Archive for the ‘Mercy & Grace’ Category
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Question: If we are saved by God’s grace and yet we continue to turn our back on God, i.e., we don’t practice our faith, we don’t pray, we don’t read God’s word, we continue to repeat the same sins over and over, etc. if we die are we saved or did we fall short of God’s grace? Ref: Hebrews 10:26-31
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This is why theologians get paid the big money [insert ironic chuckle here].
We are supposed to know what is going to happen when we die and why.
Let me be straight up and, on behalf of a whole bunch of us, say: We don’t. For sure. We have hunches, we have hopes, we have hints, but we don’t really, really know.
It’s tricky, right? There are texts that can really scare the dickens out of a person. Take a look at the one you mention: Hebrews 10:26-31.
And why stop there?
Matthew 7:13, Luke 16:26, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Revelation 20:13-15 all can be cause for deep fear and even despair….and there are a lot more where these came from.
Of course, other texts aren’t so frightening, and actually suggest a wider door.
1 Tim. 2:6, 1 Cor. 15:22, Romans 5:17, Col. 1:20, 1 John 2:2.
Of course, each of these texts are bound to the verses before and after it, and bound by the author’s historical context, and many can be interpreted a number of ways.
My point here is that the Bible (in the cases listed above, the New Testament) isn’t as monolithic as one might believe.
Not that it is a huge surprise for those who read my blogs carefully, but I am of the mind that the question of what happens after we die is largely a theological question, and that in the end, we have to humbly say that we don’t know…and that we will not be paralyzed by that notion.
The way in which you phrase your thoughts, however, raises some interesting questions. You begin by saying that “If we are saved by God’s grace….” and close by wondering if we can “fall short of God’s grace.”
My immediate thought is, saved from what?
My second thought is, what is grace?
And my first answer to the first thought is, sin.
And my first answer to the second thought is, the gift of something undeserved.
And so two theological questions:
If we really believe that God offers grace (an undeserved gift) to we who sin (namely we who reject God in favor of something else) then:
1. isn’t the demand to repent, to stop the sin, to pray, etc…..aren’t these all acts to make us deserving of grace? And along side of that (this doesn’t cut into my two questions, btw!  ), then what is grace, really? Can we fall short of something we don’t deserve in the first place?
2. Who doesn’t sin, and (again, still part of the same question!) who is aware of all the ways in which one sins? Is it ever possible to confess and repent of all our sins?
These are just beginning questions. Then begins a whole run of ‘em.
Like,
Are all sins choices, or could there be sinful behaviors which are bound up in mental illness, in fatigue, in family systems?
Do we really want to say that only Christians are going to heaven…and does even Scripture make that case?
Is this a slippery slope to universalism?
And if “all people get into heaven,” then what’s the point of believing?
Ah, but then there are counter-questions:
Like, if a person believes to get into heaven, isn’t the integrity and authenticity of the belief self-serving, since it appears to be motivated by a protecting one’s own eternal hiney?
When does one believe “enough” to be in God’s good graces?
Is there anyone who is purely good? And even if not entirely good, are there parts of people which are fundamentally good, and then are those parts not in need of salvation….and what would that mean?
But don’t good deeds matter somehow?
And yet if we say that they do, then don’t we say that we in part can save ourselves?
And what happens if we’ve lived a pretty good life, and in the moment that we allow ourselves to wonder these sorts of things, get hit by a car? What is going to be God’s final answer?
Regardless of how one comes down on the question of heaven/hell, salvation/damnation, this much is safe to assert is true:
If one says that they believe in God, then there are implications for how they live their lives, for the choices that they make.
We all mess up, sometime quite gloriously, even those who say that they–and in fact really do–believe.
There’s a reason why we have the word “grace,” in other words. We need it.
But generally, if one says that something is core to who they are, then they live life consistent to that notion: not to get something, but because they can’t help but to live in such a fashion.
I tell my husband that I love him not to get him to love me, but because I love him. I play with my kidlets not to get them to respect me, but because I adore them.
Actions are an expression, in other words.
And let it not be missed that some of the most life-giving people are those who are not connected to any one particular religious tradition.
