Wednesday, April 27, 2016

            I fully intended to pay for my sin – a $25 parking ticket. No argument – mea culpa. I tried to get away without putting my toonie in the meter. It was supposed to be as quick in-and-out, but I was much longer than expected. I got caught. But that’s sin for you – trying to get away with something and not get caught doing it.

            Anyway, the back of the ticket offered me a convenient way to pay the fine, right from the comfort of my home. No fuss, no muss.

            I discovered that paying for one’s misdemeanors is never convenient.

            The first way was to pay on line. Just type in the license plate and the ticket number and pay with your credit card. Sin on easy credit; interesting concept. Except that the website couldn’t find the ticket.

            The next best, easy way was by phone. Just dial the 1-800 number and pay by credit card.  Except that after about 20 rings I was sent to voice mail, telling me that I should try during office hours. I tried several times through the morning; same result, same message. Try again during office hours. I am saying to myself, Hey sweetie, (I hope she hates being called sweetie), that’s what I am doing.

            This left me with snail mail. My sin was no longer all that conveniently atoned for. I wrote the cheque but then I had to get in the car to go buy envelopes as we didn’t have any at home; then drive to the post office, purchase a stamp and finally mail it. My luck, it will get lost in the mail and then the fine is doubled if not paid in seven days.

            The address should have alerted me. It was “South Slope” and if that is not akin to the slippery slope of sinning, then I don’t know what is.

            There is a lesson in all this, and not just next time, put a toonie in the meter in the first place. Although avoiding sin to begin with is never a bad idea.

            The concept of Sin has become outmoded in the secular culture we live in.  People make mistakes, fall short of the mark, trip up, make unfortunate choices, have bad luck, even get caught, but we have become very reluctant to use the word sin as a way to describe some of the messes we get ourselves into. Sin may be deemed as being a very negative, judgmental, disapproving indictment of our human condition.

People, including Christians I know, find the allegation of sinful living to be harsh and severe. Nobody’s perfect; almost everybody is trying their best; mistakes happen. If you believe in God, you take solace that Gods loves the sinner, no matter what.

Now I don’t want to revert to the old days when every preacher preached sin and damnation from the pulpit. But Sin is a bone-fide term to help us engage and understand the limitations and failings of our humanity. “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it,” (Genesis 4:7).  Sin, however defined, is that which distances us from God and usually one another.  There is nothing convenient about it; no easy way to atone for it; no comfortable way to deal with its effects upon us.  Unattended, sin festers and doubles its cost very rapidly. 

Sin can’t stand up against personal honesty, truthfulness, confession and the gracious love that is given to us by God as lived out by Jesus Christ.

Jesus once told a broken woman to go and sin no more. Easier said than done, perhaps; but I am confident that he said these words, not as a threat or a warning, but spoken with supreme compassion and his sacred kindness, as a way to alter the woman’s life journey and get her back on track.

It beats getting the ticket!