"For All have Sinned"?

This is not merely some cute theological abstraction nor is it merely some sort of mystical, metaphysical guilt that inscrutably pertains to the isolated individual. This pertains to our social complicity. We share complicity in our society’s sins, and we continue to do so. It is precisely for that reason that we must find forgiveness at the foot of the cross and live a life of perpetual repentance.

When I was a kid, my mom gave me piece of profound theological and sociological instruction: “when you point your index finger at someone else, you have three fingers pointing back at you.” (By the way, at whom is the thumb pointing?)

I have frequently asked the question, “But where does complicity begin and end? Where or how do we or can we draw a line between when we do and when we do not share complicity in particular sins of a corporation for example?” I have frequently wished that we could draw lines and thereby assuage some guilt, relieve some of the burden. However, I am slowly realizing that I am asking the wrong questions. I am trying to distance myself from any sort of societal culpability. This is probably what many of us want. We want to separate ourselves from those pernicious culprits “over there.” However, (perhaps much to our chagrin) we are woven into the thick fabric of society, and we cannot neatly separate ourselves from other threads that have become noticeably stained. We are connected.

This emphasis is not to evade personal culpability but is to punctuate it and to give it a context.

Previously, I asked the questions about sharing complicity precisely because in practice we separate guilty persons from non-guilty persons, and so I was asking a rather intuitive question.

The righteous one who died for all did precisely what we do not and will not do: he refrained from complicity and thereby accentuated ours. When reading the gospel of Matthew, we may ask, “Who is responsible for the death of Jesus?” It would be easy and quite erroneous to say, “the Jews.” We might then point a finger at the temple regime. We might also point a finger at the crowd, and then we might point a finger at Pilate. But what about those who stood by and did nothing? What about those, like Peter and co, who distanced themselves in order to remain unscathed? It might then be noted that complicity seems to go in all directions.

The good news of forgiveness at the foot of the cross: forgiveness is extended to us even when we are clueless about our complicity.