Jesus was realistic about sin. However, he did not spend too much time or energy on the sins committed by common people. He spent more time and energy on the sins committed by rulers. Their personal and social sins caused far more harm – to the people. The harm was apparent to Jesus’s own body when the rulers tortured and murdered him. In this Sunday’s post-cross Resurrection appearance, Jesus stands before disciples bearing the wounds rulers inflicted on him and tells them, “Look at my hands and my feet.” “Touch me and see.”
Institutional christianity reverses Jesus’ life and death witness on sin. It emphasizes common people’s personal sin and diminishes ruler’s social sin. What is the intended effect of the reversal? Does emphasizing people’s personal sin and punishing them for it result in personal change, conversion? 45 years ago, pondering ‘Whatever Became of Sin?’ Karl Menninger upheld what is considered a generally conservative view that a sense of guilt over personal sin has been lost in the U.S. culture. However, Menninger then departed from the view held by conservatives. He asserted their emphasis on personal sin did not indicate a helpful desire to correct behavior but an unproductive desire to punish people. Many conservatives charged the Kansas psychiatrist with aiding and abetting the therapeutic society – meaning the necessary harsh judgment of sin was being replaced by the soft diagnosis of mental illness. But it is conservatives who are soft on sin, evident in their ethics on guns. They are currently replacing the sin of mass shooters who are white males with the diagnosis of mental illness. Conservers’ selective call for punishment is neither just nor effective. Punishment does not ultimately instill change nor personal responsibility in an offender. Besides, if personal punishment for personal sin is so effective and so necessary for justice to be done, why was it not applied to any Bush or Obama officials for the personal and social suffering and violence still being caused by their war crimes in Iraq? Have we heard many, a few, or no sermons on the personal and social sins of war? We routinely hear sermons on anger but rarely on war, on disobedience but rarely on oppression, on gossip but rarely on torture, on lying but rarely on propaganda. Institutional christianity softens us into normalizing and sanctifying the personal and social sins of rulers. It is the normalizing and sanctifying currently apparent in the nomination of an individual person, Gina Haspel, to the social rule of CIA Director. In the name of the U.S.’s sinful military and in sinful obedience to sinful CIA directives she oversaw sinful torture propagandized as necessary, even as good. Rulers have always claimed the necessity and even goodness for their own personal and social sin – against Jesus, against human beings in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Homan Square, Iraq, and other U.S. torture chambers. Is their claim an example of personal or social sin or of mental illness, or is it all of the above? We all live personal lives but not exclusively. Peacemakers live decidedly social lives for social transformation.
Whatever became of sin amidst the clichés, euphemisms, and acronyms rulers of empire use to camouflage the reality of their personal and social sin – GWOT, enhanced interrogation, collateral damage, air campaigns, and so forth? Will we hear many, a few, or no sermons on the reality of torture as a personal and social sin? Will we see much, a little or no personal responsibility for it from the military, the CIA, Haspel? What is the likelihood of change in such offenders? There is little likelihood of change unless rulers touch the wounds of the Christs they produce in this world. Every day, in some fashion, those who are wounded say to us, “Look at my hands and my feet.” “Touch me and see.” What is our response?
Prayer: Spirit of Vulnerability, give me courage to put my fingers into nail marks.
Question: How do I know the reality of sin?
April 15, 2018 Gospel Luke 24:35-48 Third Sunday of Easter