Recently I’ve had a very pleasant chat with some extremely nice people; among several topics there were memories from the distant past. A person recalled that Catholics had been perceived as people preoccupied with sin, whereas other denominations apparently were passing on a much happier message about God’s love. And now a few decades later nobody seems to talk about sin, as seemingly nobody wants to hear about it. It’s actually understandable: church-goers usually are pretty decent people without seriously indecent sinful tendencies – so talking about sin is missing the point. For others talking about sin is questioning their own lifestyles and labelling them with an unpleasant tag. It seems there’s no audience for any talk on sin. So I’m going to give it a go.
Part of the problem with sin is its massively simplified understanding. In common perception a sin is a breach of religious law; a bit like speeding or petty crime. Consequently it seems to be an artificial concept having little or nothing in common with everyday reality. It seems that most of the Ten Commandments are a) covered by civil law or b) outdated, i.e. without any real application to life. One way or another, there’s no need to bother about them or other religious rules. My suggestion: for this sermon let’s abandon the word ‘sin’ and replace it with a different one: ‘selfishness’. If you think carefully you will realise that those things we traditionally call ‘sins’ are different expressions of selfishness.
Today’s first reading presents the final stage of king David’s adultery; a moment of whim and lust that turned nasty, with lies, manipulations, deception and eventually murder. All those were driven by the king’s selfishness: seduction at the beginning, and cover up in order to avoid responsibility. He was in the absolute centre of all those acts – nothing else and nobody else mattered. You could argue that the story doesn’t apply to your lives as you are rather decent people; and you’re probably right. But in our own case, perhaps on a much smaller scale, is each one of us totally selfless? I wouldn’t dare say so about myself.
And that’s the point. Your selfishness can affect people in a direct or indirect way; and that’s something very unpleasant regardless. There are some small things that can be really tiresome. When I bought my dog I trained him just in order to make it bearable to other people. Unintentionally the dog is a pretty likeable creature, but that wasn’t the purpose – it just came as a by-product.
At the end of the first reading there’s a rather strange statement by the prophet Nathan: ‘The Lord, for his part, forgives your sin.’God’s forgiveness is just one dimension of dealing with the king’s selfishness; he, the king will have to face consequences from those affected by his actions. And that’s actually the more difficult bit, because we, people, are not so quick or keen to forgive and forget. So, instead of fixing troubled relationships perhaps it’s easier to keep them trouble free in the first place, simply by working on our own selfishness. That’ll do the job.