The on-going "adult" conversation about sin...

When three of my favorite authors - Eugene Peterson, Craig Barnes and Marva Dawn - all share insights about a theme... hmmmm I better pay attention.  In The Contemplative Pastor, Peterson suggests that a sensitive and grounded pastor will look at sin not only from a theological perspective, but also with a pastoral eye towards "the particular way sin expresses itself... so however necessary it is to have a theological understanding of people as sinners, the pastor is not ready for ministry until he or she find the particular forms that sin takes in individual histories.  The pastor presses for details..."

He then goes on to suggest that because every generation is "unwell in a new way" it would be wise to note that in our era "the present generation is unwell - that is experiences sin - through episodes of adolescence."  Robert Bly and Marion Woodman spoke of this as the "sibling society" where no one ever grew up and took responsibility for life.  Rather, chronological adults acted like perpetual children - or victims - blaming everyone else for their woes while accepting maximum ownership for their success.  Peterson writes:

Instead of being over and done with when the twenty-first birthday is reached, it infects the upper generations as well.  It is common to see adults in their upper thirties, forties and fifties who have not only adopted the external trappings of the youth culture, but are actually experiencing the emotions, traumas and difficulties typical of youth.  They are experiencing life under its adolescent forms.  (So in this case) the sins of the sons, it seems, are being visited upon the fathers.

Two examples of this would be:  1) a never ending sense of inadequacy... "the variations are endless; the situation is the same: the adolescent is immature and therefore (feels) inadequate - and is acutely self-conscious about this inadequacy."  In this form of sin, we never feel "good enough" - we can't measure up -  and we are always less than the expert - especially the religious experts.  Peterson calls this idolatry - refusing to own and accept the grace God has given to us - and celebrate it. It once was a fact that church people acted like Pharisees - they thought of themselves as more holy and righteous than reality allowed - but today more and more people view themselves as the Publican - who is ruled by shame and inadequacy. So rather than allow this infantilism to continue, the alert pastor will "point out the ways in which God is alive in the community. The instances of courage and grace that occur every week in any congregation are staggering.  Pastoral discernment sees that grace operating in (each) person and (helps) that person keep in touch with the living God."

And 2) historical amnesia - the state of being so gullible that history has no

impact upon our lives.  Every problem appears to be happening to us as if it were the first time in history.  We have "no accumulation of experience that transcends our personal details."  And the result is precious little willingness to "wise up."  We forget - or conveniently ignore - that people have been wrestling with sin since the beginning of time.  What's more, there is a collective repository of human wisdom about the journey of faith in both scripture and community, if we would pause to notice.  The result is people coming to church with little or no "consciousness of being a part of (a larger) community that carries in it its Scriptures, its worship and its forms of obedience a life twenty and more centuries in the making."  Here is the sin of arrogance as we deny our dependence upon the Lord and act as if we were the center of the universe.

Marva Dawn says much the same thing when she writes:  "Tradition, along with its correlative authority, was once one of the strongest sinews that held Western society together.  David Wells explains the importance of this cord..."

Tradition is the process whereby one generation inducts its successor into its accumulated wisdom, lore and values.  The family once served as an (important) conduit for this transmission... (but now) film and television provide the sorts of values that were once provided by the family (and communities of faith.)  (Marva Dawn, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down.)

And then Craig Barnes, writing about the development of gravitas in ministry - and how this demands own both our sin and our dark nights of the soul - says:

God alone is whole and complete, lacking in nothing.  So it only makes sense that those who have devoted their lives to talking about God would have at least a "small matter" that is missing, imperfect or habitually humbling. The purpose of this unwanted - but divine - gift is to nurture even more gravitas in the pastor's soul.  Indeed, such gravity is strangely attractive for a society that has tried too long to lack nothing... Nobody really wants a perfect pastor... what parishioners really want is a pastor who knows what it means to struggle against temptation and despair, like they do.  They want to be led by someone who has also stayed up all night fretting over choices, regrets and fear, but who then found the quiet grace to start over the next morning.  They want to see the Gospel incarnated in a human life that is still far from complete but has become interesting because the human drama is now sacred.  In other words, they want a pastor who knows what it means to be them, but them in communion with God.  Innocence is precious, but it's the glimpses of redemption that truly compel. (M. Craig Barnes, The Pastor as Minor Poet)

And so I am committed more than ever to the on-going conversation about being an adult person of faith who wrestles with the sins of adulthood in the light of God's abiding grace.
credits
1) Redemption by Autumpoem @ http://browse.deviantart.com/?order=9&q=sin+and+redemption#/art/Redemption-59427717?_sid=61dc5e8b
2) I'm Trying to Forget You by Cloud Room @ http://fc06.deviantart. net/fs47/f/2009/204/7/5/I__m_trying_to_forget_you_by_cloud_room.jpg