Carry On - Mumford & Sons

If this is what it's like to be unholy, man
If this is what it's like to be lost
I will take this heresy
Over your hypocrisy
And count any cost
 
These words are from the last track, Carry On, on the new Mumford & Sons album Rushmore, really caught me. 

I don't know what caused Marcus Mumford to pen these words. 

When I listen to them, my mind goes to John 8:1-11. 

• The story captured there is of the religious leaders, the theologically sound, the legalistically holy, bringing a woman caught in adultery to Jesus. 
• They are declaring her unholy and lost. 
• By the law they are right. 
• Jesus could easily be declared the heretic by not helping them stone her as the law prescribed. 
• Instead, it would be such hersey that would get him crucified. 
• It is possible. that they have set up this act of adultery, hence the absence of the man in the adultery sin, in order to catch Jesus out. 
• It is the religious leaders who then become unholy and lost when Jesus reaches deep into their own souls and asks which of them is perfect enough to throw the stone. 

Ultimately, it is Jesus' love and salvation that glows across the Temple as this story ends. The hypocrites go off to hide, and a woman declared lost and unholy is found and sent to a new and different life, with the mercy and amazing grace of God.

A lot of the Church today is much the same as it was that day when Jesus walked the temple courts and forgave a woman caught in disgrace. 

I am aware of “holy” men who try to catch out brothers and sisters in Christ for theological error; judging and damning almost for fun.

I am seeing a couple of emphases in the church in Canada. They become the driver in the spiritual life. And in doing so, they become errors.

There are those who concentrate on theology.

• Pure theology.
• They think that they have seen better than Paul’s through a glass darkly, they are near infallible and somehow their job is to call out the lost and unholy with wrong doctrine. 

Legalism too.

• People are in and out, depending on how they perceive or respond to the law, that list of dos and don’ts. Sometimes it is going to certain places, or listening to certain music, or being friends with, or a list of other things. 

Theology and the law have their place. But we need to be led by Jesus, his love, his way of life, and his ability to work through the tensions and conundrums of behaviour and judgment, as he did with the woman dragged to him in the Temple. 

With Jesus and his grace as the energy of faith, I don't have to hold all the exact same theologies with brothers and sisters and be in close fellowship. I can also be part of what Jesus is doing in re-humanising those lost and unholy in the eyes of others. 

Discipleship is a daily dilemma of decision-making. 

If that is heresy, I’ll take it. 

Discipleship, following Jesus, being a Christian is about staying as close to the Jesus of John 8 as I can. I want to follow him so close that I gather his dust on my clothes.