Definition of a Sinner

President Calvin Coolidge, known for his brevity of speech, never used three words when one or two would suffice. One Sunday morning, he went to Church without his wife, who wasn’t feeling very well. When the President returned to the White House, Mrs. Coolidge asked what the sermon was about. “Sin,” Coolidge said. “And what did the preacher have to say about sin?” Mrs. Coolidge persisted. “He was against it,” her husband replied. From time to time my wife will ask me what my sermon on Sunday will be about and I tell her exactly what former President Coolidge told his wife. A novelist was researching a book about life in a New England town during the first half of the 20th century. He thought he might get some valuable insight while visiting a local cemetery. He soon discovered that almost all the tombstones erected during the period in question contained a short epitaph. Without exception, each epitaph had only words of praise for the deceased person. Words like “generous”… “kind”… “upstanding”… “noble,”… “loving” appeared everywhere. All of which prompted the researcher to ask, “I wonder where they buried the sinners.” Luke, Chapter 15 tells us that when the Pharisees saw Jesus associating with certain types of “undeserving” people they felt superior to, they criticized him. “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus to hear Him,” Luke says. ‘And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.” These people were major sinners in the minds of the Pharisees: greedy extortionists and women of the streets, all of whom they despised. And should any of you be feeling even the slightest twinge of discomfort over Jesus’ choice of companions, I must remind you that Jesus is among sinners everyday because we are all sinners. No exceptions. And the more we try to cover up or gloss over that reality, the greater our culpability. In our self-righteousness, we self-destruct. The higher our claims of superiority soar, the lower we sink! In God’s eyes, undeserving human beings never existed. In God’s eyes, every human being is essential — no one more valuable than any other.