To dance or not...

Why are Baptists so anti-sex? Because they are afraid it could lead to dancing.

J Vernon McGee, a man whose commentaries I have gained much insight from, once used the passage where David danced before the Lord as a basis for teaching that Christians should not dance. Similarly, I once sat in on a Sunday school lesson where the passage regarding not drinking to excess was used as a basis for teaching that Christians should not drink at all.

Without debating the merits of dancing and drinking, in both cases the Bible is used to enforce a rigid set of rules and behaviors that do not fit with the message of what Christianity is and is not.

All of this is a prelude to my point.

We often here the refrain of ‘love the sinner, but hate the sin.’ I have always believed that this is a PC way of labeling someone as less righteous than ourselves, while technically ‘not judging.’ I don’t believe that this fits with the teachings and life of Christ; if anything, it is the opposite.

It is a human need to feel good or worthy, even if it requires looking down on someone else, but Christians are instructed to be humble. Our role model in Jesus humbled himself to the most humiliating treatment and death offered in first century Israel. This punishment, the penalty of the sins of the world, was taken on by the one man who did not deserve it…willingly. If this is not an example of ‘love the sinner and forgive the sin’, then take a look at His interactions with others during His ministry. The only words of condemnation were for the religious leaders who considered themselves righteous and looked down on those who did not meet their (not God’s) standards. When dealing with sinners, Jesus was sympathetic and loving.

This need to define sins and consequently sinners is as prevalent as ever today. How many Christians would judge (even a little bit) someone who had an abortion harsher than someone who had a doctor create multiple embryos that will never see the light of day for fertility treatment? How many would judge someone who engaged in a homosexual act harsher than a heterosexual person who was promiscuous? Would we judge a drug addict as worse than someone who was proud?

So what is the right tack in dealing with sin? I am reminded of Romans 6, ‘do we go on sinning that grace may increase?’ Of course, the answer is no: a life of sin is not what God intended and God’s intent is the highest and best use for our lives. But this is personal, and the point here is interpersonal. When dealing with others in the world, we are to show God’s love, reach out and help, both spiritually and physically, in any way we can, without judgment. We are all sinners and if there are some sins that are worse than others, they are the pet sins of many Sunday Christians:

Matthew 25 tells us that Jesus will reward us for reaching out to those in need and will deny us if we don’t. Are we doing this to the best of our abilities? I know I am not. I even wonder if His instruction to the rich young ruler related to this in some way; are we really reaching the world around us if we have lots of ‘things’?

How about Revelation 3? We go to church on Sunday, throw something into the offering plate, perhaps read the Bible and pray and maybe even stick a fish on the back of our car. Does that qualify us as being on fire for God? In Revelation 3, God says that he would prefer us to be either cold or hot and that those who are lukewarm he would puke up (paraphrased).

These harsh judgments are, like those Jesus spoke during his time on earth, harsh and aimed at the believer. The sinner is a dead man walking, blinded and bound in his sin. Our job is to let Jesus work through us to reach him, restore his sight, release his bonds and breathe life into him. At some later point we may help him move away from his sin, but only once the relationship is there that we speak redeemed sinner to redeemed sinner. Even then, it is best if we merely seek God together and let Him highlight our sins. In other words, ‘love the sinner and let God worry about the sin.’

There are exceptions to this, such as those in a position to lead others astray, but once someone is cleaned up to that point, we don’t tend to look down on them too much, anyway.

I guess my point is that if we want to call ourselves Christians, we should live by the book as it is written, not as we have made carefully selected verses fit our philosophy. We need to ask ourselves if we have spent more time reaching out to the fringes of our society than worrying about gay marriage. We should ask if we have removed the log out of our own eye before worrying over the splinter in someone else’s. Most of all, we should recognize that living the life Christ redeemed us for means being freed from the burdens of sin; though we don’t ignore it altogether, if we spend everyday focused on what we should not do, we will never ponder what we SHOULD do. The Christian life is more about doing than refraining; Jesus said ‘go into all the world and make disciples’ and ‘follow me’ and ‘wash each others’ feet’ and ‘pray’ and ‘forgive’.