What About Preaching Sin?

"What about preaching sin?" I am regularly asked, often by younger preachers. I don't think that it works to convince people that they are sinful, or that they ought to feel sinful. At its best, preaching holds up a mirror in such a way that people say,"That's me! That's us! That's the world!" People who get sin, who claim the psalmist's words as their own, don't need convincing. And people who don't get sin, who have never voiced the psalmist's cry, cannot be convinced.

“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many—terror all around! —as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.” (Ps 31:9-13 NRSV)