On Tuesday we celebrate the 147th anniversary of the birth of our nation and we have a lot to celebrate. Not just the peace and prosperity that this land affords but concrete things, concrete things that have happened even in the past year that are worth celebrating. Canadians are great sports, for instance. Last winter in Sochi, not only did the Canadian team do very well, but when Russian Olympic cross-country skier, Anton Gafarov, wiped out and broke his equipment, one of our coaches, Justin Wadsworth, jumped out of the crowd and gave his own ski to the Russian to allow him to finish the race. That’s an act worth celebrating. Canadians have great sporting families. At those same Olympics, not one, not two, but three sisters from the Dufour-Lapointe family, all took part in the freestyle skiing events, two of them taking medals. That’s something worth celebrating. Canadians are a nation that gives as well. Remember last summer when someone randomly walked into a Tim Horton’s in Edmonton and bought coffee for the next 500 customers. Days later, other people did the same in Calgary, Ottawa, and Red Deer. Canadians know how to give, they know how to “pay it forward,” and we can celebrate that too. To add to this, a Canadian has won the Nobel prize in literature, Alice Munro, Chris Hadfield entertained us all from outer space, and a Canadian, Andrew Wiggins, was chosen first in the NBA draft. We have a lot to celebrate as Canadians.
As I have done over the past three or four years on this Sunday, I went out into Google-world to try to find something new about our nation. I think it was Hillary Clinton who first said, “It takes a village.” Well, I found out that Canada is one great, big village. The very word, Canada (Kanata) is an old Iroquois word meaning, settlement, or, village. Apparently they called the place where early settlers dwelt, Canada, and the settlers took that as the name for the entire land. But early on in Canadian history, the land had another word attached to it as well. I didn’t know that early drafts of the British North America Act termed our country a “kingdom, “the kingdom of Canada.” Out of concern for American scruples about having a “kingdom” so close to its borders, Samuel Leonard Tilley suggested the less provocative title, “Dominion,” based on Psalm 72:8 “May God have dominion from sea to sea.” The word “dominion” stuck and when I first set foot in this country, the day we are about to celebrate was known as “Dominion Day.” It changed in 1982.
As I was looking through the prescribed lectionary texts for this Sunday, I could not help but notice that in one of them the word “dominion” appeared two times. Who can turn down a text with the word “dominion” on the “Dominion Day” weekend? Well, I couldn’t a couple of months ago, when I was rushing to get a text and title together for the Summer Preacher’s advertisement. Early this week, however, as I began to think of the sermon in earnest, I realized I had a problem. The focus of the word “dominion” in this passage is on that other little word we don’t care for much anymore, “sin.” “Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies (6:12),” says the apostle Paul; “for sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (6:14).” “Oh,” I thought, “on Canada Day or Dominion Day weekend, ‘sin?’” What am I going to do with that?
Sin has almost become a politically incorrect topic of conversation. Much of society views the word with incredulity, as a throw-back to another age, something that is incredibly judgmental. In the United Church, it has been common practice not to talk about negative thing like sin, at least not often.
I recall a time, however, when one of our lay people was in the vestry before a service, a year or so ago. Dr. Stirling and I were discussing the topic of sin and comparing Evangelical approaches to United Church preachers. I said, “United Church preachers can’t preach about sin at all,” when one of my favourite lay people, who shall remain nameless, piped in, “Oh, I can’t think of anyone better to preach about sin.” We all giggled. What was he inferring?
So what has happened to the Church and the topic of “sin?” It used to be a significant aspect of preaching and what children were taught in Sunday School. It’s hard to know the how or the why but culturally we went through a massive shift in the 60s and 70s of the last century. Society seemed to be fed up with what was perceived to be the Church’s domination, its legalistic attitude; it was perceived as more concerned about appearances than showing love others. People wanted change, freedom, to be themselves, to love and be loved at Woodstock and San Francisco. What we now know as postmodernism was in the air through the writings of Foucault and Derrida. Truth and reality became suspect with postmodernism, grand stories such as the Christian story were questioned, authority in every form was set aside, including biblical and ecclesiastical authority. Each person was deemed to have their own individual needs and ways, each had their own moral compass, each had the freedom to be all they can be without someone or something else prescribing life for them. Sometimes, I have wondered if Sheryl Crow encapsulated the essence of it with the words, “If it makes you happy, then it can’t be that bad.”
The Church, of course, joined in the cultural shift. The legalism of the past was set aside, the teaching emphases on sin and guilt that are so apparent in the recent film, Philomena, were dropped, God became not someone we fear but someone who loves us with an unending love. Indeed, grace and love were championed to such a degree that the Church largely embraced universalism. God’s ability to judge was crucified on postmodern altars, almost everyone gets to heaven, it hardly matters what you do, or how you live.
I read recently about an MTV Special News report on “The Seven Deadly Sins.” It aired quite a long time ago but featured interviews with celebrities and ordinary teenagers talking about the seven deadly sins: lust, pride, anger, envy, sloth, greed, and gluttony. No one understood the sins. The responses were intriguing. Ice-T, the rapper, said, “Lust isn’t a sin … these are all dumb.” A young man on the street thought that sloth was a work break. He said, it’s good to sit back and give yourself personal time. Pride isn’t a sin, said another teenager – you’re supposed to feel good about yourself. Kirstie Alley agreed saying, “I don’ think pride is a sin, and I think some idiot made that up.” The program narrator joined the chorus, suggesting that the seven deadly sins were not evil acts but rather natural human compulsions. People no longer get the whole concept of sin, let alone the so-called, seven deadly ones.
