We Are What We Love

I don’t remember when I was first introduced to the wisdom of Thomas Merton. I do know, however, that when I’ve become dissipated and have my mind pulled in too many directions, I can touch something of the still point in myself by reading his writings. So as the country seems to become more and more unhinged and full of hate, I picked up a book I love, A Book of Hours, which is a daily prayer book compiled of Merton’s writings. To read the writings of a contemplative who was also deeply concerned with the state of world affairs helps me to return to center. I find stability amid the turbulence around me.

I could focus on any number of quotes, but today, here is one that rings true in all seasons: 

We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which we were destined in our creation. If we love everything else but God, we contradict the image born in our very essence, and we cannot help being unhappy, because we are living a caricature of what we are meant to be.

God, in whose image we made, is perfect love, so if we are to live into that fullness of being that Merton speaks of, we will be people of love. We won’t be people who judge others by skin color, or by where someone is from, or by gender, or by someone’s political leanings, or by someone’s religious beliefs or lack thereof.

Have you ever noticed, when you’re busy judging someone or something, you aren’t really happy? Judgment and criticism don’t ever make us feel better. We may feel superior, but that is not the same as the deep happiness that comes from loving—loving another person, loving an animal, loving the beauty of the natural world, or simply loving life. These loves are possible because we are made in God’s image, and God is love.

The “love” of everything else that Merton speaks of is not imago dei (image of God) kind of love. It’s the love that manifests in egotism, greed, fear, cynicism, pride, and self-righteousness. These are not manifestations of love at all; rather they are the result of our settling for less than God and God’s desire for us. Why do we settle for greed when we are made for love? Why do we settle for prideful self-importance when it doesn’t truly satisfy the longing in our souls, which is for love?

To discover ourselves in God is a freedom that enables us to realize that we don’t have to grasp and cling to reputation, ego, possessions, or power. We don’t have to settle for a caricature of what we are meant to be. We can rest in the delight of God’s love and love what God loves, which is the whole creation. Living for the sake of others brings more joy than living for ourselves alone. That’s the fruit of loving God.

Being Human

Each face had a long time in the womb to decide
How much it would let worldly things affect it,
How often it would turn toward the wall or the woods,
I it didn’t have to be seen, how much
It would give in, how stubbornly it would
Hold its own.
                                           From “Looking at Aging Faces,” Robert Bly
 
I am human.
Worldly things have affected me.
I’ve acted in ways I wish I hadn’t.
I have skeletons in my closet—maybe not big ones
but there are some there.
They may not shock others, but they rattle
now and then to remind me
I am human.
 
Times I gave in, times I should have spoken up,
drawn the line, held firm. Stubbornness
has its pitfalls and its benefits.
I’ve held on when I might’ve let go
and saved myself, made a new start.
 
I’m still learning, still not always sure
how to choose, what to do, who I am.
Being human is a lifelong process.

Learning to See

We’ve all seen images that represent more than one thing. We see something immediately and then we struggle to see the other image portrayed in the picture. When we are children, these images that fool the eye are great fun, and yet, we don’t always do a good job of carrying the lesson they teach us into adulthood. We forget that there is often more than one way to see something.

Our rigidity is a form of violence, not only violence against others whom we can only see in one way, but also violence against ourselves. By choosing to limit our ability to see and understand, we lose our capacity to grow. In essence, it is as if we have decided to enclose ourselves in a box in the dark, starving ourselves of any stimulation, any movement, anything that might lead us to change. If we actually did this to a child, or someone else we were caring for, we would be prosecuted for abuse. But when we figuratively do it to ourselves, no one will arrest us, but we still are guilty of violence against ourselves.

 Sometimes even when we know better, we let ourselves be influenced by an image that, if we paused to consider it, is inaccurate. Prior to an out of town trip, I made a to do list that had not just what needed to be done prior to leaving town, but also a list of projects, some of which were not due for several weeks. My reasoning was that I didn’t want to forget them. However, the day I made that list, every time I looked at it, I got anxious. It was long and I was leaving town and how would I get all that stuff done? I knew it didn’t all need to be done immediately, but the image of that long list still caused me anxiety.

