8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
2 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
I often use
a phrase with my kids that drives them crazy, “Words matter.” Anyone who has
tried to learn another language understands this. I’ve failed at a few
languages, even English, and had my fair share of comical moments. I once told a
German teacher that I had a “gift” for her [Ich habe ein Gift für Sie. Rather than ein
Geschenk] failing to note that the English word “gift”
means poison in German. So I basically said, “I have some poison for you.” Another
episode happened when my French wife told me she had a surprise for my birthday.
When she couldn’t contain herself any longer she excitingly declared, “I got
you a beaver!” – she meant “beagle.” Gift – poison, beaver – beagle, small
subtleties or misunderstandings make big differences. According to John, the
word sin is critical for the spiritual life. And we would do well to look
carefully at it with all its nuances. What kind of word is sin? How should we
use it? What does it mean?
1. Sin is a “we” word
Sin is not
so much a word to be used to describe secular culture or, as a child of the
80s, heavy metal rock music but remains a functional and critical word for the
church’s own life together. John does not write, “If they say that they have
no sin” but “If we say that we have no sin.” So sin is a church word before its
anything else. But this is more than saying that the church is sinful but also
that sin seeks to destroy community and relationship with God and one another.
The writer is
saying that if “we” say we have no sin we will be incapable of having fellowship
with God but also with one another, vss. 6-7. Why might that be? Sin is fundamentally
a social word which tries to destroy God’s design for us - “fellowship.” Sin NEVER
just impacts an individual.
Sin is not
simply that which God dislikes or disdains but that power which seeks to keep
us apart and alone without love. Such a notion fits well with Jesus’ understanding that the
greatest commandment meant loving God with all your heart . . . and your
neighbor as yourself. So sin is the opposite of loving God with all our heart
and loving our neighbor as ourselves. This is why Bob’s song hits the nail
right on the head – love not morality is the opposite of sin. Sin is the core
problem for humanity – a failure to love well – a religious problem and not
simply an ethical or moral one.
Jesus and
the Gospel writers repeatedly point out that the failure to connect “we” or “I”
to sin is what makes it truly dangerous, e.g. Luke 18:9-14. That’s why the
Gospels scare me – it’s religious people who don’t like Jesus, don’t get his
message, and seek to end his life. And how is this shown, by their
“separateness” and “judgmentalism”. And this makes sense to me. We just
finished the Gospel of John in which there were no demons – none – and yet the Pharisees
are everywhere pushing people away, keeping people out, down, apart, oppressed,
and secluded. The point is that sinful people often rarely have to be reminded
of sin – they know its effects – its religious people who are as dangerous as
demons when they think they have risen above it. They so easily, John says,
deceive themselves and truly don’t know God’s word, they call God a liar (vs.
10).
In the book A Wizard of Earthsea, a young wizard
named Ged one day inadvertently conjures up a minor demon. The demon proceeds
to haunt him throughout the book. As he grows in power and influence, the demon
grows right along with him, stalking and plaguing him with all manner of
mischief. Ged flees in terror. He runs to a city by the sea, but it follows him
there. He hires a boat and rows out into the water but it follows him there. Then,
he jumps into the water, but the demon rides on his back. Finally, with all
escape routes blocked, he does the only thing left to do: he turns to the demon
embraces it. At which point it vanishes, integrated back inside him as the
shadow-self he was finally willing to own. Ged’s experience of liberation begins
when he acknowledges - that the demon is himself.
We must be
honest here and not defensive. I want to take this even one step further – I
once heard another preacher venture that those of us who belong to the church
are tempted to look outside ourselves and see horror, exploitation, misogyny,
political scandal, and violence and worry about its effect on us. But then he
asked a truly eye-opening and horrible question, “What if society is no more
sick than the sins of the church?” Maybe we should think about and embrace that? IF WE admit our sins, THEN
we would no longer think us insufferable hypocrites
and phonies. IF WE declare our faults, THEN they could not near decry our own sin
and failing more than we would. We have seen the demon and the demon is us, to
paraphrase Bruce Fisk quoting Pogo. IF WE embraced that demon, THEN what would
our church and world look like?
2. Sin is a “when” word
Sin destroys
relationships but is recognized first in the church. So once you realize John’s
point that sin is a “we” word, a “church” word, then you naturally discover
another terrible but beautiful facet of it– it’s also a “when” word. Vss 8-10 are
helpful because we don’t have to hide or lie and say that we have no sin and that
we will never sin. So when sin comes our way, because it will come our way, we
don’t need to freak out and that’s a beautiful thing.
