Good Metaphors for Sin
Sin is a giant chasm that separates us from God.
Sin is a giant wall that separates us from God.
These metaphors are usually accompanied by commentary about how "God can't handle sin," or how "God just can't be in the same room as sin." While I understand the language of separation when talking about sin, I'm finding these metaphors really unhelpful because they limit God, and inevitably make sin the stronger force. I don't think any of us want to say that, but these metaphors imply that. As if to say that sin is something you could use to ward off God, or that sin is God's Kryptonite. I think what we really want to be saying is that sin cannot handle God, or that sin couldn't bear to be in the same room as God, etc.
In light of that, help me to think of some new metaphors that would speak of the separation caused by sin but still have a robust theology of God's dominion. What metaphor would you use?
Labels: Theology, Youth Ministry
posted by Charlie at 10:11 PM
17 Comments:
Part of my struggle with how we often talk is that I think we tend to over-personify sin. Yes, I know that scripture does it (Genesis 3 - "crouching," and Paul uses it as a noun, etc.).
But when it's this "thing" between us and God, it's almost like a third party, when really, the problem is ours.
I like words like "sinfulness" that tend to more so place the problem on me than between God and I.
As for metaphors...I don't know. Perhaps narratives of the effect of sin on the life of an individual or a group of people?
Dagnabbit...I meant to begin my post with, "Well, for mepersonally..." Jokes are never good after the fact.
How about corruption? Here we can preserve the fullness/wholeness of who God is as well as the gratuity of creation as something that can be corrupted. We can also preserve God's immanence in that while creation was literally decaying into nothingness, God was at work in the corruption bringing about restoration, healing, and newness.
I think scripture gives us our best metaphor with darkness and light. Even though it's strange, I also think of odors. If a room is clean, it smells good.
5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[a] sin.
I continue to like the image of the greek root: missing the mark. Sin is our propensity to stray from what God wants for us, from missing the target (the image for me is archery)...
This is a tough question. I think that darkness and corruption (mentioned by Gary & Scott, respectively) are both helpful, since they represent the negation of what is in Godself (light and life), rather than something that exists in its own right. Also, with these terms one can begin to sense the gradated effects of sin; I think of the development of a perfectly ripe apple through its decay into mush. This highlights the effect of Jesus' healings in the Gospels when he restores persons under the influence of this corruption (the detrimental effect of sin) back to fullness of life. In that case, as you (Charlie) said in your post, sin can't stand to be where God is.
I would want to disagree slightly with Jeremy's comment about the "third party" description of sin. While on the one hand it certainly is our problem, I wouldn't want to deny the conception of sin as a power that, while it is the result of cumulative human choices, has somehow become a power that enslaves individual human lives and is something to be reckoned with, something that only a power as big as God can take on.
A final comment: there's also something to be said for differentiating between sin as action and sin as effect. What I've said above falls into the latter category; the best image I can think of for sin as action is the offering of allegiance to another god.
I want to cling to Gary's light analogy--except to say that if God is light, then the absence of light may sound as if God is not present in total darkness. This would defeat the goal that Charlie is aiming toward. We need to maintain the reality that a relationship with God is inevitable, regardless of what individualistic evangelicalism has taught us. Is there anyone that could tap into Trinitarian theology? I will start with the notion that God's very essence is relational. The triune community--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--are together One God whose omnipresence is revealed equally as relational. Hence, darkness and light analogy do not help us analyze the reality of sin in the mindset of an everpresent and ever-relating God.
Perhaps John Wesley could help us with this. Can sin be described as a lack of sensitivity to the Spirit's everpresent conviction? Is not the instance of regeneration linked to the moment in which the Spirit's everpresence somehow makes us respond-able to God?
The point is that God's constant presence--even as we may live in sin--is not any less strong than it is when we have begun the journey of sanctification. Thus, sin should not be analyzed only through a comparison of light and dark. Although scripture analyzes sin with the comparison of light and dark, is is also scriptural to stress God's constant presence among humanity--both sinner and saint.
