Sin Happens!

It does. Sin happens all around us all the time.

Now, it might be helpful to unpack this word sin before we go much further. Because, if you grew up in a fire and brimstone church like I did or if you just pay attention to pop culture where images of televangelist Jimmy Swaggert crying after admitting to having an affair with a prostitute or televangelist James Bakker crying after admitting to having an affair with a woman he paid off with embezzled funds from his ministry, you’d be forgiven for thinking that sin was just about being naughty with your private parts. But it’s not. Sin is everywhere.

As my pastor reminded me yesterday morning, the word sin in Greek is hamartia and it means more literally “to miss the mark.” Likewise, the most common Hebrew word for sin is hata and it means “to go astray.” So, sin CAN BE the more sensational sexual misdeeds that make a grown man cry on television for forgiveness. But that is simply because it IS just one example of missing the mark. But so is anything that we do that goes against our values. Anytime that we aspire to X but fall short and do Y, we are missing the mark, we are sinning. All the time.

And that is what I want to talk a little more about. Sin, especially when all the focus is on sex, is an uncomfortable topic. For some of us, to say that I’m a sinner is to say that I am depraved, that I lack humanity. As a result, sin receives two responses on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum: dramatic focus filled with tears and gnashing of teeth and shame or trying to pretend it doesn’t exist because it is an oppressive tool of shame based on someone else’s definition of morality. I want to focus on the latter.

It’s important to acknowledge sin because when we pretend sin doesn’t exist, THAT is when we lack humanity. Because, who HASN’T “missed the mark?” While some preachers might try to convince you otherwise, depravity is NOT human nature. But missing the mark is. None of us is perfect. Unless you are a narcissist who can’t acknowledge your imperfections, you can relate to the idea of missing the mark.

But maybe your “missed mark” looms large for you and feels like depravity so you’ve been protecting yourself from talking about sin because it just comes with too much freight. Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. As a pastor, plenty of people have come into my office to tell me how they missed the mark. And quite a few of them have begun such discussions by saying, “What I’m about to tell you is probably the worst thing you have ever heard.”

Well, I can tell you two things about that. One, there is only one story that actually IS the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I know exactly which one it was. Everyone else’s story is NOT the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Not even close. And Two, more importantly, it WAS the worst thing they’ve ever had to share with someone. That is the nature of missing the mark.

So, we don’t talk about sin because it feels like its only about shaming people out of someone else’s morality or because we feel that the way we “missed the mark” draws us outside the circle of humanity and that’s an uncomfortable place to be.

But let me assure you, you are inside the circle of humanity. We all miss the mark.

The second reason that it is important to acknowledge sin is because that provides us the opportunity to offer forgiveness and grace. If we don’t acknowledge that missing the mark is part of human nature, then our response to someone missing the mark is going to be the same as those of our Puritan ancestors. (Well, MY Puritan ancestors. You might not consider Puritans to be in your familial or theological lineage.) Conversely, Puritans definitely acknowledged sin but, and this is an oversimplification of 200 years of Puritan theology, their response to people inside their covenant who went astray was to excommunicate them. Their “puritan” view, initially intended to purify the Church of England from what they saw as reformations of the Catholic Church that did not go far enough, was eventually applied to people within their covenant who were straying.

Their response to those who went astray was completely consistent with their Calvinist theology because they believed in the Doctrine of the Elect, that there were only a certain number of people that were predestined to be saved by God’s grace. So, while they absolutely rejected Grace by Works, they essentially believed that the Elect were known by their correct theology and practice. Again, a one paragraph synopsis of a complex theology but sufficient to demonstrate that forgiveness was absent from their covenantal life even if it was practiced in their personal life.

Those of us in modern America may not recognize that we are influenced by those Puritan forbearers who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony and we may even vehemently deny that there is anything Puritan about us but the American inclination to perfection and purity of purpose is a part of that inheritance. So, when we non-Puritan puritans deny sin, we deny grace and forgiveness as a response to missing the mark. Instead, we pick at each other for each misstep, large and small. We hold each other to unreasonable standards of perfection where, having missed the mark, we excommunicate anyone whose mark-missing demonstrates that they are not pure in doctrine and actions.

I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be accountability for sin or that redemption is always possible. But accountability with the possibility for redemption is an option. However, when we deny the existence of sin and see only people as inside our circle of humanity or outside of humanity, part of the elect or part of the unelect, pure or depraved, then they are beyond redemption and we are beyond relationship with them, even a relationship where we are liberated from bitter resentments.