends him. That is precisely why we see dramatic stories of God's judgment in scripture: because the people of a given time and place were not at all troubled by engrained lifestyles that were intolerable for God.
I mentioned above that no modern standard would rank blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as the worst or most irredeemable sin. Our cultural standard for measuring the heinousness of an act tends to be the harm or offense it causes to other people. By that standard, it's pretty hard to see the problem with any sort of blasphemy.
However, we don't get to make that call. We may be instructed and warned about sin, we may be forgiven for it, and we may be set free from it; but we may not define it. That is uniquely the province of God. Our responsibility is simply to recognize the foul lines that he has drawn, and then play within them.
1. Laura S. Copenhaver, "Heralds of Christ," United Methodist Hymnal #567.
The saying has been around for generations. Yet, even though the principle has reached the status of truism, nothing about our culture suggests that we believe it. On the contrary, we have become more and more obsessed with "the cover." Indeed, more than any generation in history, we have made an art and a science of making "the cover" as appealing as possible. In our day, therefore, the concern is not that the content of a book is better than the dull cover might suggest. Rather, the content is not likely to live up to the appeal of the cover.
The issue is not limited to books, of course. The larger pattern has to do with "packaging" in general, and it applies to every imaginable product. The chef in the restaurant knows that "presentation is everything." The realtor talks about "curb appeal." A routine walk down any aisle in a grocery store reveals a culture preoccupied with packaging. For the seller knows that the buyer will judge the book -- cereal, soup, or soda -- by its cover. So the cover had better be eye-catching and attractive. Who knows? The cover may sometimes be the best part of the product.
You and I know that the packaging culture has infiltrated the church, as well. We are less and less encouraged to focus on content as the growing preoccupation is with surface things. I don't mean to dismiss the concern for doing all that we do with excellence. We ought to brush our teeth and shine our shoes just like the world around us. Yet Jesus calls disciples, not consumers, and it's hard to make the former when we are cultivating the latter.
Finally, the concern for packaging is perhaps most diabolical in its impact on the individual. In the midst of a superficial culture, it is hard to avoid a superficial mentality. "When in Rome," after all. And so we pay more attention to the cover than the content even with ourselves.
But that's not what God pays attention to.
1 Samuel 8:4-11 (12-15) 16-20
Samuel strikes me as one of the most remarkable characters in scripture. He is a miracle baby, who is born into Israel in a time of great spiritual malaise. The people are distant from God, and what leadership they have is effectual at best and wicked at worst. In the midst of that context, however, the Lord discovers that Samuel is a young man who will listen to him.
Eventually Samuel becomes the undisputed leader of Israel. Not because he is the next in some natural succession, however, like the son of a king. Neither is he publicly ordained to lead the people, as Joshua was by Moses. Nor does he earn the role and recognition by military achievement as, say, Gideon did some years earlier. No, Samuel evidently becomes the undisputed leader in Israel simply because God spoke to him and the whole nation recognized that God spoke to him.
He is also remarkable inasmuch as he is the great transition figure from the dark days of Israel's judges to the monarchy and the golden age of David. He becomes the king-maker in Israel, though it is a particular task he does not desire or approve. And, in some respects, we also see him as king-breaker during the reign of Saul.
Still, for all of his marvelous distinctions, he is not perfect. I sense in this pivotal passage that some of his humanness comes through and clouds the issue for himself and for his people. The people want a king for their nation, but Samuel seems to let it be a bit too much about him.
The people introduce their request in a less-than-winsome way: "You're old and your sons are no good." That probably wasn't the best way to get Samuel to warm up to their request. The narrator is clear that "the thing displeased Samuel."
When Samuel took the matter to God, however, we discover the possible fault in the prophet. "They have not rejected you," the Lord tells him, "but they have rejected me." So it is that Samuel had perhaps taken too personally the development, and in the process he may have overlooked the larger issue involved.
That is always the profound risk of our fallen self-centeredness. When we let any issue become too much about us -- our feelings, ambitions, preferences, egos, and so on -- then we cease to see the matter clearly. The ego is naturally myopic, but the would-be man or woman of God must be able always to see things from God's perspective.
The people who came to Samuel, of course, were shortsighted, as well. For rather than seeing and rejoicing in what they had, they wanted what all the nations around them had, instead. Like Esau swapping his birthright for the pottage, Israel's transaction is incalculably foolish. They were able to claim no less than the Lord of hosts as their king, yet they somehow preferred the sort of ordinary and flawed monarchs that they saw around them. Jesus' characterization of the people for whom he prayed seems to be true in every generation: "They know not what they do" (Luke 23:34 KJV).