Thus, I would like to propose the following analogy of sin, although is in need of strengthening:
Like a person who does not speak Chinese is too ignorant of the sounds of the language to recognize them and make accurate sense of them, so is the sinner ignorant of the Spirit's call to his/her obedience when he/she first senses it. It may take many years--even a person who speaks that language--for him/her to recognize the Spirit's call.
the parable of the prodigal son is a great metaphor for sin. First we have the decision by the child to separate himself from the father. then we have the poor choices made by the son during his separation and we have outside effects from his new "friends". but the best part is the return because the father doesn't wait on his porch for the child to come back groveling. he runs out to him because he cannot wait to lavish grace on him.
I would be interested to hear if "light" and "darkness" are favored metaphors in African American churches or in African Christianity. The language of the 19th C. missionary movement often utilized the biblical image of light v. darkness as a literal description of the way the light-colored people would bring salvation and truth to those dark-colored people living in sin. An offensive application of the metaphor isn't cause for discarding it, but it should be one that I, as a white person, think through before wielding the polar terms as if everyone understands imagery I'm intending.
I also think that dark/light is far less a gripping metaphor in the era of the electric light that we can merely turn on at will. Darkness is far less threatening with things like house lights, street lights, headlights, flashlights, spotlights at our fingertips.
I didn't mean this as an absolutely negative response, but I think only if we employ a VARIETY of metaphors for sin (or any theological category) will we be able to avoid canonizing the image, rather than pointing toward the reality beyond our descriptions.
Such as, sin as ...
Idolatry (OT, Romans)
Estrangement (Genesis)
Illness/Infection (James, Ea. Ch. Fathers)
Corruption/Perversion (Romans, Fathers)
Switched Allegiance (Romans/Paul)
Betrayal (Gospels: Judas/disciples)
Darkness (Gospel of John)
Isolation (Ephesians)
Enslavement (Romans)
Possession (Gospel of Mark)
Blindness/Deafness (Gospel of Mark)
Greed (e.g., Rich Young Ruler)
I think we need to be consciously canonical in our metaphors, too. The above is just brainstormed, so I don't think it's limiting.
SingerTenor's quote from Wesley makes me think of a ziplock baggy closed tight and full of air floating in the ocean...
as far as picturing goodness or sin... i guess i usually think of fluids... as referenced above...
in a recent conversation though (trying to explain "christian" perfection) i could only think of relational terms to describe the dichotomy between righteousness and sinfulness... this softened the edges of legalism and placed emphasis on pursuit, intent, desire, etc.
so...for me, personally, sin is more like a whirling vortex...think the scene in pirates of the caribbean where everything swirls into itself but has nor more water than when it began...
or it is just loneliness...
Few thoughts here.
1. Weight or Gravity. Sometimes I think of sin simply as weight pulling us down. Not down to hell, but to the ground, the bed, depression, or the seat near the depression-solving pint of ice cream. God simply comes along side and bears the weight with us as we let it go. And as God has been with us, God offers a way to use that very sinful experience to bring about resurrection.
2. Death. Recently I've been thinking of sin simply as death. I like this imagery because it is death that Jesus experiences and conquers through the Crucifixion Resurrection. Jesus gets as close to sin as any sinless being can and then declares it powerless. Death dies. I think any involvement we have with sin really is involvement with whatever death is in its essence--separation from Life, denial of human being, the absence of love, detachment from the Vine, decay, darkness, isolation, etc.
3. Screwed. In undergrad, I used to describe sin as the process of humanity being screwed (perhaps by power structures). This relates more to the idea of being jipped rather than something sexual. And it refers to the spiral and penetrating nature of an actual screw. The more we embrace our sin, the deeper it enters into our being. We can let it penetrate and spiral out of control into a life we would have never predicted. I let the metaphor go because I couldn't think of a way to describe Jesus' redemptive participation in our lives amidst our being screwed.
Unless one is writing a dictionary definition (or even, perhaps, if one is), I am suspicious of attempts to think sin without establishing a prior understanding of Christology (as far as this is possible).
We cannot separate hamartology from Christology/soteriology ("all Christology is soteriology"), nor can we allow a discussion of sin to commence without first trying to formulate our thoughts on the saving work of God in the person of Jesus Christ. (It is not enough to leave our understanding of Jesus lurking ominously in the background; assumed.)
The potentially mischefious consequence of such an error is that we risk limiting Jesus or God once more by first defining (or formulating metaphors for) the sin from which we must be saved. At worst, then, we toy with the very real possibility that we conform Jesus to our image (ouch), rather than ourselves being conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).