 The next day I made the same list, but I put the immediate needs at the top, left a large blank section of paper, and put the longer term items at the bottom. The separation made a big difference in my stress level. The list was no different in content, but I saw it differently. There was more than one way to see the list but I had to take the time to allow myself to imagine It differently.

 Why are we so unwilling to expand our seeing, to use our imaginations to understand people and situations in different ways? What are we afraid of? Is our pride, our reputation so fragile that we are afraid of losing our identities if we change?

 Jesus says, in John 12:24-26:  I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their lives will lose them, and those who hate their lives in this world will keep them forever. Whoever serves me must follow me.

 Jesus invites us to change. A seed “dies” to being a seed, and then bears fruit. Letting go of our certainty opens us up to new life, new seeing, and becoming more like Jesus. Change is a death of sorts, but it can be the death that leads us into a larger life, a life lived for others, a life that is not weighed down by the burden that pride places on us to be and act in ways that win the approval of others.

 A willingness to change, a desire to see things differently, and compassion toward self and others, can make the world a better place, a less violent place, a less angry place. Rather than sit around wishing for things to get back “to normal” so we can check things off our bucket lists, why not replace the bucket list with these three aims and find more joy and richer life bearing fruit in a world that needs more joy and less pride.

New Wineskins

But new wine is for new wineskins.

                                                                    Mark 2:22b

In the verses that contain the above sentence, Jesus is talking about why his disciples don’t fast while the Pharisees and Joh’s disciples do. He uses the illustrations of sewing a new patch on old fabric, placing new wine and old wineskins and the mismatch of these.

 Mismatch is the word that connects everything in Mark 2:18-22 together. New ways and old ways are not compatible.

 We can only receive new knowledge when we are of a new mind and heart. Otherwise the dissonance between what we are certain about and what is offered to us is a mismatch that we cannot accept.

 Change isn’t easy. And change can cause relationships to be torn, like old cloth tears away from a new patch. One has to be willing to hear a perspective different from one’s own, to be open to another way, to live in the dissonance between what we think we know and new information.

 Many people think that the enemy of faith is doubt or fear. But as is evident in this day and time, the enemy of faith is certainty. Certainty divides us. Faith that is deeply rooted in God is pliable, not rigid.

 When the container that holds our viewpoints is rigid, it can only hold so much. To listen to another voice, a voice different than what is familiar to you, you have to dismantle the container. You have to have a new wineskin if you are to learn anything new. You have to be willing to be changed.

 

Wholly Loving

He wants us to be like him: wholly loving toward ourselves and toward all beings.

                                                                                                                Julian of Norwich

Can love ever be carried to extreme? When I think about the term “wholly loving,’ that question comes to mind.

But when I look to God, I know the answer to that question. If love is truly love, pure love, it can never be too much. We can distort love in many ways, but pure love can have no excess.

Being a doormat for another is not love, because it is neither loving toward ourselves nor toward the person we allow to use us in that way. Allowing someone to use you, to denigrate and demand and control you is not encouraging them to become all that God wants them to be. Allowing such behavior lets a person live in their insecurity and fear, and actually encourages more such behavior, while at the same time diminishing your own sense of worth.

God does not love us this way. God does not oppress or shame or blame. God does not pressure us into certain behaviors or threaten us. God does not use fear to manipulate us. God is always loving us into life that allows us to be full, whole and alive in God.

Love is not needy, jealous, manipulative or possessive. Love does not traffic in shame or blame, but acknowledges failures and moves on, forgiving and apologizing when needed. Love knows the difference between apology and attention-seeking, between forgiveness and pridefulness. Love is all humility and no ego. Love looks with clear eyes and sees what is, which is that we are all beloved and clumsy, chosen by God for all eternity.

When we can know ourselves wholly loved by God, then we can rest in God’s love. We can love more like God loves, because we don’t need to manipulate or control others to receive love. And when we are wholly loving toward ourselves, we don’t allow others to diminish our worth to feed their insecurity.

Spiritual Consumerism

Someone recently contacted me looking for a place to go on a spiritual retreat. They had a checklist for what they wanted a place to have, and as I put down the phone from talking with them, I felt as though I was helping them shop for a car or stove.  “I want it to have this feature; I don’t want that feature. . .” I hear similar lists of wants/don’t wants as people discuss worship. I wonder if we are often blind to the ways we attempt to dictate the time, place and method of encountering God.

