Dare to Be a Sinner in 2007

Keeping on the theme of New Year's Resolutions, here's another one that might be worth trying:

Dare to be a sinner in 2007.

For those of you who are mortally offended that a pastor would write such a thing, here is a link to my presbytery's website where you can find all the contract addresses you need to institute disciplinary proceedings against me. 

But, for those of you who are intrigued by the comment, I'll admit that I stole it from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book Life Together.  His final chapter on "Confession and Communion" begins this way:

"Confess your faults one to another"  (Jas. 5:16).   He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.  It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness.  The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.  This pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.  So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and the fellowship.  We dare not be sinners.  Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous.  so we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.  The fact is that we are sinners!

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you.  He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone.  "My son, give me thine heart" (Prov. 23:26).  God has come to you to save the sinner.  Be glad!  This message is liberation through truth.  You can hide nothing from God.  The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him.  He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner.  Thank God for that; He loves the sinner but He hates sin.

Those words are good news for me!  They also show a way forward in the midst of our fractured churches and other Christian fellowships - they remind us that our fellowship is not based on a shared holiness, rather on shared depravity and shared reception of grace.