by Doug Hammack
For many of us, we were raised in a spirituality in which sin-consciousness, and the battle against sin, was the epicenter. Because of our individual backgrounds, when we think about sin, we tend to make individualistic interpretations. Sin doesn’t affect our standing before God, in this view: we are loved, we are loved, we are loved. But it does get in the way of dancing well w/ God. Sin is not that big a deal compared to the mountain of God’s mercy and grace, but it will mess up your life.
Also, sin-centric spirituality hasn’t helped us very much in developing the simple practice…the daily discipline…of repentance.
Next week, I want to talk about some specific aspects of sin we typically overlook
So, this crazy guy stands up in front of NRCC all the time and says…
• Sin is just not that big a deal…
• Sure, it will damage to your souls
• Sure, it will hurt the people you love the most
• But compared to the mountain of grace and mercy…
• Compared to the redemptive, restorative Presence of God
• It’s just not that big a deal
In many sectors of the church, this is heresy
• For many of us, we were raised in a spirituality in which sin-consciousness, and the battle against sin, was the epicenter
Where did this idea come from?
• We can date this sin-centric spirituality to the enlightenment
• It was there that individualism began to flood over western society
• It was then that individualism flooded over the church
• So, for the last 500 years, we have been wearing “individualism” lenses when we consider God, Spirit and practice of our religion
• Consequently, we see Bible verses, history, and theological concepts through the grid of the individual
• It’s only natural, most of us are westerners, and westerners are individualistic
So, when we think about sin, we tend to make individualistic interpretations
• And as such, we automatically gravitate to how sin affects the individual
• And we have tended to focus on the individual in the afterlife
• We have tended to see sin as really messing up our afterlives
• We’re talking heaven w/ God for all eternity
…or continuous torture and suffering for all eternity
…yes, that can really mess up one’s afterlife
So, sin has become a big, big deal in many Christian’s worldviews
• Many see it as the gateway to hell and eternal suffering
• And anxious to avoid such a terrible thing, we work hard to ameliorate all the legal obligations of sin
Consequently, when this silly guy stands up and says sin just isn’t that big a deal, how crazy is that?
But I do…
Again and again, I do
• When we finish this series of lectures, we’re going to examine the core, unspoken beliefs we have about life
• We’re going to ask where what we believe about goodness, about Truth, about history, God, Jesus, the afterlife came from
• We’re going to think about the lenses we have on
• We’ll try on some other lenses, and see if there are other ways to view walking w/ God
And when we do, I believe we’ll have a broader perspective on why we have the instincts we do around the issue of sin
• We’ll be able to parse out why we feel so strongly about it
But for now, I say this…
Sin-centric spirituality is a dead end
First, it doesn’t take into account the power, the pervasiveness, the thoroughness of Divine love
Second, the fruit of sin-centric spirituality it is tail-chasing
We run around in circles trying to solve sin…
• Through prayer, through spiritual disciplines, through effort
• Through deliverance, through meditation…
• And all the while, other, larger issues get pushed aside
Sin-consciousness
• And the desire to free ourselves of sin
• Is like the parable Jesus told of the weeds growing among wheat
• If we spend our effort dealing w/ weeds, we’ll mess up the wheat
• Let the weeds go…
• When it’s time, we’ll address them
• More accurately, they’ll take care of themselves
• If…
we focus on the wheat, the life, the goodness, Spirit, the Dance
So, sin just isn’t that big a deal
Compared to the mountain of God’s mercy, love, and goodness
It’s silly to care about sin
Sure, it will hurt you
• Sure it will hurt those you love
• But we know that
So…
Keep that in your mind, and let’s read one of the reflections of David
• A reflection from his 66th prayer
• A prayer of musing that led to gratefulness for life
• However, we’re going to hone in on a passing comment he makes in this prayer at the tail end
Ps. 66:18-20
If I regard iniquity (sin) in my heart, The Lord will not hear. But certainly God has heard me. He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me!
