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LENTEN SCRUBBING - The Soul

LENTEN SCRUBBING

The Soul

February 24, 2008

Text: 1 John 1:5-10

1 John 1:5-10

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

NRSV

”Scrubbing.” Body—one of the most spiritual things you can do is take care of your body. Mind—stop being a people critic, and get down on a “level” place with people, like Jesus did. Today—we’ll scrub the soul.

OK—This is a test. It’s a “closed bulletin” test.

Without looking, tell me what the order of service is—what comes first?

Now—don’t answer this out loud, but think about it. Which of these is your least favorite?

Chances are it’s that part titled, “CONFESSING, AND SEEKING GRACE.”

We put that part there, because we want you to feel…really, really bad. Miserable. We want you to squirm like a worm.

Well, no, that’s not the reason. We have that part there because after you praise God, you should see how you don’t measure up. It’s right to confess that, and receive forgiveness, before we move on to the rest of the service.

It might be your least favorite part for a number of reasons:

One—You don’t like it because you think it’s just the preacher fulfilling his job description. You do know, “Make people feel real guilty.” (Some preachers focus on that section more than others.)

Two—You don’t like feeling guilty, having your toes stepped on. You’d rather have the grace without the confession.

Three—You don’t think “confessing, and seeking grace,” is that easy. Have a sin? Confess it, be forgiven, move on. After all, we have to be done in an hour. Doesn’t seem it’s that easy, does it?

A fourth reason you might not like this part of the service is this: on most Sundays, you don’t feel like you have anything to confess.

A Presbyterian minister was in his first year at a church. His predecessor had taken out the confession of sins part from the Sunday worship. One of the first things this new pastor did was try to reinstate it. But resistance to the proposed change was fierce. Some members thought that confessing was too morbid a thing to do in church, where one’s spirits were supposed to be lifted up.

During the heat of the debate in a church meeting, one woman exclaimed, “I don’t have to apologize to God for anything!” The pastor was dumbfounded. “My seminary training hadn’t prepared me for this,” he said.

--Miroslav Volf, “Is it God’s business?” The Christian Century, November 8, 2000.

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO APOLOGIZE TO GOD FOR?

SHOULD WE INCLUDE A PRAYER OF CONFESSION OR NOT?

Well, if you have lived a nice life and haven’t hurt anybody dramatically, you might say, “Oh, let’s just have another upbeat hymn instead.”

But we have to be very, very careful.

What did the Scripture say today?

“ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…If we say we have not sinned, we make God out to be a liar, and his word is not in us.”

So friends, today as we look at “scrubbing our souls,” I think it’s important for us to take a look at what dirties them up. I want to present to you three facts about sin.

SIN IS MORE WIDESPREAD THAN WE CAN IMAGINE.

Probably most of us here haven’t sinned really dramatically, have we? We’ve all made mistakes, but probably most of us haven’t seen our names appear under the “Law and Order” section of the Post.

But we do “deceive” ourselves if we think that makes us somehow free from sin’s cancerous tentacles.

Back in the 1940’s William Temple was the Archbishop of Canterbury, a very prestigious position in the Church of England. He told of going to hear a famous American evangelist preaching about God’s forgiveness of sins. The text the preacher used was this: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

Temple said after hearing the preacher,

“Though I went to the meeting in a serious, enquiring spirit, I found myself quite unmoved, for, alas, my sins were not scarlet, they were gray — all gray. They were not dramatic acts of rebellion and violent self-affirmation, but the colorless, tired sins of omission, inertia and timidity.”

The “gray” sins. The “colorless, tired sins of omission, inertia, and timidity.”

Sort of like when…

You keep remembering that thing the person did to you—and you make sure the person remembers it, too.

You face the future with fear and despair, regardless of how faithful God’s been in the past.

You bend your values in order to be liked.

You spend your money on “bigger, better, best,” instead of giving to God “first and foremost.”

You spend your money on reducing wrinkles, while children in Africa die from AIDS or malaria or tainted drinking water.

You use “creative” accounting on your tax return.

You judge others by superficial standards—you don’t question the stereotypes.

You have a character flaw you like to deny—impatience, anger, selfishness, jealousy, stubbornness, excessive vanity…[fill in the blank].

You hurt someone by a careless word or action, and refuse to say “I’m sorry”—if you acknowledge the hurt at all.

