Narnia: the right order
Why Do Bad Things Happen?

What is Sin?

What is Sin?
Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35
by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones
Cathedral of Hope – Oklahoma City
4 March 2007

I recently started reading a book of sermons and writings by Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is the probably still the most important religious figure in American history. He was a Congregational minister, which means that he is now part of our religious heritage, as we are members of the UCC. Edwards was America’s first great theologian and first great philosopher. But he is most known for being the preacher of the First Great Awakening, that event which took what was largely a secular nation and filled it with evangelical and revival fire. Some argue that the American Revolution would not have occurred had not the nation been awakened by this first great revival.

The most famous of Edwards’ sermons and one that you might have read is entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It was in our American Lit textbook in high school, and we read it as an example of 18th century American literature.

Because of Edwards’ influential role in American religious, cultural, and institutional life, this sermon and its views on sin and God still affect how many American’s think about these topics. Here’s probably the most famous passage:

So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.

Harsh language. I would suspect that many of us have been taught that or even believed it at one time or another. In fact, some of you might still. Even when I read that in high school as a relatively conservative Southern Baptist boy, I couldn't accept Edwards's theology. This was not the God of compassion that I worshipped.

This sermon raises the question “What is sin?” In fact, that question arises from a number of different directions. In my pastoral care, I often deal with people who are experiencing guilt, shame, or anxiety about their lives. Though they don’t always word it this way, they ask “What is sin?”

A couple of weeks ago during the Pride Mardi Gras event, Shantel Mandalay kept pulling me on stage to make fun of me. At one point she asked what I was preaching on next. I said the cross and sin. People laughed. Shantel then asked if I was going to demonstrate both during the services.

Because we are a church that believes in liberation, I am often asked by critics and friends alike, what we believe to be sin. Since many of the things that other people consider sin we don’t, what exactly do we think sin is? So, the question comes from many quarters.

I don’t think it is merely curiosity or intellectual curiosity. I believe that sin names a deep experience of judgment and alienation.

Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor has written a marvelous little book entitled Speaking of Sin in which she claims that sin is our only hope. Let me explain.

In our contemporary world hardly anyone besides religious conservatives use the language of sin. Moderates and liberals really do, but it is especially absent from the larger American conversation.
Taylor says that in our contemporary culture the languages of medicine and law have largely replaced the theological language of sin. In the medical model, the fundamental human problem is sickness. People are either physically or mentally ill and therefore deserve treatment instead of judgment. In the legal model, the fundamental human problem is crime – freely chosen behaviors that break the law. Criminals deserve punishment.

There are advantages to both of these models. The medical model is an advance of an enlightened society, that understands that there are aspects of ours selves that are beyond our rational control and need healing. Using these two models, we medically treat actions for which we are not responsible and punish as crimes those actions for which we are. There are public policy debates about those in the middle – do drug addicts deserve treatment or punishment?

But these models are also inadequate. They don’t describe the human experience of sinfulness; they leave something out. As Taylor says, sin is not simply a set of behaviours to be avoided or a condition to be healed, it is “a way of life to be exposed and changed.” She writes:

Deep down in human existence, there is an experience of being cut off from life. There is some memory of having been treated cruelly, and – a little deeper, perhaps – the memory of having treated someone else cruelly as well. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of seeing the light and turning away from it, either because it is too beautiful to behold or because it spoils the dank but familiar darkness. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of reaching for forbidden fruit, of pushing away loving arms, of breaking something on purpose just to prove that you can. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of doing whatever is necessary to feed and comfort the self, because there is no one else to trust, no other purpose to serve, no other god to follow. For ages and ages, this experience has been called sin – deadly alienation from the source of all life.

It is important that we name sin for ourselves. We need to identify those aspects of our lives that create the distance between who we are now and who God has created and called us to be. Sin is not a set a rules, a purity code of correct behaviours. Many of us were taught that it is a set of rules – don’t drink, smoke, or cuss, or go with girls that do.
Sin is something deeper. There have been efforts to name the root sin – pride, exclusion, alienation, anxiety, violence. All of these efforts reveal that sin is fundamentally about relationship.

Sin is relational. It isn’t simply a set of rules. Sin breaks relationships. It ruptures the creation. It alienates us from ourselves, from God, from other people, or from the wider creation.

So, it isn’t that drinking is a sin, but if when you drink you become offensive, abusive, or violent to yourself or others, then that is sin.

The other thing we’ve learned about sin in recent theology is that it is structural and institutional. Notice the political language of the Philippians passage – “enemies of the cross,” “citizenship in heaven,” God “subjecting” the powers. The Gospel passage is also a political confrontation between Jesus and Herod.

Recent theology has taught that sin isn’t so much about individual choices and actions but is about the corrupted institutions and structures of human society – governments, corporations, etc. These were intended for good, to be bring order and stability to life, but they are corrupted and fallen. These are the powers and principalties or what Walter Wink has called the Domination System.

According to this understanding, we participate in sin even when we don’t intend to. As participants in a system we further the cause of sin, even when we are well-intentioned.

This was demonstrated effectively by the film Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. There is that scene where Yoda flies into battle commanding the clones that are the predecessors of the Storm Troopers. When I saw that, my brain just couldn’t compute the image. As I reflected on it, I realized that for a guy my age, Yoda represents archetypal good and the Storm Troopers represent archetypal evil. Mixing the two, I just couldn’t compute.

This film was one of the most deeply theological in years, because Lucas was saying that well-intentioned people can unwittingly further the cause of evil. The Jedi were trying to do the right thing, but they helped Palpatine take power.

What this teaches us is that sin is much larger than our own individual actions – it is a condition of the creation. God then works in and through us to transform the powers into God’s glory.

God, full of compassion, stands ready to receive us. As the great hymn that we just sang says, Jesus is standing with open arms ready to embrace us. God’s compassion is also revealed in the Luke passage read early. Jesus laments that Jerusalem will not repent and says, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” Jesus describes the compassion of God as a mother hen’s love and protection for her chicks. Instead of sinners in the hands of an angry God, Jesus teaches us to view God as a mother hen gathering her children.

Yes, we are all sinners, but as I’ve said many times before, that is a liberating message. First, it tells us that we are all alike. There is no special privilege based on race, gender, clan, wealth, beauty, intellect, or sexual orientation. All alike stand in needs of God’s grace and no one has a special access to it.

Secondly, there is nothing we alone can do to free ourselves from sin. We can only be freed by God’s grace. We shouldn’t have guilt or anxiety about our inability to free ourselves.

Third, sin is beyond our control. It is a deep condition of the creation. As such it takes us working together with God to liberate the world from the power of sin.

Simply put, we need God and God’s grace and compassion. It is the only way to overcome the power of sin in this world.

Jesus could confront the power of sin because of his confidence in God’s way. We must do the same.

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