Sin

Self-centeredness; placing self in God’s place, resulting in total alienation from God.

Psalm 51:1-3

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

The Human Propensity to %$# things Up

“What I and most other believers understand by the word sin… has got very little to do with yummy transgression. For us, it refers to something much more like the human tendency, the human propensity, to %$# up. Or let’s add one more word: the human propensity to %$# things up, because what we’re talking about here is not just our tendency to lurch and stumble and screw up by accident, our passive role as agents of entropy. It’s our active inclination to break stuff, “stuff” here including moods, promises, relationships we care about, and our own well-being and other people’s.”

– Novelist Francis Spufford in Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense                                                                                                                                         

Reflection & Prayer

Spend some time reading the passage slowly. How does this passage shape how you understand this word? Does the way that Spufford describe sin leave you with a different feeling about the word?