16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
All wrongdoing comes from the same place of brokenness we call sin. The condition of being a sinner is universal and terminal. As the Scripture says, "The wages of sin is death."
Yet there are some symptoms of sin which themselves take life -- in the same way that a secondary infection like pneumonia has the power to kill in and of itself, though its presence is actually the result of a deeper and more chronic disease like an auto-immune deficiency. It is the disease itself which is the primary problem, but the secondary problem must be treated if the patient is to survive.
But not all sins have in and of themselves the power to kill the soul; and it is a (common) mistake to give them this power. The number of adolescents seriously tormented by the conviction of the most minor of peccadillos has kept therapists in business for decades. The consciences of literally millions of church-going children have been terrorized by their inability to shake "naughty thoughts". This seems especially true in many of the Baptist churches where people I have pastored grew up in. Every single sin led to a kind of death in the soul. And every single misdemeanor crime was given the death penalty. No wonder so many church people are so confused.
Today's Scripture is very clear. Not all sin leads to death itself. Most sin can and should be absolved through the simple and beautiful act of one brother telling another that God has the power to forgive and restore us to life. To make any more of the peccadilloes we all succumb to gives them a power that only the demonic, and not God, would wish is to think they have.
As for the sins which do themselves lead to death of the soul -- what the Church has historically called "mortal sins" -- these are not unforgivable, but they do require deeper and more intensive counseling, confession, contrition, and cleansing. Murder, adultery, theft are graver in the effects -- both on the one committing them and also on their relationships with their victims. This is why John in today's Lesson says he does not say we ought to pray for these sins. In saying that, he does not preclude us from praying for forgiveness, but warns us that we first need to know what we are doing. Mortal sins in and of themselves have the power to destroy the soul. They can also be forgiven, but the journey is deeper and life-long.
So, here's the moral for today. Forgive what you can forgive, help each other let go of what can be let go of, stop stoning yourself over imperfections, and never ever deny God's power to heal and forgive even the vilest of offenders.
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