Sin is a drain that hurts guilty and innocent

While reading about the many tragedies of the past few days I have crystalized another analogy that I think might help people to understand events from "God's perspective."

Accidents and natural disasters are just that... accidents and natural disasters. Jesus himself pointed out, when asked, that victims of an accident or an uprising (two current "news events" he was asked about) are equally innocent and equally sinners, and that these events should not be interpreted as punishment by God. The same is also true of crime victims, because while some are "hoods" themselves, the vast majority are innocent people.

However, there is an absolute connection that is not "punishment oriented" between disasters and sin. That can be understood as the fact that all sinners drain resources and attention away from the things that could prevent or mitigate disasters or tragedies. This is true on an individual and a community level.

For example, an auditor who is siphoning money from a company is not only sinning by stealing from the company, he is also sinning because he is diverting his talents from doing righteous work on his job for the amount of time that he is focused on the sinful portion of his life. This thieving auditor might go too far or actually miss some error he should have caught had he been doing 100% purely motivated performance of his job. If this company collapses then both sinners and "saints" are out of jobs and are penalized for sin. They are penalized because the presence of sin in their midst (the bad auditor) brings them all down. One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm One.

Happy those who do not follow
the counsel of the wicked,
Nor go the way of sinners,
nor sit in company with scoffers.
Rather, the law of the Lord is their joy;
God's law they study day and night.
They are like a tree
planted near streams of water,
that yields its fruit in season;
Its leaves never wither;
whatever they do prospers.
But not so the wicked!
They are like chaff driven by the wind.
Therefore the wicked will not survive judgment,
nor will sinners in the assembly of the just.
The Lord watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.

You see, a company or a society that tolerates something like the white collar crime of the bad auditor, in our example here, is an example of people who while perhaps personally innocent are "going the way of sinners" (that means traveling the same path or road) and "sit in company with scoffers." Even a pious person who hangs around with and enables people who are sinning is in danger of being penalized because the sinner drains attention from basic activities and priorities that everyone needs for their well being.

Another example is safety code legislation that sits around and languishes without action because the politics of those who control the flow. Then there is an industrial accident and everyone says, "Why me?" Well, a society that tolerates politicians who sit on important safety legislation or funding code enforcement and inspection will reap the penalty of that sin. So this is why it feels like God is "punishing the innocent along with the guilty" but that is not how God sees it. God doesn't send the punishment; God sends warnings and if people do not respond to correct sin then all God will do is console those who are harmed when the impact of the sin reaches its natural conclusion in a tragedy.

Everyone who spends, let's say, 5% of their time in sin is taking away that time, attention and funding that could go toward making themselves and other people happier and safer. For example, contrast the overworked child advocate and the lazy irresponsible child advocate, both of who work for a state government let's say. The overworked one might miss a terrible child abuse case because her boss refuses to manage the case load properly for his staff and does not fight for more funding because he is spending that 5% of his time being a big shot. The lazy irresponsible child advocate might miss a terrible child abuse case through his or her own irresponsible sin, by not caring for the children with 100% of their "office time" heart and soul. But the manager might also be to blame if she sets the example that sitting around and gossiping during the work day is a good idea rather than squeezing in just one more child's home visit check up in each day. That's between one and two hundred child visits that would not be made if that child advocate is spending part of her day in gossip and mischief, wasting the chance to be a good steward and, therefore, sinning.

I believe that the USA today is literally one half the country it should have been at this exact time because of this wasted opportunity drainage of sin. When it feels like God is punishing when a tragedy hits, often that is the feeling of a guilty conscience stirring somewhere or another. When it feels like God has abandoned the USA it is because people have let half the connection with God flow down the sewer drain through that percentage of sin. Dumping clothes in the Salvation Army bin box is not charity if you are then going back to your job feeling all virtuous and then overcharging someone who brings their car to you to fix, or if you are ticketing people just to meet a quota, whether they came to a full stop or not, or if you are goofing off on the Internet when you could be working on a project that is your responsibility. (I worked for six weeks for a company owner who spent all day surfing the Internet researching the holocaust, yet his company was late and over budget with software that was going to a hospital).

By the way, I want to praise to the sky the weather forecasters who literally flooded the airwaves with warnings about the tornadoes days in advance and who did a great job of demonstrating real stewardship of the flock.