Yet who can deny sin in the midst of the world. The question of sin was posed in Thomas Harris’s book, The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter, a monster who cannibalizes his victims, is approached by a young, female, FBI agent while in gaol. She hopes he can give her information that will help catch another brutal killer.
“What possible reason could I have for cooperating with you?” asks Lecter.
“Curiosity,” says Officer Starling.
“About what?”
About why you’re here. About what happened to you.”
Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviourism, Officer Starling … Nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you say I’m evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?
The question taunts the current mindset. Is there inherent evil in the world? Were Hitler or Stalin or Lecter inherently evil or merely a product of their environments or some brain-chemical malfunction? And then, while some seem to embody evil, there are also those who, for one reason or another, just drift into it from time to time. It is perhaps a while ago now but the site of a past Olympic Games, Sarajevo, is a case in point. The beautiful city, the friendly environment turned into a war zone with the break-up of Yugoslavia. It doesn’t take much for hatred and vengeance to enter the human heart and people to inflict all manner of evil on others. I witnessed that from time to time growing up in Belfast where trouble begat more trouble. The taking of a life or the harming of one person only caused a number of other people to be dragged into a cycle of violence out of revenge for their loved one.
I don’t want us to think that sin and evil are just the big things, the Sarajevos, Belfasts, Hannibal Lecters; everyone of us has a “snapping” point. We can snap at work, at school, in our homes, behind closed doors and treat others with all manner of disdain or unfairness. We can do things that are not right. One of the most significant speakers that we have had for our Prayer Breakfasts over the years that I have been here was Tom Caldwell. I wasn’t sure what we would hear from Tom about faith but was moved by his refreshingly, honest talk. He spoke of his youth, he spoke openly of things most of us would prefer to forget. Minor pilfering, pilfering from a church no less, difficulties in relationships and in business, situations that he himself had caused. He said that the time came when he had to take a long, hard look at himself and he didn’t like what he saw. “I was a sinner,” he said, “I needed a Jesus-transformation, the transforming grace of God.” That grace, he said, led him in a very different direction and to restore some things and give back to his church and community.
Tom Caldwell was refreshing because he talked about the real, Tom Caldwell. He didn’t present a glittering image, but his own human reality. He said that he couldn’t correct his own being, he needed God, and here lies the difficulty for most of us … we seldom get there. We are influenced much by a society that teaches the “behaviourism” that Hannibal Lecter spoke of. We let ourselves off the hook by blaming all sorts of things. Instead of just calling something wrong, or evil, or sinful, many will argue that they were tired, or had a bad day, had been drinking, or because someone else did something to us. I read yesterday that Uruguayan soccer player everyone is talking about, Luis Suarez, who has a history of biting others, didn’t purposely bite an Italian player in a match, he just lost his balance and fell into him with his teeth.
If it isn’t lying to ourselves or shifting the blame, another thing, more insidious, is close at hand, the belief that it all doesn’t matter. Postmodernism allows us to be our own purveyors of morality. It tells us we can do what we want, be who we were meant to be, whatever that amounts to. There is no external truth telling us what is right and what is wrong. We can do as we please – although most postmodernists will add that we are not to hurt others. In the church, many achieve the same mindset by reducing the complexities of God’s being to our understanding of “love” and the associated theme of grace. It doesn’t matter what we do, God loves us with a steadfast love! They strip God of the ability to judge and to correct. There is no real guidance for life because it really doesn’t matter, God will always love us, we’ll all make it to heaven. And so, we never get serious about how we live any more.
It strikes me that it is difficult to be a Christian in this world. We have so much propaganda and varying thought thrown at us from every source imaginable. Our culture largely refrains from judging anything. It views claims of authority with suspicion and necessarily bad, impinging on our individualism. In many places even the Church is confused and gives confusing messages.
As I encounter the Bible, however, I find that it seems to make better sense of the world and the human condition than anything else. Like Tom Caldwell, I find it is real and it causes us to look at ourselves in real terms. The Bible can call a spade, “a spade,” provides wisdom for life, and a path that is a pretty good way to live. It takes life and how we live it seriously. It talks about evil and sin and advises us not to go there. It introduces us to Jesus and tells us that we don’t have to go there because God’s son took all our foibles and faults upon himself on the cross. It tells us that in Jesus Christ, we can be dead to these things, but alive to God. In fact we can be transformed, be made into new creations, new persons, renewed in the spirit of our minds. It tells us these things because the God it reveals thinks that how we as individuals live is important; even has eternal consequence. These things pervade the whole of Scripture from beginning to end, regardless what other people say to you, or regardless of how people try to redefine Christianity or God.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenged us in terms of our living and pointed people to two gates and two roads and said, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” I don’t know about you, but I want to be on the road that leads to life.
M. Scott Peck in his book The Road Less Travelled, wrote of the various roads that we can travel on in life also. And like Jesus, he spoke of the one less travelled. That is the road where people live healthy, authentic lives. He may not have been writing of our topic directly, but much of what he wrote was of a way of life that is above reproach. He wrote of the disciplines necessary for emotional, spiritual and psychological health. He wrote of love as an act of the will, and a grace that inspires us. He invited us to take the road that is less travelled, a road where the living is not free of pain, but is yet it is real, honest, and authentic. In a similar way, Jesus invites us to that road. Not an easy road always, but one that is marked by goodness, godliness, and authenticity. It’s the road trod by Jesus and many a follower since.
If there’s one thing, I get from the Bible, it is that God’s love is complex and it is important how we live. That may be two things but this Dominion of Canada in which we live in will be a better place, if we do not let sin have dominion over us. You will be a better person if you will take the road less travelled. And that’s the road that has a destination that is “heavenly!”