If you were to look up the word sin you might, depending on where you looked, come away with the idea that sin was about keeping and breaking rules. There are lists of different sorts of sins, the medieval Church was very good at ranking things we might do wrong and suggesting penalties and penances.
I am not sure, though, that New Testament thoughts about sin have anything at all to do with endless lists of rules and regulations – in fact Jesus seems quite clear that it is the lists of rules which he finds dominating Jewish religion that are the product of sin themselves.
The good thing for us, about lists of things we should and should not do, is that we can hopr to get through to the end of them one day. By acts of shear will and perseverance we will finally tick rule seven hundred and thirty five and find that we have achieved sainthood and that everyone gives us a big round of applause.
But that isn't quite how it works. A lot of Saints have been notorious rule breakers, in fact the people who seem closest to God often don't seem to care about rules at all. And acutally our whole rationale for making and keeping rules is a little strange – it is even stranger to put the idea of sin into this legalistic framework. Perhaps that is why the word sin makes us so edgey – it reaks of mothballs and school dinners, of being told who we were and what we could do – it speaks of nothing of the freedom which we think we have entered into in Christ.
The Gospel this evening from St. John tells us about sin on several levels – first that is is universal and that everyone sins and secondly that it is the nature of God to forgive – that God desperately wants to forgive and God wants to forgive because forgiveness is putting our relationship right, it is finding peace between ourselves and God, it is, if only for the second, a place where we stand nice and clean and shiny.
And then we go back out in the dirt and grime of real life and we get messy again. When Jesus asks the accusers of this woman whether they can throw a stone with a truly clear conscience he knows that they will have to back away. He knows that they cannot say that they are without sin. We do not know who the woman was, we know she was accused of adultery. A few have speculated that she was notorious and that the men who put down the stones were among those who had added to her notoriety – but I think this is stretching it – I think it is more fundamental – we all break relationship with God and each other. Jesus knows this and it is not about dotting i's and crossing t's of rules and regulations – being a sinner is about letting God slip out of our vision, about letting other things eat into our affections, about not putting god first every day and all the time. Being a sinner is about wandering away from the arms which want to hold us and from the heart which has held us since the first spark of life.
The sad truth is that we all do it. Being human means being rebellious – and we are called to deal – as the men in the story – with who we are and where we are – not with pointing fingers and accusations. This is why lists and complicated rules are so foreign to Jesus - they obscure the truth of the human heart and the human heart is what God is interested in – our love is what God calls for.
Wandering off from God takes many different forms and this story should remind us that sin is sin is sin. From national headline scandal and attrocity to the little nagging things which we let slip every day. We can sin by doing and we can sin by not doing. That is why Lent is a time of both giving up and picking up – it is about focusing attention. Repentance is not just about saying sorry it is also about learning not to sin again. This penitential season is most certainly about clearing out and tidying up our spiritual and physical lives but it is also about filling them up with good and Godly things.
I remember as a child being taught that thinking you were better than everyone else was wrong, but I also remember being told that thinking that you are the worst sinner God made is also wrong – the pride of being worst might be even more destructive of our relationship with God as the pride of over-achievement.
But the good news in all of this is that Jesus turns to the woman and sends her away. He sends her away free from the fear of death but more than that, free from sin and from the fear of herself. Far form being a bond which ties us, acknowledging our sin to God is something which frees us on several levels.
It frees us because we are letting God take all of us. Remember that commercial which claimed that a certain beer – refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach. I would argue that that would be an equally good tagline for a good spiritual clean out – for digging a little deeper and telling God how sorry we are – thorough spiritual examination, refreshes the parts other activities cannot reach. And it refreshes us because as we hand over the rubbish to God, God reaches in and fills the space with grace – if only we will allow that.
Repenting of sin, saying sorry to God, allows us to walk freely. I am a little surprised that in a world of fast food and drive thrus that the idea of instant forgiveness would not be a little more appealing – perhaps it is because there is not T-shirt thrown out into the congregation every week emblazoned with the words – I won, I am forgiven.
And that is another thing, there is enough to go around.
So the woman is sent away to sin no more. We are a little kinder in our words with the ashes – we ask people to turn to Christ and to turn away from sin. It is a bold charge to ask us to sin no more, but it is also a hope of eternity – that there will be a time when this nature of ours will no longer come between ourselves and God – when we will indeed be able to walk with Christ without constantly wandering off in a slightly different direction.
This whole journey, the way of perfection upon which we tread, is not an overnight journey. Whislt God forgives quicky we do not seem to learn so fast. But the point of Lent, the point of these few weeks is perhaps to re-embrace ourselves as God sees us, as people worthy of his son.
For each of us this journey will be a different mixture of stopping and doing and giving – but the common thread for all of us is that we are all sinners gathered around a great throne of Grace, we are all hungry and come to this same table.
There are times and places for rules and discipline. Lent offers these things to us – but not as an end in themselves, as tools to bring us closer to God – as tools to let us walk a little nearer to Christ. This is not an easy journey – saying sorry is hard, excuses are much easier. But saying sorry is part of our humanity as is the sin which causes that need.
It is no accident that at the end of a formal confession the penitent will resolve not to sin again and the priest will ask for prayers of the penitent with the words, pray for me a sinner too. There is a boundness in all our humanity and a hope of light and life breaking through into this sin laden world.
So I bid you a good Lent, a Lent where you can see more clearly those things which seperate you from God and a Lent where you can hand those sins over to God. Pray that you may be forgiven and sustained and pray for your clergy, fellow sinners too.
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