Crouching at the Door

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I need to write about Sin today, and it's unpleasant. I don't like talking about Sin, because it seems like we sometimes talk about it in the Church to the exclusion of everything else.

And I feel like we talk about the wrong things when we talk about sin.... not that the things that we list as sin aren't sins. I feel that we more often miss the mark when we talk about sin (see what I did there, Biblical scholars?)

It's important to recognize that we have sin in our lives, that sin is a huge and inextricable part of the individual human condition. It's important that we realize that immoral sexual practices, hateful language, interpersonal violence - all the things that we struggle with in our own lives - are a product of sin.

But the point that we miss when we talk about sin is how BIG it is, how it infects every facet of our lives, every level of our society. It is the lion crouching at the door, waiting to devour us whole - all of us.

I don't want to overstate this, but I also don't think I can understate it. This is a big deal. I don't get down with a lot of traditional "sin doctrine" - I don't think we all suck because the first man and woman ate from the wrong tree. I think we have a much bigger problem, a problem that is much harder to deal with.

We have a problem with Sin, because we have a problem with self.

We are absolutely addicted to ourselves. We will do anything to advance ourselves. We will do anything to defend our rights, our privileges, what we want, what we need. We will do this to the detriment of anyone else, without regard to the feelings, wants, needs, wants, rights and privileges even of those closest to us.

Need evidence for this premise? Turn on the news. Take a cursory glance at history.

This is where it gets real for me, because this is where the self and the society meet. Every single instance of large and small scale tragedy can be traced to an individual - or a group of individuals - exercising this addiction to self, advancing their own interests ahead of the interests of anyone else. Advancing their interests to the detriment of anyone else.

Poverty exists because people are addicted to making themselves wealthier.

Violence exists because people are addicted to making themselves more powerful.

Sexual exploitation exists because people are addicted to giving themselves more pleasure.

We are messed up, because our world is messed up. And our world is messed up, because we are messed up.

We cannot extricate this curse from ourselves, because the cause of the problem is also the solution.

We need less of ourselves and more of other-selves.

But, we can't do this alone. The Good News is, there is Someone who has shown us how.

"Whoever would come after me must take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would keep his own life will lose it. But whosoever will lose his life, for my sake, will find it."

We need to turn away from our sin, and turn towards the One who has promised to free us. We need to give up our addiction to Self, and rely on the One who has promised both an end to Self and the gift of a greater Self - a Self that is part of a whole, a Self that can never be extricated from the Other. In Jesus, ourself becomes otherself.

In Jesus, Self gets nailed to a cross. Other-self rises again.

The Sin of Self can only beget more selfishness, more Sin. The Other-Self that comes in Christ can only beget more Christ.

And I believe that we need more Christ and less Self in the world today.

My love to you, wherever you are,

Michael Brian Woywood
Dead in Sin
Alive in Christ