So the point is not to “diss” confessing and repenting and praying and discerning what is faithful and striving to live accordingly.
The point is to rather raise the question about whether these are pre-reqs for salvation…and if we answer that they are, well….who doesn’t fall short of that?
It’s all clear…as mud.
Peace,
Anna
Posted in Christianity, God's Relevancy, Heaven & Hell, Mercy & Grace, Reader Questions, Scripture, Suffering, Truth | 6 Comments »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Clearly I have been AWOL and MIA in terms of my blog, and I apologize!
But that is because not only am I “with children,” but I am now also “married,” as of May 21.
Wedding preparation on the heels of the OMG open house, and then moving belongings, and having a “familymoon” with the kidlets for several days (just returning last night) gained almost the entirety of my attention!
The festivities were just that; festive. There was a contagious tenor of glee and of gratefulness for new beginnings. And that dear friend of mine and preacher of ours, the good Rev. Lori Hope, hit it out of the park.
Much has been written about love, and much has been written about marriage. Allow me, in the spirit of this new event in my world, to add a couple of not particularly novel thoughts.
I always have thought that it is important to note that at the Last Supper, Jesus does not say, “Like one another, as I have liked you.” Instead, Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
Sometimes it is possible to love someone and not, in the moment, like them so particularly well. Joseph Sittler once stated that when one is married, at least there is someone at home you don’t want to talk to.
Love, as far as we Christians see it displayed in Jesus’ death on the cross, is demonstrated by deep and profound vulnerability and forgiveness…and again, the promise of new beginnings and joy for life.
That’s not a bad way to ground a marriage.
Love, that is, is not just being twitterpated, is not just romance, is not just sexy…though it can be that–and hopefully is that!–for years to come.
It is work, it is partnering, it is sacrifice, it is vulnerability, it is humility, it is gentleness of spirit, it is compassion.
I am grateful that my husband and I share some key understandings: we are broken; we can be wrong; neither our actions nor we are beyond forgiveness; humor is a blessing; we are worthy; we are cherished; our lives are gladdened by the other in it.
We are looking forward to building a family which is grounded in these same notions, and stewarded in service together.
So, with that, let the new beginnings begin, along with the new bloggings!
Peace,
Anna
Posted in Christianity, God's Relevancy, Mercy & Grace, Suffering | No Comments »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
I apologize for the delay in writing my latest blog!
Our local newspaper covered OMG last Thursday, and I have been grateful for the busy-ness that the article created. A special thanks to Jill Callison for taking the time to visit in the very nifty OMG office.
My mind is on forgiveness, these days, because, well, as a Christian, the season of Lent will do that to a person.
CNN’s iReport has a section on amusing church signs, one of which says, “Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.”
Forgiveness does mess with us, I think.
There is a long tradition of forgiving only if someone asks for it, repents of it, and a little groveling wouldn’t hurt either.
On the other hand, there is a long tradition of forgiveness itself being a sign of grace. You can’t forgive someone who ‘deserves’ forgiveness, because clearly a person doesn’t deserve forgiveness who has wronged another. Forgiveness extends to the undeserving something that they don’t deserve.
Through linguistic twists and turns, the word ‘forgiveness’ comes from the Latin word perdonare (”to give wholeheartedly”), which itself comes from two words: per-, meaning thoroughly, and -donare, which means, ‘to give.’
So.
What needs to happen (if anything) before a person should be forgiven (namely should have something given wholeheartedly), and what does forgiveness look like?
Luther whittled down the Roman Catholic sacramental list to two (baptism and Holy Communion), but he was awfully on the fence about Confession. He was all over the idea of confession as being an opportunity for cleansing and new beginnings. However, he also was convinced (and here I think he is absolutely right) that we have no idea of all of our sins. ”We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” We sin all the time, and it is an impossibility to confess all of them, let alone know all of them.
Still, believed Luther, God forgives us, even without our ability to confess our sins, let alone repent of them.
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” said Jesus on the cross. On one level, they knew exactly what they were doing. On another, they–we, did–do, not.
