Lent 1A; February 10, 2008

Revised Common Lectionary

The Rev. Marion E. Kanour

“Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.”  – an excerpt from Romans 5:12-19

The readings appointed for today raise a difficult issue.  You might think, at first glance, so what?  Who cares about this stuff except a handful of priests and theologians?  But it could be the issue is more relevant to your life than it might seem at first.  The issue, simply put, is whether you believe human beings are innately evil.  Are we born that way from our mother’s womb?  Are we incapable of doing the right thing unless God somehow helps us at every turn?  Is our only hope for salvation to be baptized and continually to repent of our inborn evil?  Well, that’s what Paul writes in his letter to the faith community in Rome; and three centuries later that’s what Augustine names Original Sin.  It’s adopted by the Council at Chalcedon as official doctrine shortly after Augustine proposes it; and, at that same Council they decide Augustine’s fellow theologian, Pelagius, is wrong.  They censure Pelagius because he thinks Adam is a bad example and Jesus is a good example; but that we aren’t born innately good or evil.  Instead, Pelagius thinks God gifts us with the ability to choose, just like Adam and Jesus chose.  He thinks we can change our choices at any point without any further help from God, other than our original hardwiring for free will. Unfortunately, from my perspective, Pelagius didn’t prevail in this debate and for centuries thereafter Christendom has sided with the dismal picture painted by Paul, Augustine and all others who followed in their theological footsteps.  It doesn’t seem to me Jesus would have agreed with their take on human nature.  The doctrine of Original Sin seems to contradict the most important of Jesus’ teachings:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus believes it’s doable by regular folks without divine intervention, which is the opposite of what Christendom has taught for centuries.  In our own prayer book we have a copy of the Articles of Religion.  They were written in England in 1563 and adopted by the Episcopal Church in 1801.  An Act of Parliament passed in 1571 required all clergy to affirm the teachings of the document.  Priests and deacons in the Church of England are still required to affirm the 39 articles.  Blessedly, Episcopal priests are not required to affirm them, though they’ve been a source of great debate lately even in the United States.  Here’s a quote from it, just to give you some idea of its flavor:

Original sin….is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man……whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation…..The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith…. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God…. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings.

Our baptismal vows echo this theology.  You’ll remember we vow to turn from evil and do all manner of good things, but each vow ends with, “I will with God’s help.”  Pelagius would say God already helped us with the gift of free will and that the rest is up to us.  I agree with Pelagius and find the doctrine of Original Sin to be in error. 

I suppose I should’ve believed in the doctrine from early on, having been raised in the Southern Baptist tradition where sin was a two syllable word berated from the pulpit with high drama.  But it was because of my paternal grandfather that the original part of sin never made much sense to me.  It was the year Miss Butler taught me in Sunday School—when I was six—that this first became obvious to me.  She was teaching us about the lineage of Jesus—showing us all the begats in the bible that she said proved Jesus was somehow related to the house of David.  She asked us to find out next week about our own begats.  We were supposed to find out something about our grandparents’ heritage to share with the class.  Since we lived in Norfolk with my mother’s side of the family, I knew about that part.   But I had to ask my father about his parents.  All I knew for sure was where they lived—in Tyrone, PA.  Which is how Daddy came to tell me the story of his father’s birth.   The community believed granddaddy was born out of wedlock to a young Pennsylvania Dutch woman who left the infant in a basket on the doorstep of another Pennsylvania Dutch family unable to have children of their own.  The Kanour family felt God had blessed them with this gift and raised the child as their own.  I could hardly wait to tell my Sunday School class.  There was intrigue and drama and it had a good ending.  Well, at least I thought so.  Miss Butler was not of the same opinion.  After I finished telling the story I was apparently beaming with pride when Miss Butler said, “I have no idea what would make you smile.  Your grandfather was conceived in sin, which means he has the mark of double sin on him forever.”  I’d never heard of double sin before.  Miss Butler explained there was Original Sin that everyone had, which was why we had to be baptized and had to repent all the time, but that some unfortunate souls had sin heaped on sin because of the circumstances of their birth.  Like my grandfather, for example. That was double sin and was harder to overcome in life, according to Miss Butler.  I said I thought my other grandfather was the one everyone thought was sinful, since he was an atheist.  Miss Butler looked faint and said she’d be praying for our family. 

Well, you can probably imagine the tenor of the dinner table discussion at my grandmother’s that Sunday after church.  Granddaddy asked me how Sunday School went, knowing I’d been pleased about telling the story about my other grandfather.   I reported Miss Butler’s observations in detail.  You never had to wonder for very long what anyone in my family was thinking.  But this particular Sunday it was hard to hear individual responses, since everyone was yelling at once.  As it turned out, no one at the table believed in double sin, which they thought Miss Butler made up all on her own.  Only my mother believed in Original Sin.  That seemed more horrifying to everyone than Miss Butler’s beliefs.  I guess that’s because we were related to mother and somehow felt responsible for her thinking.  My father declared it was un-American to believe in Original Sin.  We spent a lot of time on that point.  Finally it was my grandmother who quieted the group by looking pointedly at her daughter and saying, “No one in this family better believe they’re helpless to change things.  You don’t need God to change your life; God expects you to do that.”    This seemed to satisfy everyone at the table except mother, though she stopped arguing her point. 

When I was a child my father used to tell me a bedtime story each night before I went to sleep.  They were usually stories from his life and I loved hearing them.  But this particular night my father tucked me in and said, “Let’s talk about what happened in Sunday School today.”  And so, in place of the story, we talked about why it matters what a person thinks about sin.  Daddy asked, “When you do something bad does that make you a bad person?”  No, I said, I didn’t think so.  “What about when you do something good; does that make you a good person?”  Well, no, I supposed not.  What matters, my father said, is that we’re free to choose how to act every day of our lives and that means there’s always some reason to hope no matter how bad things might seem at the time.  We can choose to change them.  Then we played a game my father loved.  He’d come up with a problem scenario and then ask me for all the viable solutions I could imagine.  When I’d offered all the solutions I could he’d say, “Now, think of one more.” 

There is, to my mind, every reason to hope in my father’s world and every reason to despair in Miss Butler’s.    Paul, Augustine and the Articles of Religion tell us we are powerless and unworthy.  In the world of their making baptism and continual repentance are our only hopes to avoid burning in hell.  How might the world be different if Christian thought emphasized our worthiness instead?

During this Lenten season we’ll continue to explore together the various teachings of the Christian tradition viewed in the Light of God’s grace.  I invite you to consider your own thoughts.  How do they impact how you live?  How do they shape your expectations of yourself and others?  How do they color your world?  Jesus answered these questions with his life.  Perhaps we all do.  Where do your answers lead you?

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