March 2: The Law and Sin
♫ Music:
Day 2 - Thursday, March 2
The Law and Sin
Scripture: Romans 7:15-25
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Poetry:
"I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day"
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw, ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM
Desperation is where our real journey with God begins. Anything less makes us believe it’s really about us — that we don’t need Him. Our passage today in Romans is a kind of screaming that too few of us have experienced. The story is told of Plato and his mentor Socrates walking along a beach. Socrates guides Plato into the water until they are nearly shoulder deep, then plunges the student’s head under water, holding it there while the student thrashes and claws for air. Socrates later explains that not until Plato’s passion for knowledge is as intense as his reach, from under water, for oxygen, would he truly know what learning was. It is so with our struggle against sin. G.K. Chesterton begins his book Orthodoxy noting that one of the first things some intellectuals do is to scoff at sin’s very existence. And it is there they risk losing their souls, for to depend on one’s mind at the expense of one’s soul is the deadliest of errors.
In this passage, Paul’s agony is over powerlessness — a clawing, kicking fight against something he can’t overcome. The rushing current of a swollen river comes to mind. Thousands of gallons per minute of water pushing one away from shore, away from help, completely overwhelming human strength for escape: this is the picture of Paul desiring to do good.
The torture is partly in how close he seems. Just as the safety of shore appears within reach from the edge of a raging river, so Paul says he knows the good he should be doing. He gets it — no explanation necessary. He just can’t hang on and do the good. Evil takes over, and it’s not from some external force. It’s from within him.
The pull of sin is relentless. And those of us who have known Christ for many years can fall into the trap of thinking that what used to be tempting for us won’t be anymore because we’re older. C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, notes the “strange illusion that mere time cancels sin” and its enticement. It doesn’t.
“Wretched man that I am!” is Paul’s cry — less from his mind than from his very soul. He feels alone in his powerlessness and sense of filth and shame before a holy God. He knows he needs help. “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” he asks. And the answer is one we don’t like: it’s not over. Chapter 8 is a celebration of Christ’s victory for us, but there’s work ahead: Paul spends the rest of the letter to the believers at Rome coaching them in a navigation of the journey of life as one pushing ahead toward a transformed lifestyle, where they “overcome evil with good.” (Rom. 12:21)
The collaborative painting, Inferno, by Tim Rollins and KOS displays some of this passage’s lament, but also it’s a call to overcoming in that it empowers young people to grasp the horror of sin, celebrating hope in escape from it.
PRAYER:
O God, I am helpless against sin; you know it better than I. For you see it in me daily. But you come to me in my desperation and hear my scream for help. You reach into the swirling, raging waters of temptation, the overwhelming sin in my own nature and say, “Peace, be still.” The waters calm, and you remind me of the power of the cross and of the empty tomb, to conquer sin. “Where is your faith?” you ask. I answer, “In you alone.” Walk with me in that peace today, O lover of my soul, protector of my way.
Amen.
Michael Longinow
Professor of Journalism
About the Artwork:
Inferno (after Dante Alighieri), 1983-84
Tim Rollins & Kids of Survival
Acrylic on book pages mounted on paper
Collection of John Ahearn
About the Artist:
Tim Rollins & KOS (b. 1955) was recruited in 1981 by George Gallego, principal of Intermediate School 52 in the South Bronx, to develop a curriculum that incorporated art-making with reading and writing lessons for students classified as academically or emotionally “at risk.” Rollins told his students on that first day, “Today we are going to make art, but we are also going to make history.” And so was born Kids of Survival (KOS).
Rollins describes the collaborative working process of KOS, “We paint on books. Our method works something like this: I select a piece of literature that I believe speaks to issues that the kids might relate to and be interested in. I read with the kids, defining unfamiliar vocabulary or paraphrasing while I go along. While I read, many of the kids ‘jam’--that’s what we call making literally hundreds of small drawings. The drawings do not illustrate what is being read; the object is to relate the content of the book to what we know, feel or sense in our everyday lives. After we’ve made stacks of drawings, we begin to edit, reducing the number of pictures to a small amount of images that seem the most true and exciting. Transparencies are made of these small selections. Using an overhead projector on a moving cart, we compose and draft the large piece. Each kid then gets to paint his or her own enlarged drawing on a ground of pages torn from the book that provided the inspiration for the art. In this way the book becomes a literal and metaphorical foundation for our new form and content and method.”
“In Inferno we wanted to turn these images into active forms of freedom against those other very active forces who would bring an end to human history and culture as we know it, if they were left without our resistance.”
