Reaping as we have sown

Something precious has died.

A treasure of great value has been lost -- a priceless pearl, trampled.

I suppose it's our own fault. For far too long, we have done our level best to fit in, to make people comfortable in our presence, to cause no undue heartache or pain.

Maybe it began when we first started blessing the weddings of non-believers, who wanted all the trappings of a Christian wedding without any of the commitment.

Perhaps it is our eagerness to offer heaven-sent comfort to the bereaved, even the bereaved of one who never knew Jesus. A news story came across the wire several weeks ago of a priest who was being sued by a family because, based on his personal knowledge of the deceased, allegedly cast aside all hope of the deceased making it to heaven.

I have no idea the outcome of the story, nor the circumstances surrounding it, but I do find it intriguing that the family, who also presumably knew the deceased, would be surprised to hear that his life choices negated any heavenly reward.

This is not an ally-ally outs in free game of hide and seek.

In today's world however, it's fashionable to give every kid who shows up to compete a ribbon. That way nobody gets hurt feelings or walks away with a poor self-image. As the recipient of more white consolation ribbons than any other color, I'm here to tell you, I figured it out. It merely postponed the inevitable truth of my total lack of athletic ability. I got over it, and now enjoy a good laugh over my ill-fated attempts at the hurdles, the uneven bars, softball and tennis. All bets are off if I ever have to climb a rope to safety. I'm a goner. If I couldn't pull myself up a rope at 78 pounds, I'm not going to succeed at nearly twice that weight.

Oh, don't get me wrong. We put conditions on Christianity -- you bet we did. No dancing, no cussing, no smoking, no card playing, etc., ad infinitum. Some of those taboos still exist, and each deal with an outward appearance of righteousness, or lack thereof.

But we backpedaled on the issues that matter.

Marriage. Divorce. Adultery. Faith. Commitment. Repentance. New life. The exclusivity of Christ and Christianity.

John 3:16, precious though it is, is not the only verse in the Bible. Continue reading from that point, and see that "Light has come into the world but men loved darkness more than light because their deeds were evil."

Grace, all sufficient, is the compelling aspect of Christianity. And it flows from the one who died to save us from our sin.

That does not mean that sin is dead. Look around and you see that sin is alive and well -- thriving in fact.

The Christian, however, is dead to sin. Why else would Jesus admonish the woman caught in adultery with "Then neither do I condemn you, go now and leave your life of sin." (John 8:11) Nor does it mean that that which was once sin is sin no longer.

In the midst of the current controversy over the ordination of an openly gay bishop in the Episcopalian church, the man thus ordained said, "God is doing a new thing."

Yet we know that God is unchanging. The same yesterday, today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) Sin remains a stench in his nostrils.

This is a discussion that should never have begun, a controversy that should have died before it was born. Jesus understood full well the cost of following him. He did not hide it nor seek to soft-soap the issue. In Mark 9:43-48 Jesus acknowledges that some sins are so powerful, their attraction so strong, that to turn from them will leave us feeling less than whole, incomplete, maimed, lame, even blind.

And there are sins that compelling. The man having an affair, who has lost his heart to a woman not his wedded wife, knows that he cannot continue in that sin, but cries in anguish, "How can I live apart from her?" This sin, when abandoned, will leave a lifelong scar.

Nevertheless Jesus said, "It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out."

I wrote a story last week about the Christian flag being flown at half-staff at St. Alban's Episcopal Church. The next day, the flag was gone.

One explanation offered was that someone who strongly opposed the decision of the General Convention had removed the flag, believing it had no business on the property -- that the church had forfeited its right to be called a Christian church and therefore forfeited the right to fly the flag. Sort of like the removal of lampstand from the church in Ephesus recorded in Revelation 2:5.

A counter-rumor credits a more tolerant member of the church, affronted by the message of the flag at half-staff, removing the flag and therefore the message of mourning.

It hardly matters. The flag is gone.

Is the lampstand?

"If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives." I John 1:10

-- Dawn Cribbs believes that where there is life there is hope and she hopes that this present darkness will be overcome with truth.