Is Forgiveness a Duty?

Is forgiveness a duty? Is it the case that if we don’t forgive others, then God won’t forgive us? Do we have a responsibility to hand God’s forgiveness of us on to others? And are we obliged to forgive others so we can break the cycle of revenge? That's duty, and it has its place. But the motivation for forgiveness is love, not duty. 

   

But what is the alternative to dutifully 'forgiving' someone if we can't really forgive them? Well, if we are not able to forgive the alternative is not to tell ourselves that we should forgive others. The alternative is an act of will not to seek revenge against that person, and to guard against subtle acts of retaliation. There is a level of authenticity in this kind of non-aggression. We are not trying to make out everything is fine. And it doesn’t extend the harm that has already occurred. And then we can do the spiritual disciplines that I outlined previously. (Here). Maybe, one day, we will forgive the other party.

This question is similar to helping others out of a sense of guilt. The motivation for forgiving others or helping others matters. St Paul says we can do all sorts of incredible feats of self-sacrifice, but without love, nothing is gained. (1Cor 13:1-3) Acting out of guilt is really about us. Helping others out of guilt is then really about us, not the ones we help. And the 'help' we offer is very easily skewed or distorted when it is offered for our benefit.  Moreover, guilt is too closely related to self-disgust to take us very far. And guilt doesn’t build a future but is stuck in the past. 

And responding to the needs of others out of guilt will bring unintended consequences. For example, let’s say someone is feeling guilty about the blessings in their life so they decide to be ‘generous’ in money/time/goods toward those they perceive to be less fortunate. And isn’t it handy that the recipient of the largesse then comes to depend on the ‘generosity’ of the giver! I say 'fortunate' because then the feelings of guilt can be easily assuaged. Almost like a vending machine. Whole industries of charity are built on evoking this ‘generosity’. 

 In the same way, forgiving someone wallowing in guilt won’t relieve their guilt but more likely feed it. The person feeling guilty feels a little better after being forgiven, encouraging them to seek forgiveness over and over. A kind of moral addiction if you like, and Christianity calls such addiction salvation by works. (Or these days we might call it virtue signalling.) And the moral addiction easily becomes a moralistic addiction seeking out other sinners to denounce. We have a plague of this at the moment in western societies. 

 But to return to the original question: do we have a duty to forgive others? Duty ultimately skews relationships. It is good to remember that. We might think that we should at least mouth forgiveness for the benefit of the person seeking forgiveness. Maybe, but inauthenticity on our part won’t get them very far. Remember, a genuinely remorseful person won’t necessarily require us to forgive them. That's because they won't be seeking forgiveness for their sake but to heal a relationship as best as can be done. So they will let us have our feelings and our work to do rather than require us to forgive them. And genuine remorse means the person has already done some of the work themselves about their actions, who they are, and the future. 

Contrast this with the person who needily seeks forgiveness. They will need more than a show on our part. They could come to church and authentically open themselves to the One who has already forgiven them so as to heal and lead them beyond their neediness.

Some Biblical Texts on Forgiveness

This Sunday we are gathering to discuss forgiveness, and in preparation, I have distributed the following as a bit of a guide to forgiveness in the Bible. This isn't everything there is to say. But just doing this, compiling it, was an overwhelming experience. Sometimes we have a tendency to focus on bits of scripture which might be of interest but miss the overwhelming themes. So here goes:

 The New Testament uses a variety of images to express the unique event and consequences of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Words like justification, rescue, freedom, healing, ransom, reconciliation, adoption, peace, sanctification, and forgiveness. (And there are still more.) Forgiveness is a keyword from everyday experience that is used as a lens to understand what God has accomplished for us in Christ. Here are some passages from the (Old and) New Testament that speak of forgiveness. There are more! 

 Genesis 33:1-4 Esau forgives Jacob 

Genesis 45:1-8 Jacob forgives his brothers 

Jeremiah 31:31-34. The prophet in this passage looks to a New Covenant that stands as both a renewal of the Old Covenant and stands in contrast to it. The New Covenant will bring a new intimacy with God and God’s ways, for no longer will people have to get the law from a stone tablet but it will be written directly on the human heart. They would know God’s ways by heart and their sins will be forgiven. (Jesus claims the new Covenant is enacted in his blood, see Mark 14:22-25) See also Ezekiel 36:22-28. 

