by Rev. Dr John Evans
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Today is the first Sunday of Lent – a season of six Sundays leading up to Holy Week/Easter. A season of penitence and reflection; traditionally a season of fasting and preparation – a season in which we consider who Jesus is for us? A season in which we confess our sins.
In the Apostle’s Creed there is a statement which says that “we believe in the forgiveness of sins” along with the holy catholic (with a small c) Church, and the communion of saints and the like. However, that is all very well, what about the prior question – do we believe in sin? What is this sin or sins which we are to be forgiven. Again – do we believe in sin?
It is a strange, certainly a different question – because we usually ask, do you believe in God, or Jesus as the Christ, or Jesus as your saviour. However, with our readings today focusing on sin, and the temptation of Jesus, it perhaps is useful to consider this question. It certainly is relevant if we are to spend this time of Lent in reflection on our relationship with God and our need to move from being apart from God, to being in relationship with God.
It was said of Patrick White that he did not believe in sin. Basically he believed in the essential goodness of women and men; and we were as human beings free to do what ever we pleased without having any sense of shame or of having done something wrong, or that we would be divinely punished or in some sense that we needed to be forgiven for these shortcomings. In other words – he did not believe in sin.
As I have suggested this is a critical question in endeavouring to understand who we are as human beings – and in turn who God might be, let alone who Jesus might be for us. Are there indeed actions which run counter to God’s will for us, and which in turn puts us out of a relationship with God? There are many schemes of ethics which assert that certain actions or behaviours which can be said to be right or wrong. For example, is the action for the greatest good of the greatest number; or does it support or offend a particular virtue, like trust or honesty, loyalty that we might deem to be important or even essential. I am prepared to say that many millions of our fellow Australians today do not believe in this idea of sin – of falling short of what would be God’s will; of missing the mark. As Australians we have deep within our nature this wonderful sense of freedom: I am free to do what I like; don’t tell me what to do. Indeed life is seen to be all about what you can get away with.
There is even a deeper dimension to this issue or sin. Are we just talking about sins – with an “s”; those individual shortcomings, peccadilloes of telling a fib or stealing the office stapler, or whatever, or are we really talking about “sin” – no “s”. Is there in the world a force, the power of sin, a state of sin – of demonic power – a devil; like one might see on a t – shirt; “don’t blame me the devil made me do it”. Is there a satan out there, like who tempted Christ?
Certainly sin is profoundly a “godtalk” word. If we don’ believe in sins, or sin; the nature of the Christian message becomes problematic, if not impossible. Statements like, Jesus is your Saviour, Jesus forgives, Jesus redeems, must give rise to questions like “saves one from what?”, “forgives what?”, “redeems you from what?” Jesus just ceases to be relevant to people’s lives – or at best is a fine teacher, a guru from yesteryear – and is not relevant in our relationship with God, or with the wholly other, or the very ground of being or our deepest and truest self.
Now I am the first to concede that the Church has, and to a certain extent still in some quarters, goes over board with regard to sin – we can become obsessed with sin. The Church is only seen as condemning, and proscribing all manner of behaviours, and that is all it does. We have at various times been pharisaical in our condemnation of dancing, certain sports, gambling, alcohol, breaches of Sunday observance and pre-eminently all manner of issues about sex. For many, they gain their identity through these attacks. This earnestness in condemnation, matches the passion for the purity and holiness of God. Although I wonder whether frightening people into the kingdom, is the way of Christ. However, the reverse in the Church is also true. We can argue that there is more to life than feeling one is just a wretched worm, unworthy and not able to be in relationship with God. . . especially if we take the doctrine which we call original sin. So in reaction there are those in the church who can be have we perhaps gone too far the other way. There are theologians who counter this talk of original sin, with talk of original blessing. Genesis 1 was about creation which was good – there is the refrain “and it was good”. We must rejoice in God’s goodness. . . and downplay this talk about sin.
And thus not to talk about sin is perhaps fair enough – it is certainly an in word; and so we tend to use other words like “justice”. Systems, countries, decisions and policies are unjust – whereas in other times we would have said that they were sinful. Justice talk is important. It assuredly is a part of the vocation of the Christian to seek justice; but it can also avoid the awkward focus on individuals and more particular ourselves when we talk about sin.
