The Thursday After

Today at WMB we explored the second part of God’s description of himself in Exodus 34:6-7. The way God is going to maintain loyal love for thousands is to forgive iniquity, transgression and sin (see video here).

The narrative surrounding Exodus 34:6-7 (golden calf, whining, lack of trust) sure illustrates that the Israelites needed this loyal love and forgiveness. I find myself wondering how God is going to keep the promises he made to Abraham with the kind of unreliable, whiney descendants he ended up with. But before I make it about those long-gone desert wanderers, I better look at “iniquity”, “transgression” and “sin”. This are odd words in our time and you probably don’t use them or here them outside church. Makes you think the Bible doesn’t really understand the present human condition, but actually the Bible gives a very deep diagnosis of the human condition.

There’s a great little video series (3x5minutes) on each of these “bad words”.

Sin, in its broadest sense, is to miss the mark of giving each human (image bearers of God) and God the honour and respect they are due – much wider than our idea of “doing something bad”. Think of that the next time you are near Weber and Victoria (the homeless encampment). Driving by always reminds me I don’t know how to honour all image bearers.

Transgression means to break trust with someone. Lots of stories of breaking trust in the Bible and I have a few of my own.

Iniquity is when your choices or conscience is bent and not straight – all manner and magnitudes of crooked behaviour.

Each of iniquity, transgression and sin describe straying from a very high expectation God had when he made me in his image. We look around us to define what is normal or acceptable (eg. speeds on the 401). God is very clear that we don’t get to decide what is good and what is bad (Genesis 3). So, we have the wrong idea when we say “I’m good compared to my neighbour who …. (fill in the blank)”. God’s expectation is that we “image” him, and when all others don’t that just makes it worse. We image him by treating him with due respect. and loving our neighbour as ourselves. And just in case we think its only about actions, Jesus makes in clear in the sermon on the mount, that God was also talking about our thoughts! He wants us to image him even on the inside!

Remember the old joke about being chased by a bear? I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you! God certainly does not have that in mind – he has much higher expectations. He made you and expects you to image him.

My emotional way of dealing with constantly not meeting God’s high expectations is to think that since he will forgive me, he’ll be happy with a much lower standard. I mean, just look at everyone around me!

But even as I say it that way, I know he wants me to constantly, humbly reach to be the complete image of God – the way he intended. To be open when I am shown how I am falling short, to own it and ask forgiveness – knowing he is happy to do so. That’s very different than not caring and lowering the standard. Fortunately, he sent is own breath as a helper / advocate.

When I meditate on this, I no longer feel superior to those Israelite desert nomads.

In Matthew 6, Jesus describes in the sermon on the mount how to be God’s image, that is, how practice righteousness (doing right by God and doing right by neighbour). Right in the middle of this discourse is the Lords Prayer, and in v. 12 Jesus says we should pray:

‘ and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. ‘

and then, in case its not clear, in v.14

‘ “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. ‘

This feels troubling … maybe Yahweh is not as forgiving, or loving as Exodus 34 says:

‘And Yahweh passed over before him, and he proclaimed, “Yahweh, Yahweh, God, who is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding with loyal love and faithfulness, ‘

Jesus seems to say that if you aren’t in the habit of forgiving, you really won’t understand what it means to be forgiven (see this article). Our online reading plan for this week (June 29) explores this in more detail. Do you really feel forgiven, or is it an intellectual assertion, something like the moon goes around the earth? Freedom Session helps to understand and feel forgiveness. Another sense of forgiveness is given in this story from Corrie Ten Boom. I expect this will come up in more detail when we go through the sermon on the mount in the fall. For now, check out this great video.

The English word “forgive” comes from two old English words “for” meaning completely and “give” which means what it says, but in the context of a debt means to wipe it clean. So “forgive” then means to really wipe clean. If you have been a Jesus follower for a while, and you haven’t committed murder or been a slave trader, maybe its hard to be rocked by Yahweh’s forgiveness. Or what if your measuring stick was not the people around you, but how God intended you to be?