 Ezekiel envisages God washing clean the people of God and providing a new heart of flesh rather than their old hearts of stone. With new hearts and a new spirit within them, they will be able to follow God’s commands. (36:25-27) And they will, finally and truly, be God’s people and God will be their God. (36:28) And notice that God does this not because the people deserve it, but it is an act of grace, because of God’s name, that is, who God is. (Compare with 1John 2:12) 

 Matthew 6:7-15 Lord’s Prayer and forgiveness 

Matthew 18:21-22 (See Genesis 4:23-24) vengeance and forgiveness 

Matthew 18:23-35 a huge debt forgiven compared to the miserly slave

 Mark 2:3-12 What is easier to say? 

Mark 11:25-26 when you pray, forgive … 

Luke 6:37-38 forgive and you will be forgiven 

Lk 7:36-50 Which of them will love him more? … hence she has shown great love 

Luke 15:11-32 the forgiving father 

Luke 24:44-49 proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins (see also Acts 5:30-32; 10:37-43; 13:38-39) 

John 20:19-23. Receive the Holy Spirit … 

Acts 7:60 Stephen forgives his murderers (see also Luke 23:34) 

2Corinthians 2:5-11 forgive and console him …anyone you forgive I forgive 

Ephesians 1:3-14 with a smorgasboard of images for God’s love for us in Christ. 

Ephesians 4:29-5:2 

Colossians 2:14 

Colossians 3:12-13 

Philemon 1:17-21 the debt he owes you, add to my account 

Hebrews 10:11-18 quoting Jeremiah 31 

James 5:13-16 

1John 1:8-2:2

Further Thoughts on Hypocrisy (Part 1)

 Hypocrisy is such a nasty word. Its root is from Greek for an actor with a mask in a performance, a critic/interpreter underneath (the mask). That is, what you see is not the real person. 

The usual way of thinking of hypocrisy is to picture someone who acts and speaks in a way that does not reflect who they really are, and they wear this 'mask' to dupe those around them. Undoubtedly, this does happen, but it is not the only problem. Most of us don't want to be knowingly false to ourselves. Think of someone who has lost the fire in the belly for their 'passion' (what a terribly overused word these days) and no longer believes in it, and yet still must maintain the talk and the walk. Hypocrisy, I suppose, but most people get hollowed out and unhappy becasue they know they are play acting. They move on and discard the mask.

What is more common is the hypocrisy that is not directed to the outside world, but inwardly, to the hypocrite themselves. The hypocrisy is more likely unknown to the alleged hypocrite, at least consciously. The more common hypocrisy is the attempt to convince ourselves that we aren't who we really think we are.  We put on a mask for ourselves, desperate to convince ourselves. Forget the idea that we are trying to dupe others, hypocrisy is primarily about self-deception. Of course, the self-deception is strengthened if our hypocrisy convinces others as well. This is one reason why trying to be 'good' is a trap. ('Only God is good' says Jesus, see here.) Wanting to be good can easily become wanting to be good (or whatever the deception) because I suspect that I might be, or could be, bad etc. That's hypocrisy. And it is a path that leads away from our full humanity. No wonder Jesus didn't like it much. (See here.)

A Longer Reflection on Forgiveness

 

Forgiveness is important,  as is its lack. But before we talk about forgiveness there are useful spiritual disciplines to mention first. 

So, let us say that we believe/feel we have been wronged. Perhaps we are angry. Here is a discipline that, under some but not all circumstances, may help as we head to forgiveness (or not), and grow into the full stature of Christ.

1. So, who is the person who has done this? I mean really, who are they? Questions to ask: I wonder how they have come to be this person? What have they been through, how have they grown past the difficulties of their life, whether these difficulties are self-inflicted or inherited? Continue with these and other explorations about the person and the incident(s), and what has led to this alienation between you that you are experiencing. Call this increasing our sympathy or empathy for the one you believe has wronged you.

2. How about me? Where am I in all of this? Think about the lead up to 'the incident(s)'. What can I learn about myself? Am I ready to 'die' to whatever has brought me to be so angry or offended? (E.g. pride, self-importance, or perhaps my anger reveals a part of me that I am actually uncomfortable with, a discomfort that has led to my angry reaction and feelings.) This is not a call to attack oneself, but rather, an invitation to self-understanding, or you could call it sympathy for our own particularity as human beings.

I find that this discipline leads to insight about myself and others, and can let me give up some of what is driving my alienation from the other person. Sometimes, because of this discipline, I can forget and move on. 

Not all feelings, not all actions, not every alienation from someone, will yield to the above discipline. Sometimes there is a remainder: I understand something of why they did this, and yet ...