About the Music #1:
“War With Myself”
Lyrics:
[Verse 1:]
I'm at war with myself
The very thing I want to do
I keep trying to do
But I just can't seem to do
The things I know You want me to
'Cause I'm at war with myself
[Verse 2:]
I'm going through a lot of things that make me stumble
Attacking me, beating me, breaking me, keeping me humble
The Word is good, but my sinful nature's taking over
I need a light, can someone help me to recover
[Verse 3:]
All I need is You (all I need is You, all I want is You)
All I want is truth (I'm in search of truth, the truth that only comes from You)
Can I find the faith (can I find the faith to keep me on the straight)
I'm calling out Your name
[Chorus:]
The very thing I want to do
I keep trying to do
But I just can't seem to do
The things I know You want me to
'Cause I'm at war with myself
No matter what I try to do
I keep failing You
But I know that I should do
The things I know You want me to
'Cause I'm at war with myself
[Verse 4:]
I'm fighting in this battle like a wounded soldier
I don't think I can bear this burden on my shoulder
The ride is rough, it's going fast, it's almost over
I need a hand to get me off this roller coaster
[Verse 5:]
How can I get to You (how can I get to You, I need to get to You)
I still desire truth (I still desire truth, the truth that only comes from You)
I'm desperate for the faith (I'm desperate for the faith to keep me on the straight)
I'm screaming out Your name
[Verse 6:]
When the righteous cry out (when the righteous cry out)
They'll be set free (be set free)
From the pain in this life (this life)
That brought them to their knees
[Verse 7:]
In the night, a light, the smoke is clearing
The sky is dark, and hot, but I'm not fearing
It's raging on, but I know that I can win this battle
Eventually, the other side of me will crumble
[Verse 8:]
All I need is You (all I need is You, how can I get to You)
All I want is truth (I still desire truth, the truth that only comes from You)
Can I find the faith (I'm desperate for the faith to keep me on the straight)
I'm crying out Your name
[Chorus x2]
About the Music #2:
“O Wretched Man”
Lyrics:
[Verse 1:]
O wretched man, that I am
Who'll deliver me, from this body of death?
O wretched man, that I am
Who'll deliver me, from this body of death?
[Verse 2:]
I thank God, I thank God
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord
I thank God, I thank God
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord
[Verse 3:]
For the wages of sin, is death
But the gift of God, is eternal life
For the wages of sin, is death
But the gift of God, is eternal life
[Verse 4 x2:]
I thank God (I thank the Lord, I thank the Lord)
I thank God (I thank the Lord, I thank the Lord)
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord (Through His Son, through His Son, Through His Son, through His Son)
[Verse 5 x2:]
I praise God (I praise the Lord, I praise the Lord)
I praise God (I praise the Lord, I praise the Lord)
For Jesus Christ, our Lord
(For His Son, for His Son, For His Son, for His Son)
About the Composer:
Keith Lancaster is a singer, songwriter, composer, producer and founder of The Acappella Company. Keith along with his wife Sharon, are committed to equipping churches around the world with the tools necessary for vibrant a cappella singing. As long-time "musicianaries" of the Park Plaza Church in Tulsa, they've been invited to all 50 states, and now their workshop calendar is busier than ever. When they are not on the road for Praise & Harmony Workshops, you'll find them with their home church and current base, the Cullman Church of Christ in Cullman, Alabama.
http://www.keithlancaster.com/
About the Performers:
Acappella is an all-male Contemporary Christian Hall of Fame vocal group founded in 1982 by Keith Lancaster. Acappella has been encouraging listeners for three and a half decades through a ministry that is as powerful and relevant as ever. Combining the Gospel message with stellar male a cappella harmonies, this ensemble continues to point people of all backgrounds to the Lord of heaven and earth.
About the Poet:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) is regarded as one the Victorian era’s greatest poets. He was raised in a prosperous and artistic family. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied Classics and wrote poetry. In 1867 he entered a Jesuit monastery near London. At that time, he vowed to “write no more...unless it were by the wish of my superiors.” Hopkins burnt all of the poetry he had written and would not write poems again until 1875. He spent the next nine years in training at various Jesuit houses throughout England and carried out his duties of teaching and preaching in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Stonyhurst. In 1875, Hopkins, deeply moved by a newspaper account of a German ship, the Deutschland, wrecked during a storm at the mouth of the Thames River, began to write poetry again. Although his poems were never published during his lifetime, his friend poet Robert Bridges edited a volume of Hopkins’s works entitled Poems which first appeared in 1918.