On Community–My Sin is Your Sin

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect.” ~Matthew 5:48

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I sat on the front porch last night discussing Matthew 5 with a friend.  I’ve been having difficulty with that passage (as Collective email subscribers know).  I intend to write more about my struggles with this passage, but that is not for today.  For today I’ll just say this: Jesus blesses us with the same status in his grand mountain sermon–sinner.

“The law says don’t commit adultery.  But lust in your heart has the same consequence.”

“The law says don’t murder.  But if you call your brother ‘fool’, you’re liable to hellfire.”

“The law says don’t break your promise, but I say don’t even make a promise. You can’t know whether you’ll break it.”

See?  Jesus reduces all of humanity to the same state of spiritual imperfection.  At our essence, we are all the same.

As we began to hash this out, I asked my friend, “if we really believed this, how would it change our approach to community?”  His response was quick–”we’d recognize that your sin is my sin, and we’d help each other bear up.”

We’re all in the same  listing, tilting, capsizing vessel of flesh.  What if we all recognized that the sail hoisters, rowers, and men overboard were all heading toward the same fate?  What if we understood that the most ascetic devotee in the room was really a whore-mongering serial adulterer, as incapable of “being perfect like your Heavenly Father is perfect” as the next fella.  (Matt. 5:48).  Would it change our approach to “community?”  Would it change the way we interact with the members of the body?

I’d like your thoughts here on “community” and the implications of Matthew 5.  I do not anticipate that this will be an easy discussion, but feel free to wade in.  As per the previous community posts, this is your chance to delurk and speak your mind.

Who’s first?

Marriage Letters – On Outside Influences

We continue our Marriage Letters  series. Today Amber and I write on the topic “On Outside Influence….”  Will you write your spouse today? Will you speak the truth?

***

One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof
of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was
very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The
man said, “She is Bathsheba….” Then David sent messengers to get her.
~2 Samuel 11:2

Dear Amber,

I remember the look in your eyes when you told me you had discovered that outside influences were competing for my affections.  You sat on the edge of the bed, seething.  You were a woman on fire, a broken reed, scorched earth.  I remember that you told me, “never again,” then you stormed out, slamming the screen door behind you.

To date, it is still the worst day of my life.

It’s a brave new world with instant access, easy communication, microwaved gratification.  The images that objectify the fairer sex entangle the race of men until we are tripped and crushed by the weight of our flesh.  The devil has been dancing in the details of enticement since long before David and Bathsheba.  He knows our kind well, knows that a midnight stroll is always good bait.

We’ve battled through those dark days, the days when we were as likely to believe the sexy lies as we were the truth of the Spirit.  Now, we’re more more proactive–we have the same sleep schedules, practice openness and confession, erect walls against the influencers.  Pragmatic?  Maybe.  But when we crawl into bed at the end of every day, when I put my hand on your waist, you know I’m not on some rooftop stroll, and I know that your at peace.

I wish I could have learned these lessons an easier way.  I wish I would have been challenged in the pragmatic slogging out of the faith, of my roll as the gatekeeper of our home.  I wish I would have been warned against Princess Leia’s metal bikini when I was a kid, but I suppose that even in all of that there’s still grace.  There’s still sanctification.  And you love me still.

Help me tell this story, Amber.  Help me remind the young married couples at our church.  Help me remind our boys.  Help me remember because remembering is protection against the outside influence, the one that seeks to lead us to the killing fields in the moonlight.

Good night and good peace,

Seth

***

Please join Amber, Joy, Scott, and me as we celebrate the truth about marriage. Every Monday in April we’re writing letters because we believe that when we bless our own marriage, we bless the marriages of others. If you write a post, share your link at Amber’s place today. Thank you for joining us.

The Sunday List ~ Empire Narratives and Lost Coins

*Original image here.

Sundays are a good day to slow down and take in a few words. What did you read this week? Here’s my Sunday List.

*****

Mason Slater is still at it.  This week, he continues his series on the Liturgy of the Empire, writing on Passion Plays and War Movies, Empire Liturgy, and the grand immigration debate.  Each is worth reading.

Speaking of the Liturgy of the Empire, Sarah Bessey wonders about Pinterest.  She writes, “Pinterest is the fantasy league of consumerism and it speaks to the larger issues that we battle as a society: I am my image, I am what I consume, I am what I purchase, I am what I desire.” This is a good piece, and I wish Mrs. Bessey would write an entire book of these posts.

In the Marriage Letters series, Scott and Joy Bennett write on enduring the loss of a child.

In his piece on the value of work, Duane Scott writes, “…how can a missionary fly across seas if he rarely remember to be one at home?”

Of course, around this house, we’re always reading selections from this.

Finally, this isn’t a written piece, but I just wanted to share it.

*****

Now it’s your turn. What have you read (or written) that’s worth sharing this weekend? Books, blog posts, magazine articles, it’s all fair game. Come on; let’s build a reading list.

The Holding Together

Amber wrote about hope and it was good.  Our hope is built on nothing less, she said, and I suppose I agree.  Hope is more than me with grey hair, her snuggled under my arm in a sun-shaded porch swing, she wrote. Hope is something more eternal, more resurrected, more platinum maybe.

I agree with all that; I really do.  But yesterday evening the wind blew long through the tops of the oaks staggered on the hill.  They bent in union with the wind, leaves swooshed like landlocked waves.  The way the wind rolls leaves up in contagion, it’s a miracle.

The way old lovers bend in union is a miracle, too–the sixty-year olds in porch chairs with his and hers lap dogs; the ones who hold the church up with prayer, and a few choice words; the lovers who haven’t used the word “lover” in decades, but use the word “friend” instead. It takes years to develop that kind of flexibility, that kind of sway.

For in him, all things were created… He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  That’s what the scriptures say.

I hope for the porch swing, for the lazy days of watching the dance of the oak trees with my wife.  I’m sure it won’t be perfect, but it will hold together. It will hold together like hope fulfilled, like the hope of glory. It will hold together like creation.

What if hope is found in the holding together? What if?