Sin

 

Working recently as a School Chaplain helped me see things in a fresh light. The term ‘sinner’ can be an insult among young people. When we start the eucharist confessing our sins I explain that when we say we are sinners we are recognising all of us do wrong things sometimes. Elucidating sin is a perilous business because no one speaking of it can be distanced from its pervasive influence. There is one extreme downplaying its nature. The people the world might fear most are those claiming innocence from sin. Another extreme, taking Christ’s teaching in Matthew 5:28 literally, sees a lustful thought as the end of the road with God. I remember a friend at university convinced that as he could not stop the thoughts he might as well act on them and have sexual intercourse with his girl friend. It was great to meet him years later back in church attendance, a happily married man. The association of sex with sin impacts the understanding of both. I recall preaching an altar call in the Caribbean one Good Friday in a church packed with people of all ages. My words were an invitation to find cleansing from sin by coming to Confession. After my message the parish priest chose to remind the young men that what the preacher said did not just apply to young women getting pregnant out of marriage but to young men getting them so. No men came forward to confession that day!

‘Sin is any action or habit which prevents or delays the progress of the soul to perfection, of the danger of which the soul is or ought to be conscious’ wrote Anglican bishop and moral theologian Kenneth Kirk. I see my sins as delaying my progress towards what I am meant to be. They hamper my forward progress so that my favourite text on sin is the invitation to ‘lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with perseverance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:1-2). Over the years the Holy Spirit has shown me more of what clings to me, holding me back in my forward journey, so those bonds can be broken by Jesus who endured the cross to do that for us. It might be lustful thoughts, yes, in youth but it is more likely to be compassion fatigue in the elderly housebound faced day to day with tragic news on television. For many the sins that trip us up include ingratitude, distrust of God, impatience and jealousy of other people’s blessings alongside wrong thoughts, words and deeds and omissions. The sense of sin is linked to sensing God and where he wants to take us to be part of building, ‘a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace’.

The word ‘sin’ in Hebrew and Greek is an archery term for ‘missing the mark’. This helps us understand our sin as a shortfall in love towards God, neighbour and self. Inasmuch as God commands us to love, sin is disobedient dragging of gifts and energies back from where they should head. Human beings are not sinners because they sin, they sin because they are sinners. Until quite recently the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis was taken literally as the history of how the first man and women got driven from paradise because they disobeyed God, disobedience we inherit. Christian theology built the doctrine of ‘original sin’ from the idea of a first act of transgression against God having inherited consequences. Nowadays the story in Genesis is seen as a parable of sin affirming our separation from God through unbelief and pride from the start of human consciousness of him. One difficulty for us in reading Saint Paul is the contrast made between Adam and Christ given the contrast in historicity of the two. Paul, like many up to today, accept Adam as an historical figure (Genesis 4:25). Adam though is the Hebrew word for man and can be thought of as named on behalf of humanity as a whole. He and Eve question what God says and follow the invitation to disobey him, lured to ‘be like God’ (Genesis 3:5). Disbelieving, discontent with being just God’s children, out of pride they try to take God’s place. This description of Adam’s sin is contrasted with the obedience of Jesus whom Paul describes as ‘last Adam’, the second man ever to be completely without sin. ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit’. Earlier Paul has announced God’s historical action in Jesus dealing with the sin and death associated with Adam: ‘for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ’ (1 Corinthians 15:45, 22).

What is the difference between sin and sins? Sin is the tendency away from God and sins are its outcome in individual lives. Just as scripture clarifies these terms, the Holy Spirit shows them up in our lives, so we can repent of sin and welcome deeper conversion to God. Sin refers to a powerful reality within us which, like a tree, brings forth fruit which are our sins. These are an offence against God, whose ‘eyes are too pure to behold evil’ (Habakkuk 1:13), but also against reason, truth and informed conscience. The good news of Christianity is simple. God made us for friendship. Sin became a barrier to that friendship. God sent Jesus to lift away that barrier, when we repent of sin, making us friends of God. Things get between us and God so that we are not at one. Sin, fear, sickness, bondage, anxiety, death and the devil get in the way. Jesus brings atonement, ‘at-one-ment’ literally, because what he did in his coming, suffering, death and resurrection established the means to overcome these evils if we use them. ‘You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:21). The coming of such a Saviour was prophesied by Isaiah: ‘he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases’ which comes true when we trust Christ’s healing power. When we read ‘he bore the sins of many’ that can become true in our experience when we seek the forgiveness he won for us on the Cross (Isaiah 53:4,12). If knowledge of sin goes hand in hand with knowledge of God’s mercy the record of Christ’s sufferings is our greatest teacher. There we see sins of hatred in the crowd, unbelief in the authorities and cowardice in the disciples fleeing from their Lord. Some of these sins were dealt with after Christ’s resurrection as the disciples repented of their sinful failings, welcomed the forgiveness of sins and walked forward in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The forward draw of divine love shown in Jesus competes with the backward draw of ’the sin that clings so closely’. There have been different categories of sin made over the centuries. ‘Mortal (deadly) sin’ is forsaking the forward journey, turning your back to the love of God in a decided action. Since sin is the consequence of freedom gifted by God such a decision is seen as having eternal consequence as it is reversible on the human side only up to death. ‘Venial (forgivable) sin’ is more typical of the power of sin to pull at our feet as we move forward. There are various lists of sin in scripture condensed in church teaching to seven roots. Human beings are pulled back from God by pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth. Someone made up a mnemonic for these - ‘pale gas’ - capturing their deadly impact in a comparison with chlorine. These seven deadly or capital sins provide backwards drag of different kinds. For some of us the drag lies in sloth, laziness as we get older. For others there is a weight of indulgence in gluttony. Or there is stubborn refusal to go forward other than on our own terms, pride, seen as the ‘sin of youth’, that sinks relationships. Then there is the greed taking our eyes away from God’s forward invitation and getting them fixated on perishable things. As we struggle with our relationships, insecurities and spiritual emptiness we recognise a more profound struggle against the backwards drag of sin. We struggle in our own strength to shake off our sins when we take our eyes off Jesus, ‘the pioneer and perfecter of our faith’. Through his resurrection he always stands before us, breaking the power of sins we confess by his forgiveness and anticipating for us the sight of God ahead. ‘When he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1John 3:2-3) iStock image].