Sanford and Sin

I wrote this a couple years ago, but thought about it yesterday, after watching South Carolina's governor in his press conference.  Of course, it isn't about him, and doesn't need to be.  It's about all of us.

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A friend of mine did something really, really bad a couple years ago.  Real bad.  Not illegal bad, but...bad enough that even this week, it showed up on page two of a metro newspaper, a thousand miles away from where he did it.

I love this guy.  He's fun, smart, and fairly new to Christian belief.  He's accepted responsibility for what he did, and he's had to live with it every day.  He told me the other day he was sorry even I was having to deal with it now.  "I'm amazed how many people this has affected.  One stupid, wrong decision I made and it keeps affecting so many people.  My wife, my kids...it just keeps going."

And so it does.

We marvelled at that, and, just stood there, quietly, just shaking our heads.  Amazing?  Yes.  But not really surprising.

The older I get, the more convinced I am there is no private sin.  They don't all wind up on page two, but the surface of the pond is never undisturbed by the pebble.  The ripples move well beyond ourselves, and, in many cases they radiate through generations. 

Or, another recent example:  One day, you're a minister getting in a quick ego-stroking flirt, thinking you're in some kind of private soap opera...and soon, there are 300 people in a flourescent-lit room, on metal folding chairs, discussing what you did.  And they're cautioning each other not to judge you, and then they talk some more about what you did.

And then, some little kid you dont even know, like my daughter, has to hear some stranger talking in church about how the pastor-guy won't be back, he did something called "sexual misconduct." 

Your soap opera?  It wasn't private.

Sins on the computer aren't private.  Larry Ellison, from Oracle, said years ago:  If you think he doesn't know what's on your hard drive, you're kidding yourself.  By the way, Google knows, too.

But even if they didn't know, the sins in your head aren't private.  Mine affect my attitude.  They keep me from being concerned about other people.  They make me a jerk, in seemingly unrelated ways.  ("Why's Brant a jerk?"  "Probably something seemingly unrelated.")

There is no "private sin."  Turns out few things have done more harm than the "do no harm" ethic.  The as-long-as-it-doesn't-hurt-anyone-else construction of morality is built atop the swamp of affluence.  We afford this lie, because affluence loves not only privacy, but the fantasy of it.  But like the 77's said, "The lust, the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life -- drain the life right out of me."

And then...I'm not the person I'm supposed to be.  I'm less creative.  I'm less joyful.  I have less social energy.  My patience is gone.  I care less about my neighbors.

Private rebellion.  Public consequence.  And if it seems unfair that what my friend did was so horrible, but what you or I do in our minds is somehow not so horrible -- well, you agree with Jesus.  There IS no difference.

The ripple metaphor works.  There's a better one, really, for what our "private" sins do to each other, but I don't want to gross you out with a picture of a fan being hit by organic material.  I have higher standards than that. 

Plus, I Googled for 20 minutes and couldn't find one.

Comments

[marvin flowers]

thoughtful and accurate, you see. I am praying for you this morning, and as you know, i don't say that, i do it, i meet a friend in an hour for coffee, prayer, etc, and we will pray for you, pray for me and my friend will you, i started to say that there shouldn't be anymore sanford's or marvins, but there will still be, God bless you my friend, later, marv

[dt]

you didn't try very hard...
http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:eohVY8gYO1fdpM:http://gryphonscry.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/shit-fan.jpg

[Joshua]

This is a great article Brant. It's amazing how sin continues to destroy even beyond our human relationships to our relationship with God who will be the final judge of all our thoughts, actions, and humanly-unfound-private-soap-operas. I guess that's the importance of fearing the Lord - "But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared" (Psalm 130:4).

[Steve Hornsby]

"It" is deeply imbedded in each and every one of us. I have it, you have it, we all have it. Adam and eve had it, Cain did it, Moses lived in it, Noah kept it in himself. "It" did not die when God flooded the earth, but was on the ark, just not in pairs. It is and has been in our DNA...oh not seen under any high powered electronic microscope, but it is there. We cannot escape it; we will never be without it, we will take it to our earthly grave. Only one has ever lived, breathed, and walked as a man among us without it. Jesus did NOT have it....and thanks to God and his son, we can still have it and go home to heaven, leaving it here as we 'go home' to be with Him. Sin....yep...we all have it.
Brant, thanks for the great ministry you do everyday. You are always in our prayers.

[Val]

I heard someone say they feel sorry for people who get "put on the spot light" like that. I don't really feel sorry for them. I know they are human and everyone makes mistakes. I wouldn't want pity in that situation. Pity does nothing put lead to more gossip and I would think for the recipient, self wallowing. I would want forgiveness. Forgiveness brings about peace and healing. That is what this family needs. Not our sympathy.

[Carol Bruce Collett]

None of us is immune from sin's allure. And itsn't it sad that when we're in the midst of it, we forget or ignore or deny the effect will produce? Great post, Brandt.

[Barbara Oeth]

Brant, You are truly a wise man and I appreciate your heart. I will share this with my 21 year old son who really tries to make right choices, just doesn't fully grasp how choices affect everyone.

[Cathrine]

I was just telling my sister today, in a self-loathing e-mail I decided to write, that I understand forgiveness. I understand grace. I accept both of them with arms wide open, and embrace the peace I have in knowing that my Father loves me despite who I've been. But it's the afterwards, the sinking in, the lack of closure that is made clear. That my sins haven't just affected me, they've affected the people I chose to entangle. And I worry in my life if I'll always be a stumbling block, if I'll always be the bad memory on a bad day filled with the same self-loathing I experienced, and my sin will be found out all over again. Only this time it will be different. It will be someone else, and I won't be there to tell them that there's the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin. I worry.

Thanks for writing this--I'm glad I'm not alone in my thinking.

[Chase Manning]

Brant- Thanks for this. You are an amazing radio personality and just what I need in the mornings-you are funny, and you speak truth and life. Anyway, I heard you mention this article last week on the radio, not even an hour after I mulled and prayed over a passage of scripture for quite a while, trying to understand it. And I think it ties in quite well with what you wrote...1 John 3:18-21 - Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
So this may not be an accurate interpretation, but this is what I got and how it ties in to what you said: Even if our "secret" sins aren't affecting anyone(which I find hard to believe) they are affecting our relationship with God. If we are truly in the Light, then we cannot honestly come before God with a clean heart and innocent concience if we are secretly sinning. And that affects our prayers. And even if we are still keeping up the "show" and trying to put our faith into action, our prayers for others, if we can still fool ourselves into thinking that they will make a difference, are null and void. Or, in my case, I don't even pray when I know I've done wrong, unless the first words are "I'm sorry, and please forgive me." So, that lost co-worker may never see the Light, unless God works in spite of you.