9.20.21 - Happy to be Presbyterian

1 Corinthians 5 ... I wonder what's up?

Started reading through 1 Corinthians a few days back, and stopped for awhile this morning on the 5th chapter, wondering, and googling ... what were the circumstances?

And how easily the women in question is dismissed - and the man so easily condemned.

Sounds like a bunch of busybodies holding their noses without any regard for the two people in question, running off to Paul like 4th grade tattletales.

It occurred to me: was she much younger than the man's stepfather?

Was she abused?

Was the son rescuing her?

Were the woman and her "husband" divorced, or was she abandoned? Or had she run away?

With the uneasy feeling that, then or now, women are treated as property ... women belong to the men, and in this case, the son is "violating" property law - stealing from his father, if you will.

This morning, I wanted to ask Paul:

"Don't you have bigger fish to fry?

Have you looked into the matter?

Or are you just going by what the busybodies offer?"

I read Paul with the greatest respect - he gets a lot of things right, as I see it.

But his easy condemnation of the man, with no interest in the details, or the possible suffering of the woman, and maybe the man's kindness to redeem her, leaves me uncomfortable.

With years of ministry behind me: I know something of "sin," in my own life, and in the lives of others - there is sin committed with hubris, arrogance, and ego, power, and domination.

Then, there is "sin" committed because there's no easy answer to so many hard moments in life. And what the community busybodies might label as "sin" is nothing less then folks caught up in a messy situation, not directly or immediately of their own making, working to make the best of it, to mitigate further harm, and to practice kindness, and to find a way through.

Here, as anywhere, the ease with which the "righteous" condemn "sexual" immorality ... it's so easy to do, and it's so rewarding.

Comments????

Freedom and Abortion

I share this here because of what it means for me - that it's easy to question and judge people whose lives we can see only at a distance, and from that safe distance, render decisions and observations that satisfy our own need for holiness by diminishing that of the judged. 

So many of our painful discussions here are about the "sins" of others ... and how to stop them ... in this regard, I'm a Calvinist - sin is part of the human reality, and there's no sense in getting all hot and bothered about it, especially the sins of the other ... I've got more than enough in my own closet to keep me busy for the next thousand years.

As I see it, there has always been abortion, and there will always be abortion ... to even suggest that we put a stop to it is unreasonable and full of self-holiness. What we can do is lessen the circumstances that prompt it. And, please, let's stop jumping on poor women - the wealthy get abortions, too ... fact is, they have always gotten abortions - if not available locally, they fly elsewhere ... or can always buy a doctor to perform the procedure.

What's needed is mercy ... not judgment ... 

I believe in a woman's right to choose ... that's so fundamental to me, so basic, so essential to our freedom in Christ ... a freedom that welcomes us, and allows us, to be as we are, so that in time we will become a little bit more of what it means to be a human being created in the image of God.

God, too, had to make plenty of painful decisions that were costly, both to God and to humanity - life isn't easy, even for God. 

And for millions of people, life isn't easy, either, and the last thing they need are some self-holiness seeking folks jumping all over them for their lapse. What they need, first of all, is kindness and welcome, and the support of a society that decides to stop the killing of the poor by withholding social services, the killing of Iraqis and Afghanis by ceaseless warfare, the killing of women by ignoring the violence of men, the killing of children because we're drowning in guns.

The larger social issues need our attention first of all ... to focus on secondary and tertiary matters only assists us in our quest for self-holiness and will never ever come close to offering solutions.

America Has No Sense of Sin

In a nation where Christianity has played such a pervasive role, with all of its yacking about sin, what's quite astounding is that the nation, itself, has no sense of sin.

For most of American Christianity, sin has mostly been about drinkin' and smokin' and dancin' and lately, gay sex and/or other personal/individualistic peccadillos.

But when it comes to the nation, no go … America gets away with murder, literally, and no one raises a question. And domestically, millions of Americans are eagerly discarded and dismissed because they're lazy, and whatever other character defect can be applied. A surprising number of Christians have no mindfulness of this, and some even encourage it, even as they tearfully sing "Amazing Grace."

While most Americans "remember" Pearl Harbor because it was a sneak attack, America has engineered any number of sneak attacks (remember Grenada?) and has often acted the bully around the world.

This much for Japan - at least they picked on someone their own size, and were simply doing what America has been doing ever since Reagan with Grenada and Bush with Iraq - preemptively striking.

Christianity pretty much affirms a personal truism - knowing one's sins is the essence of humility, the essence of spiritual maturity. To know God, it's said, one gets to know "how far short of God's glory a human being has fallen," and by the Holy Spirit, compelled to seek God all the more through the forgiving grace of Jesus Christ.

Christianity has made this clear for the person, but not for the nation. For the nation, alas, it's assumed that we're a "Christian" nation, and that's that.

Jeremiah and Isaiah stand in a tradition that made it clear for Israel and Judah that sin is not only personal, but national. John the Baptist makes it clear, and so does Jesus and Paul.

Abolitionists in England and the United States understood the "sins of a nation," but vested interests, i.e. the wealthy and those churches invested in the status quo, reacted quickly and decisively … sin is personal, never corporate … sin is what a person does, but the nation is a "Christian" nation endowed with divine purpose to Christianize and civilize the world.

Ah well …

If "knowing one's sin" is the essence of spiritual maturity, what about a nation?

It's interesting to note that an immature person is characterized by a sense of "innocence" - they always see their behavior in the best light, excusing all of their behavior and blaming others.

It would seem that America, as a nation, remains spiritually underdeveloped.

It refuses to face its sins of war and mistreatment of the poor.

It chooses, rather than responsibility, the strange and adolescent attitude of "innocence."