Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
My son Sam and I went to Mexico City one summer and we had a really good time. I speak passable Spanish and we had had three Mexican exchange students. Mexicans, like all people have cultural characteristic. They love fun; they are always kidding one another and playing jokes. They are very family oriented. They are hardworking too and energetic. We met lots of Mexican folk in Mexico of course, and had a really good time’
In the airport on the way home we met several guys from Detroit who had been working in Puebla where there is a big GM factory. They had spent 4 months in Mexico and had little but disdain for Mexico and Mexicans. The plumbing is terrible. Toilets are always backing up. They even put waste baskets beside the toilet so you can put your used paper there and not clog up the system. They had a litany of complaints about the technology and the culture.
As we engaged in conversation, for every negative thing they had to say, I managed to come up with two positive things that had happened to me. One of the men was holding a beautiful Talavera plate that he was taking home as a wedding present for his daughter. I admired it as well and explained to him how the Spanish had learned pottery making from the Arabs in the 8th century. They had been using beautifully adorned ceramics for centuries when Northern Europeans like my ancestors had been suing wooden plate and bowls.
We parted company when their plane was boarding. I felt a bit superior. More culturally sensitive, more open and broadminded, less bigoted then they did. In short, I was judgmental. And in being judgmental was my sin.
Today’s lesson from Romans reminds us that sin is an equal opportunity employer. To be human is to fall short. While we may be able to keep to the letter of the law in some circumstance, we cannot uphold the law’s spirit. “There is no distinction, St Paul writes, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
We were talking about this in Bible Study this past week. Sin is very sticky stuff. The law of God reveals our sin and shows us God’s goal for us, but we are constantly falling short. Our passage form St. Matthew is from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus goes out of his way to show us that we simply can not trust in our own righteous or our ability to keep the lsw.
“Thou shalt not kill.” It is a primary command. Yet Jesus goes on to say, “But I say to you if you are angry with your brother or sister you are liable to judgment and if you say “You fool” you will be liable to the hell of fire.”
None of us has to search our memory banks very far before finding gross examples of anger. The speed demon on I95 cuts us off before we can even get on the highway. A relative reminds us on an embarrassing moment that happened years ago in front of our whole gathered family and we flush red with fury and nurse the memory of the incident for days. What these incidents do is remind us of our need for mercy. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
In this same brilliant sermon, Jesus says, ”You have heard it said, “You shall not commit adultery” but I say to you anyone who looks at a person with lust has already committed adultery”. Of course, having an affair is much worse that eye balling some “body” in a bikini or a Speedo at the beach. But Jesus is simply reminding us that keeping to the laws commandments is not such a simple matter.
St. Paul starts his awesome “tour de force” that is the book of Romans in the same vein. Paul says it is human nature to want to be God, to every God’s place and power. We substitute created things – the things we can see, touch, and smell for the invisible power of God that we know lies behind all things. Let me read you Paul’s very words. Romans 1:24-32.
Paul starts out his list with the most obvious unnatural act he can think of, but then he goes on enlarging the territory and the noose to include everyone. He includes on his list envy, coveting, gossiping, foolish, faithless and heartlessness.
It is all inclusive. If you don’t find yourself somewhere on his list of sinners, you just simply are not being honest.
All have sinned. All will sin. Sin is not an infection we recover from or get over. Sin is a consequence of being a creature.
Without God’s forbearing love we would be hopeless and helpless.
But God gives us forbearance by taking our sin into himself in his son’s body We use the term Son of God to indicate Jesus’ relationship to the Divine God.
In using this term, Son, we always run the risk of separating Jesus from God in a fundamental way. As in – “well because they are distinct what happens to Jesus doesn’t happen to God.” Uh uh.
God knows, feels, participates in and suffers with Jesus on the cross. Paul uses the words “whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood.”
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Who We Are