Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The worst of consequences

We were in the ball park yesterday (well, where else would we be lately? Tonight we have three grand children playing on three fields at approximately the same time). I'm so tired, I'm tired, if you get my drift. I haven't slept, and I finally got up at 5 a.m. to discover darkness has run and hidden again.

Last night, however, two things happened. First, I saw a long, tall drink of water (as we used to say for reasons that escape me). A man, wearing a white T-shirt with black lettering on it that read ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME, was walking between fields. I was almost intrigued enough to go strike up a conversation, but I was afraid I was judging the amount of intrigue so I didn't.

When we got home right around 10 p.m., which isn't the witching hour but the hour I usually fall into bed, I fell into bed, grabbing my I-Pad to read the news.

In doing so, I came across this story that kind of knocked me out, though not enough to go to sleep.

The Rev. Seth Oiler, a 42-year-old United Methodist pastor in Newark killed himself last Friday. He had recently taken a leave of absence, sending a letter to his congregation admitting an affair with an adult staff member. That, by the way, was the manner in which the admission came. We live in a world that requires the addition of the word adult for clarification.

Oiler was married, the father of three. Steve Rath, his boss (the executive pastor of their church, was floored by the decision Oiler had made, choosing death as his way out of the dilemma he faced.

I have few words I can write that would help any of us understand this situation, except to say that clearly this points out that none of us and I absolutely mean none of us have all the answers to all the questions. Pastors are included in that bunch who sometime throw a blanket of judgment onto all the least and lost, including ourselves. Because on occasion we wear a white collar and walk about with noses pointed high, we are no more free of self-judgment, of mistake-prone decision-making than the next person. In fact, we are often the ones most liable to, er, mess up.

I've been on one of those runs lately where my mouth keeps running much faster than my brain, where I've made boo-boo after boo-boo. When that occurs, however, I pray I never forget that Jesus is the judge and I am but a defendant whose only shaky, high-pitched words are indeed, "I plead guilty, your honor." That's my only recourse, my only hope.

I'm reminded of John's words: The law came through Moses but grace and truth came through the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's it. Grace and truth

Oh, I pray I will never come close to the terribly tragic mistakes of Oiler. I pray that as we get closer and closer to becoming a culture where sin is no longer even possible in the eyes of the sinner, we remember that we can't simply re-define sins because times have changed. Discussing the sin, loving the sinner at the same time, is a worthy plan that often heads off course about as quickly as does our best laid plans.

I pray we remember that the best course often is to accept what we did wrong and lean into the wind, like a ship's captain asking for forgiveness from the judge whose verdict will always be "not guilty by reason of atonement," if we indeed ask for that forgiveness. The New England Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady might want to consider admitting the guilt and accepting the penalty. The cover-up is always worse than the sin in the first place.

I pray that I, we, all of us will continually reach for the love and grace that is the living mercy of the man named Jesus. But I fear all to much that we are instead becoming a culture, a society that never asks for forgiveness because we are instead becoming a culture that does not believe it can sin because we've re-written the rules about what sin truly is.

If we say it is no sin, can it be sin? Of course it can. Re-writing the rule book on our own simply doesn't work. That's where we're headed in an incredibly fast vehicle of the future. We've decided the Bible can not possibly be inerrant because it does not matter in the first place.

The dilemma that Pastor Oiler found himself in was one of terrible consequence. Whatever led him to take the risk of losing his family over whatever substituted for love led him down a terribly dark road toward the end of his life. He risked all of eternity for the briefest of lustful moments, it seems, though certainly I do not know everything about this situation. But it is in that affair that we get a real glimpse of where the culture is going. I can not judge him or his decisions because I am no better, no worse than he. I make poor decisions and then compound them with greater poor decisions of my own. No one is without sin so no one need drop their own stones.

That's life in the year 2015 and beyond.

The Apostle Paul told us this: "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our lord and more was abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy..."

Oh, dear Jesus. I am in great battle with Paul for the title of "FOREMOST SINNER."

Forgive us for the misunderstanding of what we need in our lives and what we want. Forgive us for thinking only of ourselves, for me thinking only of myself when there are young people who have drowned in flooded streets in the past couple of days, when there are persons who have drowned and instead of falling to our knees so that we can rise into the air to meet a Savior leading a chorus of angels, we make continual and continuous decisions that haunt not only our own lives but the lives of our spouses, the lives of our children, and even the lives of congregations, friends, employees, staff.

With all that is at risk today, with churches defeated, with spiritual hearts crushed by increasingly low expectations, and with men and women walking around wearing T-shirts reminding everyone around them they refuse to be judged by anyone  except God himself, it is imperative that we let Jesus' blood wash away the sins that still exist so that tender little eyes watching it all might not drown in the world's depths. We are in this horrible world not of it.

Or the life that we take might not be be only our own. Our sins might just drown those we love.

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