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Sin (continued) Review: ►Lent seems to evoke a couple of different responses: one being ‘remorse’- the very real sense that all of creation has experienced a crisis of sorts (something’s gone terribly wrong), and yet a profound sense of ‘hope’ for the new life that God has made possible (which we call the “Kingdom”). This particular aspect of Lent allows us to focus on (2) concepts/practices which appear to be essential and valuable components of our faith: “confession” and “repentance”. ~ Confession provides the safe confines in which we can honestly confront our brokenness and the inner-turmoil we face as a result. ~ Repentance is the gift that God offers which not only allows us to admit our brokenness, but provides the courage to live differently (to actually choose a less destructive path for our life). ►It becomes apparent immediately and observably that… SIN IS A BIG DEAL. The word ‘sin’ in the Greek (hamartia) means ‘to miss the mark’ or ‘to fall short’, but it’s most often presented to us in metaphorical terms because it can’t really be ‘defined’, only ‘described’. ►In the Bible, sin is described as… … rebellion, infidelity (unfaithful), wandering (going astray), getting dirty, disloyalty, trespassing, transgression, failure, just to describe a few. ►All sin has this in common: It’s idolatrous- giving ourselves to or adopting our sense of identity, worth and fulfillment from anything other than God. “Where are we going for life?” It’s essentially, mistrust (of God)- sin was not just a ‘really bad choice’ on Adam and Eve’s part, but an affront to the goodness of their Creator-God. Their actions signaled their determination that ‘God cannot be trusted’. It’s alienation- the worst thing about sin? Separation. ● It becomes apparent that sin drove us all in the wrong direction: away from God, each other and creation. ► Humanity, now standing outside of the garden [having been ‘evicted’ due to their decision for independence], ponders the essential question: “How do I get back to Eden?” It was our determination to ‘go it alone’ placed “us” squarely at the center of our lives (we would refer to that as having a ‘sinful nature’); those determinations will have consequences: we call the life it produces sins (simply manifestations/expressions of a defective heart). ♦ In order for us to realize the depth of its impact, sin must be understood as a ‘relational term’, not a ‘legislative term’ (i.e. when I said, “I will” to the vows at our wedding, I wasn’t just agreeing to keep the rules; I was saying “I will/I do” to Lynette, which because of my love for her, would compel me to govern my life in ways which prioritize the relationship). ● So, as a relational concept, sin would be any pattern of thinking or behaving toward my wife that devalues or interrupts the relationship and fails to honor my commitment to her. ♦ When sin is understood as merely some violation of a moral code, it … … it trivializes sin, Sin, as simply certain actions/behaviors, fails to capture the enormity of the human dilemma. ● I think it’s our natural tendency (in the early season of our develop) to adopt an approach to faith/God which is more ‘prescribed’; more ‘academic’. The focus is on getting the right answer, even if we’re not sure how we arrived at it (as it pertains to sin, our posture is, “Just tell me what to do and what not to do”). ● Many of you received, in your ‘come to Jesus’ packet, an itemized/alphabetized (to make it easier to find) list of all the things that God really ‘frowns’ upon (typically referenced the length of your hair, use of tobacco products, unseemly language (‘gosh’ and ‘darn’, because you may as well go ahead and say the word!), use of barley-filled beverages (and any grocery that sold them), avoidance of such ‘hell-holes’ as movie theaters and bowling alleys, and playing cards (with the exception of ‘Old Maid’). God seemed to care very little about the greed, lust, selfishness, dissension and injustice so prevalent (after all, it’s what sinful humanity does!) ● Unfortunately, it’s at this stage of belief that many abandon their pursuit of God, because faith was offered as a relationship with the Creator-God, but it was quickly reduced to a catalogue of acceptable (or unacceptable) behaviors. ● Once sin loses its relational/personal dimension I am able to separate the list of rules from the good intentions of the God they represent (David said, “Against you and you alone have I sinned…” Psalm 51:3). ● It doesn’t mean that no one else was