March 22, 2009
Numbers 21.4-9; John 3.14-21
I realized the other day that, during this season of Lent, we often ignore the so-called “elephant in the room.” The elephant, in this case, is, of course that ugly word and that ugly concept—Sin.
I know, we don’t want to hear about it. Most of us have had to sit through countless number of hours listening to priests and preachers go on and on about sin. Many of us have had it driven into us and pounded into us and we just don’t want to hear it anymore. Let’s face it, sin frightened us when were younger and heard those preachers preaching at us, because we were told that we were all sinful and that unless we got rid of our sin—ultimately, an impossible task—we would go to hell. But the fact is, we can’t get through this season of Lent without at least acknowledging it. Certainly, I as your priest, would be neglecting my duty if I didn’t at least mention it.
Besides, whenever there’s an elephant in the room, I like to face it. And in facing the elephant, we sometimes realize the power we thought that elephant had has been overcome.
Also, I think most preachers today, certainly most Episcopal preachers, are wary of preaching about sin. We’re often afraid we might offend. Or worse, we’re afraid what we say may hit too close to home and we might come across as hypocrites. Or often times, people just don’t believe in sin anymore. But as much as we try to avoid it and speak around it or ignore it, for those of us who are Christians, we just can’t. We can say we don’t believe in it, but that doesn’t get rid of it. We live in a world in which there is war and crime and recession and morally bankrupt people and, in looking at all of those things, we must face the fact that sin—people falling short of their ideal—is all around us.
And during this season of Lent, we find ourselves facing sin all the time. It’s there in our scripture readings. It’s there in our liturgy. It’s just…there.
I certainly have struggled with this issue in my life. I don’t like preaching about sin. I would rather not do it.
But…I have found myself thinking about it a lot this Lenten season. And part of it has to do with the fact that I have been reading this Lent a fascinating book. The book is called Christ of the Celts by the modern Celtic scholar, J. Philip Newell. Newell begins his book with a very interesting definition of sin. Newell quotes the ninth century Celtic scholar John Scotus Eriugena as saying that sin is “an infection,” a “leprosy of the soul.” Newell writes:
“And just as leprosy distorts the human face and makes it appear grotesque and ugly, so sin distorts the countenance of the soul and makes it appear monstrous, so much so that we come to believe that is the face of the human soul.”
Newell goes on to write, “And just as leprosy is a disease of insensitivity, of loss of feeling, so sin leads us into an insensitivity to what is deepest within us, and more and more we treat one another as if were not made in the image of God.”
He refers once again to Eriugena who “makes the point that in the gospel story when Jesus heals the lepers, he does not give them new faces. Rather he restores them to their true faces and to the freshness of their original countenances.”
In other words, so many people tend to define us by the sins we commit—the define us by illness—the spiritual leprosy within us—rather than by the people we really are underneath the sin. And that person we are underneath is truly a person created in the image of God. Sin, if we look it as a kind of illness, like leprosy or any other kind of sickness, truly does do these things to us. It desensitizes us, it distorts us, it makes us less than who were are. It blots out the image of God in which we were created. And like a sickness, we need to understand the source of the illness to truly get to heart of the matter.
Alexander Schmemann, the great Eastern Orthodox theologian, wrote, “Essentially all sins come from two sources: flesh and pride. If we are honest with ourselves, if we are blunt with ourselves, if we look hard at ourselves, we realize that, in those moments in which we have failed ourselves, when we have failed others, when we have failed God, the underlying issues can be found in either our pride or in our flesh.
Certainly, in this season of Lent, we find ourselves pondering our sins. It is a time when we take into account where we have failed in ourselves, in our relationship with God and in our relationship with each other. But it is never a time to despair. It is never a time to beat ourselves up over the sins we have committed. It is rather a time for us to buck up. It is a time in which we seek to improve ourselves. It is a time in which, acknowledging those negative aspects of ourselves, we strive to rise above our failings. To use the Celtic image, it is a time for us to seek healing for the leprosy of our souls. And, in seeking, we do find that healing. We find that healing in, to use the language of Martin Luther, “the long dark shadow of the Cross.”
