Sin

Sin: it is such a small word with such a big punch. As our book defines: sin consists in turning from God and from the fullness of life that God establishes in Creation. Sin is most clearly manifest in broken relationships both between humans and between humans and God.

We live in a world that doesn't really want to talk about "sin" anymore. As we read, those three letters make people nervous, so nervous that many would rather not talk about it at all. I think back to Barbara Brown Taylor's words on this topic. She asks: why, then, should we speak of sin anymore? Because we believe that God means to redeem the world through us. Abandoning the language of sin will not make sin go away. Human beings will continue to experience alienation, deformation, damnation and death no matter what we call them. 

Abandoning the language will simply leave us speechless before them, and increase our denial of their presence in our lives. Ironically, it will also weaken the language of grace, since the full impact of forgiveness cannot be felt apart from the full impact of what has been forgiven. Contrary to the prevailing view, Taylor calls sin a helpful, hopeful word. Naming our sins, she contends, enables us to move from guilt to grace. In recovering this lost language of salvation in our worship and in the fabric of our individual lives, we have an opportunity to take part in the divine work of redemption.

When I think of sin, I think back to our reading last year. Kathryn Greene-McCreight speaks of and translates God's creation of Adam and Eve. She says, "the human creature adam thus bears a strong relationship to the dirt or mud which it and we in turn come and to which we will return." We hear this point made at the start of Lent: you are dust...She goes on to say that we might translate adam as "muddy one." 

How often do I feel like a muddy one as I come before God in prayer or in seeking forgiveness? My life is muddy, my intentions may be muddy, my vision is muddy. Yet, God created male and female in His image and likeness. And how quickly that relationship became muddy after the temptation of the serpent. When God confronts Adam about what has happened, his response is classic: "the woman made me do it!"

How often do we blame others for our sinfulness, our original insecurity, our muddy-ness? How often do we distort our relationship with God and others simply by giving priority to our own wills and desires? As our book suggests, sin is so deep-seated it becomes part of the texture of our societies. Can we see that texture alive and well today? Are we willing to name it and turn from it or confront it?

I like that Archbishop Rowan Williams describes sin as an "inbuilt, dangerous taste for unreality" that each of us has the capacity to embrace, a delusion that we can find a richer or better life apart from God. The end reality, he says, is woven throughout human history: broken relationships, pain, and suffering.

How do we continue to contribute to that pain and suffering? How can we "turn" from such behavior and attitudes? In Lent we confront our muddy-ness, our sinfulness, the ease with which we pursue our priorities rather than God's.

Loving God

You have ordained a new order in which the first are last

and the last are first.

Turn us away from the false values of the world,

that we may pursue your priorities,

those which make you happy:

steadfast love, justice, and righteousness.

Amen.