Sometimes when I hear people talk about preaching, they have said, "You know, I think we need to hear a lot more about sin."  Generally, of course, what they mean is, "We want to hear more about someone else's sin."  Why is it that other people's sin is just so blatant and easy to see?  Why is it that I have such trouble looking at my own darkness?  Sin --- it's just not a very attractive or politically correct term in our enlightened age.  Maybe it's because we tend to think of sin as those outrageous mis-deeds that make for a more interesting newspaper, usually the stuff of bad choices and poor behavior. But think for a minute about sin as condition.  Think about sin as missing the mark.  In her book , Amazing Grace, a Vocabulary of Faith, Kathleen Norris says, "Other people most certainly fall short.  But myself?  It is tempting to take the pharisaical route, and judge myself to be morally sound, not like ?them', whoever they may be.  Conversely, I might believe myself to be such a dreadful sinner as to be beyond remedy.  Redemption is for ?them', lucky fools, and all that is left for me is to wallow in despair.  To admit to being no more and no less than an ordinary sinner is not comforting, it does not shine with the glamour of despondency; above all it does nothing to foster my self-esteem. It is easiest simply to reject the whole concept as negative and old-fashioned."

          To admit to being no more and no less than an ordinary sinner?. pretty well sums up our predicament.  There is a great cartoon which shows someone talking to Rev. Will B. Dunn: "Let me get this straight, the word ?sinners' is spiritually incorrect?"  "You got it!  ?People of Foibles' is more sensitive, supporting and nurturing."  "I see, People of Foibles, repent!" "Repent is too harsh.  How about reflect?... or reconsider?... or Take a look at?... check it out?"   How about that for the call to a holy Lent, People of Foibles, check it out?

          The only way we are going to turn around is if we really think we are going in the wrong direction.  The only reason we are going to know the amazing grace of God is if we think that we are in need.  The only people who need forgiveness are sinners.  As one of my seminary professors used to say, "We've got the cure, but nobody has the disease."  The only way out is all the way in to the clear recognition of our own sin.  Admitting that we are in bondage to sin is in fact admitting our own limitations, our own desire to put so many things before God, our own need to be noticed for our good deeds.  If we were not sinners, this could be a very fine country club, no need for it to be a church.  A church is people who need God's love and grace.  A solid trust in grace demands a solid recognition of sin.

          We probably don't like to talk about sin because sometimes that has been the whole story.  Preachers would pound on the pulpit about the miserable worms and reprobates that make up humanity.  Sin was always something that someone else was doing --- behavior that somehow did not fit the moral code imposed by whoever was holding the club over someone else's head.  The focus has been on the miserable sinner, and the despair that leads us to think all is hopeless --- and that is because we are still looking at ourselves and our own actions, our own works, with an almost perverse pride that would have us be the lowlifes who are beyond God's reach.  Once again, it's all about us.

          That's why Jesus was telling people to do their fasting and almsgiving and praying in private, because it was just too easy for them to get the focus on their own swell behavior, call attention to themselves and not to the mercy and goodness of God.  This Lenten journey is a journey of the heart, a desire to come closer to God in prayer, a desire to show our love for God by giving to those who are God's people in need --- it is a journey of the heart, but the heart of the journey is Christ --- the one who dined with sinners, who healed sinners, who forgave sinners.  The one who called the self righteousness out and said it is God who deserves the glory, not your puffed up, holier than thou selves. Our call to this Lenten journey is to look inside ourselves, to see ourselves truthfully, but with compassion.  To see our brokenness, and the beauty that is ours, to see our failings and our faithfulness, but always, through the lens of God's grace.  Let this journey be one of deeper commitment, deeper discipleship, deeper prayer, not so that you can improve your stature before God, but so that you can give thanks for the work that God is doing in you, so that you can live fully in trust of God's mercy. Let God be God.  Mercy is for those for whom justice would demand death.  Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment captured that absolute scandal of grace when he wrote,  "At the last Judgment Christ will say to us,  'Come you also!  Come, drunkards!  Come ,weaklings!  Come, children of shame.'  And he will say to us, 'Vile beings, you who are in the image of the beast and bear his mark, but come all the same, you as well.'  And the wise and prudent will say, 'Lord, why do you welcome them?'  And he will say, 'If I welcome them, you wise men, if I welcome them, you prudent men, it is because not one of them has ever been judged worthy.'  And he will stretch out his arms, and we will fall at his feet, and we will cry out sobbing, and then we will understand all, we will understand the Gospel of grace. Lord, your Kingdom come!"

AMEN