Sarah is a businesswoman who must contend with a variety of personalities each day on the job. She handles criticisms, mediates differences of opinion, listens to petty complaints, and through it all, she manages to keep everyone working for the good of the company. Her co-workers marvel at her patience with people. One day recently someone spoke up in a meeting and told her that she is a wonderful example for others to follow. All around the table heads were nodding in agreement. The remark made her feel very good that others recognized how patient she can be. Then, later that same day, while still basking in the glory of the compliment, she wasn't home half an hour before her teenage daughter had pushed all of her buttons and she exploded. The confrontation ended with her daughter stomping off and slamming the bedroom door, leaving the mother standing in the kitchen feeling like a failure. She knows she can be patient with people. She sincerely wants to be more patient and understanding with her daughter. But sometimes she can't manage to pull it off. She loses her temper and starts yelling, and ends up doing the very thing she does not want to do.
Most parents understand all too well the words of the Apostle Paul when he writes, "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." At times it is our children, other times it is our parents and occasionally it is our mates who bring out the worst in us. We know what we want to do, we know what we should do, but we don't always do it. Sometimes we lose control of our emotions, sometimes we lose control of our tongues, sometimes we are narrow-minded, sometimes we are too self- indulgent, sometimes we apply a double standard.
Why do we lose control of ourselves and do things we ought not do? And why do we fail to do some good things we know we should do? Paul says it is sin that causes us to miss the mark.
As we near the end of the twentieth century, sin is not a popular topic in our culture. The notion that people are sinful sounds antiquated to people of the nineties. Part of the reason is because sin has been so closely linked to guilt, and most people view guilt in a completely negative light; something which is to be avoided at all costs.
Guilt does not feel good, and many people have carried an unjust burden of guilt caused by an overly critical parent or a rigid minister or an unreasonable teacher. And once a person has finally broken free from the guilt, he never wants to experience it again. Unfortunately, many have now gone to the opposite extreme, and fail to recognize that guilt is an inevitable part of living. To avoid guilt, one must avoid personal responsibility for wrongdoing. And when we do that, we create a culture where everyone says, "It's not my fault. Someone else is to blame."
The television talk shows have become an endless parade of people who blame their parents or their mates or their siblings or their boss or the government or somebody else for their troubles. We live in a society where people are afraid to admit that our failures might be our own fault, and might even be an inescapable part of human nature. That's what the Christian faith says. There is something wrong with the human condition.
John Buchanan, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, tells of a conversation he had recently. An elderly woman in his congregation called him up and said she wanted to talk about something that was troubling her. When he arrived at her apartment, she had one of their worship bulletins in her hand. She said, "Listen to this," and she began to read the prayer of confession. "We cling to the values of a broken world. The profit and pleasures we pursue lay waste the land and pollute the seas. The fears and jealousies that we harbor set neighbor against neighbor and nation against nation."
She looked up at her pastor and said, "Now, really, John, I didn't do all that last week. I didn't waste the land and pollute the seas and turn my neighbors against one another. I didn't have time for all that. I had a busy week: went shopping, saw a movie, came to church. Why do you make us say all those dreadful things week after week?"
She had other bulletins; it was obviously a persistent concern of hers. She read from another one: "We have walked away from neighbors in need . . . We condone evil, prejudice, warfare, and greed." That one especially irritated her. "I don't do that," she protested.(1)
Some of you may feel the same way. So many ministers have routinely pounded away at the notion that human beings are nothing more than worthless sinners, that we have become overly sensitive to the subject. We know that is not the full truth. In addition to being sinful, humans are also created in the image of God, and Jesus calls his followers "the light of the world." Our propensity to sin is not the full story. Yet we make a great mistake if we attempt to deny that it is part of the story. The church is not obsessed with sin, as some might claim, but rather we recognize that people are not perfect, all of us make mistakes, and sometimes even well-intentioned efforts cause unintended harm.(2)
Maybe none of us have directly polluted the sea recently, but we do demand products from industries that pollute the seas. And if we over fertilize our lawns, the rain will carry it down the storm sewer and into the creeks which flow to the Chesapeake Bay, so some of us may have polluted the seas without ever knowing it. I like to wear Nike running shoes, but they are made by people in developing countries who are paid practically nothing in wages. Most of us demand inexpensive fruit and vegetables, and so migrant farm workers are paid pocket change. I'm very intentional about recycling everything that the recycling companies will take. But along with my fellow Americans, I pollute the planet nearly ten times as much as people in developing countries by driving my car much more than is necessary.
Sin is something in which all of us are involved. It has a personal dimension as well as a corporate one. We are part of an enormous economic structure which is taking a serious toll on God's creation, and often we act as if our own comfort and affluence are all that really matter. And if we leave behind us the largest gap ever between rich and poor, and we leave behind developing nations which are crippled by the debt they owe us, well our grandchildren will just have to deal with it.(3)
Something is wrong with the human condition. Students walk into their schools and murder their classmates. Married people have affairs and destroy their marriages. Citizens cleanse their neighborhoods of people from other ethnic groups. Everyone, from time to time, falls prey to jealousy, anger, envy, lust, arrogance. What can we do about it?
Some claim that once we become a committed Christian, we put sin behind us and forever more live virtuous lives. It certainly is true that once we dedicate ourselves to following the way of Christ that there should be a noticeable difference in our lives. There ought to be a new quality to our conduct and a new set of priorities. But it's important to keep in mind that because we are human, we never live perfect lives. Part of what it means to be human is to fall short, to miss the mark, to mess up. That is not an excuse for immorality, and it is not a justification for weighing ourselves down with guilt. It is simply a fact of human existence. But it is not the bottom line of human existence, because we can reach out to a power that is greater than ourselves. A God who is loving and patient and merciful, and whose grace is greater than our transgressions.
The Christian faith helps us to see through the naive notion that sin is a thing of the past or that it is something that other people, evil people, do. Our faith emboldens us to face the truth about ourselves, knowing that the truth can be painful, but it is only the truth that will set us free.
One reading of today's passage from Romans sounds fatalistic. It is inevitable that we will sin. Even when we know what we want to do and need to do, we cannot always pull it off. Such a reading could lead us to despair. But that is not how Paul concludes the passage. He does not hang his head and whine about our inability to do the right thing. Instead, he ends with gratitude. He ends by giving thanks to God. Because he knows that even though Christians must continue to struggle against the power of sin, we are no longer controlled by its power. Christ breaks the hold that sin has on us. So that when we face and admit our shortcomings, God forgives us. God accepts us and strengthens us so that we can change our ways. We are not bound to repeat our same failures over and over. God is the power of transformation which can lead us to new ways of living.
Finally, we need to remember who we are. We are not disobedient slaves of a ruthless master. We are not guilty criminals awaiting the sentence of a harsh judge. We are beloved children of a merciful parent who seeks to help us live the best lives possible. How can we say anything other than what Paul says: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
NOTES
1. John Buchanan, "To Heal the Sin-sick Soul," preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, February 21, 1999.
2. Philip Culbertson, Lectionary Homiletics (July, 1999), p.2.
3. John Buchanan, "To Heal the Sin-sick Soul."
© 1999 Dr. Gregory Knox Jones, all rights reserved
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