Trespass And Death

The word, “trespass” has technical meaning that most people don’t think about. Usually, folks see the word in a “Do Not Trespass” sign. That is, ‘Don’t be here unless you’re invited.’

Legally, a trespass is a crime against real property. A trespass occurs when someone enters onto another’s property without permission or legal excuse. The law is absolute: it doesn’t matter if you were lost and wandered in, you were trying to catch a Frisbee and landed on the other side of the property line, or were intent on committing a felony within. It doesn’t matter that you caused no harm to the property. It doesn’t matter the motivation or circumstances – if you enter the property, you have trespassed. Just crossing that line is an injury to the owner – specifically, that owner’s property rights. This includes both under the surface (mineral rights) and above the surface (airspace).

Even deeper, any violation of another’s person, property, or land is a “trespass.” The core idea is 'interference.' If you smack someone upside the head: trespass to the person, specifically battery. If you take someone’s property for your own use: trespass of property, specifically robbery or conversion. And so forth.

That brings us to the text:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1 ESV)

Here’s the thing: when we trespass against God’s order, we violate his ‘rights.’ God, as Creator of … everything, has the ‘right’ to not have his stuff messed with. That not only means the physical stuff of creation, but also the way things are supposed to be. God set up the world so that it would work in a particular way. The way things are now are not the way they are supposed to be. Who messed it up? We did. And we continue to mess things up. We continue to mess people up. We continue to mess up how things are supposed to be. We have stepped outside of our bounds and stepped onto God’s ‘rights.’

But that sounds rather dry, technical, and abstract. Another translation uses the term, “offenses against God.” This shapes our understanding that our bad behavior (sin) is a personal affront to God.

 “Offenses against God” – the phrase hit me as significant. All the wrong I have done is an insult to God: how he intended things to work and people to be. My sins have caused various breaks in God’s peace (shalom) – some minor, some major. They are trespasses for which I showed lack of respect and honor to God, who is the Creator and King. I admit to those things. I admit I am a sinner.

What the text then says is that my condition was death. Now I didn’t feel dead – but the whole narrative of the Bible tells me that what I feel now is really like a Novocain induced fog compared to the way it’s supposed to be. In fact, says the Bible, I was born into an alienated relationship with God – a separation. I was born into sin. I didn’t know it at the time.

When I was growing up in the late 1950’s and ‘60’s in Los Angeles, I knew that the sky was always a hazy brown, that you shouldn’t breathe too deeply, and that all sunsets were a spectacular diffused orange. That’s the way it was. Then people told me something that I didn’t know. The air is supposed to be a vivid light blue, your lungs shouldn’t hurt when you breathe deeply, and that a real sunset was really more spectacular and subtle than what I knew. I didn’t feel like the sky was broken, but it was. And it took a complex of Herculean political and engineering tasks to clean up the air in the L.A. basin over the next few decades. In the meantime, I’ve lived in Alaska, western Washington, and southeast Michigan – as well as travelling to other places – where the sky was not broken. Now I know more of what the sky should be like.

We don’t feel like we are separated from God because that’s what it’s been like. Some of us get that little niggling thing that something isn’t right. But we ignore it, tell ourselves to get over it, and move on.

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 tells us: we are dead to him, because of our sin.

But.

That doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

Pastors, Maturity or Elitism?

“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready…” 1 Corinthians 3:1-2

Spiritual elitism is a subtle sin. It is sin because a significant component of elitism is pride. Pride, said one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers, is the first – maybe even the root – sin.

One of the factors that brought me into vocational ministry in mid-life was a season of spiritual renewal that started about ten years ago. Several things converged together to create a storm that re-awakened my love for Jesus, my desire to serve him at a greater level, and to sharpen my biblical-theological understanding. In summary, my spiritual life ramped up.

As I entered into this new ‘neighborhood’ of faith, I had to realize that not everyone around me was in the same place. I had to fight the idea that I was in a “better” spiritual place than my other friends. In fact, one of the minor frustrations that some of my other pastoral mentors have admitted to is a relative lack of faith in their congregations and even in church leadership. Certainly, your average spiritually-healthy full-time vocational pastor should be more spiritually mature and is committed to living a life of faith in service to Jesus than most of his congregation. But that can be frustrating. The pastor says: ‘I see the blessings that can come into your life if you’d trust God more fully, but you don’t want to really do that.’

