Without resting in the elements that produce its life and growth, the wretched little plant is doomed. It can never be what it is, a tomato plant, without soil, water and light. Yet our little rebel tomato plant, if we can still call it a tomato plant, has decided it has a better plan toward self-realization than the natural plan that makes tomato plants be tomato plants. It cuts us off from the very source of our life and being. It is refusal to be who we really are, who we were created to be, in a mad effort to be who we think we ought to be.
Sin is more than mere actions.
It is the very condition of our lives. Individual sins are merely the natural fruit of a corrupt heart. On our own, because we are sinners, we are like that tomato plant, trying to scratch out a life for ourselves in a hostile world, ignorant of the fact that we are not even stuck in the ground. Lying as we are in the dark on the concrete sidewalk, the best we can hope for is to stay as green as we can for as long as we can and finally wither up and die. But the gospel tells us that we are not on our own.