The Nature Of Sin
Sermon
The story's told, that in the 3rd and 4th centuries, out of the Germanic areas of Europe, came the custom of men disarming themselves before going into church to worship. As men entered the church they would lay their wooden clubs in a pile at the back of the church. Eventually they developed a kind of game, by rolling stones at this pile of clubs and seeing how many they could knock down. The more clubs they knocked over, the more sins the individual was believed to have left behind. This contest eventually evolved into the game of "nine pins" which was very popular in Europe during the Reformation - finding its way to England even into the early part of this century. When the game was exported to the U.S. it lost all its religious overtones, added another pin and became ten-pin bowling. And they promptly exported it back again to us!
Providing you had a straight eye and a strong arm, it seems a wonderfully simple way of shedding your sins. Although not, perhaps, a particularly Christian concept. And of course, in real life, shedding sins rarely seems quite that easy.
It isn't even particularly easy to identify sins. The media, and perhaps the government, would have us believe it's all down to the ten commandments. As long as you know the ten commandments and stick to them, you're OK. If children in school were taught the ten commandments by rote, then Britain would once gain be a moral nation.
But even by the time of Jesus, two thousand years ago, the ten commandments were no longer entirely appropriate. Few of us covet our neighbour's ass or his maidservant. And relatively few of us murder or steal - at least amongst church congregations! Jesus summed up the ten commandments in just two - love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself. And those two are so broad and so basic that I guess we go on working at them for a lifetime, but never really succeed.
If I can't necessarily identify sin through the application of the ten commandments, perhaps I can identify sin through feelings of guilt. Surely it's my conscience which tells me whether or not I've got it right. Well, sometimes. But I've noticed my conscience is often very active over things which have nothing to do with sin. And often leaves me quite unaware of murky areas in my life at which I ought to be looking.
I might, for instance, feel extreme guilt over eating a cream bun, but be virtually untouched by the plight of the homeless in Norwich. Consciences are so very easy to manipulate, and are so very often manipulated for us from infancy onwards by our parents and by the demands of society. Sometimes conscience can even make good bad, and bad good. So that, for instance, if I sit down and do nothing I'm haunted by guilt, but if I fill every moment of every day with busyness, I feel very good.
And yet one of the best ways of discovering my sin, is by allowing God to show me. And to do that, I need space and time for God. I need to sit down and do nothing. Ideally perhaps, through a quiet day, or a few days on retreat, as Jesus took at the beginning of his ministry. He retreated into the wilderness for six weeks or so, because silence reaches the parts other methods can't reach.
At my very first experience of a retreat, the retreat director told us retreats were about the three Ss - silence, solitude, and suffering. And he was right. Silence and solitude lead directly into those dark, inner painful areas, which are normally kept under control and out of consciousness by varying types of busyness.
They're frightening areas, those inner dark places of the soul. But the good news is, someone's been there before us and survived it. On that first Good Friday, Jesus walked straight into the darkness and the pain, never attempting to evade it or avoid it. He died on the cross, but he rose again to glory and light and the sort of life which lives for ever. And he was healed. There were scars, but the pain was gone. The wounds were healed.
And he told us we must do the same. "Take up your cross," he said, "and follow me." And: "Whoever would save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it." (Luke 9:23f).
As I go down into those inner depths and discover the sin, the pain lurking there, so something in me dies. And death itself is always painful. But through that death, I discover a new sort of life, a glorious resurrected life. A life in which my wounds are healed. A life in which there are scars, but the pain has gone.
For us humans, this doesn't happen all at once. As we dip into and out of the depths of ourselves, so little bits of us die. Little bits of our sin, if you like. And our resurrection, although overwhelming, is in direct proportion to our little deaths. If I don't experience death, I can't experience resurrection.
Lent is a time given to us by God for stepping back, and reflecting. Many people give something up for Lent. I want to suggest that this Lent, you might perhaps consider giving up some time to silence. Perhaps just five or ten minutes a day.
By silence, I don't just mean an absence of noise whilst using the time to think through problems or mentally write the shopping list. I mean complete silence before God, giving up thought as far as is possible.
Of course thoughts will drift in, and it's fine to gently follow them if you wish, because God often talks to us through those thoughts. But resisting the temptation to develop those thoughts or to think things through. Simply opening yourself to God and giving him the space and the time to do what he will.
Cardinal Mercier said this: "I am going to reveal to you a secret of sanctity and happiness. Every day for five minutes keep your imagination quiet, shut your eyes to all things of sense and close your ears to all sounds of earth in order to be able to withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptised soul which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Speak there to that same Holy Spirit saying:
"Holy Spirit, soul of my soul. I adore you. Enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me. Tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything you ask of me, and to accept all you permit to happen to me. Only show me what is your will.
