Today is September 11, the eleventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and I am having no trouble remembering that day in detail: the panicked, false reports on the radio – the frantic phone calls trying to find loved ones – the disbelief as the first, then the second tower sank into a cloud of smoke and debris – the terror of realizing your children were under lockdown and you had no access to them.  No.  That day is vivid in memory – hour by hour, minute by minute.  What I really can’t remember is what life was like before.

            Remembering specific events isn’t hard – I’m not talking about remembering my baptism, our wedding, the birth of our children, their weddings and baptisms – I’m talking about cheap gasoline, an airline industry that worked efficiently, not worrying about friends serving in Afghanistan.  I have a hard time remembering what it was like to just walk into the Capitol Building when you wanted to, or go through security without taking your shoes off.

            It takes so little time to get used to new patterns of life.  Do you remember how quickly we all got used to ducking behind our car doors while pumping gas back when the sniper was about?  We all just ducked down like we’d been doing it all our lives – like taking a sniper into consideration was the most natural thing in the world.

            I’ve just finished rereading Albert Camus’ The Plague.  In it the citizens of Oran find their city closed to the outside world because of an outbreak of bubonic plague.  Their world changes drastically, but new routines and patterns based upon the new situation quickly replace old ones and people go on with their lives.  That is, indeed, the way we are.  It gives one a greater respect for the abolitionist, the maquisard, the patriot who refuse to accept things the way they are.  The most difficult fight we face is the struggle we have against habit.

            In Hebrews 12.1-2 the writer describes us as runners in a coliseum, surrounded by the saints of history.  We are to take off our ankle weights so that we can run the race unencumbered.  This requires removing “the sin which so easily entangles us.”  Readers have wondered what this sin is.  Is it pride?  Is it hubris?  Is it sexual immorality?  Perhaps it is thanklessness.  I think the sin is whatever it is.  For me it is one thing, and for you it is another.  In the same way we have our own particular strengths, so also we have our individual weaknesses.

How easily we make compensation for those weaknesses.

            Honestly, is it not true that we do pretty well except for the one thing we’ve never been able to get ahead of – greed, selfishness, anger, lust - whatever it is.  Is it not true that we often give up fighting that sin altogether, and just try to manage it – compensate for it?

            This “entangling” sin must be laid aside if we are to run our race.  What we cannot do is settle into sin-entropy.  We must try.  To “try” will mean to fail and repent and receive grace.  We will try and the Holy Spirit will sanctify and we will do better.  But we must try.

            Job is described as a man “sickened by evil” (Job 1.1).  Any habit practiced long enough will become comfortable, familiar.  It doesn’t take us long to get used to the most absurd things.  Habits are harder to resist than temptations.  Habits do “entangle”.  They will only be broken by deliberate, sustained action and God’s help.

            And so, let us prayerfully determine to lay aside the sin which so easily entangles and run with endurance the race set before us.