Sermon Proper 9 Year A

Proper 9
July 3, 2011
Romans 7:15-25a


Good intentions—we all have them. In fact, I would go out on a limb and say there is probably no one here who lives their life governed by bad intentions—there are very few people who set out on a daily basis to hurt others, to abuse others, to take advantage of others and to do so knowingly, and yet we all do it and do it every day even with the best of intentions.
Even with the best of intentions, sometimes we mess up, we know we aren’t doing the right thing, but we still do it—“I don’t know why I’m acting the way I am” we say. We know better and yet we keep doing the very things we don’t want to do. It can be so frustrating and sometimes try as we might we cannot understand our actions, our hurtful words—“why did you do x?” we say to our children and they respond, “I don’t know” which is absolutely the most frustrating response we could get—especially when we are furious. But sit back and think about it, could it be that is the most honest answer they can give? In today’s age of psychology and enlightenment, we want to give a reason to all behavior—uncover the subconscious reason for behaving certain ways. I’m not saying that’s not important and sometimes very necessary, but I would challenge that in always doing so, are we really just looking for excuses for our behavior? Are we trying to explain something that has no good explanation—are we indeed trying to explain the power of sin?
The power of sin also manifests itself in ways we don’t know. A more complicating and distressing part is the times we do things that hurt others or that lead to an outcome we didn’t intend and we had no idea. Perhaps we say something and it’s misunderstood, perhaps we’re part of an organization that hurts others in ways we know nothing about—
Sin—we don’t like to talk about it even here at church. We don’t like to talk about it because it’s hard to understand—it’s hard to face; it’s hard to admit. We need a better understanding of sin, if that is even possible. Look closely at Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul doesn’t write about “a sin” but rather “sin.” The omission of that little word “a” completely alters Paul’s meaning of sin from how we understand it. “A sin” reminds us of a report card; a list of what we do well and what we need to work on---checks for good behavior, needs improvement etc. Paul writes of sin, not of “a sin” because for Paul sin is more than the sum of human misdeeds. Yes sin sometimes manifests itself in misdeeds, but Sin is a powerful force—sin is part of the powers and principalities of this world, and sin resides everywhere. The sin of which Paul writes is the distortion of relationship with God—and a distortion of our relationships with one another. Sin is not the breaking of rules—although that results from sin—sin is the breaking of relationship.
If I go back for a moment to my critique of psychology, I have to retract a little bit—why are relationships distorted? Do we need to know and understand that? Possibly—considering Sin in the way Paul writes about it as a distortion of our relationship with God—a turning away from God, we have to consider why that occurs—one theologian explains it this way, “Sin is the turning from God-centeredness to self-centeredness—the self’s insatiable desire to secure its own acceptability through acquisition and possession.”
That we can understand—we live in a culture that promotes the individual—we live in a culture that says you have to look out for yourself no one else will. Take care of yourself; protect yourself; even step on or over those who are in your way. That’s not to say that our society doesn’t say to help others, and there are many people here and elsewhere who give of themselves and their treasure tirelessly — society teaches, however, to give to charities, do outreach but make sure you take care of yourself first. Make sure when you write that check its tax deductible; make sure when you decide on your giving that you have plenty left for yourself. Make sure when you volunteer that it doesn’t exhaust you too much. I’m generalizing and over simplifying—I’m making it seem that there’s one right way and one wrong, but it’s not that way at all. For example, there is nothing inherently wrong with making sure we get tax write offs, it’s even fiscally responsible—everything in this world cannot be brought down to two columns—good and bad It would be so much easier to live in a world of black and white. It would be easier to live in a world where for every situation we can say “this is the moral way to behave and this is not.” In that world sin would be “a sin” or a collection of a sin. Sin, as Paul explains it however, is about injustice, and sin resides in our gray world.
Now that we know how Paul is writing about sin; now that we have considered the power of sin, what do we do about it? I would venture to guess there are very few people if any here who consciously choose to commit a sin. And that is what today’s letter to the Romans is talking about—it’s not Paul’s personal diary or a letter of confession; rather, Paul is speaking of the universal experience of humanity—the experience of truly wanting to do the right thing and yet failing again and again. The frustration of knowing the right thing to do and yet doing something else—sometimes knowingly sometimes not—Paul is writing about the reality of being powerless to Sin. Paul is writing about turning away from God and from one another even when we have the best of intentions.
How many times do you sit in church on a Saturday night or a Sunday morning—you hear the sermon, or the prayer of confession, a hymn, or some other part of the service really hits you and you think this week I’m going to do so much better. This week I’m going to live every day the faith I’m proclaiming here in church. This week I’m going to see the goodness in others. And then Monday comes—if you’re lucky—for others of us—you simply get in the parking lot and deal with who sits where in the car. The intention is there—the desire is there—
Last week I was with my sister and brother celebrating my mother’s birthday. If you want to understand—or at least have an illustration of the complication of relationships, put grown siblings back together for awhile. Here are the people who have known you the longest—they know the good and they know the bad—it’s interesting to watch the dynamics fall right back into how they were. Roles are played out in the same way EVEN though we have all grown and matured—we want to be accepted for whom we have become, but we don’t want to let go of who we were. I am fortunate to be as close to my siblings as I am—but.. So we’re all together having a great time, the Prince and his sisters. Although we were having a great time, every once in awhile (more every that awhile) I was being not very nice—being quite sullen and I have no idea why—truly I don’t. I knew I was acting not nice, I was telling myself I was acting not nice, and yet I kept doing it. It seems a bit strong to say I was jeopardizing our relationships, but I was jeopardizing our time together, it wasn’t my intention and I had no idea why. I could probably try to dissect the relationships then and now; I could try to point the finger at life circumstances, but what good would that do? Explaining away bad behavior does not change bad behavior. Instead I said to my sister, “I’m sorry I’m acting like a brat. I have no idea why and I don’t want to be this way.” Her reply, “I’m sorry too; sorry about whatever is going on, how can I help?” That is an illustration of grace—and that’s what God gives us. Again and again we mess up and God says, “How can I help?” We are given the space to start over—
We pray in the prayer of confession, “we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” And in another prayer we say, “forgive us for our sins known and unknown, sins we have done and sins done on our behalf.” These are important words—these words acknowledge the power of Sin and they acknowledge God’s grace. The slate, if there is even a slate, is wiped clean. Even with the best of intentions, we cannot defeat sin. God defeated sin through Jesus Christ. We can, however, accept God’s grace and extend God’s grace and we learn to live into God’s grace.
And so we return to church each week and we return to our lives with our best intentions acknowledging that we are not holy people or a holy church obeying, but rather we are a holy community of people with the best of intentions trying to live into our faith—together.