What Shall I Say?

Texts:

Psalm 86 

1 Samuel 15:10-31

Acts 5:1-11

The texts today speak of destruction in the wake of disobedience.  They aren't pretty.  Saul was instructed to destroy everything in his wake, but kept the "fatlings and the labs, and all that was valuable".  Ananias and Sapphira were dishonest about the financial gain incurred from purchasing a house.  Saul was dethroned and Ananias and Sapphira died.

What is one to say?  Shall I speak of the importance of obedience?  Shall I speak of the importance of sharing and honesty and selflessness?  Is it even possible to speak of such things?  Of course it is possible to speak to these things, but it requires looking into one's own heart only to find the dark spaces are not magically eradicated when we identify ourselves as people of faith.

"22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin," (Romans 7:22-25).

What of the Law?  What of Grace?  The relationship between the two is complicated.  The relationship between broken/holy and saint/sinner is complicated.  It speaks to the reality of what it is to be human.  We are woven into a story fraught with broken people... with people who do not bat an eye as they kill their enemies yet keep their goods for themselves, for people who seek dishonest gain yet find themselves drawn to church each Sunday, of people who have thrown their hands up and said, "I'll never get this right."  And so we pray along with the Psalmist:

"For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.  Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my cry of supplication.  In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me."