Grace and Gentleness

A word for those of us who are hard on ourselves or others:

Mercy

“Show us mercy, Son of David.”    --Matthew 9:27

 Show us mercy, Son of David

   for we are blind and do not know the way forward.

Show us mercy, Son of David

  for darkness envelops us today.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   when we use scripture to justify sin and excuse our callousness.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   when our blindness is so deep

   that we call the bad good

   and the good bad.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   when we do not see the log in our own eye.

Show us mercy, that we may learn mercy,

   that we may love mercy,

   that we may show mercy

      to the hungry and the hurting,

      to the sick and the homeless,

      to the prisoner and the outcast,

      to the privileged and the proud.

Show us mercy, Son of David

   until we become mercy.

Lament

Psalm 22

My God, my God

have you left us all alone?

have you turned away from our anguish?

Do you not see what is happening?

Snarling dogs pounce on the weak—

besting the aged for food,

tearing families apart,

trampling the gentle,

attacking the poor.

When they lose a crumb from their enormous loaf

the rich blame the hungry for their “loss.”

They trust might and weapons, feeding on these

until they are glutted,

while compassion and mercy fade into oblivion.

But the new day reminds me that you are constant.

You have not abandoned us. It is we

who have abandoned you, trusting in wealth and weapons,

in power and possessions, and not in your ways,

which work like yeast, steady, unseen.

Expand our hope, grow our compassion,

crowd out our fear, fill us with love

until we sing praise,

until our lives ring true,

until we resist evil.

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.

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.

Pain and Pearl

Each of us needs an opportunity to be alone, and silent, to find space within the day or in the week, just to reflect and to listen to the voice of God that speaks deep with us.

                                                                                --Cardinal Basil Hume

That phrase—speaks deep with us—I first overlooked because this quote is part of a larger quote I read, and then upon rereading it, I misread it. Finally, I saw it for the treasure that it is. Here’s my reflection around it, out of what I’ve been experiencing in my life in recent months:

Be still, still enough to get past the surface junk, the masks that fool even me. Get past the ego, the place at which it all gets quite painful and ugly, the place where I understand deeply and humbly that I am the vilest offender, the chief of sinners, broken beyond repair by my own hand. It is then, at that moment, that God can come and begin to speak deep with me, picking up the shards of my shattered image of myself. Instead of gluing them back together to make a rough, bumpy replica of what I was before, God tosses those aside and instead picks up what I could not see, blinded as I was by the brokenness. God picks up the pearl lying amid the broken pieces, breathes life into it, and holds it close to God’s heart.

The pearl, born of suffering and love, is the seed of God in me, there all along, but not visible to me until I was still and silent and alone for long enough that all that blinded me to it was seen by me for the falseness that it is.

God has been speaking deep with me in this season, in the desert, both words of challenge and words of affirmation, all of it truth, deep calling to deep. I can’t prove it’s God, yet I know for certain it is. The pearl is love, my true self. Even when it is trampled by swine, cast aside for shinier baubles, or abused by those who would try to selfishly hoard it, it lasts. It was created in suffering, so it can withstand suffering. It is divine, so it cannot be possessed by manipulation or force.

I am learning of this pearl within me. It is in all of us, but it is hard work to find it, and most of us will not choose the work; it must be forced upon us, unbidden and unwanted. Even then, we can choose to mask the pain of it with distraction and denial, rather than live with the pain of being stripped, broken and exposed in all our filth and ugliness.

Even if we stay with the work, the painful work, long enough to hear God speak deep with us, long enough to discover the pearl, it remains elusive, unpredictable and undomesticatable, because it is enlivened by the Holy Spirit. The pearl’s discovery is not an arrival, but a threshold, a place of beginning again, not without its own pain, but with a wisdom that can only happen through the hard work of being broken.

Falling Down and Getting Up

At SoulFeast a couple of years ago, I remember hearing Trevor Hudson, a South African pastor say, “We fall down; we get up.” He was making the point that our lives are a journey, and that even when we think we have progressed, we still fall down. Our whole lives will be a process of falling down.

The key is the getting up part of this phrase. Falling down is part of our human condition, but getting up is what transforms us from the realm of miserable failure to that of hopeful saints. In getting up, we affirm God’s mercy toward us, and we live in grace, confident of our forgiveness.

I am being reminded of this because I had a recent, and still tender, fall. Not a physical fall, but an experience of selfishness where I hurt another. It is tempting to wallow in my wretchedness, and yet, if I choose that course, I turn away from God into my own self-centered guilt.

As much as I regret my behavior, I more regret the hurt I caused. My asking the person for forgiveness does not guarantee that they forgive me, and they are under no obligation to do so. Like Peter, when he denied Jesus three times, I’ve wept bitterly. But also like Peter, I get up and keep moving ahead.

