How to keep from sinning

Since one of our first needs as humans is to be thought blameless, here are two ways to keep sin at bay.

If you are a conservative, I would suggest putting your focus on individual sins. Rank them. Make sure you hold the worst sins in absolute disdain. Naturally, these will be the sins you would never think to commit yourself, and, helpfully, you have no trouble avoiding. If you can keep away from them, why can't everyone else?
Now that you have identified the worst sins, and these are clear to all, whatever sin you had disappears. After all, you are not a murderer, are you? Compared to them, you're blameless. Tada! Sin's gone!

If you are a liberal, you might try the ills of society route. Put all sins in the context of 'we.' Our society does a lot of really bad stuff, like wars, oppression, and so on. Don't forget the ones that were committed centuries ago. Then place yourself above all that. "We" always means other people. Since you identified the problem, and you are the prophetic voice against it, once again, you cannot be blamed.

Isn't denial wonderful? So simple, it's just a matter of pointing out the sins of others.

If neither of these routes suits you, then go into your room and shut the door; kneel down and pray like this: "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner."
The only alternative to self-justification is divine mercy.

Jesus at the P.O.

I never expected to see Jesus there at the Post Office. In fact, I didn't really want to. I just came to see if my package had arrived.

See, I ordered a bunch of stuff from JesusOnLine; but who knew he would deliver it personally?

Looking over the catalog carefully, I chose the Eternal Salvation (family four-pack), the inner peace, the cosmology set and the personal justification. I even made room in a closet to store all that stuff, you know, so it wouldn't get in the way and I would trip over it on my way to Real Life.

So I was all set to pick up my stuff and leave quietly. I went to the P.O. at a slow time, even, when not many people were there. I opened the door casually, so as not to arouse suspicion. I looked in my box, and sure enough, there was a yellow card. That's what they put in your P.O. box if you have something too big to fit in there, so you have to come over to the window and claim it.

I knew it had to be my stuff from Jesus. So I went to the window, all excited. But there he was. He was the one at the window giving people their stuff.

I didn't know it, but there's apparently some sort of policy that you can't just order stuff from Jesus. You have to take him, too.

So now I have a house guest. And he's always hanging around.

Mr. Marty Existence

The way Luther put it sounds pretty existential. "I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in the Lord or come to him." It's like that picture that's been around - the one of the famous philosopher (not famous enough for me to remember who) standing on a floating piece of ice with his hat and cane, like he's waiting for the bus or something. But the bus never comes. The bus sank in four miles of ocean. He's probably still on that ice, waiting.
Or the play, Waiting for Godot.
What makes it all Lutheran is that we do not recapture our essence. Rescue comes by, of all things, a man dying on a cross.

You reading assignment for next time is Shusaku Endo's Silence. If there is a next time.

All Grace

Where Lutherans are Most Zen: distrust of action. Works Righteousness is the label we stick on stuff we don't like when we want to shut down all discussion on the topic. Lutherans recoil at the thought of their actions counting for something.
The way Kant said it, actions cannot be ethical in themselves. Only intentions can be judged good or bad.

(I'm not really sure I'm doing justice to Kant here. You should get used to having me misinterpret philosophers. If you write a comment on this like, "Kant never said . . . " followed by lots of yadas, you missed the point. Maybe Kant never said it or meant it, but he should have. Or somebody should have. We need people to be wrong in helpful ways.)

Oh, and by the way: Intentions are always bad.

So that kind of sets us back. People like to think they can do the right thing; but it seems pretty obvious to the Zen Lutheran that they don't. If the only hope for humanity is more humanity, well, that's where hope gets flushed.

This is going to end up being quite existential. You do remember Kierkegaard was Lutheran, right? I'll get around to misinterpreting him later. For now just remember the father of existentialism was a Danish Lutheran.

Zen Lutherans are failed romantics. A romantic is someone who dreams that things can be better. When they don't get better, they come to us.

But don't look here for pessimism, cynicism or despair. Just look for grace.

Zen? Lutheran?

There is some stuff in Zen that seems like the exact opposite of Lutheran stuff, so maybe you're asking how in the world these two go together. Zen/Buddhist:Lutheran/Christian, for one thing most obvious. So maybe this can't be done. Then again, maybe this is your first koan.
Zen is the practice of reaching within oneself for wisdom. And given the Lutheran aversion for all things incurvatus in se, we see an obvious pitfall. But what if we take seriously the promise of the Holy Spirit, calling, gathering, enlightening and sanctifying? It is the Spirit in us that brings us to faith.