Rambling thoughts on sin - part one

NOTE: For the season of Eastertide - at least most of the Sundays between Easter and Pentecost - I've sensed a need to do a series on the doctrine of sin in the 21st century. To say that I am intellectually indebted to Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich - along with James Nelson and Douglas John Hall - would only scratch the surface. So, away we go on what I pray will be an insightful, challenging, fun and always grace-filled ride through a reality that many hate. I, too, have hated the shallow and moralistic way sin has been discussed for most of my life. I also know that sin is one of the ways we can talk of that part of life's mystery that we don't understand but still impacts us. We shall see... so if you are around on Sunday, April 11th at 10:30 am, please stop by.

During my last month in seminary – when I was preparing for both my ordination into Christian ministry and a series of interviews for employment in the United Church of Christ – I had to meet with a small group of seasoned pastor to discuss my ordination paper. They were young and old, urban and suburban, progressive and more traditional theologically and they were charged with helping me go deeper.

That is, it was their job to see to it that when I went before a gathering of all the churches in my area to present my ordination paper – and that’s how we do it in the United Church of Christ – that I wasn’t a flake.

• They wanted gravitas and passion in this paper. They expected my personal spiritual insights into the grace of Jesus Christ in addition to well-formed intellectual reflections on the nature of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They wanted me to speak with some depth on the Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ as well as articulate my own credo.

• In other words, they wanted to discuss theology and ethics with either Karl Barth or Reinhold Niebuhr – two of the most profound and important theologians in our tradition – and what they got was James Lumsden who was more like Mark Twain or even John Lennon.

Let’s just say it was a complicated conversation… We reviewed and analyzed my theological writing. We probed and teased out helpful new ways of articulating the old, old story. And then an old, crusty Hungarian pastor who looked a lot like Paul Tillich – all arms and legs and harsh angles amidst a mop of white hair – said something that has stayed with me for over 30 years. “Mr. Lumsden, it seems to me that you have an unformed and immature anthropology of human nature.”

And as I was trying to discern what in God’s name he really meant by those words, he jabbed the air with his finger pointed at me and whispered harshly: “What do you know and think about SIN?!?” It was the right question – although I didn’t think so at the time – and as I tried to finesse my way through his query it was clear that I wasn’t up to the challenge.

So he said quietly: “Rewrite this and come back in two weeks.” To say that I was humbled – and angry and not a little bit confused – by that encounter would be an understatement. But that old Hungarian Reformed preacher was on to something – you have an unformed and immature anthropology of human nature – so I had some work to do. I guess what I came up with in those two weeks was adequate because I’m here with you this morning, but I’m sure it was just barely adequate.

You see, I have come to believe that young people by their nature almost always have an unformed and inadequate anthropology of human nature. We haven’t had enough time to ponder what sin really means – personally, socially or spiritually – so we don’t know what to say.

And that’s the first truth I want to share with you this morning as I begin what will likely be a somewhat rambling five week discussion of sin and the Christian faith in the 21st century: most of us are unable to grasp why it is valuable and even liberating to think deeply and honestly about sin until we are middle aged. St. Paul said, “When I was a child I thought and acted and spoke as a child, but now that I have matured I have put childish things away.”

No judgment here: just an awareness that when we are children, we act like children – and in the fullness of time we mature. Sometimes we’re too naïve to know that sin really matters; sometimes we’re too arrogant to sense how sin touches us and those we love; and sometimes we’re too wounded by our own sin or the sins of others to be able to grasp anything but our own pain.

What’s more, so much sin talk in North America is shallow, manipulative, judgmental and moralistic that many of us organically understand that it would be healthier to close our eyes to such garbage than wrestle with it. That’s what many folk in recovery discover they HAVE to do – shut out the stupid, shallow and mean-spirited sin talk we have inherited – because it only amplifies our shame and fear when Jesus is about grace and peace.

“Peace be with you” Jesus said to those gathered in the Upper Room a week after Easter Sunday. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit for if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them, but if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

As we mature – as we grow in faith and experience – we start to appreciate why Jesus keeps speaking to us of forgiveness and peace. But in our youth and early adulthood, we’re much more likely to identify with Thomas – the doubter – who needs to figure out life and faith and ethics all on his own for that seems to be the way we were created, yes?

• And if this youthful questioning, naiveté and arrogance is part of our nature, then doubt must never be considered sinful. Both Tillich and Niebuhr are clear on this: if searching and raising hard questions is how we were created by God, then something of God’s nature can never be labeled sinful.

• Are you with me? This is important because so often when we are young our lives become a question – a testing – a journey of discernment – and our traditionally shallow and moralistic sin-talk doesn’t help.

That’s part of what Jesus was getting after in his story of the Prodigal Son, don’t you think? Let’s review it quickly so that we’re all on the same page. Luke 15 is the great collection of lost parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost child. And in the story of the lost child – who leaves his home to explore and question what life might mean on his own terms – what happens?

• He goes into new and foreign territory, he tries out a variety of experiments involving his body – including sexual promiscuity and the violation of his religion’s food rules – and then he is filled with shame and fear and even remorse when things go bad.

• So he returns home, expecting very, very little but is greeted by his father with love, forgiveness, feasting and grace.

• And poppa embraces his child and proclaims: welcome to the feast for once my child was lost, but now he is found.

I once used this story to talk to the church about the sexual experimentation that so many young women and men encounter. I said something like, “Those of us who came of age in the 60s know a lot about the truth of the prodigal son because we, like him, experimented with sex – and probably drugs and a whole lot more, too. And most of us learned a whole lot from these experiments in living – and from our sexual mistakes, too.”

