February 19: The Universality of Sin
♫ Music:
Day 6 - Monday, February 19
Title: THE UNIVERSALITY OF SIN
Scripture #1: Romans 3:9-23; 6:23 (NKJV)
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “the poison of asps is under their lips”; “whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
…For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Poetry & Poet:
“The Layers”
by Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned campsites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
THE UNIVERSALITY OF SIN
I am far from perfect. Friends have accused me of being neurotic in my awareness of my shortcomings. A spiritual advisor once said to me, “Human beings fall into and out of sin so frequently each day, we cannot even begin to register it all. Why are you convinced you can?” Convicting.
I teach at a university committed to the Great Commission, but there is no requirement for students to be Christian. Many who do not believe still come for the education and they engage in our faith integration assignments with good will. During a discussion on the chapter “Healed, Whole, and Holy” from Madeleine L’Engle’s book Walking on Water, one such student said to me, “Zach, you don’t see people the way a lot of the Christians I grew up with do.” I asked, “How so?” The student replied, “Well, the Christians I knew were hung up on sin. It made me believe I couldn’t do anything right. But you look at people as if they are already whole, and that inspires them to be their best.” This gave me great pause.
For many years now, I have tried to be mindful of the example I set for my students through my unspoken actions. A few years ago, I realized an unintended effect of the long hours I invested in my job was sending the message that they had to be unrelenting in their field, no matter the personal cost. Obviously, not the takeaway I had intended. In this more recent interaction, I asked myself, “Am I projecting to students the idea that human beings are fine the way they are?” Afterall, I would not be a teacher if I did not believe change was not only possible but necessary.
I frequently tell students, “You are royal heirs, adopted into the family of God.” My hope is that if they can see themselves through God’s eyes, maybe they will find freedom and confidence in who He made them to be. The metaphor of adoption has an implicit message that I might need to make less abstract in future discussions.
None of us are whole in our natural states. This is a fallen world, and we are all sinful creatures. This understanding is where we must start. I can only love others because I know they are not healed, whole, and holy on their own. If I am a wretch, who am I to be offended when someone does something that I perceive as an insult? If I have committed acts that I am not proud of, but have been forgiven for all of them, who am I to withhold forgiveness from others? No one. I am no one apart from Christ. It is in Him that I find purpose, meaning, and hope––because He loved us so much that He gave his life for a bunch of sinners. If I do not grasp the extent and universality of sin, I cannot hope to grasp the depth of His love for us, much less, begin to embody that love for others.
Zachary Bortot
Associate Professor of Theatre
Collinsworth School of Performing Arts
California Baptist University
Riverside, California
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Art:
Life Unknown (Installation) - 2 views
Chiharu Shiota
2023
Metal and rope
Photos by Adrien Millot
About the Artist:
Chiharu Shiota (b. 1972) is a Japanese artist who lives and works in Berlin and is known the world over for her immersive installations that incorporate everyday objects into networks of fabric threads. Shiota interweaves materiality and perception of space to explore ideas around personal narratives that engage with memory, territory, and alienation. Her signature installations, which consist of dazzling, intricate networks of threads stretching across gallery rooms, allowed the artist rise to fame in the 2000s. Some of her solo exhibitions across the world include Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2019); Gropius Bau, Berlin (2019); Art Gallery of South Australia (2018); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2017); Smithsonian Institution Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (2014); and the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2008). She has also participated in numerous international exhibitions.
https://www.chiharu-shiota.com/biography
https://mymodernmet.com/chiharu-shiota-i-hope/
https://www.designboom.com/art/tour-chiharu-shiota-immersive-thread-installation-former-church-berlin-03-11-2021/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiharu_Shiota
About the Music:
“Wages of Sin (Studio Outtake)” from the album Bruce Springsteen Tracks
Lyrics:
When we fight, I want to talk it out.
You won't say nothing, nothing at all.
You just sit there, you won't open that pretty mouth.
I think you like keeping my back up against the wall.
Wages of sin, you keep me paying.
Wages of sin for wrongs that I've done.
Wages of sin, you keep me paying.
Wages of sin, one by one.
I walk in the apartment, there's clothes thrown all over the place.
You're crouched in the corner with makeup running down your face.
I don't want to believe what my heart keeps saying.
You keep me on the line so you can keep me paying.
Wages of sin, we keep paying.
Wages of sin for the wrongs that we've done.
Wages of sin, we keep paying.
Wages of sin, that's how we have our fun.
I remember when I was a little boy out where the cottonwoods grow tall,
Trying to make it home through the forest before the darkness falls.
Baby all the sounds I heard, even if they weren't real.
I was running down that broken path with the devil snapping at my heels.
I tried so hard, so hard in every way.
Swore someday I'd grow up, just throw it all away.
Cried all the tears, baby, that I could cry.
Stomached all my fears 'til they came rushin' up inside.
Darlin' I'm losin' and it's a mean game.
Still I play just the same.
Wages of sin, I keep paying.
Wages of sin for some wrong that I've done.
Wages of sin, well I keep paying.
Wages of sin, one by one.
About the Composer/Performer:
Bruce Springsteen (b. 1949) is an American rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Nicknamed "The Boss," he has, during a career spanning six decades, released twenty-one studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Springsteen is an originator of heartland rock, a genre combining mainstream rock music with poetic and socially conscious lyrics that tell a narrative about working-class American life. From 2017 to 2018, and again in 2021, Springsteen performed the critically acclaimed one-man show Springsteen on Broadway, which saw him perform some of his songs and tell stories from his autobiography. Listed among the album era's most prominent acts, Springsteen has sold more than seventy-one million albums in the US and over 140 million worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has earned numerous awards, including twenty Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award. He was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999), received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Joe Biden in 2023.
https://brucespringsteen.net/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Springsteen
About the Poetry and Poet:
Stanley Kunitz (1905–2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then in 2000. Kunitz graduated from Harvard College (1926) with both a B.A. and M.A in English. After graduating from Harvard, he worked as a reporter for The Worcester Telegram, and as editor for the H. W. Wilson Company in New York City. After the war, he began a teaching career and spent eighteen years as an adjunct professor of writing at Columbia's School of the Arts (1967–1985). He was the New York State Poet Laureate from 1987 to 1989. Many consider that his poetry's symbolism is influenced significantly by the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Throughout the 70s and 80s, he became one of the most treasured and distinctive voices in American poetry. His collection Passing Through: The Later Poems won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1995. Kunitz received many other honors, including a National Medal of Arts, the Bollingen Prize for a lifetime achievement in poetry, the Robert Frost Medal, and Harvard's Centennial Medal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kunitz
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stanley-kunitz
About the Devotion Writer:
Zachary Bortot
Associate Professor of Theatre
Collinsworth School of Performing Arts
California Baptist University
Riverside, California
Zachary Bortot is an associate professor of Theatre at California Baptist University. Prior to CBU he served as the artistic director for Biola University's Theatre Program, as well as the director of development for the Chicago based non-profit Christian theatre company, Honest Theatre. In his career he has spent years working as an actor, director, producer, fight director, writer, and instructor in a variety of locales and venues in the U.S., both on stage and screen. He recently directed West Side Story for the Courtyard Shakespeare Festival and Frankenstein at CBU. You can see him next as Sebastian in Rebel Run Studio’s science-fiction adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.