Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
I don’t speak often of sin, but when I do, I dig into it!
I find the public vision of sin feels a lot like Goldilocks — we’re either saying too little, too much, or, if we’re lucky, its just right. And the same goes for what we talk about when we talk about sin, which is to say, we like to pretend some sin doesn’t count and other sins really count and the nice middle group of sin is the most comfortable.
The problem with all of this is that many Christians have an unhealthy obsession with sin or hold a too light a vision of sin, so we don’t really know what to do with it. Or how to feel about it. Or even when to call something a sin. I think this obsession and our binary and Goldilocks understandings, too, are unhelpful.
In this week’s gospel, we see Jesus daring to eat with notorious sinners — and the Pharisees have a problem with that. At its root is not the nature of sin, but of judgment, mercy, and the capacity for God’s people to offer grace. Jesus expresses a desire to seek out the lost, the ones separated from the grace of God, and restoring them to community. The Pharisees, on the other hand, are sitting inside the community and seeking to keep the lost out of it.
This is telling, I believe, of a more robust vision of sin and mercy than any abstract individualistic example. Because the point isn’t whether a sin is bad in the abstract, but about one’s impact on one’s community — and what happens to them. There is joy in celebrating the restoration of the lost. The insider who kicked them out or keeps them out? Let’s notice how little joy is offered in that.
With love,
Drew+