Politics in the Pews

I go to a church that utilizes corporate confession in our service every Sunday. The confessions are often pulled from the Westminster Confession or the like, and a great deal of thought is put into them. This Sunday's confession was different. Projected on the overhead as usual, it was penned by one of our congregants and accompanied by a picture of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill:

Now is the time for fasting and prayer begging our Father's forgiveness for destroying his creation with our carelessness and greed. We are all guilty. Have mercy on this country, O Lord. Free us from our addiction. Restore your ocean. Amen.

This confession troubled an untold number of our congregation. Some took issue with the fact that corporate confession was being used for something...well...corporate, rather than dealing with our individual sins. However, I had no problem with that. My background includes experience with both corporate and identificational repentance, and I am comfortable with the concept of repenting corporately for the sins of our nation, our culture, our church, and so on. True Christianity is corporate in nature, and that corporate nature is rooted in the Hebrew foundation of our faith. The western Church has individualized our walk with Christ to the point that we've lost sight of the fact that each person is only one cell in the vast body of Christ. So I got it. I think that's the problem. I understood exactly what was going on. We were supposed to be repenting for our sins.
A discussion ensued today on facebook. One friend pointed out that the Gulf catastrophe was rooted in the greed and carelessness of a corporation. But the confession did not say that. We were not led in a prayer of repentance on behalf of British Petroleum. It specifically said, "...our carelessness and greed. We are all guilty. Have mercy on this country, O Lord. Free us from our addiction..."
Whose carelessness and greed? Not BP's...not according to the confession. And that leaves "this country."
Whose addiction? Our country's.
Our greed and addiction to what? Oil.
I've heard the term "oil addiction" in political debates about the environment enough times to recognize the term as a very political one when it appeared, thinly veiled, on our church projector screen Sunday. The chosen wording lended itself heavily to a liberal political interpretation, and I personally don't think the church should make room for politics, either way.
Bottom line: it felt political, and a little icky because of that...I couldn't help but think when I first heard it, "why are we as a body taking sides in environmentalism?"
Will we next repent as a body for global warming? Or let's strike more toward my personal side of the political fence and ask if we're going to repent corporately for the countless lives lost to abortion...that's an even greater travesty in the eyes of God than the Gulf catastrophe, in my opinion...
See where it could go, and how quickly? This is why it felt icky to me.
If the church is going to participate in corporate repentance, I think we should take a close look at WHAT we repent for, and WHY. Does our nation need to repent for using fossil fuels? Is that biblical? Being poor stewards of the Lord's creation, yes, I can see that as a biblical subject for repentance. But oil addiction? How about our addiction to abortion for convenience...or pornography?
Don't get me wrong. I'm horrified by what's happened to our beautiful Gulf, but I disagree with labeling this as a sin that deserves to rest on the conscience of the nation and the church as a whole, when greater (translated: more scripturally proven) sins are effectively being ignored.

Confession Trumps Sin

I belong to a wonderful women's Bible study at my church. There are probably 75 of us who meet every Tuesday morning, study the book of John, then break up into small groups and discuss how what we studied applies to our lives.

This week's discussion was on John 8:1-37 (or thereabouts).

Have you ever read John 8? Yeah, me too. But read it again with me. It's a powerful passage on many levels, and every time I read it, I get something new out of it.

The setting of John 8 is during the Feast of Tabernacles, an 8-day feast that is so doggone rich with meaning that I'll just sigh and move on because I could blog for days and barely scratch the surface. I'll just say for now that lighting the temple menorah, the seven-branched lampstand, plays a significant role in this feast (although there is MUCH more to the feast than that).

In John 8:12, Jesus said something fascinating: "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life."

Back to that temple menorah. I said before that there are seven branches on the lampstand. There are three lamps on each side, and one in the middle. The ones on the sides point to the middle lamp, the servant lamp. The servant lamp points directly to the Holy of Holies, the place where God's presence resides.

The menorah was known in Jesus' time as "the light of the world."

In John 8:2, it clearly says that Jesus was in the temple. So we know the setting, that the menorah was nearby, maybe even visible from where He was standing. He was letting them (the people and the pharisees) know who He was, and using an illustration with which they were all intimately familiar. That menorah had represented Him for thousands of years, a type and shadow of what He was doing for them right then, leading them straight into the Holy of Holies, the presence of God. After all, He is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but through Him. (Jn. 14:6)

And, as our women's group discussed, Jesus is the light, illuminating the truth for us. I want to delve a little deeper into something here using what is commonly called the "law of first mention."

Psalm 119:142 says, "Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law (Torah) is truth." The truth is the Torah (Law) of God. The word Torah literally means "God's teaching and instruction." It comes from the root word orah, which means "light." So, when John, in John 1 said that, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." and when Jesus says that He is "the light of the world," they're both saying that He is the Torah incarnate.

1 John 3:4 says, "Everyone who practices sin also transgresses the law; and sin is transgression of the law."

And further in John 8 (vs 31-32), Jesus says "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

So, if He is the light of the world, and if He illuminates truth for us, and truth is the Torah/law, and the transgression of the Torah/law is sin...then, by default, He illuminates our sin for us and sets us free.

He shows us our sin.

And then He sets us free from it.

During our study yesterday, the leader discussed what she called "grace-aligning habits," such as reading our Bible, fellowship, daily confession, etc. And the focus of that was on confession, how powerful confessing our sins can be. We were challenged to find an accountability partner (preferably our husbands, for those of us who are married), someone with whom we can be honest on a regular basis and truly confess our sins. The benefits are eternal.

After all, as long as something is hidden, it holds power over us. But once it is brought to the light, we can be free from it.

And to illustrate that point scripturally, tonight the Lord told me to read Psalm 32:

1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered!
2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me;
My own vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.
5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee,
And my iniquity I did not hide;
I said, "I will confess my transgression to the Lord";
And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah.
6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him.
7 Thou art my hiding place;
Thou dost preserve me from trouble;
Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;
I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
9 Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding,
Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,
Otherwise they will not come near to you.
10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked;
But he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him.
11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you his righteous ones,
And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.

Okay, I know that was long, but it was absolutely amazing! The power of sin is so great that when we hide it, our bodies actually waste away. We must confess our sins. If we don't they literally eat away at us, and not just spiritually but physically. It doesn't say our souls waste away. It says our bodies. But look at the power of confessing our sins! When we confess our sins to the Lord, He forgives our guilt! David, the psalmist, urges us to seek the Lord, not to waste any time, but to see him. David has experienced the Lord's forgiveness, and he wants everyone else to experience it too. When we confess our sins, God becomes our hiding place. He preserves us from trouble. He surrounds us with songs of deliverance.

And then God steps in, responds to the confession and repentance, and basically interrupts the psalmist, with a prophetic promise: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you." Did you catch that? "I will instruct...and teach you." Torah is God's teaching and instruction.

Isn't that beautiful?

I don't know about you, but I want that. I want Him to instruct me, to teach me the way I should go, to reveal His Torah to me, because I know that Jesus is the Torah incarnate. I want Him to counsel me with His eye upon me. I want to continually be in His sight, because if He's looking on me, I know He hasn't forgotten me. He knows right where I am. I'm no longer lost. I'm not in darkness. His word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path...showing me the way that I should go.