Juxtapose

Isn't it beautiful that we were saved from ourselves by a God who sees our need before we knew we were needy?

"Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterous, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God."

I learned those verses after one of my professors, Pastor Rathbun, chewed me out. I read those as a defense to an argument I was making in Comparative Religions class, but apparently I did so very well, because initially he thought I said it from memory. He said he "commended me for memorizing a wonderful passage," and I had to apologize and tell him that I did, indeed, read it out of my Bible and I wasn't nearly as learned as I had inadvertently led him to believe. You have to understand, Pastor Rathbun is blind. Totally, black-screen blind. In fact, he knows much of the Bible by memory. It's often that we (the students) ask him to find.. you know... that verse..? You know, the one in the Old Testament where it's about the heart and something about a bluejay....? Well, yes. Pastor Rathbun knows where it is. He'll blurt out some obscure verse in II Chronicles 11:22 in response to whatever our query might be, and we all clamor to look it up to see if he's right. But, oh darn, "It's actually II Chronicles eleven twenty-THREE," we have to inform him. Poor Pastor Rathbun will look terribly disappointed for a moment and then sigh, "Well, you know, the mind gets weaker with age."

We all laugh at him and move on. :)

Anyways, back to the Corinthians and their debauchery. I love these three verses in chapter six because they show both of our states - the sinful and the sanctified. At the time when I was in CR class, building up Scriptural support for my grandiose argument, I was looking at this verse in light of the fact that our washing, sanctification, and justification are in the name of the Moschiach, the Christ, the Messiah. That in itself is a wonderful thought. It is through a perfect God that we are made more into the image of Jesus. Yet, now, lately, I have been thinking more about these verses in light of who I was before Christ and who I am now. In a physical sense, I have never been drunken, I have never been a thief, and I have never committed adultery. Yet beyond the physical and into the realm of the spiritual, I find I have far less ground to stand on. In fact, I have no ground whatsoever to stand on except the name of our Lord Jesus.

This week I've started a new job working at the local Italian/Seafood restaurant, and already I've met up with more debauchery (never thought I would use that word myself) than I would have ever imagined I would see in little old mini-Americana-sub-suburbia Massachusetts where I live. I am not a naive child anymore. I've been to community college with all the psychos, dropouts, and ne'er-do-wells trying to get two-year degrees in liberal arts/business. I've seen a lot of sin in the lives of people around me, and I've seen a lot of sin in my own life. But I can't say that, before this point, I've ever worked with two gay men. I can't say that I've ever had twenty-eight year old guys try to ask me out. I can't bring myself to hate these people, or even really look at them differently. I only see the same people as every other lost soul out there. Yet, it's still sin. It's debauchery, and for all the jokes about gay guys flipping their hands around, that doesn't make their need for Jesus a flippant thing as well. But that's old news.

Other old news tells me that it's only in Christ that we find our sanctification and justification and washing. Such big words for big concepts, yet nevertheless, they are applicable for small people. Today, my boss used the name "Christ" in a less-than-reverent way, and she turned to me and said, "Oh! I'm sorry! I shouldn't say that in front of you!" I found that to be interesting in two ways. The first was a sense of happiness that maybe God does shine through my opaque shell of a sinner's soul. The second was a sense of sadness, that my boss felt remorse for saying such a thing because of me and not because she was throwing around the name of the Washer, Sanctifier, and Justifier of dirty souls. Gay or straight, thieves or givers, covetous or content, we all have dirty, dirty souls. And only the one who is clean can wash us completely while remaining unspotted Himself.