Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church.  Although the church was born in Jerusalem and was in the earliest days pretty much a Jewish sect God’s actions at Pentecost show clearly where He was leading his church. 

⁵Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. ⁷Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? ⁸Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹²Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

There are times when you read the bible when you read a question like that and you just want to slap the guy.  Dude, how stupid are you if you cant get the point of God talking to everyone in their own language.  The point is - the door is open to everyone. 

So it was on Pentecost Sunday I find myself in church sitting next to a Nigerian family and worshipping alongside Indians, Tamils, Indonesians, Americans, other Africans, Dutch, several English, and another Scot.   We sang songs that we all knew, read from familiar scriptures, and said the Lord’s prayer.  When we greeted each other there were the immediate differences (Nigerians dress well to go to church, often in bright traditional robes, a colorful spectacle) but there was also the peace that comes from shaking the hand of a man you have never met yet somehow you know.  That is what it means to be a Christian, it means knowing the essence of another human being and knowing that human essence is grounded in being a created child of God our Father. 

This week President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor as his choice for the supreme court of the United States.  Much of the talk centered around a quote made by Judge Sotomayor some time ago about the richness of the experience of a Latino woman when compared with others.  There is no doubt a story to tell in that woman’s journey.  Justice Thomas has a similar story and it is eloquently told in his biography “My Grandfather’s Son”.  These are two great American stories but to emphasise them goes against the notion that God teaches us at Pentecost and I think ultimately makes for a poor supreme court justice. 

Pentecost was a time when God got to the heart of the matter and overcame our individual stories and dealt with us in essence.  God said, I don’t care if you are Cretan or and Arab, I am going to deal with you just the same way.  I will demand of you the same and the rewards of heaven will be open to all too. 

I can’t help thinking that bringing our differences to the centre and making them the definition of our humanity makes for bad law and poor judges.  Better instead to behave like God at Pentecost and demand the same from all and let all have access to the riches of grace. 

Q1: What constitutes adultery? Is pornography considered adultery? Is looking at another person with desire and lust considered adultery?

Adultery is any sexual activity that takes place outside of marriage.  So the real question is “what is a sexual activity?”  Jesus says that lusting in your heart is the same as doing it.  

Matthew 5:27 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

The heart is easy to corrupt, in fact our hearts are all born leading us to darkness and corruption. 

Jesus said in Mark 7:21: 

“For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” 

So the bottom line is there is no loophole, there is no justifying sexual activity outside of marriage.  This is all encompassing, it includes everything from mental fantasy, pornography, naked photos, long thoughtful looks at magazine covers, billboards, bikinis, masturbation, oral sex, passionate kissing, fondling, peeking down blouses, sizing up how someone fills out their jeans, and any other lustful meditation.

But, do not despair. No one has any hope based on their ability to please God or man, no one is good enough, or even close. Our hope is in Christ’s mercy alone.  None of us will live a perfectly pure life. A common 12 inch ruler shows us that none of us can draw a straight line. God draws straight with crooked lines.  This is our true hope.

It was at the apex of my teenage narcissism that I sat before my mother and father and confessed the latest and greatest disaster of my adolescence.  I knew this one was different though.  There would be no talking my way out of this problem, indeed, my mother and father and even the rest of my family would this time be effected by my choices.  It was going to be bad.

My dad was a big guy and a tough guy and as he silently came to the boil I remember my mother saying to him, “Tom, he needs our forgiveness”.  I was stunned, but it was the moment in which I grew up.  My mother’s forgiveness changed the course of my life and since that moment I have tried to pay the two of them back by trying to be someone they could be proud of and glad they had forgiven.  Strange that I had experienced the power of forgiveness before I understood why it was so powerful.  It would take a few years and a Christian conversion to work that out.

Today, my mother has Alzheimer’s disease.  If you have watched the movie “The Notebook” you have seen the romantic version of the story.  In the movie a great love story is retold and in the telling a woman is released from the prison of her mind to remember her husband and family.  It is cruel to see the movie end with mother retreating back into the world of dementia not knowing who is in the room or what that story is about.  Gena Rowlands played the mother in the movie and did justice to dilemma of families affected by the disease.  The real notebook though is different.  My mother waits in a hospital ward with other older women waiting for a place in a care home for those who have the disease.  It is a sad Victorian hospital that has seen better days.

I never had a close relationship to my mother.  In fact, I often had the thought she was more than slightly mad.  I am ashamed of that thought today.  Dad worked of course, and being paid by the hour, he worked every hour he could (especially time and a half for Saturdays and double time for Sundays).  Mum looked after the house.  In that house - one bathroom and about 2o00 square ft. - lived ten people.  My grandfather, my older sister and her two kids (married at sixteen and home again by nineteen), my younger brother, two younger sisters, and mum and dad.  That, I suppose, is the reason why my mum was slightly mad.  I don’t remember her smiling much and don’t really remember her having fun.  Always cleaning and cooking and doing “piece work” to help make money for the family.  What does live with me though is the memory of my mum and dad taking a mattress out and laying it on the floor of our family room to make their bed up each night.  There was just not enough room. 

Today, lying in the hospital bed, my mother knows who I am but doesn’t remember my children.  Or that I am married.  She asked my brother once, “How is your mother?”.  My father visits every day and chats with my mother whether she recognises him or not.  There is no notebook to read and no magic to make her return to who she once was.  And yet “The Notebook” isn’t completely off the mark.  For on occasion the disease shows the relationship that was once there between mum and dad.  My own formative years were at a time that was full of struggle for my parents as they tried to just make ends meet - I can hardly remember them having fun together.  But mum now occasionally seems to regress to a time when it was just her and Tom and sometimes, just sometimes, you see in her eyes the love they had together 50 years ago. 

 When I write this blog I sometimes wonder, what’s the point.  But seeing my mother in the grips of this disease has made me realise that even the most trivial things in life can be glorious and significant.  Take away the power to know your spouse or your son or your grandchildren and what is left?  Not much.  Thinking again about my mother also has made me realise that parenting can all boil down to a moment’s decision.  That’s an unforgiving test which my mum passed but I fear I will not.  Who knows when that moment will come and if so, will I be ready?  Are you ready?