What Is Sin?
Sermon
Samantha is married and in her early twenties, but with no children yet. She has a job, not as good a job as she'd like, but at least she's working. She drinks quite a bit. Her elder brother was killed recently in a car crash, and the drink helps to blot out the pain. The pain is worse than it might have been because Samantha and her brother had a row a year or so ago, and they hadn't spoken since.
Rosemary drinks, too. She's also in her twenties, a little bit older than Samantha. She's married, with two small children. Rosemary was sexually abused as a child, and is now having awful problems with close relationships. The pain of her childhood memeories and experiences is eased a bit when she drinks, and she finds it easier to handle her own small children after a drink or two. The children sense her deep unhappiness so they tend to play up, because that's the only way they can deal with their mother's pain.
Samantha and Rosemary are typical of many people, male and female, young and old. We've all had experiences which cause pain deep within us. Bereavement, separation or divorce, redundancy, for some people retirement, moving away to a new area - away from all that's familiar and beloved, serious illness in the family, debt, and so on. At some point or another, human life inevitably causes us pain.
The trouble is, Samantha and Rosemary only work on the symptoms of the pain, as though that will solve the problem. But of course, it won't. At some point they need to find the courage to look deep inside themselves to discover exactly what this awful pain is that they're trying to blot out by reaching for the bottle, because they need to gradually face that pain in order to receive healing. It's no good working on the effects, they need to work on the cause.
The Pharisee in today's gospel story made the same mistake as Rosemary and Samantha. He looked at sins, and decided he hadn't any. He looked at effects, but not at the cause. He thanked God he wasn't like other people, because he didn't commit sins. But he hadn't looked deep inside himself. He hadn't seen that deep down inside himself he needed healing, because deep down inside we all need healing.
It seems to me that "sins" and "sin" are rather different, although obviously they are linked. "Sins" are effects, are those things I do wrong, like selfishness and greed and dishonesty and jealousy and so on. The list is endless! But what is sin? What is the cause of those effects? What makes me do those things?
I think sin is a state of being, of how I am, rather than what I do. And I think it may not be so much about guilt, but more about pain. Maybe sin is the deep, deep pain of alienation from God. Perhaps it's something like this:
When a woman conceives, the unborn baby and the mother are one person, and remain as one person for nine months. But the time inevitably arrives when they must be separated, when the baby must be born. And this is obviously essential if the baby is to have any chance at all of growing up, of eventually becoming an adult, of reaching his or her own full potential.
But that moment of separation, of birth, is a painful process on both sides. And as the child grows, so there are more and more painful moments of separation, until the child reaches maturity and generally leaves home. In an ideal world, the child will later return to the parents, but on a totally different footing. No longer as parent and child, but now on the basis of adults relating to each other.
So separation, although very often painful, is a good and a necessary thing. And separation from God is a good and a necessary thing if we're to grow into mature spiritual adults and reach our own potential as human beings. But we all know that separation from those we love can hurt, and at a deep level of being - whether we know it consciously or not - separation from God hurts. Rather than face that pain, we tend to do anything to avoid it.
When I was expecting my first child, many years ago now, I shared a ward with another young mother who was expecting her second child. We both had complications and were in hospital together for about a fortnight before our babies were born. She had a little boy of about two who had to stay away from home while his Mum was in hospital, and he didn't get to see her for the whole of that fortnight. When eventually the baby was born and the little lad was brought in to see his mother he refused to look at her or to go anywhere near her. He kicked and screamed and behaved appallingly to avoid approaching his mother. The pain of his separation from her was so intense that he couldn't bear to face her, he couldn't bear to approach her. And being only two years old, he had no way of recognising his pain, he simply reacted as all small children react.
Maybe that's how we react with God. Although we may not recognise the pain of separation from him it is there, and so we react accordingly and behave badly.
The Pharisee denied he had any pain and so denied that he was in a state of sin. That was his way of blotting out the pain of his separation from God; he reufsed to feel it. And to keep the pain even further away, he did all sorts of good deeds. He paid his tithes, he fasted, he did all that the Law required and more. And that's a very common way for religious people to avoid feeling the pain of separation from God. They hide in good works and deny they have any sin.
But Christianity is all about facing pain. That's what Jesus did for us on the cross and that's how he overcame sin, by facing the pain. And he faced it through the agony of the cross, which was the physical expression of the agony of separation from God. He didn't have to face such agony. He could have given up at any time. He didn't have to stand there, silent, he could have defended himself. Pilate was willing Jesus to speak, to say anything so tnat he could be released. But Jesus refused to evade or avoid the pain, and so he walked forward to the agony of the cross. And his dying words were, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
He was experiencing to the full the state of sin, the agony of separation from God. But because he saw it through to the end, because he fully faced what had to be faced, the story didn't finish there. Jesus walked through the abyss, the darkness, the separation, and took the suffering on board. And as a result of that action, he experienced a glorious and unexpected resurrection.
St Paul describes it like this:
Christ was innocent of sin, and yet for our sake God made him one with human sinfulness, so that in him we might be made one with the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Since the Pharisee in today's gospel story was unable to feel his own pain he couldn't walk through the darkness of the abyss, and so he was unable to experience any resurrection.
Deep inside us we all have pain, even if like the Pharisee we're unaware of it, because it's difficult to get in touch with that pain. Sometimes we're precipitated into it by life events, through bereavement, divorce, other people's unkindness, and so on. The pain of separation from God is added to by life events, by other people who hurt us, and by ourselves through the things we do to avoid facing the pain. But God can use all those occasions as opportunities for our benefit if we're prepared to co-operate with him, if we're prepared to grit our teeth and face the pain just as Jesus showed us we must do. If God is to use our pain to help us, then that pain shouldn't be evaded or avoided, it should be faced.
