Speaking of Sin

But who needs it? All of us, especially lectionary preachers who are called upon, from time to time, to reflect honestly about a tricky subject to which our Bible is replete with references.

Back in the 1970s, Dan Hicks (of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks) posed the musical question: “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?” Brown Taylor asks, “How can we speak of sin if we have forsaken the language that best describes it?” She says sin is not only an important concept for Christians to be familiar with, “sin,” she insists, “is our only hope, because the recognition that something is wrong is the first step toward setting it right again. There is no help for those who admit no need of help. There is no repair for those who insist that nothing is broken. And there is no hope of transformation for a world whose inhabitants accept that it is sadly but irreversibly wrecked.”

For a very long time we mainline Christians have shied away from any but the most liturgical acknowledgement of sin. We might commit it; we might even confess it silently in worship, but we sure as heck don’t want to talk about it. Way back in 1959 Phyllis McGinley said, “Sin has always been an ugly word, but it has been made in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugly, but passé. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.”

Brown Taylor makes abundantly clear that there is much new to say about this troubling subject, especially in the still-spreading wake of South Africa’s grand experiment in forgiveness: Bishop Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Dealing effectively with sin, says Brown Taylor, has everything to do with how much peace we can expect to have in our families, workplaces and communities. Her most insightful comments are on the same subject of repentance: “Repentance begins with the decision to return to relationship: to accept our God-given place in community. Needless to say, this often involves painful changes, which is why most of us prefer remorse to repentance. We would rather say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I feel really, really awful about what I have done’ than actually start dong things differently. As a wise counselor once pointed out to me, our chronic guilt is the price we are willing to pay in order to avoid change. We believe that if we feel bad enough about what we are doing, then we may continue doing it. Plus, the guilt itself is so exhausting that it drives us right back into the arms of our sins, which may provide us with our only reliable comfort.” Remarkable words.

So, how to get over the hump of our satisfaction with remorse as a substitute for repentance? Brown Taylor recommends that the church embrace again the ancient practice of penance. Today penance is out of fashion, even out of our vocabulary, but Brown Taylor argues that nothing is better suited to help us. In centuries past, “penance was not punishment, it was repair. Penance was a way back into relationship, but like all other good spiritual practices, it was vulnerable to corruption . . . it smacked of works righteousness . . . it undercut grace. As a result, we have come to substitute words for actions; we say we are sorry.”

Interestingly, she argues further it is now appears that South Africa’s experiment in truth and reconciliation is hamstrung for lack of the added element of some kind of penance. Confession and pardon appear not to be enough. “Two years after the conclusion of the hearings, more and more victims are doubting that there can be any lasting peace without justice. Unless those who suffered see real material transformation in their lives, warns Bishop Tutu, ‘You can kiss reconciliation goodbye.'” Penance must be added to confession and pardon for meaningful community to be restored.