A couple of years
ago I heard about a book on the church's doctrine of original sin. . It’s called The Joy of Being Wrong. Just on the
basis of the title, I decided I want to read it But I haven’t been able to find
it in the book stores. I guess I got the title or author’s name wrong. The joy! What a joy it is not to have to be
right, not always to have to keep a clean slate. We Christians are those who
know the joy, yes joy, of being allowed to be wrong now and then—and even
better, the joy of being forgiven.
The Christian/Calvinistic
doctrine of original sin simply says that none of us are perfect, that we all
come into the world broken and incomplete. As Jimmy Buffett says in his song Fruitcakes,
the Cosmic Baker took us out of the oven too soon. Of course, we Methodists add
that we also come into the world with original blessing-- endowed by God with
the inborn gift of prevenient grace—the grace, the hunger within for wholeness,
for meaning, for contact with the Divine.
That part of
doctrine doesn’t get mentioned as often as it should. I recall a woman in a
previous pastorate who became furious at the assertion of our faith that all of
humanity--including young children, even newborn babies are born in sin. She
would get onto a rant about how every baby is innocent and pure as driven snow
and comes into the world a blank slate. She apparently believed in the
perfectibility of human nature--that it was the world—all the sinners like you
and me, who corrupted and taught children things like selfishness and laziness
and down right obstinacy.
Those of you who
are parents have already guessed this woman was not a mother, and as a result,
hadn’t changed too many diapers or ever lost a night’s sleep rocking a cranky,
colicky baby who refused to be comforted by anything you did. She certainly had
never gotten into a battle of wills with a two year old.
The world accuses
Christians of holding a negative assessment of human nature, of heaping on
basically nice people the burden of being sinners. In reality, we Christians
are joyfully free to have—not a negative, but a realistic assessment of
human nature. We can be brutally realistic about ourselves, and about humanity
in general.
Why? Because we
have an equally realistic (or optimistic if you like) awareness of God's
nature. We understand that it ‘s God's very nature to forgive. And so we can
confess honestly that it is our very nature to fall short and sin. Because
Christ has set things right between us and our Maker, we can admit when we are
wrong.
We're
deep in Lent this morning—the Christian season of introspection, honest
self-examination, and reflection. One of the things we do on Sundays in Lent
is
confess our sin to God and to one another. That sort of honesty doesn’t
happen in very many places in this world. And yet to be a Christian is to be
someone who has cultivated the practice of honesty, confession, and repentance
in their deepest heart.
It’s
hard at times for human beings to be honest—and especially hard to be honest
about ourselves. When we find ourselves confronted with our failures, it's
human nature to get defensive. We deny.
(I never did such a thing.) We trivialize our wrongs.
(So what. Who got hurt? It’s no big
thing.) We justify. (Well, everyone else
does it.)
Like Adam in the garden, trying to pin that
apple rap on his wife, we try to pass the buck to somebody else. If that fails,
as a last resort, we’ll quickly point out how minor our sins are in comparison
to someone else’s. "I may not be
the best person in the world," we say, "but at least I'm not as bad
as X [we add the name of some terrible person]."
When
mom stands over a little child and says, "Now Johnny, tell me honestly,
did you steal those cookies from the cookie jar?" she shouldn't be too
surprised when the child looks up at the threatening parent and answers,
"No."
The
simple fact is that there really can’t be much honesty, very deep confession on
the basis of fear. In every other arena
of life confession means punishment will follow. And none of us relish punishment.
“Stand up and take your medicine” isn’t an
attitude that comes naturally. We crave
forgiveness. But we know very well that in the rest of the world, forgiveness
requires punishment and the making of amends.
But Christian
confession is different. Forgiveness for the Christian is a free gift of
grace. We don't so much confess in order
to be forgiven; rather, we confess because we are forgiven! We
are not honest about our sin in order to
get God to love us. Rather, we know that our God loves us, accepts
us, and forgives us. As a result, we can be honest about our sins and
shortcomings.
Once
we’ve experienced the sure, certain, persevering love of God in Jesus Christ,
we’ll find ourselves able to be honest at last. Paul reminds us in Romans 8 that nothing, not even
our sin, can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
In three weeks,
on Palm/Passion Sunday, we are going to hear once again the story about how
humanity did its’ very worst to the Son of God--hanging him on a cross.
Yet, even from the cross he looked down
upon us and prayed, "Father, forgive them."
Even more, after
that horrible death, after God raised Him up, He came back among us-- the very
people who had betrayed him and deserted him, and hung him on that cross to
die. And what’s more, Jesus did it all for their sakes. And for ours as well
That
can be a disturbing thought. My late mother-in-law told me about an elderly
friend, a devout, life-long catholic who saw Mel Gibson’s The Passion and
commented, “I don’t think I ever sinned so badly that someone would have to die
such a horrible death for me.” We don’t like the thought that Jesus was
crucified for us, that it was our sins that sent Him to the cross. We
don’t like to admit that it was done in our name--- for our sakes. And more than that, we don’t like the fact
that we were there, wielding the whip of our selfishness and hammering
Him to the cross of our sins, using the nails of our unfaithfulness. No, that wasn’t us—that was someone
else—anyone else—just not us.
Our Jewish brothers and
sisters understand that’s part of the appeal of anti-Semitism. We can’t handle the reality of our own
complicity. So we try to hang the blame on somebody else—somebody
different—somebody we don’t understand anyway. During the Middle Ages, the
performance of Lenten Passion plays would often trigger horrible riots and
pogroms against Jews. That’s why so many
scholars and rabbis were more than a bit uneasy with Mel Gibson’s movie.