And if we can do that, if like the tax collector in today's story we can become aware of our own pain and so take up our cross as we face that pain, then we shall truly know resurrection for ourselves.
Rosemary drinks, too. She's also in her twenties, a little bit older than Samantha. She's married, with two small children. Rosemary was sexually abused as a child, and is now having awful problems with close relationships. The pain of her childhood memeories and experiences is eased a bit when she drinks, and she finds it easier to handle her own small children after a drink or two. The children sense her deep unhappiness so they tend to play up, because that's the only way they can deal with their mother's pain.
Samantha and Rosemary are typical of many people, male and female, young and old. We've all had experiences which cause pain deep within us. Bereavement, separation or divorce, redundancy, for some people retirement, moving away to a new area - away from all that's familiar and beloved, serious illness in the family, debt, and so on. At some point or another, human life inevitably causes us pain.
The trouble is, Samantha and Rosemary only work on the symptoms of the pain, as though that will solve the problem. But of course, it won't. At some point they need to find the courage to look deep inside themselves to discover exactly what this awful pain is that they're trying to blot out by reaching for the bottle, because they need to gradually face that pain in order to receive healing. It's no good working on the effects, they need to work on the cause.
The Pharisee in today's gospel story made the same mistake as Rosemary and Samantha. He looked at sins, and decided he hadn't any. He looked at effects, but not at the cause. He thanked God he wasn't like other people, because he didn't commit sins. But he hadn't looked deep inside himself. He hadn't seen that deep down inside himself he needed healing, because deep down inside we all need healing.
It seems to me that "sins" and "sin" are rather different, although obviously they are linked. "Sins" are effects, are those things I do wrong, like selfishness and greed and dishonesty and jealousy and so on. The list is endless! But what is sin? What is the cause of those effects? What makes me do those things?
I think sin is a state of being, of how I am, rather than what I do. And I think it may not be so much about guilt, but more about pain. Maybe sin is the deep, deep pain of alienation from God. Perhaps it's something like this:
When a woman conceives, the unborn baby and the mother are one person, and remain as one person for nine months. But the time inevitably arrives when they must be separated, when the baby must be born. And this is obviously essential if the baby is to have any chance at all of growing up, of eventually becoming an adult, of reaching his or her own full potential.
But that moment of separation, of birth, is a painful process on both sides. And as the child grows, so there are more and more painful moments of separation, until the child reaches maturity and generally leaves home. In an ideal world, the child will later return to the parents, but on a totally different footing. No longer as parent and child, but now on the basis of adults relating to each other.
So separation, although very often painful, is a good and a necessary thing. And separation from God is a good and a necessary thing if we're to grow into mature spiritual adults and reach our own potential as human beings. But we all know that separation from those we love can hurt, and at a deep level of being - whether we know it consciously or not - separation from God hurts. Rather than face that pain, we tend to do anything to avoid it.
When I was expecting my first child, many years ago now, I shared a ward with another young mother who was expecting her second child. We both had complications and were in hospital together for about a fortnight before our babies were born. She had a little boy of about two who had to stay away from home while his Mum was in hospital, and he didn't get to see her for the whole of that fortnight. When eventually the baby was born and the little lad was brought in to see his mother he refused to look at her or to go anywhere near her. He kicked and screamed and behaved appallingly to avoid approaching his mother. The pain of his separation from her was so intense that he couldn't bear to face her, he couldn't bear to approach her. And being only two years old, he had no way of recognising his pain, he simply reacted as all small children react.
Maybe that's how we react with God. Although we may not recognise the pain of separation from him it is there, and so we react accordingly and behave badly.
The Pharisee denied he had any pain and so denied that he was in a state of sin. That was his way of blotting out the pain of his separation from God; he reufsed to feel it. And to keep the pain even further away, he did all sorts of good deeds. He paid his tithes, he fasted, he did all that the Law required and more. And that's a very common way for religious people to avoid feeling the pain of separation from God. They hide in good works and deny they have any sin.
But Christianity is all about facing pain. That's what Jesus did for us on the cross and that's how he overcame sin, by facing the pain. And he faced it through the agony of the cross, which was the physical expression of the agony of separation from God. He didn't have to face such agony. He could have given up at any time. He didn't have to stand there, silent, he could have defended himself. Pilate was willing Jesus to speak, to say anything so tnat he could be released. But Jesus refused to evade or avoid the pain, and so he walked forward to the agony of the cross. And his dying words were, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
He was experiencing to the full the state of sin, the agony of separation from God. But because he saw it through to the end, because he fully faced what had to be faced, the story didn't finish there. Jesus walked through the abyss, the darkness, the separation, and took the suffering on board. And as a result of that action, he experienced a glorious and unexpected resurrection.
St Paul describes it like this:
Christ was innocent of sin, and yet for our sake God made him one with human sinfulness, so that in him we might be made one with the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Since the Pharisee in today's gospel story was unable to feel his own pain he couldn't walk through the darkness of the abyss, and so he was unable to experience any resurrection.
Deep inside us we all have pain, even if like the Pharisee we're unaware of it, because it's difficult to get in touch with that pain. Sometimes we're precipitated into it by life events, through bereavement, divorce, other people's unkindness, and so on. The pain of separation from God is added to by life events, by other people who hurt us, and by ourselves through the things we do to avoid facing the pain. But God can use all those occasions as opportunities for our benefit if we're prepared to co-operate with him, if we're prepared to grit our teeth and face the pain just as Jesus showed us we must do. If God is to use our pain to help us, then that pain shouldn't be evaded or avoided, it should be faced.
And if we can do that, if like the tax collector in today's story we can become aware of our own pain and so take up our cross as we face that pain, then we shall truly know resurrection for ourselves.
