St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church
|
|
|
|
The Seven Deadly Sins Mark 1:9-15 March 5, 2006 (Click this link to see the bulletin)
1. SIN. What happens to you when I say that word? Do you get cold chills and shiver? Or do your eyes roll back and then glaze over? Do you think "Sin? No, I’m not really a sinner. I’m a very nice person who occasionally makes mistakes." Is that your response? That is certainly the response of many of us. And yet Paul says, "[we] have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Even the Psalmist David (one of the worlds great sinners!) wrote in Psalm 51: "Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). Now, this verse in one of its first English translations reads "in sin did my mother conceive me," and has often been used to prove that the very act of conception is sinful. Not right! But that’s a topic for another day! Maybe. 2. THIS day, the first Sunday of Lent, and Lent is the season when we reflect seriously on our lives up to this point, and earnestly try to repent of the thoughts and actions which keep us from being closer to God. So, throughout all the Sundays in Lent, we are going to focus on SIN. To be even more specific, we will look at [and hear about] The Seven Deadly Sins. Oh, that oughtta bring ‘em in! "Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than the doctrine of sin." That’s a direct quote from the 17th century, from the writings of mathematician, inventor and quasi-theologian named Blaise Pascal. He continues, "And yet, without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves." He’s right! We don’t understand what makes us act the way we do! Paul said it well: "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." (Romans 7:19-20) "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24) 3. However much we would like to deny it, sin is nevertheless a large part of our lives. So I’ll say it again. SIN. Only this time I’ll ask a different question. What is sin? Through the centuries, sin has been defined as "missing the mark," or "an offense against some religions or moral law." My very favorite definition comes from Shusaku Endo’s novel called Silence. "To sin," he concludes, "is not to steal or tell lies. To sin is to walk brutally over someone’s life, and be quite oblivious to the damage left behind." Whew! That’s heavy! Sin is a serious subject, one worthy of our attention during Lent. You may have heard of mortal sins. They were first described in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas as those sins, like murder, which would make you ineligible for God’s grace. GULP! And he coined the phrase venial sin, which isn’t quite as bad, and will not get you kicked out of the kingdom. It’s a bit like the difference between murder one and manslaughter. Murder is intentionally killing someone; and would be a mortal sin. Manslaughter, on the other hand, is accidentally killing someone, and would only be a venial sin. Got it? Plain sin, mortal sin, venial sin. Add to that sins of commission [actually doing something we should not do] and sins of omission [not doing something we should do]. There was one little boy who got a bit mixed up and defined sins of omission as those sins which we ought to commit but do not. I think maybe he "missed the mark!" 4. Plain sin, mortal sin, venial sin, sins of commission, sins of omission. But what about deadly sin? Is there such a thing? Pope Gregory the Great says , "Yes, there is." A "deadly sin" is a sin which is fatal to spiritual progress. There are seven of them: Pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. About 700 years before Thomas Aquinas, Pope Gregory gave the Seven Deadly Sins their present form. This was about the year 595 or 600 – a loooong time ago, but you may recognize from that date that it was well after the canon of the Bible closed. Yes, it’s true – you will not find a neat list of The Seven Deadly Sins in the Bible. Pope Gregory the Great "invented" them. He wanted to provide a detailed list of sins to help "spiritual warriors" who wanted to "fight the enemy." Even though he wrote them specifically for monks in monasteries, word got out to the rest of the church, and soon many people found them helpful. And that is my hope for this series. Even though they are not explicitly biblical, we nevertheless find examples of them in its stories. 5. You may be thinking, "Well, I’m not coming back till Easter! I don’t want anybody messing with my life!" If that’s what you’re thinking, remember what happened just before Easter. Jesus sat with his disciples -- the good, the bad, the ugly, the one who would betray him, the one who would deny him, the one who would doubt him – and he fed them all. And even as he hung dying on the cross, he said, "Father, forgive them." You see, we’re safe by his side. God does not expect us to live without sinning any more than God expects us to live without eating. When we’re hungry, food is ours for the taking; when we sin, forgiveness is ours for the asking. It’s just that, the more we’re aware of our sin, the longer it takes to confess them to God, who already knows and is waiting for us with open arms. Thank God! |
|
To navigate through the web site, click on the buttons at the top or on the side of the pages or on any links within the page. Use your browser's Back button to return to the previous page if that page does not appear in the buttons available. External hyperlinks should open in a new window - close it to return to this page. |
