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This is sort of a ‘pre-Lent’ sermon, actually it is an introduction sermon to a series that I am preaching on the Seven Deadly Sins (greed, envy, lust, anger, sloth, gluttony, and pride) for the Sunday Evening Services which will take that group through the Lenten season. I became very interested in this topic after attending a retreat in January given by our Catholic friends up the hill at the Holy Spirit Center. During this retreat, I learned some fascinating things that I have become anxious to being to the pulpit. So – here we go. There was a group of nuns that taught a weekly catechism class. Each week when class was over as the children were leaving, they would find that the nuns had placed a plate of cookies on a table outside the classroom. Attached to the plate was a note that said, "Take only one. God is watching." A few weeks later, there appeared a plate of brownies at the other end of the table outside the classroom, opposite the plate of cookies. The brownies had their own message, scrawled in a child’s hand on a crinkled piece of paper. It said, "Take as many as you want. God is watching the other plate." Temptation, vice, transgression, sin… I think if we were to work on it together long enough this morning we could probably come up with 50 statements about what we think sin is exactly. Here are some statements that I have come across – The great theologian, Augustine, wrote in his Confessions of Saint Augustine – Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire, or longing, or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in God. Augustine even goes on to outline 3 stages of sin for us – and they are so simple, I found them somewhat humorous.
This is how Susannah Wesley defined sin to her young son, John Wesley – If you would judge of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of pleasure, Then take this simple rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, and takes off the relish of spiritual things – That to you is sin. So, I think it fair and practical for us to say that sin is anything that turns us away from or distracts us from God – even momentarily. What could these things be? In a recent survey in a popular Christian journal, readers ranked areas of greatest spiritual challenge to them: (can you guess what the first one is?)
There’s your Top Ten Sin List! The survey respondents also noted that temptations were more potent when they had neglected time with God. (Take God out of the equation and we’re in trouble – keep God in and we are much more able to hold things together) The second most frequent comment about feeling when temptations were more potent was when one is physically tired. Think about your schedules and then think about simplifying your life, that is the message here. In having the ability to resist temptation the respondents said they achieved their greatest ability through prayer (simply turning to God and asking for help), And then by simply avoiding compromising behaviors and activities (just don’t go there!) They also said that being involved in some kind of small group in their community or church was some of the most help in resisting temptations of life that turn one away from God –those small groups, like Bible study (Disciple Class), Companions in Christ group, Sunday School, Monday Morning Women, United Methodist Men and Women, the choir, and Dave’s new wild Man’s Group. Why is this so helpful? Because these kinds of activities help us to be accountable to someone – having a few someone’s around that not only come to know you well, but in whom you place trust and those you care about, and who care about you. Being accountable to another is especially helpful in resisting life’s temptations. The season of Lent begins in a couple of weeks – remember that it is the church season that runs the 40 days plus Sundays from Ash Wednesday to Easter – symbolizing for us the 40 years of exile into the wilderness that the Israelites experienced – where they only had God to rely on for their survival and for their very existence. So, Lent is a time of reflection about our relationship with God. It is a time to take stock of our lives. A time to clear away the clutter and the all the distractions – and totally put ourselves aside – so that God might be revealed to us a new once again. In our text today, read from 1 Corinthians – Paul is telling the church in Corinth – be like me, become an Imitator of Christ. Paul is asking us to remember who Christ was and who Christ is for us today. Paul is reminding us who it is we are to be – Imitators of Christ. But…the truth here is that we are human – and we stumble and we continue to fall away from God time and time again. You know, there are lots of cattle ranches in Texas, from whence I hail, and every once in a while a cow wanders off and gets lost. And, if you ask a rancher how a cow gets lost, chances are he (or she) will tell you this – "Well, the cow starts nibbling on a tuft of green grass and when it finishes, it looks just ahead to the next tuft of green grass and starts nibbling on that one, and then it nibbles on a tuft a grass right next to a hole in the fence. It then sees another tuft of grass right on the other side of the fence, so it nibbles on that one and then goes on to the next, and then the next, and then the next. Before long, the cow has nibbled itself into being lost." Many of us may be in the process of nibbling our way to being lost. We keep moving from one tuft of behavior to another, never noticing how far we have gone from home or how far from the truth we have managed to end up. This is the stark truth about temptation and sin. In the past, we have failed. Right now, we are failing in some part of our lives. And, in the future, we will fail again. We can become consumed by both the wonderful and the horrific allurements of our current world and society. We live in an extreme culture of human temptations making it truly difficult to be faithful imitators of Christ. So, what are we to do? When we transgress – you already heard it: First and foremost, we must ask God for help. This in itself causes an immediate turn back to God. Then, let the experience educate. How many times did we hear our own parents or whoever raised us say, "Now, what have you learned from this?" Learn from it. Take the experience of transgression and use it to change. Let it motivate and challenge you. Now, I know that I am not always motivated to change a behavior even when I see the light. I may very well know what I should do – but the motivation just does not come until I feel the heat – the sometimes very painful consequences of my own behavior. Paul, in a sense, tells us to pay attention to these "wake up" calls. We need to use them to help us make a change in direction back toward God, away from temptation. Then, and most importantly, we need to "graduate" from our sin. We need to let God help us grow spiritually and morally through our experience. This is how we know that God is involved in our lives – sustaining us and guiding us. God will not let us go – He doesn’t give up (we’re the ones that often give up even when God is standing right in front of us at times shouting "I am here, don’t you see me?"). God will not desert us – no matter how badly or how often we transgress. BUT, we have to keep turning TOWARD God to know this! Now, I want you to close your eyes and think of the worst transgression/sin (or whatever you want to call it) of your life. It might be something that happened a long time ago, or something your in the midst of right at this moment – it may be something that you have never told anyone about. Now, turn it over to God and ask for forgiveness and help to move on (either again or for the first time). And ask yourself these questions: Have I learned anything from this? Have I been motivated to change because of it? Have I "graduated" (grown spiritually/morally) from it? Have I turned closer to God because of this transgression of mine? And, most important – How far away from being an imitator of Christ am I at this point in my life? If you are not completely there in making the turns toward God you need and want to make in your life – make a plan today to begin work in the right direction – toward God. And then perhaps some of the four letter words (products) of sin and transgression – Of being lost, In the dark, In rage, With fear, And hate, and ruin, and finally dead – Will turn to – Being found, In light, With kindness, And protection, and love, and hope, and most of all, LIFE through Christ, our Lord and Savior and Redeemer. Amen. |
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02.16.03 - Sin is a Four-Letter Word (Psalm 30:11-12, 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1)
