This is a recording from the sermon preached at St. David's Episcopal Church on Sunday, 2/22, the First Sunday in Lent.In this sermon, seminarian Daniel Bentley addresses the unfashionable topic of sin in the Episcopal Church, arguing that avoiding honest reckoning with sin risks preaching what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “cheap grace.” Drawing on Genesis, he challenges a simple Sunday school reading of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and identifies the root of sin as pride—reaching for God’s status by becoming one’s own source of wisdom and refusing to trust God. He traces how pride fuels judgment, comparison, gossip, accumulation, and self-definition through status and achievement. Daniel shares a personal story about receiving a “not proficient” result in theology on his ordination exams just days before his ordination, describing how humiliation exposed his reliance on image and self-sufficiency, and how Bonhoeffer suggests such moments can “crack us open” to grace. He emphasizes that Christ’s forgiveness does not remove sin’s consequences, pointing to the cross, and presents humility as the remedy: remembering that the congregation is not God and does not need to be. In the Gospel reading, Jesus in the wilderness models the trust and submission Adam and Eve did not, beginning and ending his earthly ministry in humility. Daniel concludes by inviting the congregation, during Lent, to examine where they have been grasping for what is not theirs, to allow themselves to be broken open for God’s grace, and to remember that God does not abandon them.00:00 Opening Prayer00:19 Why Talk About Sin00:57 Cheap Grace Warning01:56 What Is Original Sin02:19 Genesis Beyond Disobedience04:11 Pride as the Root05:04 Pride’s Ripple Effects06:20 Ordination Exam Humbling09:34 Bonhoeffer and Being Cracked Open10:10 Consequences and Humility11:47 Jesus Trusts in the Wilderness12:45 Lent Practice and Closing

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