Saints and Sinners

            Over the past few weeks, it seems as though the same thing has been showing up in our Sunday readings over and over again.  God, it seems, has always insisted on using frail and fallible human beings in order to accomplish God’s purposes.  We have heard about Abraham and Jacob and Moses, Eli and Samuel, David and Solomon.  In every single case, there are things that they do that are not particularly faithful.  The only exception to this might be Samuel, although even he has sons who turn away from God (1 Sam. 8:5).

            Although every so often I come across the phrase “heroes of the Bible,” the truth is that the Bible has only one hero, and that is God.  Jesus, certainly, is the only one who is sinless, and there are only a few people I can think of where we don’t hear any stories about their sinful behaviour.  Samuel is one of those, and Mary the mother of Jesus would be another.  While there are people in the Bible who exhibit great faith and who devote their entire lives to serving God, many also exhibit their sinful human nature.

            This is not a reason for us to give up on everybody and throw up our hands in total disappointment and disgust.  Instead, this is a good reason to rejoice that God can and does accomplish great things using all sorts of people.  God’s Spirit can work through anybody – even people like us!

            We have Moses who was a murderer and had a speech impediment.  We have Abraham who lied about his wife being his sister and who tried to take things into his own hands by taking a concubine.  We have David who committed adultery and then arranged to have her husband killed.  We have Solomon who made his own people into slaves and who worshiped other gods with his multiple foreign wives.  Even Paul, who becomes a great preacher in the New Testament, persecuted those who followed Jesus and threw them into prison.  Yet, God managed to work through all of these people in order to bring salvation.

            Surely it would have been simpler for God to manage things without involving human beings in the process.  However, our God does not operate that way.  Instead, God chooses to be in relationship with us and desires to live within us and among us.  Just as God came to live among us in Jesus, God continues to be among us through the Holy Spirit.

            When we look at many of the people that we meet in the Bible, not one of us has an excuse for saying that God cannot work through us.  “I’m not good enough” doesn’t cut it.  “I’m not a good speaker” doesn’t cut it.  “I don’t have any gifts” doesn’t cut it. Even “I don’t know enough” doesn’t cut it.  The only thing that we need is faith in Jesus Christ and an openness to the Holy Spirit.  God can work with that!

            However, if we refuse to open ourselves to the presence and power of God’s Spirit, there’s not much that God can do.  God does not inhabit us without our permission, just as God does not force anybody to receive salvation.  God does not want mindless puppets, but open, loving and thinking people who are ready to see what we can do together.

            And so, open yourself to what God might have to say to you.  Open yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit.  Pay attention to what God puts in front of you, and listen for God’s call.  For God continues to work through frail and fallible human beings in order to answer the prayer “your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”

                        In Christ,

                        Pastor Lynne Hutchison