I wonder if Paul was a similarly frustrated: “I’d really want to get you folks to a greater level of maturity, but you are acting like babies. Since you aren’t ready to go further, I can’t treat you like grown-ups so that’s why I treat you like babies.” Ouch.

Now I think there is a distinction between understanding that your spiritual journey is a bit farther down the road than some others of your friends, and the sin implied in thinking that you are better than those who haven’t travelled as far. Paul was also careful to recognize this sin – especially in the context of church leadership – when he refers to Proverbs 16:18 (‘Pride goes before a fall’) in his first letter to Timothy (3:6). And again, Paul says this to every Christian when he warns us to understand ourselves rightly (Rom. 12:3) – not too high or too low.

I’m still coming to grips in understanding this distinction because this is an area where I fall into sin. But I think the distinction is this: a proper pastoral concern for his flock’s relative immaturity focuses on them; but spiritual elitism is self-centered and is much more about the sinner’s reputation, esteem, and ‘position.’

This is where Paul’s frustration comes in: he cares very much for his friends at the church he planted and wants them to enjoy more blessings in Jesus. But they are so distracted by personality cults, ‘toleration’ and moral relativism, dysfunctional conflict, weird ideas about marriage, superstitions, money, church time, spiritual gifts, and a confused understanding about the gospel. All of these problems are preventing many of the folks in the church from living the lives that God wants for them. This is frustrating!

This would be like a parent who watches his children divide up Halloween candy and get into a terrible fight over one piece of Tootsie Roll while completely missing the pile of candy that they each have in front of them. The mature parent doesn’t point out the silliness of their fight because he or she wants to appear wise and morally superior; no, the mature parent realizes that the kids are missing the overwhelming blessings of a sugar-induced coma because of a very minor thing. They want their kids to learn perspective: don’t focus on the little thing, consider the big pile in front of you – especially when the little thing is keeping you from the big pile.

So from this section of scripture, I see some interesting pastoral applications. And my conclusions is this: a pastor has to be just a tad set apart to help people along on their spiritual journey. As Eugene Peterson says: “It is the pastor’s responsibility to keep the community attentive to God.” (Working the Angles, 2).

Repentance and Over-reaction

We've been going through the book of Nehemiah since the first of the year. It has been a good study and we've seen some interesting perspectives preached from our team. One of the frustrations I've had in preaching is that I feel like I've come across some great thoughts but - because of time constraints - couldn't preach them.

Other times, like now, I think over a passage I just preached and suddenly realize something about the passage that didn't occur to me until *after* I've supposedly fully preached on it.

Of course, that is one thing a blog can be useful for: communicating some ideas that didn't quite make it into the final cut of the sermon. This is one of those times.

On March 1st, I preached on Nehemiah 9. The passage is very powerful. In summary, the people gather for 'church' and read the Bible for three hours straight. Then, for the next three hours they confessed their sins and worshipped God. One point I made in my sermon (which is good to repeat) is that the people first got Bible input, next they confessed, then they could properly worship.

But this got me thinking, two weeks later, about their confession and repentance. There are several instances when this pattern occurs. It seems to be a pattern of revival: the Bible is 'rediscovered,' read, and people realize that they have completely ignored the requirements that God expects of them. They realize that they have been living in utter rebellion to the righteous judge of the universe. This is a bad situation! Then they confess their sin, make changes to repent, and even make restitution for the wrongs they've committed, all so that they will be reconciled to the loving and gracious God, Yahweh.

This happens most notoriously in the reign of king Josiah when they actually stumble across the Bible while doing a periodic remodeling of the Temple - apparently nobody really cared much about the Bible in times previous (2Chr. 34). It happens again in Ezra (chapter 9 and 10), a couple of times in Nehemiah (Neh. chapters 8 and 9).

Here's a weird thing: when we read stories about how the people read their Bibles, then were profoundly convicted, made a big scene of confession and declare repentance; we are tempted think "over-reaction." Really! In our sophisticated, hyper-suspicious post-modern perspectivalistic meta-narrative; we think those people back then were all about the drama and making a big deal about what certainly are minor issues. Clearly, we believe in all our post-modern smugness, they were over-reacting and really needed to chill.

Well, here's our problem. The Bible says that all *those* folks actually reacted properly. According to the Bible, this means that they got it right and we've got it wrong.

