Gravity Always Wins
If there is one thing nature has taught us it is this: things change. Change is an inevitable part of life. However, we try to fool ourselves into thinking this is not true. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the sharp increase in cosmetic surgery in the last twenty years. Try as people may to outwit the changes that come with age, Radiohead reminds us, “… gravity always wins.”
You just can’t escape change. It’s natural and it’s part of life. When we get right down to it, most everyone would agree with this reality with one glaring exception, their theology. Most do not want to think about theology changing ever. To even think about it generates fear, and fear generates anger, and anger gets expressed against anyone suggesting a new way of thinking or asking questions about why we have always thought this way.
This attitude toward theology comes about because even though we change, the world changes, and culture changes the Bible tells us that God doesn’t. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. When someone then suggests a new understanding, or even asks a theologically provocative question it sends ripples of fear through people.
Perhaps this is because we are trained throughout our whole life to adhere to the status quo. We are taught about “the way things are.” We are told “we have always done it this way.” We are told “I thought the same thing at your age.” All of these common comments are telling us to get in line and blend in. This is true in life and in theology.
In my experience the Evangelical Church has spent much of its time telling people why what they believe is true. This is then followed with telling others why they should believe it too. And this is no passive endeavor. This kind of talk is done with militant language. We are to be warriors for Christ. We are to defend the faith.
“Onward Christian Soldiers” notwithstanding, many today are “marching out to a war” that is just being fought anymore. This is because humans continue to do what humans have always done; we change. When we change, so does our theology.
We must remember that theology itself is a creation of human beings. Many want to say that their theology is based off the Bible, and is therefore not a human endeavor, but “biblical.” This attitude grows out of a belief that they are right when it comes to theology. Because they are right, and God does not change, then neither should their theology.
Yes, there are things about which the Bible is rather clear. More surprising, however, is how little the Bible is abundantly clear about. There are many aspects of theology that are left to us to discuss and contemplate. And over the years many of those aspects have changed and morphed. This does not mean God changes, but the way we as people relate to him and speak to him will change and does change. But this should not frighten us.
It does not mean we must forsake all former theology. Rather it is renovating and building on what has come before us. Some things will be replaced and some things will be new, but the shape will be the same.
None of this is because God has changed, but because our world, our culture, and we have changed. And when we change, the way we speak of God, and understand God changes too. We resist this with every fiber of our being, because in many ways we are more dedicated to our theology than we are to God himself.
Try as we might to fight this, it is pointless. Instead maybe we should join the conversation in an effort to help color, shape, and design a deeper understanding of God. To join in this conversation is to be faithful to who we are. We can do this with confidence because our greater faith is in God, the unchanging one. Either way, we must make a choice, because no matter how hard we fight against it, gravity always wins.
Medicine, Death, and Research
Working to Receive
Last week my family and I had the chance to go to a Denver Broncos game. They have had the worst record in years, and a somewhat tumultuous season. With each botched play, incomplete pass, and missed tackle the vocalized disgruntlement with the team grew. My wife and I were putting “earmuffs” on our kids as fans expressed their outrage. It seemed as though they believed that Champ Bailey actually missed a tackle only to upset them.
Should I even begin to talk about the frustrated status updates on Facebook each time there is a tweak to the site? What about the perplexed look people get at a coffee house when the internet goes down? Last month I was on a flight when someone threw their hands up in the air and shook their head in bewilderment when the DirectTV feed went out ... on an airplane.
All of these things I believe point to what has become a common and destructive part of the American life. Entitlement.
We are a narcissistic lot. Somehow getting to the place where we believe that the world owes us something. This attitude is the result of the notion that we do not owe anyone anything, because whatever we have accomplished has come through our own hard work. And it is because of our hard work that we feel as though we deserve something.
We act as though all that we have has been earned by the sweat of our brow. Because of this, we demean any hint of a handout. We degrade anyone who speaks about those who have not worked hard getting what we have. Our culture is a worthiness contest.
Someone recently said to me rather passionately, “How can anyone expect to get for free what I have worked so hard for?!” This attitude is nothing new. In fact it is something that God spoke about in anticipation of his people, Israel, going into the promise land.
