Sin

 

Iso-mandala No. 153 (October 2020)

Although many today regard sin as an old-fashioned word, everyone’s daily conversation spends any amount of time talking about sin. For some reason the bad things people do seem to be of as much interest as the good things. Our ways of talking about sin are spontaneous, gossipy, knowledgeable, and quite often factual. It is open to question though just how much we are aware that our main topic of conversation is sin; the word itself is rarely used. Scripture finds all sorts of means of breaking in on that conversation. 

Genesis employs story. Whatever we make of the individuals cast up in the Garden of Eden, they are caught in a process. To be tempted is part of life, even to doing the very thing you were warned not to do, eat of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil. Having done so, the outcome for those involved is very different from what they expected, the world has altered in dramatic ways with the knowledge brought on by transgression. Once done we think, so here we are, then. If this is a process, what next? 

Matthew employs lessons. Each of the temptations of Christ is met with a rejoinder that ups the ante and defuses desire, offering an alternative to sin. Christ rejects all worldly power by returning to a greater power, that of God. This lesson in humility is also a lesson to us: we can and will find an alternative to temptation, when we ask. Christ also shows that at the time of trial we will be ready, if we are attentive and prepared. 

Romans, on the other hand, gets conceptual. It employs logic, reading Scripture through time. Although sin occurs through the sin of the First Man, it is through faith in Christ that “abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” is made available. Death and sin are overcome by the free gift of grace, but how may that be expressed? 

Psalm 32 employs personal expression, a prayer collected into song. “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven.” The words follow the process of heaviness and depression brought about by sin, the acknowledgement of this state, confession then and appeal for others in community to do likewise, before forgiveness “preserves me from trouble.” 

There are many modes of talking about sin and sometimes we spend hours of our time going through them. The same can be said of forgiveness, always one of the options in a situation. Whichever way we talk about these things each day, the process is not static. It is opening up to God, made out of need for restoration, alive in the spirit. 

>> Weekly reflection for the First Sunday of Lent, the 26^th of February 2023. Written by Philip Harvey for the pew notes of St. Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne. 

 >> Genesis 2.15–17; 3.1–7; Psalm 32; Romans 5.12–19; Matthew 4.1–11