Genesis 1:1-2:4

A novice Roman Catholic priest was engaged in giving confession for the very first time. In order to assess his competence in this particular form of ministry, a senior priest sat in the confessional booth with him. “How am I doing?” asked the young priest during a quiet moment. “Well,” replied the older priest, “I think that when a person finishes with their confession, you should say something like, ‘I agree it is terrible what you have done, and I would encourage you to stay away from that type of behavior from now on,’ instead of saying, ‘WOW!'”

One of the most helpful of all Christian doctrines is the doctrine of original sin, and its corollary, developed by the Protestant reformers, the doctrine of total depravity. When we understand these two doctrines we are not “wowed” by the wrongdoing of other people. We understand it as part of fallen human nature. And this is good because it can keep us from being taken advantage of by others as well as from being blind to our own faults and failings.

Recently, the police department in St. John, NB offered a prize to a group of select people. All the members of this group had one thing in common, there was outstanding arrest warrants on them. Rather than tracking each one of them down, the St. John Police Department concocted a sting operation where they were informed each person that they had won some sort of contest and if they showed up at such and such a place they would receive their reward. About 45 people out of the over 700 hundred who were invited showed up to claim their prize and were promptly arrested. In a radio interview, a police spokesperson defended the department’s tactic claiming that at least it taught the arrested people the lesson that “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is not true.”

You don’t, however, need to be a victim of a police sting in order to figure that out, all you have to do is study theology and in particularly this doctrine of original sin; for it teaches that people can be deceitful shysters, more than willing to take advantage of the gullible and the naive.

Just as an aside, I found it quite interesting that after the interview with the police defending their sting operation as a legitimate way of arresting people, the next news item was a bulletin issued by the Halifax police advising listeners that a person using a French accent was engaged in criminal activity — that is he was phoning people up and telling them that they had won a prize and that all they had to pay to secure their prize was a small retainer’s fee. Apparently what’s sauce for the goose is not for the gander, at least not in St. John, NB.

But if the doctrine of original sin is a helpful doctrine, it can also, without the proper balance, become a harmful doctrine as well. It can cause us to become cynical, bitter people who trust no one and nothing if we take it to its extreme, if we fail to balance it with what I am choosing to call the doctrine of original goodness.

The creation story found in the book of Genesis makes its crystal clear that at the creation of the world, goodness prevailed. Creation is divided into seven, the number of perfection in Hebrew thinking. At the end of each day of creation the refrain is sounded, “and God saw everything that was made and it was good,” and then, at the end of the sixth day of creation, the creation of man and woman, the refrain is that “it was very good.” Before the “badness” of sin entered the world, “goodness” prevailed. And while “badness” is strong and pervasive, it never did and never can obliterate the original goodness.

That is why, at heart, I prefer the Protestant doctrine of total depravity to the Roman Catholic doctrine of original sin. They are almost identical, I will admit, and both doctrines were formulated to say the same thing. But the very term “original sin” implies that sin was prior to everything else. Thus, at the Pentecost celebration, our guest preacher for the occasion, felt that he had to start with sin before he could talk about grace. We first had to realize we were sinners, he noted, before we could realize that we were saved. But is this biblically the best way to begin? We need to talk about sin, I’ll admit that, but the Bible begins not with human sin but with God’s goodness, with the goodness of creation, and with the “very” goodness of men and woman. I am no longer sure that this emphasis on human sin should be the starting point of evangelism anymore. For one thing, it doesn’t work but, more importantly, it isn’t fair to the biblical text.

To ignore original goodness in favor of original sin leads to the sort of dreary and pessimistic attitude that you find in many churches and spouted from countless pulpits. As the poem puts it, “the Christian through life’s garden goes, and plucks the thorn and throws away the rose. He thinks by this peculiar whim, to please the God who fashioned him.”

At a Baptist Convention meeting in London, Ontario some years ago now the backdrop was a huge painting of the face of Christ. Nothing terribly novel for a church gathering, except that the painting depicted Jesus as laughing, not just laughing politely but splitting his sides, as if he had just heard a certain children’s story at the Pereaux Church. Tears were coming out of his eyes he was laughing so hard! Do you know what a furor that painting caused, people were offended by it, they complained, they wanted it removed, they demanded that it be removed! All because Jesus wasn’t portrayed as a somber, sour type but as someone who was having a good time.