 Indeed, plenty of human history will never and should never yield to the above discipline. No matter how much we understand what lays behind or led up to the incident(s), there is no simple forgetting, no easy moving on as though it 'doesn't matter'. (The discipline above can lead us, in some situations, to say exactly that, "It doesn't matter." And this can be real and genuine. To say "It doesn't matter" is to say I've grown, and it - the incident, action, and the alienation I felt - doesn't matter like it did formerly.)

But when there is a remainder, or when understanding, sympathy, empathy, do not cover the sin, we have entered the realm of forgiveness.

The first thing to say about forgiveness must be its asymmetry. Forgiveness is not deserved, it is not earned, it is not a reciprocal coming down off our mutual high-horses and meeting somewhere in the middle. It is full of grace, if you like. 

Forgiveness costs us. We venture into alienation, and bringing reconciliation where there is human alienation is neither easy nor cheap. Grace is always costly.

Jesus is, if you like, God's spiritual discipline as outlined above. In Jesus God becomes one of us, one with the human condition. God knows human sin (in need of forgiveness) from the inside, as a victim of it, to the point of betrayal, desertion, torture and execution. God knows us and our sin. God understands us and sin. But the Incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus), death, and resurrection of Jesus are more than (to use my metaphor above) a spiritual discipline. In Jesus God overcomes the alienation of sin. This is God and God's way: God becoming what is not God (in this case sin, godforsakenness, and alienation, see 2Corinthians 5:21 and Mark 15:34) and in this complete embrace of what is not divine bringing reconciliation with what was formerly alienated (us). 

And then there is the resurrection. Of course, we should not separate the two, cross and resurrection. The forgiveness that is brought about through God's embrace of godforsakenness (see Mark 15:34) is the resurrected Jesus. The forgiving victim of sin offers forgiveness and sends his disciples out to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

There is freedom in this. God's freedom in embracing human sin, and in this freedom carrying our freedom (misused in sin) so that we can grow into our true freedom as children of God.

And there is grace in all this. Undeserved forgiveness (there is no other kind) that is utterly asymmetrical. Forgiveness is always ahead of us; in Christ forgiveness never catches up to us, but we catch up to forgiveness. That is, even though we seek forgiveness through repentance, and hear the word of grace and absolution after, it is forgiveness that arrived first at that place, and we were drawn to it.

Freedom

 After the Western ideal of unlimited freedom, after the Marxist concept of freedom as acceptance of the yoke of necessity—here is the true Christian definition of freedom. Freedom is self-restriction! Restriction of the self for the sake of others! (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

Jonah, Resentment, Idolatry

There is a lot to say about the book of Jonah. After all, people write good commentaries on the book even though it is only a few pages long. The book begins with Jonah fleeing from God because God wants him to go to Nineveh and warn the city of impending destruction. He eventually goes to Nineveh after a short sojourn in the belly of the great fish, and calls the people to repentance. He doesn't try too hard. (See 3:3-4) But it works; the people repent, much to the chagrin of Jonah.  After the people of Nineveh repent and God relents from destroying the city, Jonah is displeased. He complains to God,

Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing." (4:2)

It's tough when you are the last one to repent. It's a bit lonely I suppose. The Ninevites repent, and even God relents, that is, changes God's mind, which is a kind of repentance. But Jonah can't relent in his judgmentalism. And he is angry.  So God tries to show him why God has relented. God brings a little bush up and then has it die. (4:6-8) Jonah is upset again, this time about the bush. And God says, in a way similar when Jonah was angry about Nineveh's escape from destruction, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" (4:9, cf 4:4)

Idolatry is always hard to give up. That's why the 'idol' (see here) became an idol in the first place. Jonah has a set idea of God fuelled by his judgmentalism, anger, self-righteousness or similar. And not even God's enacted parable with the bush and explanation following, can change him. Well, actually, we don't know. The story ends without us knowing Jonah's response to God's explanation of God's mercy to the Ninevites. The book closes open-ended, functioning as an invitation to us to repent of hardness of heart, directed at others (and by implication ourselves). 

Idolatry

Whatever we adopt and assert as the ultimate controlling factor in our lives is our god. We do not need to love it and worship it. We can even fear it or hate it. But in our religion we try to control it. (KarlBarthfor Dummies)

Authenticity, Worship, and Confession

 Christians seek, among other things, authenticity. So what makes authentic worship? Scripture links authentic worship to our lives outside of worship. Our love for God is expressed in worship just as it is expressed in our lives. In gratitude for what God has done for us, our lives are to express God’s love through the practice of righteousness and justice, faith, and mercy. That is, we are to love God by obeying God’s commandments, a love expressed through worship as well. But it is not so much that worship must be accompanied by a life of righteousness, mercy, etc, but that without a congruence between our lives and what God commands the worship of God loses its authenticity. Worship and our lives are not separate silos; lives of righteousness and mercy are the precondition for worship. That’s not a call to try and earn God’s love in our lives, but a call to live lives of gratitude by practising mercy and love in faith. 

