The Weight of Sin

Sin is a weighty thing. If you have read anything that I have written over the last almost ten years, you know that sin can gradually drag you deeper and deeper into darkness. When we sin, the weight of the guilt and shame keeps us distance from God. WE distance ourselves from Him. Despite His trying to save us, we run and hide. With the weight of sin, we start to feel hopeless. We think to ourselves, “Well, this is who I am so what does it matter if I sin again… or if I do something more sinful? Nobody cares.” So… we add more weight of guilt and shame for each measure of sin that we add. All of that guilt and shame is directly proportional to the amount of morals and values that we let go. We trade one for the other. We watched a heart-wrenching movie this weekend that depicted the weight of our guilt and shame so well that I want you to watch it. The movie is from 1987 and is called “The Mission” with Robert De Niro and Liam Neeson. Spoiler alert: I am going to talk about this very intense scene depicting the weight of our sin. Necessary movie background: De Niro is a mercenary and slave trader who would stop at nothing to gain wealth and who killed his brother in a jealous rage. De Niro isolates himself in what looks to be a monastery. The Bishop, for lack of his true role in the church, asks the Jesuit priest (Jeremy Irons) to talk to De Niro. Irons challenges De Niro to put his guilt and shame to true penance for his sins. De Niro accepts. Irons has De Niro hauling this massive bundle of household items up the waterfall cliff and mountains to the natives that De Niro once enslaved. This scene goes on for quite some time so that you truly get the grueling ordeal that De Niro will put himself through where other men would falter. Through mud and water, up cliffs and waterfalls he drags this weight behind him. His own stubbornness will not allow him to quit. He falls back down the mountain from the weight of it and gets back up to start all over. Neeson pleads with Irons to let him stop. But Irons tells him no, that it is De Niro’s desire to suffer the weight of his sins, basically. De Niro has to decide when he has done enough. Neeson frees De Niro from his weight by cutting the ropes anyway and the huge load tumbles down the mountain. De Niro, wordlessly, as always, clambers back down the mountain and starts to haul it back up the mountain again. Stop and think about this. You see, we do this in life. I see it all of the time. We say that we know Christ died for our sins but many of us believe that it is true for others, not for us. What WE have done is not worthy of His love and sacrifice, so therefore, we must continue to carry the guilt and shame around. We are negating the ultimate sacrifice… we are throwing his gift back in His face… as if we don’t want it… as if we have no faith in Him ourselves. Romans 7: “14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.” Back to the movie, which, in fact, is based on a true story. De Niro is covered in mud as he makes the final trek up that mountain and his eyes gaze upon the faces of the natives for the first time as his shameful self. Many of their family members are enslaved or dead because of De Niro and he knows this all too well. Irons watches as a native child grabs a knife and storms up to De Niro. The child starts to loudly proclaim something we cannot understand. We think De Niro is a goner and Irons allows it to play out, hushing the others. The boy takes the knife and instead of plunging it into De Niro, he cuts the rope and frees him of his spiritual and physical burden. He strokes his head and laughs at De Niro’s appearance. De Niro’s hair and body are mud soaked as he crawled on his knees with that weight. De Niro cries and laughs and cries as they laugh and run up and touch him showing the forgiveness that he didn’t deserve. The forgiveness that he refused to accept from Christ, he accepted from his victims. With great emotion and humility, he finds solace… ultimately accepting God after seeing what God can do… what God is about. If you have never seen this movie… this particular scene… you should. This weight of guilt and shame plays out in every mind in the world at some point or another. People have many ways of dealing with their guilt and shame. Some become so burdened by the weight that they pretend it isn’t there. But it is and it festers and darkens their hearts in a way that makes us look at them as if they could never be saved. That only serves to prove our own lack of faith, as well as theirs. Some believe in Christ with their whole heart but continue to carry that weight of sin with them. They tell everyone else about Christ’s sacrifice for their sins but never feel it for themselves. This too shows their true lack of understanding. There are more ways than one for us to contradict the way of Christ. The lies that we live, the way that we treat others, the guilt and shame that we dump on others while we say that we are Christians… The bible is clear. Love is the way. Christ is the only way BUT if you do not produce fruit, how would He know you from anyone else? Matthew 5:43-48: “ 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

The Frog and the Scorpion

This is just truth. It is a wide spread evil that has taken hold of our world and dragged it to the pit of hell because we (the proverbial we, not me) stopped believing in something higher than ourselves and lost hope. A fable is a story, usually using animals, that conveys a message of morals. This one, according to my favorite search engine Wikipedia, seems to have originated in Russia. “A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that they would both drown if the scorpion killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't help it. It's in my nature." You see, I use this story a lot with the students in program. I use it a lot now, for those who continue to give the scorpion a ride across that river despite the obvious consequences. Another form of addiction for many in the program, and in this world, is codependency. It is a sickness… an addiction. It is very prevalent in our society. Broken people seek acceptance. With the break down of families and morals and relationships, comes gangs and homelessness. And broken people seek other broken people who understand them. Unfortunately, many broken people start out as frogs and the more street wise and life hardened of those tend to become scorpions. They do what they think that they must do to survive. We have a saying in program. “Hurt people hurt people.” I have known women who continue to go back to their abusers because it is all they know. I was one of those women decades ago. I have heard women’s stories of cheating boyfriends/husbands who call them names and push them aside for someone ‘better’ only to come back when they have no one else. When he has someone else, he tells them that they aren’t good enough and he needs his own space. Then, when there is no one else, he comes back and promises the world but gives nothing. Scraps from the table that even a dog could expect. But to her, it must mean that he loves her. What brings us to this point of desperation so that we allow people to use and abuse us and push us aside over and over again? For me, I was taught that I am not worth anything more. It was a learned behavior slowly implanted in my belief system by a long series of neglect, rejection and mistreatment. We didn’t have a belief system. Our blended home was fraught with absent parents and broken young women. I can look back and see the desperation in my older siblings to be rescued by a man, get married and hope for a better life. For my side at least, it didn’t turn out so well. It certainly didn’t for me as I grew older. I won’t go into that here. Men and women alike suffer from this affliction. Scorpions can be anyone. You must love your enemy, but you don’t have to sleep with them. Gal 6:7-9: “7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” I remember finding faith when Baptist’s came to my door. I was young and abused by my husband. I was deep in the faith and wanted to abide by the bible and yet, I was afraid that one day my husband would kill me, or worse, raise the children in that environment. The pastor and his wife said that even though the bible did not like divorce, you could divorce for his lack of faith. They said that I could leave him for abusing me because he also had no faith. What is my bottom line? We lack faith. We lack hope because we do not seek it. We lack morals and values because we weren’t taught where to find them. Or, in some cases, our sinful nature wants what it wants at any cost. We lack knowledge and wisdom that is right there in front of us, free to all. We lack freedom from our tormentors because we don’t have a clue how to break those chains. One manuscript, the one source, from our one and only God who loved us enough to make sure that all our concerns were written down with solutions. The Bible! Put your trust, your life, your choices, your behavior and your love in His hands. PERIOD. Lastly…. You see? He knew before we were even on this earth that scorpions would be an issue! He even has an answer to that! Luke 10:19: “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”