Sin language thus can have a communal aspect – a powers or demonic aspect – and in the name of God’s justice we should rail against it. Racism leading to genocide, ethnic cleansing, or stolen generations is a good example of this. Unlike a view that has been expressed that it is not appropriate to say sorry this week because I was not personally involved, is to miss the power of sin – and such confessions. There can be a spirit of the age. People are not themselves as they are swept up in the mood of the time, even into violence and hatred of others, because of being of a different race clan or tribe. It can be called demonic and it is one of the powers of this world against which Christ and his kingdom need to confront and contend. However, how about us as individuals?
Jesus as an individual was tempted – even Adam and Eve as individuals in the great stories of our origin were individuals who were tempted. The unpleasantness of sin language is that it does come back to us as individuals. . . and the essence of what it means to be human.
In the story of the Garden of Eden, and what we perhaps unhelpfully call the fall, the starting point of the story is that men and women are given their freedom. “You may freely eat of every tree of the Garden” (Gen 2:16). We are not puppets on a string – not just divine play things – we are free: free to think the thoughts we want to, free to say what we want to; free to be ourselves, free within the confines of our mind to live another life. As the Genesis story says you may eat of the fruit of the tree of life. However, there is an aspect of this freedom about which we are commanded to be constrained. The story expresses this constraint by saying we should not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. . . . and as an aside not an apple in sight. God commanded that the man, Adam, not to eat of this tree. In your freedom you may have a relationship with me, accept that there is more to life than just you, your own flesh and bones and needs. There is a spiritual dimension; there are others in the world - you are not in fact the centre of the universe – it is from outside you. From God’s perspective that the overview will come – from God’s perspective right and wrong will be determined. You are not self sufficient, you alone will not be able ultimately to determine what is good and evil, map your own destiny. If you think this, then like the serpent said to the woman – you will be like God knowing good and evil.
As we know the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was eaten. There followed a very human scene of buck passing, of excuses – it wasn’t me – it was the woman; and it wasn’t me it was the snake. It was someone else’s fault. And the consequences followed, though not immediately, of death and lives of toil and drudgery.
The essence of sin is that we believe as individuals we are self sufficient – as the great reformer Luther said – we are curved in on ourselves: incurvatus se. It is not that we are a miserable worm – but almost by our nature, we can only think of ourselves and not of the depth of the world beyond us and of others. The starting point in understanding the nature of sin is the belief we can do without God – it is not strictly that we have broken the 10 commandments, or Christ’s law of love, or some sort of rules which any community needs to have to exist. These laws are important, as Paul explains in that wonderfully dense and tightly argued letter of Romans. The law and keeping the law doesn’t give you the full life – that only will arise because of God’s own good grace; the law is simply there to guide and indicate that we have indeed sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Rules and guides, especially God given rules – are important - they can indicate we perhaps are going off track – we have committed sins. But fundamentally we have abused our freedom and have sought to live our life without God. This is “sin”. Indeed this was the great personal discovery of Luther himself. He drove himself to distraction as a young monk trying to keep the law, the instructions of his superiors, whatever, so he could have a perfect life, a fulfilled life, a life at peace with God. But at some point he always would fail – he was doing all this not for others, not for God, but for himself. He would always fail. That was just who we are. His blinding insight came, understanding the argument of Paul we have had a glimpse of in our Romans passage, that it was only God who could restore this relationship, it was only God who could do the accepting. It was Christ, his death on the Cross and God’s grace which would provide for his salvation. By grace we are saved.
Lent is a time of reflection. Jesus spent his forty days tempted - to think of himself and his own power and position. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I was often asked in WA I must have found it very different being a university college principal to being a general secretary. My stock reply was no – both dealt with human sinfulness.
We of course must not feel that we are permanently separated from God. As Paul, in a typical Paul, play on words sort of argument says, just as sin came into the world through one man, Adam – then much more, Christ , the new Adam, leads to justification and life for all.
This is the joy we celebrate at Easter – but first through this season let us reflect on the depth of separation from God so we might more fully understand the nature of God’s grace.