It wasn’t the
Jewish people who killed Jesus. It wasn’t Caiphas, or Pilate, or Herod. It
wasn’t even the Roman soldiers. Who was it that howled for his blood? The
crowd. Who was in that crowd? It was
us—you and I—all of human-un-kind.
Therefore we
cannot afford to be anything less than brutally honest. We must be honest. We can hardly do less in the light of such a
sacrifice. Our sins inevitably arise out of who we are. Our honesty arises, not
out of who we are but out of who God in Christ is.. It takes a
secure person to be honest. In Christ
Jesus, we have seen and we know the amazing security of God's love for us.
There
is great freedom in this honesty we call confession. Not to have to wear the
masks, not to have to pretend is a great gift. Not to be forced to lie about
our flaws, our shortcomings, our problems—to one another, or even to our
selves. That’ s a
great joy. That’s a source of great
possibility and power for growth in the spirit.
And
it’s also necessary. Christians understand that not only that love is the
precondition for honesty, but also that honesty is the precondition for change.
We are free to change because we have taken the first step toward
becoming new people by admitting who we are.
We
are not the people God wants us to be. We are not the people that
we pretend to the rest of the world we are.
We are not the people we pretend to ourselves that we are. We are
not the people we could be. We are not even the
people we want to be.
Try
as we might, we cannot become those sort of people—not on our own.
Even our best efforts will fall short. Since we’re so close to St. Patrick’s day, I
wonder if you’d ever hear about the
Irishman who went to confession?
"Bless me father, for I have
sinned. It's been three weeks since my last confession, and in that time I
kissed a girl I wasn’t married to, back behind the pub.” He begins. The priest
interrupts him,
"Was it Brigitte O'Hara?"
Paddy says,
"I'm sorry Father, but I can't
tell you who it was with." So the priest says,
"I'll bet it was Mary
O'Houlihan, the hussy!" Paddy says,
"I'm sorry Father, but I really
can't tell you who it was." The priest says,
"Was it that Rose O'Connell?" And Paddy
responds,
"I've told you already Father, I
can't reveal who it was." So the priest says, "You're a wicked man
Paddy O'Reilly. Say six Hail Marys and don't let me hear
that
you've transgressed again!" As he is walking home, Paddy bumps into his
friend Seamus, who says,
"Paddy! How are you doin'? Is it
the Church you'll be coming from?" And Paddy says,
"Aye Seamus, I've just been to
confession."
"How was it?" Paddy says,
"Oh not too bad, I got six Hail
Marys and three good leads!"
It’s not just Catholics who
are being made fun of in that joke. It’s not just the Irish, either. It’s human
nature that’s being mocked—it’s you and me. We know that we can be more. We long to be more, to be better—kinder,
gentler, more generous, more loving, more forgiving. The first step is to admit
to God and to one another and to ourselves who we have failed to be.
So
during each of these Sundays of Lent we will confess our sins during Worship.
And on most of the Communion Sundays of the rest of the year, we’ll pray
prayers of confession. But that’s hardly enough. Confessional prayer isn’t a
Sacrament
for us as Protestants. But we can all admit the value of getting some
things off our chests. Sacrament or not, some degree of confession, or
reflection, or self-examination, or whatever we call it, is still necessary—not
only for the sake of our spiritual growth, but also for the sake of our
emotional health, and also in order for us to simply be able to live with more
wisdom and integrity.
To achieve those
things, you and I need to be able to periodically find some time apart, some
quiet time in a private place where we can bend our knees, or at least bow our
heads and engage in silent reflection upon our life, about the promises you and
have made to God—the ones that we have kept, as well as the promises that you
and I have failed to keep. Our God invites us at that moment to engage in
searching and fearless honest examination of our life as we’ve been living
it. And the more searching, the more
fearless, the more honest we can be—the better— because then the more
forgiveness, the more grace we will receive.
Our God at that
moment invites us to empty our hearts and cleanse our spirits
in confessional prayer. Scripture
reassures us that it is not our Maker’s will that any sinner should perish and
that our honest repentance will always be met with loving forgiveness. It is
only through Divine grace that we will find the courage for confession, the honesty
to repent, the strength to make amends, and the will to turn around and begin
to lead a new life.
After
we have confessed and asked for forgiveness after we have resolved to make
amends to any we have wronged and begin leading a new life in Christ, there’s
one more thing that you and I need to do. And this is just as crucial for
us.
We
can hush up. We can stop reciting our
sins and beating ourselves up for our shortcomings. We can stop congratulating
ourselves for our virtues and taking credit for our victories. We can stop
whining and complaining about the unfairness of it all. We can stop ratting out
everyone else. We can stop telling God
how the cosmos ought to be run.
And we can just
relax and clear our minds, and sit there and listen— just listen with an open
heart and an open mind in meditative prayer. Once you and I begin to get into
the daily habit of being with God and listening in that way—without
preconceptions or expectations or agenda-- we will find peace in our troubled
spirits, calmness in our lives, sometimes a bit of understanding, and gradually
even grudging acceptance in our relationships.
And if we listen
long enough, and quietly enough, and honestly enough, and often enough, then
maybe—just maybe, we will hear the still, small voice within—a voice of
guidance, of forgiveness, of acceptance, of grace, of growth, of love, and of
life.
Let
us pray,
O God, your
glory is always to have mercy. Be gracious to all who have gone astray from
your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to
embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your
Son, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and
ever. Amen.
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