Dear Church (not the building, but those who make up the body),

Is it ok to laugh?  No, not the joyful kind of laughter, but that nervous giggle that has to do with truth.  You know.  You are sitting in service and the pastor says something that images-4holds up a mirror.  And instead of taking a breath and looking full into that mirror, you glance over thinking you know what it shows and just give a nervous giggle.  I don’t know when I stopped giggling and started being sad, but it happened at some point.

In the church we talk about sin quite a bit.  Sometimes it seems that we tend to talk about other people’s sin more than our own, and we have chosen some particular ones as our favorites.  I think the biggest problem though is when we do bring up sin that is present in the church, we seem to be met with a more relaxed attitude toward it.  Something like, no one is perfect, but that is why we have Jesus to “wash them all away”.   What I guess I am trying to say is, while God forgives, shouldn’t we be more brokenhearted by our own wrongdoings?

That is where the giggle comes in.  I hear it all the time on the podcasts I listen too.  And I guess to be honest, it rubs me the wrong way.  I must read the prophets too much.  I see the effects of Israel’s sin and know that what applied to them, applies to me.  Why am I not broken hearted over my own sin?  Why church aren’t we?

These were the thoughts that came over me the past couple of days.  This afternoon my images-5attention was caught by a note I scribbled in my bible in the book of Isaiah.  All it said was “weight of your sin”.  It was not by a verse or anything, just written at the top.  So as I scanned the words, I saw a therefore.  “Therefore justice is far from us…”  That sentence made me sad, because justice is important.  Since the sentence started with therefore, I went back to the verses before it to see what it was “there for”.  The verses speak of God’s people and all of the things that they were doing wrong.  It spoke of all of their sin.  It gave me the answer as to why there was no justice.  It makes me wonder if the same could be said for today?