There is (for me) always a sort of tension between the enormity of God’s love and the enormity of humankind’s inability to cope with God’s love. This, of course, is the very definition of “sin,” which means being apart from God. Many faith traditions, assuming people are not bright enough to figure this out for themselves, promulgate lists of “sins” and tell people not to do those things. This is wrong, this is foolish wisdom; the only true sin is what you do that separates you from God.
Ponder that for a moment. What do you do that separates you from God? I know what I do. I get something like a fury in my soul in which I become self-righteous. I know that I am right and everyone around me is wrong. I long for retribution. This is sin. This is sin because I have put myself first among others; it is sin because I have made myself the judge; and it is sin because in doing these first two things I have completely forgotten about God. And I have forgotten about God by forgetting about those around me. Yet, how are we to put such a thing on a list? It is easier to say eating meat is a sin or having sex is a sin or making money is a sin and to be done with it. Of course, none of these is sinful in or of itself; it is only in the intentions of your heart and soul that sin, separateness from God, can take place.
GLBT people are weary of the whole notion of sin. We are accused of being sinful just by the very nature of our being. All of us at some time or another have run into self-righteous (there’s that word again) folk who quote at us from the Bible to convince us of our “sin.” And yet, there is nowhere in the Bible such a passage; rather there are pieces of texts that are taken out of context for the purpose of oppression. That is sin, regardless of the text, because oppression is sin.
In today’s Gospel Jesus flies into a just such a rage, excoriating the money changers with a handmade whip. It was just the kind of rage I described, the sort that only a human on the edge can have. And yet, because it was human Jesus, it was also the divine excoriation of evil from God’s own temple, both in the reality of the money-changers in the story and in the metaphor of Jesus’ own body as the temple of God. And in the midst of it all Jesus says to make an end of sin and in its place he will build the glory of God. That would be you and me, my friends, for in our lives as children of God we embody the very glory of God. Psalm 19 verse 1 says “1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.” And in 1 Corinthians Paul writes that God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, hence those lists of sin, and in its place God has equated faith with God’s own glory. For those who believe are saved.
God is merciful to those who keep trying, to those who purge sin and embrace belief. Love God and love one another my friends; that is what God who is merciful and full of compassion asks of us.
*3 Lent (Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19 Coeli enarrant; Romans 7:13-25; John 2:13-22)
©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 