SIN

If there is one word that has been worn slick by overuse and misuse, it is “sin.” For many faith communities, this word occupies the center of consciousness. Everything is focused on sin and how to avoid it. Others consider “sin” a four letter word, and avoid it all together.

Our faith community is trying a different approach. We want to explore the cosmic dimensions of sin, which necessitates a redefinition. Sin is not simply privatized actions or intentions. Yes it encompasses these things at times, but sin is bigger and more suffused than that. Our working definition of sin: that which destroys belonging and connection. We understand God’s world to be made in goodness, where everything was set in healthy relationship and connection. The Hebrew word for this goodness is tōv, and the word for this integration is echad and shalom. But along the way we fell out of this primal belonging. The Bible tells a story about a garden and a talking serpent, of prototypical humans with universal names. Adam means of the earth. Eve means life. The story is one of cosmic fracturing, everything falling out of alignment.

The alienation is along four primal areas of connection:

you and God
you and your neighbor
you and creation
you and yourself.

When you find yourself isolated from any of these areas of belonging, you can be sure that sin is doing its worst. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We were created for relationship, yet many of us exist in states of chronic loneliness. Here at FBC Pasadena we are obsessed with the promise that this distance can be spanned. No matter how far you feel from God/others/creation/yourself, you can come home. You can settle. Come join us on Sundays at 10:30am as we tell this story of homecoming.