Reconciliation Service - Easter 2011
April 2011
Most of us were brought up to look on sin as an offence against God.
Most of us were brought up to look on sin as breaking the commandments of God.
Most of us were brought up to look on the commandments of God as edicts coming down from on high which we were commanded to obey.
Since Vatican 11, when moral theologians were allowed to express their beliefs freely, a different view of the meaning of sin has been emerging.
Sin is now looked on as a failure to be truly human. It is a refusal to live in accordance with our human nature.
This may sound a bit like humanism but there is a big difference.
We are created in the image and likeness of God our creator. Therefore our very human nature is based on the blueprint of God’s divine nature. Therefore what is wrong for God is automatically also wrong for me. What is good for me is also good for God.
As we read in the Bible; ‘This is the covenant I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them upon their minds’
So sin has nothing to do with breaking commandments arbitrarily handed down to me by a celestial being. Sin is acting against the wellbeing of my own human nature. Sin is my failure to be fully human.
People who are in charge of our prisons will tell you that at least 95% of prison inmates are there because of some addiction, some phobia, some sort of compulsive behaviour, some vital ingredient missing from their human nature due to upbringing, environment, or abuse.
In other words our prison inmates lack, to a greater of lesser extent, full freedom of choice to act in a fully human way. To act in accordance with their nature.
You and I, to some extent, have our addictions, phobias, compulsions, upbringing and environmental influences which affect our freedom of choice also.
These influences affect, to some extent, our ability to be truly human, to be truly free.
These influences imprison us to some extent, enslave us to some extent, bind us into patterns of thought and behaviour to some extent.
In fact my life is a constant struggle, not to avoid sin but to gain my freedom from the bonds that restrict me from being fully human - a struggle with the bonds that prevent me from being forgiving, from being compassionate, from being generous, from being kind, from being of service to others, from loving my neighbour.
When St. Paul says ‘a thorn was given me in the flesh.’ this is what he was talking about.
Freedom from these things which restrict me from being totally human is what Paul calls ‘the glorious freedom of the children of God.’
The opinion of this world is that Christianity restricts our freedom to do what we like.
That it restricts us from having a ‘bit of fun.’
Our prisons are chock a block with people who were just having ‘a bit of fun.’
The present world economic crisis is the direct result of people just ‘doing what they like.’
On the contrary we are created in the image and likeness of our God. We are created to be free to live as complete human beings - to be compassionate human beings, to be forgiving human beings, to be tolerant human beings, to be generous human beings, to be loving human beings.
So sin is something which harms me in some way. Sin is something which harms my neighbour in some way. Sin is something which I commit when I fail to live as a complete human being.
The various drives or motivations with which we are created, such as the drive to excel, to acquire, to accumulate, to anger, to eat, to reproduce, to please, to resist, to self preservation etc. etc. are all good and necessary in the complete human being. It is when these good drives begin to control my behaviour to a greater or lesser extent that I become less human, less free to choose what is good for me and for others.
I become the slave of a particular urge or drive; hence we speak of the slavery of sin.
These are the things I want you to think about during this reconciliation service. I want you to try and identify what particular drive or motivation (or as spiritual writers say what ‘passion’) is preventing you from becoming a complete human being - from living in the image and likeness of your God.
Halt the battle is recognising the identity and location of the enemy.