So a precondition of authentic worship is authenticity in our discipleship day to day. And that’s a problem. Whose life is one of perfect obedience? Does this mean that our worship is necessarily inauthentic? Confession in worship can help us out here. In confession, we come as authentic sinners confessing authentic sins to an authentically loving and forgiving God. And God’s forgiveness is ahead of us in this. It is not that we repent and confess our sins and God forgives us as a reward. God’s love is already waiting for us and does not need our confession first to then be able to forgive us. God loves us now, so we confess in the knowledge of that love. And so confession and absolution become an expression of authenticity and the means to seek greater authenticity. We acknowledge who we have made ourselves into, and in this context of forgiveness and love need not hide from who we are. That’s authenticity. And we can begin to unravel what we have made ourselves into via this path of authenticity. That’s authentic change. 

 In other words, confession is an aid in avoiding hypocrisy, an archenemy of authenticity. We don’t have to come to worship ignoring our failure to live authentic Christian lives. Instead, we can come to the God who is rich in mercy as an authentic sinner who is authentically forgiven. It is, after all, not the perfection of the pure that makes the angels rejoice in heaven, but, if I could rephrase Jesus, the sinner authentically repenting.

Our Poverty Implies God's Fullness.

We are incomplete. As humans. It is our nature.

We see this clearly, as the poet says:

On the Mystery of the Incarnation 

It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:

not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.      (Denise Levertov)

There is a 'taint' in our own selves. The poet recalls for us the terrible things we humans do to each other, from truly horrific violence to all kinds of mundane emotional cruelty. But, she says, this incompletion is the way in which our hearts and minds can be transformed, converted. (“…that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart…”)

There is plenty more evidence for this lack in us, this incompleteness. Not just incorrigible human failure like ethnic violence, family and generational violence, but also the more mundane distress we have all felt in our families of origin, in our own families. Parents see themselves in their children, good and not so desirable, and wonder how the not-so-good happened despite our best efforts! It’s common. 

Utopianism is further evidence, if it is needed. We are currently in the power of all sorts of extreme utopianisms. Utopianism is a kind of denial of our incompleteness. A kind of ‘she doth protest too much’, an over-insistence to cover the fear, to protest against, and to reject of the lack in us.

Our tendency to monument building is another sign of this incompleteness. We don’t last, We are like the grass of the field, as scripture says. So, let’s build a monument to ourselves, our family, our culture. Nothing necessarily wrong with monument building, it’s just that it sometimes can be, once again, a protest, against our evanescence: we age, we fade, we disappear.

Or again, the self-help industry. It’s good, why not try to help yourself? But, again, it is an acknowledgement of our incompleteness, there is more to us than what we are now. So we try all sorts of methods to change and grow, all kinds of methods, philosophies, and irrationalities.

We are told to embrace honestly, or at least, to accept this incompleteness in the myriad ways it shows itself. To change what needs to be changed, to grow, to accept.. Of course.

But there is something missing in that account. The Christian account, while accepting what I have just said, thinks there is something more. It’s not just to accept and or change, as good as these are. It is to acknowledge our poverty, our spiritual poverty. The incompleteness doesn't mean that we just have to learn new methods of self-enquiry or a helpful technique to grow psychologically.  We are poor, but to acknowledge this is to acknowledge God’s loving fullness waiting to be poured into our hearts. Christianity doesn’t say we are poor; it says God is rich and wishes to share God’s richness with us in our poverty. We are made incomplete to be filled by God’s Spirit, to take us to a new depth of loving that we ourselves cannot bring about. And this fullness doesn’t just complete us, it brings healing. The very signs of our incompleteness can be transformed and healed in God’s fullness. Anger, hate, malice, fear, anxiety, violence and revenge, alienation and the fear of death, all can be healed and we can be taken where we were made to go.

This is Christmas. God comes as a human being, the beginning of a new humanity filled by God’s Spirit. The weak, helpless baby a sign of God’s desire to stoop down to us and take us to where God is. Not just the birth, of course. There is to come Jesus’ ministry, rejection, crucifixion, and resurrection. But God has done in Jesus what we are made not to be able to do on our own: to be a complete humanity, in the image of that same Christ. 

More than a Prophet

Prophets, at least as we use the term now, lack identification with those they criticise. Those they come to save are on the other side of the dividing line, and those who are condemned have to make it over to the prophet’s side of the river. The modern-day prophet tends toward black and white judgment, and speak with deep resentment, not sympathy. Or so it seems to me.

