Noah, Sin, Billy Graham, and Where We are

 In my (small) Life Group of women on the verge or, as is said, women of a certain age, I taught this morning on Noah in Genesis 6 and 7.

I started with a 5-question quiz about what we know about the narrative. 

1. How many people were on the ark?

2. How many days were they in the ark?

3. True/False: there were only two of every species of animal. 

4. True/False: Noah's sons went and captured the animals. 

5. True/False: The main sin mankind was being punished for was sexual.

Answers:  8, more than 201, False (on two counts: species and kinds are not the same, and there were 7 of the sacrificial clean animals), False (6:20), and False, violence was the sin.

For some reason we teach Noah's Ark as a children's story, like it was a floating zoo with precious animals. It was closer to Sodom and Gomorrah on steroids, although that was for sexual sin (or lack of hospitality, depending on how it is read), and the judgment of the flood was about violence. 

But back to my class. Because the teacher from last year didn't get to finish, we listened to an old Billy Graham sermon on sin that she wanted us to hear. That meant I was the follow up act to Billy Graham (my uncle Billy, as I often say, since we share the same surname), and no one wants to do that. So I took notes on his sermon and referred to it. 

The sermon was from 1959, and pretty much geared to a 1959 audience: a time when the majority of the population held on to Christian notions of the Bible, right and wrong, and the person of Christ--or at least close to it. What struck me was that the sermon, given when I was three, maybe, as fiery and on point as it was, would not speak to most people today, even in the church. I'm not sure that's entirely good or entirely bad. Case in point:

He defined "sin" as "the breaking of a religious law or moral principle." That's very "transactional." I see a checklist, with something good not marked off, or a checklist of bad actions with some of them checked off. And there is some truth to that. 

But I prefer to think in Augustinian terms: sin is about broken loves. We sin when we love something more than God, His word, and His will for us. And I would add, we trust ourselves or something else more than we trust God. 

For older women, who are less likely to carouse or embezzle or murder, those sins of broken loves exhibit in fear, anxiety, worry--and self addiction. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. My convenience, my plans, my comfort, my money, mylittle world, my way of doing things, my will, my....

I do checklists very well. I also break loves very well, too.