impacted by David’s decision, but at it’s core, his sin was an abuse of God’s good purposes. Sin, as simply an ‘evil act’ committed volitionally and in isolation by one individual fails to capture the impact it has on ‘community’. ● Because we were created for ‘community’, no one really sins in isolation, because we are never alone (“I’m not hurting anyone but myself!” Really?) ♦ When sin is understood as merely some violation of a moral code, it … … allows us celebrate to our performance and ignore our heart, Sins, as specific acts, are merely ‘symptomatic’; external expressions/evidences of a deeper issue. We seem always most focused on the ‘symptoms’ (outward manifestations), but Jesus always focused on the ‘disease of our soul’. The issue is, we may appear, at times, ‘asymptomatic’, but we’re all ‘carriers’ of the disease! … it becomes something we feel we can “manage”. Jesus refused to allow us to conclude that sin could be managed; that sin could be addresses by merely making some ‘minor adjustments’ to our lifestyle (sometimes ‘adding’ certain virtuous activities and sometimes by ‘eliminating’ certain vices). ● After all, we were convinced that God’s dream for humanity was ‘morality’; everyone ‘behaving properly’ and ‘playing nice together’. The real problem is: we thought we could give him that! Remember, God’s dream for humanity is ‘shalom’… and we can’t get that on our own, because sinful hearts can’t produce it (broken hearts cannot produce the wholeness we seek), no matter how stringent the effort. ● Morality must be understood in terms of its effects on our relationships with God, each other and the rest of creation. ● The thing I noticed about the ‘lists’, everyone had a different one (‘customizable’); they seemed ‘geographical’ and there was, apparently, a ‘shelf-life’ or ‘statute of limitations’ on them. And, other people seemed ‘bent’ on trying to impose their lists on me. Sin, by its very definition, is ‘dis-order’, and what we most often do when we experience disorder is simply ‘adapt’; find a way to ‘cope’ rather than seek to eliminate the disorder all together. ♦ When sin is understood as merely some violation of a moral code, it … … becomes something that we locate as ‘outside of us’ (remedied by avoiding or adding certain activities to our lives) rather than something significantly flawed about what’s ‘inside of us’ (essentially something flawed about who we are). ● It’s easy not to notice how broken we are. Sometimes sin seems most ‘glaring’ to us when it’s observable in others. We become most passionate, most enraged by the abusive nature of sin when its ‘someone else’s’. Confession/repentance is the path we are encouraged to choose when we become aware that the wrong ‘out there’ is ‘in here’… within us. ● Not only does ‘sin separate us’ (from God and others), but so does ‘self-righteousness’! When it comes to sin, we like to be graded ‘on the curve’ (I’m never the smartest one in the class, but I’m smarter than someone else! ♦ When sin is understood as merely some violation of a moral code, it … … reduces sin to a technicality; we start looking for ‘loopholes’: ways to appear compliant, while maintaining our advantage! It actually encourages ‘hypocrisy’. It’s like our version of ‘green tags’ or ‘carbon offsets’; rather than seriously thinking about the inconvenience and interruption of re-ordering my life according to God, I am able to offer the appearance of concern with how my sin may be contributing to the lack of ‘shalom’ in the world without actually re-orienting my life in such a way that I actually abandon sin and promote ‘shalom’. ♦ When sin is understood as merely some violation of a moral code, it … … allows us to ignore the good we should have done but failed to do. Have we ever considered that ‘withholding goodness’ may have just as devastating effects as ‘enacting evil’; that failing to act in ways that promote restoration and overcome evil are equally as sinful as the evil acts themselves? (“…know to do good and not do it is sin” James 4:17) ● Sin can be… … doing the wrong things (disobedience), … doing the right things for the wrong reasons (pride), … not doing the right things (injustice: defined as the ‘lack of justice’. The opposite of ‘justice’ is not ‘mercy’, it’s ‘injustice’). ● “What’s the mark?” (Romans 3:23- the ‘glory of God’). We must learn to identify sin as: the universal failure to realize God’s dream, ‘shalom’. It refers to our inability to be ‘human’- all that God created us to be.
Sin is “who we
are in light of who we were created to be”. |