Although, not just modern prophets. John the Baptist, who the NT sees as the last of the OT style prophets, is more than a bit like this. I imagine he would have approved of the parable of the sheep and the goats we heard in Matthew a couple of weeks back. A nice, easy division between those in and those out, the good and the bad, the blessed and the damned. (I was going to say a nice dividing line down the middle, but John the Baptist was anything but in the middle; most people wouldn’t have made it by John’s judgement.)
He offered a water baptism to escape the fiery wrath to come, too bad about the unwashed.

Jesus was seen as a prophet. But he is more than a prophet. Not just in stature as indicated by John today with the metaphor of the sandal. Jesus stands apart also because of his willingness to identify with those he came to save. This identification begins with his baptism by John in the Jordan. The significance of Jesus’ baptism is brought out particularly in Matthew’s Gospel. For the Baptist the messiah cannot, should not, be baptised. That’s for sinners. Jesus should be doing the baptising. There is a divide that should not, cannot, be broken. Jesus disagreed. And, of course, Jesus’ death on the cross: complete and utter identification to the point of godforsakenness – you can’t get any deeper identification with sinners than that.

The black and white condemnation of a prophet just doesn’t sound like Jesus. He is more than this. (Just as his good news of the kingdom is more than a parable about dividing sheep and goats.) Indeed, John the Baptist doesn’t sound like Jesus. John thought this himself. John had serious doubts about Jesus before he, John, died. Prophets are often graceless. Jesus was full of grace and truth.

We all have a bit of black and white condemnation in us. But more likely in a church like this, we might meet the same gracelessness but in a softer version. Something like, “If only everyone could just love one another,” or “If only people would be kinder/more respectful etc.” Sounds reasonable, but such sentiments lack grace. Behind it is the assumption that people are the problem, and the solution lies with people. That lacks grace. People might be the problem, but the solution lies with God. This is why God became human as Jesus. That’s why Jesus was baptised by John and died on the cross. God is with us in our human failure, not as a prophet, but as more than a prophet.

Gracelessness also encourages despair. Where’s there to go after “if only people would …”? I suppose we could condemn them, force them, or I suppose we could just keep trying, plod on because what else is there to do? I think a lot of people are in that place of plodding on.

When I pray for the kingdom I don’t pray, “If only people would be kinder etc.” It’s self-righteous. I pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done …” We are not those who have fallen into despair or cynicism or just plod on, we live by hope because it is God’s kingdom. Grace is alive and well in the world. Jesus is risen. (Come Lord Jesus!)

Cracks, Light, & Sainthood

It is part of popular culture that our cracks let the light in. It is another example of the Christian legacy in western culture. It is not in strength that God’s power is made perfect but in weakness. People easily miss the point that talking about our sins is another way of talking about our cracks. God doesn’t start with any self-proclaimed wholeness or perfection. God’s love winds its way into our hearts through the cracks, or to use traditional language, our sins. God’s love won’t divide us up, ostracizing the cracked bits and just working with the parts that aren’t cracked (to stay with the metaphor) but works the cracks to bring about genuine wholeness. People ask me why Christianity is so sin focused. This is why. Our cracks aren’t meant to be ignored or covered over. The cracks are God’s way in. God works the cracks, not the uncracked. ‘The saints’ in the New Testament are those made holy by God, and why so many great saints don’t have a holy past.

Sometimes we forget it is not the cracks that are important, it is the light. No one wants to admit to wallowing in our problems. So it is more common to find the reverse of wallowing in our problems (cracks), such that admitting the cracks is in some way a noble gesture of great character. Or something to be proud of. That is really just the other side of the coin of wallowing in one’s problems. Wallowing in our cracks, or vainly parading the cracks focus on the cracks. The cracks are still a problem. The cracks remain unsettling, dangerous. The Christian tradition suggests a different path. A humbler path. Honesty, yes. Honesty, authenticity, lie at the heart of repentance. But the Christian path focuses on the light, not the cracks. It is because we are bathed in light that the cracks can be healed.

The cracks let the light in, but once the light is in, the whole vase is aglow. That’s the path to sainthood as most of us think of saints. The light shines through the saint. The cracks can let the light out, but the whole person is irradiated. While it is tempting to downplay ‘the saints’ because sainthood in the New Testament referred originally to being made holy, it is also important to remember the saints. They are, if you like, evidence of the power of the light.