Things get even more interesting based on current research on brain chemicals, stress, family systems, exhaustion, mental illness, and so forth. What scientists are finding out is that many people who commit apparent offenses are, to some degree, swimming in cocktails of distress, despair, irrationality, self-protection, and disease.
The more one learns about context, history, and their relationship to choices, the more one is led to compassion…and also to the question of accountability.
Yet even if one is determined to be accountable in one measure or another, the question can still be posed: to what degree should accountability (and recognition of accountability) play any role in the offering of forgiveness?
Anne Lamott, in her book Traveling Mercies, writes that not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die. It’s an interesting thought, that forgiveness might be as much for the forgiver as for the forgiven. To hold onto resentment is, I think the case can be made, a manifestation of death continuing to have hold.
Sometimes, however, withholding forgiveness camouflages conceit and mistaken superiority. It presumes that we ourselves might be above need for unmitigated grace, or that we ourselves have never/could never do any act on any such level.
In short, the matter of forgiveness is a fantastic question for systematic theology! On what basis do you give or withhold forgiveness, and is it consistent with your understanding of God and God’s agenda?
As it happens, I am of the mind that forgiveness does not mean forgetting, but overcoming. It is a sacred act that necessitates drawing upon compassion, humility, and an intentional tap into the well of grace, extending it to the Other, and to the Self.
What do you think?
Peace,
Anna
Posted in Christianity, God's Relevancy, Mercy & Grace, Suffering, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
One of my favorite etymologies concerns the word “compassion,” a word that I hope you will agree is remarkably suitable for a Valentine’s Day reflection!
Compassion comes from the Latin, compassionem, meaning ’sympathy,’ itself stemming from compassus, ‘to feel pity,’ which in turn comes from ‘com-,’ meaning ‘together,’ and ‘pati,’ namely ‘to suffer.’
That’s right. Our word ‘passion’ stems from the Latin word meaning ‘to suffer.’
Like one needs to sit down to hear that one.
And for those of you who always thought it awkward that Holy Week, the week before Easter, is also called “Passion Week,” there you go. passion=love=suffering.
So to have compassion is to suffer together.
In a relationship, then (even if bred by Hallmark, the season of love is in the air) to have compassion on your partner, or for that matter your parent, or your child, or your friend…or your enemy…or a stranger….is to suffer with them.
It is more than pity.
It is ‘pati,’ suffering.
It’s an interesting point. We tend to use the word regarding somebody who needs help, as well as concerning somebody who needs mercy (and by definition, therefore, who doesn’t deserve it: Only those who don’t deserve mercy need it).
I wonder if our understanding of the etymology of the word ‘compassion’ might shape our extension of it. That is to say that if somebody is enduring unfortunate circumstances, or who is really making lousy mistakes and choices, it might be because they are suffering. And so to have compassion on people is to learn about their sufferings, their troubles, their pain, their exhaustion, their isolation, and, well, assume it with them.
That also makes a person think about God’s relationship to us, I can’t help but wonder. After a tragedy I suffered in 2004, many well-meaning people sought to make sense of the event by telling me that God caused the accident, or that God must have wanted my husband to die. Such comments left me breathless.
Finally, someone offered the insight that God felt my pain more deeply than did I.
In other words, God felt compassion toward me.
In turn, there’s a fine Jewish notion that even God needs to be forgiven.
So perhaps, I’ve gotten to wondering, God needs our compassion. Just as humility moves us to offer compassion to those whose actions befuddle us, so too perhaps humility ought to move us to offer God compassion when God befuddles us.
Often enough, we know very little (or at least, not enough) of the stories of the lives or the motivations of the people or the fears and needs of those whom we are tempted to judge.
Goodness, how often are we, even in hindsight, clear about why we ourselves did or said any given thing?
Asking questions lends itself to the creation of compassion within us.
So too, just maybe, we can acknowledge that we know very little of what is going on behind the mirror through which we see dimly.
Questions could yield within us a dose of humility, a dose of compassion, toward even God.
I grant that com- -pati will probably not end up on a Hallmark card. But maybe a blog post is good enough.
What do you think?
Posted in Mercy & Grace, Suffering, Uncategorized | No Comments »
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