Ironically, I’ve been listening to a series of conferences of John of the Cross, the Spanish mystic who gave us the concept of the dark night of the soul. John speaks of the dark night of the senses, which is when you no longer have a sensed presence of God. Many of us have experienced some sort of assurance of God’s presence through our senses—we see or hear or feel something that affirms God for us.

Without a felt sense of God’s presence, especially after have had such experiences, one may wonder if God’s presence has withdrawn from them. Unfortunately, much of our contemporary Christian spirituality is dependent on felt experience. So when you no longer receive a felt experience, you may change your spiritual practices to attempt to reclaim the “rush” you are missing.

The experience of what some mystics call “spiritual aridity” may leave us casting about for something new to recreate the buzz we are missing. But when our interest in spiritual matters is precipitated by felt experience, then our focus is not on God, but on ourselves. Spiritual experience can feed the ego, and ego is exactly what blocks our view of God.

There is no formulaic way to an encounter with God. Growth in our faith happens as we are content to know God present with us without the felt experience of God. Our faith grows not as we receive affirmation through a felt spiritual experience but through keeping faith even in the darkness, when we have no option than to simply trust that God is present with us.

Upheaval

Mary said,

“With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
     In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
 He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
    Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
         because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
     He shows mercy to everyone,
        from one generation to the next,
        who honors him as God.
 He has shown strength with his arm.
    He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
     He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
        and lifted up the lowly.
 He has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty-handed.
 He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
        remembering his mercy,
     just as he promised to our ancestors,
        to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.”

                                                                Luke 1:46-55

Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat, does more than hint at the upheaval that her son’s coming brings. Her prophetic word is clear. The coming of God in human form will reverse the usual order of things. The hungry will be fed. The lowly will be lifted. The powerful are stripped of their influence. The rich are sent away empty.

If you only read this text once a year during Advent, you might simply enjoy its poetic quality and miss the power of the words themselves. Mary’s song is regularly recited as part of Vespers, the evening prayer service of the daily office. This daily reading of this text allows the words to sink into us, and, in our affluent culture, may cause us to wonder if we truly welcome this change of affairs.

Mary has much to teach us beyond her prophecy. Mary shows us that our power and influence are less important than our availability. Loretta Ross-Gotta says: God asks us to give away everything of ourselves. The gift of greatest efficacy and power that we can offer God and creation is not our skills, gifts, abilities, and possessions. The wise men had their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, Paul and Peter had their preaching. Mary offered only space, love, belief. What is it that delivers Christ into the world—preaching, art, writing, scholarship, social justice? Those are all gifts well worth sharing. But preachers lose their charisma, scholarship grows pedantic, social justice alone cannot save us. In the end, when all other human gifts have met their inevitable limitation, it is . . . the bold virgin with a heart in love with God who makes a sanctuary of her life, who delivers Christ who then delivers us.

Mary’s prophecy is an invitation to us who are rich and powerful in comparison to the rest of the world. Mary encourages us to no longer rely on our influence or wealth, but to empty ourselves, give ourselves away, die to ourselves, and instead offer space and love to Christ who becomes our food, our wealth, our strength.

We cannot deliver ourselves. Our possessions, our influence, even the good works we do—none of these can deliver us. When we truly believe that God, who made us and loves us, will deliver us, we can sing with Mary, “With all my heart I glorify the Lord! In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.”

Where Are Your Roots?

One of my favorite Bible stories is that of Queen Esther. Recently, the Old Testament text for Common Prayer zeroed in on Haman, the “villain” of the story, who wants to have all the Jews killed because one Jew, Mordecai, would not bow down to him.

Esther 5:9-13 gives this account of Haman as he leaves the first of two banquets Esther has held solely for Haman and the king: Haman went out that day happy and in good spirits. But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, and observed that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was infuriated with Mordecai; nevertheless Haman restrained himself and went home. Then he sent and called for his friends and his wife Zeresh, and Haman recounted to them he splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and the ministers of the king. Haman added, “Even Queen Esther let no one but myself come with the king to the banquet that she prepared. Tomorrow also I am invited by her, together with the king. Yet all this does me no good so long as I see the Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.”

