The Good The Bad And The Redeemed
Sunday 18 February 2024 11:30
And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21)
I’m told that back in the days of silent films one of the favourite genres was westerns. Trouble was without sound all you had were subtitles and a piano player tinkling away in the corner. It was hard to work out who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. So they developed a convention where the heroes wore white hats and and the villains wore black hats. Even when films got sound and colour it was often clear who you were supposed to root for - the good guys over against the bad guys. Until things got complicated with films like “The Good The Bad And The Ugly”. So where are we on that scale? Are we the Good? Are we the Bad? I’m not going to do ‘the Ugly’. I don’t want to offend anyone.
Are we ‘the Good guys’? Sometimes yes. Of course we are. Sometimes we are kind. Sometimes we are generous. Sometimes we stand up for what is right and decent and compassionate even if the world wants us to be selfish, to hate those who are different from us, to turn away those who are hungry and frightened from our doors. We are human beings, made in the image of God; the God who calls us to love one another. And sometimes - often I hope - that love is obvious and always has been.
An archaeologist was once asked what one discovery defined the beginnings of humanity. She answered, a thigh bone that had been broken and had healed. This was a member of a hunter-gatherer tribe who was not able to hunt, was not able to gather, was a burden to all around her. But folk had clearly shared their food with her, maybe carried her as they moved with the seasons.
Is the kindness and love revealed in that thigh bone what defines us as humanity? Are we the good guys? Sometimes. But it maybe doesn’t do to get too full of ourselves that way. It’s awfully easy to look down on others who aren’t quite as virtuous as we believe ourselves to be. To become ‘unco guid’. To become the kind of Christians that Burns lampooned in his poem “Holy Willie’s Prayer”.
Yes we are the good guys sometimes. We wear the white hats sometimes. We do what’s right sometimes. But it’s a dangerous path to tread to allow ‘doing what is right’ to lead us into self-righteousness where maybe we look down on victims of their own weaknesses.
So maybe not The Good. Then are we The Bad? Sometimes. Of course we are. Sometimes we are unkind. Sometimes we are greedy. Sometimes we do what is wrong and hurtful and hard-hearted even when we know in our heart of hearts that that isn’t what we want to be; isn’t what God wants us to be; isn’t what we are made to be. We are children of God, made in the image of God, but sometimes we mask that image. We are selfish, we hate those who are different and we turn folk who are hungry and frightened from our doors.
Archaeology tells us, just as the Bible tells us, that from our earliest days we have turned on one another in hatred and violence: we have been Cain to each other’s Abel. It tells us that the mighty have lorded it over the weak, have enslaved them. It tells us that the wealthy have accumulated gold and lived in luxury while the poor are forgotten.
Is all the selfishness and violence revealed by all this evidence what defines us as humanity? are we the bad guys. Sometimes. But maybe we can overdo that too and maybe the Church has from time to time overdone it. Perhaps we’ve suggested that folk are so lost in our sin that there is no hope for us. The Minister at Dryfesdale used to use the old prayer book and I remember him intoning mournfully during the first prayer, “We have sinned. We have grievously sinned. There is no good in us.” And we wonder why folk stopped coming to church.
Maybe we didn’t just acknowledge our sin. Maybe we wallowed in it. And that is a denial of the Gospel. It is a denial of the power of the Cross of Jesus Christ; the power that redeems us: puts us right with God - not because we deserve it or because it makes us suddenly perfect, but because he loves us and wants us to be all we can be, to strive to be what we are meant to be and be all we can be in the confidence that when we fall short of that we are forgiven and can try again.
This passage from the letter of Peter can be hard to understand. It refers to obscure documents like the Book of Enoch and possibly the Book of Noah that aren’t in the Bible and are largely lost. But our text is clear. We are washed clean through baptism and the Cross of Christ as an appeal to God for a good conscience.
To be able to look ourselves in the mirror and think, today I did some good things. Today I was kind. Today I was generous. Today I reflected the love of God in the world. Not because we are unco guid or self-righteous or because we haven’t been tempted to wear the black hat but not to dwell on that too much. The call of the Gospel is to rejoice that we are God’s redeemed children and all the times we have worn the black hat are forgotten and we have the chance every day to appeal to God for a good conscience: to be able honestly to say, today I have done my best as a child of God.
Because ultimately we are the Good and we are the Bad. But what matters is that we are the Redeemed.
Lord we are not always good. We often fall short. But we rejoice that you forgive the times we are bad: that we are redeemed through the Cross of your Son and ask that we may live in ways that reveal your love for the world
Preached at Middlebie Parish Church