The Line of Demarcation Seen With New Eyes!

“I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do the very thing I want, but I do the very thing I hate… in fact it is no longer I that do it but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:15, 17) 

Some say that Paul, in these verses, was referring to his life before his conversion experience; his old life before knowing Jesus.  However, in the original Greek, this passage is written with all the verbs in the present tense.  Paul is describing the incredible inner conflict he feels between good and bad in his life right then and there, even after his profound experience on the road to Damascus that led to a radical transformation and renewal in his life.  

This morning I will speak to you about a line. It is about one of the most important lines ever drawn or ever could be drawn.  It is the line of demarcation between all that is good and all that is bad. 

On Friday I went to a small town 4^th of July parade in Buena Vista.  It was a lovely and typical small town parade.  At one point in the parade, one of the two major political parties’ delegation and float came down the street. (it matters not which party)   A dear friend of mine was walking in the delegation as he is county chair of his party.  He was smiling and waving to the crowd.  A group of grown men standing next to me along the curb actually booed and muttered insults as the delegation came by. 

As our nation and world becomes increasingly polarized, an attitude that seems increasingly pervasive is the idea that good is on one side and bad is on the other side.  We are hasty to look for deficiencies in others, but slow to recognize deficiencies in ourselves. To use Jesus words, we “see the speck in our neighbor’s eye, but fail to see the log in our own.”

In the 30 Years War in Germany and Europe from 1618–1648, there was a battle between two German armies, one representing the Catholic League and the other representing the Protestant Union. In those days the armies didn’t have uniforms so each army identified itself with a unique identifying battle cry so they wouldn’t kill their own people.  Ironically, in this particular battle, each army chose the same battle cry.  Since they all were Germans they even shouted out their cry in the same language.  So, when the two armies attacked, they killed indiscriminately all the time shouting   their identifying slogan, “God is with us!” 

Personally, I believe when used as any kind of a rallying cry, military, political, social or otherwise, “God is with us” borders upon blasphemy. I say that because with the mind-set “God is with us” the “us” is still the focus.  “God is with me!”  “God is with us!”  Really, are we sure?  Are you sure?  Am I sure?  Could we stand before the throne of the God of the universe and so confidently declare, without doubt, without duplicity?   If I live only within the narrow parameters of “God is with me” there is then no recognized need for objective self-reflection because, after all, “God is with me.”  There is no need or room for honest recognition of the duplicity that might lurk within me because, after all, “God is with me.” 

I believe the apostle Paul would be very uncomfortable with “God is with me” and “God is with us” thinking and acting, especially based on what he is agonizingly struggling with in this Romans passage.  Paul finds himself caught and trapped in a profound spiritual quandary.

“I do not understanding my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but the very thing I hate… in fact it is no longer I that do it but sin that dwells within me” (7:15 – present tense) 

There is one crucial background item that we must always keep in mind whenever we read the letters of Paul in the New Testament, and that is Paul’s dramatic conversion experience on the road to Damascus recorded in the book of Acts, chapter 9. It was a life-defining experience that informed and shaped everything else he ever did and ever wrote.  If you remember, Saul (Paul’s name before his conversion), operating under the religious sanction of the high priest in Jerusalem, was dispatched to round up and arrest any who were a part of the seditionist  movement called “The Way,” that is followers of Jesus.  The story goes that Saul, on the road to Damascus, was struck blind by a bright light, knocked to the ground, and then heard a voice, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”   For three days Saul was stricken as blind as a bat until a follower of Jesus named Ananias showed up, laid his hands on Saul and restored his sight.  From that moment on, Saul who became Paul, was a transformed man and began living his life for Jesus. 

I mention this because I believe for Paul sin had more to do with blindness that being a bad person, or immoral person, or an evil person or some such thing.  Paul’s conversion experience in Acts is dripping with the metaphor of sin as blindness; not physical blindness, but spiritual blindness.  When Paul was Saul and was persecuting the early Christian movement, he wasn’t doing it because he was a bad person or an evil person, but much more because he was a blind person.  He had been blinded by his way of religious belief. He was acting out of the conviction that God was solely on his side, hence justifying his persecuting activity.  Saul being struck blind functions as a powerful metaphor, that sometimes sin is blindness and is manifested as spiritual blindness; the inability to see the authentic way – God’s way.

When Paul desperately cries out in verse 24 “who will rescue me from this body of death” it is, in part, a reference back to his experience of blindness as a religiously sanctioned persecutor of the followers of Jesus.  It is also a description of how helplessly trapped he felt in his blindness.

This past week we were hiking along the Arkansas River near Buena Vista.  We came across a group of young adults “body surfing” along a stretch of river.  I learned that “body surfing” is when one individual jumps as far out into the fast moving water as possible, laying  back spread eagle, literally zooming across the top of fast moving rapids.  Further on down the river other people are ready to throw out long life-lines with a float device on the end for the body surfer to grab in order to be pulled safely in. The water was moving so fast that those throwing out the safety lines miscalculated, and one of the body-surfers slipped past them before he could catch the line.  There was a group of us standing around watching this madness, and we all simultaneously gasped when the safety line fell short of the body-surfer. For a few anxious moments the body surfer was at the mercy of the raging current until others ran quickly ahead of him along the river bank and were able to throw him a “rescue” line.  

Paul’s experience was something like that.  “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  In other words, “Who will rescue me from this experience of blindness that I am stricken with and carried away by time and again no matter how hard I try or how much effort I expend to resist it?”  Can’t you just hear the agony, struggle and despair in Paul’s words; the same agony, struggle and despair I’m sure he felt when physically stricken blind and sitting in the dirt of the Damascus road? 

But then, the agony dissipates and turns to sheer joy, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  Thanks be to the living Lord Jesus who gave him not only a new name but the gift a new set of eyes with which to navigate through life; his very own eyes; the eyes of Jesus.   

For Paul, sin was a kind of blindness, and salvation was new sight.  Trapped in darkness, unable to see, the lifeline of rescue was the gift of seeing in a whole new way; seeing with the eyes of Jesus; eyes that he received as pure gift.   One of the things that Paul saw was that the line between all that was good and all that was bad, the line between love and hate, compassion and indifference, generosity and greed does not run between people, groups, political parties, nations, between anything!  The line of demarcation runs down the middle of every human life on this planet – including yours and mine!  Not seeing that is blindness.   A few chapters earlier Paul stated, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  One way I like to paraphrase that verse is, “All are blind and cannot see God’s authentic way.” 

With the gift of his new eyes Paul saw, and we too can see; that is understand and recognize we stand in need of God’s grace and that new set of eyes every moment with every breath we take.

For me salvation is not so much a state of being, as a state of seeing.  With the eyes of Jesus everything and everyone looks completely different – even our enemies and adversaries.  We might even have the grace to see that the line of demarcation between all that is good and all that is bad doesn’t run between us but through the middle of each of us.  It may even be a line that connects even bitter adversaries - all who stand in need of new eyes - the eyes of grace - the eyes of Jesus.

“O God, grace us with the eyes to see – the eyes of Jesus.”