Pastors’ Thoughts: While We Were Yet Sinners

Pastors’ Thoughts: While We Were Yet SinnersPictured is the First Presbyterian Union Church, located at 111 Temple St. in Owego, N.Y. (File Photo)

Walter Brueggemann, a wonderful teacher of the Bible, tells the story about a lady who sat down in a teashop to enjoy a cup of tea, the newspaper, and a small package of cookies she had brought with her. The shop was very crowded and a gentleman had sat down at her table because there was no place else to sit.  

Uncomfortable with the situation, she buried her face more into the newspaper and reached over to take a cookie. To her dismay, the man also took one. A few minutes later, the same thing happened. She was horrified.  

The ultimate affront happened a moment later when the man actually broke the final cookie in half and offered her half of her own cookie! Quite dismayed, the lady finished her tea, glowered at the man, and left the shop.  

As she reached into her purse for a tissue she discovered the unopened pack of cookies she had brought with her. She had been eating from his identical package of cookies the whole time!

Sometimes it is easier for us to see other people as sinners than it is to imagine that we may be the ones who are doing wrong. For Christians, Lent, which began with Ash Wednesday on Feb. 22, is a time to acknowledge that sin is a part of our lives, too, not just other people’s lives.  

God invites us to turn away from the things that separate us from God and neighbor, and to turn to a deeper relationship with God in Jesus Christ. What are the ways we can bring ourselves closer to God and to others?  

Part of the reason we may be reluctant to see our own sin is that we understand sin in such limited terms. Shirley Guthrie offers a helpful perspective in his classic Christian Doctrine:

“Sin is taking the Lord’s name in vain not only by cursing but also by making it trivial. It is using ‘God’ or ‘the will of God’ only to justify our own personal, social, or national prejudices and ambitions or, on the other hand, claiming to be Christians whose lives belong to God, but saying that religion has nothing to do with practical matters.

“Sin is not just killing people; it is having contempt for any human being. It is not only murdering other people but simply letting them starve to death physically or emotionally because we decide that social welfare and foreign aid are ‘money down a rat hole.’

“Sin is not just robbing banks. It is also stealing other people’s money by false advertising. It is not just waylaying people and leaving them lying in a ditch; it is also ‘passing by on the other side’ when we see people in inner city ghettos helplessly at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords and indifferent politicians.

“Sin, to sum it all up, is disobedience to the law of God. But it is not just something those immoral, unbelieving outsiders do. It is something we do.”

The good news of our Christian faith is that, while sin is a serious problem, it is never as mighty and powerful as God’s grace and forgiveness. The prayer of confession in our worship service is always followed by an assurance of pardon. 

We believe that, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” wrote Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 5:8.  

We invite you to use the upcoming Lenten season as a time to reflect on what needs to be changed in your own life, to mend relationships with God and others, to ask and offer forgiveness, and to remember that God’s love is the greatest gift of all.

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