Sin and hell/damnation and the devil - too much!

(Part I on Sin/Forgiveness, Hell/Damnation, and the Devil)

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121018.cfm
Isaiah 35:1-10
Luke 5:17-26

It’s too much to cover — sin, hell and damnation, and the devil. So, I’ll just ruminate on sin. Gotta get over that hill first anyway.

When we ask God to help us we rarely begin from a place of forgiveness for our sins. Many of us are secretly ashamed or cowering in our guilt quite a bit of every day. Unattended, that guilt piles up. God can attend to it. God, however, is not our usual source for help. We try to ignore or hide each instance of shame and guilt from everyone, including God. We don’t call on God until we’re out of other options. We should, but we don’t. 

We fix something else about ourselves — our eating habits, the cleanliness of our house, our friendships, our entertainment choices, and maybe our artwork. We don’t turn to God right away when we’re to blame for something. It takes awhile for our misconducts to accumulate into a tearful shoulder-shaking plea for God to forgive us. 

Not that we can only start from repentance in order to speak to God. Any step we take toward engaging God gets a thumbs up. The need for forgiveness, however, should be more often in our God engagements because the excising of sin by God allows the serious sit down, meaty chats that he wants. Not only is God the one who can remove sin from our lives, he insists upon it for us to walk with him and do all the cool stuff he’s got in mind for us. 

That’s a big problem in this life. Sin courses through every pathway we take. The idea of being free from sin in order to be embraced by God seems impossible. In fact, freedom from sin is simply a matter of frequency. Our clean slates can be erased over and over again. That’s amazing news, but not actually front page material for most of our daily reading. We’re more inclined to become swallowed up by our sin before we do anything about it. We don’t tick off each transgression with our hands up to God.

There’s a rumor that the more we repent to God the less we transgress. It’s a rumor because the data hasn’t been collected from those who repent frequently. They are somewhat invisible to the places most of us go. I don’t even know if they have phones or email accounts.

And yet, with every acute crisis of pain, brokenness, anguish and danger all of us will cry out to the Almighty. Not always for forgiveness, if ever, but mostly, if not always, for his intervention to take away a pain, stop a dangerous consequence, etc. Periodically, or rather inevitably, the crushing weight of some offense or crime in our past will get us to cry out to God, specifically for a reprieve from our sinfulness, a relief from our guilt. I find that it’s only until sin literally crushes me before I cry uncle. “OK! I can’t take it anymore! Please forgive me! I need you!”

Our physical debilitating problems make for potent opportunities to seek God’s help because shock and horror present more immediate anxiety than the slow boiling of depression and humiliation. This is weirdly logical. Depression and humiliation from the source of some culpability on our part no longer get resolved through regular healthcare assessments that chart the progression of our faith life. Get back to God, get better, sin, get back to God, get better, etc. Unless we're on a 30 day retreat, or sitting in jail. That is, we don’t get reminders to aright ourselves to God like we do to floss daily, or to get our annual checkups. Unless we’re avid Lenten observers we may not review our need for forgiveness as often as we snake the sewer lines of our house.

When has a doctor or a friend or a relative or a plumber, or even our mother and father, asked us these three basic questions about living our life fully. Are you taking good care of yourself? Are your basic needs being met? Are you right with God? 

We get the first two all the time. That last question will trigger offense in someone, we assume. Verbalizing in professional settings that we need to be right with God is simply not done. That’s because sin and forgiveness aren’t healthcare related subjects! 

Jesus thinks they are.

When the fellas lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof into a theological crowd of heavy hitting spiritual Jews, where Jesus was enlightening them on his ministerial objectives (probably), the first thing Jesus did was measure the lowered down man’s faith. The appropriate application of a cure to Jesus, even though everyone on hand was primarily concerned with Jesus’ healing abilities to the outward body, meant he should assess his faith, account for repentance, and then forgive the man of his sin. 

“As for you, your sins are forgiven,” Jesus told him. Only through God’s authority can such a thing happen. At the time of Jesus the doctoring function of forgiving sins belonged solely to God. The folks were shocked. Was Jesus saying he was God? 

Uh, yes. That’s my interpretation, backed up by some big names.

To assure the scriptural experts in his company that Jesus was proper in forgiving sins — that he had that authority — he performed the miracle they expected. He healed the paralyzed man in an instant. “There, that should satisfy you,” Jesus said (paraphrased) to those in the lecture hall. The man left Jesus in an ecstatic stupor. Both the weight of his sins and his body had been lifted. Many in the crowd were likely convinced of Jesus' power and authority.

Forgiveness of sins today remains the doctoring function of God. But we do participate in encouraging each other to repent. We have the authority to speak on behalf of God. We Catholics are serious about this. Our earliest ancestors ordained a sacrament where the anointed presbyterate can act as God’s healing ears and voice, purposely for serious sin, invoking the words, “And so, I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” 

St. Augustine put the need for repentance and forgiveness well. “In the Church, therefore, there are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater humility of penance.” That’s taken from his writings, Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed. Augustine went to great lengths explaining how we operate in a sinful world and need prayer constantly to reset our lives on a path of repentance. Our baptism removes the deadliness of sin from our DNA and joins us to a community of faith rooted in forgiveness. Prayer repeats our commitment to repentance. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, or confession, absolves us from serious crimes and habitual transgressions.

Sin is everywhere. We need the faithful to help us avoid it, and the healing of our serving priests to publicly announce our repentance and salve our wounds. It’s healthcare insurance that recognizes our frailty — without limitations on pre-existing conditions, no co-pays, and it’s available for free many places outside of the United States. It may be difficult to get in Socialist countries and sorely theologically entrenched lands, though.

This kind of life, a purposeful returning to God’s favor and welcome within the body of Christ — the Church of believers in fellowship and prayer and worship — appeals to fewer people every time I check the polls. The reality of guilt and shame and subsequent repentance are not just foreign to many. We are urged not to confess our sins, especially to the FBI. In fact, sin has become a swear word.

Nonetheless, forgiveness is essential. The earlier we reconcile with God over our shame and guilt the sooner we can engage him in a relationship. God will attend to us even in our sin. His graces fall upon everyone, even the rats.

We can live like rats, scurrying to grab crumbs when we’re starving, no longer aware that God put those crumbs there, but there’s a seat at the table waiting for us. The fresh fruits, warm breads, and succulent meals at the table are a cornucopia of offerings. The veil in front of us falls away with repentance.

We are not rats by design. Many of us are brought up rat-like, and the rest of us morph into one. Due to this sinful world’s reconstruction of authorities and spirituality, we’re probably more rat-oriented than we know.

Once we’ve reached out to God, though, and he reaches back, the goodness of God awakens our frailty and faults. That’s where we find out if we believe God’s mercy can help us, or if we shove our humiliations and guilt down deeper. We get help and recognize it, or we shrug, not believing it’s from him.

God’s words to us must be felt for us to be free. “I love you. You are forgiven. I have forgiven you.”

Next for the subjects of hell/damnation and the devil. Well, not right now. I’m not quite ready. A little later after sin has sunk in.