Incomprehensibility and the Image of God

In theory, could human beings come to know everything about the universe? Putting aside the kind of human arrogance that thinks all is possible because they think they are God, is it at least theoretically possible to know and understand, to comprehend, the universe?

It’s too big. OK, agreed, probably a bit big. But, in theory, what would be encountered on the other side of the universe, could such phenomena be investigated and understood?

No, it is too complex. OK, but if we did have the right tools and equipment, the right technology, would it be possible? In theory, yes. Our intelligence seems mapped to understanding the reality around us. (If it were not so, it would be difficult to understand how and why the Western scientific method has been so successful.

And then, there is mystery. Mystery, in the Christian schema, is not the currently unknown, but that could be known under the right circumstances. In Christianity, mystery refers to the incomprehensible, beyond our understanding, even in theory. We can’t slice mystery into manageable bits, and we can’t wrestle it into shape and compare it to what we do know to therefore grasp it, at least partially. I’m talking about God. God can reveal Godself, in all God’s glorious incomprehension. God can become human in Jesus, but that does not mean we comprehend God. Jesus reveals the incomprehensible God, who remains incomprehensible. That is, God is not our plaything, and cannot be put to our use as we do with everything else we understand (even partially understand). When people of faith try to control God terrible consequences follow. Hence, the prohibition against idols and misusing God’s name embedded in the Ten Commandments.

And we are made in the image of this incomprehensible God. Attempts to identify the image in us with certain attributes or capacities abound. And whatever the benefits of such approaches, we should never think that somehow, we have made the image comprehensible. That would be to break the second commandment. Reductionism has its place in the study of our humanity, but the irreducible remains. Kathryn Tanner sees an imitation of God’s incomprehensibility in the plasticity of our nature. In comparison to other species, we are born with little hard wired in us. We grow, learn, change, exponentially so. Our nature is “in a sense unlimited, unbounded by a clearly delimited nature, in virtue, in the human case, of an expansive openness and initial indefiniteness.” This natural openness is a negative imitation in that God’s incomprehensibility is from complete fullness, whereas our imitation is a “lack, through an initial failure of predetermination, not by being anything in particular in any very concrete way to start.” (Christ the Key, p. 53)

If God is beyond our understanding, incomprehensible, what is an appropriate response to God? Awe, joy, bliss. Prayer, thanksgiving, faith.

Idolatry and Purity

Recently, on ABC Adelaide radio, prominent educationalist and author Kevin Donnelly was cut mid-stream from the broadcast for referring to or quoting from, Mark Twain. (Ironically Donnelly was being interviewed about his latest book on free speech in education!) I'm sure the purists of the ABC were satisfied. 

Purity and extremism often follow one another. Purity is important in a recent Sunday reading today. (Exodus 32:1-14.) The people of Israel make for themselves an idol, a golden calf.  When it comes to sins, it doesn't get much worse than idolatry. Idolatry is held execrable because, among other reasons, it leads to all kinds of inhumanity. The worst idolatry is to substitute ourselves for God, rather than maintain ourselves as made in God's image. This was Solzhenitsyn's criticism of the monstrous history of the Bolsheviks, and more and more the modern world. In response to the danger of idolatry, Christianity has sought to overturn idolatry wherever it is found. But while this pursuit is pure, purity, as I said, often leads to extremism. Purity has no grace, and no place for failure, or the sinner. And it easily becomes an idol.

It is ironic that the quest to prevent idolatry ends in all kinds of inhumanities. Purity makes new victims in its efforts to prevent the impurity. But let us not restrict such puritanical pursuits to Christianity or religion in general. It seems to be a general characteristic of human beings. Think of all the great movements of purity from the French Revolution through to the Bolsheviks, the Nazis, and Pol Pot. Good atheists the lot of them.

Irony abounds. The ranks of the new puritans in the West (including in the Church) are to be found in those who would claim to be dismantling old oppressive systems of purity or preventing their re-emergence. 

So, what is the antidote to idolatry? As I have said before, Christian faith does not develop by just trying harder. Purifying oneself of any skerrick of idolatry may have the opposite effect than the one desired. (By making an idol out of the pursuit of purity.)

Better to love God. Practice loving God, even if it comes hard, or we are imperfect in it. It is love that overcomes idolatry, not purity. 

The Lost Sheep

 Tomorrow in the Sunday lectionary we will be reading Matthew's version of the Lost Sheep parable. If you are thinking that you have heard enough explanations about this parable (whether Matthew's or Luke's version) check out a post I put together a while back comparing the canonical versions with the version fo the parable in the Gospel of Thomas. (Here) It is different. In Thomas, the shepherd seeks the lost sheep not because it is lost/weak, but because the shepherd loves it more. An elitism foreign to the canonical versions. The New Testament takes great pains to reiterate God's universal love for all of creation. God has no favourites. Jesus didn't come just for those with esoteric knowledge.

