OH SINNER…

 

 

For a year now As I Went Down in the Valley to Pray, has been a favorite song of mine. It has an excellent rhythm for dancing and the music and images carry me back to my childhood when Christian story and imagery touched the deepest, most emotional places in my heart and mind.

 

 Alone in my living room dancing and singing “As I Went Down” I experienced a sustaining sense of community. The invitation, for each member of the family to “come on down to the valley to pray”, is emotionally powerful to me. I feel joyful as I call out to Mother, Father, Sister and Brother and ask each to come with me to a place where we will speak openly about that which is important, that which is essential.

 

I did not picture my own mother, father, sisters or brothers. I did not specifically picture any particular individual. I think I called in a general way to all people who have been my companions in my life. My family, my husband’s family, members of this church, other Unitarian-Universalists I have known, friends from the past, from work and my neighborhood, all these people have been Mothers or Fathers, Sisters or Brothers and I hope they will all come down to the valley with me to pray.

 

 

“Oh Sister, Let’s go down

Come on down, won’t you come on down,

Oh Mother, come on down, down in the valley to pray.

 

“Oh Brother, Let’s go down,

Come on down, won’t you come on down,

Oh Father, come on down, down in the valley to pray.

 

“Oh Sinner, Let’s go…”

 

Whoa!!! Sinner, Oh Sinner???

 

Wait a minute. The mood was gone. “Oh Sinner, Lets go down, Come on down, won’t you come on down.”

 

This just didn’t work. I did not feel the same sense of connection, invitation, welcome.

 

And I didn’t know why. While wondering why “sinner” was such a disconnect for me it popped into my head that we do not talk much at church explicitly about sin. We not only do not talk about sin per say but we do not even talk about whether we SHOULD talk about sin. And I thought, “Why is that?”

 

Then came the July/August 2004 UU World and an article by Rev Forrest Church on evil and sin. Well! There goes my contention that UUs do not talk about sin at all. But they still do not talk about sin much and Rev Church makes a provocative case for the need to take sin more seriously. 

 

So triggered by those events here I am ready to talk a little about sin.

 

First I want to look at my sense of disconnect at inviting the “Sinners” to join with me, Mom, Dad, Sis and Brother in the valley praying.

 

Xenda Lindel said to me, “I like that verse because it means everyone is invited. I do not have to have done everything right. I can have made mistakes and I am still ok to come down and pray right along with everyone else.”

 

I agree with Xenda that that is a logical and probably the intended meaning of that verse. The song invites everyone down to the valley to pray, no exceptions. For the record I think that if a church is going to be an effective church, if it is going to be what a church should be then all comers must be welcomed.

 

So I hope my problem was not that I wanted to keep sinners away from the valley, but that I do not want to LABEL anyone as a sinner. I do not want to call anyone a sinner. That may be the basic reason I have a problem with that last verse of that song.

 

Next what about Unitarian Universalists and sin?

 

There is one thing I have heard UUs say many times about sin. A number of visitors and members end up here because there was too much talk about sin and the inherent sinfulness and evil of humans in the churches they came from.

 

In this month’s People to People, Christy Bidler says of her early adult church going, “How could I sit there every Sunday and listen to the religious leaders telling me that we are not worthy and we are all bound for ‘hell’.” Many UU’s did not like that kind of talk and they like this church and denomination because they do not hear that kind of talk here. I am not here this morning wanting to take you back to those “good old days” of your experiences in hell fire and damnation churches.

 

For myself, I did not have those negative experiences in the Christian church I attended as a child, youth and young adult. Or maybe they just were not negative for me.

 

I was raised an Episcopalian. A standard part of the Sunday services in Episcopal churches was (and is) a CONFESSION. I remember liking confession. The part of the confession that I remember liking was, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.”

 

Well that confession fit my life experience. In almost any week there was something I had done that I thought the world would have been a better place if I hadn’t done it and almost every week I could remember something I had NOT done that it would have been better if I had done it and I liked the phrase “there is no health in us.” “There is no health in us” kind of fit how I felt about the fact I was always messing up. Also the Confession went on: “But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us…Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; according to thy promises…” And in my family and in the churches I attended they emphasized those promises and believed that as long as we kept trying to do our best we were ok and going to heaven.

 

I did not remember the words “miserable offenders”. The complete version was “But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders…” I do not remember thinking about myself or other people as miserable offenders. And since I was a child the Episcopalians have changed the prayer book. I’m told by an Episcopal friend that many Episcopalians did not like the heavy emphasis on people being sinful. They took out both “there is no health in us” and “miserable offenders”. They have left in one of the things I did like about confession which was the recognition that doing wrong consisted both of sins of commission (that which you do that you shouldn’t do) and sins of omission (that which you ought to have done and didn’t get around to doing.) When I was young I was hugely impressed with the sophistication of that idea that you could do wrong both by doing and not doing.

 

So, while, I am hugely reactive to terms such as Almighty Father and Lord God Almighty and He and, from my present agnostic framework to any insistence that there is a creator, I am not reactive to the word Sin.

 

But plenty of you are. Xenda may like the verse “Oh sinner, lets go down…” but she hates the word sin and thinks that human culture has done a lot of damage with the concepts of right and wrong. Joel Severinghaus, knowing he was going to be out of town to-day, asked what I would be talking about and indicated he thinks ideas about sin are often used in ways he dislikes very much. My experiences in the Episcopal Church were ok by me but maybe you would have hated them. So as with many topics we have disagreement and I do not expect us to suddenly adopt Sin as topic of the month.

 

I do think UU’s already think and talk a lot about Right and Wrong.

 

“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done and we have done those things we ought not to have done.” So say the Episcopalians.

