Henrietta United Church of Christ
Rev. David Inglis Romans 7:14-25
July 3, 2005 Independence Sunday
Sin: A New Look at an Old Problem:
Part 2–“Sinning Against Ourselves”
Last week, we started to take a new look at
sin. Even though talking about sin has
gone out of fashion, it’s still very much part of our lives--creating heartache
in our relationships, injustice in our society, wars in our world, and damage
to our environment. Sin is as
“old-fashioned” as today’s news report.
And if we don’t recognize it for what it is, how will we ever get free
from its destructive power?
So what is it exactly? Last week we talked about sin as violating
what is most precious in other people--their mind, their heart or their
soul. Many people who have had near death
experiences describe becoming keenly aware of how those violations impact the
other person.
But there’s another kind of sin, which is the
one that Paul seems to be thinking of in our scripture lesson. We could call it the violation of what’s
most precious in ourselves.
Let’s look at it from this vantage
point. When you were new to the world,
you were crying, helpless and needy.
But inside you was a spiritual life force that quickly began organizing
your confusing world into something you could relate with. Over time, you have learned to give and
receive love, to reason, to wonder, to ponder, to find purpose for your life,
to give of yourself deeply, and to seek a conscious relationship with the
Source of it all. This is the direction
in which that inner spirit tends to take our life.
But sometimes, instead of moving steadily
forward, our lives take a wrong turn,
and we go around and around and around in the same cul de sac. Something holds us in a destructive pattern
that ties up our life energy and keeps us from moving forward in our life
journey.
This is what Paul was talking about when he
talked about being a slave of sin. Paul
calls this kind of sin “sins of the flesh.”
Most of us think about sex when we hear that, and it seems like Paul did
too. But sins of the flesh are
certainly not limited to sex. Recent
discoveries in the field of biochemistry are illuminating Paul’s description of
slavery to sin, and his words about “the flesh” having “dominion” over us.
Pioneer researchers are saying that every
time we have an emotional reaction to something, a specific kind of peptide is
released into our system. A peptide is
a tiny chemical chain of amino acids, and there are different peptides for
different emotions. So looking at an
attractive person of the opposite sex would trigger one kind of peptide,
watching your spouse look at an attractive person of the opposite sex trigger
release another, having your computer suddenly go blank again would
release another, throwing your computer out the window would release another,
and explaining to your neighbor how your computer ended up in pieces in your
yard would release another. According
to Dr. Candace Pert, pharmacologist and professor at Georgetown University who
has been researching these peptides, these peptides kind of plug into
corresponding receptors on cells in our brain and in every major organ in our
body, affecting the way those cells function.
These little duos of peptides and their corresponding receptors link
these cells all over our body into a communication network between our
awareness, our emotions, and our whole body.[i] So when we get angry, for example, the cells
in all of our organs as well as our brain are chemically changed by the
peptides that have attached to them.
Have you ever tried to convince someone you’re not angry when this is
happening to you? “I’m not
angry!! I’M NOT ANGRY!!” Those little peptides are pretty powerful,
aren’t they?
Now
what happens when certain peptides keep getting triggered over and over again? Say you’re in a situation where you’re
constantly belittled, humiliated, and made to feel powerless, so you keep
triggering those anger peptides. This
is where it really gets scary. As the
cells in your body divide to form new cells, the new ones have more receptors
for the anger peptides, and therefore fewer receptors for other peptides–like
the ones associated with serenity or happiness.[ii] It’s like you become hard-wired for that one
repeated emotion, and gradually lose your capacity for others.
This sheds a new light on being enslaved by
the flesh, doesn’t it? Now we can see
why Paul said these words that we can all identify with: “I can will what is
right, but I cannot do it. For I do not
do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. . . . For I
delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another
law at war with the law of my mind, making me a captive to the law of sin that
dwells in my members.”
My mind tells me I don’t want to be
angry. I don’t want to snap at people
and alienate my friends. But all these
anger peptides are dwelling in all my members of my flesh. They control me more than I can control
them. When more and more of my cells
are designed for anger, I’ll be hyper-alert to things that make me angry, and
use them to justify my anger. And I
might unconsciously look for fights.
Now my flesh has dominion over me, and I’m “a slave to the law of sin.”
Anger is only one of the emotional patterns
that can take control of our body. Some
people have addictions to sexual stimulation that make them do stupid or
destructive things. We’ve seen everyone
from police to preachers to presidents brought down because of their
enslavement to sexual stimulation.
