ROAD RAGE AND OTHER SIN(S)

17th June 2007 : Pentecost 3 : year C
1 Kings 21:1-21 : Galatians 2:15-21 : Luke 7:36 – 8:3

I suspect I’ve used this illustration before but since we’re thinking about Sin today it’s worth repeating. Occasion: the “induction Eucharist” of a friend of mine and my wife’s into the Carmelite Order, in the surreal atmosphere of a convent not very many stone-throws away from the hectic pace of Stirling Highway, Dalkeith.

Came the sermon the priest arose, commandeered the pulpit and spake unto us on just this topic: Sin. Not just spake but dissected the sucker in all its grossed-out detail. I know I should have timed it but maybe I was wise not to because it felt like the preacher-man was giving us the benefit of knowing every type of sin it was possible to commit, from the obvious newspaper-headline stuff right down to stealing a paper clip from the office.

It’s a long list, I need hardly tell you. We were all implicated. Some of us were guilty-as. Boy, did we feel … bored out of our tiny minds …

Well, I did. I suspect it terrified a few of those of the True Faith, as it was probably meant to.

But ultimately, with the benefit of a bit of education and (sorry) Richard Rohr, I’d have to say the Carmelite-induction preacher and others of his thinking probably missed a greater point.

What the priest sed was indubitably not untrue but the overwhelming, all-encompassing sadness of Sin isn’t just about cataloguing the types, kinds and grades of it but about recognising how lost all of humanity becomes when we find ourselves, sometimes moment-by-moment, trapped in a cycle of sinful actions that often enter our minds at lightning speed, coming from places we can’t even begin to know the location of.

Among my many occasions for entering full-bloodedly into Sin is when I’m driving. I may seem kind, mild-mannered, even jolly, when I’m in the dress and the scarf and the poncho or whatever but put me on the road behind a steering wheel and who knows what it is or where it comes from but I’m as given to road rage as the next driver. You know the commercial about the Mum who picks her daughter up from school, scolds her for swearing and then proceeds to give a mouthful to some hapless driver who cuts her off as she’s leaving? Compared to me, she’s a pussy, a total wimpette. A mere apprentice road-rager.

Let’s be clear about this. I’m not proud of it but I confess it to illustrate the dynamic that Sin can assume – a suddenness that seems to come from the mythical “nowhere” and then engulfs us in actions we might not normally even think about.

Fortunately, one of the benefits of my listening to Richard Rohr is to understand that this phenomenon is simply a reality. It’s the way I am, at least at the moment. That doesn’t make it okay. It’s part of the large collection of things I “get wrong”.

But what I’ve found myself doing now is almost immediately reminding myself that, Hey, Alistair, you do stupid things too. You’re impatient and discourteous when you’re driving, too. And then I say sorry to God. I literally say, Sorry, Lord. I do stupid stuff too.

The point is that at the same time as putting human propensity for sinning into perspective we need to take it seriously enough sincerely to try to do something about it. In a nutshell, to seek the transforming love, acceptance and comfort of Jesus.

We become obsessed with Sin and its manifestations partly because we’ve secretly or otherwise bought the heresy of dualism and the moral universe created by conservatives. Of course the Living God wants us to live morally. But that’s not the criterion for entry into communion with God. It’s faith. And faith implies nothing about our moral standing.

As Richard Rohr points out several times, Jesus never – that’s NEVER – goes out looking for sinners. He’s not a one-man vigilante squad. He looks for the lost, the people precariously on the edge, the outcasts, the impoverished. The ones, effectively, who have absolutely nothing left to lose and who are therefore totally free to replenish their emptiness with Jesus’ love.

He doesn’t look for the anointing woman but she comes to him. Simon knows she’s a sinner. She knows she’s a sinner. Jesus knows she’s a sinner. Does Jesus judge her? Does Jesus recoil and say, “Whoa, sinner-woman, back off. Back off now. I have a seriously Lawful Pharisee on hand and I’m not afraid to use him!”

We know the answer to these and a legion of other questions.

No, the woman knows her state, she seeks Jesus and expresses her faith in him. He forgives her, it seems just because she needs it.

Ours is exactly the same dynamic. Yes, we need to acknowledge our sinfulness. But let’s not obsess about it. Jesus didn’t. He simply wanted people to come to him so that he could transform them. And the Christian scriptures show this happening time after time after time.

Likewise we need to do it time after time after time because we will probably never get it right all the time. Like the rest of the human creation, sometimes we get it right (Hallelujah!), oftentimes we get it wrong (so let’s sort it with God and get back on track).

We see the roots of all this radical acceptance and lack of judgement in many places in the Hebrew Scriptures, such as this morning’s story of Naboth’s Vineyard. Too often we secretly cheer at the grossed-out image of the dogs licking Ahab and Jezebel’s blood but the real point is that God, though outraged at the abuse of power, at the total disregard of Naboth’s rights, nevertheless refuses to return the royal violence with divine violence.

The Naboth story finely indicates the dynamic of envy and greed that lie at the heart of personal and systemic violence. But what we see in the divine response is the seed of everything that finds fruition on the cross of Jesus – this divine refusal to take on the very worst of human distortions, to become violent, to seek revenge. God – unlike humankind – is NOT into payback. God’s version of payback amounts to saying, Do your worst. I still love you.

This is where Jesus calls us to be. Not seeking the sinner so we can judge them. Not running terrified from the Church’s self-appointed Sinner Squad. But coming to Jesus, acknowledging this weakness of our being and seeking his transformation.

This is what Paul means when he sez I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

This is the state of having come to Jesus. This is what happens when we allow Jesus to transform us: Christ lives in us and we act more and more out of this new reality, a reality in which Sin no longer enthralls us, or does so less and less, and in which we become less judgmental and more loving, open, accepting, welcoming.

Of course we need to take Sin and sinning seriously. But we do not need to let it be our master. We have the solution – our friend, Jesus. It sounds twee and quaint. Maybe it is. But it also happens to be true.

Why don’t we try it this week? At least, for those of us, like me, who still need to. Seek Jesus. Put away the judgements (note to Alistair: and the road rage) and allow Jesus to be the vision in our eyes.