What Is Sin? - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

Summary

Bishop Robert Barron's sermon investigates the concept of sin, examining its origin through the lens of Genesis chapters 1 to 3. Sin is depicted as an alienation from God, leading to feelings of shame and the tendency to blame others. Bishop Barron emphasizes the profound insights these biblical narratives provide on human nature and our relationship with God. The sermon illustrates how sin disrupts our innate sense of connection and transparency, forcing self-awareness, fear, and blame into the forefront of our lives. Jesus’s mission, Barron highlights, is to counteract these dynamics, as He transforms the "shame-and-blame game" into overflowing forgiveness and inclusivity, thus establishing a new Kingdom of love and compassion.

Highlights

• Genesis 3's narrative reveals the deep dynamics of sin as alienation from God. 📖
• Consciousness of sin induces shame, leading Adam and Eve to hide from God. 😮
• The best life moments occur when we forget ourselves, feeling connected and free. 🌟
• Teenagers exemplify heightened self-consciousness, a product of sin and shame. 😅
• Jesus counters sin's alienation by offering forgiveness and inclusive love. ✨

Key Takeaways

• Sin results in a separation from God, causing shame and blame. 😔
• Jesus came to reverse the shame and blame dynamics, welcoming love and forgiveness. ❤️
• Living in God's kingdom allows for freedom from self-consciousness and fear. 🙌
• Alienation from God is the root of sin, leading to a cycle of shame and blame. 🔄
• True joy and connection are when we are least self-aware, like in friendships or art. 🎨

Overview

In this insightful sermon, Bishop Robert Barron explores the profound nature of sin as portrayed in Genesis chapters 1 through 3. He describes how sin leads to alienation from God, causing shame and self-consciousness. This narrative illustrates the fundamental human condition of realizing one’s nakedness or vulnerability in the eyes of God, prompting fear and hiding.

Bishop Barron highlights the cyclical pattern that sin initiates: alienation leads to shame, which leads to blaming others. This "shame-and-blame game" is a familiar rhythm in our lives. But there’s good news — Jesus enters the scene to offer a radically different path. By dying on the cross, He dismantles this cycle, inviting us instead into forgiveness and a life filled with compassion and love.

As Barron explains, Jesus isn’t part of the dysfunctional world; He enters into it to overthrow it. His mission is to cast out the accuser, to reverse sin's shame and blame with open arms of love and inclusion. Living within Jesus's kingdom means embracing a new way of life, where generosity and grace replace self-centered fear and blame, revealing a path toward true happiness and divine communion.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Return to Ordinary Time The chapter discusses the speaker's relief in returning to Ordinary Time in the Church after the Lent and Easter seasons. The speaker appreciates how the Church marks this return with a reading from Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3, emphasizing their fundamental importance. The narrative encourages the audience to engage with these biblical texts.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Sin and Alienation from God This chapter discusses the concept of sin and humanity's alienation from God, focusing on the biblical narrative of the fall and original sin. The author highlights the insightful understanding of sin as depicted in the Bible, particularly through the story of Adam and Eve's disobedience and God's subsequent questioning, 'Where are you?' This serves as a profound exploration of the nature of sin and its impact on the human-divine relationship.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Fear and Shame in Sin This chapter delves into the concept of 'Fear and Shame in Sin'. It highlights that sin inherently involves a sense of alienation from God. The omniscient nature of God is emphasized, suggesting that He is always aware of His creations, contradicting any notion that He 'loses sight' of them. The chapter touches upon John Henry Newman's perspective that natural religion often presents its darker aspects more prominently. Newman suggests that in our natural state, our conscience reveals the existence of God and simultaneously our alienation from Him, underscoring an inherent tension between human nature and divine presence.
• 02:30 - 04:00: Self-Awareness and Misery The chapter titled 'Self-Awareness and Misery' explores the theme of human sinfulness and its impact on the relationship between people and God. It begins by acknowledging that everyone is a sinner, which underlies the core experience of separation from God. The text implies a mutual sense of loss: God perceiving the absence of His creation, and individuals feeling distant from God. This dual perception highlights a shared predicament among believers, emphasizing alienation from divine presence due to human fallibility. Commentary on this state of disconnection aims to resonate with the reader's personal experiences of spiritual distance.
• 04:00 - 05:30: Shame and Blame Dynamics The chapter titled 'Shame and Blame Dynamics' explores the psychological and spiritual implications of fear and shame, drawing from biblical narratives. It begins with a quote illustrating the moment of awakening to vulnerability and the subsequent reaction of hiding due to fear. The narrative asks why, historically, fear was absent in the relationship with God before a pivotal event, suggesting a deeper analysis of the moment when shame and fear first entered human consciousness, altering the dynamic from one of open fellowship to one of hiding and fear.
• 05:30 - 07:00: God's Persistence and Compassion This chapter explores the theme of sin and its impact on human consciousness. It begins with the story of feeling nakedness and the desire to hide, which is linked to the emergence of sin and the associated feelings of shame and self-awareness. The discussion pivots to highlight that the most fulfilling moments in life occur when individuals are least self-conscious. The chapter underscores the idea of God's persistence and compassion amidst the recognition of human imperfection and the innate sense of guilt that sin brings forth.
• 07:00 - 09:30: Jesus' Role in Overcoming Sin The chapter discusses the concept of happiness and fulfillment in life through the lens of being lost in moments of passion, beauty, or creativity. It touches upon the idea presented by Jordan Peterson regarding self-awareness and happiness, emphasizing that the happiest moments occur when individuals are least conscious of themselves.
• 09:30 - 14:00: The New Kingdom of God The chapter titled 'The New Kingdom of God' delves into the concept of self-consciousness and its intrinsic link to misery. It explores the psychological idea that self-awareness often aligns with a state of internal misery. By referencing Augustine's definition of sin as 'Curvatus in se'—meaning being curved in on oneself—the chapter argues that such self-absorption leads to a state of unhappiness.