The Cross is more than just a symbol for us. It is more than just a decoration we put in our churches on our pews and altars. It is more than just jewelry we wear. J. Philip Newell tells us, “[the Cross] is a revelation of the Presence [of God] at the heart of the universe. It reveals the greatest truth, that we will keep our heart only by giving our heart away, that we will find ourselves only by losing ourselves to love, that we will gain salvation only by spreading our arms wide for one another and for the earth, and that we will be saved together, not in separation.”
In the Cross, we find our healing.
In the Celtic tradition we find the so-called “Celtic Cross.” We, at St. Stephen’s, are fortunate to have a Celtic Cross above our altar. A Celtic Crosss is a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. According to some defintions, that circle symbolizes eternity. It symbolizes God’s love showing through the death ofJesus on that cross. It also symbolizes for us the unending cycle of death and resurrection, of that fact that even though Jesus died a horrible death on that instrument of murder, God still triumphed—life still triumphed over death. The Celtic Cross is a very potent symbol for us in our healing. Gazing upon the cross, as those Israelites gazed upon the bronze serpent that Moses held up to them, we find ourselves healed. And as we are healed, as we find our sins dissolved by Christ on the cross, we come to an amazing realization. We realize that we are not our sins. And our sins are not us. Our sins are no more us, than our illnesses are.
Numbers 21.4-9; John 3.14-21
I realized the other day that, during this season of Lent, we often ignore the so-called “elephant in the room.” The elephant, in this case, is, of course that ugly word and that ugly concept—Sin.
I know, we don’t want to hear about it. Most of us have had to sit through countless number of hours listening to priests and preachers go on and on about sin. Many of us have had it driven into us and pounded into us and we just don’t want to hear it anymore. Let’s face it, sin frightened us when were younger and heard those preachers preaching at us, because we were told that we were all sinful and that unless we got rid of our sin—ultimately, an impossible task—we would go to hell. But the fact is, we can’t get through this season of Lent without at least acknowledging it. Certainly, I as your priest, would be neglecting my duty if I didn’t at least mention it.
Besides, whenever there’s an elephant in the room, I like to face it. And in facing the elephant, we sometimes realize the power we thought that elephant had has been overcome.
Also, I think most preachers today, certainly most Episcopal preachers, are wary of preaching about sin. We’re often afraid we might offend. Or worse, we’re afraid what we say may hit too close to home and we might come across as hypocrites. Or often times, people just don’t believe in sin anymore. But as much as we try to avoid it and speak around it or ignore it, for those of us who are Christians, we just can’t. We can say we don’t believe in it, but that doesn’t get rid of it. We live in a world in which there is war and crime and recession and morally bankrupt people and, in looking at all of those things, we must face the fact that sin—people falling short of their ideal—is all around us.
And during this season of Lent, we find ourselves facing sin all the time. It’s there in our scripture readings. It’s there in our liturgy. It’s just…there.
I certainly have struggled with this issue in my life. I don’t like preaching about sin. I would rather not do it.
But…I have found myself thinking about it a lot this Lenten season. And part of it has to do with the fact that I have been reading this Lent a fascinating book. The book is called Christ of the Celts by the modern Celtic scholar, J. Philip Newell. Newell begins his book with a very interesting definition of sin. Newell quotes the ninth century Celtic scholar John Scotus Eriugena as saying that sin is “an infection,” a “leprosy of the soul.” Newell writes:
“And just as leprosy distorts the human face and makes it appear grotesque and ugly, so sin distorts the countenance of the soul and makes it appear monstrous, so much so that we come to believe that is the face of the human soul.”
Newell goes on to write, “And just as leprosy is a disease of insensitivity, of loss of feeling, so sin leads us into an insensitivity to what is deepest within us, and more and more we treat one another as if were not made in the image of God.”
He refers once again to Eriugena who “makes the point that in the gospel story when Jesus heals the lepers, he does not give them new faces. Rather he restores them to their true faces and to the freshness of their original countenances.”
In other words, so many people tend to define us by the sins we commit—the define us by illness—the spiritual leprosy within us—rather than by the people we really are underneath the sin. And that person we are underneath is truly a person created in the image of God. Sin, if we look it as a kind of illness, like leprosy or any other kind of sickness, truly does do these things to us. It desensitizes us, it distorts us, it makes us less than who were are. It blots out the image of God in which we were created. And like a sickness, we need to understand the source of the illness to truly get to heart of the matter.
