JR. Forasteros - November 6, 2011
What's Behind Us
We live in a world shaped by choices other people have made. We live in an inheritance that seems pretty broken most of the time. It's easy to feel trapped by what's been chosen for us. But God gave Ezekiel a message for the Israelite Exiles that we need to hear too. God says that we are responsible to choose God here and now, in our time. That we will be held accountable not for what others have done to us but what we choose. What's behind us doesn't define us.
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Just over 20 years ago, a band called The Verve Pipe released a song called “The Freshmen” that became a breakout hit for them. The song is dark and moody, and dramatizes the end of a high school relationship.
After narrating a terrible, painful choice his once-girlfriend makes at the end of their relationship, the singer croons,
“For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise. For the life of me, I cannot believe we’d ever die for these sins. We were merely freshmen.”
But the tone of the song doesn’t agree with the singer’s claims of innocence.
So when he admits, “We’ve tried to wash our hands of all of this. We never talk of our lacking relationships and how we’re guilt stricken, sobbing with our heads on the floor,” we recognize it for the lie the singer knows it to be.
He’s seeking absolution. He begs, “I can’t be held responsible, ’cause she was touching her face.’ Then, as though that’s not enough, he insists, “I won’t be held responsible. She fell in love in the first place.”
The Verve Pipe gives poetic expression to a deep truth we all know but, like the singer, don’t want to admit: We belong to each other.
And when we enter into relationships with one another, we become responsible for each other. We’d love to believe that your bad choices are your responsibility and mine are mine and theirs out there belong only to them.
We sing, “I can’t be held responsible!”
We insist, “I won’t be held responsible!”
But we know, deep down, that it’s not so simple. Relationships are messy and we have some level of deep obligation to one another.
For God’s people, this is even more explicit. God has set us up as priests, intermediaries between God and the world. By choosing to follow God, we accept the privilege to represent God to the world. We’ll see today that privilege comes with a heavy responsibility to bear that image well.
The good news is that we don’t bear God’s image alone. The one whose image we bear is with us, and always working in and around and through us to bring life and hope and healing.