I'm thinking about that. What would it mean about my own personal sensitivity to God's holiness and my own sinfulness if I felt so guilty (heavens! there's a word we don't use today) about my wickedness that I would actually feel compelled to wail (who "wails" these days?), throw dirt all over myself, and tear my clothes?

By the way, why *did* they tear their clothes? Well, clothes were invented a Very Long Time Ago (Gen. 3:7) for the express purpose of hiding our 'real' selves - to hide our sinfulness. From that time to this, clothing has been a way of hiding our true natures and making ourselves somehow to appear better than we are. When people 'rent their garments,' it seems to me that they were actually making a very powerful statement of their confession: "Lord, here I really am: I've been hiding behind these clothes (and other things) - be merciful to me, a sinner!"

Back to the point: what kind of confession and resulting repentance would that really mean if I were so humbled by God's holiness that I would authentically wail out loud at my sinfulness? Well, people around me would certainly consider that rather awkward. That would definitely be "not cool."

Hmmmm. I wonder at which attitude God regards more? The attitude that says, "Dude; chill out! Man, you don't see me getting all emo and narcissistic about all my issues, do you?" or "God be merciful to me, a sinner." Look at Luke 18:10-14 for the answer.

All this tells me that I am not as convicted about my sin as I should be.

Wisdom and Foolishness

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1Cor. 1:18

I was reading this passage and it struck me anew. For the past six months I've been reminded (and irritating my friends) time and time again by saying that "God is smart and we are stupid." My purpose in repeating this near-mantra is to remind my friends - but especially myself - of a simple reality. Life's issues are hard and complex. That's why we need Jesus (who is the smartest man whoever lived and - oh, by the way, also God) to help us. Rather than rely on our own cleverness, we need to develop the kind of relationship with Jesus that allows him to help us through life's problems.

This passage also strikes at the whole "are-you-really-as-clever-as-you-think-you-are?" thing. When we look at Paul's analysis (and Paul was no mean intellect) both here and other places, we see how very clever God was in using the apparently foolish, weak, low, and non-existent to bring forth something that now is clearly wise, strong, high, and obvious - at least, to those who are being saved.

I've had the interesting experience of rubbing elbows with some pretty smart people. Truly, when you go through law school you really do meet 'scary smart' people and the 'debaters of this age.' And I've met other smart people: physicians, scientists, engineers, business leaders, political operatives, etc. They really understand how things work and can put ideas and facts together to make sense of the world. They understand how this world works.

But - and here's the problem - this world, as it works today, is "not the way it's supposed to be." The world, in this sense, is in profound rebellion to the benevolent judge who created it. And that's utterly ironic as these clever people just don't get it. They are the very ones who ought to be the most perceptive in understanding and discerning what is obvious about God from just observing the created world around them. Paul, in his letter to Romans, makes the case that both the observers of nature and the ethical "moralists" have deliberately ignored the obvious: that God exists, is moral, is personal, and will judge wrong-doing.

Why? Why should such clever people miss the obvious? Well, over in that letter to Romans Paul states that it is not an intellectual issue as much as a issue of the will - they just choose to go the other direction. Back in this passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul give us another insight: "For since (in the wisdom of God) the world did not know God through wisdom ..." (1:21). That is, God cleverly constructed the world in such a way that knowledge about him couldn't be gained through only the intellectual elite.

So - and this is part of "the wisdom of God" - it turns out that very normal folks like you and me can "get it." And it really is very simple: Jesus is good and deserves all the good things, I am bad and deserve all the bad things, Jesus (because he is Really Good) willingly took the punishment that I deserved and gave me his good things. Now that's pretty good news and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to appreciate that. If for no other reason than the science of rocketry wasn't invented until 2000 years later. :-) Back to my point: the good news ("gospel") is pretty easily understood by anyone from five to ninety-five. That's one thing that makes God cleverer than the world.

It is helpful, I think, to note that Paul doesn't bash on intellectuals just because they are smart. Notice he does say that the church, while it doesn't have loads of clever and powerful people in it, apparently does have a few (1Cor. 1:26). I think the point here is that God opposess "elite-ism;" whether "elite" because of worldly power or "non-elite" because lack of seeming influence. God has little regard for power politics. "God is opposed to the proud..." (Prov 3:34; Ps 138:6; Jas 4:6, 1Pt 5:5).