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A sermon preached in Salisbury Cathedral on Sunday 15 November 2009 by Canon Edward Probert, Chancellor
I John 1.5-10 and Mark 2.1-12
"YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN"
I John 1.5-10 and Mark 2.1-12
‘Sin’ is one of those words so loaded with meaning that I use them with anxiety and usually only among consenting adults. Used carelessly I find people often completely misunderstand my meaning.
So please mentally set aside the list of misdeeds – either yours or other people’s – which you might produce in description of the word ‘sins’. I am not talking about breaking the 10 or other commandments, nor about sexual behaviour, let alone which house people live in and with whom; I’m not talking of deadly or venial sins. All human beings live complicated lives and have very complicated experiences, relationships, and feelings: it isn’t entirely easy to know when you’ve been angry, avaricious, deceitful, hurtful, to know what precious thing you have denied someone else, even when you’ve never stolen a thing in your life. Sins are always with us in the murk of daily life – in other words, we all live in sin.
The first letter of John communicates my meaning simply and with metaphor: it talks of walking in darkness, of our capacity to deceive ourselves, and says that, if we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar. It’s part of what we are – sin is the destructive, negative part, our remarkable ability to divide ourselves from what really matters in life, which is the love of God and of other people.
Since we’re all like this all the time, what we actually need to do is grasp it – or, closer to John’s terminology, to shine light on it and see the truth; and then we will be different. One of my problems with the word ‘sin’, and the focus on particular transgressions, is that the main result is often to make people feel guilty – and guilt is only useful if it goes as quickly as it comes. For people who live with guilt are trapped with something which cuts them off, separates them from others.
It’s the cut-offness, the separation from God and others, which is the disaster for us, not the particular things we do wrong. Rather like the dieter whose diet is itself an expression of their fixation with food, and who therefore goes right back to square one when they stop dieting, it isn’t the answer to our problem to focus on our sins. The answer lies beyond oneself. The answer is to focus on the truth of God in Christ – to reclaim that heart of all relationships.
Which brings me to the paralysed man who was carried by his friends to be healed by Jesus, and the superficially perplexing fact that the main message of Jesus was that his sins were forgiven. That was not why he had been brought, though I guess it’s possible that in a society where people believe that suffering is a judgement from God, this man’s physical problems may have been compounded by the torment of thinking that his condition was the result of his own moral failings.
What Jesus can see, but we who lurch around in darkness so struggle to see, is that our needs are a great deal deeper than we think they are. Contrary to all appearances, this man had something more wrong with him than his inability to walk. Have you noticed that Jesus tells him ‘your sins are forgiven’? In other words, without any of the formal structure of repentance and self-analysis which we are often told is necessary for forgiveness, this man is already there. And maybe, if sins are what destroy relationship, the proof of his forgiveness is the fact that he has at least 4 friends committed enough to him to go to incredible lengths to help him. They are not holding any sins against him, their love can’t be abated.
We need to know and be honest about what is wrong with ourselves, but self-knowledge is not the main business. That lies beyond ourselves, in our relationships with God and with others. So Jesus’ main concern was the man’s reconciliation with God and others; but Jesus was also concerned about his physical state, and by the negativity coming back from the religious obsessives nearby. So, by way of demonstration, the man is cured, and walks away.
Over the centuries, plenty of philosophers and theologians have been sceptical about the possibility of miracles, not least because belief in them makes people gullible and vulnerable. And many accounts of miracles down the centuries are implausible and some are patently ridiculous. However I have no doubt that, as this gospel reading reminds us, one of the reasons for the impact of Jesus was that some people were cured in his presence, and, like this man, walked away physically changed. We need to be aware of that possibility of change, just as we are rightly aware of how important our bodies are to our overall sense of well-being.
But having said that, the specific physical ailments which may bring us to Jesus, as this man’s paralysis brought him, are no more the key to what is wrong with us than any of our particular sins may be. Our lives won’t be magicked right by being cured of our ailments, because what is important about life is a lot bigger than what is wrong with us, and vastly bigger than our own perception of what is wrong with us.
It is absolutely right – in fact essential – that the Church is engaged in the healing ministry, because the work of Jesus is to make people well. So today we thank God for, and pray for, those who have taken on this responsibility of interceding, of laying on hands, of supporting through prayer all who ask for these ministries. This healing ministry is not some hole-in-the-corner, slightly embarrassing add-on to the proper work of the Church. It is part of the Church’s core business. But neither those engaged in this ministry, nor any of us who may ask for it, should approach it with any hope of predicting the outcomes. God our maker and redeemer sees deeper than we do, and answers to prayer may well be as unasked for, as surprising and perhaps unwelcome, and as liberating, as the paralysed man’s discovery that his sins were forgiven.
