On Sin
On a crisp evening this past February, I found myself hanging up a swing for Cosette on the big tree in our front lawn. Balancing on the top step of my 5ft ladder, I was living squarely in the tension of knowing this was dangerous while also not thinking it was dangerous enough to go exchange my ladder. I reasoned that the ladder was only wobbling a little bit and it wouldn’t be that far of a fall… so, I stuck with the short ladder. Just as I was finishing up, Molly came to the front door in a panic because Wanda’s paw was bleeding. We took her into the shower to clean the wound and inspected it to find a deep gash on her paw pad. Unfortunately, I knew exactly where she got it.
You see, the people who previously lived in our house did not take very good care of it. There’s a mountain of evidence as to why I’ve come to this conclusion, but I’ll present this for your own discernment: we find shards of broken glass bottles in the lower-elevated areas of our backyard after a good rain. Wanda must have been running and caught her paw on a glass shard. I took her to the pet ER and had a $500 procedure done, followed by another $200 of post-op work and 5 weeks of recovery. All because someone years ago committed a selfish act that I’m sure has never and will never cross their mind again. This became a costly metaphor for me to reflect on sin.
From a Christian perspective, sin is deeper than the common trope of doing something on a mysterious naughty list. Sin is something that ruins relationship. It is misusing a gift that we’ve been given. Drinks and glass bottles are good things, so are backyards. However, empty glass bottles belong in recycling bins and aren’t meant to be discarded wherever you please.
Someone else’s selfish decision hurt my innocent dog. Wanda was doing exactly what dogs are meant to do: running in the backyard, chewing sticks, and barking way too much. She had no idea what happened and why she then was drugged, stitched up, and had to wear a cone for 5 weeks while her owners were constantly on her for conniving new methods of licking at her stitches. It was a stressful and frustrating month.
Interestingly enough, my yard didn’t want the broken glass either. Creation recognized a foreign element, and each individual drop of rain eroded the dirt that was holding the shard hostage. The earth steadily released the trash from its grip. The shard might have appeared where it was discarded but more than likely it floated down my hill to the low point. Either way, my lawn was done with this invader.
What about the litterer? Were they drunk? If so, I’m afraid they were drunk quite a bit by the amount of glass we find. Did they have any concept of the fact that he or she might walk on the lawn one day? Or that someone they loved might get cut? Maybe they had lost their temper and were letting out pent-up frustration? Did they have any idea things like glass bottles do not just disappear? There could be countless reasons why they thought this was the best option for the bottle, none of which are any good. It was a short-sighted decision.
What about the litterer’s family and friends? Surely someone in their community would be aware of this destructive habit. No one consistently breaks glass bottles in their yard without someone else noticing. Was their community afraid? Did their community think this action was worth reforming? Maybe recycling glass was too inconvenient or they had not had access to someone who educated them on the importance of recycling? There’s a communal fault here as well.
I could continue making assumptions about the litterer’s action, but I think you get the point. Sin is destructive. It harms the offender and the offended. It is rarely, if ever, just an individual ordeal. Often, we aren’t aware of how our choices affect others. We are constantly affected by other people’s sin, no matter how innocent and unaware we are.
There’s a reason that God longs to rid the world of sin, it’s because sin creates all of the evil that we experience. We were not meant to live this way. The earth was not meant to be humanity’s trash bin. Dogs were not meant to be harmed by humanity’s laziness. I was not meant to spend $700 for someone else’s seemingly simple and unnoticeable lack of discretion. Families, friends, and neighbors are meant to guide each other into wholeness and not enable bad habits.
Our lives are incredibly intertwined. What we do and what we don’t do affects us and those around us, both now and in the future. Our world needs healing. I’m grateful that I follow a God who has entered into our mess to deliver us and invite us into a better way. While I’m on the journey to living a better way, I pray my life is a witness to my fellow strugglers that there is a better way.
I’ll have plenty of more opportunities to dwell on this as I dig up more glass after the next rain.
