Sinner, Schminner
Can Christianity find better language, already?
By Anni Ponder
“Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about language. If you came across “Chagrined,” you’ll know why. Actually, that’s one thing that got me thinking about it—but like so much else in life, that’s only part of the story.
A few weeks ago, my church embarked on a prayer challenge using a certain liturgy. The leaders invited everyone to join in praying the same words for 40 days, and then we’ll see what happens. When they explained it, I mostly liked the idea, but straight away I caught on something I can’t bring myself to say. Right there in the nice shiny pamphlet they handed us are the words we are to repeat several times, known to Christians the world over as The Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Hmm.
Before I go on, I should tell you they said the words ‘a sinner’ are optional and we don’t have to say them if we don’t want to. We can just stop with asking Jesus to have mercy on us.
OK, but, still.
Here’s the problem for me. Well, problems.
People will believe what you say about them.
I spent my first career as a teacher. If I learned anything in those 16 years in the classroom, it’s that people believe what you say about them. I came to understand that if I wanted my students to be their best selves, I had to tell them all the time—relentlessly—what was good about them. I would remind them of why I loved them, of what they did or said that made me laugh or nod or think hard. I learned to give them feedback constantly. And they would respond in the most beautiful ways.
One kid, let’s call him Marius, is a great example of this. Marius was in a local gang, and the high school was keeping a close eye on him, monitoring his every move because he had a sketchy history. He had almost no credits to his name, even though he was considered a junior. He had done next to zero work for his entire high school experience. They transferred him to my remedial English class with the hopes I could get him to do something. The first week he was there, he didn’t want to do anything but occasionally write a few words in his journal. So I noticed his handwriting and told him I liked it, and how I thought it meant he had a cool personality. I asked him if he liked to draw, and he showed me that he did. From then on, Marius would work pretty steadily in my class, so long as I stayed near and kept the feedback coming.
One day, I had a sub for the last half of class since I had a team meeting. Introducing her to the students, I told everyone I expected good work. But with one look at her posture, I thought, They’re going to smell her fear and eat her alive. On my way out the door, I said just loudly enough so that only she and Marius could hear, “By the way, you can count on this student to work hard. He’s the best worker in my class.”
I came back just before the bell rang, and sure enough, it was mayhem. It looked like a scene from a B-rated sitcom. People were sitting on top of their desks, paper airplanes were zooming all over the place, the sub looked like she was about to lose it, and nobody was working. Except Marius. That kid was hunched over his journal putting the finishing touches on the assignment I had left. When I peered over his shoulder, he looked up at me and grinned. “Yep,” I said to the sub. “Told you this guy was a good worker.”
Marius looked so proud. I wish I had a picture of the smile on his face.
I’ve seen this at work so many times. Tell somebody something great about them, and watch them prove you right. Sadly, the opposite is also true. I have way too many stories where kids get told they’re trouble, and then, what do you know? They fall into that role without even thinking about it.
So that’s the first problem I have with calling ourselves sinners. Because if that’s what we call ourselves, that’s how we’ll see ourselves. That’s how we’ll act. And that’s what we’ll be.
Jesus has never actually called me a sinner.
The next problem is that I don’t want to use language about myself that Jesus doesn’t use about me. Now I’m sure you could make the argument from scripture that it’s perfectly good and right to call myself a sinner (many, many verses come to mind), but I have the simple fact that Jesus has never actually called me a sinner. He’s called me a whole lot of things, mind you—many of them are adorable and too precious to share on the world wide web—but never a sinner. He just doesn’t think of me that way.
When I mentioned this to my pastor and some friends from church, I heard the inevitable, “But I need to call myself a sinner so I can stay humble.” I guess I won’t argue with other people trying to be humble, but honestly, that left a sour feeling in my stomach. Why do we need self-deprication to avoid arrogance? Why wouldn’t we be humbled simply by the presence of pure love?
I know what comes next: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Hold on. I’m not saying I have no sin. Or, I’m not saying I don’t mess up (truthfully, I take issue with the word ‘sin’ itself . . . but that will have to be another conversation for another day). And I’m not saying Jesus doesn’t bring up areas of growth for me. He totally does. We work on them together.
What I’m saying is it’s a bad idea to call myself a sinner, because then I identify with that and can easily get stuck in self-flagillation and ultimately, self-loathing.
Any loving parent will tell you their kids mess up left and right. It’s no secret that growing is hard and people make all sorts of foibles and blunders on their way to maturity, and we don’t stop making messes once we’re older. But no matter how infuriating it is to have my daughters screw things up, I’ve never felt like calling them sinners. That’s just not how I treat them. Instead, we work together to find the underlying problem and a way to do better next time.
I think it’s time Christianity nixed this word from our vocabulary. We need to clean up our language. Why would we call ourselves something Christ wouldn’t even say about us, anyway?
So, I did something they said not to do: I rewrote the liturgy. I just couldn’t help it! Well, actually I kept about half of it, but the other half I reworked and made more representative of how I know God thinks about me, and vice versa. My favorite part? I borrowed it from a friend who had reconstructed The Jesus Prayer. It’s called The Blossoming Prayer:
Lord Jesus, Beloved Chosen One, love me with full acceptance, affection, and adoration.
~Your beloved who is learning
And so it is. Amen.
