About Sin

I sat in the office of my spiritual director. It took me years to find her. She is a Quaker with a PhD in spiritual direction and she is good.

I tell her about the darkness that I see, the way the people can't stand it when you speak of money, the way that they actively undermine efforts to grow the church, the way that they hurt one another. I tell her about the brokenness.

“That is what you are supposed to see now,” she says. “When one begins to really pray, when one takes time alone with God and that time begins to shape your life, one of the first things that happens is that you open your eyes to the brokenness of the world around you. You see that we have fallen from God. And you see how hard it is to avoid sin.”

What in the world is SIN? It's such an old word that it has lost much of its meaning. It has been stretched to accommodate so many varieties and nuances of our language that it is like an old bag, worn out and having almost no shape to it at all.

With most young people, I call our sin, our “issues.” That makes them perk up and nod. I can see the recognition before me. They know what it means to struggle with your issues, and everybody who is even the tiniest bit introspective knows that they have them. We all fall short of perfection. Simply go on a trip for two weeks with the person who you vow is perfect and they will show you their issues. Believe me, something will come out. It won't take long.

Not only do we have issues, but the world itself is confused. After all, we all know that things don't always work the way that they should. Most people, by the time that they reach adulthood, have felt acute pain, either emotionally or physically. Most have realized that the world isn't fair. Most have found themselves wondering if this is how it is supposed to work. Most have realized that the course of their lives is not entirely for them to determine, and their lives might not look anything like the success stories that they see in the movies. Life is difficult. It doesn't take much to see that.

Just like the Bible, sin must be constantly translated into the events of modern day. As we have progressed technologically, sin, like a virus, has adapted itself to our new mediums. It has come with us because it is a part of us. It is time for us know rename the word SIN. Maybe we need lots of words. Just because it changes constantly doesn't mean that it has gone away.

- The Very Rev. Kate Moorehead