"You're a SINNER!"
"That's a SIN!"
"Sinners go to HELL!"
All of which may be true statements for all we know - both theologically as well as figuratively - but I think the reason we don't really hear those statements as true is because of the implication that goes along with it, that the person saying those words is somehow different, somehow exempt from sin.
Here's how it goes, with the missing text in brackets:
"You're a SINNER! [and I'm not. . . ."]
"That's a SIN!" [I would never do that!"]
"Sinners go to HELL!" [and I'm going to heaven! na, na, na, na, nahhhh, naaaaah!"]
My first response to the unspoken text tends to self-defense or even counter-attack.
Fisticuffs ensue.
This is not helpful.
[long pause] So. What is sin? [long pause]
It seems to me that the current thinking (so-called 'Christian', anyway) is that sin is doing 'bad' things, or breaking laws of God (or his church). That's certainly one way of looking at it.
Oswald Chambers, a Scottish minister who died in 1917, would disagree:
We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming.Now before you get your panties all in a twist over "original sin" and bluster about who are they to say that you (or your mother) is a bad person (and so on, and so forth. . . .), just stop.
Oswald goes on to say, "Sin is blatant mutiny against God."
If you don't believe in God? Good luck with that, and you can stop reading now. (Yes, I'm thinking that within the God-believing framework of thought, not believing in God would be considered a "blatant mutiny" - and therefore a "sin" - but hey! You don't believe, so what do you care?! If you're not playing Marco Polo, you don't have answer "Polo" every time someone inquires "Marco". Move on.)
For those who remain, who believe (or suspect) in God, remember the bit we started out with: "Sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming." It seems to me that facts of life are important to take account of as we try to come up with the meaning of life.
If sin is mutiny against God, and mutiny against God is a fact of life (rather than just a momentary shortcoming), strangely, that helps me to get on not only with life, but also with sin! No, I do not mean that I may now go off and do bad things with impunity. Rather, I mean that I see rebellion against God as inherent in my life (which leads me to wish to order my own life, my own way - or the way I am told by prime-time television and my neighbors, friends and family) and begin to see that it is ordering my own life (differently than God wants it ordered - and God doesn't want me to order it, he wants to order it) that leads me into trouble to begin with.
Out of that (ordering my own life) comes all the "shortcomings" we usually associate with "sin", but it goes much deeper than that. It goes beyond good or bad, to whose rules apply. It goes to the prayer Jesus gave his disciples when they asked him to teach them how to pray:
. . . Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.That's because it is a fact of life that I want my will to be done; I want my kingdom established here on earth.
And so does every other person on the planet.
That is the original sin. That is the unique - but universal - sin of our own.
Out of it, when I don't get my way, comes lying, cheating, murder, mayhem, theft, jealousy, rage, contempt, betrayal. . . . on and on and on and on and on. . . . . . .
Recognizing that, I eventually cry out with St. Paul: O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?