The Land of Promise was a rich and fertile place. It was flowing with milk and honey. It produced ginormous crops and yielded abundant fruit. With a little hard work it was expected that you would get wealthy. With a little blood, sweat, and tears you would have more than you knew what to do with. God wanted to remind his people never to become too conceited or entitled. So he said this to them:
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God … Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud ... You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth … If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. (Taken from Deuteronomy 8.10-20, NIV, italics added for emphasis)
God is warning the people of Israel to be careful lest they think they have earned all of their wealth. The reality is they did not earn anything - it was a gift. It’s the same today none of us earn anything – we are given good gifts from above from our Father in heaven.
All of these thoughts were floating around in my head yesterday, when I received a confrontational (but anonymous) email that said, “I believe that our wealth was from hard work, honesty, ingenuity, personal responsibility, and the ability to dream due the unique level of freedom only this country once protected.” This comment seems to ring of Deuteronomy 8, and sounds much like what God warned his people of.
When we say these things and believe that we have earned the right to have Direct TV on an airplane or a flawless wireless connection at a coffee shop we are not only showing signs of arrogance but also greed. And it is greed that keeps us tightfisted toward those we deem unworthy. However, when we recognize that all we have is a gift, when we see that it is God who has given us the ability to create wealth, we are then free to give it away. This is the biggest struggle ... the belief that you in fact have not earned anything and learning to believe that all you have has been given to you.
If you live believing that all that you have is the result of your working your fingers to the bone, and act as though the only way anyone will get anything from you is to pry it from your cold dead hands … you may be entitled. From this place we are no longer free to receive gifts, because we think we deserve them because of our hard work. At a deeper level it also prevents us from receiving grace, because we think we have performed well enough or behaved well enough.
But the God of Deuteronomy is not concerned with your performance, your title, your degrees, your paycheck, your zip code, your car, or the tag on your clothing and frankly he doesn’t give a damn how hard you worked for it. The God of Deuteronomy loves you because you are his son or because you are his daughter.
And by the way … he loves the person who hasn’t worked as hard as you because they are his son and daughter. He even loves the people some think are just looking for handouts because they are his kids too. This is the frustrating side of grace ... it is not about earning anything, it is about receiving, which in the end leaves us powerless. Powerless to do anything about the lavish, generous love of God.
You can stand right next to someone you think is unworthy and God will love you both the same. Grace is the epitome of unfairness in our context, which operates under the rule of entitlement.
The problem is, entitlement and grace cannot dwell beneath the same roof. And we must choose which one will be shown the door. Whichever choice we make will certainly influence the way we see the world – and perhaps the way we act at football games.
A Pastor's Response to Bill O'Reilly: Two Kinds of Societies
Bill O’Reilly wrote a column on Saturday, December 11, 2010 about Jesus and unemployment that is creating a bit of a stir. In the article he warns of the fiscal danger posed to our country if we continue to help those who are out of work, stating, “There comes a time when compassion can cause disaster.”
I am not a politician, nor have I ever claimed to be. Nor am I an economist, as my wife, who tends to our family checkbook will tell you. I am however, like O’Reilly, a Christian. And this column, in which he openly states that he is a Christian, concerns me.
In the article O’Reilly references Congressman Jim McDermott who said, “This is Christmastime. We talk about Good Samaritans, the poor, the little baby Jesus in the cradle and all this stuff. And then we say to the unemployed we won't give you a check to feed your family. That's simply wrong.”
O’Reilly, in response writes, “By invoking the baby Jesus, McDermott puts an important question in play: What does a moral society owe to the have-nots?” This question, which is important, makes a subtle move away from Jesus and toward a “moral society.”
Many would agree that if a society were to live according to the teachings of Jesus we would have a society that would be deemed moral. But a society rooted in the teachings of Jesus and committed to living out his teachings is far different than a society that one could simply call “moral.”
For the most part we in the United States are moral. Most agreeably abide by a traditional Judeo-Christian ethic. Many go further and add religious language and symbols to this moral society and call it “Christian.” But it is not Christian; it is moral. The problem with a moral society, even ours, is that it practices a selective morality. We select certain issues as wrong or sinful, while accepting and promoting other issues as good and necessary.
When O’Reilly asks a question about what a moral society owes the have-nots he moves us away, not toward Jesus – the same Jesus he invokes at the beginning of his question. Make no mistake, Jesus is moral, but our morals are not Jesus. This is because our morals are often incomplete, shortsighted, biased, and frequently human-made constructs. Jesus, is radically different.
If O’Reilly were to ask, “What does a society rooted in the teachings of Jesus and committed to living out his teachings owe to the have-nots?” The answer would be drastically different than the one he advocates.
