TRANSGRESSIONS

The preacher said we’re all sinners.

He was repeating what the Apostle Paul said at the behest of Almighty God. Every preacher or pastor or priest on Earth has probably sermonized on the exact same topic. If they haven’t they probably need to get to it.

We’re all sinners.

If you want to cut right down to the bone, denying that you’re a sinner is sinning.

So, let’s talk about some of them.

Probably the most prevalent transgression in the orbit that I travel in is cussing. Most everybody I know tries really hard not to cuss. I know plenty of folks who I’ve never heard utter a dirty word. I know a few other folks who throw a cuss word into just about every other sentence. But I’d venture to say that every person over the age of four has engaged in foul language at some point in their life. Either that or they’ve never been cut off by another driver. Or stuck in a traffic jam for an hour. Never been “on hold” for thirty minutes only to have the cell phone drop the call thirty seconds after a human finally answers.

You know what I’m talking about.

Have you ever banged your shin on a pickup truck’s trailer hitch?

If smacking into a trailer hitch didn’t make you cuss you should apply for sainthood.

Seems like that kind of cussing should be almost understandable.

Incidentally, hitting your shin on a trailer hitch is one of those things that you should only have to experience once before learning to cut trailer hitches a wide berth. If you do that a second time, while you’re standing there rubbing your shin and dog cussing an inanimate metal object, not only are you sinning, you’re not too smart either.

Thankfully, being slow on the uptake isn’t a sin.

I don’t think.

Pride is a sin.

I’ve had that one come around and bite me. I was very prideful when my team won the Rose Bowl (even though all I did was buy a ticket) over a team quarterbacked by an arrogant loudmouth. I crowed for a whole week. Until our guys lost all the marbles in a national championship game they could have and should have won.

Pride goeth before destruction.

Proverbs.

Look it up.

But what about the pride one feels seeing his children excel by obtaining an advanced degree and becoming a successful teacher, or starting a flourishing cookie business, or becoming a United States Marine?

Understandable?

I once heard another preacher making the case that tardiness, making other people wait, is a sin. I’m not sure I agree with that but I do know that I’ve learned some hard lessons about that particular subject. It seems that every time I get impatient with my bride for being a few minutes late, it’s me that forgets my phone or my glasses or my wallet, or all three, causing us to have to return home to retrieve those items and thereby making us really late.

On the other hand, could it really be considered a bad thing when I was recently late for a church service because I pulled over to watch two spotted fawns, in broad daylight, frolicking beside the road, totally oblivious to my presence?

How about gluttony?

If you’ve never given in to gluttony it’s because you’ve never tasted my bride’s chocolate/ peanut butter ice cream pie. Or my sister SherryLu’s fried cornbread. Or Miss Joanne’s divine divinity.

Or you’ve never hit the Krispy Kreme drive-through just as a batch of glazed donuts slid off the conveyer.

Me, recently:

“I’d like six glazed donuts, please”

The intercom:

“Sir, a dozen costs the same as six. Would you like a dozen?”

I never knew that the voice of Satan could sound exactly like a teenage girl working in a donut shop.

Me: “Okay, I’ll take a dozen”

It was 25 miles to home. Before I’d gone 15 miles there were only two donuts left and the only reason they were still in the box was so I could tell myself that I was showing some restraint.

Nah. They were gone before I hit my driveway.

I paid for that sin with a doughy rock in my gut all night long.

Now, please, before anybody gets enraged with me, I am not making light of sin. Sin is sin and sin is bad.

But can we all agree that human beings are funny?

And flawed?

And human?

You’re not?

Romans 3:23.

Look it up.