Sin and grace and finding language that works...

So, in the course of 24 hours, a few folk from church as well as two colleagues in ministry have said to me in their own way: what am I to do about the sin in my life?  There are variations on this theme - each person is shaped by nuance and specificity, to be sure - but the essence of their question was the same. I kept thinking about this theological confluence as I was cutting the grass and the wisdom of Eugene Peterson rang clear in words from The Contemplative Pastor:

A tug of war takes place every week between pastor and people.  The contest is over conflicting views of the person who comes to church. The result of this struggle is exhibited in the service of worship, shaping sermon and prayers, influencing gesture and tone.  People (and particularly people who come to church and put themselves in touch with pastoral ministry) see themselves in human and moral terms: they have human needs that need fulfilling and moral deficiencies that need correcting. Pastor see people (including ourselves) quiet differently.  We see them in theological terms: they are sinners - persons separated from God who need to be restored in Christ... (In this) sinner means something is awry between humans and God... (for) the theological fact is that humans are not close to God and are not serving God. (p. 118)

Peterson goes on to say that most people are essentially Emersonian.  "They ordinarily assume that everyone has a divine inner core that needs awakening."  And while I am not a strict Calvinist when it comes to the notion of total depravity - such words don't even make sense in our overly psychological culture - brother Emerson is both too romantic and naive if I have learned anything over the past 30+ years in ministry.  To be sure, I am glad Emerson came along when he did and offered a twist in the story of New England Christianity.  But come one, man:  while there is likely a small spark of original grace within us all, there is also profound brokenness, alienation, pride, greed and all the rest.  Our relationship to God - and our service to the Lord - is not only distorted, it is diminished and sometimes destroyed.

Now, I don't pretend to understand why this is true.  I don't like it and ache that it were different.  But it seems to be a constant fact of life that all the education, prayer and good intentions have not changed the fact that we cannot consistently do the good that we know we want to do.  Romans 7 is the standard by which we look at ourselves in a theological mirror:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

I had a colleague who used to tell me that I wrestled with this sin, grace and redemption stuff too much:  Lighten up, man she would say, people don't want to hear about this shit anymore.  And she was right: people DON'T want to hear about this shit anymore mostly because people have NEVER wanted to hear about sin.  But more than anything else, sin is what locks joy out of our hearts no matter how much we yearn for it.  Peterson's own reworking of Romans 7 puts it like this:

What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me?

Two days ago, a young Marine vet took his own life on one of our mountain tops after serving in the Gulf wars.  For 790 days he had been waiting for help from the VA and finally gave in to the demons of PTSD.  Don't tell me there isn't sin involved in this:  the VA as an institution tried to do a good job - it is filled with excellent people from top to bottom - and still is unable to consistently care for those who have offered themselves up for God and country.  Our young vet, who was asked to do things in war that we can't even imagine or speak of, wanted to make peace within himself - and was unable to do so.  Same might be said for his family who loved him beyond comprehension but was unable to love him into wholeness.  Or a culture that emphasizes the importance of solving our own problems lest we be labeled a loser. 

And let's be complete  religion had a place in this sin, too. More often than not simple-minded and shame-based spirituality preaches that if you just take your problems to Jesus they will all be solved.  And if they aren't, then you aren't being serious or honest enough.  Such mean-spirited and stupid religion only deepens our sense of shame and inadequacy when what we actually need is community, hope, humility and a way to trust that God is sufficient. 

The way of grace is NOT a quick fix.  It is not a month-long marathon of

counseling that promises fast results. It is not participation in 1 AA meeting. It is neither within our control or awareness.  Yes, therapy can help - it is a resource for naming and accepting our broken reality - but rarely can therapy alone change our hearts.  How does the Psalmist put it:  create in me a NEW heart, O God, and restore a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51)  Same is true for meds and exercise and all the rest.  They have a place in our healing, but if anyone thinks that adding another mile to your daily 5 mile romp is going heal your soul and renew your spirit when it is filled with alienation, fear, anxiety, greed or lust, you are a child that needs to grow up.

