March 5thRedeeming "Sin"?
To my dear TFMC family,
For Lent this year, I want to redeem, in so far as I am able, the word Sin for us. I find Sin to be not just a misunderstood word in the Christian church, but also a word with layers of assumed meanings behind it. Sin is one of those words that some folk will very confidently use, presuming that everyone else understands what they mean. Except, that’s not always the case.
From a Jewish perspective, Sin doesn’t carry the moralistic or ethical boundary crossing that Evangelical Christianity has layered onto it. For ancient Jewish people Sin was more closely understood as someone having breaching Jewish purity law. These breaches of the law can occur for something as simple as ‘working’ on the Sabbath, and to work on the Sabbath can be as simple as turning your stove on.
In our Lenten worship, we are going to explore the notion of Sin as disoriented Love. It’s a love that is either an excess of love, a deficiency of love or a misdirected love, i.e. love that’s focused on self. Sin is love that’s been radically distorted. It’s a love that no longer serves others; rather it’s a love that’s become self-serving. Sin is a love that’s no longer focused on God, or reflecting God’s love, rather it’s love that has turned itself away from God, and it reflects something else entirely.
But we’re not going to linger in our Sin, we’re called to seek transformation. Lent is a season of both confession and transformation. So each week, in addition to exploring our ‘sin-of-the-week,’ we will also explore virtues that can reorient our love. To do this, we have a worship series that is far from the usual. Each worship service has three movements.
The first movement of the service is focused on Disoriented Love. Whether an excess of love, a deficiency of love or a mis-directed love, Sin is love that is disoriented in one way or another. The scripture reading, a short homily, and hymn illustrate the ‘sin of the week.’
Our second movement is Oriented Toward God’s Love. The middle section is our re-orientation to God’s love. A corporate spiritual practice is taught and practiced by both adults and children in this time.
This spiritual practice begins our reorientation to God’s love, a love that saves. Following our spiritual practice, we offer a prayer of confession with words of assurance. Our theme song “The Love of God” completes our reorientation, where we are ready to reflect on God’s loving call to discipleship.
Lastly, Newly Oriented Love for Discipleship. The final movement of the service focused on how do we live with this “newly oriented love”. Having moved from a disoriented love through a reorientation, we are now ready to embrace a new way of loving. Through a second scripture reading and another short homily the congregation is introduced to the ‘virtue of the week’ which stands opposite of the ‘sin of the week.’
Our worship service reflects the way that love and God’s love can transform us, and transform the way we live our lives. So I invite you to join me, this Lent, as we ponder and explore, Sinning like a Christian.
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld, Pastor