March 13th

One Must Be Taught To Sin

To my dear TFMC family,

In our Adult Coffee & Conversation time this past week, we read a little bit from William Willimon’s book, “Sinning like a Christian: A New Look at the 7 Deadly Sins.” This book forms the foundation for many of the thoughts in our Sunday morning homilies, as well as serving as a guide book for our Adult Coffee & Conversation time. One line which we read caught my attention. “One must be taught to sin.”¹ Willimon argues that these 7 vices which the church has labelled deadly, aren’t easily identified as Sin anymore because our culture has largely adopted and in some cases, embraced these vices. For example, he writes “The rest of the world, uninformed by the story of Jesus, considers Price as an essential characteristic of the well-functioning personality.”² Willimon writes, “If sin were a matter of performing some self-evident, obvious wrong, then we would never be sinners. Yet sin is rarely self-evidently bad. It takes training, analysis, and much living and reflection, prayer, and quiet consideration to be a sinner.”³ And perhaps this reflects the insidious, subtle quality of much of our Sin, that it takes eyes to see and notice. So it’s not so much that we’re taught to Sin, rather, we’re taught to name and identify it as Sin.

Willimon then argues that it’s through the story of Jesus, his life, teachings, death and resurrection, which give us eyes to see and notice, an awareness, and a conscience to identify, and name these vices in our lives. That it’s through Jesus’ story that we’re given the language to identify these vices as Sin in our lives. Willimon goes on to argue that it’s because of the Jesus story that we can call Pride a Sin. Otherwise we might pass it off as simply over-confidence.

It’s a curious thought. I do agree that the story of Jesus shapes our world-view. And because of this, we look at the world in a different way. And perhaps it’s because I’ve grown up and lived, primarily, with a Christian worldview, that I have a hard time believing that these 7 deadly Sins are not self-evident as Sins. Then again, perhaps we’re reticent to name Sins in our lives because of our past experience with behaviour being labelled as Sin. Or, maybe, it’s a symptom of a culture that embraces a “you do you” kind of attitude where Sins like pride, envy, greed, gluttony, sloth, lust and wrath, are not called out for the self-destructive forces that they are.

I believe that the Church is called to be a place that’s different from our surrounding culture. Informed by the story of Jesus, we’re both taught to name and identify Sin in our lives, and we’re taught how to be transformed and grow from being ‘Sinners.” Something I’ll expect that we’ll notice is that each week we, that is you and I, are likely to be convicted of committing our ‘Sin-of-the-week.” This is not meant maliciously or to create guilt, rather I think it speaks to, again, how insidious and subtle these Sins are.

I believe that the Church is the place for such Sinners as you and I. Because it’s in the Church where we can find grace and hope, to try again. It’s in the Church where we can find a community to support us, and to hold us accountable, and it’s in the Church where we can find the tools, such as prayer, and the encouragement to try again. At its best, I believe that the Church is a place for us to “pick ourselves up, and try it again,” as one of our favorite children’s books reads a home.

Yours,

Craig Janzen Neufeld, Pastor ¹ Willimon, William H. 2013. Sinning like a Christian : A New Look at the 7 Deadly Sins. Nashville: Abingdon. pg. 29.

² Ibid

³ Ibid