THE SIN OF THE WORLD

THE ORIGINAL SIN

The book of Genesis tells us that the original sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve.  This concept of Original sin indicates one important thing.  By disobedience the humans broke the relationship with God.  Further they wanted to be like god, a desire to replace God by one’s own self.  There may be more and better reflections on the meaning of disobeying God. 

Why was God so strange that he wanted Adam and Eve not to eat the ‘fruit of the tree’.  There is some thing deeper in it than we can understand from the plain text.

It is clear that the sin came into the world through human beings and there no second god or god like ‘god of evil’ who brought sin into the world.  God is one and he is good. No evil can come from God.  It is due to human folly that the sin came into the world.  Human beings are responsible for the Original sin.

Why is it called original? Because, any one individual is not responsible for the original sin. It is original because it has become inherent in the history of development, history of mankind.

Original sin is not one single act but it is an evolution, creation over a long period of time. It is an evolution of a situation.   You can call it “A Situation of Sin”, “a sin of the world”.

Original sin is a situation in which we are born and find ourselves in.  We are individually nor responsible for this situation.  We have not created this situation.  But we have contributed to the situation by being part of the situation, going along with the situation, committing sin and adding to the situation.

I have with me on example to illustrate this “situation of Sin”.  It is, for example, “CAPITALISM” as far as the present epoch is concerned.  We are living in the capitalist world, capitalist situation.

In capitalist situation there is private ownership of the productive assets, land, water, money capital, and the means of production.  The private owner who owns the productive assets invests his money capital and employs the workers who have no ownership over what the capitalists own.  The workers own their capacity, energy and skill to work, and they are called workers.  The society is divided into the capitalists who own and the working people who only work and produce.  Since the capitalists own the means of production, they take away what is produce by the workers.  They pay the workers wages. The capitalists sell the product and recover what they have invested and over and above that they get profit, excess value that the value they had initially invested. (There are more sophisticated explanations to each of these categories. For our present purpose this suffices.)

The capitalists earn so much of profit that there remains a huge amount of surplus over their initial investments.  They spend part of this for their luxurious life.  A part of their profit, much greater part than what they have themselves consumed they again invest in their capital and enlarge their capital.  Over a period of time their capital becomes large, multiple times bigger that what they had initially invested. Their living style too get sophisticated. Mukesh Ambani builds a huge mansion in Mumbai, with a swimming pool inside and a helipad above.  The Rich become RICHER.

The Workers get only wages. Wages are called the cost of living of the workers and their families. The workers spend their wages to look after their families: house, food, education of the children and medicine in times of sickness.  The workers may save some part of their wages but it is nothing more than what they require in times of emergencies. His children also become wage labourers (workers).  Some of them remain unemployed. Strictly speaking the y do not improve their situation.  They get older and poorer.

It is said “a silk worm spins silk all its life and at the end it becomes a butterfly”.  Silk worm through its life activity reaches a higher stage of existance.  But the worker remains worker.  A sericulture farmer takes the cocoon spinned by the silk worm.  In order to harvest silk from the cocoon he puts the cocoon with the worm in side in boiling hot water.  He kills the worm inside the cocoon, which was in the process of becoming a butter fly.  It is only in that process alone that the farmer will get long yarn of silk so that it can be woven into beautiful saries, which the delicate women will wear and look pretty for men to enjoy them.

The story of the worker is not the story of the silk worm which through its life activity becomes a butterfly, a higher level of existence.  But it is like the story of the silk worm owned by the farmers, which goes in the boiling water to take long strand of silk from the cocoon. Worker dies as a worker.  In his life process he makes the capitalist wealthy and bigger and bigger capitalist.

The story of the capitalist is the story of Mr. Ambani, who becomes one of the richest men in the world and builds a house with swimming poor in side and helipad above.

Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania once said, “When it rains the water from the driest region ultimately goes to the sea where there is plenty of water.  It is a natural process. Similary, in the capitalist society the wealth of the poor nations and poor people goes into the hands of the rich people and rich nations, who already have a lot of wealth.  This happens through the natural functioning of the economic and political system that we have created.”

We rarely understand the parable of the ten gold coins that Jesus gave in the gospel of Luke 19:11- 27. (Luckily just I open the Bible now and I put my finger on this page. Please read this parable and save me the trouble of narrating that here.) “The ‘noble man’ went to a distant country to acquire another kingdom for himself”. He called ten servants and gave them ten gold coins to trade and make more money. The conclusion is “those who have much more will be given to them. Those who have nothing whatever they have will be taken away from them and given to them who already have”.

Jesus is talking in the context of Jewish society.  Jewish kings did not wage war on another kingdom to capture their kingdom.  It was considered sin to make profit out of one’s business.  Here, a “Noble man” goes to get another kingdom for himself and while he is away, he wants his servants to make more money for him.  And he orders, to those who have more will be given more and those who do not have, even what they have will be taken away from them and given to those who already have.  We should be wise enough to understand the parable in the Jewish and Christian spirituality.  This parable is condemnation of the society that goes along the lines of the “KING”.

Now I am holy man and a capitalist and I decide to run my business in the ways of God.  I will not make profit or share my profit with the workers.  In the next round of production, I will start at the same level as my first cycle.  I will have not money left from my profit to reinvest into capital, expand my production, introduce latest technology, produce better quality goods and cheaper goods and make super profit.  But all the others capitalist will do this.  At the end I will be thrown out of production as my product will not match the quality and cheap cost of the other capitalists.

But if I want to be a capitalist, I should be like everybody else.  I am compelled to accumulate profit, expand my production and make super profit for my survival as a capitalist.  I have no freedom to be a “holy capitalist”.  If I want to remain a capitalist I will have to go by the ways of the capitalists’ world.

Sidharth opted out of the kingship and became Goutham. His way was that of a sanyasi. Beg and live with bare necessities. He was like a Baloo in the Jungle book singing and dancing and living with bare necessities.

Joachim and Anne opted out of the normal run of the society and lived like Goutham with bare necessities and brought Mary up with that spirituality.  Mother Mary was out of the system, she was free from the situation of sin.  Born outside the original sin.

Jesus gave a drastically a new way of life for us.  The weak will be strong, the last will be the first, master should wash the feet of his slaves (there should be not master slave relationship, no big and small categories). Break your life give your life so that the world may live.  Jesus instituted a “New Society, a New Jerusalem” where people were called to live by dying, grow by breaking and giving to others. The last supper was the beginning. He commanded to “do this in his name and memory”. We have to do a soul-searching reflections on the command of Jesus.

Soon after the resurrection the disciples of Jesus sold all they had and held everything in common.  No body lacked anything. Everybody had enough for their need.

When I spoke about confession and confessors diverting our attention from the main issue that destroys the social fabric of our society and speak about sing in a very trivial form.  What is needed is transformation of one self and of our society.  Work to create eucharistic community, not sitting in the church building but by shedding blood on the alter of transformation.