Having been hard green-left thirty or more years ago, I know how tantalising it is to think that God does have favourites. Christianity's insight (derived from a resurrected and vindicated victim) that the voice of the victim is the voice of God. This is not meant to be an ideological tool to make new victims. It is the sensitivity to the victim and our mutual making of victims that comes with the territory of being a follower of Jesus. But, without the conversion to the way of Jesus himself, this insight is distorted into a new ideology wherein to have any moral ground one must be a victim or speak on behalf of a victim.  The result? Look at where we are now in the West. New victims, self-righteousness, revenge, we have it all.

The Joseph Story

 The Joseph story is one of my favourites in scripture. It doesn't get much more real (except perhaps the cross!). A husband and his two wives ("And it was Leah!), favoured sons, bitter rivalry and envy, betrayal, forgiveness, conversion, and through and in all this God's presence.

I have posted some material before on Joseph. Check out this post on the conversion that Joseph leads his brothers to, and the way in which God's response to evil is not a moralistic separation of the good and bad, neither is God's response a gnostic ignoring of evil, but joining the story and putting the evil on a broader canvas of God's purposes. ("God intended it for good.") Or this post, a short reflection on how Christ is feels no envy toward us, and that through his Spirit we need not be envious of him, for everything that we can receive has been given to us.

Sinner: Changing How We see God, Ourselves, and Others.

Someone recently commented that, in the Victorian Stage 4 lockdown,  churches and brothels fall into the same category of activity and therefore restriction. Someone else quipped that both accept sinners! (Here.)I like that. Although it is a bit too easy to say compared to its practice. Contemporary society, allegedly, has moved beyond 'sinner' and the judgementalism that follows. However, using the word 'sinner' isn't necessarily judgemental. If you think it is necessarily judgemental then read on because I suggest you might still be stuck in the tight little circle of judgementalism that you are trying to leave. Scared that it might be true, we reject it. Protesting too much, so to speak.

These last few Sundays we have been reading the stories from Genesis about Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. The stories are about their schemes to make God's promise to them come true. (For the original promise, reiterated over and over throughout Genesis, see Genesis 12:1-3.) God doesn't need their schemes to bring about the promise, although God is free to use the schemes. (For example God doesn't need the scheming that brings about Abraham's firstborn son, Ishmael. See Genesis 17:15-22. But God uses the scheming of Joseph's brothers to ensure the survival of the people of Israel during the great famine. See Genesis 37-46:7.) The stories show us a God who is accommodating of all kinds of human shenanigans and failures. The fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham and Sarah, fulfilled in Jesus, is no cause for human pride. God's plan is not accomplished by human (self-)righteousness. It is God who brings about what God promises. But this is more than God just putting a brave face on a hidden resentment toward us. This is not the God of projected human self-righteousness and self-criticism. This is the God who can teach us how to relate to human failure (sin), both our own and the inadequacy and failure of others. This is what God is really like, through and through. God is with the people in promise and fulfilment, in covenant and law, with them, carrying them, loving them, making space for them, and ultimately saving us.

We see this in Jesus, intensely in his crucifixion and resurrection. God with us. Victim of human sin, literally carrying the instrument (symbol) of human sin, a cross. And from within the experience of bearing that sin bringing life and forgiveness. It is this God, with us (Matt 1:22-23; 28:16-20) truly walking our human life with us in the flesh: the life and death of Jesus, the God who makes space for sinners because God is love, it is this God to whom we relate as sinners. But that is not how most people think of the term 'sinner'. James Alison (here) says our language has a different tone than what people might think. (Words like God commands, desire, will, law. And, as I am saying here, a word like sinner.)

But not just our language changes. We are changed. "Sinner" isn't a term to demean, but when uttered in the Christian context, by a God who knows us and loves us, who truly empathises with us in Jesus, sinner becomes a term of grace. Sinner: I don't need to be perfect, I don't need to save myself, I am loved, known even in my human failure. There is nowhere left to fall away from God in Christ. 

The Raising of Lazarus

In the season of Lent we are in preparation mode for Easter.

No wonder we get this set of readings. From life to death, to life.

The story of the raising of Lazarus is often referred to as the resurrection of Lazarus. It wasn’t a resurrection, Jesus is the resurrection, not Lazarus. But the so-called resurrection of Lazarus is a figure of what was to come. Lazarus’ raising is more like a kind of resuscitation because Lazarus will die again. Jesus’s resurrection is an utter transformation that takes who he is and all that he is into God. Including the human failure that crucified him, evidenced in his wounds. Even sin finds its end in resurrection. We call it forgiveness.

