I doubt that when making his point, Pastor Stickman expected to have it illustrated so immediately or so aptly. Not only is god taking care of the sin, but the pastor is not exempted from being included as one of the sinners who should be loved.
Granted, perhaps his view of how god takes care of sin has been heavily influenced by Ananias and Sapphira (see Acts 5) and needs some adjusting to reflect more of the example of Jesus.
One reader replied to me personally, wondering why God is "taking out pastor stickman" when the pastor seems to be getting it right (in other words, is rejecting the common saying in favour of a better perspective).
ReplyDeletePart of my goal on this blog is to point out and bring into the light the ways we think and the ways we view life and people. Here, there are several reasons I drew the cartoon this way. The first is alluded to in the original post, to point out that our view of 'how god takes care of sin' is often punitive in nature, when god is actually redemption-oriented. My second comment is that the cartoon as it stands also alludes to the idea that we often still think 'the sinner' is someone else, someone out there somewhere, and so we end up being surprised when someone on the inside (like the good pastor) is struck by a lightning bolt.
I suspect that Jesus had something to do with how Ananias and Sapphira were treated. Or was that just His dad?
ReplyDeleteAlex
What if the sin is bullying? Theft? Emotional abuse? Slavery? Adultery? Taking advantage of the less fortunate? Should we simply love those involved without addressing the sin... and just let God deal with the sin? Are there cases when God has told us to address the sin as well? Can we love someone that is a victim, without addressing the fact that they are being victimized? God seems pretty clear throughout the Bible that we ARE to directly confront sin - to lift up people from a position of being powerless and unloved to being loved.
ReplyDeleteJesus came to be the way. He taught that the law was there to points to God. We should not simply ignore sin - Jesus didn't come to gt rid of the law, rather to fulfill the law.
(part 2 - due to iPad failure)
ReplyDeleteJesus came to give us life. Included in that was to teach us to love others as ourselves. Yet, when asked about sin, He didn't get rid of it or minimize it, rather he raised the bar for all of us - not just adultery, but lust.... not just murder but anger.
I think simply saying "let God deal with the sin" is making light of what Jesus taught, of our calling, and of our work here on earth as the body of Christ - of the hands and feet of God. I think that God honors our decisions when we says "there is injustice in this world, I am going to tackle it head-on". That means hating "the sin" as well as loving
.... Signed, Alex
ReplyDelete(iPad fail #2)
Hi Alex:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great comments despite your iPad's attempts to suppress them :-)
I agree 100% with you that as followers of Jesus and as people of the world, we need to tackle injustice in the world rather than just waiting for God to deal with it. This comic was not intended to suggest that Pastor Stickman's idea is good overall and in all contexts (more on why I drew it in my first comment above).
In this series on "love the sinner and hate the sin", the focus is on those situations where followers of Jesus encounter someone who is sinning in some personal way (typically affecting themselves directly and perhaps some people right around them) -- which of course is all of us. But it seems that only sometimes do we say "love the sinner, hate the sin." We don't say it about our best friend if they've just been rude to a store clerk, or about our grandmother who might express a racist view. So I'm critiquing that saying, rather than the idea of whether or not we should address sin.
In line with your thoughts, when someone robs a bank or when Kony abducts children to be soldiers, we do not think of saying, "love the sinner and hate the sin." We address the injustice or the wrong-doing.
Appreciate your insights which have broadened the topic here!