What Is Sin? - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Peace be with you. Friends, I’m not sure if you’re like me, but even though I love Lent and Easter and all the great festivities, it’s with a sense of relief that I return with the Church to Ordinary Time. And how wonderful now on this Tenth Sunday, as we pick up Ordinary Time, the Church gives us such a fundamentally important reading. Get out your Bibles. Look at Genesis 1, 2, and 3, these pivotally important chapters. Number 3, of course, is about
• 00:30 - 01:00 the fall and original sin. To return to these stories is to discover again, listen, the basic dynamics of sin. The perceptiveness here is stunning, it’s staggering, how deeply the author perceives, under God’s inspiration, the nature of sin. Listen now, as it’s done in the typical biblical laconic narrative. “After the man had eaten of the tree, the Lord God called to him and said, ‘Where are you?’”
• 01:00 - 01:30 Now, the omniscient God obviously is not having a bad day and having lost sight of his creatures. He knows exactly where they are. But what’s being signaled here is sin always involves an alienation from God. John Henry Newman said that natural religion always wears its dark side outward. What he meant was in the natural state, we know that God exists through our conscience, and we know that we’re alienated from God.
• 01:30 - 02:00 It’s true. We’re all sinners, and so our experience of God is one of separation. God said, “Where are you? Where are my creatures? I’ve lost sight of you.” It means, really, we’ve lost sight of God. We’ve wandered away. Fellow sinners, I know you feel this way. I know you experience God in just this way. He answered,
• 02:00 - 02:30 “I heard you in the garden, but I was afraid because I was naked, and so I hid myself.” Gosh, there’s so much spiritual power and eloquence in these lines. So “I heard you in the garden, but I was afraid.” Well, why would you be afraid of God? He wasn’t afraid of God before the fall. He walked in easy fellowship with God. God’s friend, not afraid of him. What made him afraid?
• 02:30 - 03:00 Well, because “I was naked and so I hid myself.” Well, he was naked before and he wasn’t hiding himself. What happened? Sin awakens in us, just by its very nature, a sense of shame and self-consciousness. Now, watch this, everybody. The best moments in life, the best moments in life are without exception those times when you are least aware of yourself, right?
• 03:00 - 03:30 Just think of the most splendid moments in your life, the best moments of a day. It’s when you’re lost in a project or you’re lost in the beauty of nature, you’re lost in the wonder of a friendship, in a conversation, a work of art, whatever it is. It’s when you’re least aware of yourself, you’re happiest. Something Jordan Peterson said I think is dead right. He says it’s borne out by all the psychological research
• 03:30 - 04:00 —namely, self-consciousness and misery are psychologically identical. Think about that. What’s misery? Well, it’s the state of being self-aware. I’ve shared often before with you Augustine’s definition of sin: “Curvatus in se.” When I’m caved in around myself, that’s when I’m miserable.
• 04:00 - 04:30 What happens to Adam here? He was naked before, wasn’t afraid of God, wasn’t ashamed, wasn’t hiding from God. But now in the wake of sin, which is alienation from God, violation of God’s law, he becomes painfully self-aware, ashamed. He needs to cover up something in his life. It’s a wonderful image here of that un-self-consciousness.
• 04:30 - 05:00 Think of when you’re in the presence of a real friend, not someone that you’re just acquainted with, but I mean a real friend. You can be psychologically naked. You can be self-revealing. You’re not trying to hide something from that person. What happens is our sin awakens in us shame and the desire to hide and cover ourselves up. Well, it’s exactly what we do,
• 05:00 - 05:30 painfully, in the presence of God. I think about this, as I record these words, finishing up a Confirmation season, so I’m dealing with teenage kids like 15, 16. I’m not picking on the kids here; it’s true of any teenagers anywhere in the world. Do you want to see people in a kind of agony of self-consciousness? Watch kids that age. There’s something about a teenager, they’re just so aware of themselves and they don’t want to say or do something that’ll make their friends laugh at them. They’re in an agony of self-regard,
• 05:30 - 06:00 trying to hide. What makes life wonderful is when we can finally let down all those guards and we can lose ourselves. We can forget ourselves. That’s what’s lost in the original sin. So, first, it’s an alienation from God. Mind you, before I forget. The “Where are you” is a sign of the alienation, but it’s also, and it’s so important in the Bible here,
• 06:00 - 06:30 is God doesn’t give up on us. If God had been offended by our sin, and the heck with them, the heck with them, they didn’t listen to me. But see, the God of the Bible is not like that. There’s a straight line from this image of God to the father of the prodigal son. He doesn’t give up on us. He’s after us. Where are you? Where are you? Looking for us, even as we run away from him. But the alienation gives rise to shame
