One of my favorite lessons in confirmation class is to give the kids Sour Patch Kids candy. After we’ve all had some I ask, “Are they sweet or are they sour?” The kids usually pause with a puzzled look. Then they start sputtering out something about how they’re sour at first but then become sweet. So, I ask again, “Are they sweet or are they sour?” Eventually we get around to the answer that they’re both. Sour Patch Kids are a candy that is both sweet and sour.
Then I ask another question. “Are you basically good or basically
bad?” With the prompting of the Sour
Patch Kids candy they’re ready with the answer: they’re both. That then opens the door for a discussion
about a fundamental thing about our nature.
Human beings are simultaneously saints and sinners. We all have good motives and bad motives at
work within us. We may try to always do
what is right. But try as we might, we
end up doing things that are bad.
Perhaps it is because we are lazy.
Or perhaps it is out of ignorance.
Or perhaps it is because we just don’t care and willfully do something that
is bad. Regardless, both good and bad
exist within all of us at all times.
I leave the discussion there with
the confirmation class. That’s an
appropriate level of understanding for a teenager’s mind. However, in worship today we want to take it
one step further. That step is small but
its consequences are big. It chooses a
path that will lead to very different places.
That next step is the question, “Which is stronger within us: the good or the bad?” Or another way of saying it is, “Are humans basically
good or are they basically bad?”
You may find yourself pondering that
for a while. There are many things to
consider. You may change your mind many
times over. Philosophers have spun that
question round and round for centuries. There
may seem to be no clear answer.
However,
traditional Christian theology has always had a clear and consistent
answer. Humans are basically bad. Period.
That’s hard news, but it is the truth.
In Romans 7:21-25 St. Paul writes, “So I find it to be a law that when I
want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost
self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind,
making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of
death? Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord!”
While we are
indeed a mix of good and bad, the bad is the stronger side of us. If people could be counted on to be basically
good, then our whole history and our whole religion would be different. God would not have had to come in the form of
Jesus to save us. God could have just
given us rules and laws to live by. God
could then count on the good within us to be drawn to those laws and follow
them.
But we are
fundamentally bad. Thus, Jesus needed to
come to save us. We cannot save
ourselves. Jesus taught many things that
could be called good morality. But
Jesus’ purpose was not to teach morality.
Jesus came to die for us in order to rescue us from the inescapable power
of evil.
Even our very best
attempts at goodness end up causing bad effects. Consider Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert
Schweitzer. Schweitzer was a medical
doctor, professional musician, and missionary.
He won the Nobel Prize for his “sanctity of all life” ideas. Schweitzer considered all of life to be
valuable – from complex humans to simple single-celled organisms. He said it should all be respected.
Albert Schweitzer
worked many years in Africa to build hospitals and improve medicine. He is perhaps the most important person in
vaccinating African children. He is
probably the single most responsible person for child mortality rates falling
in the world.
Schweitzer was
undeniably a good person. He worked very
hard. He was selfless. He sought what was good for all living
things. And yet, what are the long term
results of his good efforts?
Do you remember third
law of motion in physics? “For every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That goes for more than just objects. It goes for human motives as well. There is no good thing that we do that does
not also lead to terrible consequences.
Because of Schweitzer’s good work human populations began to soar;
overcrowding the planet. It has been
noted in Africa that instead of children as infants they now grow up to kill
each other in wars over food.
No matter how good
we try to be, an equal and opposite will come to be. There’s just no way of ever escaping it.
Should we give up
trying to be good? Should we do things
that are bad so that good things result as their opposite? Certainly not! But it all does remind us of how trapped our
lives are in sin.
This does not play
well in our society today. Our society
today is based on the idea that people are basically good. We tell ourselves that with enough education
people can be expected to know what is right and to do it. We tell ourselves that there’s no problem
technology can’t solve. We tell
ourselves that with things like recycling and “clean” energy that we actually
save the planet from environmental destruction.
In our society
Christianity’s traditional claims that we are basically bad are actually seen
as part of the problem. We’re told that
Christianity’s focus on the bad is one of the things that is holding back human
progress. One of the major reasons
churches are declining is because of this.
This shouldn’t
surprise us. People want to hear good
things. They want to feel good about
themselves. They want to be told they
are good. They want to believe that by
their own goodness they can save themselves.
This has
implications for our faith as well. I
believe one of the reasons people have such a hard time hearing God’s voice is
because we live in a society that is constantly telling us we are good. Our society tells us to look within ourselves
for self-fulfillment. How is God
supposed to speak to us when we always look inside?
In the gospel
reading we met two elderly people who seem to be able to hear God well. They are Simeon and Anna.
Simeon is called
righteous and devout. We might be
tempted to think this is because Simeon has somehow discovered the right way to
live. Perhaps he has, but it is not
because he is looking within himself for goodness. He knows that salvation must come from
outside himself. While holding the baby
Jesus he says, “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in
the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for
glory to your people Israel.” Notice
that all of this is about what God is doing.
There is nothing about what Simeon is doing. Simeon does not look to himself. He is always looking to God. Simeon knew he needed God’s grace. That is a big part of why he was able to
recognize it.
We aren’t told as
much about Anna. We’re just told that
she is 84 years old and that she worships in the temple with fasting and prayer
night and day. Luke doesn’t record many of
her words. From what she does say we
realize that she is like Simeon. She is
looking to God, and not to humanity, for salvation.
Are we basically
good or are we basically bad? Society
wants to tell us that we are good.
Society will tell us that we humans can save everything and do
everything right. But that puts us in an
inescapable downward spiral. Our
Christian faith wants to tell us that we are basically bad. That is not meant to depress us. And it is not meant to say that we are always
driven by selfish and evil intentions.
It is meant to remind us that even at our best we can’t help making a
mess. We just can’t escape it. So, like St. Paul we cry, “Who will rescue me
from this body of death? Thanks be to
God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
It is by
acknowledging our fundamental inability to make things right in the world that
we turn to God. When we turn to God in
this way we then have our ears open to hear God’s words to us. That does not mean that evil will also not be
close at hand. But it does mean that
God’s voice will at least be heard.
Ultimately we
rejoice that saving ourselves is not in our hands. It is a task that is too big for us. It is in God’s hands.
We always strive
to do what is right, even as we know evil will be warping everything we
do. Even so, God does good things
through our work. God alone can bring
about the good. We rejoice in that and
rejoice in God’s saving love.
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