But the resurrection of Lazarus is also a figure of our conversion and life of discipleship. Lazarus moves from life to death to a life given back. So too our movement as we move deeper into God’s love: a movement from life to death and then back to a life renewed, life given back to us. In our daily dying and rising with Christ we die to the false self in Christ to receive back a renewed self, and renewed sense of self.

Imagine Lazarus. Who better to appreciate the gift of life than the dead, or the dead given back their lives. Lazarus must have really been smelling the roses (so to speak) after he was raised. Consciously living the gift of life as a gift despite the dark times of life. (This reminds me of that cartoon from Michael Leunig that has Jesus carrying the cross and because he is bent over he notices a flower on the path.) We too are called to smell the roses for we have gained our lives, not lost them. Whatever cross you bear there is a flower on your path just waiting to be noticed.

And part of our discipleship is to help others leave behind the barriers to living life more fully.

 The raising of Lazarus also speaks to us now as our personal and communal lives change, perhaps for ever, because of COVID-19.  Many of us are feeling once again the fragility of the human project, the project to continually make ourselves individually and communally. This self-made person and society is so fragile. Most of the time we wander around as though our projects are here to stay.  But the potter’s wheel of life has a tendency to pull the illusion down. It is tempting to live the illusion and rebuild the project. I most likely will. But I won’t do it with quite the same blithe arrogance that ignores the reality of our fragility and our dependence on God. When we are allowed to resume our former lives, I, like Lazarus, might live the gift of life given back, but more consciously live it as the gift it is.

Cur Deus Homo?

If you would like a summary of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo? check this out.

Mary and Martha

On a recent Sunday in church, we read the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel according to Luke. (Luke 10:38-42) The story focuses on the interaction between Mary, Martha, and Jesus. I am sure many sermons have been preached on the complementarity of Mary and Martha, urging us to unite active and contemplative, inner and outer, either within us or within our communities of faith. Other sermons will try to reconcile Jesus' rebuke of Martha, or perhaps be offended by it.  (See further helpful comments on the text from Ian Paul.)

But an aspect of the story possibly overlooked is Martha's resentment of Mary. She is resentful that Mary is not helping, or perhaps that Jesus favours her slack sister, or that she, Martha, is not receiving the recognition from Jesus that her service is meant to receive. A universal experience. Resentment makes the world go around.

St Paul says that without love all we do is worthless. (1Cor 13:2-3) It might seem a bit extreme, but he is right. At root, an act of service might also be about convincing ourselves that we are ‘good’ people, or perhaps a search for recognition. And when I say ‘convince’ I don’t mean in an explicit, conscious way. More like playing a subterfuge on ourselves, not just the world around. Hidden motivations lead to resentment very easily.

It has struck many people that whatever resentments Jesus may have held during his life and early ministry they have been refined out as he makes his way to the cross so that his death and resurrection are without resentment. ("Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing," and "Peace be with you.") He dies and lives for us.

In the story of Mary and Martha the latter’s resentment is disclosed. She wanted more than to be a servant. Jesus, on the other hand, in the time of his public ministry is satisfied to be Jesus, beloved of God, servant of humankind, without resentment even when crucified by those he loves.

A Children's Talk on the Holy Trinity

It can be difficult to know what to say to kids about the Trinity. Try this next time:

Can anyone tell me why they think the love we give (and receive from others) is imperfect?
I reckon it is because human love is always given with a good splash of our own needs mixed in. And our needs - most often legitimate - shape our love so that it is not actually for the other person. It is for me as well. No parent can love their child perfectly, just as no child can love their parent perfectly. So too with our friends and anyone else for that matter.

But not so with God. God is love already. God doesn't need us to have someone to love, or need us to have someone to love God back. God is love. A communion/community of love. That is what the language of Father and Son, and their mutual love of the Holy Spirit, is meant to signify. God doesn't need us. But this is exactly why God loves us. It is for us, not mixed in with God's own neediness. (God is needless in this sense, not in a frigid sort of cold and distant sense.)

This is why it is so important to let God be God, and ourselves and everyone to be less than perfect. So many people bear a grudge against a parent or child or friend or someone they hardly know because that person was human, that is, couldn't love them perfectly. But that is to ask them to be who they cannot be. Why ask people to be who they are not? What they are not?

See also:
God Alone is Good
You can Trust God
Further Thoughts on Transcendence