Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
© 2021, Dr. Tamilio
You could do a lot worse than the Book of Psalms as a resource for Lenten reflections. The Psalms offer words of praise as well as lament, words of thanksgiving as well as pleas for mercy. There is a reason why people love the 23rd Psalm so much: we’ve all been in the valley of the shadow of death and want God to lead us beside the still waters in verdant plains.
The Psalms are also theologically instructive. They give us insight into the ways and will of God. This, however, is not without controversy as we do not all agree on the fine points of doctrine. Look at today’s Psalter reading.
It has a confessional tone. It begins, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” That tone continues. When we get to verse five, we read, “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” That poses a profound theological assertion that is also quite controversial: were we born good or bad?
The phrase for this is Original Sin. Some churches and denominations focus on this more than others. More conservative churches embrace the idea, whereas more liberal ones reject it. The idea is that Adam and Eve’s first transgression — eating the forbidden fruit — brought sin into the world. Every human being inherits the stain of that sin. Some believe that the sacrament of baptism is what cleanses us from the consequences of Original Sin. There are other meanings that theologians across the ecumenical spectrum attribute to baptism. However, the connection with this sacrament and Original Sin is pervades the history of Christian thought.
The burning question is are we born with this sin on our souls? Are all of us bad at birth? We admit that we are sinners, hence the need to be saved by Jesus. But where did our sinful nature come from? If we aren’t born with it, when and how did we acquire it? Is the story of Adam and Eve metaphorical and symbolic? In other words, do we all eventually eat the forbidden fruit and fall from grace at some point in our development?
Either way, the point is that we recognize that we are flawed and need forgiveness. The bookstore shelves are filled with titles like Dr. Thomas A. Harris’ 1967 bestseller I’m OK — You’re OK: self-help books which suggest that the only thing wrong with us is in our minds. We need more self-confidence. We need to keep our ego in check. We need to be kinder to ourselves. We need to let go of the negative impact our parents had on us. In other words, all of our problems are personal and psychological, and, with discipline and a good self-help book or two, we will be fine.
With all due respect to psychology, this is only a piece of the problem. No self-help book in the world is going to fix the deeper, spiritual problems that plague all of us. This is because sin is a spiritual and a moral problem, not a psychological problem.
In his book Introducing to Christian Doctrine, Millard J. Erickson says this about sin:
On the one hand, we may define sin as that which is intrinsically bad rather than good. It is impure, repulsive, hated by God simply because it is the opposite of the good…On the other hand, we may define sin as involving not merely the bad but the wrong as well. In the former case [the bad], sin might be likened to a foul disease that healthy people shrink from in fear. But in the latter case [the wrong], we are thinking of sin not merely as a lack of wholeness or of perfection but also as a moral wrong, as a deliberate violation of God’s commands, and thus deserving punishment.[1]
Erickson raises an interesting dilemma. Is sin inherent, is it a part of who we are as if it is genetic? Are we born with it? Is it all Adam and Eve’s fault? If it is, then it is no more our fault than being born with any other negative genetic predisposition. I am not saying that we did not inherit Original Sin, but we typically say that no one is responsible for something that he or she could control. We would never blame a person who was born with a disease or genetic defect, for example, unless we were totally insensitive and cruel.
To be responsible or guilty of something, we need to choose to do the wrong. We think of sin as a moral wrong that someone has done. Erickson acknowledges this. Some people claim that the key ingredient that separates us from all other creatures is that we are moral agents: we know right from wrong and choose to do both. Therefore, sin can better be described as sins of commission and sins of omission, which we have discussed before. Sins of commission are the bad things that we do: when we hurt others or ourselves. Sins of omission refers to the good we live undone. Individuals are responsible for the things they do and, sometimes, what they do not do.
So maybe, the point of Original Sin is that we are not perfect. We fall far short of the life of shalom that God intended when he spoke from the void to sculpt the earth. Sin is something we all succumb to eventually, so, in that sense, the story of Eden is metaphorical in that we all eventually eat the forbidden fruit. We do so because we want to be like God ourselves. We exert our pseudo-divine power through our sinful deeds. Such sins are no less vile than some sort of stain we may have inherited — as if we are guilty because we are simply part of the same species.
Regardless of where we point our fingers to try to locate the origin of sin, it does exist and plagues humanity. It weighs heavy upon us. It is like lead that shackles the spirit. As we come to the end of this Lenten season, we are even more aware of this. Lent is a time that we focus on our sinful nature and how it separates us from God. We use this time to reflect and to purge ourselves of our sin as we seek absolution from God. It is a penitential time.
In one week, we will enter Holy Week. Palm Sunday is the beginning of the final stretch of Lent. There is a lot that occurs that week: Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper in the Upper Room, and the crucifixion.
[1] Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 214.