I have been
inundated this Lenten season with questions of sin, who it affects, and how
God responds to it. For a long time those questions have been answered by the
Catholic Church. The seven deadly sins came into being. If we look at the
creation of the seven deadly sins, they did their job. They inspire guilt.
Read this statement about the seven deadly sins from the web site with the
same name.
People have
always been immoral, shiftless, self-gratifying, and good-for-nothing. But for
ages, humankind struggled to find a conceptual system to operationalize their
spiritual shortcomings. The challenge was formidable: the system had to be
complex and inclusive enough to implicate a vast range of disgusting behavior,
yet simple and memorable enough to inspire guilt in an illiterate peasant. The
Seven deadly sins; Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust.
www.deadlysins.com
I don’t know
about you but I don’t need the seven deadly sins. I just need one sin to put
that wedge between me and God. Not from God’s side, but from the guilt that
whispers to me that I am not good enough for God and I will never be able to
do anything to help myself. We know from Paul in Romans that if I break one
commandment then I have broken them all. That means that I am a murderer,
thief, and everything that you want to put on me. I therefore know that I need
Christ. I need what God has done to make me righteous. I have been made a
Child of God, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ
forever. (Thanks be to God)
"There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has
understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside; together
they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not
even one. Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive.
The venom of vipers is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and
bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their
paths, and the
way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the
law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held
accountable to God. For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by
deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
(Romans 3:11-20)
I don’t feel we need to learn that we are sinners. I think we know that!!
Don’t we? But some still want to hear it. I figure it goes back to the
creation of the seven deadly sins- “The
challenge was formidable: the system had to be complex and inclusive enough to
implicate a vast range of disgusting behavior, yet simple and
memorable enough to inspire guilt in an illiterate peasant.”
I don’t think guilt saves. I don’t think guilt lead us to do what is right. I
don’t think guilt helps us to get to know God. I think that grace does.
Grace gives us
the chance to be something we are not “Children of God”. When I call myself a
sinner, I act like a sinner. I have no reason to do good except to get
something out of it. I feed the hungry so I can get good marks and go to
heaven. But if I am a child of God I do good so that those whom I do good for,
see my good works and glorify my father in heaven. You see, if I am a child of
God, I no longer need to do good works to get to heaven. I can do good works
because I am going to heaven.
I have a
homework assignment for you. Please read the first five chapters of Romans.
Read it from different versions, dissect it, and really get into it. Then
let’s talk about sin and those who are sinners. We can preach sin and how we
all need to do better and love God more. We also watch as those who preach
that fall short themselves. We see in the history of Lutheranism, the struggle
Martin Luther had with his own sin. Then one day he got it. He got grace
through faith, not through works. You and I can never point to the sins of
another for we all fall short.
How did God
respond to sin? God sent his only Son to die at the right time for the
ungodly. My prayer is that we believe it, feel it and live it.