When we invoke the name of Jesus as Christians, as O'Reilly boldly does in his column, we must speak with a voice that transcends traditional politics, economics, partisan division, petty debate, and divisive rhetoric. We must speak in a way that moves all of us toward the heart of Jesus.
In this column O’Reilly concludes by writing, “… being a Christian, I know that while Jesus promoted charity at the highest level, he was not self-destructive. The Lord helps those who help themselves. Does he not?” And so I conclude in response to his closing remarks.
As Christians, throughout Scripture we learn of a God who always comes to the aid of the have-nots. The slaves, the poor, the hookers, the orphans, the widows, the immigrants, the sick. We meet the God who is always in the business of helping the ones who cannot help themselves precisely because they cannot help themselves - this includes you, me and Bill O'Reilly.
As Christians, we confess this God. The one who goes about helping the people who could never help themselves. This kind of God is one who is treading on a path of compassion that can cause disaster … even the disaster of the cross.
Sinful Thoughts, 1.3: A Slow Fix
Fixing problems within a system is rather easy. Since everything has a place and a function, we can quickly determine when a part is malfunctioning. We assess it and replace it or repair it as needed. When we live according to this system we fool ourselves into believing that we can get along fine with a quick fix. This quick fix not only happens in the life of the individual, but there is often an attempt to quickly fix relationships as well.
This attempt, while noble, is often approached in the same way we have been trained to relate to systems. We think there is a clean cut with defined boundaries, and there needs to be some sort of correction. The problem with this is that relationships are never clean cut.
Sin brings with it wounds and pain at different levels. The injuries sustained always take time to heal. Yet when sin is a simple matter of rule-breaking and behavior modification we believe that when we are back “in-bounds” and the behavior is good, that the one we sinned against should also be ready to resume business as usual – after an apology of course.
Earlier this week I sat with a fellow from our faith community who was aghast about an email he had received. There is a person in his life that has caused him tremendous pain. This person has caused him financial strain, turned others against him, and created deep emotional scars.
After more than a year of not hearing from him, he received a rather friendly email from this person expressing they were sorry and wanted to “reconnect.” He wrote an email back saying that he could not, at this point in his life, see this person. The person then replied to ask why he was so unforgiving, and explained that his response was not that of Jesus. He said to me, “What am I supposed to do? I do not want to see this person, and because of this I am told that I am the one who is unforgiving!”
When we make sin something other than a relational rupture, even our attempted repair of it falls short. Until we are willing to identify sin for what it is we will never be able to bring proper healing. A sinful action always has a perpetrator and a victim.
In my experience I have often seen the perpetrator wonder why the victim can’t just forgive. My friend Ryan was once asked by his abusive father, “Why can’t you just forgive and forget?” This question came only a week after his father brought up the idea that one day he might apologize to him.
This attitude of Ryan’s father is understandable when sin is removed from its relational context. When sin is just a step over the boundary, a breaking of the system’s rules, or a small misjudgment, then we can just say, “I’m sorry” and move on. But for the victim it is never that easy. And no amount of good behavior will fix things quickly.
It always takes time, love, and miraculous healing to move beyond the deep wounds that our sin deals in others. As soon as we try to hurry the process along we fail to see the splintered mess that sin creates. Repairing a clean cut is easy. Sewing something that has been torn apart back together is hard. The reality is that it will never be the same.
Sin upsets what used to work. Sin upsets the relational connectivity between two souls, and this kind of connectivity is never repaired by a quick fix. To forgive in a quick, glib manner is to forgive cheaply. This kind of forgiveness allows (and can even encourage) victims to bury their pain and wounds. In this way of thinking they are supposed to “get over it” and move on. They are supposed to forgive and forget (incidentally, where are we told to forgive and forget in the Bible?) This thinking only victimizes the victim further.
In the repair of sin, it is the perpetrator, the one seeking forgiveness who gives power over to the victim. We move from the one who was in a place of power, giving the wound and submit ourselves to the one under, utterly helpless and placing ourselves in the hands of the one we wounded.
Perhaps this is why seeking forgiveness is so difficult.
Perhaps this is why we have tried to systematize it.
Perhaps this is why so many today live with no real healing.
In our repair of sin we need to see the ugly side. The side that damages those we love. For when we see the broken relationships and frayed emotions that sin creates, we may move toward a truer healing.
