Challenging Spiritual Questions

October 10, 2007

Ephesians 2:1-3

“You were dead through trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.”

While I am most comfortable with silence, being single, I can only stand silence in my home for a certain period of time and so I remedy that by leaving the television on as I scurry about the house performing tasks. This morning, as I scurried I listened to an interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper and a woman whose father was murdered by the DC Snipers some years ago. Remember those frightening days when people around Northern Virginia and Maryland were paralyzed by the fear of these random shootings that somehow also seemed so intentional? The woman talked about those days and about how the young boy, Lee Boyd Malvo, had called her to say that he wanted to talk with her but he didn’t know what to say. She made it clear that she thought John Muhammad had brainwashed this then 17 year old into doing what he had done. She apparently heard the remorse in him and at least at some level was moved by it.

As the author of Ephesians writes to the church in this second chapter, he begins in the first 10 verses to talk about the journey of the church. He looks at how we were in the past, how we are now and how we will be in the future. It is these first three verses that look backward. The author wants the folks to understand that their behavior in the past, prior to knowing Christ was one of willful disobedience and of missing the mark that was destined to lead them to spiritual death. It was a natural state of being and everyone else was the same way. He makes it clear that there are still those who live in that disposition.

Lee Boyd Malvo was living in that sort of disposition. As I heard the woman on CNN recount her conversation, I could feel a great pain for him. We all know how impressionable we were when we were 17 and to think that we could have placed our trust in a person who would lead us so astray and damage our lives so significantly is a humbling thought. My heart aches for that young man that his life has taken the path that it has.

The Ephesians author would suggest that the root cause for such spiritual death exists in alienation. Malvo was alienated from true love and nurture and deprived of the chance to be transformed by love. People all over our world find themselves in such a state. As we watch such alienation occur through our television screens, I think we have to stop and take account of our own lives by asking some serious questions that take courage to answer. To what degree do I alienate others (family, friends and strangers) and to what degree do I stand aside and watch alienation happen? Am I robbing others of true spiritual life by my silence? What is our role, especially as Christians, to be in the midst of a world where spiritual death runs rampant and alienation is hard at work? I leave you with these questions and hope that this week our honest wrestling with them might inspire us toward some greatness! Amen.