Alexander Schmemann, the great Eastern Orthodox theologian, wrote, “Essentially all sins come from two sources: flesh and pride. If we are honest with ourselves, if we are blunt with ourselves, if we look hard at ourselves, we realize that, in those moments in which we have failed ourselves, when we have failed others, when we have failed God, the underlying issues can be found in either our pride or in our flesh.
Certainly, in this season of Lent, we find ourselves pondering our sins. It is a time when we take into account where we have failed in ourselves, in our relationship with God and in our relationship with each other. But it is never a time to despair. It is never a time to beat ourselves up over the sins we have committed. It is rather a time for us to buck up. It is a time in which we seek to improve ourselves. It is a time in which, acknowledging those negative aspects of ourselves, we strive to rise above our failings. To use the Celtic image, it is a time for us to seek healing for the leprosy of our souls. And, in seeking, we do find that healing. We find that healing in, to use the language of Martin Luther, “the long dark shadow of the Cross.”
The Cross is more than just a symbol for us. It is more than just a decoration we put in our churches on our pews and altars. It is more than just jewelry we wear. J. Philip Newell tells us, “[the Cross] is a revelation of the Presence [of God] at the heart of the universe. It reveals the greatest truth, that we will keep our heart only by giving our heart away, that we will find ourselves only by losing ourselves to love, that we will gain salvation only by spreading our arms wide for one another and for the earth, and that we will be saved together, not in separation.”
In the Cross, we find our healing.
In the Celtic tradition we find the so-called “Celtic Cross.” We, at St. Stephen’s, are fortunate to have a Celtic Cross above our altar. A Celtic Crosss is a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. According to some defintions, that circle symbolizes eternity. It symbolizes God’s love showing through the death ofJesus on that cross. It also symbolizes for us the unending cycle of death and resurrection, of that fact that even though Jesus died a horrible death on that instrument of murder, God still triumphed—life still triumphed over death. The Celtic Cross is a very potent symbol for us in our healing. Gazing upon the cross, as those Israelites gazed upon the bronze serpent that Moses held up to them, we find ourselves healed. And as we are healed, as we find our sins dissolved by Christ on the cross, we come to an amazing realization. We realize that we are not our sins. And our sins are not us. Our sins are no more us, than our illnesses are.
For those of us who have had serious illnesses, when we are living with our illness, we can easily start believing that our sickness and our very selves are one and the same. When I was had cancer seven years ago, there were moments of despair and frustration. There were moments, as I lived with that illness within me, when I couldn’t see where the illness ended and where I began. We had become bound to each other in a way that I despised and hated.But now, as I look back at that time, I realize I wasn’t my cancer. For those of us who have had serious illness, it is a good thing for us to ponder and look back at our illness. It is important for our healing process to ask ourselves: how did it happen? Why did it happen? How can I prevent from it happening again?
The same is true of sin. In this seasons of Lent, it is important for us to ponder the sickness of our sins, to examine what we have done and what we have failed to do and to consider how we can prevent it from happening again. But, like our illnesses, once we have been healed, once our sins have been forgiven and they no longer have a hold over us, we do realize that, as scarred as we have been, as deeply destroyed as we thought we were by what we have done and not done, we have found that, in our renewal, we haven’t been given new faces. We haven’t been changed into some kind of super beings. We haven’t been instantly transformed magically into angels or saints. Rather, our regular familiar faces, scarred and destroyed as they were, have been restored and renewed. Our spiritual face, that essence of who we are and what we are to others and to ourselves, has been made into what they were intended to be—into something beautiful. Our faces, in which we can reflect the image of Christ to others, can show that image without flaw or shame or embarrassment. In the shadow of the cross, we are able to see ourselves as people freed and liberated in Christ. We are able to rejoice in the fact that we are not our failures. We are not what we have failed to do. But in the shadow of the cross we see that we are loved and we are healed and we are cherished. Once we recognize that, then we too can turn our faces toward each other, glowing with that image of Christ imprinted upon us, and we too can love and heal and cherish.
See, sin does not have make us despair. When we despair over sin, sin wins out. Rather, we can work on ourselves, we can improve ourselves, we can rise above our failings and we can then reflect Christ to others and even to ourselves.
So, let us gaze at the cross, held up to us as a sign of our healing God. Let our faces and our souls be healed. And, in doing so, let us reflect that healing to others so they too can be healed.
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