For the Love of Us All

THE RESPECTABLE SINS

We all know sins

Like murder, rape, child abuse

Ant violent crime---is wrong

We have a penal system

Set up for that

But beyond that---if we have a conscience

We have to reconcile our sins

With our God

But what about sins

Like coldness, indifference, ingratitude, and luke warmness

Toward others

Sins like, pride, jealousy, gossip, etc., etc., etc.

Just the sin of self-righteousness

The sin

Of thinking that we are better

Than the human being

Standing or sitting right beside us

The sins of the spirit

Are more difficult to get at

But I doubt no less of a sin

To our God

These sins are carried by all of us

In varying degrees

In the XVth chapter

Of Saint Luke’s Gospel

Jesus tells us such a story

A story about a Father and his 2 sons

1 respectable, 1 lost

The lost son takes his inheritance

Takes off for a foreign land

And spends everything he has

On wild living

Maybe by today’s standards

Wine-women-and song---maybe even drugs

A severe famine hits

And he has nothing to eat

So he decides to go home

Apologize to his Father

And beg for any job his Father

Will give him

His Father sees him coming from a long way off

And before the son can even apologize

And beg for forgiveness

His Father hugs him and kisses him

And decides to throw a party

The older son hears all the commotion

And basically throws a fit saying,

“All these years I have been slaving for you

And never disobeyed your orders

You never even gave me a young goat

So I could celebrate with my friends

But when this son of yours

Who has squandered your property

With prostitutes comes home

You kill the fatted calf for him”                                                          Luke 15:29-30

I certainly understand

How the older son feels

I am sure you can too

The Father responds,

“My son you are always with me

And everything I have is yours

But we had to celebrate and be glad

Because this brother of yours was dead

And is alive again

He was lost and is found”                                                                    Luke 15:31-32

One thing the sinners of this world know

Is that they are sinners

Jesus himself

Was unduly questioned and criticized

As to why he hung around “sinners”

Dickens once wrote,

“There is so much bad

In the best of us

And so much good

In the worst of us

It ill behooves any of us

To speak badly of the rest of us”

And Jesus himself said,

“If any of you are without sin

Let him be the first to throw the stone”                                                       John 8:7

Robert P. Wallman

11-3-11