 

“Each day I am newly reminded of my unworthiness: a dozen thoughts misspoken; another day when the good I do falls so far short of the good that I could do; myriad small interchanges, moments of sharing that strain to the breaking point my desire to be generous, helpful, and kind; months of careful work lost by a moment’s impatience, a careless word.” So said Elizabeth Tarbox in the meditation we first heard from Mark Stringer, our pastor, on May 30^th this year.

 

I am struck by some similarity of image in those two statements. I see that similarity as evidence that many humans share the experience of not living quite as effectively as they would like to live.

 

I think we hear more evidence of that shared experience in informal conversations heard frequently around the church.

 

“I meant to bring something for the food collection but I forgot.” “I had some flowers blooming in my yard but I forgot this was “Flower Communion” Sunday.” “I hate losing my temper and yelling at him, but he won’t do anything I say and then he ran toward the street just when a car was coming and I just lost it.”

 

Following the Confession the Episcopal Priest says, “The Almighty and merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit.”

 

Then from this morning’s meditation: Tarbox continued: “But when I am here at the edge of creation, breaking with the small tide over the sand, the need to do good rolls away…What I have done or failed to do has left no noticeable mark on creation…Reassured, I am called back to my life, to another day.”

 

Again we have some similarity. We have the confession followed by some grace and consolation and a look to the future.

 

Again we hear this informally in our church setting. “Oh I know what you mean. I am always forgetting things. I know you usually bring food for the basket.” “Oh yes kids push you to the limit. I know you are working to find new ways to negotiate with him and I can see it is helping.”

 

I present you with the above examples to demonstrate that we UU’s already talk about how we ought to act. We may hesitate to use the labels right and wrong. We may rarely use the word sin but I think we are talking about related issues. 

 

Other evidence that we are concerned with how people ought to act is our interest in and sometimes actions in support of Social Justice and fairness issues. Many of us take seriously the UU principals and purposes when they say: We covenant to affirm and promote justice, equity, liberty, a responsible search for truth, and when they call on us to confront powers and structures of evil and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature. The Principals and Purposes are our TEN COMMANDMENTS, our communally accepted guidelines for life although you do not have to agree with all of them to be a member of our church.

 

Since it is timely and related, let me tell you something about that Forrest Church Commentary, CHOOSE YOUR ENEMIES CAREFULLY from this summer’s UU World.

 

Church says, “Liberal theology doesn’t take sin and evil seriously enough…” which suggests to me that Church thinks UUs should talk more about sin.

 

I think, in this Commentary, Church demonstrates how he thinks basic concepts about sin, evil, right and wrong apply in today’s real life situations, specifically at this time in dealing with the war with Iraq. If we need such concepts we will need to discuss them to formulate them.  The commentary was taken from a sermon Church preached May 16^th this year. I think the main thrust of Church’s sermon is to challenge the us/them attitude so prevalent in our country (and in the world) at this time. He starts by saying Hitler, Stalin, Hussein and bin Laden are evil. But he quickly points to the US prisoner abuse in Iraq as evidence that being American and/or having lofty ideals does not “immunize us from sponsoring evil.” He wants us to think about the reality of human attributes in order to better understand how to minimize evil. I think the article makes some solid points and I urge you to find it and read it. I do not have time to give you an accurate picture of his main point.   

 

Church says, “Given our natural egotism and instinct for survival…sin is bred in the human bone.”

 

I find some truth in each of those statements. If an organism is going to survive it must somehow meet basic biological needs.  I personally would modify Church’s statement by dropping the word egotism and just say, “Given our natural …instinct for survival…sin is bred in the human bone.” I stand with some sadness in the face of that reality. But I think it is an image that vividly describes the human predicament. Each of us is both an individual and a communal organism. We are programmed biologically to do all we can to insure our personal survival. Yet we long to develop and maintain loving relations with our human companions. In fact due to the helplessness of our infants we must maintain some cooperative relations with our human companions or the species will probably die off. But any individual human in her lifetime finds herself many times having to choose whether to act in her or his own self interest or in the interests of others. Sometimes she cannot do both. Life is complicated enough we often do not know we are making the choice. That is the reality I am picturing when I say “Given our natural instinct for survival sin is bred in the human bone.” I actually like the word sin in that statement. I like the poetic impact of that image. That impact takes me to the edge of creation where I can ground myself in contemplation of the dilemma and consider my options. 

 

If you are ready to run screaming from the room because you absolutely cannot abide the phrase “sin is bred in the human bone” Church suggests an alternative, “If you don’t like the word sin substitute another—humankind’s innate inhumanity—but don’t underestimate the concept…”

 

I agree. The same point can be made and debated using different words.

 

Church also says “The world is not divided into sheep and goats. Each of us is both sheep and goat.”

 

I want to think more about sin being bred in the human bone and what implications that might have for my living. (“I want to” does not mean I will.) I agree with Church’s image that each of us is both sheep and goat. I would like to think more about that image.  I would like to discuss in some detail Elizabeth Tarbox’s statement that, “What I have done or failed to do has left no noticeable mark on creation…” Maybe she is not impacting creation as a whole but she is probably impacting individuals. However if she has given all she can then she has given all she can and I am reassured that reassured she goes back to her life.

 

The classic call to the religious community is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Church’s article calls us to consider whether we are comfortable enough to stand some afflicting. I think Church thinks that the future of the world demands that we extend ourselves beyond our comfort level.   

 

This is a far as my curiosity has led me today in thinking about sin. If any are interested we could go farther a couple ways. Either thru more sermons, tell the Religious Services Committee, or thru adult education discussion groups or thru Small Group Ministry topics. Tell your Religious Education Director or Minister as appropriate. Thank you for bearing with me so far.