2 Chronicles 36:14–17, 19–23; Ephesians 2:4–10; John 3:14–21
Last Sunday’s readings invited us to compare the effects of our sin to the temple that Jesus confronts in John’s Gospel; a market place of competing self interests, resistant to any thought of change, awareness of God banished to the periphery of our lives. This Sunday’s readings provide some graphic descriptions of the effects of sin, both at the national and the individual level.
What is one of the most dangerous temptations for a nation or community? According to the author of Chronicles, it is the temptation to think that we, the majority, are always right. The reading makes the point dramatically by claiming that ‘all the heads of the priesthood and the people’ rejected ‘messenger after messenger’ sent by God to warn them of their error and evil ways. Who is the equally dangerous companion of ‘majority rule is right’? Again, according to Chronicles it is the ‘blame the other’ syndrome, directed at its target via ridicule and abuse. In a telling irony, the chronicler notes how each divinely sent messenger is reviled as the one who is disloyal to God and society (eg, the book of Jeremiah). With friends like these who needs enemies? They will almost inevitably lead to ruin. Books such as Jeremiah indicate there was bitter debate about who was responsible for Israel’s descent into exile. In retrospect, Israelite tradition came to accept that the exile showed the majority had been wrong and the lone messenger right. Israel’s Bible is testimony to a complete change of heart that can only be the result of divine inspiration (grace, says Paul). For the sake of truth and righteousness, the chronicler claims that God had to intervene to expunge Israel’s distorted perception of reality—via a ‘Sabbath rest’ for the land—in order to restore the true perception of reality. Only then can the temple be rebuilt.
In our highly individualistic world we can find it difficult to think of sin and its consequences at a national or universal level, let alone things like wars, climate change and economic crises as divine signs or judgements. But if we accept that God is involved in our individual lives why not at the national and universal levels? And if we accept that the good things we enjoy are God’s blessing, then why shouldn’t we associate the bad things in some way with God? Would someone preaching war or climate change as a sign of a divine warning or wrath these days motivate us to change or simply irritate and embarrass us?
It may be with some relief then that we turn from ‘that old stuff’ to the Gospel reading that tackles the effect of sin on the individual. Jesus identifies fear as one of its most damaging effects. ‘Everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed’. Jesus’ insight allows us to see that it is fear that drives individuals to band together as the hostile, ridiculing mob condemned by the chronicler. We hide in a crowd. Both individual and the mob fear the truth about themselves. But it is only when the truth is ‘exposed’, that is, when our sins are made known to us and we accept them as the truth about ourselves that we can recognise and accept their antidote—the healing grace of God.
The passage from Ephesians offers another angle on the devastating impact of sin, highlighting our ever urgent need for forgiveness and reconciliation. Like the Israelites portrayed in Chronicles, we tend to think that being hyperactive is a sure sign of life: all the priests and the people made great sport of the messengers, they aped the nations around them and conducted grand liturgies. But, the chronicler would say, echoing Ephesians, Israel was in reality ‘dead through its sins’. This devastating comment reminds me of an equally devastating one on London’s rush hour in TS Eliot’s poem The Wasteland: ‘A crowd flowed over London bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many’. Whether we see ourselves like the mob in Chronicles mocking anyone who dares to challenge our status quo, or like those who hide for fear of being ‘exposed’ by the Gospel light, or like the walking dead in the letter to the Ephesians, we are ourselves quite incapable of change, of bringing ourselves to true life. It can only come about through God’s gift, a gift that thankfully, God is only too eager to bestow on us. Moreover, this gift is unlike any earthly gift that we can bestow on one another; it is a dynamic power that transforms us into a ‘work of art’. How does the human being become a perfect work of art? By being in union with Christ Jesus. In this way alone can an individual become part of an authentic community, a society, a people of God.