Taking out the trash

There are certain words which have an enormous power. Expecto patronum, obliviate, expelliarrmus, are not among them, those being only a mediocre author’s limp cod latin. But there are real words that can instil fear, frustration, joy, submission, anger. They don’t work on everybody, but everybody has words that can turn their day from joy to misery, words that can immediately bring that feeling of pit of the stomach hollow dread , fight or flight but preferably flight, quick, slam the lid, lock it and drop the key off Tower Bridge. That feels better now. 

You can reduce me to a state of blithering wild-eyed panic with a simple arachnid related word I’m not going to utter- I’m not going to give you that power over me, but other invertebrate words will work too, ‘bishop’ for example. If  you did decide to panic me by uttering the episcopal epithet, I can fight back. Collection. Stewardship. Sermon. See how powerful words can be. This is all a little parochial if you’ll forgive the use of a word that can also cause panic if uttered before church council; this is all a little parochial; step outside the church and into the wide world and while sticks and stones are breaking bones, words are busy causing adrenaline pumped palpitations, clammy hands and cold sweats. 

Off the top of my head— landlord, bailiff, parking, queue, boarding, dentist, bill. You feel queasy already, so maybe I should use words with more restricted power.

‘Back to school’ works for about twelve years though any horror it evinces is balanced by an equal and opposite bliss-reaction from responsible adults, unless those adults are teachers. A subset of choristers can be reduced to a blithering wibbly puddle by the word ‘solo’, a charm I am reliably informed works on viola players too. ‘Early’ is a tag of terror for people from Taiwan. And anyone who has any connection to a local authority – from the customer service desk to the local councillor to the  CEO the word that is guaranteed to spark instant panic is ‘bins’.

Unglamorous, unloved, unnoticed until they are uncollected and then… For the moment, we’re not charged extra over and above council tax for our rubbish to be removed. But trust me, when you have to pay for your bin collections-as anyone with a garden waste bin in Sutton now must- your relationship to your bin changes. You are suddenly subject to the fascinating economo-psychological phenomenon known as the ‘sunk cost fallacy’. 

Let me illustrate. A couple of weeks ago, twas the Saturday morning before Monday bin day and my due-to-be-collected garden waste bin was empty. I had a fairly full to -do list for that day and it was absolutely belting it down outside but I’d paid for that bin to be emptied, and so I was reluctantly but determinedly pulling on my wellies when suddenly I remembered the sunk cost fallacy. Yes, I’ve paid for that bin to be emptied. But I won’t get a refund if there’s nothing in it to collect one week. Whether I use the bin or not, the money has gone and, as is the nature of money, it’s not coming back. So I saved myself the wet, hard and unpleasant labour of filling the garden bin, and also suddenly had an idea for this sermon. Win win, for me, if not for you.

Sunk cost thinking is pointless, silly, but everywhere, in my brain and yours, your boss’s and your bishop’s (who if you’re unlucky might be the same person). If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you pay up front for your delivery for a year and so, you do lots more shopping on Amazon than you otherwise would because you’d be wasting that money you’ve already paid if you didn’t.  If you’ve bought tickets for a film and find you’ve double booked with an important birthday but still go because you’ve paid for it— voilà! the sunk cost monster. It’s not just  money and there can be a really serious side to sunk cost thinking, such as when wars continue for longer than they need to, because if we end it now, the lives already sacrificed will have been for nothing.

I started this sermon what seems like a long time ago now talking about powerful words, specifically those that can cause nervousness, trepidation and dread, and here’s another one: ‘sin’. We’re going to twine together the two threads of this homily into something that can affect religious people, most often when they’re dither outside the church door thinking about coming in but are afraid to commit; but it can attack any of us at any stage of our pilgrimage.

It’s what I want to call the ‘sunk sin’ fallacy, thinking which goes something like this: 

It’s too late now to change, I’ve invested too much in the wrong things  to change now,  If you’d led the life I’ve lead you wouldn’t dare think about this God stuff , I’ve done too much to be forgiven.

Now if you’re teetering on the threshold then it’s maybe excusable to be thinking this way, but if you’ve been a while marking your groove in those Victorian pews, you should know better. Every service we confess our sins, and then, receive absolution. If it’s a prayer book service it’s a particularly humiliating confession, but a much grander absolution.  It’s easy to parrot the words, we all do. But still. Maybe some time we took it seriously, some time we felt repentance, some time we listened.

Almighty God who forgives all who truly repent, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life eternal…

I’m not saying that when I say it because I’m a nice guy and I think you’re lovely. It’s true I do think you’re wonderful, but that’s not why. I’m saying that on behalf of the church  which was given that power to absolve by Jesus.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

More specifically:

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them”

Apologies in advance for the upcoming metaphor here, it makes me cringe too, but forgiveness, pronounced at absolution, is God emptying your soul’s bin.  And when it’s empty, it’s empty. Till we fill it again.

So why do we still suffer the sunk sin fallacy?

It’s too late now to change, I’ve invested too much in the wrong things  to change now,  if you’d led the life I’ve lead you wouldn’t dare think about this God stuff , I’ve done too much to be forgiven.

I’m using the universal ‘I’ here but the individual one would fit fine as well. There is nothing in my history, I hasten to add would scandalise you: well, most of you; ok one or two wouldn’t be too shocked after they’d had a sit down and lots of sweet tea. But still. I know the theology, I know what it means every time I pronounce the absolution; I’ve been to and heard sacramental confessions which are always individual and specific, and once that absolution has been pronounced, that’s it, the slate is clean, the bin emptied, at least till the next time.

So why, if I think about some of the things I’ve done, do I still feel clammy hand cold sweat pit of the stomach shame even though no less an authority than the Church of England has declared that God has forgiven me? Perhaps because I haven’t forgiven myself rather than God hasn’t forgiven me. BTW I’m still using the universal and the specific ‘I’ here. 

The voice of your conscience is persistent: you wouldn’t want it any other way. But sometimes that voice gets stuck in a loop.

Forgiving yourself is part of the deal,  sometimes the most difficult part of it, but if you can’t forgive yourself when God has forgiven you then you’re sort of implying that you know better than God. Which you don’t, you can’t, you never will.

God knows you better than you know yourself; he’s counted the hairs on your head; and all your warts and pimples and assorted blemishes; he’s dissected all your desires, weighed your soul and seen it all— all. And he has forgiven you. 

That said, you’ll never be a saint. 

Well, yes you will, but not by your own efforts, not if you try a bit harder, concentrate a bit more, put in more effort. Nobody ever becomes a saint like that. It’s not the holiness olympics. 

You might never forget, but you will be forgiven. You are forgiven. 

You will keep filling the bin. And, unlike Sutton Council,  God will keep emptying it. Hopefully, over time, it will be a little less full each time bin day comes round. And each time that bin is emptied, what was in it has gone. 

You might never forget, but you will be forgiven. You are forgiven.