So, 

Perhaps some of you have heard that the 16th century Catholic monk and later reformer who started what is known as the Lutheran Church once said. He said, “Sin Boldly”.

Of course, he didn’t mean that we should sin more, or sin in more creative ways. Nor did he mean that we should sin more so that God would be able to forgive us more. (Roman 6:1)

Rather, Luther was advocating that if we were going to sin anyway, if sin and rebellion against God is quite frankly part of our fallen nature, then we should be quite forthright in owning it.

We should be bold in taking responsibility, to match the boldness with which God’s forgiveness is offered.

Don’t be like Adam and Eve right here in today’s scripture and not take responsibility or shift the blame. Name it, claim it, and then move on to dealing with it.

To be clear, sin is the abandonment of God’s wonderful creation for something less satisfying and less fulfilling, and ultimately, cause for separation from God himself. 

Remarkably though, sin also creates the need for and the establishment creation of a pathway for redemption and restoration.

So, for us specifically, it helps us understand our own worship.
Because in order to understand our traditional worship service (which is based in the Reformed and Presbyterian practice of confessing our sins at each worship service, we first have to come to a clear understanding of what we are confessing, that we like Adam and Eve are sinners.

And while most of us are pretty good at finding the small sins, i.e. stealing someone else’s lunch out of the work refrigerator or eating all your kid’s Halloween candy, or something like that, we are often not very good at all understanding how sin is ultimately about rejecting God as God.

To understand sin and its huge impact on us, we must understand the cost and consequences of Adam and Eve’s rejecting of God’s authority, God’s provision, and God’s love, when they chose to eat the fruit.

We subtlety, and sometimes not so subtly at all, set ourselves up as individually and as communities, to be authorities in our own right, ion opposition to God’s authority. We choose to make rules that benefit only some of God’s children, not all of them.

We exclude some, we hurt some, we ostracize some, because unlike God, we do not have the distance outside human existence to be fair to all, even when that may be our broken desire.

We set aside God’s provision, as the snake suggested Eve do, eating the fruit that was not for humanity. We choose to provide for ourselves even when that means that we have chosen poorly.

And we push away God’s love, knowing full well that God’s love is perfect and God intentions are only for our health and growth, and choose our own ways, even when we know full well, they are selfish and harmful.

It is the human condition!
Indeed, it has existed since chapter 3 of Genesis, but it is also the bane of our existence, because as Genesis explains, it has adversely affected everything we do, we think, and we are.

Rejecting God’s authority, provision, and love has resulted in a humanity that is stunted, greedy, arrogant, self-centered, scared, lonely, angry, and lost.

Yet instead of returning to God to seek healing, we act like Adam and Eve, explaining away our hiding from God, our unwillingness to admit our sin and our failure to seek God’s love.

We have chosen the more difficult pathway.

But even in the midst of the sorrow and sadness our rebellion causes, God still is seeking our restoration, and has provided a way back into a healthy relationship through Christ.

We can confess our sin, we can repent - that is change our ways - and we can choose to repair the damage we have caused to ourselves, to others, and to creation.

But for that to happen, we first have to see our sin, individual and corporate and name it. 

So today, we begin a journey to first, see sin, then confess our failure, then repent/change, then repair the damage we have caused, by ourselves and as a community. 

God has promised help and has provided it in the person of Jesus Christ.

Are you ready for the journey? God be with us all. Amen.