OK, we have to talk about sin. Given today’s readings it seems we don’t have much choice.
These readings all start in different places but end up with sin:
- Peter speaking to the Jews who had witnessed Jesus’ death says: “Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away”
- Luke has Jesus say to his disciples in the first meeting after the Resurrection: “the Scriptures say that … the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead … and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name”
- John in his first epistle says; “My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin Jesus Christ is expiation for our sins”
All these early accounts highlight that the immediate, practical effect of Jesus’ death and resurrection is a call to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
What strikes me, seeing these passages all together like this, is that they reflect a rather different view of sin (and repentance) from the one we may have grown up with, or grown into. Many raised in the Catholic Church more than a few years ago may remember a big focus on sin: making sure that we recognized our sins, could list them, and ensuring we “confessed” to them. More recently you might note this pendulum seems to have swung and there is very little emphasis placed on sin, or at least on the intense focus of digging out our failures and errors.
Neither of these perspectives reflects very well what we see in our Scripture. It’s very clear that the early church thought sin was important and wanted to talk about it – that’s what we see in all these readings. John’s letter in particular is focused on sin at the beginning. But the picture of sin that we get is more direct and perhaps simpler than the one that many of us may be accustomed to.
Peter simply tells the people they have done something wrong. He accepts that they didn’t set out to do wrong – they “acted in ignorance”. He doesn’t berate or condemn them for choosing evil, for being “bad people”, or threaten hell and damnation! But he does ask them to recognize that they did do something wrong, intentionally or not. That’s the repentance. Then it’s over. Jesus the Christ has done everything else that is necessary.
This is the perspective we see in all these readings. There is no suggestion we have to feel guilty, no suggestion that we are evil. We just have to follow the commandments that Jesus gave – which are pretty simple: Love God and love your neighbor. If and when something goes wrong then we acknowledge that fact and move on, knowing that God loves us. John puts it like this: If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.
Sometimes it can be more complicated and we do need to dig inside ourselves to understand why we behave as we do and how we can change destructive behaviors, if that is what is happening. But in most cases it’s not so complicated. As Jesus told his disciples in that post resurrection meeting – repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations. They were witnesses to that. So are we.