It wasn't anything fancy - just a cheap little plastic pail with a handle and a shovel, and on the bottom of the bucket were little indentions that were meant to mimic the battlements of a castle tower.
There were two primary uses for the bucket when we went to the beach. I seem to remember that Lyn, who would have been two at the time, preferred to simply use the shovel (or her hands) to fill the bucket with sand. The purpose seemed to be to just have a bucket of sand. I'm not really sure. But whatever the purpose, the bucket's function was limited to one thing - keeping the sand in one place, not letting it get outside of a certain pre-defined set of bucket-shaped boundaries.
The other use, however, was to mash the bucket down on a big pile of sand, so that when you picked the bucket up, there now sat one of the many towers that would be added onto the glorious sand equivalent of Windsor Castle, with a construction vulnerable only to the erosive powers of the pounding surf or the boredom-borne destructive whims of a five-year-old boy and his two-year-old sister.
Can the bucket be used to just keep sand in one place? Sure.
But it's actually meant to be used to mold the sand into a desired shape. That's really the whole purpose of its specific design.
And in fact, the same thing is true for Christianity.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.- Matthew 5:17-20
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.- Matthew 23:23-24
Matthew 23 is one of the most powerful chapters in all of the Gospels, because it is nothing but Jesus telling the most super-religious people of His day that they were completely missing the point. A life of holiness isn't just about avoiding sin - and this is what the Pharisees were so very about, adding their own layers to the Law in order to keep themselves miles away from the possibility of sin - but at its core, a life spent in pursuit of God's righteousness is actually about being good.
Just like the bucket could be used to simply keep the sand in one place, Christianity could be seen as a way to set up parameters that define our lives by what we are not allowed to do, where we are not allowed to go, and words we are not allowed to say. But - just like the bucket - that's not what it's actually designed to do.
"Not bad" isn't good enough. Living a life free from sin isn't good enough. We've got to go the extra step and be proactively good, pursuing righteousness above all else.
“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.- Luke 6:27-38
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
As Christians, we know that it is wrong to murder, steal, rape, lie or cheat. But doesn't the world know that, too? No civilization in the history of ever has said that it's just OK to wantonly kill anyone without reason. Murder is bad on a universal scale. So just avoiding murder isn't enough to make us different from the world, is it?
What about loving our enemies? Is that what makes us different from the world?
By and large, the world is satisfied with a definition of morality that says "Just leave me alone and don't get in my way." That's not good enough for a Christian. We are called to something higher - Love.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”- Matthew 22:24-40
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Notice that nowhere in either of those two greatest commandments did Jesus mention not sinning. Why is that? Is it because avoiding sin isn't important?
Oh, heavens no.
Maybe it's just because if we're focused on actually living a life filled with righteousness, holiness, Love for God and Love for others, we're not really going to have a lot of room in our lives for sin.
Will we still occasionally mess up? Sure.
But isn't that the whole reason our sins were forgiven in the first place?
If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.- James 2:8
What else do we need? A life focused on avoiding sin is a life fearfully focused on rules. A life focused on Loving God and our neighbors is a life joyfully focused on God and His wonderful creation.
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.- James 1:19-27
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Keeping ourselves free from the pollution of the world is awesome. It's a big deal. It's very important.
But it isn't the end of the story.
Love for others - especially those who cannot provide for themselves - is the work of God in this world.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.- James 2:14-26
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
It doesn't matter what you believe if you don't do anything about it. You can believe all you like that Jesus is the King of the Universe and that your sins are forgiven through His death and resurrection - but the demons of hell believe that, so who cares? The difference is entirely based on what you do with that belief.
You can believe that a traffic light is red all day long and it won't make any difference unless you actually stop.
If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.- James 4:17
There are plenty of verses in the Bible that I like to think of when I'm dealing with particularly difficult people because I know that God will deal with them far, far, far better than I ever could. This, however, is not one of those verses. This one, quite simply, scares me. This might be one of the most damning verses in the entire Bible.
It's not enough to just be "not bad" - we actually have to make it far enough up the ladder to be wholly in "good" territory. And if we're not being good... THAT'S BAD!
Spending our lives only avoiding sin is sin itself. If we are not focused on attaining righteousness, we are falling short of the name of Christian.
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