Porcupine Quills All Around

Sermon by Sandra M. Thomas
June 8, 2008, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Hosea 5:15-6:6
Romans 1:20 – 2:4

“God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life change.”

Once upon a very cold winter’s night there were two porcupines, who discovered that they could keep warm by cooperating and cuddling close together. Getting close isn’t easy when one is a porcupine covered with sharp quills for protection. It requires intentionally laying the quills down, maneuvering into close proximity and keeping one’s quills pulled in. Each one has to lie perfectly still, hardly daring to breath. The other has to make sure not to let even one quill jump out of place. It was hard to sleep, but they were warm. As the restless night churned on, the energy required for staying close and warm was overtaken by the need for sleep so they parted company – each moving to separate sides of a fallen forest log where they could safely spread their quills and fall asleep. But before too long, just about the time both were deeply asleep they woke up --cold, shivering and missing the warmth of the other. It was a long time before each finally figured out that there was a very delicate balance that they could maintain, where quills did not injure and warmth could be shared – and they named that position – good manners.

The place of good manners – or healthy relationship – is the very position that Paul says we find impossible to achieve for more than fleeting moments. And few know as well as Paul himself how difficult good manners can be – for his was some arrogant character! Throughout his young adult years he was so certain of his own rightness, he did terrible harm to others in the name of God – searching out and slaughtering Christians to preserve the purity of the faith of Israel. Paradoxically, when he thought he was most righteous, he was most wrong. Guided by years of study of religion law, he was a destructive man until his encounter with the risen Christ set him free.

Romans is a book written for human porcupines – those of us who can’t encounter others without getting hurt and who can’t move away from others without despair. We have our own quills and we live with people whose quills are often up. So, we begin this book of the Bible looking in the mirror.

God created us with quills for a purpose. We live in a world of danger. We need a system of defense. We desperately need to be able to say “No!” and “Back away”. It doesn’t take long in life for us to take the short cut – away from all good manners – and scurry about with quills stretched out warning others – stay out of my way, I’m doing important things here, I have the right of way, you’re in my way, you’re wacky, you’re an alien. We steer clear of those we don’t care for – seek to snuggle up close to those with something to give us. We’re not out to hurt anyone, just being efficient -- -- but totally out of touch with the pain-imprint of our actions. What does this man Paul, who knew so little about good manners, have to teach us?

He teaches, what he learned from Jesus, the hard way.

First he teaches us that what “everyone else is doing, it not necessarily OK for us to do.” Paul did not accept the common wisdom of his day – the “Greek” world view, which, as an educated and reformed Jew, he saw as foolishness, leading people to materialism and depravity. (materialism and depravity?) Paul valued the Law – which he had learned as a child would protect him and help him live in God’s favor. So, to begin his description of our sinful “porcupine” state, Paul looks to the center of Greek philosophy -- to “sin” in plain view – and he points a finger “over there” to Greek temple prostitution – which really made him hot around the collar (and Paul is prone to passionate pronouncements). As a Jewish man he believed that the human body was God’s dwelling place and should be treated with honor – Romans 1:26 get’s bandied about in our current Presbyterian controversy over sexuality – but it has even more to do with what we don’t discuss or debate or wrestle with: Sin in not honoring the body that God has given you – gay, straight, married, single, celibate, philanderer, divorced, overweight, underweight, wise or foolish, tattooed or un-tattooed, mean, ugly, irritable, abusive, nice to some but not to all. Sin is not valuing yourself, others and the very essence of all that is life. OK? I’ve got quills – you’ve got quills – we’ve all got quills and we use them to undo ourselves.

Then in these first chapters of Romans, Paul moves from those who are sinning out in the streets for all to see (guns drawn, tattoo’s visible, French-fries in one hand, cigarette in the other, cussing and carrying on) – to those who are outwardly pious and sin secretly (behind the closed doors at home, or Monday morning in the office, or on the income tax form, or racing down the road at 20 miles over the speed limit, with little children or frail elderly who can’t fight back, in the privacy of a computer chat room) how much more culpable are those who know what is right and fail to do it? I don’t like everyone to know this – but I’ve got quills – you’ve got quills – and in secret places when no one is watching, we’ve all got quills and we use them to undo ourselves and those we love. One of the reasons God gives us quills is to protect ourselves from those who look right on the outside but are sinners on the inside.

