It struck me right away as I was reading: the grace. The blog post I had read was a little unsettling: a mixture of humor, brutal honesty, some poetic embellishment and lots of vulgarity. I started reading the comments at the bottom of the post. They contained a pretty polarized set of accolades and condemnations, interspersed with replies from the blogger. They were stunningly grace-filled replies, acknowledging the worth and honoring the opinions of people who were basically calling her one of the worst people to ever walk the earth. These people were angry with her. Deriding her for her honesty and scolding her for her actions and calling her ignorant. Most of them didn't get the point of what she had written and some understood, but disagreed. The comments were nasty. She could have ignored them. She could have deleted them. She could have stood up to them in self-defense. She could have mocked them for completely missing the point she was trying to convey. But she didn't. She responded to each of these comments with humility, admitting her opinions could be wrong and gently saying that she was just trying to be honest. She responded with grace, speaking politely and kindly to every person who belittled her.
It bothered me to read the screen names. People who were claiming the name of Christ in their online identity were visciously attacking this woman and she, an avowed seeker, was the one offering them grace. I couldn't get it out of my head. And that Sunday we sang "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love." And I wanted so badly to get on my knees and confess that what we are doing is so wrong. Because, honestly, where is the love?
I really get it. It's complicated. And I'm so guilty of it too. My convictions are strong. I know right from wrong. And it's hard to live in a culture that keeps turning things upside down and saying that wrong is right and right is wrong. It's difficult to watch as cultural Christianity gets washed away and our world seems to set up shop against the cores of my belief. All of a sudden we're not the majority any more and, instead, we're the weird ones. There's an impulse to fight, to get angry, to lash out, to guard our territory. And maybe there's some validity in that. It can terrify to consider the reality of living and raising children in such a mixed up world and I wonder if sometimes it isn't fear that drives us. And it's a lesson we have to keep relearning - that fear is the wrong motivator; that there is no room for fear. At any rate, I'm pretty sure we're using the wrong weapons of war.
Our culture changes and sin becomes more and more blatant and mixed up people in a mixed up world are unrepentant. And in our eagerness to stand up against what we know to be wrong, I'm afraid that we dehumanize. It's like all we can see is the sin. And we react with disgust to what is wrong in our world and we lash out against it. And who wants to be drawn in to something that seems to be always attacking, always disgusted, always condemning?
Our vision is so poor without aid. Don't we know that we once were a people who could not see and our God stepped in to give us sight when we were blind? He has offered us these lenses that allow us to see the reality of our world. And we are so very fond of the side of the specs that makes clear what is righteous. We have the ability to see with such clarity the right contrasted with the wrong, the sin in opposition to the holy. But, so often, we seem to close our eyes to grace and to love. We can see that people are doing wrong, but what we seem unable to see is that they are people. The truth is, whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all created by God and we are all loved by God. We were all made good and we all fell so, so short. Not only is my unChristian neighbor unrighteous, I'm unrighteous too. And every good thing I ever did, every good thing I ever am is only by God's grace.
What is it that attracts us to Jesus? What made the Samaritan woman at the well go running? Yes, he knows our sin (Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! John 4:29a). Yet, still he looks on us with love, offering us this unspeakable gift of life that overcomes death. In all his righteousness, he doesn't turn his eyes from our filth in disgust. He opens his arms to gather us in, sin-stained and broken as we are, and he promises to re-make us, new and fresh and perfect. It's his overwhelming righteousness mixed with his overwhelming love for us that makes Jesus so hard to resist. It's grace that draws us in and sends us running out to tell. Here is a man who can tell me everything I've ever done and who loves me anyway. Here is a man who knows exactly how depraved I am and he offers me freedom and friendship and even kinship. We know from a young age that if we let our real selves show, we open ourselves up to shame and a whole lot of loneliness. Who could love us if they really knew who we are? But this man who knows it all, this man who has seen every secret sin, who knows the real state of our heart, who has such a better picture of our true identity- he is willing to put his arm on our shoulder and offer to take us home, make us part of his family. Knowing all, he offers the antidote to shame and lonliness. It's grace that draws us out of the dark corner we've been trying to hide in. It's grace that makes it ok to admit that we're broken. It's grace that leads us on the road to who we were meant to be all along.
How can we, who are so dependent on grace, forget to show it to the people around us? How can we get so wrapped up in the sin we see around us that we forget that the people underneath that sin are no different from us? Isn't sin the robe we wore of our own choice before we encountered grace and let Jesus change our clothes? And aren't those clothes supposed to include compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love? (Colossians 3:12) How can we not show them grace? Why is it that our first response is to stand up and point fingers and deride and attack and name-call when we see sin in the world?
He has shown you, O man what is good.
He gave us vision when we were blind.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly...
yes, but also
...to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
bold print from Micah 6:8
The truth is that God had mercy on us. The God, for whom nothing is impossible, saw us, who are unlovable, and loved us anyway. Grace. We cannot forget that. We cannot get so wrapped up in holiness that is given to us freely, a new robe to replace the old one, that we forget that we are only good with God's help. How wrong is it for us, children born new of grace, to let our actions towards others be so full of hatred, so ungraceful?
It's not to say the we let sin go unchecked, that we never stand up to wrong. Justice is a part of the package and it is not grace-full to let wrong present itself as right. But I think our response has to be different. If we have been given eyes to see the reality, don't we know that hatred and disgust and shame and ridicule don't win the day? Love does. Grace does. Grace that sees the wrong and still finds a way to love. (" The truth is, we all know we're not quite right. What we need to know is that, somehow, someone can love us even when they really know us. That's what changes things and that is exactly what we have to offer. Grace.
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