I am posting a "Best of Sainthood and Surrender" this week as I recover from surgery. Thanks for stopping by! My prayers are with you.
This was originally posted on March 10, 2009. It deals with sin and Lord of the Rings. That makes it an automatic entry.
"Boromir vs. Faramir"
Sinful behavior can be justified in our minds by a number of things, even if those justifications are completely wrong. There are times when we think that it would be better to have the experience (fill in experience here) than go without, even if we know that the experience is wrong.
We are flirting with spiritual death.
I call this the Boromir vs. Faramir effect. In the book “The Lord of the Rings” Boromir feels that he can take the One Ring and utilize it to save his people from the armies of Mordor. This temptation proves to be overwhelming for him. I sympathize. How many times have I felt that by doing a little bit of evil I am able to achieve some type of good.
I might even have convinced myself that God smiled on the rebellious behavior. In the end, however, it is just sin. Hollow and empty on the inside and beautiful on the outside. A complete deception to flirt with powers that I have no ability to wrestle with on my own.
Faramir is different in the book. He is not tempted by the One Ring and simply seeks the knowledge needed in order to do good. He has no need to “experience” utilizing the power in the Ring as a weapon against his enemies. He even tells Frodo that if the Ring were lying by the side of the road he would not take it.
It is a matter of perspective. Are we able to see evil for what it is? Are we able to see temptations in our lives for what they are? If it were always clear, then they certainly wouldn’t be called temptations because they would not be tempting! That is the allure of sin. It seems to help us, to benefit us in the short term and we cannot see the long term consequences. We fancy ourselves as stronger than what the pull of the temptation is. We will not sink to addiction to sin. We are much better than that.
Our justifications prove that we have started down the road to addiction already. We wrestle with what to do, fighting the desire to engage in “x” action. How is this unlike an addict? Should we not be free to simply make the choice to do what is good, knowing that in the long run it will be far better for us? Only if we are free as Faramir.
It is Boromir that is a slave. A slave to his own pride. A slave to his temptations for glory and power and victory. It is Faramir that recognizes the humility and sacrifice that is needed to defeat evil.
Our justifications for sin are simply pride disguised. We think that we are special, that somehow the rules that have governed souls for all time do not apply to us for we are stronger. We have the power ourselves to defeat even sin if it were to take hold in us.
Good Friday is coming and we need to consider that even God himself allowed sin to “defeat” him. To maul him. To kill him.
That it was much better to allow evil to defeat itself than to allow evil to defeat our freedom, our free will, our Faramir.
For victory does not come through our own strength, through our own “force of arms”. It comes from Jesus Christ.
May we continue to surrender to Him and Him alone and reject our temptation.
