Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Old Things New

Home
General Christian
It’s Nothing Personal: Systemic Sin in Ordinary Time

It’s Nothing Personal: Systemic Sin in Ordinary Time

Last updated on: September 8, 2018 at 3:00 pm by Laura Jean Truman

It’s Nothing Personal: Systemic Sin in Ordinary Time 2018-09-08T15:00:56-04:00 Laura Jean Truman

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Image via Pixabay/CC0 Creative Commons

We’re prone to take the healing stories of Jesus very personally.

We see the Gospel as Jesus coming to save one person (me), to forgive my sins (which I commit in a bubble), to send me to Heaven when I die.

But the Gospel is bigger than Jesus saving one individual at a time.

A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Mark 7:25-30
Gospel lectionary passage for September 9

I grew up reading the stories of Jesus as interactions between individuals.

Jesus preaches against Pharisee’s personal “hard hearts.” Jesus encourages people to make individual decisions to follow Him (no turning back! no turning back!). Jesus heals individuals who are, individually, sick.

I grew up learning that Jesus saves the whole world one person at a time.

I grew up with a Jesus who had nothing to say about systemic sin.

“Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God….

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Isaiah 35:4-7a
Old Testament lectionary passage for September 9

The lectionary placement today is adamant that Jesus’ healing isn’t a private event.

The lectionary insists that salvation is bigger than salvation our individual sins.

Jesus came as the world’s Messiah – not just “my” Messiah or “your” Messiah – because sin is inextricably woven into the fabric of the world. Jesus didn’t come to pluck us individually out of that fabric. Jesus came to weave a whole new tapestry.

The lectionary demands that we read Jesus’ miracles as sacred signs that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail. Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor. Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.

Proverbs 22:8-9, 22-23

Last summer, I wrote my way through the book of Mark on my blog, and I wrote about this passage – how a woman and an outsider wrestles with God until God Himself changes His mind.

When we read this Gospel story with the other lectionary passage, we see just how important it is that someone from the very edge of society is wrestling with God.

God’s new Kingdom is happening on the margins.

Jesus is with the poor, the outsider, the refugee, the welfare mom, the people experiencing homelessness, the LGBTQ kids and the indigenous people walking the Trail of Tears.

And God is flipping it all upside-down, until the margins are at the center of the new thing God is doing in Christ.

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

James 2:5
Epistle lectionary passage for September 9

God isn’t just bringing people on the edges inside this old kingdom. God is building a whole new Kingdom where everything last is first.

God is not just plucking people out of the sin of the world. God is fixing the sin of the world.

God is deeply concerned with systemic sin.

Systemic sin is why Jesus came.

We want our salvation to be as personal as our walk with Jesus, and while intimacy with the Divine is deeply personal, dismantling the kingdoms of this world isn’t just making bad people good, or giving grace to wicked people, or healing one woman’s little girl.

Jesus is taking apart all the old kingdoms with their strongholds of wealth and fame and power and insiders and outsiders and oppression. Jesus is making everything new.

Thank God for that.

My sin is bigger than myself, so my salvation needs to be bigger than myself, too.

“Hurt people hurt people,” they told me when I was a chaplain, and I saw again and again how the cycle of oppression is bigger than one evil person. Every one of us is trapped in generational and systemic sin. It is pervasive. We have been trapped by the sins of our parents and the sins of our country, and we are perpetrators and victims in stories of sin that go back further than we’ve been alive.

Sin is so much bigger than what I do or do not do.

I don’t just need a Savior to forgive me of my sins.

I need a Savior to heal the broken world that creates sinners in the first place.

I need a Savior who will turn this world on its head.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent away empty.

The Magnificat

The miracle stories of Christ are signs of what the Messiah means for the world – that everything is being flipped, that up will be down and down will be up. Every miracle story of Christ – healing the sick, calming the waves, forgiving sins, multiplying bread – is part of Jesus proclaiming the day of the Lord’s favor. Every miracle story is Christ showing us a glimpse of a new upside-down Kingdom that will be for all people. Jesus came to heal, fix, and judge not just the individuals in the world, but the world itself.

And that, friends, is the Gospel.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 1, 2018

Taste and See: Mysticism for Ordinary Time

Next Post

September 14, 2018 However You Come, It's Good Enough: Nicodemus and the Feast of the Holy Cross

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Christmas Season Easter Epiphany Ordinary Time Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian principle is in "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Never forgive Always judge Keep to yourself The Golden Rule