Haman’s happiness is completely dependent on what others think of him. He’s on top of the world when invited to Esther’s banquet, but then he sees Mordecai and is immediately angry because he doesn’t receive respect from him. This snippet of scripture emphasizes Haman’s roller-coaster mood swings. His pride, which leads him to want to exterminate all the Jews in Persia, becomes his downfall, which you learn when you read the rest of the story.

Haman’s pride is a caution to me to reflect on how I measure my worth. Does my sense of worth come from what others think of me? If so, I am forever insecure, because, like Haman, some will praise me and others will criticize me. People will not understand my motives for acting as I do, and no amount of explanation will change the minds of some.

If, however, I am rooted in Christ, then whether I am praised or criticized, I stand, because I know my worth is found in God. Like a tree that receives both sunshine and storms, I will continue to grow, because I am planted in the good soil of Christ’s love and grace.

Pride and its accompanying insecurity are rooted in fear and fear keeps us from knowing God’s peace and joy. If you look around at the world in which we live, you will see that fear is at the root of evil acts. So this is not a trivial matter. If we are rooted in fear, we will act in ways contrary to the teachings of Jesus. What may begin as a fearful thought eventually grows into an action that cannot be reeled back in.

Letting go of fear is a lifelong process. Growing closer to God can only happen as we let go of fear and entrust ourselves to God’s welcoming love. For God loves us as we are, and when we know this, we can know peace, not fear.

Small Delights

Yesterday I sat at a stop sign, waiting for an opening in traffic so I could pull onto a busy road. As I was checking to the left, I saw movement closer to me. It was a sparrow, flying-hopping up to a seed head of crabgrass, raking the seeds off, then settling on the pavement below to eat what it had harvested. I stopped watching the traffic and instead watched the busy bird until a car pulled up behind me. It was a small delight, a breath of joy breathed into my day.

Later, I was walking across a shopping center parking lot when I saw a dragonfly. I stopped, (safely out of traffic) and simply watched its flight--hovering, then moving, then hovering—until it finally flew out of sight. It was another small delight, and I felt the breath of joy I had felt upon seeing the sparrow earlier.

On a recent walk, I found a petunia growing out of a sidewalk crack. There were no other petunias around, so I suppose this one sprouted from a seed that waited through the winter for its chance to germinate and grow. Its determination and patience brought a smile to my face—yet another small delight.

In a world where we seem to crave the constant stimulation of big, splashy and dramatic events, people and things, I relish these small examples of grace and life. Saint Thèresé of Lisieux had such an appreciation of small things. She said this, speaking of the different flowers—roses and lilies, contrasted with the more common daisies and violets: I saw that if all these lesser blooms wanted to be roses instead, nature would lose the gaiety of her springtide dress—there would be no little flowers to make a pattern over the countryside.

I believe that an appreciation for small things helps us to be more aware of the presence of God in all of life. It also invites us to a more permeating discipleship because we know the significance that the smallest act can have for the world as a whole. When we delight in the small, we are more likely to do the small things that, added together, make a big difference—picking up a piece of trash off the sidewalk, feeding the birds, acknowledging a homeless person by looking them in the eyes and speaking to them.

Thèresé described her mission in life as simply “to make Love loved.” To make Love loved opens us up to an appreciation of the small and simple in life. I would argue that it is more significant than a large, showy mission because it is purged of any pride, any desire for recognition or attention and is thus pure and holy.

Belonging to the Truth

Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth. This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts in God’s presence.      

    1 John 3:18-19

Love well demonstrated happens when we belong to the truth. We belong to the truth when we know how much God loves us. When we know how much God loves us, we can love ourselves. When we love ourselves, we can love others. When we love others, we demonstrate love with both action and truth. The coupling of action and truth is important because our actions demonstrate love to the extent that we belong to the truth.

Belonging to the truth is different than saying you don’t tell lies. Belonging to the truth is a way of being, a permeating presence, the awareness that one is deeply rooted in, and drawing life from, the heart of Christ. When we are confident of God’s love for us, we dwell in the truth and our actions flow from that truth. There is integrity between inner and outer—inner truth and outer action.

