Mtr Mary Trainor

Dear Friend,
 

“For the wages of sin is death.”   —Romans 6:23a

Each of us commits sins. Maybe not every day. Or maybe every day. Sinfulness is all around us. Individuals. Groups. Nations. The world. Sin is well known to humankind.

The Apostle Paul has a lot to say about sin, an example of which is today’s Daily Office reading from his letter to the first-century Christian community in Rome. Paul has taught that following the letter of the law—essentially the Ten Commandments—is not the guarantee of salvation. Rather, we are saved by God’s grace. God’s freely given, unearned love is the saving act, not blind obedience to rules.

Paul now clarifies. Even with God’s grace, even bathed in God’s love, created in God’s image as we are, we continue to do things that drive a wedge between us and God. Which is another way of naming sin. And what does that get us? Death. Paul says: “For the wages of sin is death.”

In my early evangelical formation (not recommending it, since it kept me from Church for decades) Paul’s “wages of sin” struck terror in my young heart. It was worse than terror. It led to spiritual paralysis. The thinking went like this: God loves us. Grace saves. Yet we are caught in an unrelenting loop of sin, and the wages of sin is death. I was stuck.

Lent is a good time to talk about things like this. Things like sin, our thoughts and actions, both little and big, that are not God-worthy—and to own the reality of human nature that draws us to these things again and again. Whether we break a commandment or break a heart, whether we murder a body or kill hope, whether we rob a liquor store or steal joy, we are acting counter to the nature of God, and counter to God’s wishes for our lives. This pattern could become a death-spiral—if sins are never claimed, recognized, and confessed to God. And if we do not, as often as necessary, regret our un-Godlike ways and turn back toward God.

The wages of undealt-with sin is death. Not the going-to-hell, burning-in-eternity kind of death. Rather, a life that feels like death, lacking meaning, devoid of joy, because we have turned our backs on the very source of meaning and joy.

God always waits. Love is ever at the ready. That is God’s grace. That is our salvation.

Mtr. Mary