In The Bee Man of Orn a young sorcerer uses magic to transform a beekeeper. He was certain the beekeeper was an underachiever, so he turned him into a baby. When the sorcerer was old, he returned to the village where he first encountered the beekeeper. There he found the baby grown old, and, as you might guess, a bee keeper—exactly as the sorcerer had found him many years before.
Some things never change.
Humankind, no matter the evolution or transformation of millennia,
no matter the scientific or modern advances,
no matter the spiritual or philosophical influences,
humankind remains the same.
Oh, you might say, we are so very different than pre-historic humans, or ancient civilizations, or even people of a century ago.
Are we?
We establish our families, our tribes, and our civilizations. We create governments, institutions, laws, and politics. We establish economies of distribution, methods by which to control resources, and develop systems to control power and wealth.
In addition, we continue to use the earth’s resources without forethought of future generations. While there may have been exceptions to this, in general, humanity continues to use natural resources without regard for our great grandchildren and beyond.
Some things never change.
“Sin” is that way. What was a sin a thousand years ago is still a sin today and will be a thousand years from now!
To define sin, though, we will need more exploration, and while people have earned doctorates in philosophy on “sin,” our endeavor will take less than twenty minutes, leave us with more questions than answers, and hopefully, inspire us to be more diligent about our own sins.
There’s a book titled A History of Sin and the author Oliver Thomson says, since the beginning of time there has been sin. He traced morals from ancient history to post modern cultures. For Thomson crossing the moral and ethical guides of one’s society is “sin.”
However, at different times in history those moral and ethical guides change. Thomson observed that the morality of a culture largely depended upon the morals of the leaders of that culture. He wrote, those in power determined
how people treated each other,
how they conducted themselves, and
to what extent they valued life.
I do not agree with Thomson, I do not believe that sin is the same as immoral or unethical behavior. Our western thought, influenced by the ancient Hebrews and Greeks have taught us that society certainly needs morals and ethics. But if morals and ethics change with the powers that govern or control society, how can we say what a sin is at any given time.
For “sin” to be relevant and instructional for humankind, it must be defined universally, for all humanity. It must be considered a concept “outside of time,” as God is “outside of time,” just as salvation is “outside of time.”
Of course, that is not how the ancient Hebrews saw “sin.” Ask Job, one of the most memorable characters from the Old Testament. The book of Job is a traditional tale from the ancient Middle East. It can be found in many extant writings of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Babylon, and Ugarit. It is a story meant to motivate one to consider her relationship with God, the meaning of suffering, and the meaning of one’s blessings. It is meant for one to ask the question, “How do I respond in the face of sorrow?”
We know Job is a righteous man. Meaning he obeyed the many complex laws of his tribe. From the cultic point of view, if one is righteous, or if one does sin and atones for his sin, then he is obeying God and prosperity follows. One’s wealth and success reflects one’s relationship with God. We also know that Job believes he is righteous and cannot understand why all of his prosperity and wealth have disappeared. He screams at God, declares that God has done something wrong.
The ancient Hebrew, according to scholars [Robin C. Cover, The Anchor Bible Dictionary] never wavered in their belief that humans are responsible for their sins. Sins come from the human heart, not from God.
For Job to deny any sinfulness was completely against the beliefs which were the foundation upon which they all existed. Job’s friends argue with him; tell him he has to have done something wrong, even sin committed in ignorance had to be atoned. Job insisted in his innocence.
The story tells us what Job said is true. He was a righteous man.
The satan, at that time, a heavenly, celestial being, had questioned the depth of Job’s dedication. The satan and God had gotten into a disagreement over Job, and God had given the satan permission to “test” Job. Would Job be as faithful to God in times of sorrows as he was in times of prosperity?
At the end of the story, Job is complaining about God, and God speaks to Job “out of the whirlwind.” God reminds Job that God alone has the power to create, God alone solves the mysteries of life, God alone knows “why” everything happens, God alone possesses the Wisdom humans seek.
However, right in the middle of this story, after Job’s troubles, and before God answer’s Job, the author of the book of Job places one of the most beautiful poems in the Old Testament, chapter 28, our reading this morning.
We think “sin” is left behind.
And there are beautiful images of places where humankind looks for treasure. Yet, the writer tells us, what humankind looks for cannot be found. Nor can it be bought with precious metals or jewels. What is this, what IS the author writing about? Wisdom
Where can wisdom be found? And where does understanding dwell? … only God understands the way to it and God alone knows where it dwells?
For a moment we have lost sin and it seems we will never find Wisdom. Yet, at the end of this beautiful poem, in prose we hear, “The fear of God—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.”
The fear of God to ancient humankind meant “piety,” and “To shun evil” is a condensed expression “for the moral capacity of human beings.” [Carol A. Newsom in The New Interpreter’s Bible].
For the Hebrew people, for Job, piety is righteous behavior. Righteous behavior is achieved through discernment of God’s will. Discernment of God’s leads to wisdom—to understanding.
Perhaps Job, in the beginning of his story, was not as righteous as he thought. He did not understand what was happening until he challenged God, until he spent some time discerning what all this meant. Perhaps it was only after God spoke to him, after he allowed himself to be vulnerable to God that he understood.
For us, the words “piety” or “righteousness” may not be in our vocabulary, but “moral choice” is. And we make moral choices through discernment. And discernment leads to wisdom. Wisdom leads to God.
Perhaps “sin” after all, is not whether we are moral or immoral, whether we are ethical or unethical, perhaps sin is our inability to practice discernment. Perhaps the sin that is relevant and instructional, perhaps the “sin” outside of changing cultural definitions, outside of time, is ignoring God.
Stephen Palmquist, philosopher and author wrote:
“People tend to believe evil is something external to them … But from a psychological point of view to be evil is to refuse to acknowledge the weaknesses in one's own personality.” [Stephen Palmquist, Dreams of Wholeness: A course of introductory lectures on religion, psychology and personal growth (Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press, 1997/2008), see especially Chapter XI.]
Discernment, brings us into relationship with God. Like Job, we, too, are blessed with prosperity. It is only when we develop cancer, or our niece is killed by a drunk driver, or we lose our job and cannot find work that we pay attention to God, and then we are like Job, we rail and scream.
God is with us always, through the prosperity and through the challenges. We sin when we do not take the time to know God, to listen to God, to hear what God has to say to us.
Beekeeper did not change. Some things never change.
Humankind, no matter the evolution or transformation of millennia,
no matter the scientific or modern advances, no matter our poverty or posterity, we still need God.