For about five years I’ve had a recurring dream that happens about once a month, and it goes like this. I’m standing in the courtroom at the old courthouse in Linden, Alabama, and I’m being tried for something that isn’t quite clear. The judge presiding in my dream—of all people—is Fred Gwynne. You might remember that he played Judge Chamberlin in My Cousin Vinny. Even Joe Pesci, the defense attorney in that movie, was scared of him. Surely you remember that he played Herman Munster in The Munsters. He was 6’ 8”. In my dream, he sits on a huge elevated platform robed in splendor, and he is preparing to read the verdict (I’m sweating just thinking about it).
He locks eyes with me, and at that very moment, I interrupt him and beg to call a character witness. And he always asks, “Who do you think will come to your defense?”
For reasons known to God alone, I always ask Judge Gwynne to call our very own parishioner Donna Dennis to my Defense (seriously). I have no clue why I want Donna to step in, but I sure hope she’d do so in real life if I really needed her. Then I always wake up in a cold sweat, realizing it was just a dream.
Now, I haven’t been to a dream interpreter, and have no plans on doing so, but I did ask my wife, Malacy, what she thought was going on in my dream. She’s a nurse after all. Without missing a beat, she said, “Guilty as sin.”
I don’t mind saying that I was looking for a little deeper insight, but she’s probably right. And she’s probably right because all of us are guilty at some level—a little lie here and there, a dash of greed over there, some anger and resentment scattered about and maybe a few bits and pieces of holier-than-thou self-righteousness (and a whole lot more!).
Do you know the term “guilty conscience?” Say what you want, but Dr. Freud—yes, Sigmund Freud— took guilt seriously. He believed that guilt could be so powerful that we unconsciously develop things like denial and repression as defense mechanisms at a young age to shield us from the actual weight of the guilt we would face if we really knew how awful our actions and motivations really are. Now, that’s dark for pulpit fodder, but, it’s probably true.
I’m simply saying two things so far in this little homily: we are all guilty of far more than we care to admit, and guilt, as a lasting emotion, is powerful.
There is an old New Yorker cartoon of a patient lying on the couch at her shrink’s office, and the psychiatrist asks, “Are you still feeling guilty after all these years? You should be ashamed of yourself!” That’s all about the longevity of guilt, because guilt can linger.
What about the “guilt-trip?” The guilt-trip just proves my point. Harnessing the power of guilt, this is when you call your daughter in Denver and say things like: “Since you moved so far away, I guess my neighbor could drive me to the hospital, if something really bad happens.”
And let’s not forget “guilty-pleasures.” This usually involves binging on Game of Thrones and feeling remorseful afterwards (there are 73 episodes, by the way). Or maybe you think of guilty pleasures in culinary terms. Can you believe they now have Cafe du Monde hot beignets in the airport in New Orleans? I had two last Monday, but be forewarned: they come with a side of guilt.
The Bible is crystal clear that all of us are guilty of sin and guilty as sin. St. Paul didn’t mince any words when he said, “For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.” And the real reason we feel guilty is because we are guilty! That’s just how it works, folks.
I urge you, brothers and sisters, not to ignore the power and presence of sin in our lives. St. Paul is again helpful:
I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Wretched man that I am!
Now that’s a man who understands the power of sin! The Four Tops understood the power of sin in 1965: “I Can’t help myself (no) No, I can’t help myself (ooh)…sugar pie, honeybun.”
Samuel Cooper was the most sought-after portrait-maker in the world in the seventeenth century. Even Oliver Cromwell had his offical portrait done by Cooper. As a side note, a friend sent me a Christmas card this year that read “I wish you the kind of merry-making this Christmas that Cromwell and the Puritans would outlaw.”
Anyway, portraits: official portraits really have only one purpose – to make the object in the painting look great. A brushstroke here and there could usually do the trick. This was cosmetic augmentation before Botox, if you will.
Let’s just say that painting Cromwell was extra challenging. And that’s because he required lots of paint to polish him up (don’t we all!). He had a very glum countenance, he had huge, puss-leaking warts on his face, and he never smiled.
Say what you will about Cromwell and his Puritanical agenda (I’m no fan!), but I admire— really and truly admire— his sense of self-understanding. When he saw the portrait Cooper had painted, there were no warts, he had a slight grin, he was taller, and he really looked regal. Cromwell, however, became irate and told him to paint a portrait of him as he really was—“warts and all.” That’s how that idiom entered the English language.
The gospel will never make sense until we see ourselves as we really are.
J C Ryle, the 19th century bishop of Liverpool, said it well, “Christ is never fully valued until sin is clearly seen.”
There is only one thing more powerful in all the universe than sin and guilt, and it’s the grace of God.
And that‘s why when we come together, week by week, and I look up and see all of us on our knees confessing our sins together – even entire families kneeling together – and then I see us again humbly on our knees receiving the Body of Blood Christ, I can completely understand why St. Paul wrote these words to the church in Corinth: “I thank God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The problem of sin is acute. The solution is radical.
St. John the Baptist really was right. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
2nd Sunday after Epiphany
19 January 2020