a sinner

What a funny way to introduce someone. "A woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that [Jesus] was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment."

Couldn't we all be introduced that way? Steve, who is a sinner, preached yesterday.

After I grew out of my self-righteous phase in seminary, I survived on the fact that the church had no choice but to ordain sinners.

And yet the Pharisee thinks Jesus should know she is some sort of special type of sinner, maybe she just has a lot of vices or something. Maybe her sin was a lot more visible than his, but the poor decisions that go along with being a boozer are just as bad as the poor decisions that go a long with being arrogant; though the consequences are much less severe.

All of this to say, that this would be a good Sunday to talk about sin and its consequences. How sin blocks us from seeing the will of God. How sin keeps us self-centered rather than Christ centered. How sin feeds bad decision making which leads, most often, to more sin. How the sins of the father really do touch the lives of generations. How living a life of grace means calling a sin a sin and being forgiven of it. How living a life of sanctification means living in forgiveness and working to remove sin from you life.

Nobody likes to talk about sin. I take that back, a lot of people like to talk about someone else's sin. Nobody likes to talk about their own shortcomings, their own growing edges, the places where God's light has a hard time shining. But if we don't talk about it, if we don't get introduced at Steve, the sinner, then we never have the chance to receive the forgiveness freely offered.

Hi, my name is Steve and I am a sinner.