So when sin
comes our way – it will, we know it. What should we do? We need to be alert and
fearlessly ask questions. I was recently with someone at Renaud’s Café who had
never been there and I suggested that she try a very traditional French café
sandwich called a croque monsieur –
which has bread and prosciutto baked with cheese and a white sauce. As we were
ordering she quickly stopped and said, “Wait, it doesn’t have alcohol in it,
does it?” I chuckled a bit and said, “no” that even French hedonist would find that
strange. She then said matter-of-factly, “I’m a recovering alcoholic, I can’t
be too careful.” Alcoholics get it – they get the “when” of sin and the
seriousness of being alert and honestly asking questions and not in some
holier-than-thou sort of way but because they understand the depth of their own
weakness and the malicious power that seeks to bring them down. So the “when”
directs us to the “we” of sin in a different way. We’re not simply sinners,
John tells us, but we help one another against it.
The first
step is to confess repeatedly that we are recovering sinners, “we can’t be too
careful.” But John also tells us that “when” sin comes and we fail, we can
confess. I would like to stick with our friends in A.A. here because they,
better than anyone, get this teaching of 1 John.
Step 5 of
the twelve steps is a helpful: “Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another
human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Bill W. in the 12 Steps says, “Few
muddled attitudes have caused us more trouble than holding back on Step Five.
Some people are unable to stay sober at all; others will relapse periodically
until they really clean house.” That’s why a favorite phrase of recovering
alcoholics is, “Accountability is sustainability.” What you will not acknowledge cannot be healed. Jesus said in Luke
5: 31-32, “I did not come for the healthy, but for those who need a doctor.”
And many us, we’re standing around with coughs and fevers saying we feel great
or at least not as bad as that person next to us. And friends I don’t want
Jesus to pass me by. I struggle with anger and bitterness. In the story of Cain
and Abel – Cain who cannot and will not confess, who murders his brother and
blames others can only “settle in the Land of Nod” which means “wandering.” He settles where he can never rest.
(Slide) He walks in shame and cannot speak or see where he is going. To not
confess makes you incapable of receiving forgiveness, using your mouth, and
finding rest. You can only hang your head in shame.
So when sin
happens. When it lurks at our door and pounces on us? What should we do? A.A.
recognizes that confession is an incarnational, an embodied experience. It demands
the real presence of another. “When we are honest with another person, it
confirms that we have been honest with ourselves and with God.” (Twelve Steps
and Twelve Traditions) – this comes from John 20:23. Some of you haven’t felt
forgiven because you’ve never been able to confess incarnationally. When the
church gathers - the space it occupies
becomes a confessional. When the church gathers – listens to its members tell
of their sins, prays and offers forgiveness – Jesus is present – touching and
forgiving. When we do this, it is Christ working through us, who is truly doing
it. The power is still with God, not with us, but God is always an incarnate
God, using flesh and blood to touch and to heal others. A favorite writer of
mine wrote about the church forgiving sins and received a curious response from
someone who said, “This can’t be true because, if it were, it would be too good
to be true!” And he responded, “It is too good to be true. It is precisely
because of this incredible, unimaginable, goodness of incarnation that we find
ourselves free.”
3. Sin is “forgiven” word
So we’ve seen that sin is a word that belongs to the church
and its life together. More importantly, however, is that the Apostle John sets
out for us that this word intimately and ultimately connects to God, vss. 1:9,
2:1-2. Notice the picture above (today's altarpiece - which side is the Christ candle on? why? The Christ candle is on the side of sin and the cross on the either side. Sin is surrounded so to speak) To capture this truth, the theologian Shirley Guthrie provocatively argues
that Christians shouldn’t believe in sin. It is no accident, he said, that when Christians confess our faith in the
Apostles’ Creed (page 879 in your hymnal), for example, sin is mentioned only
when we say that we believe in the “forgiveness of sin”. And although Jesus
certainly reckoned with the reality of sin, Guthrie reminds us, he himself refused
to speculate about a person’s sin but speak only of its demise to the glory of
God. Even Paul himself, Guthrie notes, doesn’t “believe in” sin; but believes
that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3). So sin never stands alone and
never functions solo. It doesn’t have a story of its own. There is only one story - God's.
The message
of 1 John on God’s relationship to sin could be stated this way, “God is love and
therefore is against sin because sin seeks to destroy love itself – love for
God, love for others, love for creation and love of self. Sin is anti-love and resides
as the villain in a global love story, John tells us, and not a moral tome, an
ethical cookbook, or a list of rules. So, to understand sin as a “forgiven”
word is to also understand that it is a “story” word and fits in the great
drama of God coming to vanquish it through the law given to Moses, the prophets
who call people to faith and ultimately through the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. But it’s more than just a story we tell but a
story we live, a story we inhabit – like Bruce told us last week – a story that
we see, hear and touch in the present – a story that isn’t simply fantasy
but makes sense of all of our lives.
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