"If you do this, your life will pass happily and serenely. Consolation will abound even in the midst of troubles, for grace will be given in proportion to the trial as well as strength to bear it; bringing you to the gates of paradise full of merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity."
Providing you had a straight eye and a strong arm, it seems a wonderfully simple way of shedding your sins. Although not, perhaps, a particularly Christian concept. And of course, in real life, shedding sins rarely seems quite that easy.
It isn't even particularly easy to identify sins. The media, and perhaps the government, would have us believe it's all down to the ten commandments. As long as you know the ten commandments and stick to them, you're OK. If children in school were taught the ten commandments by rote, then Britain would once gain be a moral nation.
But even by the time of Jesus, two thousand years ago, the ten commandments were no longer entirely appropriate. Few of us covet our neighbour's ass or his maidservant. And relatively few of us murder or steal - at least amongst church congregations! Jesus summed up the ten commandments in just two - love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself. And those two are so broad and so basic that I guess we go on working at them for a lifetime, but never really succeed.
If I can't necessarily identify sin through the application of the ten commandments, perhaps I can identify sin through feelings of guilt. Surely it's my conscience which tells me whether or not I've got it right. Well, sometimes. But I've noticed my conscience is often very active over things which have nothing to do with sin. And often leaves me quite unaware of murky areas in my life at which I ought to be looking.
I might, for instance, feel extreme guilt over eating a cream bun, but be virtually untouched by the plight of the homeless in Norwich. Consciences are so very easy to manipulate, and are so very often manipulated for us from infancy onwards by our parents and by the demands of society. Sometimes conscience can even make good bad, and bad good. So that, for instance, if I sit down and do nothing I'm haunted by guilt, but if I fill every moment of every day with busyness, I feel very good.
And yet one of the best ways of discovering my sin, is by allowing God to show me. And to do that, I need space and time for God. I need to sit down and do nothing. Ideally perhaps, through a quiet day, or a few days on retreat, as Jesus took at the beginning of his ministry. He retreated into the wilderness for six weeks or so, because silence reaches the parts other methods can't reach.
At my very first experience of a retreat, the retreat director told us retreats were about the three Ss - silence, solitude, and suffering. And he was right. Silence and solitude lead directly into those dark, inner painful areas, which are normally kept under control and out of consciousness by varying types of busyness.
They're frightening areas, those inner dark places of the soul. But the good news is, someone's been there before us and survived it. On that first Good Friday, Jesus walked straight into the darkness and the pain, never attempting to evade it or avoid it. He died on the cross, but he rose again to glory and light and the sort of life which lives for ever. And he was healed. There were scars, but the pain was gone. The wounds were healed.
And he told us we must do the same. "Take up your cross," he said, "and follow me." And: "Whoever would save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it." (Luke 9:23f).
As I go down into those inner depths and discover the sin, the pain lurking there, so something in me dies. And death itself is always painful. But through that death, I discover a new sort of life, a glorious resurrected life. A life in which my wounds are healed. A life in which there are scars, but the pain has gone.
For us humans, this doesn't happen all at once. As we dip into and out of the depths of ourselves, so little bits of us die. Little bits of our sin, if you like. And our resurrection, although overwhelming, is in direct proportion to our little deaths. If I don't experience death, I can't experience resurrection.
Lent is a time given to us by God for stepping back, and reflecting. Many people give something up for Lent. I want to suggest that this Lent, you might perhaps consider giving up some time to silence. Perhaps just five or ten minutes a day.
By silence, I don't just mean an absence of noise whilst using the time to think through problems or mentally write the shopping list. I mean complete silence before God, giving up thought as far as is possible.
Of course thoughts will drift in, and it's fine to gently follow them if you wish, because God often talks to us through those thoughts. But resisting the temptation to develop those thoughts or to think things through. Simply opening yourself to God and giving him the space and the time to do what he will.
Cardinal Mercier said this: "I am going to reveal to you a secret of sanctity and happiness. Every day for five minutes keep your imagination quiet, shut your eyes to all things of sense and close your ears to all sounds of earth in order to be able to withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptised soul which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Speak there to that same Holy Spirit saying:
"Holy Spirit, soul of my soul. I adore you. Enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me. Tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything you ask of me, and to accept all you permit to happen to me. Only show me what is your will.
"If you do this, your life will pass happily and serenely. Consolation will abound even in the midst of troubles, for grace will be given in proportion to the trial as well as strength to bear it; bringing you to the gates of paradise full of merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity."
