Sin Boldly

"What motivates you?" was a question I was asked recently in a job interview. This is a rather common inquiry that hiring managers have for their potential candidates; and for good reason. "Drive" is something that cannot be taught, and an employee without it is a wasted commodity. And having been a manager myself, I know just how crucial it is to have a team of highly motivated individuals. I also know what it is like to have a team of individuals who are clearly there just to earn a paycheck.
Martin Luther, in his 95 Theses that he nailed to the church in Wittenberg in 1517, clearly had a bone to pick with the Catholic Church. This is rather significant, not only because it was the initial catalyst that brought about Protestantism, but also because Martin Luther, himself, was a Augustinian monk at the time. Not just a theologian, but a full fledged monk with the Catholic church. And it was the actions of the church that bothered him so much that he took the time to write out the 95 grievances that the church was bestowing upon the world. One of these was the selling of "indulgences"-basically you could sin as much as you want, and for the right price, the Church will absolve all your sins. For the right price, that is.
What does Martin Luther have to do with the topic at hand? Everything. Here is a man who is in such a moral outrage over the practices of the very church he belonged to that he not only hand wrote all 95 Theses, but multiple copies of them. The first copy he historically (although now recently debated if he actually did) nailed to the door of the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Saxony (now a part of Germany). The significance of this particular location was that it held one of Europe's largest collections of holy relics. On the same day that he did that, he mailed a copy to the Archbishop Albert of Mainz (who was in charge of the sale of indulgences) as well as to the bishop of Brandenburg, who was a superior of Luther's at the time. Simply, Luther was a man full of both drive and determination to save the very soul of his church.
To quote (and also paraphrase) Luther, "If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary, but the true mercy...God does not save those who are imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly)...We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter, are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign."
Sin boldly. Let that sink in. This life is short and ever full on uncertainty. As Gandhi famously put it "Be the change you want to see in the world." Don't wait for the permission of other to be great. Instead, be the example that others see when they think of greatness. It is never too late to take that leap of faith and fly.