You have said it before and I have, too, to a friend, your husband or wife: "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. I'm just not myself today." And then maybe you have heard it said: "He's not really a bad boy; he's just trying to find himself." Or perhaps you have used this expression: "He's not human, he's an animal." Perhaps also you have said this about your boss: "He thinks he's God Almighty."1
All these expressions describe the contradiction that plagues all of us -- that I am not, you are not, what we think we are. In the Bible it is called sin. Sin means we are not and we do not act as we should. In the Middle Ages some men and women wanted to love God with all their heart, mind, and soul. So they reasoned that they first had to know the Word of God. But then they reasoned that they also needed to know the enemy; that which separated them from God. So they sought to describe sin as concretely as they could. Out of that desire to know the enemy arose a list of seven deadly sins: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. And then it was said that out of these seven principal sins all other sins were connected. For instance, sloth entails malice. Anger leads to murder and cruelty. Greed is related to theft, and so forth.
We are going to be talking about sin over the next eight weeks. Not only because we are all plagued by these sins and made miserable by them, but because we want, like the medieval men and women, to know the enemy that spoils our lives. With this knowledge we may be better able to live in the image of Jesus Christ. Addressing these sins will, indeed, help us to see the enemy and then reveal to us what it takes to live the virtuous life as believers and followers of Jesus Christ. As it says in Proverbs, "Without a vision the people will perish" (29:18 KJV).
In talking about the seven deadly sins we are seeking above all to proclaim the Good News, the gospel of Jesus Christ. In talking about these seven deadly sins we are not saying God is a critical parent, snooping round to sniff out sins in order to punish or reject us. Instead our aim is to hear about these sins so we may come to name them, to make a confession about them, and then to repent, making it possible for us to turn away from them. It will be tough going though. Our biggest danger will be our own self-deception. You see, all too easily we will think that one of these particular sins pertains especially to someone we have in mind, and not ourselves! But why? Because we prefer to think of ourselves not as sinners, but as nice people who occasionally run out of bounds and make mistakes.
Loren Eiseley, a naturalist, wrote a book called The Immense Journey (2) in which he describes an unforgettable event in his childhood. He and some friends were walking through a pastureland and discovered an old abandoned well. After removing the vines, they took the cover off to see down inside. At first all they could see was a deep, dark well, just enormous darkness, but in its midst they could also hear water trickling. Suddenly, as they were peering into that deep darkness the clouds overhead moved and a shaft of sunlight lit up the bottom of the well. And there, on an old rusty pipe, Eiseley tells of seeing the ugliest, blackest, slimiest creature he had ever seen. As he remembered it, it had a thousand legs and horns all around its head. Scared to death at how hideous this creature was, Eiseley and his friends, as quickly as they could, put the top back on and ran away. Eiseley later reflected that only a creature that loved darkness could live in such conditions. Only a creature that wanted to live out of and get away from the light could live in such darkness.
But this scene is no less true of people. We are glad that there has been darkness to hide our sins. Even though there will come a time, as the apostle Paul says to the Corinthian church, when "the Lord will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart" (1 Corinthians 4:5), for the moment, we are glad there's darkness.
Let me ask you a question. If someone took the lid off your life and looked down into its darkest parts, what would he find? What kind of ugliness would he see? If someone looked down into your deepest, darkest secrets, what kind of shameful thoughts would be exposed? What mean or totally embarrassing deed would be revealed? Imagine if we could get a video tape recorder and record your entire life; the unedited, uncensored, and unrated version of your life? Every thought you ever had, every word you ever spoke, every deed you did? And what if we were to show that tape here for everyone to see? Would you be willing to have such a showing with friends, neighbors, family, and church members all present? Let me ask, do we have any volunteers here for such a showing? Can I see a show of hands out there of those who are ready to show their unedited, unrated life? Is there anyone awake out there this morning?3 (If someone does raise his hand, as a young person did in my congregation, you might say, "A brave person. I'm impressed that you would volunteer to undergo such an ordeal. The average person, the average church member, wouldn't dare.")
