" It is sometimes said that the root of sin is wanting to be God in your own right. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be divine. After all, there is nothing God wants more than to share the fulness of divine life with us. But it's that "in your own right" that betrays the distrust of any donor of divine life. One who feels this way is convinced that the only way to be safe is to control everything oneself. This isn't pride. This is fear. Terrible, rock-bottom existential fear. And just as love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), so fear arises only from belief in lack of love...
Salvation through Love
It is true, though strange to say, that most people resist being loved. But God is persistent. God is patient and does not give up. God leaves ninety-nine sheep in the fold and goes after the one that is lost until he finds it and brings it back. God sweeps the house clean and searches for the lost coin until she finds it. People who have been hurt are very distrustful; they cannot easily believe that someone loves them unconditionally. They fear it is a trick, or that things will change, or that it's not really unconditional but actually imposes an enormous obligation of gratitude (we encourage that one you know, even while claiming that God's love is unconditional) or that somehow there is a diminishment in being a recipient.All this comes from not understanding the nature of unconditional, creative love, that is addressed to the true self which transcends all descriptions. And institutionalized religion hasn't always helped us understand. It has often represented God's love, or even approbation, as highly conditioned. This naturally terrifies people. God has to work a long time to overcome these fears, this distrust but this willingness on God's part to wait and keep trying is the divine mercy, or pity. Nor is death a cut-off, after which it is too late and God has to give up. God never gives up, but pursues people forever, hoping to convince them that they are unconditionally loved. This is God's radical optimism!
So I believe that if we try to penetrate this mystery and understand what evil is and how it arises, then we will be in a better position to try to do something about it by offering people unconditional love - the only thing that really works. And even it works only if it is believed and accepted. But preaching against sin, meditating on how bad it is, remorse and punishment - none of these gets at the root of it, the lack of love; on the contrary they increase the stress, the tension, the sense of danger and injury.
We can move from a sinful life to a life of divine love only after we ourselves have thoroughly accepted God's unconditional love. Preaching and meditation therefore should be directed to that. And we should be careful to stress the un-conditional. Not: God loves us if we are obedient, or if we believe, or if we join the right church, or if anything, or as anything, or with reference to anything. And we are not to feel guilty over not fully accepting God's love. That's a back door way of reintroducing the sense of condition."