We don’t like to see the ugly parts of ourselves. We would always rather think that we are “good” people, comparing ourselves to ax murderers and other folks who do heinous deeds. The reality is, though, that there is much junk within, and every now and then, it comes out and we fall. It’s why we need forgiveness. It’s why we need a Savior. It’s why grace is so transformative. Our ability to admit and not excuse our falling helps us to recognize that we are not so different than the ax murderer, and grace is available for us both.

Peter and Judas both betrayed Jesus, but while Judas could not get up from his falling, Peter did. Christ’s grace and forgiveness got him up and going. May it do so for me, and for us all when we fall down.

The Evil of Sarcasm

Self-centered and evil people really fear the good. They express their fear by mockery, cynicism, and, when circumstances allow, by active persecution.   J.B. Phillips in Your God is Too Small

Sarcasm and mockery, I am sad to say, were part of my upbringing. For much of my life, I did not recognize their incompatibility with a life of discipleship. It was not until I tuned out most radio and television that I began to notice how awful sarcasm sounded. It’s a lot like having a white shirt that has grown dingy. You don’t see the dinginess if everything else is dingy, but if you get a new white shirt, suddenly the old shirt no longer looks white at all.

I now notice sarcasm acutely and it is so prevalent in our society. Even programming aimed at children is not immune from denigrating comments toward others. Mockery, cynicism and sarcasm are so commonplace that we don’t even associate them with “evil.” Political candidates and those who follow politics, even those who claim to be Christian, believe such acts are justified. “It is just the way things are. You’ve got to fight fire with fire. It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

But it doesn’t stop with politics. Our delight in mocking celebrities is just as bad. We spew our attacks, piercing the soul of another even while waving Scripture like a banner. James observed the irony of such behavior when he said:  People can tame and already have tamed every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish. No one can tame the tongue, though. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we both bless the Lord and Father and curse human beings made in God’s likeness.  Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, it just shouldn’t be this way!  (James 3:7-10)

And Jesus, in one of his teachings that raised the bar on the Ten Commandments, said: “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. If they say to their brother or sister, ‘You idiot,’ they will be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say, ‘You fool,’ they will be in danger of fiery hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22)

The cynic’s voice, the mocker’s wrath, always seems to draw more attention than the voice of love and gentleness. And persecution settles on the one who has the courage to respond in love rather than by maligning another. It requires greater courage to live a life of gentleness and love than to live a life of cynicism and mockery. It takes more time and energy and patience to seek to understand, to engage in honest self-reflection, than it does to kill another with our words.

Extending Compassion

I’ve been prayerfully reading through Isaiah for several months now. Recently I read these verses:

The land mourned; it wasted away;

   Lebanon was ashamed; it withered.

Sharon became like the desert,

   and Bashan and Carmel were dropping their leaves.   

                                                                                                Isaiah 33:9

The lack of care for humanity extends to the land as well, according to Isaiah’s prophecy. That makes sense, for how can true compassion be compartmentalized? How can you love one and not another? How can you care for people and not for animals or vice versa? Psalm 36:6 says: Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains; your justice is like the deepest sea. Lord, you save both humans and animals. How can you value the earth and not its residents? How do you love God and mutilate God’s creation?

Purposely and accidentally we have shielded ourselves from the consequences of our choices. We don’t always know the effects of our lifestyle and when we do know, we sometimes objectify the suffering we cause, as if that somehow makes it okay. When we label people as different from us (by sex, race, religion, age, lifestyle, etc.) we can justify our actions against them. When we objectify a person with a label, then we no longer see him or her as a child of God. When we commoditize flora and fauna, we lose sight of the care God took to create it and of the delicate balance of interconnectedness that we were charged to preserve. Our careless, self-important attitude leaves no quarter for true compassion or for the fullness of God’s love to flow through us for the benefit of a hurting world.

Who of us is not guilty? When we use electricity, someone’s nature is destroyed. Our mindless food choices means people and animals and land are often exploited and abused. When we push for cheaper products, the poor person in another country suffers for our benefit. The recent garment factory fire in Bangladesh should cause us to require accountability for the clothing we purchase. Our unwillingness to consider the consequences of our actions causes others to suffer and breaks God’s heart.

We may hide behind the notion that we are “good people,” but the suffering of lives that intersect with ours, if we stop to think about the reach of our choices, tells a different story. We are sinful people, and to glibly claim forgiveness continues to keep us skating on the surface of compassion, avoiding the deep woundedness that our lifestyle choices perpetuate. Ezekiel’s prophecy against the leaders of his day could be spoken to us in first world America: Doom to Israel’s shepherds who tended themselves! Shouldn’t shepherds tend the flock? You drink the milk, you wear the wool, and you slaughter the fat animals, but you don’t tend the flock. You don’t strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the strays, or seek out the lost; but instead you use force to rule them with injustice. (Ezekiel 34:2b-4).

