Sermon for September 28, 2008

Graves Chapel Evening Prayer

Lessons: Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 78
Philippians 2: 1-13
Matthew 21: 23-32

May the meditation of my heart and the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

“Sinners repent.” That phrase sounds as if it should always be spoken in the voice of doom. Now that I’ve made us squirm a little, maybe it’s time to think about what it means to be a sinner. I don’t want to pretend to explain why we sin or how sin separates us from each other and from God. If I take a close look at my own sins, I can see the answers to those questions pretty easily, and I bet you can, too. As someone who loves language and the power of words, today I am most interested in what the word sin means.

There is much debate about the origin of the word, but one argument has it that the English word sin is derived from an old archery term, which means to miss the mark. Think of an archer raising an arrow to his bow and taking aim. If “missing the mark” is the definition of sin, then a goal to hit the mark came first. Life sometimes feels like target practice, and if missing the mark is what happens to most of us on a routine basis, then I guess what we do is pick up the arrow and try again. Sometimes we try and try until we get it right. Most of the sins we have to repeat until we hit the mark are everyday, ordinary sins: Speaking in anger, forgetting to follow through on a commitment, failing to be completely honest. I think of these sins as my self-defeating behaviors, because I often hurt myself more with these sins than I hurt others.

There are some times, however, when missing the mark can be life-threatening, as when an archer fails to shoot an arrow through the heart of the lion leaping toward him. Our responsibilities to ourselves and to others can be very weighty, and a failure to meet such obligations may result in serious consequences. Is the scary stuff going on in the American economy right now a collective result of this kind of sin? Could be. What they are calling “the credit crunch” has both greedy lenders and shopping-addicted consumers at its roots.

Beyond doubt, there is evil in the world. Evil exists. The sins that we might label evil are very dark and destructive. Our little ordinary sins pale in comparison to real evil. We like to think that, and for the most part, it’s true. But I don’t think that lets us off the hook. We have to be careful that our small sins don’t contribute to some larger destruction--an example would be how a choice we make, like not recycling an aluminum can, may tip the balance of nature in the wrong direction.

All of my musings about sin and what it means were launched by the first words in today’s lesson from Exodus. The phrase “the wilderness of Sin” is just beautiful, I think. Sin is capitalized to suggest a location on a map, but it is purely metaphoric. In this lesson, we are in the midst of the story of Moses leading the people through the wilderness. Being human beings, as usual they are whining and complaining. Once again, God has to remind them of his power, this time by bringing water from a rock. The wilderness is a testing ground. The question for us is, how can the life we are living today be like a “wilderness of sin”?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a wilderness is “a tract of solitude and savageness.” When we are in a wilderness, we feel alone, confused, and threatened. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve done something I know is wrong, I feel very much alone. By sinning, I have created a wilderness in my own soul, and I have no one I can honestly blame but myself.

If I think of my sin as “missing the mark,” I can try again, take better aim. I can also learn a valuable lesson from my first failed attempt. In admitting to myself what I’ve done wrong and how it was wrong, I can understand how NOT to do it again. In fact, I think this understanding is the blessing the Lord allows our sins to bring us. I have learned many valuable life lessons from things I’ve done that I would not care to repeat. The process of learning from our sins and failures is deeply humbling. Since Christ embodied humility in all of his acts, such humility may very well be the virtue he would most like us to have. It is certainly the counterbalance to sin. As poet T.S. Eliot said, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility; humility is endless.”

Paul says something along these lines in his epistle to the Philippians. In speaking of Christ, Paul says, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross.” For Paul the obedient, self-sacrificing humility of Christ was the sign of his great love. He exhorts the Philippians to “be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” This is a petition that has the golden rule at its very foundation--the rule of love, of loving our neighbors as ourselves. Or, as in the Lord’s case, of loving our neighbors more than we love ourselves.

In today’s gospel lesson, we are given one of the many examples of the way Jesus himself looked at sin. He was very consistent in his love for sinners; he liked to be with them. In fact, he much preferred their company to that of the holier-than-thou Pharisees, who often chided him for hanging around with riffraff. Actions that look like obvious sins to the Pharisees are something very different to the Lord. He sees such situations as opportunities for his love and mercy to bring someone to repentance and newness of life. He is very clear that those of us who might think we are sin-free are not endowed with the right to judge others. Remember the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery and brought to Jesus for his judgment? Not only does Jesus not pass judgment on the woman, but he sends the self-righteous ones away, very uncomfortably I might add, by making a simple suggestion: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” [John 8:7] At least the Pharisees demonstrated some humility when they had the good sense to slink away.

On the issue of humility being a most-favored virtue, Jesus is very clear. In the gospel of Luke he constructs a whole parable about the contrast between self-righteousness and humility. "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." [Luke 18:10-14] There are dire consequences for self-righteousness, which clearly misses the mark Jesus sets for us, the mark of tolerance and humility.

Today’s reading from Matthew suggests how self-righteousness is not only a sin, but is also a barrier to salvation. At the beginning of this passage, the chief priests and elders are challenging the authority of Jesus, who in their eyes is an unqualified man who has set himself up as a teacher. He threatens their own sense of themselves as men of status. When he asks them a question, they are thrown into confusion. These proud men need to have the right answer to any question, and they certainly wouldn’t want the upstart Jesus to embarrass them. So, instead of coming up with a potentially incorrect answer, they say, “We do not know.” It would seem they have entered “the wilderness of sin.” Why? The Pharisees have constructed a set of laws, and their laws are contained within well-defined limits. They will not tolerate any expansion of these limits. For them, a law is a law. Something is either right or it is wrong, and they have the ultimate word on what is right. The Pharisees are greatly comforted by this sense of their superior grasp on morality. What does Jesus have to say to them about their unwillingness to bend? “Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”

This is truly sad, because the Pharisees are good people by any measure. They do the right things and follow the rules. But Jesus came to change the rules, and the unwillingness of the Pharisees to “change their minds” is blocking them from the love and mercy of Christ. He does not want them (or us) to be legalistic; he wants them (and us) to be tolerant. He does not want judgment from them; he wants humility. Clearly it is better in the eyes of Jesus to be an ordinary garden-variety sinner who knows herself or himself to be one than to be a Pharisee.

The Pharisees considered themselves to be scriptural scholars, and as such, surely they had heard the words of the prophet Micah. Micah offered all of us a simple guide for how to behave well when he said, “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your Lord.”

When I hear a group of people expressing intolerance or prejudice toward another group, I think to myself, “Bunch of Pharisees.” Then I have to pull myself up short, because in that very thought I have become a Pharisee myself. As the psalm for today says, “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.” There is only one way in the eyes of Jesus: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”


So, remember, “Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us, so be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” (Henri-Frederic Amiel)

Susan Hull