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With the news surrounding Phil Robertson’s dismissal from
the TV show “Duck Dynasty” due to his comments regarding homosexuality in an
interview with GQ Magazine, what many consider to be hateful and discriminatory
Christian beliefs are making national headlines and sparking debate. In reading
his interview with GQ, what stood out to me the most wasn’t necessarily his
stance on homosexuality (most people probably already knew where he stood on
this issue to some degree) but his response to the question,
“What, in your mind, is sinful?”
His response –
“Start
with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping
around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.” (In fairness to Robertson, he later speaks of loving everyone and
letting God be the judge.)
Though I trust that Robertson
genuinely loves people and has good intentions (even if he might not always
communicate that in the polished way many would like him to), let me offer a
slightly different take on “sin.”
So, “What, in your mind, is sinful?”
While it doesn’t take a seminary education to come to this
realization, the past year and a half has taught me to a greater extent than I
had ever previously believed that I am more deeply flawed, messed up, and weak
than I’d ever imagined. I am full of envy, violence in my heart, strife,
deceit, and malice. I am a gossip and a slanderer. I am insolent, arrogant,
boastful, and greedy. I know what it is to disobey my parents, lack
understanding and fidelity, and to be void of self-sacrificing love and mercy.
And though I have seen the man that God wants me to be, I am disobedient and
deserving of death.
No one
likes hearing that they’re a bad person or that they’re sinful, but the reality
is, we all have our junk – each and every one of us. Yet with the presence of
pornography, adultery, school shootings, child abuse, homelessness, sex
trafficking, starvation, disease, broken relationships, racism, guilt, and
shame, most of us have a keen awareness that there’s something deeply broken in
our world and that there’s something deep inside all of us that contributes to
this brokenness.
This is
the point of Romans 1. We all, in some way or another, have “exchanged the
truth about God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than
the Creator.” In our idolatry, we all contribute to the brokenness that surrounds us.
In my
lust, I contribute to the objectification of women. In my greed, selfishness,
and laziness, I contribute to homelessness and poverty. In my isolation and
desire to be comfortable, I contribute to racism. In my lying, judging, and
comparing, I contribute to broken relationships. In my lack of love and mercy,
I contribute to sex trafficking.
I’m not being overly dramatic. I know what’s in my heart,
and I know what the Bible has to say about the human condition of every single
person on the face of the earth. I know that when Paul says in Romans 3:23 that
“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” I’m not exempt from that
statement.
So you want to know what is sinful? Look at me.
But mercifully, Paul’s letter to the Romans doesn’t end
after one chapter.
There is good news. GREAT NEWS!
“For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ
died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6) Because of Christ, I have peace with God
and have access to his unending grace.
And there is hope, for I am no longer a slave to the evil in
me or the wickedness in my heart that, if not for the grace of God, would be
the end of me. Instead, I can “present myself to God as one who has been
brought from death to life, and my members to God as instruments for good.”
(Romans 6:13)
This is the grand narrative of God that we find ourselves
in. What God created to be good and to glorify and worship him has been
severely broken and tarnished, but he sent a Hero to rescue us from this evil
and brokenness so that we might become more fully human as we are restored to
the image of God in which we were originally created. And consequently, this is
the hope of Christmas – that God has come in the flesh to reconcile all things
to himself and that he will come again to renew and restore all of creation
once and for all.
So when we identify sin as a grouping of certain sexual
behaviors or whatever other hot-button cultural issues the Church has decided
to single out, we severely distort this Story and make it about “us and them,”
when in fact, we all stand on even ground having all gone astray and are hopeless and helpless without a
Savior.
So Mr.
Robertson, though you’ll never read this, the next time someone asks you what’s
sinful, tell them about me. But more importantly, continue to tell them about
the sacrificial, redemptive, rescuing love of Jesus.
-CK
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