Belonging to the truth is not moralistic. It is not incidental, that is, based on telling the truth in particular incidents. You can tell those who belong to the truth because their entire way of living emanates love. Moralists, on the other hand, emanate pride, which is fearful, judgmental and arrogant, highly concerned with controlling the perceptions of others. Moralists are focused on what others think of them and are often vocal about how moral they are. Those who belong to the truth are focused on God, acting out of their love for God, unconcerned about how they are perceived by others.

This story from the sayings of the desert fathers that illustrates the difference between belonging to the truth vs. not telling a lie:

It was said about one brother that when he had woven baskets and put handles on them, he heart a monk next door saying: What shall I do? The trader is coming but I don’t have handles on my baskets! Then he took the handles off his own baskets and brought them to his neighbor saying: Look, I have these left over. Why don’t you put them on your baskets? And he made his brother’s work complete, as there was need, leaving his own unfinished.

In this example, the compassionate brother said the handles were left over, when, in fact, they were not left over, but the ones he needed to make his own baskets complete. A moralist would say he told a lie, and yet he demonstrated compassion and showed he belonged to the truth. To have given the handles to the brother, telling him they were his only handles, would have been prideful and made the despairing brother feel worse than he already felt.

Those who belong to the truth know that they belong to the truth by grace alone, not merit, so they are humble and can extend grace to others. Because they aren’t concerned with what others think of them, they are free to act out of love for God and love for others, actions that come from a heart of love that is confident of God’s love for them. There is congruence between their inner being and outward doing—they belong to the truth because love permeates both their inner being and outward doing. They aren’t perfect; they still fall short, but because they know deeply God’s love for them, they can humbly acknowledge their failure and receive God’s grace with gratitude.

Moralists, who are often quick to tell you that they don’t lie, are actually living a lie because there is not congruence between their inner being and outward doing. While their outward doing may appear “correct,” it comes from a heart of fear, pride and self-righteousness. It is a façade that masks their inner fear.

May we know the truth of God’s love for us, and live lives of congruence that demonstrate our belonging to the truth.  Such a life is a life of compassion, freedom and joy!

Perfection: A Matter of Heart

Perfection, then, is clearly not achieved simply by being naked, by the lack of wealth or by the rejection of honours, unless here is also that love whose ingredients the apostle described and which is to be found solely in purity of heart. Not to be jealous, not to be puffed up, not to act heedlessly, not to seek what does not belong to one, not to rejoice over some injustice, not to plan evil—what is this and its like if not the continuous offering to God of a heart that is perfect and truly pure, a heart kept free of all disturbance?

I read this quote in a book of daily wisdom from contemporary and ancient monastics. It is a restating of Paul’s most famous writing, his words about love in 1 Corinthians 13. Though Paul does not use the word perfection in that chapter that is so familiar to us, to love and live with a pure heart could be a good definition of perfection.

Often, our focus is on achieving outward perfection. We want to be thought well of by others and we may act to achieve that end rather than from the desire to love God well by cultivating a pure heart. I know I have sometimes acted in a way not in accordance with the desire of my heart because I wanted to present a good outward appearance. Yet the dissonance within, created by going against the grain of my heart’s intuition, did violence to my soul.

We know from scripture, both in the Old and New Testaments that God is more concerned with the state of one’s heart than with actual deeds done. You can cross all the spiritual ‘T’s and dot all the spiritual ‘I’s and leave God unimpressed. The prophets chastised the people to attend to their hearts rather than cover all the bases with their sacrifices, and Jesus spoke of those who clean the outside of the cup but leave the inside full of filth.

Why do we give more weight to outward acts rather than attending to the state of our hearts? I believe there are several reasons. Pride is a strong force, and we can be recognized by others as “good people” based on what we do, even if we harbor hatred and bitterness within. Ease is another motive—it’s a lot easier to do an outward something, even something difficult, than to commence the long path of inward change and growth, which requires much discipline. I’ve encountered many who, when challenged to begin a practice of self-reflection, look within, dislike what they see, and choose not to go any further down that path. In her book, The Interior Castle, Teresa of Avila speaks of this propensity with colorful metaphorical language. She talks about the snakes, vipers and venomous reptiles we encounter as we begin the journey inward, and how we have to persevere to get past these.

