Last week I quoted a professor who asked a group of ministers the question; "If we can't run to the church with our sin, where do we run?" Well, this weekend we are making space to bring our sin to the church :) We begin a sermon series on Sunday that I hope will help us to address our brokenness without any sense of shame or judgement and leave us feeling less alone as together we seek healing from God.
It was Pope Gregory the Great who in 590CE compiled a list of what he called "the seven deadly sins" - pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, sloth and greed. We all struggle to different degrees with each of these, but that struggle is compounded when we do so in secret. If instead we were to be more real about our condition, we would find that our relationships are deepened and our sense of isolation reduced. As the Swiss theologian Karl Barth said, "when we speak of our virtues we are competitors, when we confess our sins we become brothers and sisters."
We won't be confessing our sins out aloud on Sunday :) but I do hope you will join us for this journey.