• 06:30 - 07:00 and the shame gives rise to what? Well, watch how the narrative unfolds. The Lord says, “Well, then I can tell. I mean you’ve eaten of the tree I forbade you to eat from.” The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” The Lord God said to the woman, “Why would you do such a thing?” The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, and so I ate it.” Watch the rhythm now.
• 07:00 - 07:30 Alienation from God leads to shame, and the shame leads to blame. It’s the shame-and-blame game. That’s what happens to us. See, in our shame, our self-reproach, our awful self-regard, which is the same thing as misery, what do we do? We start casting about, blaming everybody around us. That’s why I’m unhappy.
• 07:30 - 08:00 She’s why I did it. He’s the problem. They’re the problem. Does any of that sound familiar, fellow sinners? It’s the basic dynamic. Alienation from God leads to shame, which in turn leads to blame. Now, if you doubt me on this, could I invite you —anytime of the day or night— go on the internet? What do you find in this, I think, honestly, increasingly dysfunctional space?
• 08:00 - 08:30 You see exactly the shame-and-blame game. What’s going on but a kind of orgy of blaming and of shaming. Calling to mind people’s sin, reminding people of their sin, and then blaming, blaming, blaming on all sides. Now, who’s this serpent? Responsible ultimately for all of us, the serpent who tempts them into sin
• 08:30 - 09:00 and therefore into shame, and therefore into blame. Who is he? Well, he’s got a name in the Bible. I’ve talked about “ho diabolos” a lot, the scatterer, but his name in the Hebrew Scriptures is the “satanas.” Satan comes from that. It means the accuser, or even more precisely the prosecuting attorney. What’s the prosecuting attorney’s job?
• 09:00 - 09:30 To blame, to blame. They did it. He did it. She did it. The accuser. Somehow, we are under the thrall of this accusing power, and he produces the world of sin —alienation, shame, blame— that we all function in. I don’t know about you, read this section again, Genesis chapter 3, you want to understand
• 09:30 - 10:00 the dynamics that dominate so much of our lives. Now, let’s go from that to our Gospel. This tells us, Genesis 3, how the world that we live in started. The shame-and-blame game, how it started. Who is Jesus? Well, God so loved the world, this fallen dysfunctional world, that he sent his only Son into it,
• 10:00 - 10:30 that those who believe in him might find eternal life. He comes from outside the dysfunction, but into the dysfunction. That’s the Incarnation if you want. I’m putting it in more soteriological language there, the language of salvation. He came from outside the dysfunction, but entered into the dysfunction. Not of it, but in it. What’s his job?
• 10:30 - 11:00 To cast out Satan. The root of this problem on the biblical reading is this accuser who’s given rise to the alienation, shame, and blame game. What’s Jesus’ job, is to cast that power out. Watch how, throughout the Gospels, Jesus reverses the shame-and-blame game. Is he about the business of shaming people? No, on the contrary, of inviting and forgiving.
• 11:00 - 11:30 “Neither do I condemn you.” Eating and drinking with, yes, sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors. The blame game, no. The forgiveness game, the game of compassion, inclusion. Now, I don’t mean that in the wokeist sense it’s being used today. But, yes indeed, inclusion in this good biblical sense.
• 11:30 - 12:00 Jesus’ open-table fellowship, inviting everybody in. Do you see how he’s undermining Satan? Now, listen to this Gospel, this interesting, weird Gospel from Mark. “When his relatives heard of this” —meaning all that he was doing and especially the exorcisms— “they sent out to seize him for they said, ‘He’s out of his mind.’” See, they’re right. I want you to see that, they’re right. He is out of his mind, meaning, he’s not living in the space produced
• 12:00 - 12:30 by the shame-and-blame game. He’s come from outside of it, and so within the world of sin, he seems crazy because he is. He’s turned that world upside down. Then, I love this, the scribes, the official religious leaders, they come from Jerusalem, and they say, “Hey, he’s possessed by Beelzebub, and by the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Well, how about that for a stupid bit of logic,
• 12:30 - 13:00 which Jesus completely exposes, and listen to the language he uses: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom can’t stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” No, I am here to drive out Satan. That’s what he’s saying. I am here to drive out this dynamic which has come to dominate all of human life,
• 13:00 - 13:30 to undo the alienation, shame, and blame game by declaring and embodying a whole new kingdom. The kingdom of God, not the kingdom that started with the original sin and has haunted and poisoned the human race ever since. Not that kingdom. I’m driving out the prince of that kingdom
• 13:30 - 14:00 so as to become the Lord of this new kingdom of love and compassion and inclusion and forgiveness. There’s the Gospel, everybody. There’s the Gospel. A new world has come. The old prince is being cast out and a new King has arrived. Accept his kingship, live within his kingdom. And God bless you.