WNC Worship: Meditation

“Your name is not Sinner”

On behalf of the Washington National Cathedral community, I invite you to spend time in the Lenten practice of meditating on Sunday’s Gospel text. Each week you will receive a short e-mail meditation from a member of the community throughout Lent ending with Easter. Please consider this our invitation to a holy Lent.

Now, let’s begin our journey into a deeper reflection on the meaning of this holy season.

Lent is a wonderful, special season for people of faith, but not the public at large. Our culture doesn’t seem to be in love with a few of the primary spiritual disciplines of Lent; doing an honest review of our life’s priorities, and confessing our sins.

Ah, the “S” word…yes, I said it, “Sin!” I don’t much like that word, for the same reasons that most of you probably don’t like it either. It brings up too many bad memories…(of a ill-conceived theology that we are all intrinsically evil from birth, of people using that word as a battering ram to let you know that you’re just no good, of preachers and rigid churches proclaiming a gospel that just doesn’t have any, well, “gospel”—that is, good news—in it that would be recognizable to the man from Galilee who went about the cities and countryside lifting up everybody to the better selves that they wanted to be.)

Everybody knows that they aren’t perfect, that they fall short of the glory of God. I could go into any church or establishment of ill repute and they would say they were sinners. Why, then, does the church insist on trying to browbeat everybody into admitting what they already know? Why does the church keep on scratching where people don’t itch?

Part of the problem is that you may sometimes have the feeling that if you could only stop being a sinner, if only you could become good—then God would forgive you, and then you could be a legitimate Christian and join the church. First, repent—then you will be accepted. But the biblical pattern is the complete opposite of this: first, a person is accepted for who they are, then that leads to repentance. Repentance, you see, means simply to turn around, to change the direction of your life, to let God lead you into becoming the kind of person that you were intended to be, and that you want to be.

Whenever Jesus encountered a “sinner” in his earthly ministry, his first act was to extend love and acceptance of that person. In response to that overwhelming grace extended to them, the person eventually repented, that is, “turned” toward Jesus and his words. They literally turned toward love, and the source of that new-found love.

So, am I a sinner? You bet…and so are you! But that’s not the last word about us…you see, God prefers to give us another name to live by.

In the powerful story by Cervantes, Don Quixote meets a common prostitute named Aldonza the Whore. But he sees her another way, and keeps on referring to her as My Lady Dulcinea, and slowly she is transformed. She becomes her name. After Don Quixote dies, Sancho Panza speaks to her again as Aldonza. But in a very powerful, emotional scene in that play, she replies resolutely, “My name is Dulcinea.”

In the Bible, my name is no longer Jacob (which in Hebrew means “man of deceit”); my name is “Israel” which means striver, for I have struggled with God and have prevailed. My name is not Simon, a simple fisherman; I am Peter the Rock. My name is not Saul, the religious bigot and persecutor of those who differed from me; my name is Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles. And my name is not “the woman at the well” with 5 husbands; my name is The First Apostle of Jesus to the Samaritans.

And in this season of reflection, increased devotion and repentance as you confess all the wrongdoing in your life, I want you to hear the soft voice of God ringing in your ear:

“Your name is not Sinner. Your name is Child of God. Your name is Beloved. Welcome home.”