Trinity United Methodist Church

Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.

**Sin and Reconciliation**

 

There are few things that are sure in this life. But most of us have one or two certainties to add  to death and taxes. One of these for me is sin. It is an odd word, sin, a short phonetic blip, rather homely and unpoetic as words go. Yet it carries a power, the hammer of destruction, the sting of a wasp, the potential to derail one’s life and propel him or her into living death, spiritual & sometimes even physical.

     The Bible speaks of sin from its very opening chapters, man’s growing awareness of nakedness and therefore sinfulness. The story of the Garden of Eden closely parallels the development of our own personal awareness of our fallibility and the destruction it can bring to those we do not know, those that we know, to those that we do not love and even, sadly to those that we do love.

     Truth be told, I dislike the word sin. I think I heard it so often from pulpit and worse, the droning harangues of the radio and television preachers that it lost meaning for me, like the word said over and over until it becomes a senseless sound. Much more real to me is the spectrum of sin, the failures, the injuries, the poor choices; all seem much more complex than such a simple word would suggest. And so we get mired in that confusion, so busy sorting out the right and wrong of our acts that we wake up one day, sucking at the last bit of air as we sink below the quicksand of our deeds and thoughts…therein lies the great and subtle danger of this little word.

     The old testament prophets mention sins of the heart but mostly concentrate on our external acts and need to return to obedience to God in the conduct of our lives, the things we do, the way we treat our spouses, children, friends an even our enemies. Keeping kosher is not just about eating the right foods but being mindful of the rules in daily life. Then, enter Jesus. Jesus turns this paradigm around completely and raises the bar to portray sins of the heart as every bit of destructive to ourselves and our relationship with God.

     This way of thinking is both a blessing and a curse. A curse, because it is not enough to resist acting on our worst impulses, we must also seek forgiveness for the very urge to follow our selfish desires; a blessing because reconciliation of these feelings along with our external failures can lead not only to social justice and harmony, but true inner peace. It is this inner peace that we all seek and this peace is the silence we need within us to hear the direction of God in our lives.

     So what does it mean to reconcile? Uses of the word range from ending conflict, ie in a marriage or rivalry to squaring the books of a business. Some speak of washing away of sins, of renewal, a return to innocence and a new start. It is a passive letting go of the hounds of guilt that accompany our misdeeds. I think this is a useful, but limited way of thinking about sin and redemption.   Life is not static. We don’t stand in one place, immobile statues that can be hosed off, buffed to shining perfection every once in a while.  Some religious philosophy emphasizes being baptized or born again as the entry into salvation. I believe these are important moments in faith but do not represent some sort of permanent “get out of jail card”. Rather, life is dynamic, we move constantly along a pathway and our failures not only cripple us in the moment but send us off that path for a time or even send us down an entirely new one, one that may not lead to our original goal.

     I once heard a sermon that compared our passage through life to flying an aircraft. We all know people who live with a death-grip on their destiny as well as others who never seem to even touch the controls. Fortunately, most of us fall somewhere in between. 

      But every pilot needs a method of guidance, a way to stay on track, whether it be the captain of a World War II bomber who relied on his map, ruler  & compass-wielding navigator, or the modern pilot, armed with the latest GPS gear or a space shuttle commander with gigabytes of computing guidance.

     When developing a flight plan, a straight line or series of straight lines is plotted from departure to destination. Every attempt is made to fly along these straight lines from one way-point to another. Of course this is an impossible task. Cross winds, errors of measurement & even subtle asymmetry in the aircraft structure can conspire to throw the travelers off course. The result is a new heading that would miss the landing point by miles or even lead one into the face of a mountain. How much is life like that?

     To counter this error, the pilot has a tool known as mid-course correction, a technique used from the ancient mariners to present day space travelers that is applied at intervals along the way. Metaphorically, the process of reconciliation can be used to redirect us back on the original path,

     Certainly, one can wait on this correction until the last minute, continuing farther off course before finally turning and making up the last leg of the flight into a vicious head wind. The danger of this, as in death bed confessions or recantations of an evil life, is that it leaves behind a trail of sorrow & one is in danger of running out of fuel or time before making the destination.

     For me, the best way is to remain mindful of the general course in life, the large map, so to speak but to catch the small deviations from the path and work through those as I go along. But, rather than paralyzing guilt, I believe active prayer, well-applied humility and self doubt are the tools to make these corrections along the way. I only wish that I made better & more regular use of them, but I keep trying so many mid-course corrections! 

      None of us is sure where our life will ultimately lead. We can contemplate, strive for, even have faith in the desired end. But then, that end is just a fraction of the journey; hopefully there will be some peace and good works left in our wake.

      But for now, I am content to pilot this plane with Jesus as the navigator and  God, the air beneath my wings, baggage.        

 

Submitted by ~~ Steve Aguilu