One Way Out!

Passages: Is. 63:18-64:12; Titus 1:1-11; Jn. 7:37-52
Ընթերցուածքներ՝ Եսայ. ԿԳ 18-ԿԴ 12; Տիտ. Ա 1-11; Յով. Է 37-52

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!

I remember that first time I was arrested! Yes, my dears even those of us who become clergy can get into trouble with the law, we aren’t perfect. Regardless of what the circumstances were, the feeling of fear, helplessness, and remorse echoed in my ears most especially when I heard the metal bars of the cell I was placed in slam shut.  It didn’t matter if I was wrongly accused, if I was defending myself, if I was innocent, or if I really did break the law. Reality checks in when you hear the sound of your jail cell doors closing.  Just so there is no scandal, let me reassure everyone, I didn’t do hard time nor was I convicted of a crime. However, this was not the last time I would hear the sound of prison doors shutting. When in seminary, and even now as a priest, every time I do prison ministry, that noise is heard. And my dears, the noise isn’t that scary. Afterall, as a priest or chaplain, I haven’t done anything wrong. Yet, the feeling doesn’t change; the feeling of being trapped, shut off, and isolated from a free world. God forbid if something were to happen in that prison, it would shut down and regardless of how innocent I am, there is no getting out.  Everyone is locked in! There is no escape.

A protestant author Lysa Terkeurst once wrote, “Jesus isn’t trying to expose you to put shame on you. He’s trying to expose the sin that has its chains around you. We all sin! Rom. 3:10 or Ecc. 7:20 says, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” If any one of us ever thinks we don’t sin, or that our sins are not that bad in comparison to others, – I invite you to read the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. We all sin! And Sin is not merely a bad act, a mistake or an inappropriate thought we have. We often read the Confession and maybe on a surface level pay attention to its words but most of us would argue we don’t commit all those sins. Yet, sin, my dears, is anything that disrupts our Communion with God and our relationships with each other. For example, next Sunday is Poon Paregentan and we remember how Adam and Eve were in paradise. They sinned not by eating a piece of fruit but by the act of denying, ignoring, disobeying what God has commanded them. As Christians when we sin, even from age of Sunday School, we are taught to feel bad about what we have done. Perhaps we feel embarrassed, we may feel ashamed. We might feel as if we have failed. This feeling of shame is especially compounded when the priest keeps telling us to repent and confess or when we get caught, or for whatever reason if our sin is exposed. Yet, as Lysa Terkeurst says the purpose of exposing our sin, of talking about our sin and of repenting is not to shame us but rather freedom.

St. John Chrysostom likewise writes, “After the sin comes the shame…” Sin, my dears, regardless of what it is, and the shame that follows is like a prison cell for us. Sin can trap us and create in us hopelessness; and if we turn our back to God, then Satan manipulates the truth of God’s love, fueling our shame and creating in us a false narrative that there is no freedom from sin, no escape. The gates of our sin have shut, like the doors of a prison cell, and we can never get out. Yet, St. John continues further with, “after the sin comes the shame; courage follows repentance…Satan upsets the order; he gives courage to sin and shame to the repentance.” Meaning when we as kids or adults sin, and we feel ashamed for those sins, if we don’t repent, then those sins put root in our heart and overtime, we feel more courageous in deeper sins. Since we’re all sinners, we’ll just keep on sinning or as I said earlier, we begin to think “my sin is not that bad”. Satan pollutes our thoughts and falsely makes us feel trapped in our sin, or indifferent to our sin and so we begin to fall deeper into sin and rather than turn to God, we eventually begin to feel ashamed to trust God and repent.

However, my dears, there is a greater hope than one we could ever ask for. A hope that takes the lies of Satan, who whispers in our ear that we are worthless, we are hopeless and we are trapped in our sinfulness. That hope is Christ Jesus, who has broken the chains, the gates of our prison cell and through His love for each one of us reminds us of true freedom from sin. That is why the Priest turns to the faithful with the Chalice and says, “this is our faith and hope, resurrection and forgiveness…” If Satan and the demons in this world are trying to drag us downward and making us feel discouraged because of the life we have lived and mistakes we have made, it is Christ Jesus who lifts us up through the Cross, who says, we have hope of eternal life, as St. Paul teaches. Life is freedom; Freedom of recognition that yes, sin is in our life, but if the “wages of sin” is death, as St. Paul says, meaning the punishment of sin, then in Christ, who has destroyed the power of sin, in Him we have life, salvation, redemption, renewal.

Next Monday, we begin the season of Great Lent. As we spoke about a few weeks ago, Lent, which is a period of fasting, is set before us as a time of preparation. Preparation not limited to the food we eat or a small task we do. Great Lent in its entirety is a time of reflection, of compassion, community and renewal. It is a time where we are called to not just think about what sins we have committed and feel bad but of how freedom from those sins ultimately is when we are with God. Whether it is through reading Holy Scripture, attending Church more often, volunteering at a soup kitchen or in our Church, almsgiving, fasting, etc. All of these lead us towards Christ, in whom we have true freedom from sin, from lies, from the traps of Satan. That is why Christ says, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink.” Whether it is the Sunday of Expulsion, where we remember Adam and Eve having sinned, God takes them out of the Garden allowing sin to die while still protecting humanity or the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, where we remember how a child, wasted his inheritance, yet, when reflecting on who he was and the blessings and love he had with his Father, returned home, where his Father anxiously await to greet us with open arms. This is only the first 2 weeks of Great Lent.

My dears, yes, the reminder of our sins can be scary and shameful in the same way, the reality of hearing the prison gates shut behind us can remind us that we are indeed trapped and cut off from freedom. However, sin is not a trap that we cannot escape from. Sin is not the final verdict of our life. Sin is not who we are. We are a beloved child of God; we are not our job, skin color, gender, age, political party or any arbitrary limit; We are the jewel of God’s creation and when we pray, confess our sins, repent of them, then we will find freedom from the sickness of sin in Christ Jesus.  We will drink from the water of life, be washed and renewed of our brokenness and stand as witness to God’s love for all others. “He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, “‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” May the Grace of the Holy Spirit, illuminate our hearts and minds to seek out Christ our Lord, who has broken the chains of guilt, trampled down the power of death, freed us from sin and invites us into Holy Communion with our Heavenly Father. May we take this time before us, not to be ashamed but be filled with the courage that through Christ and in Christ we can do all things. Glory to God, Amen!