There’s a cartoon family whose activities I have been following each day in the daily news for several years in their strip called, For Better or Worse. Along the way, I have identified with several of the circumstances that this family has encountered. They have an older son who went off to college at about the same time as my oldest left home. He has now married and has a child of his own. The next child, a daughter, has grown beyond the rabbit she once had as a pet and is now in college. The youngest child, another daughter, I think her name is Elizabeth, is now an adolescent, struggling with all of the issues of becoming a young woman.

In a recent episode, Elizabeth was seen in a first kiss with her boyfriend. Her parents have told her that she could not be along with this young man, which of course Elizabeth thinks is ridiculous. Through the clickety-clack of an online conversation, Elizabeth is complaining to her older sister.

She types, "How can they stop us?" send. "It would be so easy to sneak out!" send. Her older sister instant messages back, "You mean lie…"

As Elizabeth says "Yes" to herself, her sister types "…that would be so stupid."

In preparing for this Ash Wednesday service, I spent some time considering the word "sin." We seem to use it all the time in church, but when is the last time your boss asked about your sin or you overheard a conversation at a party about sin? Sin has become a church word and I’m not sure we know what it means.

One way of understanding sin is to replace it with the word folly. Elizabeth’s older sister understands the folly of lying to one’s parents and sneaking out to be with one’s boyfriend, but I’m not sure if Elizabeth got the message.

Other words that sometimes fill in for sin are negligence, rebellion, quilt, and error. Sometimes ignorance leads to sin and other times outright rebellion against God is the culprit. Sin can be willful or it can be almost accidental.

In the New Testament, the Greek word that is translated most frequently as sin has a connotation of missing the target. It comes from an archery term, so one way of viewing sin is that each one of us is like an archer. We take our best shot at the target that God has set up and we miss the bull’s eye. Or as in my case, we miss the target completely.

Second Corinthians tells us that Jesus Christ took on our sin although he knew no sin of his own so that "… we might become the righteousness of God." In this taking on of sin, Jesus identifies with humanity so much so, that we proclaim that he is fully human and fully divine all at the same time.

In one sense sin is what makes us human. As humans we miss the target, and the beauty is that it’s okay. We are made just through the action of Jesus Christ. The reconciliation of Christ releases us from the judgement that we could receive from God.

Paul’s theology of reconciliation, far from being a once-for-all act fully experienced at baptism, is actually an ongoing process throughout the life of a Christian. We might say that our aim at the target improves as we continue to journey with God.

In order to receive this reconciliation, however, we do have to first acknowledge our need. So it behooves us to name our sin and acknowledge it before God.

A number of years ago, at a service similar to this one I suggested that the congregation write their sin on slips of paper and burn them as a ritual for releasing them to God. When these slips were completed and passed forward to be burned, it seemed that some members had covered both sides with the sins they would offer to God and some had left the papers blank.

Now it is possible that this was simply extroverted and introverted behavior, but I suspect it was symptomatic of our confusion about sin. Some were suffering from an outdated understanding of sin. They didn’t dance; they didn’t drink alcohol or play cards. They didn’t’ participate in the three activities defined as sin in the first half of the twentieth century and they didn’t have a new understanding. Others were thinking of all the things they had ever down wrong and classifying them as sin.

Sometimes, I struggle to find the right balance for self-reflection; it’s hard to strike a balance between kindness and criticism when evaluating my life. It seems that there are days that go terribly wrong and I can do nothing right and on yet other days it seems I can do no wrong. Either we’re too hard on ourselves chastising ourselves for every minor infraction or we have trouble seeing any sin at all in our lives.

I am suggesting that we relax a little about sin while at the same time, broaden our understanding of sin. We need to think seriously about our lives and identify places that need God’s touch and we need to realize that we are not God. We are human and part of being human means that we miss the target on occasion.

So, let me tell you folks, we got sin … In the words of the musical, The Music Man

                    Oh, we got trouble!
                    Right here in River City!

With a capital "T" that rhymes with "P" and that stands for power.
We’ve surely got trouble.

Whenever a person or country is in a position of power, they must constantly be on guard against using that power over others. Power over controls the actions of others by demanding that they behave in a certain way. Dramatically opposed to power over is power with others. Power with lifts the other from a place of submission to a place of sharing.

Several years ago, I offered a liturgical dance class to a group of young teenage women. We were choreographing a song in our hymnal, "El Shadai" and when we got to the line "by the power of your name" I stopped. You see, these teenage girls were confined to a Youth Correctional Facility. The Director of the Women’s Program at the facility had told me that 95% of the young women in her program had been sexually abused. So I talked with the girls about how we might express power with rather than power over. They changed the dance movement from a strident stance to reaching out to each other and holding each other’s hands high.

When power is used to control others it is sin, for it tears and destroys the fabric of community. But power that lifts each person to stand with dignity mends the fabric and reconciles the community with God.

With a capital "T" that rhymes with "P" and that stands for prestige.
We’ve surely got trouble.

Prestige is the sister to power. Prestige can make one feel secure with a false hope, "I am better than all others." Prestige can make others believe that the one with prestige would/could do nothing wrong. Yet no one lives without sin; all people make mistakes. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, writes in his sermons about "going on to perfection," yet acknowledges that even he has not yet reached perfection. He writes that perfection may be something that we reach at the end of our lives as we pass into death.

Oh, we got trouble!

                    With a capital "T" that rhymes with "P" and that stands for possessions..

We’ve surely got trouble.

Possessions. Now that is something I can identify with. We live in a market economy that is heavily dependant on consumer spending. We joke about going to the mall as a way of expressing our patriotism and supporting the national economy. How can we keep our possessions in check so that they do not consume our lives? When possessions control our lives, we make decisions that value possessions rather than people. Sometimes these decisions hurt the very people that we claim to love and they separate us form God. They lead to sin.

                    Right here in River City!

But we do not have to start a community band and learn 76 Trombones. All we have to do is acknowledge the trouble and turn away from the behavior. When we desire a different way of living - one where we control our possessions rather than vice versa, one where prestige and power are shared rather than horded - then God will forgive our mistakes and help us to move in a new direction. God seeks reconciliation with us that we might live life fully.

May we recognize our folly. May we turn from rebellion to God’s way and recognize the freedom of a life as God’s child. May we see the places of negligence in our lives and seek new life as we prepare for Easter. May we journey through this season of self-reflection, turning our lives over to God that we might be reconciled through God’s grace filled love. Amen.