Sinful Thoughts, 1.2: The Betrayal of Behavior
When we attempt to make sin a clean cut by amassing a long list of rules we unknowingly give birth to something that can take us further from our hearts and true selves. This thing is something called behavior modification. If you’ve been around rule based systems you know what this is. Behavior modification, in this context, is more concerned with one’s external performance than with their internal self.
Several weeks ago I had lunch with an old friend from the college I attended. He told me that while there he was able to obey the rules and never caused any trouble. He said to me, “I looked the part and acted the part, I never questioned anything. The downside of this was no one asked me about how I was doing inside.”
Why did no one ask about his inner self? In his estimation it was because he could behave beautifully within the system. If his outward behavior was good, then all must be right with him. This was true for many at our school.
Conversely, if you did not obey the rules well the immediate assumption was that you were not living a godly life. While the college made claims of wanting to create critical thinkers, the reality that I saw and experienced was that the critical thinkers who challenged the presumptions, questioned the accepted, collective thinking, and were free from the rules were the marginalized. My friend at lunch said, “I think the students who were asking the hard questions and even rebelling when we were at school are the ones who were in a better place.”
He may be right. It was the ones who went against the institutional norms and preferences (even those whose inner life was quite healthy) that warranted the most attention. In the end my friend and I agreed that outward behavior was no indicator of the heart of a person. I saw this many years ago in the most devastating way when a friend of mine was caught in his sex addiction.
The more details about his secret life that were exposed the darker things became. Many came around him in a show of love, compassion, mercy, and grace - including his wonderful wife. As time went on however, much of the advice and counsel he received was focused on behavior.
One evening my wife and I had dinner with them, and on the way home we talked about their situation. Our concern was that few were asking questions of the heart. Most of the advice given him was about how to prevent making the same mistakes again. Most of the instruction began with the words “Do not …”
Few were asking about his heart. Few were asking questions that dug deeply in order to explore what was stirring in his soul that could lead him to such dark actions. The lack of these kinds of questions, and the intense focus on behavior reveals what most of us really want.
We want things to be okay. We want smiles, happiness, and politeness. If we can act outwardly in a way that displays all of these things then we can fool ourselves into believing that we are all good. Sin becomes easily repaired. If we “do not” do this or that anymore, then we are all good - at least on the outside; even if our inside is disintegrating.
This way of seeing was on display in 2008 when Beijing hosted the Olympic Games. The day after the marathon was run there was an article exposing China’s dark side. The article spoke about how all along the marathon route Chinese officials hung massive backdrops. They were decorated with Chinese art and the Olympic Logo. As much of the world watched all they saw were athletes running along paved roads with art in the background.
The article spoke of how the art that was hanging was there to cover over the slum conditions of many who live along the marathon route. It was a sham. On one side it was the Olympic Games - the height of human achievement, the glory, the competition, and the sportsmanship. On the other side it was dire poverty - the agony, the brokenness, and the epitome of human frailty.
Those curtains that covered the shame of a country are like the behavior that we can front, and the behavior that is often encouraged. It is a mask for our heart and soul. It allows us to clean sin up quickly and continues to move us away from being human.
We act as drones, responding simply to commands that we are given. If we respond well we are left alone. If we do not respond well we are fixed with punishment, a guilt trip, or a stern lecture - and we respond by changing the way we act. But all the while our pink, fleshy heart can escape unnoticed and unchanged.
Not long ago my wife received a phone call from my friend’s wife. It turns out he never stopped engaging his sex addiction. In many ways it has become worse than it was before she caught him the first time. We were saddened, but truthfully, not entirely surprised. He was able to get along for three years with an outward performance that ultimately demanded little inward transformation.
I believe that his close friends and loved ones do really care about seeing his heart and soul transformed. Yet they cannot seem to shake a system that places such a high priority on behavior. As long as we succumb to the easy systems that demand right behavior, we will forever forsake the relationship that calls for transformation.
If all we can see are a few broken rules or a nice clean cut, then all we need to fix it is right actions and behavior. But if we see deeper, if we see sin as something shattered, torn, and ruptured - then we will see beyond the actions into the heart. We will see the need for inward healing.
And when healing does happen, in time the outward behavior will change - not because of any dehumanizing system. Behavior will change because of a relationship that has transformed the heart, mind, and soul of the person.
Sinful Thoughts, 1.1: A Dehumanizing System
I attended a Christian College (save one glorious semester at Clark State University). The education that I received was great. However, there was a subculture that I still find rather interesting. It was a culture of rules.