Then Paul moves in even closer to point the finger at those who live virtuous lives, but without eagerness and love in their hearts (it’s not only feeding the poor, but eagerly doing do and loving them all the while – come on Paul!) Measure for me the pain inflicted by those who know what is right and do what is right but with a stingy and begrudging hands. The parents who truly love their child but find themselves thinking “Don’t run into the stupid street again, because the neighbors will think I’m neglectful.” The act is right, the rationale is right, but the motive is crazy-wrong. Every utilitarian among us is saying – I can live with that kind of sin, but Paul says we can’t live with that kind of sin.

Paul (arrogant guy that he is) lumps us all together into one bit pot saying “ALL have sinned” Wait a minute! I’m no cussing murderer, philanderer, cheater, embezzler……don’t even think about it! Paul says there is only one category of person and we’re all in it – sinners. (so if we want to exclude sinners from the ranks of ordained clergy there would be no one left – of course you knew that already. And if we want to exclude sinners from the pews there would be no one left. And if you want to exclude sinners from your family there will be no one at this summer’s family reunion, if you want to avoid having children who sin, you won’t have any, if you want to live in a neighborhood where no one sins you will have to move to somewhere that no one else lives and even there, the winds will carry the sins of the rest of us to your window.

We are all sinners – and we live with sinners, we work with sinners, we reproduce – sinners -- there is no escape.

During Paul’s time the Romans had a proverb: “Every man carries two sacks; one in front for his neighbor’s faults and one behind for his own.” The purpose of the law is to prove – what we do not want to admit – we cannot, we do not, do what is right no matter how hard we try. For those who are thoughtfully religious – who deeply desire to do what is right and good, who are passionately in love with neighbor, self and world, who want to leave no carbon footprint or sinful imprint behind, the problem Paul describes becomes acute – our plight is desperate – we’re born with quills posed for harm – the harder we try the worse we do – the more we try the more we fail. We find ourselves continually in the worse state of all – that of repeat offenders – those who sin, humbly seek forgiveness, pay an swful penalty and then go right out and do it again.

When my children were baptized in the United Methodist Church, the denomination had just re-instated a very old baptism question. We asked every parent bringing a child for baptism “ Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” As a pastor I struggled to put such stern questions to parents holding precious baby in their arms – until I was that parent and the baby was my son. I discovered, standing on the other side of the baptismal font that -- of course, I wanted to renounce sin and evil and resist injustice and oppression. There was little I wanted more than to renounce anything and everything that could harm my child or ruin his life.

A softer form of the question might have been “Will you plant this child in as perfect a setting as possible, shelter him, nourish and protect him so that he can grow unencumbered and unharmed?” YES! Yet in the depths of our hearts we know that we are not able to create a perfect world for our children. There at the baptismal font, with my baby in arms, I understood for the first time that the wrath of God is not a human anger intent upon hurting us – the wrath of God is the reaction of a loving parent toward anything that would intrude and injury us.

To know that in every sentence, in every act, in every thought there is an element of sinfulness which we cannot remove -- brings a new humility, requires thoughtfulness, begs us to discern our own motives, calls into questions our firm standards of right-ness, pushes us back into the arms of God – as the only place we can truly turn for help.

If you are one of those right-fighters in church battles, who can clearly define what is sin and what is not sin – then I would say you haven’t read Romans and your quills are poised for battle with some very fine, very close, very easily hurt members of your own family. If you are one of those “anything you want” “do whatever” smushes – who believes that everyday in everyway we’re all getting better and better and whatever you want to do is fine – then I would say you haven’t read Romans and your quills are laying dormant when they ought to be employed in a fight for safety. We learn to say “No” at an early age – and we practice it vehemently as a 2 year old – in order to continue to employ that word later in life for our own safety and the protection of those we love. Try playing the “my sins are less hurtful than your sins game” with Paul.

Porcupine quills – we’re born with them. We need to learn how to use them. We need to attach a firm word “No” to a swift fling of those quills on occasions. And we need to learn how to keep them in check so others will come close enough to love us. We come before God crazy tired from trying to live close to other porcupines – weary from the effort to discern when to fight and when to move close – frustrated to the max with our futile striving to be good – and here in God’s presence we are invited to show ourselves as we are – and to receive grace.

The power of the words we often use in worship “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” This arrogant, book-thumper Paul is at his most insightful when he says that where sin abounds, grace abounds – sin and grace – not opposites but two aspects of the life of porcupines.

Life requires constant attention to where our quills are – who we need to protect ourselves from and who needs protection from us. All the while knowing that we fail in our ability to discern and need to constantly, continually, moment by moment seek the help of God, who loves each one of us so very much…. and loves those we lives with so very much, he was willing to give up his only Son for our eternal well-being, us porcupines – with intention so high and quills so uncontrolled – his beloved children.

Return to Sermons
Return to Home Page