Until we cut through the calloused layer created by our limited vision, we cannot deeply know our forgiveness, for true forgiveness has to result in a changed life, a changed heart, a heart that knows that God lives in every person, every animal, every natural resource, every created thing. When we truly know that, we cannot help living differently. Until we know that, we crucify God time and time again by not honoring what God created and loves.

Lord God, creator of all that is, seen and unseen, help me to see you in every part of creation—people, animals, plants, and all else you created. Help me to live mindfully, making whatever choices I can to preserve your life in the world. Where I continue to crucify you by the lifestyle choices I cannot easily overcome, give me wisdom and prudence to lessen my dependence on these choices, a voice to speak out for changes, and courage and faith when such changes seem insurmountable. Give me a compassionate heart, even though I know that by asking for this, I am also asking for the ability to shoulder the pain and suffering of your creation, which is your pain and suffering. Give me the courage to carry your cross, which is carried daily by the poor and the exploited of all creation. Amen.

Contentment

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.
                                                                              Philippians 4:11


I look forward to my first sip of coffee in the morning. I enjoy smelling it and wait with great anticipation for it to finish brewing. This morning, as I savored the aroma, Jim came in and asked if I had made one cup or two. I told him only one, because he was not eating breakfast at home, but if he wanted it, he could have it.


At his suggestion, I simply added more coffee to the grounds already in the basket and made my cup. Bad plan. When I finally got my first sip, the coffee was bitter. 


So as I grumbled about my bitter coffee, I read Paul's words about being content with whatever I have and was jerked back to face my attitude. I was sitting in a comfortable house with moe than adequate food and clothing, cars in the driveway, and lots more stuff than I really need. I should be content, but I was grousing about a cup of hot coffee on a cold morning that didn't taste quite like I expected. 


I suddenly felt very self-centered and spoiled. Halfway around the world, Japan is reeling from an earthquake and tsunami, in Warner Robins a family has lost two children to a car wreck, and in my own community, people are hungry and homeless.


It's day four of Lent, and I realize that I have much farther to go than I can hope to travel in forty days' time. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Dust and Ashes

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The phrase is familiar, but as I heard it said over me tonight at the Ash Wednesday service, it hit me how ordinary and vulnerable we are. I don't want to think of myself as dust and ashes, things we don't find particularly appealing or likable. But like the palm branches that are burned to make the ashes for our foreheads, we go from life to death, and then are either buried or cremated, becoming dust or ashes ourselves.

We are fragile and finite, although we expend much effort and money to be strong and immortal. Ash Wednesday calls us to remember that for all our wishing for invincibility and beauty, we are merely a dirty smudge, weak and fallen, totally dependent on the One who became flesh, who became as we are, so we might become as he is. My broken and sinful self needs this Savior, for I am but dust and ashes.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.

Who's Your Daddy?

Forgive the irreverent title to this blog post. Here's the scripture that inspired it and the musings that follow: 
So Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does." John 5:19


Who is my father? Whomever I follow by my example is my father. If God is my Father, I will do what God does. I will pattern my behavior after that of Jesus. If however, my behavior and words are not self-sacrificial, not filled with love, and don't bring life to others, then maybe I follow a different father. If I am preoccupied with the cares of this world--food, money, clothing, status, etc.--then I am not following God as my Father. Instead, the world is my father. 


Like a baby duck that imprints on the first thing it sees upon opening its eyes, I also imprint on that which captures my attention and focus. I will do what I see my father doing, so I must focus on the right father. For me, that means immersing myself in the Word and surrounding myself with support that keeps me focused on the Father. What I read, the music I listen and others who also desire to follow the Father help me imprint the Father's ways in my mind.


From my earthly father I learned good things, but because he is not perfect, I learned behaviors that are not those of the true Father. I could not even recognize those behaviors as incompatible with God's behaviors until I spent much time focusing on God as taught and lived out in Jesus. As God has shown the traits in my life that are out of sync with those of Jesus, I have sought to imprint on Jesus so that those traits of the world are overcome by the love of God. 


It's a lifelong process and I'm constantly humbled by how much I fail to imprint on my Father. It's why I am so in need of grace.

Missed Opportunities

                Recently I had one of those experiences where I completely missed the point, where, when everyone shared how meaningful the experience had been to them, I was unable to share anything. I came away feeling like a failure. I had an opportunity to see Christ and to be Christ for others, and instead I was self-absorbed and grouchy.

