Well, there’s yet another Superman movie out. This is what, the seventh? Ninth? I looked it up on Google, and folks disagreed
on their lists. At least seven,
anyway. And TV shows back to the 50s,
with some as recent as a few years back. And comic books – whoops, I’m now supposed to say ‘graphic novels.’ Little history of Superman blurb – two high
school guys from Cleveland are credited with the first idea back in 1933. They
had a background history for him, but basically focused on his adult
super-human powers that were used for good.
Superman is an iconic figure in our culture – everybody knows
who he is. If I say Superman, most of
you could say back, “Truth, justice and the American way.” Everybody knows that kryptonite is his
weakness, his Achilles’ heel – an image from another time in history. Most everybody knows Lex Luthor and Lois Lane,
the Joker and the Riddler.
We are fascinated SO with Superman! In our age of wanting to understand the
motivations and psychology of a figure that has attained mythological stature,
we make movie after movie and TV series after TV series to wonder what it must
have been like for him growing up, wondering when he came into his powers and
how he dealt with it, how he handled his teenage angst, we ponder if he is
tempted to use his powers to win football games or save Lois’ life. We like to think about these things. And the movies are usually a hit.
This kind of inner exploration of thought and motive is we’re used to in writings of our time. I read a troubling book recently whose main
characters were a son who became a school shooter and his mother. It was difficult to read, but I couldn't put it down. (That troubled me, too.) We wonder how these young people get formed
this way, what made them turn out like this. And it’s not just the psychology of serial killers that intrigue us, because
there are even more biographies and autobiographies of good people, exploring how
their early lives formed them.
So the brief and terse accounts of Jesus’ life are frustrating
to us. We want things explained more
fully. We want historical accuracy and
footnotes. We want more details, more
analysis of his time and culture and his place in it. We base our faith on Jesus, and we want to
understand more about him. Jesus is the
center of our salvation story, and we have lots of questions. Of course there are lots of plays and movies about Jesus as
well, and libraries full of historical and cultural analyses of his time, how
his Jewishness interacted with the Roman Empire, various suggestions put
forward as to how to hear his words. And
there are many, many sermons.
The can he sin or can't he sin question
This morning’s suggested topic is one of those questions that
attempt to fathom who Jesus is and what he is. The question submitted asked, “Was Jesus Fallible?” Our knee-jerk, gut reaction is, “Of course
not! He was God!” I can play out how the debate goes in my
imagination, “Then how could he be fully human and know about sin, and how
could it be a virtue that he resisted it?”
Ah ha! We affirm in our creeds
and doctrines that Jesus was also fully human, that he was tempted as we are,
yet without sin. So Jesus must have been
able to sin, he must have been fallible. But those same creeds and doctrines affirm that Jesus was also fully
God, and God can’t sin. “So,” responds our arguing friend, “we can’t compare Jesus to ourselves because he had this
built-in advantage all the time. And we can’t expect ourselves to resist like
he did.” So the question is actually asking,
how can Jesus be human and Divine at the same time? Systematic theology and our creeds have tried
to answer this paradox. But an even deeper layer of
the question is pastoral, and it’s about my relationship with Jesus - does
Jesus really know my struggles? Our struggles? Did God really
take on the human condition and know our pain? Can God really understand?
The short answer is "Yes." The passage we read from
Philippians 2 lays it out for us. Here it
is from The Message: 7-8 When the
time came, Jesus set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a
slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly
humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a
selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst
kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
I think that’s pretty clear that Jesus was fully human. And felt the things we feel. And was tempted in the ways we are. Evidently we can’t excuse ourselves for falling prey to
temptation by saying Jesus had a special grace and that’s how HE did it. We can’t let ourselves off the hook for striving
towards the same kind of spiritual life, obedience, faithfulness and insight Jesus
had.
No question about us being fallible...
We CAN have the assurance, however, that Jesus understands the struggle we have with fallibility. Let's use the old-fashioned word - sin. An understanding of ourselves as sinners is so crucial that we incorporate
a common confession and assurance of pardon in every worship service. We can’t approach the Divine without
realizing we are created creatures, limited not only by the confines of our
mortal life between birth and death, but also limited in understanding,
compassion, submission. My favorite
verse in the Bible since way back in my teen years has been just a few verses
further in Philippians 2 - 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you
both to will and to work for his good pleasure. I've taken much assurance from the fact
that God is working in me even when I WILL to do righteous things, because God
knows I don’t always live up to even what I know is right. And I am also aware there’s much I don’t
comprehend even beyond that.
We see evidence of
human fallibility daily in the news. Our
creative minds that bring about arts and inventions and scientific inquiry and
exploration of the creation, are equally creative when it comes to doing evil
and serving death. Our compassionate
hearts that reach out to assist are equally able to close off and not care. We are incredibly fallible.
And not only are we great at sinning, we
are also great at deceiving ourselves about our fallibility. It’s no fun to look at our fallibility, and
it’s even less fun to see that choice is involved. Yet this is the very path of salvation – the
inner work of knowing ourselves, the corners of our hearts – seeing and
acknowledging and repenting – and humbly accepting God’s love and
forgiveness.
Forgiveness & healing
The spiritual life involves seeing more and
more of just how fallible we are, and letting God’s forgiveness restore us,
heal us, at a deeper and deeper level.
Things happen to us and we see truths about ourselves we’d really rather
not have seen; people come into our lives for good and for ill, and we learn
more about ourselves that we’d really rather not have known. Most of us would much rather be challenged to
go do some helpful things, some missions that make us feel good about ourselves
perhaps, some recognition that we are trying hard to be pleasing to God. We want to think well of ourselves – that’s
human nature. We don’t like admitting
that less than wonderful parts of ourselves exist.
Sometimes those unacceptable places in ourselves get pushed
down so deep that we think they’re gone – that's our Dr.
Jeckyll. Except we also have our Mr.
Hyde – those unacceptable parts get triggered and come around like a
scorpion tail to hurt. Sometimes we project those negative things out onto
someone else and get mad at them, punish them, we make them a scapegoat. Sometimes we do this to whole groups of people, a whole race, or a whole gender, or a whole socio-economic class – or a whole
political party. Anybody but me! Then we can righteously be
vindictive and mean to those people, like we would like to do with those unseen
parts of ourselves. We are a complex
people.
Yet before we can be healed, the truth God reveals is that
these things are realities of our own lives, things we
have to let God’s light shine on, and humbly repent, giving up that false
persona and becoming real again.
Jesus, unique person that he was, did this perfectly – he was
so much in tune with God and one with God that he fulfilled the whole Law, and
walked in the kindom of God even as he walked on earth. And we have declared ourselves to be his
followers, his disciples. That means we are seeking to be like him. This week, may
we be challenged to recognize these impulses and resist them as true disciples
of Christ, who was tempted in every way like as we are, yet without sin. AMEN.
Beautifully stated. Amen!
ReplyDeleteBeautifully stated. Amen!
ReplyDelete