Wednesday, November 11, 2009

YouTube

A few minutes ago, I completed the watching of a YouTube video containing film of a "man-on-the-street" interview. It was done by a church group, asking one question of various people. The question was pretty simple--"what is sin?"

The answers were quite varied, and interesting of themselves, but I made an observation while watching.

First of all, the majority of the people appearing in the video were well-dressed, and appeared to have an abundance of food and grooming. Basically, mostly middle-class people. All of them had a reaction to the use of the word "sin,"--although with some it was less obvious--and all reactions were negative.

One particularly interesting response was "the only sin is using that word." As in, you can't tell me that there is even such a thing as sin.

Aside from the responses from atheists/agnostics, there were also the religious people. Their responses were equally interesting, but much less intelligible. In fact, for someone not raised in church, the churchy responses would have been totally meaningless.

But one answer stood out. It was amazing how clear, precise and simple it was. "Sin is doing whatever God says not to do."

And, the man who said it was sitting on a sidewalk with dirty clothes and no teeth. It was clear that he was one of those homeless people that we don't like to think about.

How is it that he could answer a question so clearly, and not one other person could figure it out?

The Kingdom of God is not hard to understand. It's hard to put into practice, but the concept is very simple. But we have made it difficult, almost inaccessible for many. Why? The fact is, many Christians are not a part of the Kingdom of God, and secretly, they don't want to be. So we hide behind a mask of clever words and red herrings.

With all the deception, politics and selfishness in our churches, I think it might be time to start wondering...do we even know God anymore?

Hey, thanks for reading on this happy, happy day.