As a child there was a period when I went on a truth journey. I do not remember what began it, how I decided to try the truth full out, but I did. Then there was the day I went into my parents' bathroom and discovered an aerosol can of shaving cream. I gave it a try and shaving cream flew. There is no way to put shaving cream back in a can so I cleaned it up as well as I could. Apparently I missed some. The rule was that room was off limits and messing about forbidden.
When Dad returned home there was this moment, "Who has been in our bathroom." My truth journey abruptly ended because I knew he was angry. Long story short, when I denied being there I was believed and one of my brothers got the punishment. Now I knew I could not recover the truth or I would face twice the punishment. Dad had a heavy hand and was not big on grace and confession resulting in instant forgiveness. A penalty was always paid.
The Letter to the Hebrews struggles with an image of God where a penalty must always be paid for every non-ethical moment. The author however has encountered grace as well in Jesus Christ and seeks to make sense of a just God filled with mercy. From the Temple tradition of Yom Kippur when the High Priest, only after elaborate days of preparation, may enter the inner sanctuary but once a year to offer sacrifice for his sins and those of all the people, the author develops an illustration of Christ as the eternal high priest. Yet Christ is not only the priest. He also functions as the sacrificial animal. His one offering of self becomes our eternal Yom Kippur. Never again must the sacrifice be made.
He writes; "For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!" Hebrews 9:13-14
The author knows we live in a world which corrupts us all. He knows we will do things we wish we had not. He knows others will pay for our missed moments of good. He knows, as does Christ, that greed will always leave the poor as a sign of our corporate lack of care. He knows children will go where they are forbidden and try to escape punishment. He knows moral perfection is impossible even while it remains desirable. He understands Jesus to have attained this on our behalf.
He also knows entering into relationship with moral possibility is a deep spiritual healing pool. Thus we enter into relationship with Christ. We enter the Word in scripture. We are splashed with his blood in Baptism and Holy Communion, Eucharist.
The author of Luke is clear today that Jesus is not of divided purpose. He means to heal our lives by entering them, touching the destructive bits, to offer us change and awareness. We are allowed to choose, for or against, collected or scattered.
"Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house...Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." Luke 11:23-17
The offer is not moral perfection but moral possibility as we study and enter his life, as we take our own life and study it in light of Christ. And when we have pressed where we should not, the aim is not a smoke screen of innocence. The shaving cream will never go back into the can. The lie will never cover up the event. Moral perfection will allude us.
Moral possibility will happen as the healing eye of Christ looks with us at our lives, as we yield to better and better good. There is grace in him, plentiful redemption as the hymn says.
It was years before I told my brother about the shaving cream. He did not remember the event, but his laughter forgave what I remembered. The lesson I learned long ago stays with me. My lies can hurt others.
The other lesson is in this hymn.
There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.
If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.
But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?
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