The most important work we can do for God is the work of allowing our hearts to be changed. It is through purity of heart that our outward acts become pleasing to God. 

Entombed

John 11:1-44

Jesus, I think of you crying at the grief of your friends,

Martha and Mary, and over the death of Lazarus.

Even in your tears you were disparaged by others.

We can be so cynical and mean to each other.

Maybe your tears were also because of that.

Today, Christ, you still cry for those entombed and those

who love them, whether the tomb is death,

prison, disease, oppression or fear.

You cry for the cynics, the proud and powerful who

do not even know they are dead, who are unaware

they are entombed by their pride, their power, their hate.

The stench is terrible and you cry.

But you do not turn away.

You remove the stone.

You call us out of the tomb.

You unbind us and set us free.

You have the power to speak us into life.

Are we listening?

Confession

Isaiah 40

God, whose way leads through

wilderness, whose desert path

uproots us out of ordinary time,

forgive us when we choose

complacency over change,

ease over transformation,

numbness over attentiveness.

We prefer the false security of

easy answers, blame and prejudice

rather than the disciplines of

understanding, patience and

accountability.

Hold us in the desert long enough

to clear our vision, change our hearts,

gentle our judgments.

Hold us accountable even as you

hold us in your hand.

Flatten our mountains of pride.

Raise the ones we have despised.

Make our desert sojourn fruitful—

harsh enough to soften us, to turn

us to you in utter dependency,

so we will know that you show

your power in gentleness,

your strength in compassion,

your greatness in proximity.

Pines

The pines stand proud,

straight, tall against the sky.

Yet some wear their bark façade

loosely, like too-large shoes,

hiding what’s within, until

wind blows and the bark shell

no longer conceals

decayed souls.

What is false cannot be hidden forever.

Rot will eventually be revealed.

Time and storms will expose

the true nature of things.

Advent Musings with Mary's Magnificat - Week 3

This past Sunday in worship, we sang an Advent hymn that I recognized, by about the end of the second verse, as a rendering of Mary’s Magnificat. The hymn, entitled My Soul Gives Glory to My God, includes this verse:

Love casts the mighty from their thrones,

promotes the insecure,

leaves hungry spirits satisfied,

the rich seem suddenly poor.

Like many hymns, I wonder how much we really tuned in to the words as we sang. We might do fine with the first three lines, but as those who by the world’s standards are rich, do we really want to seem suddenly poor?

When you get into Mary’s song of praise, you suddenly realize that she has gone from praising God for honoring her to praising God for upending the entire social order:

He has shown strength with his arm.
    He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.

    He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
        and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty-handed.

Reading these verses (Luke 1:51-53) gives us an insight into Mary as much more than a docile, delicate teenager. These are the words of a prophet, and like all good prophets, her words are neither gentle nor subtle. They tell of a new way, a way that turns power and possessions toward those who do not have them and away from the ones who perennially hold the world’s purse-strings and power.

These prophetic words remind us that God’s way is not the way our world operates. The wealthy and powerful, the proud and intimidating, are not the ones God honors. It’s the poor, the powerless, the meek and the hungry that God favors. Just read the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) if you aren’t convinced, or better yet, look at the life and death of Jesus. He had no place to lay his head; he was killed by the powers that be and instead of retaliating, he chose the humble way of suffering, crucified as a criminal. 

Doing Good vs Being Good

For the next few weeks, I’m facilitating a study at my church on the book Jesus for President, by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. As I’ve been reading their description of the Biblical prophets, I’ve thought about the difference in doing good and being good.

As Claiborne and Haw note, “The prophets are weird. They set themselves apart from the normalcy of civilization and its pattern of destruction and war. Their vocation is to interrupt the status quo.” When you think of some of the things the prophets did, you realize they were less concerned with appearances than many of us who call ourselves “church folk” are.

Hosea married a prostitute. Isaiah walked around naked for three years. Ezekiel cooked over human dung, which violated Israel’s purity codes. They would not have been called “good” by the culture in which they lived. But they lived lives of obedience to God, in contrast to the “good people” who fit in by following “the rules.”

