Corporate Repentance

The other day I was in a preaching class at my church and somebody started talking about the infallability of scripture and how it is all inerant, good for teaching, etc. With my usual sarcastic view, I immediately chose Deuteronomy 21 as my text for this week. Funny enough, I ended up actually finding something wonderful in a chapter of scripture that is usually a bit challenging to my view of God.

Deuteronomy 21:1-9 talks about finding a murdered man and no suspects. It's like a typical CSI episode. Rather than talking about how bad some people can be, the people, represented by their political and religious leaders, repent and ask for God's forgiveness for this terrible sin. It is corporate repentance.

It seems to me that in our individualistic culture where everybody has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and spends way too much time focused on themselves, this strange law in Deuteronomy has much to share with us. There is no sense of "us and them" or "me and you" in this text, but more of the feeling that if a murder has taken place, the community as a whole has failed both their God and one another. Wow.

Think of Equitorial Guinea or Angola or Saudi Arabia, where people are murdered and exploited by ruthless dictators. Many have no rights or are starving to death while their leaders get rich. Now imaging yourself, your neighbor, and all other Americans paying $30 a week to those rulers. We buy the oil from Chevron-Texaco, who supports these governments and drills oil off their coasts. Before we point out how evil these men, like President Obiang, are, we must look at ourselves and realize that it is our community that has failed in relationship and must repent and seek out the Lord's forgiveness. The plank is in our corporate eye. That feels like an amazing way to view sin that needs to be regained in our post-Christendom version of faith.

Peace,
Matt