We worked through a challenging lesson in confirmation this week: Martin Luther’s doctrine that each of us is always both sinner and saint. Meaning each of us has the capacity to sin, or to harm others, while at the same time as having the capacity to commit great acts of kindness.
A challenging lesson, after all, because few of us like to be reminded that we too are sinners. Especially when you’re in middle or high school. The students can quickly recall stories in which someone else wronged them, but are less willing to share that they too can hurt others. So, not unlike us adults.
It would serve each of us — including those professing a faith — to be aware of this human nature. Even though each of us was created as a beautiful individual — a child of God nonetheless — we all sin, we all make mistakes and at some point we hurt someone else.
What the kids struggle the most with this doctrine is that surely my sins can’t be as great as some of the sins committed by other people. After all, there must be some kind of continuum of greater to lesser sins. … Isn’t there? Surely, God can’t judge my cheating on a history test as harshly as someone inflicting harm on another person. Right?
I suspect that the students’ attempt to parse what sins are worse than others isn’t too much of a stretch from what we do as adults. By judging others’ sins greater than our own, it creates both the “other” and a reason for us to stand in judgment of them, to feel superior over them. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we all do it. It’s a way of feeling better about our own shortcomings.
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Luther’s doctrine of us always being both sinner and saint is humbling. It forces us to come to terms with our own capacity to sin and to harm others, and simultaneously should encourage us to extend grace to others for that very reason. It is the great equalizer among us all. None of us live perfect lives; all of us hurt others; therefore, we all need and deserve God’s endless forgiveness.
In the Christian faith, being a follower of Jesus doesn’t assure that we live holier lives than others, but what it does mean is that we are washed clean of our sins by Jesus’ righteousness. We are made new again in Jesus’ baptism. That is the promise made to us by a good and gracious God.
If only each of us could remember this on a daily basis, it’s not hard to imagine a less hurtful and painful world. Just imagine.
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