                I’ve thought a lot about how I acted and I realize that part of my problem was my need to be in control. Instead of allowing God to have God’s way, I assumed responsibility and control and made myself (and probably those around me) miserable. The experience has awakened me to how much I still cling to the notion that I hold the reins to my life and that how others view my “performance” is important.

                So I’ve been more focused on daily surrender to God, going with the flow of grace and living in joyful obedience. I’ve been much less stressed and much more attune to the way God is at work around me and in me. I am grateful that God took my failure to be a good disciple and turned it into a teaching moment. The humiliation I feel at failing God has caused me to be open to change.

                I’ve been reading in Exodus this week. The Israelites missed the point often, yet God continued to be faithful to them. They were self-absorbed and grouchy, but God kept showing them his glory and his power. It reassures me to know that God is steadfast with me, even when I fail in my discipleship.

Words That Kill

One morning this week, while reading Mark 15:12-21, verse 16 caught my attention: The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters (called the Praetorium) and called out the entire regiment. Jesus has been tried before Pilate, and the soldiers now have time to have some sick fun with Jesus before his crucifixion. So that no one misses out on the “fun” they gather the entire regiment. I had not noticed that detail in previous readings of this passage. Did all the soldiers who were called up want to be there? Did they all enjoy mocking Jesus? Or were there those who were uncomfortable with the events but failed to speak up? And then, I found myself among them, the events of an earlier day flooding my mind.

I was with friends when some of them began talking about local news and politics. Displeasure with the actions of some of our leaders was expressed, accompanied by derogatory remarks. It certainly wasn’t any worse than what you hear in the media, but I don’t think anyone commenting would have made such remarks to the leaders’ faces. While I didn’t engage in the conversation, I said nothing to discourage it. Reading about the treatment of Jesus at the hands of the Roman soldiers, I realized that I was no better than they were. My silence did nothing to remedy the situation, just as their silence did nothing to end the abuse of Jesus.

We are told in Genesis that we are created in the image of God. Therefore, when I speak ill of another, I am speaking ill of God. When I mock another, I am mocking God. No wonder Jesus says these words in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.” (Matthew 5:22)

Cursing God was a big deal according to Jewish law, but Jesus reminds me that when I say ugly words about another human being it is no different than saying the same thing about God! Notice that Jesus didn’t limit this to certain people—so I don’t get a free pass to criticize those of other denominations, or no denominations, or even non-Christians.

However, should I be able to muster up the courage to speak up in defense of the person or group being criticized, whatever I say must be said in the spirit of love and gentleness, otherwise, I run the risk of murdering the offender, becoming an offender myself. Speaking the truth in love is not an easy task! Shane Claiborne, in The Irresistible Revolution  puts it this way: “When we look through the eyes of Jesus, we see new things in people. In the murderers, we see our own hatred. In the addicts, we see our own addictions. In the saints, we catch glimpses of our own holiness. We can see our own brokenness, our own violence, our own ability to destroy, and we can see our own sacredness, our own capacity to love and forgive. When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we are freed up to see others the same way.”

If I can look through the eyes of Jesus, I can see God in others and in myself, and maybe, just maybe, I can honor and love God in them and in myself, and in so doing, not only begin to act more Christ-like but also begin to see the Kingdom of God in the world right now.

Dirty Windows

It seems to me that I grow more aware of my own sinfulness the more I seek to know God better. Just a few years ago, I felt quite content in my "goodness," but now, it feels like I am constantly recognizing how inadequate I am. Yet this recognition is not a "beat yourself up" kind of recognition, just the realization that I have far to go in the process of living into the image of God.

I move between sadness over my propensity to fall short and rejoicing that God is showing me more of myself, warts and all. I really like the way Brian McLaren describes it in Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. In describing the ancient threefold way of purgation, illumination and unification, he uses an example I can understand. He talks about entering an abandoned and boarded-up house. First you have to remove the boards and clean up the windows. Once you do, you realize how dirty the place really is.

So I rejoice that the boards and grime are off the windows to my soul, because that was a big job in itself, and if I'm not attentive, the grime will once again prevent me from seeing the next part of the clean-up process. In acknowledging the filth within, I have made some progress in overcoming pride, so I am now better able to see how I really am on the inside. But just as the windows of my house need regular cleaning, I have to be vigilant against allowing pride to gunk up the view into my soul. And, just as cleaning the windows of my house leaves me with sore muscles, there is pain involved in recognizing just how much pride has blinded me to seeing my true nature. I am grateful that God doesn't leave me dirty!

Purify my from my sins, and I will be clean;
   wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
                                                  Psalm 51:7