Woody Allen once remarked: “I’m not saying there’s no God, but some days He seems like a serious underachiever.” We know that feeling. There are times when the hard evidence for an all-powerful, all-loving God seems a bit thin. On a regular basis we witness: callous injustice, innocent suffering, absurd meaninglessness, random cruelty, petty spitefulness and creeping despair. Any or all of these can stir up doubts about the reality and/or the relevance of God. Because we are vulnerable, our vision is limited. We get weary, our hearts are anxious and afraid, and some days we find it difficult to believe in God. I’m not saying that we give up or stop believing altogether - just that some days it’s hard to believe.

On the other hand, I can’t recall a single day when it was difficult to believe in the reality of SIN. There just never seems to be a shortage of graphic and persuasive evidence for the ongoing presence of sin in the world - and in our hearts. Open any newspaper, any day, and the evidence is overwhelming: Front Page: ENRON; Milosevic - presenting himself as a victim; the latest travesty in the Middle East. Section 2: Daily record of local crimes and misdemeanors - murder and corruption. Tempo: Sado-Masochists Convention - being held here, in Chicago. Sports: Olympic scandals; athletes getting paid millions, but complaining and holding out for more.

Turn on the TV [at your own peril]: Shows promoting greed and duplicity - Survivor, Temptation Island. Shows offering torture as entertainment - The Chair, The Chamber. Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer, et. al., offering up perversity and dysfunction as entertainment and education. But we don’t need to rely on the media to convince us that SIN is real. You don’t have to live very long to witness humorous and frequent examples of the Seven Deadly Sins: Greed, Jealousy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Envy, Pride. Does any of these sound unfamiliar? Do any of those show any signs of going out of style?

God’s law awakens our conscience to the reality of SIN - As Paul explains in our 2nd Reading. Consider what the Ten Commandments reveal about human nature: (working from last to first)

Do people covet (want what others have)? - Our whole market economy is built on coveting.

Do people lie and deceive? - ENRON is just the tip of the iceberg.

Do people steal? - Ask a group of students about cheating or shoplifting.

Do people commit adultery? - Soap operas would have us think it is standard operating procedure. The divorce rate indicates they may have a point.

Do people kill? - You can start with terrorists and work your way along to that pharmacist in Kansas who made millions by shorting his customers in expensive and vital medications. You could also mention drunk drivers and abortion.

Do people fail to honor their fathers and mothers? Do you point the finger at troubled teenagers or at grown adults who can’t be bothered to visit mom or dad in the nursing home?

Do people neglect the Sabbath? Look around. Who’s not here? Who’s at the mall?

Do people take God’s name in vain? “Oh my God!” I guess we do!

Do people serve other gods? The list is too long, but money and power are near the top.

Jesus boiled the Ten Commandments down to just two, but the results are unchanged: Do people fail to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? Do people neglect to even try to love their neighbor as themselves? Is the Pope still Catholic?

If you pay attention, how can you not believe in SIN? We need look no farther than ourselves. Does a day ever go by where you have not fallen short - both in your actions and in your failure to act? Do you ever feel totally free of that self-serving, self referential attitude that is convinced the world begins and ends with my wants and my needs? Are you ever able to completely ignore all of your own inner contradictions and vanities, weaknesses and compromises and rationalizations so that you’re able to say without a trace of irony: “I’m more that OK, I’m perfect!” No. Instead what we say is, “I’m only human,” which is a way of admitting, “I’m simply a sinner - I’m just a stupid man.” If we can safely believe anything, we can surely believe this: We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.

We sin in our thoughts, words and deeds; by what we do, and fail to do. We don’t love God with our whole hearts - not even sure we want to. We fail to love our neighbors. We even find it hard to love ourselves. Maybe this is the absolute baseline. This is where we find common ground - something real. This is the entry level for all Christians. We all sin; we all fall short (of the glory of God); all the time. This is not just a theory or hypothesis. This is as real as it gets. This is the alcoholic finally taking that first and essential step - admitting a fundamental problem that he/she can’t solve. This is that most basic human realization: we’ve met the enemy, and it is us. This is the human heart recognizing that it is in conflict with itself.

It turns out, we’ve all got this affliction called sin - spelled sIn. We worship the selfish trinity - I, ME, MINE. We’ve got a real problem, and we can’t shake it. We can ignore it, deny it, rationalize it, justify it and minimize it. But there it is, as plain as the nose on your face. We might as well pretend there’s no gravity as deny the reality of our SIN. And when we do face it and believe an interesting thing happens. If we start to believe in SIN, it gets easier (and even necessary) to believe in God. If we start to realize the pervasive and insidious presence of sin in ourselves and in our world, then the question becomes not “Why is the world so messed up?”, but “How did we ever make it this far?” Not “Why so much evil in the world?”, but “How is there any goodness at all?”

We begin to see that without God, we never could have survived this long. Without grace, sin would have consumed the entire race. Without God, there would be no goodness, no light, no love, no hope, no life. What this world does, over and over is crucify: goodness, love, mercy, truth and justice. What God does is raise these things to life - and sends them back into the broader world, day after day, after day.

Believe in SIN, and you better believe in God, because only God can match and overcome SIN’S power in our lives - only God can free us from its bondage. God’s great gamble is to give us freedom. As it went with Adam and Eve, so it goes with us. To allow for real, responsible virtues, like Faith, Hope, Love, Courage, Wisdom, and Justice, God also has to allow for the possibility of SIN. And our sinful hearts are inclined to say: “If it’s possible, we gotta try it.” And so we do. And then at the end of the day we realize our desperate nakedness, and like Adam and Eve, in our shame we try to hide from God.

Our most dangerous sin, one that leads us into all the rest, is the sin of UNBELIEF. This is the sin that the serpent has never stopped promoting since the Garden of Eden. (Don’t trust God ­ trust yourself.) When we stop believing in God, we can believe anything, so anything goes. We become gods into ourselves.

But when we open our eyes wide enough to see where SIN is actually taking us, we can also detect the presence of God. There can be no such thing as “SIN,” without God. SIN is separation from God, so if there is no God, there can be no sin. By definition, and even more by experience, believing in SIN leads to believing in God. Here’s our ongoing problem: If we don’t believe in sin very much, we don’t need to believe in God very much. Or, as Jesus might have said to us from the cross: “If I’m OK and you’re OK, what am I doing up here dying?”

Today’s Scripture Readings offer up a clear message: whether Adam and Eve in the garden, Paul trying to edify the Romans, or Jesus in the wilderness: sin and temptation are REAL, POWERFUL and ALWAYS AT WORK. Therefore, we need to trust and believe each day in the God who is REAL, POWERFUL, and ALWAYS AT WORK IN OUR WORLD AND IN OUR HEARTS. “We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Amen.