For a few moments this morning, then let’s look together at this theme of the original goodness of life, of creation, of God. Three implications follow. The first is that life is good and we need to celebrate this more and grumble and complain less. C. S. Lewis once noted about a woman who complained all the time that it was no longer true that she had a complaint, the truth was that she had become a complaint. If we fail to celebrate the goodness of life we run the risk of becoming complaints.

That is why God calls us to worship on a regular basis. It’s hard to complain and to worship at one and the same time. During the middle of the Second War, Archbishop Temple, the head of the Anglican Church, in a radio broadcast, noted that the world could be saved by one thing and one thing only, and that was the worship of God. He went on to explain to his surprised listeners with these words:

To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God,

to feed the mind with the truth of God,

to purge the imagination with by the beauty of God,

to open the heart to the love of God.

In short, to worship is to celebrate and affirm the goodness of God, and even in the midst of the bleakness and horror of war, the goodness of life as well.

The second implication of original goodness is that people are good. Oh, there are many scoundrels, I don’t think that it would be wise to accept an invitation from the St. John’s police force to a party anytime soon. Moreover, all of us, at some time or another, will be cruel and thoughtless, even to those whom we claim to love the most. But, at heart, people are good and decent and true.

And so we need to forgive more and to harbor fewer grudges. We need to stop attributing bad motives to everyone who disagrees with us. The recent flap over the Horton School was an example of this. I fell into this trap as easily as everyone else. There were dark motives behind everyone’s position. So and so wanted to run for political office so she was currying favor with the voters, this individual wanted to get back at others for past hurts, while that individual wanted to advance his career. The truth is that most people just wanted what was and is best for their children and best for this community, it just happened to be that there were and are differences of opinions over how this is achieved.

And then the third implication of this doctrine of original goodness is that God is good. The old view of God was of a stern, mean God out to get you if you stepped the least way out of line. This is a view of God that original sin portrays. The truth is that God is a loving God, that God’s justice is merciful and God’s love is eternal. And so we need to trust more and to fear less.

Life is good, people are good, God is good. And it is because of the goodness of God that even though sin entered our world, we know that the first and the last word is a word of hope and joy, that the original goodness of life will overcome sin so that at the end of time all will be in harmony once more. Is this a delusion? I don’t think so and I don’t think so for several reasons. I don’t think it is a delusion because of the bright yellow of a field of sunflowers spread over the deep green of spring grass, or because of the delicate petals of a wild, cherry tree. I don’t think it is a delusion because of the beauty of music, or the way a song will bring back a flood of memories and make the heart sing. I don’t think that it is a delusion because there is so much to do and to be. I don’t think that it is a delusion because of people like Dr. Cherry and some of you as well, whose goodness shines deep and true. Most of all I don’t think it is a delusion because in the dying figure of Jesus I see God’s love and in the resurrected spirit of Christ I sense God’s power.

Many years ago now I was out in a small boat on Lake Lochmond near the city of St. John. It was a cloudy day and I was all alone when I spotted a mother duck and five or six ducklings ahead of me. The engine on the boat was only an eight horsepower one but with the throttle full open I quickly gained on the baby ducks who were swimming furiously to safety behind their mother. Suddenly the mother duck let out a piercing cry and began to fly around my boat, flapping one wing as if it was broken. I stopped the boat wondering what was going on when suddenly it came to me, as the baby ducklings continued to paddle to safety, that the mother was trying to lure me away, offering me her life in order to save the life of her children. I sat there for a moment and suddenly I found myself thinking not of a duck flapping a wing as if broken, but of a cross. I found myself thinking of the goodness of God, of the broken body of Jesus — broken out of love for me and for you. I will never forget that moment, for me it was an epiphany of God through nature.

I stopped chasing the baby ducklings and sat there in awe of the mother duck’s fierce, wild love. And I knew, knew in thoughts too deep for words or reason to express, that at the very heart of life, that at the end of our days, a loving God is waiting to welcome us all home.

Delivered at the Pereaux Church — 2 June 1996