Sin

How big a part does SIN play in your life? Let me rephrase that (not a question for polite society). Let's spend some time thinking about sin; what we think about it; how we deal with the reality of sin.

When I was a young lad, not long a Christian, I went to a meeting of OICCU (the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union). Only went to one. They were very keen, very zealous - as they still are. The speaker that night in the Northgate Hall was a fiery Welshman, giving an exposition of Psalm 51, and talking a great deal about sin. He seemed passionate about wanting us to feel the awful depths of our sinfulness, what terrible people we are (for he knew the kinds of things Oxford undergraduates got up to). Let me remind you of Psalm 51.1-5. That's what he wanted us to feel like, and to make our prayer. Trouble was, I couldn't take him ever so seriously, because the fact was, I just didn't feel like that, and was sceptical about preachers who try and make you feel or believe something you don't really feel or believe.

You see, I had come to faith in Jesus because of love. I had been drawn to this person of Jesus that the Gospels told about; drawn to his attractiveness, and the sense of purpose and meaning in life that shone through those who became his followers. I loved him, so I came to trust and believe what he said. The old-style evangelism which starts by telling you what a mess the world is in because of sin, and what a mess I'm in because of sin, and proceeds through the inevitability of judgement to the possibility of salvation through the cross of Christ, just didn't work for me. It was only later, as I came to know Jesus, and to know God, better, that I began to understand what this stuff about sin was about. Not about God making arbitrary and impossible rules for us and getting shirty when we break them; but about how we cannot avoid behaving in a way that breaks the heart of someone who loves us - and breaks his heart, because he can see (as we can't) that this behaviour harms no one but ourselves. And he doesn't want that. It's the difference between a parent having a rule that their child must not make a sound while they want to watch a favourite TV programme; and a parent who has a rule that their child must not use heroin. It is because I'm breaking God's heart by my self-destructive behaviour and attitude, that I need to say I'm sorry and change my life.

Now, there are lots of apparent paradoxes or incongruities about the ways people think about sin, inside and outside the church, and think about how other people think about them. People outside the Church sometimes think of churchgoers as being obsessed with sin, always banging on about it; and at the same time, they think we think we're better than they are. It's true, sin gets a mention quite often in our liturgy and hymns, and we think it's important to do something called confessing our sins, which seems a bit odd. But once that's done, I think we forget about it and get on with things. We don't give it another thought; and on the whole we probably lead pretty decent lives, but we don't make a big deal about that either.

Whereas the people outside church, well, I reckon they're obsessed with sin. They don't really believe in it, they maybe don't call it sin, but look at the kinds of things they want to read about in the papers, and watch on TV, and point the finger at others about - some kinds of evil behaviour more than others, of course. They are keen to deny that they are bad people, yet very often they spend their time feeling inadequate and guilty. And the reason, I think, is that whether or not they believe in sin, there's something there, and they don't have any way of dealing with it. We can confess it and hear the assurance that it's dealt with and forgiven, gone; but they don't have anything like that, so they are left carrying the burden of it themselves. No wonder if some of them feel bad.

Who has the healthier attitude? I say: the people who take sin seriously, talk about it, deal with it and forget about it. (Provided we don't get too complacent about it! Because we all need to be constantly fine-tuning our sense of what sin is. Some things we have thought were sins, turn out not to be so bad (like, dancing, going to the theatre). Other things we have thought were perfectly natural and neutral, may turn out to be pretty serious faults (like ... what? Not speaking out against injustice. Buying consumer goods that have been produced by sweated labour. Owning a second home.)) So, beware of complacency.

A look at two biblical pictures of people dealing with sin. In Luke 7, the woman who was a sinner, coming into the Pharisee's house and standing behind Jesus, weeping and bathing his feet with her tears, and anointing them with this costly perfume. And she was a sinner. We're not told what her sin was: she might have been a malicious gossip, or avaricious, or an accountant helping some wealthy company to avoid paying tax; but everyone seems to jump to the conclusion that she was sexually immoral. Funny, that? Why was she behaving the way she was, in this extraordinary, sensual way, which would be just as improper in someone else's home today, as it was then? Answer: Because she knew she was forgiven. That was why her love for Jesus knew no bounds of self-consciousness or restraint. She may not have been a theologian (I've never seen one behave like this) but she knew somehow, somewhere, that Jesus was expressing to her, in the way he reacted, the forgiveness of God. Who is this who even forgives sins? Well, this is the representative of God, this is the Word become flesh. And he accepted her. Unconditionally. No matter what her past had been, of gossip or greed or dishonest accounting or OK, even the sexual misdemeanours she's usually suspected of. He didn't recoil from her: Ugh! Don't touch me, you terrible woman, you piece of dirt. He SAW her, as Simon the righteous (self-righteous?) Pharisee did not. That question: Simon, do you SEE this woman? No, he didn't see a woman, he saw a parcel of sins, a blot on his dining room. But Jesus saw the woman who needed to be loved, accepted, forgiven by God - and who was. Jesus, who sees with the eyes of God, sees YOU, no matter who you are or what you have been or done, and forgives.

Then, Galatians 2. Paul, writing as a Jew to the church in Galatia which included many Gentiles, describing how whether we are Jews or Gentiles, we are `justified' in the same way, through faith in Jesus Christ. This idea of justification is sometimes presented as if it were a peculiar, theological notion. But really it's a very ordinary, everyday concept. We all know how when anyone is accused or criticised in virtually any situation, they try to justify themselves. It wasn't my fault, I couldn't avoid it because of something someone else did, I'm really the victim here - those are the kind of things. And we're all familiar with the idea - it's second nature to us - that some justifications or excuses can be depended on to work (they are the ones which are real justifications) while others don't. If you knock someone over while you're driving along the Marston Ferry Road, it won't be any good saying: I was talking on my mobile, or sending a text message to my girlfriend. You'd say: He threw himself in front of the car. Or, I couldn't see him because he was deliberately wearing a camouflage suit.

So it is, when we feel God's gaze upon us, and feel that we are being accused of something. There's the compelling, irresistible urge to justify ourselves. Some of our justifications are like those ones that don't work. I didn't know / think what I was doing was wrong. I didn't ever believe in God anyway, so it's not fair that I even feel your gaze on me. I may have done bad things, but I was never as bad as him over there, or her I had to live with. I've always gone to church, religiously. I've given millions of pounds to charity. I've been a churchwarden. I'm a vicar. There is only one plea that will work: Jesus gave himself for me, and died on the cross, so all my sins are taken away, gone. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove your sins from you.

Yes, when you are accused (and it's not God who accuses you; it's your own conscience perhaps, or the one called the Accuser); when you are accused of sins, you really have the freedom to brazen it out: What sins? Where?

That is how it is with us, and sin. Let's get it right, completely settled in our hearts and minds, so that we can go out of here authentically free:

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand!

Preached in St Nicholas church, Marston, June 13, 2004