22.02 | It’s Not Working
Romans 1:18-2:11
‘For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.’
Romans 1:21
Why isn’t it working?
We got our first family desktop computer in 1996. Bulky, off-white monitor with its accompanying base unit; the blend of creaking and bleeping noises to get it turned on; the black startup screen with blinking cursor in MS-DOS mode. Encarta ’95. We thought it was miraculous.
But these machines were temperamental. Every few months ours would stop working. And unlike today, where most problems could be fixed by a quick reboot or update, you needed significant knowledge of the inner machinations of user software to be able to fix it. Each person needed a tech-savvy friend, who could be called upon in their hour of need. Our PC saviour was Andy.
And so, every few months, Andy would come round, and spend sometimes hours working around in MS-DOS, rebooting, waiting, trying one thing, trying something else. It was exceptionally kind. And it was painstaking.
Why isn’t it working?
We never knew the answer. Mercifully, Andy did.
Paul hits this question straight out of the gate. He’s beginning his Masterclass in the Gospel as the universal Story for all humanity, and he begins where many of us, if we’re honest, have a long list of questions.
Why isn’t it working?
Why is a world of potential filled with such pain? Why can’t nations flourish into ways of genuine truth, peace, and justice, rather than corruption, selfish ambition, and structural inequality? Why can’t we live in easy symbiosis with the natural world, nurturing its resources rather than stripping them? Why cancer? Why earthquakes? Why insomnia? Why racism? And why can’t my own heart settle to the things of peace and rest and truth, rather than be such a tangle of anger and confusion and anxiety? Why do I want things that are destructive and not always want the things that are good?
Why isn’t it working?
This is where Paul begins. It is raw. It is honest. And it is real. It cuts to the very intersection of our deepest pain with our deepest yearning for a world that can again be called good. The memory of Eden pulses in our blood. And every departure from it is an affront to our very souls.
So, why isn’t it working?
Like a good doctor, he doesn’t fixate on symptoms—however multitudinous they may be. He looks to the cause. He doesn’t blame it on that politician or that ideology or that societal dysfunction. He goes back further, to the very beginning. He goes back to the most fundamental relationship required for all human flourishing to happen.
You and God.
We did not honour God as God.
When we talk of sin, we begin here.
Not as a list of things done wrong, but rather as a disordering of our loves. We loved things in the wrong order. The lesser things became more to us than the greater.
We relegated the love of God beneath the love of His stuff.
We loved created things more than we loved the Creator.
Every single other thing unravels from here:
Disordered loves lead to disordered actions.
Disordered actions lead to disordered desires.
Disordered desires lead to disordered minds.
Disordered minds create the atmosphere of the disordered heart.
‘The heart of the human problem,’ as someone once said, ‘is the problem of the human heart.’
Every problem in self and society finds its cause here. We were made to love first the one who most greatly loves us. And this relationship fractured.
And this fracturing leads to the vast array of broken environment, broken relationships, and broken hearts that lead right down to the brokenness in my own heart and my own city in this very moment.
Here we begin.
And while that may seem a little heavy for your morning coffee, it is essential.
Because the Gospel story that Paul is going to tell us is not the stuff of lofty academia or ethereal spirituality. It is the invasion of God into the very grit and gunk of our fractured lives. It is God’s response to the real and rawness of human pain. It is God’s refusal to abandon us to the brokenness in which we find ourselves in, and the brokenness we find in ourselves. It is the story of the God who sees all this disorder, and who once again is creating cosmic peace out of a cosmos of chaos.
Why isn’t it working?
Into the very mess and muddle of our disordered lives,
Into the real places of our pain and poverty;
Our fears and lack;
And a world that has lost its health and heart;
Here,
The Story of Jesus comes.
Reflect:
Pain is only healed by love.
Take a place of pain that you currently feel. Now imagine this place, touched again by perfect love, turning away from the fear that hides to the trust that lets love come in, and reconciled in the love for which all things were created.
Rest on this image. And then let this inform how you pray.
Pray:
Father,
I have a million words,
And I have a few,
For there are a million places of pain that I see
In this world and in my heart.
For we have not greatly inhabited the love for which we were made.
And so, Father,
Reorder me.
Reorder my thoughts; reorder my desires; reorder my heart;
Reorder my loves.
And Father,
When the darkness appears greater to me than the inbreaking light,
And hope grows cold,
And fear creeps in,
Would you remind my soul of the shimmering brilliance of your love,
For when I glimpse just a fraction of this love,
I find a place to stand in a weeping world,
With fire and courage,
With peace and with joy,
With perspective and living hope,
In the surety that can only be built
On the unchanging goodness of your heart.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Leviticus 18-20 | Psalm 26