Those are, of course, the very familiar words from St. John’s Gospel that are among the Sentences of the Scriptures at the beginning of the Book of Common Prayer. So familiar are they that perhaps one does not normally pause too long to think about them as the service carries us forward. I thought I might do a bit of thinking about that this morning.
Calvin Coolidge, the American President of the 1920s, is, I suppose, famous for hardly anything, except perhaps his laconic way with words. “When a lot of people are out of work, unemployment results” was one of his pronouncements And asked what a preacher had said about sin Coolidge replied simply: “He said he was against it”.
Most of us would agree: we are against sin in principle, I imagine.. But nowadays in practice our attitude to it is often rather different.
For what is sin? I confess to some uncertainty: different ages have defined it in different ways. The Book of Leviticus mentions all sorts of sins some of which are pretty esoteric and which may, of course, explain why we Gentiles do not read Leviticus very often these days.
In our own history Henry VIII turned a sin to his advantage when, having failed to produce a male heir, he persuaded the Pope to agree that marrying his brother’s widow was a sin. So he divorced her and the rest is history.
The Ten Commandments, however, give us some firm guidlelines. “Thou shalt not” presupposes that if one does the result will be judged a sin. Thus murder, theft, adultery. From Sodom and Gomorrah to Balshazzar’s Feast, the Old Testament contains some pretty grim accounts of what happened to those who violated the Commandments.
I our more relaxed, less censorious, days however, the idea of an Old Testament God visiting punishment for sin not only on the sinner but also on many future generations, is not one that we wish to contemplate or accept. Hell and damnation are out of fashion, except perhaps with Mr Paisley and some of his supporters in Northern Ireland or on the wilder shores of Scots’ Presbyterianism. Christ’s descent in to Hell has disappeared from the Apostles Creed in Common Worship. The Triumph of Hell, as in the painter Hieronymous Bosch’s vision, no longer strikes a chord.
Rather, we prefer to bear in mind that true repentance, as Our Lord taught us, will bring forgiveness for our sins and we are enjoined to forgive those who sin against us. We tend to forget, however, what He had to say about the chaff being burned in unquenchable fire.
Sin is difficult - I know that sounds like something Coolidge might have said. The political emphasis swings from one side to the other. Lock ‘em up and throw away the key! Three strikes and your out for life is the American way in some states. That’s put 2 million people in prison there and the figures is still rising.
Here in Britain we have the largest prison population in Europe. Yet we have released murderers in the interests of peace in Northern Ireland. Although we profess to be rather more understanding and enlightened, sentencing is fraught with all sorts of contradictions. We are fascinated with Kray and Biggs. Yet paedophiles are consigned mentally to Hieronymous Bosch territory.
Despite all the hypocrisy and contradictions and the huge difficulties about crime and punishment, there is, however, a certain clarity about some sins. “You do the crime, we’ll give you the time “, as the Sheriff in Los Angeles used say – for theft , murder etc. Those prohibitions in the Commandments are well enough defined in the law.
But there are sins which do not normally fall into the criminal code – the Seven Deadly Sins as they were called in the Middle Ages are rather easier to live with these days. I came across them the other day in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale:
“Holy and virtuous, he was, but then Never contemptuous of sinful men Never disdainful, never too proud and fine…. His business was to show a fair behaviour And draw men thus to Heaven and their saviour”.
Stimulated by this, I have been looking again at those Deadly Sins through this man’s eyes.
First Pride. Pride in itself is not something that lands us in court, though the consequences of it may well do. One can, as the Parson says in his tale, “show sinful pride in retinue, in ostentatious hospitality, in one’s strength, in one’s gentility”. And the remedy for Pride is Humility or true self knowledge.
Second Envy. Chaucer describes this as the worst of sins as it sets itself against all other virtues and goodness. Backbiting and grumbling are, the Parson says rather nicely, “the Devil’s paternoster”. The remedy is to love God, your neighbour and your enemy. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, especially in our present compensation culture.
Third Sloth. That leads to despair, the Parson said. In the age of depression and Prozac one can well understand it . We are all afflicted by sloth from time to time. The remedy, we are told, is fortitude. Getting our act together might be one contemporary way of putting it. The Christian faith, with its emphasis on action and good works can help us overcome sloth and despair because its message is one of hope and progress towards the Heavenly Kingdom through faith and good works.
Fourth Avarice, described as “a lecherous desire for earthly things”, has its remedy in mercy, the giving of alms and charitable work. Add gluttony (our obesity figures speak for themselves), then lechery and anger, to round off the seven deadly sins. The remedies for these are abstinence, sobriety and patience. But anger, the Parson says, directed against wickedness is good, being wrath without bitterness.
I wonder what he would have thought of
Who among us, then, can say that he or she is without some or indeed most of those seven deadly sins, which are the more insidious and difficult to combat because our society hardly bothers with them, as it does about theft or murder or paedophilia?
But at least we shall be making progress in our Christian life if we recognise that we have to keep struggling against them . We may forget, we may stumble and fall but keep battling on is the message The best weapons, as Chaucer’s Parson makes clear are humility, self control and kindness towards our neighbour.
So life, it seems to me, is rather like competing in the Olympic Games. We cannot all win. We cannot all be saints. It’s taking part that matters, and running the best race we can. And as we go over the hurdles, knocking some down and staggering out of breath, we should bear in mind the comfort of the second part of that famous text that I began with….
“if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us form all unrighteousness”