Quite naturally people avoid revealing their sins. It's quite normal to take actions, sometimes extraordinary actions, to avoid any of our sins being seen. But on occasion the deepest, darkest parts of who we are, are revealed. For instance, driving down the highway another car cuts in front of you, and suddenly things come out of your mouth that you never knew were there. Actions take place, anger boils out of you; and then you wonder, was that me? Where on earth did that come from? Was that really me? Well, you know what's happening. We would rather not admit it, but it's that dark side of us getting exposed to the light. (4)
It's a curious thing, but one of the most criticized parts of a Presbyterian worship service is the Confession of Sin. People say, "Why do we have to be reminded of all this negative stuff every week? It's just so negative, so gloomy, and right after a cheerful hymn of praise. Let's just talk about good things, positive things. In church I don't want to be reminded of how wrong I am and how wrong the people around me are." Such remarks, of course, point to the urge we all have to deny that we are sinners, the urge we all have to push away the dark side in us and pretend it isn't there. I hate to say it, but all of us -- including myself -- like to pretend we are better than we are. But no matter how hard we pretend and try to hide the dark side of us, something always comes up to expose our highly edited lives. Something always exposes the acts we use to fool others and even ourselves. Things come out of us; we do things and we can't imagine where they come from. Embarrassed and hurt by these things, we suddenly find ourselves repeating the apostle Paul's words, "I do the things I do not want to do, and don't do the things I want to do; sin dwells within me" (Romans 7:15f).
This thing in all of us, which the Bible calls sin, has a way of showing up sooner or later. Sin has a way of finding us no matter how hard we try to hide from it or pretend it isn't there. Some may still say, "Yes, that may be true, but why do we have to talk about all this bad stuff? Why do we have to talk about sin? Can't we talk about something more uplifting in the church? There's a lot of good stuff out there and in here; it's unbalanced only to talk about sin." Well, the reason we talk about sin is because of Sutton's law. Sutton's law? Yes, it's a law named after Willie Sutton who was a famous bank robber. When Sutton was asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, he said, "Because that's where the money is." So the reason we focus on sin in church is because that's where the payoff is; that's where the wounds and pain are, and that, then, which is our real focus, is where healing can take place.5
Have you ever been to battle with pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, or lust? Of course you have, we all have. We battle with them, if not every day, then at least every week. But we want to deny these sins and say we have never really been attracted to them or even spent time with them. They're so unpleasant, frightening, and dangerous, and yet they are old acquaintances; we know them on a first name basis. We would call them old friends, if we called them friends. But they're the enemy. Surprisingly, it is important, it is to our advantage, that we know these deadly sins on a first name basis because then we can deal with them by means of God's power.
God's power to deal with sin comes to us in three ways: confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Let's look at confessing our sins. In "Alcoholics Anonymous" three things are required.
First of all you have to say, "I have a problem." No one else can make that statement, neither my wife, my husband, nor my parents. No, I alone am to blame for this problem. I am the problem. Second, you have to say, "I can't solve this problem alone, I need God's help." And third, you make a commitment to change, to turn away, to repent from the problem. To change your life. The Bible calls these three things by these names: confession, repentance, and forgiveness. These are the three things we use in dealing with the problem of sin.
Wholeness and health come to us with the confession, "I did the thing I didn't want to do. I'm sorry. I am to blame." Chris Webber, the star basketball player for the University of Michigan, managed to get ahold of the ball with only eleven seconds left in the final game of the 1993 NCAA tournament against the University of North Carolina. All he had to do was take the ball down the court, put the ball through the net, and Michigan would have won. But as Chris came down the court with the ball, he called for time-out. Unfortunately, his team had used up all their time-outs, and so they were penalized with a technical foul. UNC scored and won the game. After the game the reporters rushed Chris Webber, and his face was one of devastation. He said this though, "I'm sorry. I lost the game. I apologize to my teammates." Chris Webber had made a mistake that brought him humiliation and loss, but he admitted it. He offered no excuses. He didn't say, "They should have told me!" He didn't say, "I'm only one player on the team, I'm not the only one who lost the game." He offered no excuses, but instead he apologized for his mistake. He said, "I lost the game, I made a mistake." A confession, straightforward and honest. (6)
Alice Metzenger lived in Oregon as a gourmet cook under that name for ten years. Then one day she went to the police and turned herself in for a crime she had committed 23 years earlier. A crime that would surely send her to prison. But Catherine Ann Howard, her real name, said she had to answer to that crime in the past to keep on living in the present. Her therapist said that this confession was bringing about healing in Catherine's life. Her husband said, "Catherine wants the truth and her life back. She wants to be whole again, and her confession is making that happen."7
Of course to confess your sins is no easy matter. To say, "I was wrong," takes enormous courage. But those few simple words can create a whole new world. Try using them some time. If you want to experience real power and healing in your life when you're trying to avoid guilt that really belongs to you, say it, "I was wrong," and then feel the burden being lifted and the surge of new life pouring in.
