From the Daily Lectionary for Thursday in the Last Week after the Epiphany
John 1:29-34
The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
Perhaps, gentle reader, you tire of my making this recurring observation about sin, but I still think it bears repeating. In the first line of this passage John says, “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He doesn’t say sins, plural. His use of the singular, sin, is vitally important. The plural usage implies that Jesus came to take away all the sins that we fallen humans commit. The singular usage speaks of sin more true to the Gospel writer’s concept of sin. Sin is structural. It is embedded within the social, economic, and political order. Sin is that which opposes God’s gracious intentions for creation.
Certainly, we as individuals may become complicit with the “sin of the world,” and certainly we make bad choices, but the sin for which Jesus came to take away is the evil that finds its way into our collective life; collusive with the status quo. Sin for the Gospel writers is institutional, or again, as the Liberation theologians put it, structural.
The Gospel writers in the words and teachings of Jesus call out what this sin looks like, how it behaves: It finds nurture among the powerful. Self-interest is its guiding principle. Its self-sustaining means are coercion, oppression, injustice, and violence. Dishonesty is its calling card; falsehood is its milieu.
Salvation is the rescue from sin, therefore salvation is not chiefly about the individual sins we commit; it is about opposing the sin that undermines the dignity and well-being of society. Salvation is about us, not me. That is why the church’s witness and ministry belong in the public sphere, in any venue of our common life that bears on the common good… in politics, in economics, in the social matrix. Piety is personal… faith is public.
It seems to me that the Church’s work in our time is to move from piety to faith; to move from private edification to a commitment to the public good. That is the difference between sins and Sin. We must conquer the latter.
A Prayer for Social Service (BCP p. 260)
O God, whose blessed Son came not to be served but to serve: Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage they may minister in his Name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy; for the love of him who laid down his life for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
