Circle of Hope

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about sin. We talk a lot about messing up at circle. It’s nice, because we mess up a lot, and it’s refreshing to be amongst a community that can accept this and still love you; it’s safe. I get sick of messing up though, and I often wish we would talk more about trying not to mess up.

I’m not going to lie: sin scares me, and more importantly, it has a profound impact on my relationships and inevitably, on our community. Most of us have read “The Screwtape Letters” or seen “The Devil’s Advocate”, but we don’t give evil and sin much afterthought. Even the word “sin” isn’t very hip. (I even thought of avoiding this topic for fear of being viewed as one of those Sunday-school teachers we all hated.) Sometimes I think we ignore the idea of sin to focus on the relational aspects of Christianity-because we’ve been reassured that “it’s about our heart, not our actions, and no one can judge our heart except God.” Plus, sin is complicated. I wonder if we’re doing a disservice to ourselves, and our community, however, by making sin just about forgiveness, and not also about avoidance.

Nathaniel Hawthorne recognized the sadness and hurt of sin, especially secret sin, but he also proclaimed moral failure as the one thing that bound us to others in, as he said, “the common bond of humanity.” Though I ought to be caring, compassionate, and forgiving to those who fail and sin around me, I seldom do until I have failed and sinned as well. Sadly, then and only then do I recognize that there is no, or at least a fuzzy, line between those who are righteous and those who are not. I have found myself far more loving and forgiving after making some egregious moral mistakes. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but it seems as if it is that way most of the time. I think our community understands this part fairly well.

But what if we go a step further, and consider the everyday consequences of sin, specifically as it relates to community? I’m convinced that the Devil continues to hide behind sophistication and fears of being too pious in order to convince even intelligent Christian thinkers to hurt themselves; that’s all he exists for, to hurt us, to make us less effective in serving others, to mar, dismember, hinder, even destroy us. Paul tells us to flee from sin and evil, but we tend to embrace it, play with it, tease it, experiment with it, and then wonder why it blows our hands off. Don’t get me wrong, tolerance and love help us to remember our worth, and remind us that we are children of God; that we are forgiven the minute we mess up. But speaking from experience, this fact doesn’t begin to heal some of the deep physical, emotional and psychological wounds that stem from moral mistakes. We forget that there are components of sin that get carried around with us for the rest of our lives, and that affect our relationships and our community. And these components can render us useless, which is exactly what the Devil wants.

I look at things like alcohol, sex and even drugs, which are not morally wrong, but which have all done a world of hurt to myself and so many of my friends, and I’m reminded of how difficult it can be to flee from these things, specifically in a community embracing tolerance and love. Of course, there have been churches, Bibles, and other less frightening things used to destroy people as well, and this is where I think the church and its Sunday school teachers have misrepresented evil. C.S. Lewis reminds us that the Devil doesn’t care what he uses to kill you, he just wants to kill you and if he can use your mother to do you in, he will.

So how do we respond to sin and evil in a community? Well, I think for starters, we need to learn to recognize it, talk about it openly, and start getting serious about helping each other avoid it. And that means being OKAY with warning our friends about damaging behavior, knowing that this IS the loving thing to do. Love doesn’t mean never holding anyone accountable. Evil tends to be its own punishment, the sin its own executioner. It is a lowering of the human condition, and it hurts, I know this feeling well! But I know we don’t want this for our community. Responding to sin with a sense of great sadness, not scandal, judgment, or self-righteousness is a good start. But deep down, I know that we have some skin in this game too.

So instead of always focusing on the “forgiveness” part, I am wondering if we can shift sometimes to focus on the “what happens before we mess-up” part, the part where we make a choice. I think it would be good and appropriate to stand together in an effort to protect one another from the dangers of sin. As a community, we can better help each other to avoid this kind of hurt, and to avoid bringing it into the community. We can focus on what we know to be true: serve God, care for others less fortunate, and maybe most importantly, avoid moral compromise at all costs. These truths and the pursuit of them can fill our lives and our community with direction and purpose during difficult times. We spend our lives fixing things that are broken with tools that are dull. The church, (and circle,) and its people are the same way, and I don’t expect it to change anytime soon. But I know I have to be a part of it to fix it, and I want to do a better job. As Paul put it, “speaking the truth in love, we can all grow up to the full stature of Christ.”