We speak of aimlessness and sin. We wash away sins in the rivers of baptism. We seek forgiveness for our sins. Some claim that Christ died for our sins, paying it forward across thousands of years for countless individuals. But what is this sin of which we speak? And is there anything “original†about it? Can it be passed on from generation to generation, as a blood guilt, as sinful genes, as a portion of today’s reading suggests?
Thankfully, Ezekiel abandoned this older understanding of blood guilt and multi-generational punishment. The prophet makes clear that the old rules that allowed you to be punished for the sin of your great-grandfather no longer applied. Under this late Hebrew theology, each is accountable for their own sins. It is disappointing, then, that Christians would reinvent the idea of sinful genes a few centuries after Jesus, when the concept of original sin was fabricated to justify the continued baptism of infants. We can be thankful that our own theological trajectory has, for the most part, abandoned this line of thinking and its unflattering portrait of God.
But we are left with the thorny question: What is sin?
Many would claim it is simply a case of violating laws set down by God and revealed to humans, particularly Moses. And the ten laws in today’s reading, the great Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are certainly central to the Hebrew and Christian religious trajectories. The latter five or second tablet are common sense, a social golden rule not dissimilar to that of other cultures. The first five are a bit more difficult, for they are oriented toward a divine source we often forget. This is a religious code fairly unique in orientation and form. These are the commandments on which our spiritual boats founder, for they call on us to recognize our utter dependence on our divine source, to name that source as God, and to maintain a right orientation toward that source. In other words, the first tablet of the Ten Commandments calls on us to acknowledge our vulnerability.
A very different source for sin exists if we go back to the Garden of Eden myths. Some reduce that narrative to a simple act of violating divine prohibition, again, violating arbitrary rules established by God. Yet, it is not the tree of really juicy peaches that is forbidden. It isn’t even a tree of immortality, or a tree with great aphrodisiac powers, which, you know, might be tempting. This is a tree that grants knowledge, that elevates the simple beast into a conscious human. Knowledge creates choice, and choice is power. Sin, then, is tied to our agency, our ability to decide and act. At least we can blame the snake for the whole fiasco.
Yet, it is never so simple as it might appear. Agency is not sin, and vulnerability is not holiness. History rarely remembers those who are purely vulnerable, perpetual victims. And those who act without accountability, which is a manifestation of vulnerability, are remembered as psychopaths and madmen.
We find our humanity at the intersection of vulnerability and agency, and we each live at that address. And the greater the tension, the more poignant the story.
And so, we find Simón José Antonio de la SantÃsima Trinidad BolÃvar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco, subject of history texts, historical fiction, a grand opera by Thea Musgrave, and a new film, opening this weekend. He was born in Caracas into a wealth Spanish family near the end of the 18th century. The story we tell is of the great liberator, the George Washington of Latin America, who lead the rebellion against Spanish colonial rule. Modern states that descend from his efforts include Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, named after the general, and the current incarnation of Venezuela, formally named the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Bolivar was a brilliant general with noble intentions. He was passionate about liberty and human rights. But when the first attempt at revolution fizzled, he became a turncoat and, as we might say today, threw another revolutionary under the bus, betraying him to the Spanish. The situation was as chaotic and fragmented as every revolution, and Bolivar would flee the region more than once. He would, at one point, seek refuge in the newly independent Haiti, and return to the Latin American continent backed by Haitian troops. He was elected president of independent states like Venezuela and Bolivia, and of the broad confederation, Gran Colombia. Yet, like many vulnerable humans who rise to power, he was guilty of over reaching. He sought to be named President for Life, with the ability to name his own successor. When this failed, he abandoned his dream of a large unified state, breaking the confederation into individual countries, and planning his own departure to Europe.
That is a lot of historical fact. A great man, a passionate leader, but, like the Facebook relationship status, it is complicated. Who would a man committed to liberty seek ultimate power one moment, then move in the opposite direction, abandoning all power?
As always, it begins at the beginning. Simón was removed from his parents during his infancy and toddler years. Shortly after he was returned to the family household, his father died. Before he could celebrate his ninth birthday, his mother too would be in the grave. The closest thing he had to a mother was a slave of African descent, the closest to a father the great tutor that instilled in him democratic values. He’d be shipped off to the military academy, and traveled to Europe. After two years of courtship, he married, only to have her die before their fifth anniversary. He would have the same mistress for most of his remaining years, but never risk marriage again.
Bolivar was a man of authority, a man who could and did act, a man with agency. And he was a man who knew great loneliness and sadness, a man with vulnerability.
The mix of agency and vulnerability is why, for most of us, Batman has more resonance than Superman. Outcasts, including many gay men, cling to Superman, for they know what it feels like to be an alien. But the average person is more Bruce Wayne… grief and rage and action and a thirst for justice and righteousness. We do not need an extra-planetary mineral to sap out strength. We carry our own kryptonite, buried inside.
We are at our best, we are the stuff of opera and comic books, when we are at once both vulnerable and powerful, when we risk everything, when we stand on the edge of a roof in Gotham and jump. Vulnerability and agency writ large, but also writ small, in each of our lives.
Our great sins do not come when we err, for we all will err. Scripture reminds us that we have all sinned, that we all fall short of the glory of God. Our greatest sins come when we fall off to one side of the equation, when we forget that we too are vulnerable. When we act without accountability, when we break covenant, bulldoze and bully. Or when we wrap ourselves in a despairing cloak of vulnerability, forgetting that as long as we have breath, we have choice, and we can act, in some way. It is a great sin to give up.
Codes are important. Ten commandments or six hundred, it doesn’t matter. But they only spell out what we know in our hearts, what the prophet told us in the simplest of forms.
Do justice. Act. Claim your agency.
Walk humbly with your God. Know your place. Claim your vulnerability.
Do both, lest we fall into sin.
Amen.