The "S" Word

"You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it." - G.K. Chesterton

Some of you do not share my faith, some of you do. To all of you, though, I want to say that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the times that the "S" word, sin, has been levelled at you like a weapon. I am sorry for the times it has been used to make you feel dirty or unworthy or small. I can't apologize on behalf of all who follow Jesus, but also know that as I write this I am pained by what has been done to you.

There are few words in the "religious" vocabulary that are more overused or less understood than "sin". A lot of folks have given up using the word because of all its baggage, but it's important to note that the baggage comes with the English word, "sin", and not from the original Greek or Hebrew roots in the Christian scriptures.

The Greek word for "sin" in the New Testament was hamartia, which is, of all things, an archery term. It does not call to mind some ominous dark cloud of forbiddenness, nor some bubbling cesspit of iniquity, but a target that we are called to hit but which we frequently miss - to "sin" is to "miss the mark". When you consider that this term describes everything from the "little white lie" to genocide, it seems a frighteningly gentle word to use.

"Ah, but what has this to do with missions?" you may well ask, since this blog is titled "A Missionary Position". "What is your 'missionary position' on sin? <snicker snicker>"

I'm glad you asked! The New Testament writers definitely did point to a number of things that constitute missing the bulls-eye, but they spent far more time showing us the bulls-eye itself. As I have endeavoured to communicate in previous posts (eg "There's No Such Thing as a Missionary"), every person is called to mission. Sin invariably prevents us from being effective in some area.

Let me use another metaphor - imagine that instead of sin, the church is all about wearing seat belts. We sit in the parking lots with our seat belts on and wave copies of the car manual and the local statutes on seat belt usage at people through our open windows. And the world looks at us and wonders what we're smoking, because the seat belts sure don't seem to be doing much.

The problem isn't that the seat belts aren't doing anything, it's that we're not doing anything where not wearing a seat belt is going to hurt us. We're sitting in our cars and not moving, when everything about our cars screams that they are built to drive!

That's my "missionary" position on sin. Sin makes sense from the perspective of a people called to offer light and hope to the world. It makes sense to keep our relationships with people from falling apart in ways that will prevent us from being effective in showing love to a hurting world. If people want to join us in that effort - and the biggest part of our mission is always to invite others to join us in loving and serving - then we can share with them about "sin", so that they can be as effective as possible.

What isn't helpful is to simply look at something and attempt to categorize it as "sinful" or "not sinful" - I have seen far too many articles by well-meaning Christians who throw around these terms as though they're simply arbitrary moral codes. We must always be looking at things as "Will this help me or hurt me?" rather than "What category does this fit into?"

Here's the catch - if we're looking at something, especially something that our scriptures tell us is "missing the mark", and we're saying to ourselves, "This can't possibly hurt me or anyone around me!" then sometimes the question that we really need to be asking is rather, "What could I be doing where this would be harmful, and why am I not doing that?"

Theo