Definition of sin

Today I was the guest speaker at a class called Religion and Pop Culture down at the local community college and I was reminded again how diverse we are as we think about God and belief systems and especially about sin. As a pastor, folks often ask me about sin. They want to know if what they are doing is sinful or not. I've fallen into the habit of asking people what their definition of sin is before I answer the question of whether or not what they are doing is wrong. I am amazed at the variety of answers I get to the definition of sin question. Most of the definitions revolve around the concept that sin is doing 'really bad stuff' and, of course, 'really bad' is in the eye of the beholder. I find myself asking folks to draw the line that needs to be crossed for something to be considered sin. Most people agree that Hitler or Idi Amin were way over the line, but that saying you are fine when you aren't is a meaningless 'white lie' that isn't sinful at all. I enjoy, particularly in group settings, observing the debate as folks try to draw a line down the fuzzy middle. "Missing the mark", the classic definition of sin, becomes easy to do when the middle is ever shifting and subservient to the whims of the artists.

Missing the mark requires an agreement as to what the mark is and since we can't agree on that it seems hopeless to answer the question of whether something is sinful. When we get to move the mark to where we shot the arrow we can eagerly point to our own purity and castigate those around us who don't live to our standard which allows us the fading pleasure of self defined holiness. The problem is that our neighbor is busily moving the mark to where her arrow struck and removing us from the company of the holy.

We have an endless capacity to self justify. My sin is always easily explained. When I drive over the speed limit it is because of the importance of the mission I am on. When the guy behind me goes flying by me, he is being a jerk and I am silently hoping for a cop to be hiding out around the next curve. Self justification assures the messy middle stays muddled. It grants us the ability to point fingers. Scripture says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God which really messes with the concept of a flexible mark and with the idea that I can self justify.