Now again, in its entirety, Ps. 66 muses on life and expresses thankfulness for all that is good in life
• The author leads us to be…
grateful to God for that which is in nature that inspires awe
grateful for those times we survive dangerous situations and get to live another day
toward the end of the prayer, David speaks personally
• I am grateful for the ways God has intersected my own life
• Changed me, humbled me so I see more clearly
• Answered prayers
• Shown me mercy and goodness
And then he says this…
• If in my life, I had regarded sin in my heart
• If I had lived such that when I took close inspection of my heart…
• what I find was corrupted, polluted, tainted, fouled
… it would have been difficult to live a call-response life w/ God
…I would have become a much less sensitive dancer
…the give and take would have been going on around me
…but I would have been desensitized to it
There’s something about foulness in my center, he is saying…
There’s something about corruption in my heart
…that blinds me to the movement of peace
…that blinds me to the movement of joy, of love
…those attributes that are the Spirit of God
And I would have missed them if my heart had become darkened
• When I give place to dishonesty
• When I surrender to fraud, lust, envy
• When I treat people as objects for my own gratification
• When I acquiesce my responsibilities as a citizen of this God-Kingdom (making earth just, equitable, compassionate)
When this happens and my heart is darkened
• My words go out, but it’s as though God does not hear them
• The heavens speak forth the words of God, but I don’t hear them
• The Spirit wisdom, life, light
• The Universe speaks forth peace, reconciliation, forgiveness
• But I don’t hear it
I get my tail in a wringer and can’t figure out how to get out
• My wife and I become entangled in strife
• …and I don’t see to, or wish to, make peace
• My soul gets stuck on some issue from my past…
An uncaring father, a harsh mother
An abuse, a trauma
• And the Spirit of God has a path of restoration/healing for me…
• But I can’t hear it, can’t see it, can’t access it
Now many Xns have an idea come to mind when they read David
• Has more to do w/ lenses they’re wearing than what David says
• Here’s the common interpretation…
If I do something bad, God will never answer my prayers
If I have sin in me, God will turn his back on my prayers
There’s no sense asking God for anything if I’ve been bad
God won’t hear my petitions
He will not champion my cause
He is no longer in my corner
And why should He be? this interpretation concludes…
• I’ve been bad
• I’ve broken the agreement
• The agreement that would I be good, and he bless me
But again, individualism has a lot to do w/ the lens that engenders this interpretation of Ps. 66
But if we set aside individualism for a moment…
If we set aside sin-centric spirituality…
If we assume God’s love makes it ok for us for a moment…
If we quit worrying about sin keeping people out of heaven…
Then we see this verse quite differently
In this view, sin is a nuisance more than the arbiter of our afterlives
In this view, sin is like furniture on a dance floor
• The Spirit nudges to move one way or move another, but we can’t
• There’s a credenza in the way
• The give and take of the dance is moving us another way
• But we can’t go there… there’s a refrigerator in the way
Sin doesn’t affect our standing before God, in this view
We are loved, we are loved, we are loved
But it does get in the way of dancing well w/ God
Story: I had a recurring dream for many years of my life
My mother was an avid collector of fine things
• But not small things; diamonds, fine pens, antique watches…
• No, she collected fine furniture
• Big, fine furniture
Back in the 70’s garage sales and estate sales were places one could go on treasure hunts
• Hunting for things to be found for pennies on the dollar
• She knew a lot about what fine stuff was, would go, would find
But then 2 problems cropped up
1. how to get these big, and fine things home (Pontiac LeMans)
2. where to put them when we inevitably did
So, over the years, our house began to be a bit crowded
• Not crazy people crowded…
• Not 20 years of newspapers and egg cartons crowded
• But crowded nevertheless
Now I regularly spoke up to register my discontent
• My thought was that as you found one treasure, you sold a lesser treasure to clear space for it
• Her thought was something different…
When you find one treasure, your pleasure is doubled because now you have treasure #1 and treasure #2
• the net effect being that we had lots and lots of treasures
This must have scarred me deeply
• For years after I left home, I had a recurring dream
• In college I played handball for exercise
• A game played in a big, empty, white room with 4 empty walls
• Clean lines, open spaces, banging a ball against the wall
But in my dream, I would be playing away, but a very nice, quite antique sideboard would appear on one of the walls
• I’d keep playing around it, but after a while, in the dream, a fine hutch or chest of drawers, would show up beside the sideboard
• Then an antique head and footboard, finely carved with master craftsmanship
• A dresser or two, (all quite fine, to be sure)
• A few Queen Somebody chairs from the 18th Century
• A china cabinet with Waterford crystal and Wedgwood china
And all the while, I’d keep playing handball around these things
• Until by the end of the dream, it would look like a crowded attic
• The floor would morph into straight-plank attic flooring
• The walls would get closer, and be lined w/ furniture
• In the center of the court (by now an attic) some of the finer things would be covered w/ moving blankets to protect them
