Truly, he who does not enter the fold by the door, but climbs in some other way is a thief and robber. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

It appears that Jesus’ threshold for considering someone to be a thief is very low. Just about anyone could fit into it. The only thing you have to do to be a thief is not follow proper protocol. How many of you have ever bent the rules just a little because it was easier? Why go through the proper channels, when it is so much easier to lean a ladder up against the side of the sheep pen and hop the fence? What difference does it make, after all?

It makes a difference because cutting corners and not following the proper policies and protocols are all done in the name of expediency and ease. What is thievery after all but enriching oneself at the expense of others?

One example of thievery in today’s world is the way in which people are getting a little too comfortable with the whole social distancing thing. How many people are enjoying staying at home, not working, and getting free money from the government? To make matters worse, this is supported by elected officials who seem to relish stripping away personal freedoms in the name of public health. Thieves are afoot taking away freedom, and leaching off the government. How dare they!

At the same time there are a whole other class of thieves. These are the people who flaunt common sense contact precautions and assemble in large groups without masks or social distancing to fulfill their personal desires. They gather in the name of recreation, politics, or hedonism so focused on their personal fulfillment that they rob the public’s effort to contain disease. What exacerbates the actions of these people are elected officials who desire to rush headlong into opening up businesses to generate revenue at the cost of human life. They rob the health of others in the name of their own financial gain. Theives!

So which band or brand of thieves would you care to join: 

Perpetual shelter in place, mooch off the man, and have no freedom thieves? 

Or hustle for a profit, spread disease, and let the bodies pile up thieves?

Are there any other options you ask? Why yes there is.

500 years ago a guy named Martin Luther faced a similar dilemma, and it was driving him crazy too! Luther was an Augustinian monk in Germany. He was born to an upwardly mobile family and had the opportunity to secure for himself very good financial wealth at the cost of eternal damnation. Or, he could live a completely miserable life as a monk and hope to earn his salvation. Luther decided to become a monk. He gave up his personal freedoms, lived a shelter in place life, and mooched off the system like so many other monastics. He hoped that he would get right with God, and be able to live forever in God’s eternal salvation. There was only one problem. Luther plunged into a deep despair. No matter how hard he worked at being good, and doing everything that God desired, he only felt like a greater failure. 

Even though Luther felt terrible, he likely suffered from depression, he showed academic ability, and was directed toward scholastic studies including reading the Bible in its original languages of Hebrew and Greek. As Luther studied the Bible he began to be unnerved by some of what he read. Must succinctly it was the words, “The righteous shall live by faith.” What ever could that mean?

“The righteous shall live by faith” couldn’t mean that a righteous person, that is a good person, merely trusts in God’s mercy, could it? It couldn’t mean that a person is able to receive eternal life, forgiveness of sin, and salvation from the devil merely by having faith in those things, could it? That would mean that the most valuable things in the world, eternal life, righteousness and salvation aren’t things you earn through holy