Grace is NOT something we construct or create or earn.  It is a gift from God that often must be named and honored in our existence by one wiser than ourselves.  For when this happens - and trust is built and nourished - we begin to see that despite our sin, God is truly still at work within and among us.  The old timers used to call this "the care of the soul" - we might think of it as spiritual direction - which is profoundly different from psychological therapy.  Peterson describes it like this:

Paul (the Apostle) had a meticulous eye for signs of God's grace.  He was God's spy, searching out the congregational terrain for evidence that the Holy Spirit had been there. Paul knew the people were sinners. But his passion was for describing grace and opening their eyes to what his eyes were open to - the activity of God in their lives - the Lord's power in us who believe. (Ephesians 1: 19)

Paul understood that we cannot eliminate sin by our actions or thoughts.  He also knew from the inside out that sin is not the whole story.  What each of us must learn is to see "all the ways in which God is alive in the community... (for) The instances of courage and grace that occur every week in any congregation (or life) is staggering. Pastoral discernment that sees grace operating in a person keeps that person in touch with the living God."  And THAT is how we keep the effects of sin in check.  NOT by trying to chase them away or cure them or distract ourselves from them, but rather by letting the Holy Spirit nourish space in our hearts for the grace of God that is always present.

Modern people who are attracted to the Sacred, but afraid or wounded by traditional language, have a unique challenge when it comes to being ministers. We want to help - and our people want to stay in charge - but that is a way without grace and doesn't work.  That hyper-critical soul who dissected our worship last Sunday told me that she understood sin to be a mistake. Well, that misunderstanding not only trivializes our inability to remain intimate with God, but points towards the self rather than the Holy as if sin (or mistakes) were about what we do. 

"Sinners are often virtuous, happy and affluent not merely wicked, unhappy, anxious and poor... to call (a person) a sinner is not a blast at his/her manners or morals.  It is a theological belief that the thing that matters most is forgiveness and grace."  The thing that matters most is intimacy with God and a life lived in harmony with God's purposes.  As Jesus said in Matthew 11: It is a life that rests in God's love and moves with the unforced rhythms of grace."

So calling sin a mistake is just backasswards.  Yes, the word sin has been used in evil and destructive ways - a weapon to wound God's people within and beyond the community of faith - but that is true of nearly everything else in creation, too. So after all these years, I don't know a better way to describe the profound gulf that exists between God and ourselves than... sin. I have come to trust that I cannot educate my congregation out of sin nor can I give them enough pastoral love or prayer.  All I can do is be on the look-out for sign's of God's presence beyond the sin and point to it.  For as we nourish this ability to discern God within and among us, sin's influence grows weaker.

The minor poetry (of pastoral ministry) is counter cultural.  Society strives to make all things, especially our lives, move compulsively faster and faster in order to get more work accomplished, gather more income, assimilate more information, fulfill more obligations at home and along the way lose more weight. The only thing that we don't seem to have more of is time... This is why Sabbath can be translated from the Hebrew as "stop" - cut it out - or give it a rest... Having stopped (each week in worship) to confront the truth that we are sinners who have spent all week rushing past the presence of God, the congregation may be ready at last to hear the far deeper truth of God's grace to them... The pastor lives by the belief that Jesus Christ holds all things together, and it is for this Savior that the harried souls in the pews truly yearn. All their busyness and distracting entertainments were never more than the unconscious techniques for coping with this year.  But the soul yearns for God and nothing else can cover over its yearning for long.

So we take time - lots and losts of time - we listen and point beyond the sin and we point beyond ourselves to God and God's grace.  In this we trust that God is sufficient.
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credits:
1) http://littlebluesuitcase.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/romans7-15.jpg
2) Yvonne Valenza, Struggle, @ http://www.whitestonegallery.com/exhibits/090116Juried/090116works.php
3) Martha Lever @ http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zu4EbnUfoiE/ Sbv6wJk74cI/AAAAAAAABiA/fmW1nF90QkA/s400/create+in+me.jpg
4) Crafty Curate @ http://craftycurate.blogs.com/pilgrims _progress/images/matt11.jpg