I still receive the village newsletter from a wonderful little place we used to live in -- Sherborne St John in Hampshire. My favorite part of the newsletter was the vicar's monthly column. Some months he seemed to be pre-occupied with sex, so I looked forward to each month's offering to see what he'd say next. (I first blogged about the vicar back in December here.)
This month some renovation work is going on at the parish, so the vicar's mind turns to DIY (home improvements without professional help, to you American readers). How will he link this to finding Jesus, one wonders. A few sentences later, all is revealed:
"We tend to think we’ll be OK - we can do it ourselves - cobble together a few good deeds and make ourselves presentable. But we fail to recognise the fundamental fact that God is absolutely holy and righteous. His standard is 100%. By comparison to his requirement we all fall short. Indeed the Bible says that ‘all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.'"
Vicar, that's harsh! All our good deeds are like filthy rags? I'm depressed now.
He concludes with this interesting point:
"Not to decide for Christ is to decide against him. There can be no presumption that we will one day change our minds before we die. Experience shows that hardly ever happens. And that is not surprising for the day of decision is now."
Don't you think it's interesting that the vicar has 'experience' that most of us don't have time to convert to Christianity before we die? I guess his implication is that we need to do so upon reading his column.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
A vicar's musings
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7 comments:
THIS REMINDS ME OF CLASSIC MEDEVIL CHURCH SPEAK. JOIN, CONTRIBUTE OR BE DAMMED FOR LIFE, NICE! TODAY WE ARE MORE FREE IN THOUGHT (SOMETIMES TO DETRIMENT) BUT THIS SORT OF "PERSUASION" WILL HAVE LITTLE EFFECT TODAY. SHAME I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO SOMETHING MORE THOUGHT PROVOCING.
I'm by no means a biblical scholar, so I did a bit of research on this comment, which comes from Isaiah. I believe the vicar has misintepreted the text.
"The filthy rags" comment in fact refers to people who do evil, then quickly try to make up for it by doing good. Imagine, for example, the man who steals $50,000, then gives $1,000 to charity but keeps the rest and feels good about himself. That $1,000 is the "filthy rag."
Well, but now you have opened up the forum for all sort of questions: 1) from whom did he/she steal the $50,000? Was it from an "evil" corporation (cruel abattoir:) 2) Who gets to define "good works"? and 3), what if this terrible corrupt person hastily shoves a huge pile of money (for tax reasons, of course) into a program for the poor/homeless whomever? He/she may not be pure of heart, nor anywhere close, but if his/her dirty capitalist lucre feeds a few of the the homeless/dienfranchised, then...the moral issue gets a bit blurred, and so it should.
Eliz A, thank you for doing the research on that comment because it does make a person feel bad to think all their good deeds are filthy rags, esp if they aren't believers. You helped me a lot today.
ELIZ A, THANK YOU, THAT IS FACINATING, FOOD FOR THOUGHT!
Certain Christians do seem fond of this "filthy rags" idea.
I remember at a prayer meeting I once went to (yes, Not The Antichrist has attended such events) the speaker said sonething about our own righteousness being like filthy rags compared to Jesus's perfection. Obviously he hadn't read Isaiah properly either!
But had Jesus read Isaiah properly? I know there were Torah scrolls lying about the temples, but do we know whether Jesus was literate? This isn't a tricky rhetorical question; I honestly never heard this discussed.
When I converted to Catholicism, one of the really interesting things Sr. Michele (an 80+-year-old nun, sharp as a tack) stressed during those endless RCIA classes was that the Old Testament had been written over centuries, very crude and violent times, and the writers' slants were to be taken in context: preservation of a safe unified society was the driving focus. Not having the privilege (?) of existentialism, moral relativism, nor any of the other fancy philosophical embellishments we enjoy (?) they did the best they could, and then of course a good bit has been mis-translated/mis-transliterated over time.
So I object to Antichrists (not you, Mel, jamais!:):) pointing laughing fingers (whoooops, what an image, but I'll leave it as I think a Laughing Finger would be as much fun to have as Obiwan Kanobe's light thingie:):) at how silly the Old Testament laws were---you know, getting your eyes yanked out for this, getting stoned for that, blah blah. The whole point of Jesus is that he---whether one considers him the Messiah or just another wise teacher---came along and---well, that stuff's pretty well-documented. But vicars like this Sherborne guy aren't really helping spread the word, are they?
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