News

“Whatever Happened to Sin?” is the title of a long ago written book by Karl Menninger, an American psychiatrist. It does seem to be a word on the endangered species of vocabulary list. Most times I hear the word outside of worship or Bible study it has to do with eating high caloric foods that clog one’s arteries. You know, “That dessert is absolutely sinful”…meaning it is really bad for you but tastes, O so good!

Sin is a useful word. It supersedes the words mistake or error. Sin is a word that connects a wrongful act with God. If I make a mistake in measuring a space for a new refrigerator, it is simply a mistake between me and the person selling new refrigerators. God isn’t really into tape measures and refrigeration.

If, on the other hand I am constructing something and cut corners simply to make something cheaper or easier with no care for safety, that can be more than a mistake. God cares greatly about people being unnecessarily put at risk.

There is actually a mistake you and I make about sin. We think sin harms another. Indeed it can and often does. That is why sometimes the best confession made is not to God but to those against whom we have sinned. Ask any 12 Step group about this.

The mistake we make regarding sin is we get the part of what sin does to others while at the same time miss the effect and the affect sin can have on us. The truth is we do sin, but sin also does us. Yes, of course others have and will sin against us and we suffer its consequences. We are well aware of that. However our own sin has consequences to ourselves. I am not talking about punishment for our sin when it causes a valued relationship to break or has some ripple effect on others. Instead I mean that our own sin even when not noticed by others has a way of striking us. Guilt builds up over time and produces nothing very healthy.

Acts and even thoughts of racism have a way of embittering us. Disbelief in science and climate change while effecting us, effects those too with power to do something about it who fail to lift a non-pollutant finger. Racism can shape us in a way few sins can do. As we live it, act it, and deny it, these forces work together on us to make us into a person whom we would acknowledge God does not want us to be.

In sin we have a force, a power, from which we cannot escape. Sin-sick we hope for an escape as we often are aware we are becoming not only one whom God does not want us to become, but also we are aware we are becoming someone whom we don’t want ourselves to become.

This is why confession and repentance are so important. We need to acknowledge our sin for the sake of neighbor and for the sake of ourselves. We need to strive to turn from this sin for the sake of neighbor and oneself. This is loving our neighbor as oneself at its best. Love of self can often be stating we are too often not all that loveable. To acknowledge this can be to love oneself and one’s neighbor more deeply.

God wants confession and forgiveness not out of a hardness of God’s heart with hopes of convicting and punishing us. God wants confession and forgiveness for a better you and me, a better neighbor, and a better world.

Sin will always do the neighbor. Sin will always do ourselves. Sin always needs as response our acknowledgement and efforts to combat sin. Let’s provide an answer to Menninger. What ever happened to sin? It did not go away. Neither did it go underground. Instead sin has lost some of its grip on us. God’s forgiveness will help with that.

Water, especially in the form of ocean waves, can be a very powerful force. Its might can be witnessed along many seacoasts. In some nations the power of the waves is harnessed to create electricity. Along all coast lines there are visible signs of water’s force.

Not all that is struck by wave action have the same reaction. Some swimmers find themselves knocked around by the waves at the beach yet on the very same waves many figure out how to float on top to body surf or catch a wave with a surfboard and use its power to their advantage.

Entire coastlines are formed in part by the force and direction of the waves. Some seem to withstand it and remain rather straight and stalwart, perhaps receding over time, but retaining their straight formation. Other coastlines are sculpted with curves, jagged edges, points and small coves teeming with lifeforms in their tide pools.

Standing on some beaches one can see many of water’s art forms. On the beach are rounded, smooth pebbles, worn and polished by time and water. However out in the water and, perhaps, on the sides of the beach can be huge rocks enjoyed by sea birds and people who feel the need to scale them. These rocks are rough and can scrape both hands and feet on attempted climbs. The same waves that made small, smooth forms also created rough-hewn, giant monoliths standing guard over the coastline. The very sand on the beaches is often a result of constant pounding until all that is left are granular flakes that were once large rock.

Life is similar to ocean waves. Life has a way of coming at us, one wave at a time. Life, like ocean waves, is relentless. It never stops coming. Some waves are larger than others. Some are caused by storms even far away. Some can come simultaneously from different directions. Life again is similar. A war in a country many could not previously have found on a blank map has affected us. Of course, not nearly as much as those living in and around the war zone, but the ripples of military strikes have reached our shores.

Sometimes we can stand strong like those majestic seaside cliffs. Sometimes we stand strong, but visibly scarred like those jagged coastline rocks. Many times what life tosses our way smooths us. We become calm, accepting, understanding and patience. Many of us have or will have physical evidence of life’s force upon us. Bent over, lines, wrinkles, gray hair, muscles and joints that no longer work as they once did, and eyesight that isn’t quite what it used to be. Some of life’s pressure creates mental issues of depression, anxiety, or fear.

We as followers of Jesus follow one of whom it is said commanded the waves and walked on water. That is, faith has a power. As life does its best at shaping and forming us, followers of Jesus have another force that molds us. Regular attention to worship, prayer, scripture and efforts to live as disciples cannot prevent the forces of life from having impact. They can, however, help us withstand those life forces, and, at times, help us become stronger, even using those forces directed against us to grow and deepen our faith and our person.

Life’s challenges are not all that has power and strength. Physics tells us to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Faith that allows us to pick ourselves up and follow again can be quite a strong opposite reaction. That is the force we disciples have given to us to encounter the actions of life and the world.