Other People’s Sins

I know someone who is starting a divorce. I was telling him that, before I regained my hope of salvation, I might have married someone unsuitable. The person I was speaking with waived away that concern. "You could have married her and just seen if it would work out."

I exploded. "I just can’t! That’s not biblical!"

"Not biblical." It probably came across as "NOT BIBLICAL!" Harsh words to a man at the beginning of a divorce. 

But I was jolted by that attitude. Yet, I might have served him and me better by staying calm and understanding how he and I are alike.

1. The curse of talent.

It’s easy to be outraged by someone else’s sin.

It’s like a judge I was in front of in Orange County. At a hearing for a violation of my client’s probation, I was explaining my client’s mitigating circumstances. My middle-aged client had lost her husband, who had discovered that, with his new prosperity, he was now attractive to a girl no older than their daughter. Also, my client had always enjoyed excellent health, but she had started having seizures. Her marriage and her health were the solid ground under her feet, and they had crumbled beneath her. As her ground wobbled, her morality had wobbled.

But the judge cut me off. She said, "I’ve had a hard life, too. If I could overcome, anyone can."

I was angry that the judge believed that everybody had her gift for overcoming hardship. Good for her, but not everybody has that gift.

I worked under a woman who was an organizational genius. She couldn’t fathom my disorganization. On the other hand, she seemed not to grasp the overarching theme of a criminal case; I was much better at that than she was.

Some of my friends are great athletes. They love to exercise. Others don’t naturally find in themselves that gift of physicality. It’s not laziness; it’s different-ness.

2. Doing right, doing wrong.
 
And I seem to follow some biblical directions more easily than others. Passing over my virtues, here are some ways that I tend to fall short.


Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. [Matthew 5:39-42 (NRSV).]
I have resisted lawsuits against me; I routinely say No to people in the street who ask for money; and I don’t lend to every person who wants to borrow from me. And that would make me "unbiblical."

And:
[E]veryone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [Matthew 5:27 (NRSV).]
I won’t give details; trust me.

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." [Matthew 25:41-46 (NRSV).]
I have a closet-full of expensive suits, and there is a continent-worth of hungry people in the world.

(I see a trend. These are all from the book of Matthew. Is there an argument that Matthew doesn’t belong in the Bible? Anyone?)

3. The gift of discontent.

Enough. Point made. I’m grateful that God has enabled me to have what virtues I have. But when they come to mind, my faults make me uncomfortable. They humble me (and I need humility); they make me know that I depend upon grace; and they give me an ache to be better than I am – and good must come of that.

No small part of that discomfort is my distance from the dominant theology of this American age -- a theology that says that salvation is easy. I will never lack need of grace; but with God’s help I will continue to be better at seeking and doing the will of God. That’s because "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." (Matthew 7:21 (NRV).)

4. Sympathy.

But I fall short. God have mercy when I forget that.

So I can’t judge this divorcing person. He made a mistake that I’ve somehow avoided, and he can’t bear the burden of the bad marriage. People fall under all kinds of temptations that aren’t tempting to me, or that are, but I manage to resist them. But I succumb to faults that others walk away from.

5. Preaching and futility.

And maybe I shouldn’t judge churches that screech against homosexuality as if men were slipping out their backdoor together even as the preacher preached; but in fact everyone sitting solemnly in the chairs in front of the preacher is like-minded on that subject.

I wonder about churches that preach sermon after sermon about the evil of abortion, yet nobody who attends that church would remotely consider an abortion.

I wonder about the liberal minister who preached an Easter sermon to Barack Obama and condemned the hard-heartedness of Republican politicians.

All of their own sins are dealt with? They have to talk of the sins of others?


6. Priorities.

Flight crews instruct passengers that in case oxygen masks come down, each passenger should put on his own mask before helping others. The Bible is like that.

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. [Matthew 7:3-5 (NRSV).]
So true. And so common in our consciousness that – I think I can speak for myself here – we risk losing sight of it’s power.

7.  Joy in heaven.

Luke 15:7 says that angels rejoice when a sinner repents. It’s not easy for me to change my ways, but it’s easier for me to change my ways than it is for me to make someone else change theirs. So if I make joy in heaven, it will more likely happen when I look in, not out.