Believe me, when I said that, you could feel the tension and judgment in the Sanctuary heighten. So I added: “So we, like the father in this story, have been called to let our children and young adults make their own mistakes – even sexual mistakes. Yes, it can be painful to watch. Yes, they will get hurt. And yes there will be consequences. But that is how we were made according to God’s love – mostly we fall down so that we can learn how to get back up – and our response as parents and mentors must never be condemnation, but always patience and grace.”

Well after worship, you better believe that I got a barrage of phone calls from a host of the old matriarchs of the church demanding a retraction from me for encouraging sexual promiscuity. In their religious background sin is about what we do – specific acts of immorality – and I saw that as destructive.

• Interestingly, however, I also got a number of email notes expressing a sense of gratitude from those in their 40s and 50s.

• One woman in particular wrote, “I learned a lot from my sexual mistakes – a lot about me and a whole lot about God’s love and forgiveness – so thank you for putting my broken experiences into the story of Christ’s grace and saying it out loud.”

Perhaps that is the second truth for today: as St. Irenaeus taught in the second century – we were made by God to learn from our mistakes – even our sins – and much in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus seems to underscore this truth. In today’s gospel, for example, it has been suggested that one of the reasons why the disciples were still hiding behind locked doors in fear has something to do with Christ’s appearance to Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter Sunday. If Jesus came back to Mary – and invited her into a new way of living – what was he going to do to them? After all, she had remained faithful while they… had denied and abandoned him.

I think they were terrified – and ashamed – and filled with guilt. One scholar put it like this:

Isn't it reasonable to assume that the disciples might have been just a little bit afraid that this was not all good news? That Jesus might be understandably angry with them for abandoning him, in Peter's case for even denying Jesus three times as he warmed himself by the fire in the courtyard, while his Lord and Savior was questioned by the religious authorities? It's frightening enough to see someone who was dead suddenly alive, but what if he had every reason to say, "Where were you when I needed you? What kind of faithful disciples are you, anyway? Why did you run out on me? Peter, you especially, I picked you out to be the leader; how could you have denied me three times?" (Kate Huey writing in Sermon Seeds for the United Church of Christ.)

But that isn’t how the story unfolds, right? Kate Huey, writing in this week’s reflection for the United Church of Christ, says:

There were no recriminations, no anger, no condemnation or judgment, not even an understandable "venting" of disappointment and hurt. Instead, the first words Jesus offered were both greeting and gift: "Peace be with you." He knew what was in their hearts and why they had barred the door… They were scared and hiding out. Yet, suddenly, in the midst of their fear and confusion, there he was, not with angels, trumpets, or legions, but quietly. He brought only peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit… In fact, he breathed the Spirit into them (making this) John’s "Pentecost," … (empowering) the disciples to go out and be peace and forgiveness and love for the world.

And their empowerment begins with what? An awareness of their sins and an experience with Christ’s forgiveness: they had already judged themselves more harshly than the Lord would – and needed to learn from their failure – before grace could be amazing.

And that is the third insight that grabs me: our awareness of sin – on every level – prepares us to seek and receive – dare I say even treasure – God’s grace when it arrives? In one of his most penetrating and uplifting sermons, Frederick Buechner tells us that we are the twin of old Doubting Thomas. And just like Thomas we are invited to learn to see by faith – to trust God in our hearts – rather than in just the obvious data we can see and claim and name. He writes: “We've all heard Thomas called ‘the Doubter’ but let’s explore his other name, ‘the Twin.’ (For) If you want to know who the other twin is, I can tell you. I am the other twin, and unless I miss my guess, so are you." The story of Thomas, you see, invites us into the:
… Gift of believing more than what our eyes take in. Our eyes tell us that the small country church down the road needs a new coat of paint and that the stout lady who plays the organ looks a little like W.C. Fields and that the pews are rarely more than a quarter filled on any given Sunday." Our eyes see "facts" while our hearts see "truth," for example, that "the truth about the shabby little church is that for reasons known only to God it is full of holiness."

(On this day) Thomas was perhaps for the first time able to see not just the fact of Jesus, but the truth of Jesus and the truth of who Jesus was for him. Perhaps we've had a similar experience of "seeing" Jesus, every once in a while even in our own churches, especially when there is a pause in our endless babbling about him and for a moment or two he is present in the silence of waiting and listening… To see him with the heart is to know that in the long run his kind of life is the only life worth living. To see him with the heart is not only to believe in him but little by little to become bearers to each other of his healing life until we become finally healed and whole and alive within ourselves. To see him with the heart is to take heart, to grow true hearts, brave hearts, at last.

I believe that Buechner is on to something here – something we know as the good news – and it is born in the paradox of sin and grace. We’ll go deeper next week, but for now this is the good news for today for those who have ears, to hear.

credits:

1) Notes from the Underground, liquidkid1 @ http://www.deviantart.com/

2) Doubting Thomas, bob kessel @ http://www.bobkessel.com/

3) The Sin, devlaa @ http://www.deviantart.com/

4) Still Doubting, john granville gregory @ http://www.revruth.wordpress.com/

5) Hearing the Call, howlerwolfe @ http://www.deviantart.com/

6) Prodigal Son, palantha

7) Shame, http://classbias.blogspot.com/

8) Doubting Thomas @ http://jyotiartashram.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html