Who's to Blame? (2)

You’ve heard it said, and maybe you’ve said it yourself, “I can’t help it I was born this way.” Usually, the context in which that statement is made is not a flattering one. Usually, it is used as an excuse for poor or outright wicked behaviour!

The strange thing, is that it is partly right and partly wrong.

As to original sin, we’re born into it, but we’ll look into that a bit later.

Usually, when people say, “I can’t help it.” They’re really trying to dodge responsibility. They blame their parents. They blame their upbringing. They blame the neighbourhood they grew up in.

And to a certain extent, we’ve all bought into this mentality. We look for scapegoats. We look for reasons for horrid behaviour.

Lawyers have become quite creative in finding reasons to defer fault, so that their clients can go free.

And that has fostered a system of deferred responsibility.

This is nothing new. This isn’t unique to our day and age.

Consider King Saul. God commanded him to attack the Amalekites and completely destroy them. He was to kill all the men, women and children, all the animals, everything, even everything that was good.

But Saul did not follow God’s commandment completely, so God rejected Saul as king. God’s decision distressed Samuel and he cried out to God all night long. The next day he went to find Saul and tell him that God had rejected him as king. Saul wasn’t where Samuel expected him to be, for Saul had already moved on, had built himself a monument in his own honour.

Samuel caught up to him at Gilgal. Before Samuel could open his mouth to speak, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”

But Samuel wasn’t fooled. “Do you think I’m deaf? I can hear the sheep and cattle!

Saul tried to cover up his sin by saying, “The soldiers brought them for a sacrifice to the Lord.”

Samuel cut him off. “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”

Saul replied, “But I did obey the Lord. I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers, not me, took the sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.

But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.” Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord.”

Saul replied, “I have sinned. But please honour me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the Lordyour God.” So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:7-35).

Saul tried to blame his sins on the soldiers. He tried to blame it on the pressure from the people. Make no mistake; there would have been tremendous pressure from the people to keep the best animals. But he didn’t keep God’s commandment, and when confronted with his sin, he tried to find excuses.

Contrast Saul with David. David is the neighbour that Samuel was talking about. But David himself actually points to Christ, who was born out of David’s line. Nevertheless, David, though he wasn’t sinless like Christ, at least had a different reaction to God’s prophet.

David, after committing adultery with Bathsheba, knocking her up, failing to cover it up by calling Uriah home so that he could sleep with his wife, and make it look like she got pregnant by him, and not by David. But Uriah was a more righteous man than David was, he refused the comforts of home while his fellow soldiers were forced to be without. So David solved everything by making sure Uriah would die in battle. The effect couldn’t have been better than if David had simply stabbed him in the back. Then he was free to take Bathsheba as his wife.

“The Lord sent (the prophet) Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, ‘There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

“Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ ”

Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord’” (2 Samuel 12:1-13).

No excuse. No weaselling. No trying to blame his sin on Bathsheba’s beauty. NO attempt to blame her for bathing on her roof. David recorded his prayer of forgiveness in Psalm 51.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

In your good pleasure make Zionprosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then there will be righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar” (Psalm 51).

Clearly, David’s Psalm, that inspired word from scripture teaches us that yes, we are sinful from conception.

But the stories of Saul and David tell us something else. They tell us that God doesn’t give us the sin card as an excuse. Even though we’re inclined toward all evil, God nevertheless created us for good.

Hear again our catechism answer:

“God created us good and in God's own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that we might truly know God our creator, love God with all our heart, and live with God in eternal happiness for God's praise and glory.

Not only does God expect righteousness and holiness from us, by His Spirit he’s made us righteous and pure, on account of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

We have no excuse for not accomplishing God’s will. We cannot appeal even to our sinful natures. We cannot appeal to the reality that we’re born into sin! We have to own up to our shortcomings, just as David did.

Is God right to expect this of us?

Absolutely he is! After all, God created us good.

If you have a good vehicle, don’t you expect it to perform well? If you have a good cow, a good crop, a good employee, anything of value, you expect it to perform well.

When sin entered the world, it corrupted things. Though created good, all things were poisoned.

And yet, we must own up to our responsibility for the way things are.

We must own up to our sins, as David did.

We must not settle for the situation we’re living in, and try to blame our sins on our circumstance, or blame Adam and Eve.

We need to look at what God made, how he made it and strive to live up to what we’re created to do.

We were created good and in God’s image. We were created with true righteousness and holiness.

These things were placed in us so that we would naturally turn toward God our creator and love him with all our heart and live with him in eternal happiness for his praise and glory.

God created us to do just that.

God also recreated us, made us born again, born not into sin, but born of the Spirit, so that we can live up to our calling.

So that we can bear His image before the world. So that we can act in true righteousness and holiness. So that we can truly know God our creator, love him with all our heart, and live with him in eternal happiness for his praise and glory.

God does not delight in sacrifice, or we would bring it; He does not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, God does not despise.

This week, as we prepare ourselves for Holy Communion next week, we need to think about a sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart. We need to have hearts that seek God’s will over our own. When faced with temptation, we need to remember that we’re created to be holy and righteous. We need to remember that we’re created to live up to the commandments God’s given us.

By the power of the Spirit within us, we can do it! Amen.