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May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight,

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O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

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A number of years ago, I had a conversation about the nature of sin with

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a notable member of the church as you do when you're a clergy person.

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The fundamental question of our conversation went something like,

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is sin something we are born into or is sin a choice?

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The church leader contended fiercely that sin was simply a choice,

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and I didn't know enough to argue back.

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But for those schooled in theology,

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this conversation might be a distant echo to those famous Augustinian-Pelagian debates.

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I'm sure you all wish you were a fly on the wall.

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Anyway, his answer didn't sit quite right with me,

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and I didn't know how to talk about it yet.

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But if sin is merely a choice,

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then why is everyone doing it?

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Can't we just choose not to?

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Most people want to do the right thing,

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so why are we sinning?

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If so, then why can't we just will it to be true?

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Why can't we just do what is right?

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Is it not that simple?

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Today's lesson from Romans sees Paul struggle with similar questions.

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Paul wonders why his intention to do the right thing doesn't always lead to the right thing.

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There's no avoiding it.

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As they say, the road to hell is paved with best intentions,

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with the good intentions.

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So the question, is sin something we were born into or is it a choice,

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actually provides a false dichotomy.

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It's a bad question.

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The question doesn't demand an either or answer,

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rather the question demands a both and answer.

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Yes, sin is something we are born into.

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Yes, sin is a choice.

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One biblical commentator puts it like this, and this is paraphrasing.

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Sin not only flourishes in our failings,

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but even in our best actions.

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Sin happens whether we will it to or not.

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In other words, like Paul,

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we have no idea what we're doing.

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No wonder Jesus from the place of the cross says to his father,

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forgive them, they have no idea what they're doing.

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So what does this mean? So what?

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In a nutshell, it means we need a savior.

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Not only do we need a savior to show us how to live and how to love,

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but we also need a savior who can free us from the power that sin has over our lives.

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We need a savior who can release us from the root of sin,

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which is the fear of failure, from the preoccupation with self.

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Free us so that we might be free to love and serve each other.

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As the Garden of Eden suggests,

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the knowledge of good and evil isn't enough for us to overcome sin,

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because A, the world isn't painted in black and white.

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B, sin isn't really about breaking the rules,

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but about the breaking of relationships,

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which all hinge on different rules.

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C, our willpower isn't enough.

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We are born into sin after all.

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We need help. We can't untangle the web that we and the world have spun.

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We need something outside of ourselves to save ourselves.

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Now, go back to your physics class, I think.

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The second law of thermodynamics knows this.

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We as an energy source cannot maintain energy on our own.

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Entropy kicks in. We unravel. We become disordered.

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We need an outside energy source to breathe into our lives,

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to help us reorder and reorient.

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Gregory of Nyssa invites us to imagine running up a sandy slope,

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and then compare that to trying to save ourselves.

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Imagine trying to run up a sandy slope.

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You're not going to go anywhere.

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The sand is going to come back down to your feet.

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You're going to put forth great effort.

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You're going to exhaust yourself,

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and eventually you're going to bury yourself in the sand.

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But ironically, this is exactly where the light of the gospel shines the brightest.

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Buried when we are buried in the sand,

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in those places where we throw up our hands and surrender and wave the white flag.

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Now, this is a hard pill to swallow as we are a proud people.

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We Americans have been taught not to rely on others, not to ask for help.

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While this is noble in some respects,

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this attitude has the power to deprive us from the easy yoke Jesus wants us to live by.

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In these verses we read from Matthew,

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just before them, Jesus has basically told his followers that if they want to join his program,

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then they're going to have to rely on the generosity and the hospitality of others,

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of strangers even.

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As long as we hold on to the illusion that we can do it on our own,

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then we will continue to bury ourselves under the burden of getting it right all by ourselves,

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an impossible task.

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In today's gospel lesson, when Jesus invites us to rest,

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he is inviting us to rest from that burden,

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that burden of getting it right all the time.

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And that rest he talks about doesn't look like kicking our feet back under the cool breeze

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with an ice cold lemonade.

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Rather, this rest is found in his work, in the work that he got right for us,

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a work that frees us from the fear of failure.

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Because this work is already accomplished in Jesus.

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His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

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We don't have to prove ourselves to anyone anymore.

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We are free to live for a God who has already proven himself to us.

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While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Christ frees us from the fear of failure by giving us work

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that is completely concerned for the well-being of the other.

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It's not dependent on us.

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Now, it's well documented that English was not my strongest subject in high school.

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If my 10th grade English teacher happened to attend a service where I was preaching,

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she'd probably assume there was another Jack Alvey in Birmingham that looks exactly like me.

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She'd probably think surely the Jack Alvey I knew wouldn't subject himself

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to writing papers for a career.

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I doubt she'd remember me at all.

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But look at me now.

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I write all the time.

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At the very least, I write 13-word essays almost every week.

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And most of the time, it's not a burden.

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So what's the difference?

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In school, I wrote about things I really didn't care about for someone

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who in my mind was judging me.

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In my professional career, I write about things I do care about for people I care about

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who I don't think are necessarily judging me, not all the time.

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In other words, the why behind my writing shifted.

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My motivation changed.

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Essentially, the writing I did as a student was to prove myself, my worth to someone else.

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I wrote so that I could get a good grade, so I could pass the class,

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so I could go to the next grade, so I could go to college, so I could get a job,

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so I could put food on the table, et cetera, et cetera.

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That's exhausting.

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Trying to prove yourself to others in any context is exhausting and burdensome.

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As a professional, don't get me wrong, I still feel the need to prove myself to others.

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I'm not a perfect human being.

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As Paul said, sin abounds.

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But I'm not, I am freed from some of that burden in that my writing isn't just for me.

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I'm not trying to prove myself.

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Most days, I don't feel like I'm writing to keep my job,

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to put food on the table, to pay the mortgage.

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Most days, I feel like I'm writing and preaching because I believe in what I'm doing.

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I believe that the gospel changes lives.

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I believe that I know the gospel changed my life.

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I believe it will change yours and I hope it has.

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In other words, I'm not writing for myself.

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I'm writing because I believe in the power of a gospel that says we don't have to prove ourselves

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to a God who has already proven himself to us in Christ Jesus.

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I'm writing because I believe in a gospel that frees us from a world that is burying us

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with the impossible demand of getting it right so that we might rise to a life

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where nothing is impossible with a God who raises even the dead to life.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin

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and more about courageously doing God's will.

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In other words, cautiously avoiding sin is a self-centered way of going about life.

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It's still about you. You're still thinking about the self.

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Courageously doing God's will, however, is about forgiving yourself.

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It's about losing yourself in the service of others, regardless of how it makes you look.

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By avoiding sin, we are still letting others, or sin, control our lives.

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So the only way to truly be free is to realize that sin has no power over us.

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It no longer gets to decide how we live our lives.

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As far as I know, the only way to truly live free from this insidious power

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is to live and find our rest in Jesus, to do the work that Jesus has given us to do,

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not as a way to prove ourselves, but as a way to show gratitude for a God who loves us,

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for a God who already gives us our worth and our value and our dignity.

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I read this week that there is no salvation, I read this week there is no salvation in not sinning.

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Great churches point people to Jesus.

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So beloved in Christ, Jesus is calling us to himself so that we might know true rest

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and true freedom by losing ourselves in a life of service to others.

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The yoke of constantly having to prove ourselves to another,

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of trying to get it right all the time has been replaced with Jesus' easy yoke,

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a yoke that is lightened by the promise of everlasting life in this life and the life to come.

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Amen.