People can get into a repetitive pattern of
feeling victimized by life or feeling sorry for themselves, and it eventually
not only saps their life energy, but it seems to sap the energy of people who
are in the same room with them.
I know some people who are addicted to
crisis. Maybe it started because they
felt exhilarated by the feeling of their whole body and mind swinging into
action, pumping at full capacity.
Coping with it made them feel powerful and triumphant. So they began unconsciously creating new
crises for the exhilaration of trying to conquer them too. But after awhile, they feel bored and
restless unless they’re in a crisis, and so their life becomes a series of
crises that make their life a mess.
Some people get addicted to worrying. They have a lot of worry-related peptides
that we refer to as“free floating anxiety.”
This anxiety can latch on to almost anything the person is thinking
about and turn it into something to worry about.
Now it’s not sinful to feel angry or sexual
or sad or worried, or any of our human emotions. They all have a purpose.
But if we feed them and fixate on them, they take over our mood, then
our attitude towards life, then our priorities and decisions, then our life
purpose. That’s when they become our
masters and we their slaves. It’s like
the emotions have us, instead of us having them.
Now we may not have a full-blown emotional
addiction ruling our life. But who of
us can say we’re not “under the influence” of our favorite brand of peptides
more often than we’d like to admit? To
the extent we’re intoxicated by our anger or lust or self pity or stress or
worry, our judgment is hindered, our awareness of other people is clouded, and
our responses are impaired. These
peptides do act very much like alcohol and other drugs in the ways they
interact with our bodies. But instead
of drinking them or injecting them, we create them ourselves.
So how do we become open and free so we can
get back into the fullness of living and learning and loving?
Both Paul and Twelve Step programs like AA
agree on the same basic steps to recovery of mental, emotional and spiritual
health.
We have to admit when we find ourselves
caught in one of these patterns. We
name it and face it. We might call this
confession. And it helps to go deeper
and become aware of the underlying needs that set us up for our particular type
of peptide fixes. What do we gain from
being angry? Is it the feeling of power
so we don’t have to feel so vulnerable?
Is it a mask for pain we don’t know what to do with? Or what do we gain from worrying? A sense of control by thinking through all
the bad things that could happen? A
protection against being caught by surprise, or against being blamed for not
warning people of the danger? It can be
very liberating just to name and own what our underlying needs are.
Twelve Step programs say we then have to turn
to a Higher Power to help us. We turn
our lives and our wills over to God. We
open our inner chaos to the Source of all order. We open our fears to the One who holds us in an eternal embrace. We give over our brokenness to the One who
heals and gives life and makes things new.
And then we begin to “walk the walk” of
freedom. In last week’s scripture
lesson, Paul talked about “presenting our members to God as instruments of
righteousness” (Romans 6:13).
Righteousness in the Bible doesn’t mean adherence to a code of conduct
as much as being in right relationship with God. When we present our members to God as instruments of
righteousness, we offer all of our parts to work together to serve their
intended purpose. Our anger is used to
mobilize us into action–when it’s needed.
Our sexuality is used to bond us deeply with our beloved--when we’re in
a relationship of commitment and trust.
Our worry is used to help us map out contingency plans--when the danger
is real. Then everything is in right
relationship with the whole and serving the purpose of living fully in the
world, because one member isn’t dominating the others.
And in Romans 8, Paul says, “Those who live
according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who
live according to the Spirit set their mind on things of the Spirit (Romans
8:5). Biochemistry bears this out. If we keep thinking about the things that
get us angry, or that arouse our lust, or that make us feel sorry for
ourselves, or that stress us out, or that worry us, guess which peptides will
keep getting triggered in our body? But
if we set our minds on the things that make us grateful, that lift our spirits
in inspiration, that open our eyes to beauty, that challenge us to grow, that
open the channel of generosity within us, we will stop our vicious cycle and
find our way right out of that cul de sac.
There’s a by-line for a new film that goes,
“The most dangerous thing to want is more.”
And that’s true--if it’s more and more of one thing, like sexual
stimulation or control or excitement.
But the most liberating thing to want is for more of our whole selves to
be available to God, so that we can enter fully and freely into the dance of
life.
In every moment, we have the freedom to
choose being a slave of our flesh, or a servant of God and a liberated lover of
life. Don’t let anyone take away your
freedom–especially you.
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