Samuel gave the people fair warning about what a human king might bring. Moses had presented a similar warning several generations earlier (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). All of that wisdom notwithstanding, however, the people were "determined to have a king over us" and "to be like other nations." That's a pretty low ambition for the people of God, but no one in this moment, it seems, was seeing very clearly.
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Any passage that begins with "but" requires a bit of introduction. It clearly has some larger context that needs to be explored. So, before we can unpack these verses, we need to have a sense for what preceded them.
The preceding section of chapter 4 features the much-beloved reference to "treasure in clay jars" or "earthen vessels." That captures the grand paradox Paul has in mind. It is this strange and lovely business of something so valuable being entrusted to something so very ordinary.
The larger context of our assigned passage is a profound and lovely discussion of the work of the gospel. It is a spiritual work with eternal results, to be sure. Yet that work takes place in time and is done by human instruments. "Immortal tidings in your mortal hands,"1 as the hymn writer says it. That compelling paradox is the theme, then, which Paul has introduced in the preceding verses, and he continues here in our passage.
In his exploration of the paradox, Paul's thought moves next to the two parts of a human being. For we are not only physical creatures -- "clay jars" -- we ourselves have a spiritual component. In that sense, we are a microcosm of the larger paradox: the mysterious marriage of the spiritual with the physical, the eternal with the temporal. So Paul distinguishes between the experience of our "outer nature" and our "inner nature." The former is the victim of suffering and death -- a theme that pulses throughout the larger passage. The "inner nature," by contrast, enjoys growth, renewal, encouragement, and hope.
As pastors making hospital calls, we routinely see the difference between the outer and inner natures. Most folks we see in hospitals are there because of some trouble with what Paul would classify as the "outer" part of their persons. Tet we have observed that people who share a common "outer" malady demonstrate very different "inner" conditions. And it is so that "inner" state that determines how they go through the "outer" struggle.
Paul's strength, resolve, and joy in the face of so much suffering, opposition, and difficulty was not the product of some personal Stoicism or uncommonly high threshold for pain. Rather, it was attributable to the reality that his "inner nature (was) being renewed day by day." That is a lovely picture in his testimony, as well as a lovely prospect for us. It is consistent, of course, with a God whose mercies "are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23). It is an important reminder for those of us who tend to try to be self-reliant and tough it out. No wonder we complain so much about burnout, for we are not allowing the Lord to renew us within day by day.
Finally, as we noted above, the spirit-flesh paradox is accompanied by the eternal-temporal paradox. And that comes into play, too, in this matter of our suffering and the struggles of the "outer nature." "For this slight momentary affliction," Paul declares, "is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure."
Paul's theology is brilliantly captured by his syntax. "Momentary" is balanced by "eternal." "Slight" is juxtaposed with "weight" and "beyond all measure." The "affliction" is set against the "glory." In the end, his one sentence delivers an authoritative trumping of all our present difficulties.
As an aside, it is worth noting one particular detail in Paul's language. He refers to glory's "eternal weight." While his epistle is written in Greek, Paul's ethnic heritage was Hebrew. And in Old Testament Hebrew, the word for "glory" shared the same root consonants as the word for "heaviness" or "weighty." Perhaps this linguistic backdrop factored into his theology: namely, that the troubles of the present age are not only temporal but also lightweights. The glory of God, by contrast, is never-ending and it is substantial: solid, heavy, weighty.
Mark 3:20-35
In this unnerving episode from Mark's gospel, Jesus is almost universally misunderstood. His family endeavored "to restrain him." The people were calling him "out of his mind." And his antagonists were accusing him of being in league with the devil himself. This is hardly the sort of passage we naturally cherish, such as Jesus blessing the children or healing the sick.
On the other hand, we do recognize that there is a larger pattern involved. We recall, for example, that the Pentecost crowds mistook the influence of the Holy Spirit for drunkenness (Acts 2:12-15). We remember in the Old Testament that David's bravery (1 Samuel 17:22-29) and his worship (2 Samuel 6:14-22) were misunderstood and maligned by those around him. We think of the folks in the crowd who thought the voice of God was merely thunder (John 12:28-29). We recollect Isaiah's apt prophecy that "we held him of no account" (Isaiah 53:3b), as well as Jesus' indictment that Jerusalem "did not recognize the time of your visitation from God" (Luke 19:44).
In light of the larger picture, then, we see that this episode from Mark is nothing unusual. On the contrary, this seems to be standard operating procedure. Again and again the things of God are not only unrecognized but actually criticized. So it was that Jesus' work -- marvelous work! -- was so badly misunderstood by those around him.
Jesus' response to the Beelzebul accusation is perfectly logical, as well as familiar to many of us because of Abraham Lincoln's quotation of it. Of course Satan does not cast out Satan. Whatever his opponents wanted to make of Jesus, theirs was a foolish assertion. Jesus showed up their illogic in his response.