The second way to deal with sins is to repent from them. To repent means to make a U-turn, to turn away from those things that are not good and true. In the comic strip Peanuts Lucy is again trying to get Schroeder's attention as he plays the piano. Lucy asks, "Schroeder, what is love?" Schroeder stops playing the piano and replies, "Love is a strong attachment to someone, loyalty to someone or something, devotion to a person or persons." Then Schroeder goes back to playing the piano, and Lucy responds, "My, doesn't he look great on paper?"8
Indeed, the highly edited version of our lives that we present to others looks great on paper, but things aren't what they seem. I know how that happens with me. There have been times when my wife has reviewed one of my sermons, and then she makes the comment, "Great sermon, too bad you don't live it."9 My response has been, "Now come on, wait a minute." But it's true. We can talk the talk, we can know what's right and good and true, look great on paper, but do we live it? Sigmund Freud once said, "I have found little that is good about human beings; in my experience most of them are trash."10 I think Jesus would reply to Dr. Freud by saying, "What you overlook, Dr. Freud, is that human beings can be recycled, people can change; a person, no matter how trashed his life is, can be born again into a new person by deciding to turn and follow me." People can repent of their sins. As we say in church, people can be born again.
The third way the Bible deals with sin is to proclaim the forgiveness of God. Young children inevitably will hurt themselves. They stumble over their shoes and fall on the hard pavement, skinning their knees. There are adults who have hurt themselves and others in worse ways by the actions they have committed. Anyone devastated by the losses resulting from words and actions may well wonder, "Can I ever be restored? Can there ever be healing? Preacher, you have no idea how hurt I am, how messed up my life is. Can I ever be restored?" What I say is this: "Yes. Yes. Yes." Yes, you can be restored. Because where there is pain, agony, loss, brokenness and shame there is above all of that God's grace in Jesus Christ. By God's grace we can be made whole and healthy again. By God's grace we can have new life and become a new person, because by God's grace we receive the good news that our sins are forgiven and washed away by the body, the blood, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Come now to this memorial table set with signs of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and be born again into a new person through the grace of God in Jesus Christ, who forgives us our sins, calls us to live before God, and gives us new life.
Children's Message: For an object use a dry eraser pen and board. Ask the children about things they have done that they knew were wrong; e.g., using bad language, hitting, yelling. Write these actions on the board, but as you write the words misspell them. Then talk to the children about how we are here in church to learn and know how we can stop doing those kinds of things that hurt others and ourselves. Remind the children that "Jesus calls us to do good. But of course sometimes we make mistakes. See, look at these words. I misspelled every one of them! Now, what do you do when you misspell words? Yes, you erase them and start over. (Erase the words.) So here's an example of the good news we have in Jesus Christ. First, we see that we make mistakes. Then, we do something to correct those mistakes. We tell someone we are sorry. Or we go and make things right. And when we do that, it makes us feel so good. God does the same thing with us. In Jesus Christ, God hears us when we say we're sorry and then wipes away our mistakes so we can start over again. And it makes us feel so good; like we are brand-new."
1. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, Rev. ed. (Westminster/John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 1994), p. 212.
2. Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey (Random House: New York, NY, 1959), pp. 37-38.
3. Adapted from the audiotape sermon series by Todd Jones, An Album of Sermons on "The Seven Deadly Sins" (First Presbyterian Church, 393 E. Main Street, Spartanburg, SC 29302), tape number 1, "The Deadly Sins" (1994).
4. Adapted from Jones, ibid.
5. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth (Simon and Schuster: New York, NY, 1993), p. 45.
6. "I Cost Our Team the Game," by William F. Reed in Sports Illustrated, Vol. 78, April 1993, p. 28ff; adapted from Jones, ibid.
7. Adapted from Jones, ibid.
8. Jones, ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Cited by Robert Wolff in About Philosophy, 5th edition (Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1992), p. 284.