Most people are loathe to admit that they are just generally bent toward the bad, inclined to do it wrong. So when the Christian tradition declares to any and all, "You are a sinner," most people these days reply, "What did I do?" If sin exists at all, it is merely episodic, an occasional (and inexplicable) "lapse" from our better nature, which is at bottom "pretty good."

How foreign is the notion articulated by theologian Emil Brunner. Brunner once noted that we can, in principle, avoid any particular sin. And we often do. Few if any people give in to every dark impulse. The average person, whether or not he is particularly religious, resists many temptations that come his way on the average day. He does not slip the Snickers bar into his coat instead of paying for it, does not exceed the speed limit, does not shove the person ahead of him in line for the subway, does not grab and grope at the co-worker in the attractive dress.

In principle the sinner can, and often does, avoid any particular sin, Brunner noted. But what we cannot do is avoid every sin. We cannot not be sinners. We cannot claim that we have never done it wrong. We cannot promise that we will never do another wrong thing, speak another cross word, or think another angry thought in the future. Even if the alcoholic promises never to take another drink or the adulterer vows never again to wake up in the wrong bed and even if they keep those promises what they cannot promise is that in addition to staying sober or chaste they will also remain just overall sinless.

Evil is everywhere and often comes in the most banal, ordinary of trappings. Mark 6 reminds us of this, too. No less than John the Baptist ended up being killed not because of the machinations of world-class evil or the titanic doings of horrifying figures of towering, marrow-chilling stature. No, John was killed because somebody said something silly in a boozy moment of untoward sexual bravado. It's not quite the end we imagined for God's chosen servant John!