Fallen Playdough

DAILY BYTE

I used to baby-sit a little girl named Annie. She was the adorable four-year-old daughter of a very nice friend of the family. One day, as I often did, I went over and spent the afternoon with her, spending hours on the kitchen floor, putting together a playdough city. I bent down to mould a new building, when I heard a chunk of playdough – splat!... And before I could even look up, out of Annie’s sweet little mouth flew a shocking expletive!

I snapped my head up with horror, but she had bent down to pick up the playdough, as if nothing had happened. I asked her – where did you hear that word? But she just looked at me confusedly like I had a gecko stuck to my forehead and refused to answer. And while I told her sternly that she was not to say that word again, it was clear that she still had no idea she’d done anything wrong, and she certainly wouldn’t have understood her speech as a ‘sin!’

But we all have a history of sin that we’ll explore this week. And sin most probably begins in situations like those – where we don’t realize the implications of what we’ve done, but we are, nonetheless, sinners.

Over time, It seems people come to think of sinning in several ways, just one of which we’ll explore a little today.

And that is, that in general, we think we’re pretty good people! We care about others, we pay our taxes, we at least try to obey traffic laws, we help old people across the street, and we donate money to worthy causes. We’ve got a pretty good life sorted out for ourselves, and the idea that we could be involved in something called ‘corporate’ or ‘silent’ sin is generally off our radar screen.

The wasted fossil fuels we pump into the air when we’re not carpooling, the fertilizing pollutants we dump into the soil through the green beans that we buy at Spar... Certainly these sins are on someone else’s conscience, as we couldn’t be expected to keep track of so many huge things that are out of our control! Certainly not. And when accused of such sins, we look back at the accuser confusedly, and we, undisrupted, return to our playdough...

Do we need to be more aware of the ways we are implicated in sins that are bigger than ourselves? It seems if we were all-knowing, we might feel buried under a mountain of guilt that is far too big for us to carry.

This is why we’re not asked to live guilt-ridden, heavy lives, weighed down by this sin. But we are asked not to close our eyes to it and to live in a way that seeks to bring more of God’s life and less of our destructive sin into the world.

Is there corporate or silent sin that you feel the need to confess? If so, try praying the traditional Anglican prayer below, which helps us acknowledge and release the sins that we know and the sins that we don’t so that we can allow Christ to bear them and free us to continue searching for how we can be a part of living and transforming the world!

FOCUS READING

1 Timothy 13b-15 (NRSV)

But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the foremost.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.