Then he went a step further. It turns out that their offense was not merely fallacious reasoning. No, they were involved in something much graver. So Jesus introduces the principle that we know as "the unpardonable sin."
We are thoroughly uncomfortable when we hear Jesus say that certain persons "can never have forgiveness." That cuts across the grain of what we think of the nature of God and the teachings of Jesus. How is it that someone still living could be ineligible for the forgiveness of God?
The narrator's explanation of this most serious of sins is found in his brief insertion at the end of Jesus' teaching. At the end of verse 30, Mark notes: "for they had said, 'He has an unclean spirit.' " This, then, is how we are to understand the blaspheming against the Holy Spirit: to call his work the work of the devil.
That sounds serious, indeed but no modern standard would naturally conclude that this is the worst sin an individual could commit. Yet the answer to our difficulty may lie in a bit of theological pragmatism: namely, that a person who so mistakes the work of the Holy Spirit cannot properly respond to the work of the Holy Spirit. The ineligibility for forgiveness, therefore, is not the result of a begrudging God but rather of a person who has placed himself out of position to receive what God offers.
Application
The cherished Christmas song asks, "Do you hear what I hear?" Variations of the question are famously asked by the night wind, a lamb, a shepherd boy, and a king. We are far-removed from Christmas, of course, but perhaps this Sunday we might contemplate God asking us, "Do you see what I see?"
After the disappointment that was King Saul's reign, anticipated in our Old Testament passage this week, the Lord sent Samuel to anoint a son of Jesse to be Saul's successor. Samuel, we are told, was impressed by the physical appearance of Jesse's first son, Eliab, but the Lord had to correct his prophet's superficiality. "The Lord does not see as mortals see," God told Samuel. "They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
So it was that even so esteemed a man of God as Samuel did not see what God sees. Samuel saw stature; God sees heart.
That same struggle is at issue in the teaching that Paul shares with the Corinthians. The natural human preoccupation is with the external -- the "outer nature," as Paul calls it -- and thus we tend to focus on superficial things. And those superficial things are also temporal things. But the things of God are eternal, and therefore we are challenged to focus on them, instead.
Here, though, is where New Testament Christianity does not track with ancient Gnosticism. It's not that the superficial, material, physical, or external world is condemned or dismissed. No, but rather it is elevated, inasmuch as God utilizes such ordinary instruments for his eternal cause.
In the end, therefore, it is the content that gives importance to the package, and that's as it should be. The package itself is not the point, however, which is a perspective you and I must keep in mind in the midst of a package-obsessed world, for if we put the accent on the outer needs and struggles, we will forgo the inner renewal. If we make the physical a priority, we will fail the spiritual. And if we fixate on the temporal, we will miss eternity.
Alternative Application
Mark 3:20-35. "If He says so." Early in my ministry, I preached a series of sermons on God's creation and what we can learn about him from what he has created. One of those sermons dealt with the subject of variety, and I shared my conviction based on what I see in creation, our God must take great delight in variety. Interestingly, while the sermon was not explicitly about race, one man in attendance perceived a disconnect between what I was preaching and what we had always believed.
After the service, he said to me, "Pastor, I've always taught my daughter that it would be a sin for her to marry a black man. Am I wrong?"
"Billy," I replied, "you and I don't get to define what sin is. Only God can do that. So if God says something is a sin, we can't say that it's not. And if God doesn't say something is a sin, we can't say that it is." Then, with that groundwork laid, we began to talk about the particulars of his question and beliefs.
In our contemporary relativism, we have largely lost sight of this principle. We unquestioningly assume that we get to define reality -- as though the batter gets to determine what's a ball and what's a strike, or the outfielder gets to say whether a ball is fair or foul. But the standard exists above and outside of the players themselves.
So it is with this profound matter of sin. We can't make it disappear by coming up with euphemisms for it. We can't change the foul lines according to our own liking or convenience. This is uniquely the province of God, for sin is not ultimately defined by what offends us, but by what offends him. That is precisely why we see dramatic stories of God's judgment in scripture: because the people of a given time and place were not at all troubled by engrained lifestyles that were intolerable for God.
I mentioned above that no modern standard would rank blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as the worst or most irredeemable sin. Our cultural standard for measuring the heinousness of an act tends to be the harm or offense it causes to other people. By that standard, it's pretty hard to see the problem with any sort of blasphemy.
However, we don't get to make that call. We may be instructed and warned about sin, we may be forgiven for it, and we may be set free from it; but we may not define it. That is uniquely the province of God. Our responsibility is simply to recognize the foul lines that he has drawn, and then play within them.
1. Laura S. Copenhaver, "Heralds of Christ," United Methodist Hymnal #567.