• And then, the ceiling would become a slanted roof, and I’d actually be in a crowded attic
Finally, with no way to continue playing handball, and I would give up, and walk down the stairs
Like I said, I must have been scarred…
• I would have this dream at least once a month for about a decade
• It’s still vivid to my memory
Now this dream, is not a bad parable of sin
Sin doesn’t make us less precious, less valuable to God
We are loved, we are loved, we are loved
…but it does mess up our ability to dance w/ God
…it does keep us from the purpose for which we exist on this earth
…gets in the way of the game for which we are made
It does desensitize us to the God-nudges that make life right and good
• It fouls our instincts, so we zig when the situation called for a zag
• It disposes us to overreact at times when under-reaction in order
• It causes us to miss opportunities that would have made the earth a better place
…would have ameliorated someone’s pain
Lord, it would be an honor to be used by you to touch the people of our city this week…
• We pray this each week we dismiss
• And be assured, the HS of God is always presenting those opportunities to us
• But when we regard our hearts, and find that sin has firmly ensconced itself there, we miss the Voice of God
• It seems to us, that our words don’t reach God
• God’s words and God-opportunities (again, always present) go right by us unnoticed
Sin is not that big a deal
But it will mess up your life
One of the other problems w/ sin-centered spirituality on which so many were raised…
• We don’t think about sin itself that clearly
Sex is way over-emphasized
Ignoring people in need is way under-emphasized
If you look at Jesus’ life/message
• There was very little talk about sex
• A few side-notes in the mountain sermon
But boy, did he have a lot about treating people well
• about being ambassadors of goodness on the earth
• about the Kingdom of God
• about the sick, the hungry, the needy
• about people whose souls were damaged and in need
But we’ve made things Jesus had very little to say about…
• sex, rudeness, and some social hot-button issues…
• …the very definition of sin
Also, sin-centric spirituality hasn’t helped us very much in developing the simple practice…
…the daily discipline
…of repentance
You’ll recall several months ago, we talked about this at length
To distill it down, we said simply this…
• Repentance is as rhythmic and natural as eating
• But this simple, daily exercise has been ritualized and distorted so we don’t make it part of our daily lives
• To repent, we simply walk down life’s paths
• We realize the path we’re on is not a good one
• We simply step back, turn, and begin walking down another
Now sure, there’s pain involved in change
• There’s ego, there’s shame, there’s avoidance
• But when it’s a daily practice, we become much better at facing down these obstacles
• Sin-centric spirituality has made sin so big
• There has to be weeping and gnashing of teeth
• Guilt, shame, drama
The simplicity, the dailyness, the regularness…
• Of realizing the path we’re on is off
• Stepping back, turning, and taking another
• …gets missed because of the trauma of sin’s horrors
But if sin’s not that big a deal
• We deal w/ it the same way we deal w/ laundry
• We dirty it, then we take it off and wash it
Now, if, as we have been saying for some time…
• The point of the human experience
• Is not to be good consumers
Nicer house, nicer car, nicer zip code
• If it’s not to be good producers…
A good job, a good salary, respect of our colleagues
• If it’s not to have a good family
Well behaved kids, family members who play nice, act/look nice
But instead, if the point of being human is to dance w/ God
• To sense the Spirit of all that is
• To respond in a give and take w/ all that is true, good, right
• To engage w/ Spirit that lives w/in us…
• Lives in all that is…
…and to partner w/ this Spirit in making earth as it is in heaven
…Then a significant part of the dance
• A third movement in the dance
• Is to purge ourselves of anything that gets in the way of this
While sin is just not that big a deal in light of God’s love, grace, mercy
• It is a big deal in keeping us from our destinies
• It very much gets in the way of us being what we are made to be
• It very much sidelines, distracts, and gets us caught up in lesser truths, lesser priorities, trifles
I want something
• I want it bad!!!!
• But often, that something is getting in the way of my destiny
God, the desire to change some things in my life is really strong.
I’m tired of cycling through the same bad instincts that keep me stuck in this bad thinking. I really want you to deliver me!
Or, Lord, I’m sick of these financial worries.
The kids… O Lord the kids
Now God, I know my desire for these changes is good and right
But I also know that they have taken center stage
The desire for these changes has replaced desire to be in sync w/ you
The desire for these changes has replaced the desire for Truth, Life, for being loving, selfless, humble, gracious, kind
We say again and again that God exists at our very centers
And when we live from this center, we dance w/ God
• self-seeking subsides
• self-serving recedes
• dancelessness is miraculously replaced by the dance of divine love
w/ God, w/ the people God so loves
• self-interest is miraculously exchanged for goodness
however, most humans, most of the time, don’t live out of that center
• stuff gets in the way
• life’s china cabinets crowd out the game
• life’s four-poster beds distract us
but this simple third dance step…
• flushing out the sin
• cleansing the soul
• living from the purified center
…this is the pathway to destiny, purpose, and fulfillment