The Soul's Stagnant Sins

Our sin . . . for us religious people . . . is what separates us from knowing, loving, and embracing the divine.  It’s what keeps us from validating the humanity of the other.  It’s what keeps us completely and utterly lost.  It’s a spiritual disconnect.  And I think it begins with a lack of trust and a lack of gratitude.  We don’t trust our place as God’s child so we “hypocritically tolerate sin while verbally espousing spirituality.”[1]

And I see this in myself too – it’s my own “lostness.”  I don’t want to live this way.  I want to confess the sin that looms over my life like a black veil.  I hate it.  I’m ready to name it and take it down.  But what I fear more than admitting it is imagining what you may think of me when you find out I have it.  So I bury it and try to be the only one that truly knows about it.  I live hypocritically.

This “lostness” is hard to admit because it’s tied so closely to my desire to be good and virtuous.  I diligently try to be acceptable, likable, and a worthy example for others. 

We all try to avoid pitfalls of sin.  But here’s the paradox, our own effort to not sin actually makes it harder to feel at home in who we are.  We become less free, less spontaneous, less playful, and less willing to be loved.[2]  And if we’re not careful, our story fades away into despair never knowing if we ever actually confessed and turned from these sins.  
  
So before that happens, I think we should spend the rest of Lent repenting and shedding light on the dark, gross corners of our soul.  Lent is the season of repentance and renewal.  So, we don’t start with the Easter Celebration; we start in the shadows of our sins.  And as you know, it’s not easy or comfortable to look into that mirror.  But the gospel reminds us to look anyway. 

We religious people must confess and turn from our respectable, hypocritical, judgment-driven, and resentment-carrying sins.  We must look in to the mirror and see a soul where sin has been accepted and respected, where sin has been allowed to sit, stagnate, and fester.  We must see this, for it is the only way to move from repentance to renewal. 

Every year, about this time, I try to engage in some Spring Cleaning around the house, but one area has always been off-limits.  It is the spare bedroom closet that has become my “dumping grounds.”  It is filled with items we don’t really need, but we don’t really want to spend time going through them. 

It will never get cleaned if we don’t open it.  If we keep the closet shut, ignore it and pretend it doesn’t really exist, the problem still remains. 

Sin is similar.  We can avoid talking about it, hoping it will just go away.  But it won’t. 

So, this Lent, we must embrace our “lostness.”  We must take our first step.  We must talk about it.  We must confess it.  We must allow our sinful selves to be redeemed by our Savior.  We can give up the resentment and the guilt, we can stop harboring the bitterness and we can let go, stop trying.  It won’t be easy.  It won’t be comfortable.  But, it will be worth it.

[1] Taken and adapted from a sermon preached at McAfee
[2] Taken and adapted from Henri Nouwen’s “The Prodigal Son”

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