Sins Upon Sins Upon Sins

Ann Beaty
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

July 24, 2011

Text: Exodus 20:1-10

A few of you may remember Tom Allen. Tom was a long time and very active member of this church who I first heard say the words: “God is good all the time. All the time God is good.” Many of you have probably heard this phrase. Tom said it a lot. He signed his notes with it. He said it when he was well and life was good. He continued to say it when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Tom struggled hard to beat his disease – he had a wife and teenage children who he dearly loved.

But, in less than a year, his body could no longer fight the disease.  As he eventually began to decline, I know, because he told me, that this human man grieved the possibilities of what was to come that he would not be here for – the life events of his loved ones that those of us here have witnessed: Meeting the wonderful Christian man his daughter Laura would marry last year and knowing his son Phillip’s wife or his grandson.

But, in the midst of it all, there came a time when he knew he was going home to God and he could say right up to the end he trusted God to take care of him and his family. He could still stay, and did often, “God is good all the time. All the time God is good.”

This is not how we feel all the time. Sometimes we struggle with, and wonder about, the goodness of God.

Scriptures like the one Callie read for us today are part of why we sometimes wonder about the goodness of God. How can a good and loving God say: “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me…”

Back in the spring when I was choosing scriptures for preaching this series on “Troublesome Bible Passages” I asked a few folks to give me some ideas of scriptures they would like to see addressed. Someone mentioned the idea of preaching on the Biblical concept of the sins of the parents being passed down through the generations to their children’s chidren. It is indeed difficult to hold these scriptues up next to our understanding of God as good and merciful. The concept actually appears in various places and in different contexts in the Old Testament.

It’s also written again later in Exodus 34:6-7

“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

What God said about Himself in Exodus 34 here was understood to be so important in God’s self-revelation to His covenant people that it was often restated, like a prayer mantra.

What was often repeated was this: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth.”6 It’s important to know that the word in Hepew (hesed) meaning: loving kindness is one of the most important and most often used words in the Old Testament to describe God's nature.

This became so much impressed on the minds of the Jews that even Jonah, when he wished to see the Ninevites destroyed because of his hatred for them, repeated this phrase. Even the reluctant preacher Jonah knew that what was promised was not that the children would be destroyed without recourse unto the third and fourth generations, but that God was more willing to show mercy because of His gracious and compassionate nature. Jonah was right to expect that God would show mercy, and the events proved this correct.

The contrast between “thousands” and “third and fourth” shows the greatness of God's mercy and grace.  His loving kindness extends far beyond His just punishment of sin.          

There are more stories from Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Psalms that all deal with this same concept in the scriptures. To summarize the Old Testament material, we can say that the passages about the “third and fourth generation” show a limitation on Gods judgment, since they are almost always mentioned in the context of the blessing of God’s loving kindness shown to thousands.   

It was understood that the key to blessing was to be in right covenant relationship with God. This meant putting ones faith and trust in God alone, and loving Him alone as the One who had chosen them. It was not uncommon for people of that day to worship other idols – other pagan gods. These texts were warning people about the danger of being pulled away from our Covenant God to other gods. These texts, even in their judgmental nature, were calling people to remember the blessing and lovingkindness of our one true God.

Arden Kinser preaching to a Quaker congregation tells this story about himself: One time I began to doubt and worry about God’s goodness. When I was about 13 I had an early morning paper route. I would go by this truck stop in Kansas. The truck stop was about the only thing out there on the prairie. One morning as I went past, I saw out on the ground a small bag. It was a money bag with about 12$. I picked it up and looked around. It was 6 a.m. the truck stop wasn’t even open yet. I pondered it. And I kept it. I didn’t try to find who it belonged to. It’s interesting to make a choice like that.

Fast forward 12 years, my wife Janet and I are moving from Colorado to Oregon. We happen to be at a truck stop early one morning. We leave and soon after, Janet looks down and sees that her purse is gone. She thinks she left it on the car. We go back and look but it it nowhere to be found.

My first thought…Has it finally come around? For 12 years I had waited for that shoe to drop. The interest on that was about 100 fold. I began to wonder about the goodness of God. It was the first time I told Janet about this. It was the first time I told anybody. It embarrassed me that I had never tried to find the owner of that money bag 12 years prior. I had this view that maybe God was evening the score for me. Maybe God was making an example of me.

But I realize now, as I read and study the scriptures that that view of God is really more like karma than what we believe God offers us through Jesus and the Christian faith. Do things come around again? Maybe – do we pass down some things in our generations of family members through genetics and environment – certainly. We all know of people who suffer from diseases like depression, anxiety, alcoholism or repeat cycles of abuse because it was done to them. But, does that mean God is causing it?

In the New Testament, for Christians, we are under the blessing of the new covenant – the fulfillment of the law of love that has come in Jesus. This makes all the difference! Our blessing is because of the loving relationship we have with God through Jesus Christ.

 There are many things that the life, death, and resurrection tell us about the love of God in Jesus, but we can be assured that Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross for all our sins and all the sins of those who have gone before us has taken care of any “curse” we may read about in the Old Testament. We are the blessed “sons and daughters” of Apaham.

You see we read these stories of the Old Testament – in Exodus and others – without putting them in the context of remembering the good news of the saving grace that Jesus came to fulfill God’s love. Jesus has taken it on for us and any “curse” that may have existed has been erased. The very fact that God was willing to embark on a NEW covenant with humanity in sending Jesus and allowing him to be the sacrifice for our sins is enough proof for me of God’s ultimate loving kindness.

In Matthew’s gospel, the lawyer poses this question to Jesus: “Teacher what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers: “You asked me about what is good. There is only one who is good.” He’s referring to God. Jesus tells us. There IS one who is good – it is God.

We forget that God is to be the ONE primary relationship in our life and we let a lot of other stuff get in the way of that. It is that relationship that in love can help us peak cycles of sin and anything we might consider a “curse” in our lives.

In that assurance, we can claim the prayer mantra of those who have gone before us: “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.”6

God is good all the time. All the time God is good.

Arden Kinser/Cherry Grove Friends Church (sermon story April 17, 2011)