Talking of Sin
A t first I thought I call this‘ looking afresh at sin’, but like‘ Fresh Expressions’ it sounded like an invitation to something positive. I just wanted to remind ourselves that in the Lord’ s Prayer we are asking“ forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. We had a neighbour in Cumbria, an old clergyman who maintained that nobody can sin against us, sin was something only between God and man, and actually there only was one‘ sin’, not sins that keeps us away from God. In the Old Testament there were two forms of that sin: blasphemy and idolatry, while 1 John 2, 16 speaks of the‘ love of the world’ the‘ cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does’, as meaning a turning away from God.
Sin has long been falsely personalised. It is usually seen as connected to sexuality, unmarried couples were‘ living in sin’, but this interpretation does not take into account the idea of a general sinfulness of mankind in the sight of God that Jesus came to redeem. But that in turn could mean that personally we aren’ t responsible for our decisions. Yet sin and guilt are somehow connected to human dignity, they tell us that we are not wheels in a fatal mechanism. While it isn’ t undignified to eat cream when wanting to slim, although some call this‘ sinning’, it would be so, if you denied your responsibility by maintaining you only obeyed orders, as many Germans did after the war.
There has always been some kind of grading as to the gravity of sins committed. Pope Gregory the Great( 540-604) gave us a list of‘ Seven Deadly Sins’, also known as the‘ Capital Vices’ or mortal sins, which are believed to destroy the life of grace and charity within a person. This list includes
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Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth.
There was a remembering verse for these: SALIGIA, after the initials of the Latin words for them: Superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia.- The Church has also a parallel list of seven virtues: virtue, chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, humility. These lists were used for Christian ethical education and confession.
Important works, both in literature and art, have had these sins and virtues for subjects. The Parson’ s Tale in Chaucer’ s Canterbury Tales, Dante’ s Purgatory, Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill’ s‘ The Seven Deadly Sins, and in art especially Peter Breughel the Elder’ s prints of the Deadly Sins and more recently Edmund Spencer’ s The Faerie Queen’. You can see them also in Rosslyn Chapel’ s carvings.
An anonymous English Lollard Tract attributed to Wycliffe paired each of the deadly sins with a demon, who tempted people by means of the associated