Sin Doesn't Have the Final Word
First Reading: Micah 6:6-8
“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?
Reader: The word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God.
Psalm 51:1-12
Today’s Psalm is Psalm 51 verses 1 to 12, please respond by the half verse.
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; * in your great compassion blot out my offenses.
2 Wash me through and through from my wickedness *and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, *and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you only have I sinned * and done what is evil in your sight.
5 And so you are justified when you speak * and upright in your judgement.
6 Indeed, I have been wicked from my birth, * a sinner from my mother’s womb.
7 For behold, you look for truth deep within me, * and will make me understand wisdom
secretly.
8 Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure; * wash me, and I shall be clean indeed.
9 Make me hear of joy and gladness, * that the body you have broken may rejoice.
10 Hide your face from my sins *and blot out all my iniquities.
11 Create in me a clean heart, O God, * and renew a right spirit within me.
12 Cast me not away from your presence *and take not your holy Spirit from me.
We pray together Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Second Reading Romans 8:1-11:
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.2 For the law of the Spirit[a] of life in Christ Jesus has set you[b] free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin,[c] he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.[d] 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit[e] set their minds on the things of the Spirit.[f] 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit[g] is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,[h] since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit[i] is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus[j] from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through[k] his Spirit that dwells in you.
Reader: The word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God.
Sermon: The Rev. Dr. Maryann Amor
I remember the day vividly. I was in downtown Vancouver, having just gotten off the bus from UBC and getting ready for the next part of my commute home to Mission, which required catching the train. For anyone who has been to Vancouver, you know that there are many unhoused people downtown, begging on the streets. On that day I saw a man...he was very skinny, he actually reminded me of my dad, and he was sitting by a telephone pole. As I was making my way to the train, he asked me for change. “Ummm, no, sorry, don’t have any,” I said, and I kept going.
As I boarded the train, my heart sank. I got this icky feeling in the pit of my stomach. God probably didn’t approve of how I had just acted. Not that I didn’t give the man money, but it was more the fact that I had seen someone who was in need, and rather than allowing myself to be moved by that, I was too focused on getting to the train.
What stayed with me was the realization that it was so easy to walk past someone who needed help, because I had what I considered to be more important things to do. And this caused a discomfort inside me, this guilty feeling that I had done wrong, that I had sinned, and something had to change.
We all have moments when we do something or fail to do something, and afterwards it suddenly hits us that our behaviour doesn’t match up to what we claim as Christians, or what we believe God expects of us.
And when this happens you might feel what I did...that heart sinking, oh no, I failed at this faith thing again. And often this sticks with us...we focus on what we do wrong and it consumes our thoughts, we see ourselves as bad Christians, because we can’t do simple things...like acknowledge a poor man on the street.
So how do we move forward? Is there a way to shift our thinking from looking only at our failures, trying to figure out how much we have to give, do, or sacrifice to make up for them?
Today all our readings speak to this issue and in them there is more hope than we might expect.
In the prophet Micah, we heard: What should we bring before the Lord? What is enough? Should we offer thousands of rams, or rivers of oil? Should we give our firstborn for our transgression, the fruit of our body for the sin of our soul?
The prophet is asking how much do I have to do to make up for what I have done wrong?
And you can almost imagine God hearing this and shaking God's head, saying, “O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you?”
The answer is not thousands of rams. It is not rivers of oil. It is not that we spend our lives trying to make up for every wrong thing we have ever done. The Lord requires that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
And that word “humbly” matters. Because walking humbly with God means recognizing that we are human. We are going to make mistakes...and we move forward by repenting, trying to do better, while trusting that God’s love for us does not disappear when we sin.
Then, in the Psalm we heard, "Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me." There is no pretending that sin doesn't exist. The psalmist knows they have done wrong. But he is also aware that God can deal with sin. "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." "Create in me a clean heart, O God."
The psalmist doesn't say, "I have sinned, therefore I am beyond God's love." Instead, the psalmist turns toward God, repents, and acknowledges that God can make all things right. And he is not simply asking God to take away the guilt. He asks God to change him, to create in him a clean heart and a right spirit.
Paul is also clear: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." No condemnation. Paul doesn't say there is no sin. He doesn't say that what we do doesn't matter. But he says that our sin does not have the final word. There is no condemnation for those who hold onto Christ.
And finally we come to our Gospel. Jesus uses the analogy of a speck in our neighbour's eye and a log in our own to talk about judgement. "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged." Notice what Jesus doesn't say. He doesn't say, "Ignore the log." He doesn't say that we should pretend that we don't have faults or that the things we do wrong don't matter. He also doesn't say, "Sit and focus on your log. Stare at it. Make it the centre of your life." Instead, he says, "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye."
We have logs in our eyes, things we have done wrong that need to be dealt with. And those logs can be removed...we can repent and we are forgiven. And when we recognize this, we can look at our neighbours differently. Instead of judging the specks in their eyes, we can help them see clearly, reminding them that the things they have done wrong do not make them beyond God's love either.
All our readings when taken together, have a very clear message for us: We will fall short of God, but these sins don’t define our lives. God doesn’t call us to focus on them. Instead, we are called to repent and trust that in God there is no condemnation. God will wash us clean. God will help us remove the log.
So the next time you get that gut-sinking feeling I had when I walked past that man on the street, remember these readings and trust that no matter what you do in your life, God's love for you will never disappear. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to keep walking humbly with your God. Amen.
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