You let lust and selfishness, not love and selflessness, shape a relationship.

You buy things that were made by people in foreign countries where human rights are a joke, and working conditions are inhumane.

Can we all say, “Ouch!”

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.”

When you put these little gray sins all together like we just did, they don’t seem quite so little, or gray, do they?

They even become more obvious in those times when…

WE DISCOVER OUR SIN BY SEEING ITS CONSEQUENCE.

One of the truths of life is this: what you do, or don’t do, comes back to you.

It’s in those times when you become aware of the consequences that you become aware of just how widespread sin is.

A few years ago there was an autobiography written by one of the greatest con men of all time. The book was Catch Me if You Can, by Frank Abagnale. Abagnale said that a turning point in his life of crime was when he discovered the consequences of what he was doing.

As I grew older, I started to understand fear and consequences. I missed my parents, family, friends, and home. I started to realize that if I went into a bank and wrote a $500 bad check, it was no longer a matter that the billion dollar bank was out $500, but that maybe the teller lost their job because I convinced them they should break a rule and cash a check for me.

All of us have had experiences like this—when our thoughtlessness or selfishness comes back to haunt us.

You’re selfish with your money—and you find that money becomes your god, something you obsess over and are fearful of losing.

You hold onto that grudge—and you develop stomach problems or hypertension.

You get that promotion by prostituting your values—and you know how empty you feel in that corner office.

You say that sharp, bitter word to someone—and you can’t get out of your mind the shock and hurt you saw in their face.

You know what I mean?

These times that rebound back are wakeup calls for us to take a hard look at ourselves, inside and outside.

Yet, the third rule of sin comes into play here:

WE RESIST DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

To illustrate this, let me turn to that deep theological movie—A Christmas Story.

In one of the unforgettable scenes, a boy named Flick got his tongue stuck on a frozen light pole during recess.

A couple of his buddies had put him up to it, had “triple dog dared” him. He was rescued, but didn’t squeal on his friends. This is when the teacher tries to “guilt out” a confession.

Is that what we think?

“It’s always better to not get caught.”

Or, “It’s better to just forget it, and it’ll go away.”

Or, “It’s better to move on to other things—the past is past.”

BUT…a stain is still a stain. Dirt that isn’t washed away gets ground in.

God expects us to take responsibility for cleaning up our souls. Look at the dirt, don’t ignore it. Lift it up honestly to God, for cleaning. [After all, it’s only God who has a cleaner strong enough to get the stain out.] THEN you discover the joy and power of that thing one old ex-slave trader called, “amazing grace.”

“If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Max Lucado knows the power of that verse.

He told of a time when he took his daughter to a park not far from their apartment. She was a toddler, which meant she went straight for the sandbox. Fulfilling her job description, she dove into the sand as if it were a swimming pool.

While she was playing, an ice cream salesman comes up. Max buys a treat for his little girl. He turns to give it to her. She sees the ice cream, and breaks out into a huge smile—revealing a mouth full of sand. Where he had intended to put a delicacy, she had put sand.

Now, did he love her with dirt in her mouth? Absolutely. Was he going to allow her to keep the dirt in her mouth? No way. He loved her right where she was, but he refused to leave her there. He carried her over to the water fountain and washed out her mouth. Why? Because he loved her.

Max says,

God does the same for us. God holds us over the fountain. “Spit out the dirt, honey, I’ve got something better for you.” And so God cleanses us of filth: immorality, dishonesty, prejudice, bitterness, greed. We don’t enjoy the cleansing; sometimes we even opt for the dirt over the ice cream. “I can eat dirt if I want to!” we pout…Which is true — we can. But if we do, the loss is ours.

--Lucado, Just Like Jesus

The main part of my job description is NOT to step on your toes. I trust you’ll step on your own toes at the appropriate time.

My main job is to say, “God cleans you up, because God has something better for you.” God has in mind for you a life of joy…peace…hope… strength… happiness that can’t be touched by anything in this world.

Every one of us has sand in her/his mouth. Maybe you’ve been reminded in this sermon its grittiness. Take some time this [morning/evening], come up to the altar, let God rinse out the sand. God has something better, sweeter, cleaner for you.

Come, “taste and see” that the Lord IS good.

Come!