Essentially, we must preface all hamartology with Christology/soteriology.
That said, the quick and pain-free (for you, Charlie, that is) way of disposing of those lunatics who proclaim such tosh as 'God cannot stand to be in the same room as sin' is... Incarnation, Incarnation, Incarnation! Then watch them squirm.
Yet I say to much, and in so doing I fall short: 'One must attain forgiveness for every essay in theology' (Jean-Luc Marion).
What a great discussion! For those of you who have commented so far, thank you for helping me think more creatively beyond some of these tired metaphors.
I really like the images of sin as corruption (the twisting of that which was originally good) and how we understand God in light of that metaphor as the Redeemer (he who restores us back to goodness).
I like the image of sin as darkness as far as it illustrates the point that sin cannot exist or survive the presence of God the father. This puts the weakness on sin, rather than on God as the other metaphor did. The darkness/light image also may help us think of a the deep sacrifice which the incarnation was for God. For God to enter into humanity was to truly "lower" Himself to the point where he could co-exist with sin in a way that the Father in heaven does not.
I struggle with the metaphor of sin as a lack of sensitivity to the spirit or speaking different languages simply because it does not communicate the seriousness of evil in our world. Another problem I have with this metaphor is that it could easily lead to putting the blame on God for creating us speaking this "other" language, which is why I like Brando's pointing us back to the Prodigal son. In this story the "separation" is initiated by the Son and not the Father, which is of course where I see our situation concerning the "separation" between us and God.
Kara is wise to remind us that these metaphors are only helpful to a point and it is much wiser to consult the many biblical images used to describe sin to get a better picture of what we're talking about.
I like Purganan's image of the swirling vortex collapsing in on itself. I think there's a lot of truth to the idea that at the root of sin is selfishness and narcissism.
Montague, you bring a good image to bear with equating sin with death. Not that sin is punishable by death, but that sin IS death. I like that... it's making me think.
Jonathan, I hadn't thought of the order in which we do theology being important concerning this, what an insight. I think that we usually do think of the nature of sin first and then based upon that build our idea of Christ as the answer to our prior assumptions about sin. It could be very dangerous for us to do theology in this way because we are tempted to mold a Christ for ourselves patterned to fit our ideas about sin. I wonder if that isn't what happens to some who hold a penal substitutionary view of the atonement which doesn't take into account the LIFE of Jesus. If their ideas about sin are primarily shaped by legal metaphors (being judged guilty and the need for punishment) then I can see how a Christology which doesn't take into account the life of faithfulness of Christ can easily flow from such an understanding of sin.
Is Jonathan "Jonny"? I thought it was the whole time while I was reading it.
Then, Charlie, you said "Jonathan."
I was confused.
If it IS Jonny F, then I have more comments to make. ;)
Here's one that came across my feed today. (http://musingsofachristianmother.blogspot.com)
Sin as an itchy infection:
It seems to me that the moment of giving into temptation is a lot like scratching a persistent itch - you want to scratch it, you want to, you want to, and finally you give in and do it. And, wow, for one glorious half millisecond it feels so good. But then it itches even more than before, hurts even worse than before, and turns even redder and more swollen than before.
Jonnie,
My further comments were not in regard to your powerful orthodoxy (you Scots, loving order more than Scripture). I actually think the incarnation insight is right on.
These mocking comments are pertaining to what a disservice your Scottish brogue does to your spelling. You pronounce words so weirdly (and wonderfully) that you can't figure out how they should be spelled.
Examples: "hamartology" and "mischefious" should be hamartiology (although a google search demonstrates that your spelling is not unusual, my knowledge of Greek assures me the latter spelling is correct) and mischievous.
I am really just trying to demonstrate how you can appreciate American accents NOT for their beauty or lilting melody ... but for their practical application to phonics. :)
I have trouble viewing sin as something with its own identity. Perhaps its my theological bias, but I have to view sin in the context of relationship.
I keep thinking about the common teenage scenario of getting worked up about something or other, yelling at mom or dad and storming off to your room. Everything that's happened is your own fault, but there is no way you can figure out how to make it right - the lack of maturity must be overcome by the wiser one whom we have offended.
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