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So please mentally set aside the list of misdeeds – either yours or other people’s – which you might produce in description of the word ‘sins’. I am not talking about breaking the 10 or other commandments, nor about sexual behaviour, let alone which house people live in and with whom; I’m not talking of deadly or venial sins. All human beings live complicated lives and have very complicated experiences, relationships, and feelings: it isn’t entirely easy to know when you’ve been angry, avaricious, deceitful, hurtful, to know what precious thing you have denied someone else, even when you’ve never stolen a thing in your life. Sins are always with us in the murk of daily life – in other words, we all live in sin.
The first letter of John communicates my meaning simply and with metaphor: it talks of walking in darkness, of our capacity to deceive ourselves, and says that, if we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar. It’s part of what we are – sin is the destructive, negative part, our remarkable ability to divide ourselves from what really matters in life, which is the love of God and of other people.
Since we’re all like this all the time, what we actually need to do is grasp it – or, closer to John’s terminology, to shine light on it and see the truth; and then we will be different. One of my problems with the word ‘sin’, and the focus on particular transgressions, is that the main result is often to make people feel guilty – and guilt is only useful if it goes as quickly as it comes. For people who live with guilt are trapped with something which cuts them off, separates them from others.
It’s the cut-offness, the separation from God and others, which is the disaster for us, not the particular things we do wrong. Rather like the dieter whose diet is itself an expression of their fixation with food, and who therefore goes right back to square one when they stop dieting, it isn’t the answer to our problem to focus on our sins. The answer lies beyond oneself. The answer is to focus on the truth of God in Christ – to reclaim that heart of all relationships.
Which brings me to the paralysed man who was carried by his friends to be healed by Jesus, and the superficially perplexing fact that the main message of Jesus was that his sins were forgiven. That was not why he had been brought, though I guess it’s possible that in a society where people believe that suffering is a judgement from God, this man’s physical problems may have been compounded by the torment of thinking that his condition was the result of his own moral failings.
What Jesus can see, but we who lurch around in darkness so struggle to see, is that our needs are a great deal deeper than we think they are. Contrary to all appearances, this man had something more wrong with him than his inability to walk. Have you noticed that Jesus tells him ‘your sins are forgiven’? In other words, without any of the formal structure of repentance and self-analysis which we are often told is necessary for forgiveness, this man is already there. And maybe, if sins are what destroy relationship, the proof of his forgiveness is the fact that he has at least 4 friends committed enough to him to go to incredible lengths to help him. They are not holding any sins against him, their love can’t be abated.
We need to know and be honest about what is wrong with ourselves, but self-knowledge is not the main business. That lies beyond ourselves, in our relationships with God and with others. So Jesus’ main concern was the man’s reconciliation with God and others; but Jesus was also concerned about his physical state, and by the negativity coming back from the religious obsessives nearby. So, by way of demonstration, the man is cured, and walks away.
Over the centuries, plenty of philosophers and theologians have been sceptical about the possibility of miracles, not least because belief in them makes people gullible and vulnerable. And many accounts of miracles down the centuries are implausible and some are patently ridiculous. However I have no doubt that, as this gospel reading reminds us, one of the reasons for the impact of Jesus was that some people were cured in his presence, and, like this man, walked away physically changed. We need to be aware of that possibility of change, just as we are rightly aware of how important our bodies are to our overall sense of well-being.
But having said that, the specific physical ailments which may bring us to Jesus, as this man’s paralysis brought him, are no more the key to what is wrong with us than any of our particular sins may be. Our lives won’t be magicked right by being cured of our ailments, because what is important about life is a lot bigger than what is wrong with us, and vastly bigger than our own perception of what is wrong with us.
It is absolutely right – in fact essential – that the Church is engaged in the healing ministry, because the work of Jesus is to make people well. So today we thank God for, and pray for, those who have taken on this responsibility of interceding, of laying on hands, of supporting through prayer all who ask for these ministries. This healing ministry is not some hole-in-the-corner, slightly embarrassing add-on to the proper work of the Church. It is part of the Church’s core business. But neither those engaged in this ministry, nor any of us who may ask for it, should approach it with any hope of predicting the outcomes. God our maker and redeemer sees deeper than we do, and answers to prayer may well be as unasked for, as surprising and perhaps unwelcome, and as liberating, as the paralysed man’s discovery that his sins were forgiven.