‘Seven deadlies’ enhance slide from God’s path and grace

The Rev. Peter Luckey, senior pastor, Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.:

The theological term “deadly sin” has been around at least since the time of Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century. The term refers to acts so grievous that they could result in eternal damnation.

Imaging the contours of hell has been theme of countless sermons and stimulus for thousands of nightmares. A woman in my church said to me, “When I was a little girl, this was the kind of preaching I heard. It terrified me. I had a dream where my family was carried up into heaven – but I was left behind!”

Multiply this experience many times over. Fear is the means religious institutions have often used to exercise control over people.

While sin is real, “deadly sin” is refuted by the core message of the Gospel.

Jesus tells a story of a younger brother who leaves home, turns his back on family, property, everything. He commits the worst sin imaginable in Jesus’ day: He disowns his own family.

Yet, when the wayward child, now desperate, returns home, he is received with hugs and love not punishment and damnation.

Through the telling of this story, Jesus reveals to hearers who God is: a being who has a heart only for love.

On October 2, 2006 Charles Roberts entered a one-room school house in Nickel Mines, Penn. and opened fire, killing five children, before turning the gun on himself.

Later, members of the Amish community went to the killer’s burial service! Several families who had buried their own daughters just the day before were in attendance. They hugged Charles Robert’s widow. They helped support a fund for the shooter’s family.

Yes, sin can have deadly consequences. But here is what the Amish are saying: There is no act we could commit that would push us forever outside the realm of God’s grace.

– Send e-mail to Peter Luckey at peterluckey@sunflower.com.

‘Deadly’ status stems from sin’s ability to sneak up on us

The Rev. Andrew Mitchell, pastor, Stull United Methodist Church, 251 N. 1600 Road, Lecompton:

“Bust!” the electronic dart board shouted to me. Turn after turn, and I still couldn’t hit my final target. So I lost.

It’s important to know that the Christian use of the word “sin” comes from a Greek word that means “off target” or “missing the mark.” We may aim to live for God, but our focus gets easily distracted. We end up sinning.

Wrath. Envy. Sloth. Lust. Greed. Pride. Gluttony. Perhaps you’ve seen the Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman movie “Seven,” or maybe you’ve read “Dante’s Inferno.” If so, it’s hard to shake loose from the images of these so-called “seven deadly sins.”

At first glance, however, these sins don’t seem so deadly. Surely some sins are “deadlier” than these seven. If we were to grade sins on a scale from 1 to 10, who wouldn’t rank murder as a higher offense than any of these? Instead, this list consists of emotions and behaviors that ordinary people deal with on a daily basis.

Yet, it is precisely the ordinariness of these sins that make them so deadly. We shouldn’t think of these seven sins as being deadly in terms of otherworldly damnation. They are deadly because of their immediate impact in this life and in this world – they are the starting points for escalated sinning.

Envy, for instance, may seem innocent enough … but if my envy for a coworker’s salary inspires me to sabotage his or her project, then that relatively innocent emotion has inflated into immoral action.

The deadly sins are self-centered. A self-centered person is an off-centered person. Where’s your bull’s eye? Aim for God. With practice, life is less likely to go “bust!”

– Send e-mail to Andrew Mitchell at umcpastorandrew@aol.com.