The prophets focused on doing good. They were in close communion with God, and they trusted God even when God called them to do what put them at odds with those in positions of power. Claiborne and Haw say, “It can embarrass us to read of their antics, but what they do is not nearly as embarrassing as the things we do, which their actions expose so we can see that another future is possible.”

We become desensitized to evil when evil promotes our “good” agenda. Rabbi Abraham Heschel says: “To us a single act of injustice—cheating in business, exploitation of the poor—is slight; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence; to us, an episode, to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.” We rationalize all sorts of things when it serves our purposes to do so. Cheating in business can be excused as needed to take care of our family. Slandering another may be our way to preserve our reputation so we can continue to use our influence “for good.”

The prophets, ancient and contemporary, remind us that when pride, power and self-preservation become our gods, being good becomes more important than doing good, and whatever good we actually accomplish is not pleasing to God, who honors the powerless, not the prideful.

Spiritual Blindness

. . . it is possible for some Christians to live and work in a shockingly unjust society, closing their eyes to all kinds of evil and indeed perhaps participating in that evil at least by default, concerned only with their own compartmentalized life of piety . . .

                                                                                --Thomas Merton, in Life and Holiness

We who are financially secure first world Christians can easily fall into the delusion that we are “good people” because we avoid what we think of as big sins, such as murder or theft. We can fail to see that we are part of systematized injustice because we are often so far removed from the injustice as to be unaware of our economic contribution to unjust practices.

We purchase food and consumer items made or harvested by people who are not paid a living wage. We support businesses that exploit the environment. We overspend on ourselves and balk at providing assistance to others, arguing that they “deserve” their difficulty and that we “deserve” our luxury.

We can become desensitized to the ways we mistreat others while priding ourselves on our service to the church, our work in the community, on our morality, or on the compliments we receive for the work that we do.

I’ve been reading through Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Paul admonishes the Galatian Christians for losing sight of the grace they have received and relying instead on their own morality as measured by obedience to the Jewish law. Paul says “You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” (Galatians 5:4) He points out how they “bite and devour one another.”

When we are more concerned with image than substance we can easily become blind to the ways we participate in evil. Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is preceded by what we might call the fruits of human nature. Here’s what Paul says: What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions; in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies and they fight; they become jealous, angry, and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups; they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these.

The temptation is to look at this list and say, “I don’t practice witchcraft. I don’t have orgies or participate in indecent actions.” But read the list again and consider some of the other items like ambition, anger, jealousy and separating into groups that exclude others. When we combine prideful morality with acting according to human nature, we blind ourselves to our need for grace.

We grow spiritually as we are able to receive the gift of grace and respond in gratitude by choosing to live in love. Grace invites us to see ourselves as we really are, and to know that God loves us as we really are. Grace is the cure for spiritual blindness.

Being Emptied

Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

Though he was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.

 But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.

                                                                                                Philippians 2:5-7

Precedent exists for the expression, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It seems that power is like an infection. Just a small exposure is often enough to set the disease on its voracious course.

It is an infection that does not discriminate. Power is as abused in churches as in commerce and government. Power unleashes pride and the two join together with deadly force. Combatting the corruption of power is a mammoth task because there are always folks around to feed the pride of the powerful and it is hard not to be sucked into the flattery and attention that power attracts.

Reading the passage above should remind us that following Jesus is so completely counter-cultural that if we actually follow, we will certainly be criticized, misunderstood and rejected by many. It will not make us popular. It will not feed pride.

Those who empty themselves, who do not seek to meet aggression with aggression, may seem to be defeated right out of the gate. The peace and presence of God in them makes them stronger than the prideful powerful.

Jesus emptied himself. He had all the power in the world but chose not to wield it. He came to us a weak, helpless infant, grew into an adult in an out of the way village whose only possessions were the clothes he wore.

Imagine how much difference we could make if we chose to empty ourselves of power and pride instead of using them to advance our agendas, even when we believe our agenda is God’s agenda. This passage in Philippians reminds us that emptiness, humility and sacrifice are the way of Christ. May it be so for us so that we may be kingdom builders instead of power brokers.

