Social Media
This morning, I was perusing social media. You know, looking for updates from old friends from high school, amusing satire, that kind of thing. Somehow, I get interesting news stories in my feed that make you go through several pages (so that they can count that you’ve seen the advertisements) to get to the zinger that they left you hanging looking for.
This one was on tricks people have done to save money. I’m thinking of the strategy of buying a tv in February when manufacturers and retailers discount them before the new models arrive. No, these were outright fraud. For example, someone goes to Whole Foods (I’ve always assumed anyone who goes to Whole Foods should not be trying to cheat the store) and buys several pounds of the most expensive meat from the meat counter. Then that person described how they went to the fresh produce department and weighed the package and took the sticker and placed it over the meat counter sticker. Another example was a person who visited a busy hotel that had a breakfast buffet even though they didn’t stay there.
My reaction was SMH (shake my head) in disbelief. Sounds like the textbook definition of a sin of commission to me. What amazed me even more was the audacity of these people to brag about cheating these retailers and causing everyone else to have to pay more.
Unfortunately, as quickly as I thought of the concept of a sin of commission, I thought of the similar sin of omission. This is a more subtle sin in that you knowingly participate in something wrong and justify it by telling yourself you didn’t do anything wrong. For example, when I was 16, I heard my dad on the phone (the rotary phone, and the only phone, we had in the house) and he called the person he was talking to ‘Wayne’. I asked my mom if my dad was talking to Wayne Moore, and she replied that she didn’t think so. I said that I bet he was and offered to bet her a dollar. She took me up on the bet and I found out she knew that my dad was calling Wayne Benanti. She prominently displayed that dollar bill on the bulletin board for the next 20 or so years before she made a special present of it for me.
Now, I would stack my mom’s morality against most saints but she did occasionally succumb to a sin of omission. Even as I type this, I realize that I’m trying to rank one type of sin against the other to make it sound better. That’s the real rub isn’t it? As imperfect, sinful humans, we long to make ourselves appear better to others or even to ourselves. We ache to state that we are good people who go to church, contribute to charity, care about our family and the list of attributes goes on and on.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 6:23 ESV
“But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 22:34-40 ESV
“Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.” - Psalm 106:6 ESV
“Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”? Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” - Proverbs 20:9-10 ESV
