I drive to church very early on Sunday mornings. There is no one else on the road – or barely anyone else, and I have gotten into
the bad habit of doing one of those slow rolling stops at one corner. Now the truth is, for a long time, I was not conscious of this. But one day, a friend was with me – and she pointed out to me that I had in fact, not come to a complete and total stop. Well then, it became a problem. Before my friend pointed out my law breaking nature – I was perfectly at peace on my drive to church. But after she pointed out to me the inexactness of my stop – it became a contested spot on the road. Internal arguments erupted:
My “ought to”: The sign says “STOP” not “SLOW ROLL”
My “want to”: In the two years I’ve been driving here, I have never seen anyone at this corner, ever. No one will get hurt, and I will not get into trouble for this.
My “ought to”: And your point is….?
My “want to”: It wastes gas to come to a complete stop and then step on the pedal again.
My “ought to”: OK, that’s a good argument – but the Law still says “STOP.” *
Not to spoil your view of me - but even living in the grace of Christ, in the reign of God’s kingdom - I don’t always do what is right, I don’t always do what the better part of me wants to do, I often end up doing the very things the larger part of me doesn’t want to do. Anyone with me?
We are, after all, children of Adam and Eve... “There’s an abundance of ripe, juicy, delicious, tasty, inviting fruits all through the garden just for you, I will walk and talk with you every day, you will delight in each other, and you will talk with the animals,” God said, “There’s just one tree that’s not good for you, so don’t touch it.”
Even if you’d never heard the story before, you could guess exactly what was going to happen! Because they did exactly like you or I do - they became obsessed and zeroed in on the one thing that was off limits.
Here is Augustine from the 17th century:
“There was a pear tree near our vineyard, he writes, laden with fruit. One stormy night, we rascally youths set out to rob it and carry our spoils away. We took off a huge load of pears – not to feast upon ourselves, but to throw to the pigs, though we ate just enough to have the pleasure of this forbidden fruit. They were nice pears, but it was not the pears that I coveted because I had plenty better ones at home. I picked them simply in order to do it …. The desire to steal was awakened by the prohibition against stealing. “ *
Sound similar to any of our shoplifting starlets – awash in money and fame? It is certainly not for the junk jewelry they lift, but because there is something about a boundary that is so sorely tempting.
Whether we live in luxury or not – the truth is, it’s not easy to change our nature. We are fortunate in that there are many more resources available to us than Paul had – resources that are beneficial and helpful – psychotherapy, behavior modification, interventions, medicine and drugs, self-help books that sell because they help, a wide array of spiritual practices from all around the world, we have Oprah! – but the truth of the matter remains: trying harder to follow the rules, whatever those rules might be, rarely produces genuine goodness, deep transformation, real peace of mind.
What can reliably produce transformative change is Grace –– letting your guard down and taking in God Love; Blood of Jesus Love; the "I know exactly who you are, everything you have done and not done and everything you have ever thought and every boundary you’ve ever crossed or wanted to cross, I know your weaknesses and your strengths, and your sadness and your grief and your joy and your brokenness – and I love you and I will always catch you in my arms" love - receiving that kind of love transforms us and puts us on the road to re-patterning our lives.
....puts us on the road …. Even Amazing Grace of God Love doesn’t automatically - abracadabra shazamm! – make all temptation go away, or make it easy to be good and to do good and to love and serve in kindness and compassion.
It's not automatic that our lives become more integrated and whole – but thanks be to God, we are on the way – being re-patterned by grace so that gradually there are fewer divisions between what we want to do and what we ought to do and more peace of mind and heart because our walk and our talk are more and more closely aligned. And of course, there are still many of those times when we completely lose it and fail miserably.
But here’s the secret at the heart of the Cross. God still claims you, no matter what.
When I was deeply, deeply distressed over becoming a single parent through divorce, one of the persistent thoughts I had to do battle with was the thought that I no longer really had a place in God’s household – that divorce put me outside the circle – especially the circle of church. So while I continued to go to church, I felt foreign – and at the same time, I tried very hard to hide that sense of alienation. I remember like it was yesterday pushing my youngest on the swing, and hearing Jesus say, “Didn’t I come exactly for the people outside the circle? Isn’t that who I loved to spend time with? You are as much in God’s household now as you ever were.” That was the beginning of a real transformation for me in terms of how I related to church and to other people – because I got it really straight in my heart that God claimed me when I was baptized and that nothing could happen to me that would ever lessen that. That is true for me, and it is true for you.
And here’s one more secret at the heart of the Cross – and it has to do with the hardest word in the English language. Can you guess what that it? It’s a tiny word with two letters – No. The Holy No. No, I am not going to stop loving you even when what you are doing is wrong. No, I don’t need to save gas by rolling that stop sign, I could go 55 miles an hour and save even more gas! No, I don’t need to feel less than or act less then because of my gender or sexual orientation or race or class or income or work status or how many Facebook friends I have. No, I’m not going to buy that because I don’t need it and I don’t LOVE it – it’s on sale and it’s fine, but no. Some of the finest cuisine has developed because of limits - as has music and many other artistic forms. Boundaries and limits turn out to be necessary to creativity!
So - No is a very useful and powerful word – and whether God says it, or the Law says it, or you say it, it has transformative power – and I commend it to you – and both saying it and hearing it is made all the more easier knowing that we stand in the solid and trustworthy grip of God’s eternal grace.
Resources:
* In the Grip of Grace, Max Lucado, 1996, Thomas Nelson, Inc
The Courage to Create, Rollo May, 1975, W. Norton & Company
Frugal Confessions - Frugal Living
"No", David Lose, Working Preacher
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