The Right Focus

Brothers and sisters, become imitators of me and watch those who live this way—you can use us as models. As I have told you many times and now say with deep sadness, many people live as enemies of the cross. Their lives end with destruction. Their god is their stomach, and they take pride in their disgrace because their thoughts focus on earthly things. Our citizenship is in heaven. We look forward to a savior that comes from there—the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform our humble bodies so that they are like his glorious body, by the power that also makes him able to subject all things to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters whom I love and miss, who are my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord.                                         Philippians 3:17-4:1

Why would anyone take pride in disgrace? That was my first question when I read this passage, the lectionary epistle for the second Sunday of Lent.

Assuming we don’t intentionally want to be proud of disgrace, then I believe that Paul is warning us to not be proud of earthly things. When our focus is on such things, we lose sight of God’s kingdom and the fact that earthly things are impermanent and passing away.

Paul speaks of people whose god is their stomach, which says to me that when something other than God claims our focus—be it food, career, reputation, possessions—it becomes our god.

The early desert monastics had much to say about attachments and their subtle pull on our hearts. One of my favorite stories from the desert tells of a monk who relishes acclaim and is downcast when accused. The abba sends him out into the cemetery two nights in a row. The first night he spends the whole night complimenting the dead; the next night he criticizes the same dead all night long. The abba asks him how the dead reacted each of the two nights. The monk tells him they didn’t respond either way. The wise word to the monk is to be like the dead, immune to praise or blame.

More often than not, it is the subtle things like the “need” for praise, and the pride that underlies it, that become a god. We may resist the obvious temptations and be completely unaware of the subtle ways we are drawn away from God.

The best way I know of to become aware of the subtle forces pulling our attention away from God is to model ourselves after wise guides and to practice silence.

A practice of silence separates us from the constant hammering of the culture that shapes our values and behaviors, taking our focus off the values and behaviors of Jesus. Wise guides reinforce the pattern of Jesus’ life, giving us models for our own lives. Wise guides may be contemporary or ancient. We may know them personally as people of great depth, or we may learn from them by their writings that have endured over centuries.

Patience must likewise undergird our diligent practice of focusing on things of God. Unlike the quick-fix, sound byte advice dispensed in our culture, our transformation is a long, slow process. One of the gifts of Lent is to help us keep our focus in the right place.

Pride and Love

1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s famous writing about love, is one of the lectionary texts for this coming Sunday. It’s an interesting choice, alongside Jeremiah’s call to be a prophet (Jeremiah 1:4-10) and Jesus claiming his call in his hometown synagogue as he reads from Isaiah (Luke 4:21-30). Yet I see how love connects these two stories, because both are about the ability to speak and act congruently and courageously, powered by deep love of God.

Paul is blunt: no matter how powerful and dramatic our actions may be, if they don’t arise from love of God, they are meaningless. Our words about love are hollow if our actions aren’t congruent with them, not matter how emphatically or often we claim to love others.

When love dwells in our innermost being, our words and actions are integrated, and what we do and say builds God’s kingdom. If, however, pride is what dwells in our innermost being, there is no room for love, and no matter what we say and do to prove otherwise, there will be a disconnect between our words and actions. I believe Paul knew that, which is why he points out that love isn’t self-seeking, arrogant, jealous or boastful. Love doesn’t keep a scorecard of the good it does, while pride wants every good deed or word recorded and seen by others.

People rooted in pride may say they love others, but their actions betray their hearts. Or they may perform acts of charity, all the while criticizing those they claim to serve. Or they may shun small deeds of service because they won’t be seen or praised by others.

However, those who have hearts full of love act and speak with integrity. What they say is consistent with what they do. They may not say much and what they do may not be noticed by many, but in consistent ways they demonstrate what is within their hearts. It is such as these who lay down their lives for others in countless small ways, who sacrifice much without fanfare because love fills their hearts.

When I consider that Jeremiah faced hardship as a prophet, and that Jesus was rejected by those who thought they knew him, I can see that they endured because their eyes were fixed on the object of their love. They put God first, and not only with their lips but in their hearts.

Paul knew that pride and love cannot occupy the same space within us. Where pride dwells, there is no room for love. May we evict pride and invite love into our hearts!