Not just a rule about where to park or a rule about where smoking is not permitted. I mean rules about dress code, rules about what music you could not listen to (I love Sandi Patty), rules about not kissing your girlfriend, rules about what time you needed to be in bed, and rules about how to obey the rules, and rules about pretty much anything. The student handbook was nearly as big as the enormous dictionary that sat on the podium in the front of our library.
I bring up all of these rules that we “agreed” to live under for a specific reason. It seems these rules are there to empower the school administration, faculty, resident directors, and students to manage sin well. Rules like this, anywhere they are found, allow sin to become a simple cut made with surgical precision.
When there are hundreds of arbitrary rules in place, sin becomes simple. If you break a rule, you sin. There is a boundary line and when you step over it you are guilty. It’s quite easy. This is what rules do, they make things easy for us.
We know when we’ve sinned. We then confess that we have sinned. Then we apologize for the sin. We ask forgiveness for the sin. Then we repeat the cycle.
This way of thinking and living, however, moves sin out of the sphere of relationships and into the world of transactions. Relationships are messy. Transactions are clean.
By reducing sin to a set of institutional preferences that are supposed to be kept by a group of students, we introduce ourselves to a world in which we as people are isolated and individualistic. Knowing these kinds of "systematic sin" worlds well, it does not take much before these rules creep into God's realm. Suddenly, God is a God of institutional preferences who plays by the same rulebook you do. In this, I saw many who traded in a relational God for an institutional God.
Our sin then is against a system or an institution. The offense is against a faceless entity, not against another person, or against God himself. There is not relational rupture at all, precisely because there is no relationship. It is a student and a system.
Perhaps we create all of these rules not because we are strict, legalistic, or because we do not want students drinking beer at a roadside park on the night they return from Christmas break during their senior year. Perhaps, subconsciously, we make these rules because it just makes things easier for us. It reduces pain, it reduces difficulty, and it creates an efficient way of dealing with sin.
While a system of rules may serve to make dealing with sin efficient; it also makes us less human. As women and men created in the image of God we are relational beings. As soon as we cut relationships out of our lives - even out of our sin - we diminish ourselves, and a system of rules can do just that.
For so many of us we live within these well-defined boundaries of rules, because it gives us comfort. Yet in the end it makes us less human, for our sin is reduced to a simple breaking of the rules. Our sin is removed from any relational connection. In this kind of system then, moving past sin is just a simple plan of behavior modification.
These systems do not work. They are as broken now as they ever have been. Sin is a destructive tear in the fabric of relationships. To pretend as though it is a simple cut is to make us all less human.
So let’s put our humanity back in our sinfulness. Let’s abandon the systems of belonging and acceptance that have dehumanized us for so long.
Sinful Thoughts, 1.0: A Relational Rupture
A few weeks ago I spoke with a woman who was in tears. She was telling me about deep wounds in her heart given to her by someone who is very close to her. This person had injured her emotionally and spiritually in all sorts of ways most of her life.
The more she spoke, the more the tears rolled. What began as watery eyes gave way to painful tears. As each tear made their way down her cheeks, they told a story of abuse and betrayal. Sitting with her, listening to her, it was more than apparent. Where there was once a relationship there was now a tear. It was a tangled mess of what used to be a united heart and soul.
This is what sin does and what sin is. Sin, in the simplest of terms, is a ruptured relationship. It can take on almost any form, but ultimately it results in pain, loss, damage, hurt, mistrust, and the list could go on. What is so difficult about sin, this rupture in relationship, is that it damages what was once put together. It is messy and painful and initially very difficult to sort out.
Like an eruption, a rupture (both having their roots in the same word) causes a frayed disorder wherever it occurs. As soon as it happens there is some level of chaos. Nothing is as it was, and nothing will ever be as it will be.
A rupture, is in contrast, to a precise cut. A cut has clean, even lines. One can see where it begins and ends. But sin is not a clean cut. It is a tear in the fabric of human relationships – relationships with one another and relationship with God. Fibers that were once together seem to hang out from everywhere.
When it comes to sin, one thing is certain. It is messy. When we try to make it an open and shut thing we run the risk of ignoring both the perpetrator (sinner) and the victim (the one sinned against). We can try any number of things to make it better – behavior modification, glib answers, cheap apologies, expecting immediate forgiveness, and all sorts of assumptions that never bring true healing to the tear.
Sitting with that woman hearing of her pain, reminded me that sin is not neat, tidy, and ordered. With this in mind, we need to think together in what ways we attempt to make it cleaner than it really is.