Fashion Sense

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. (Colossians 3.12)

A Clean House

There is a great Southern tradition that encourages entering the New Year with a clean house—not merely a neat one, but a clean one. In the days leading up to the holiday, many Southerners take stock of all they’ve accumulated over the past year and decide what’s worth saving and what isn’t. They dig through cupboards, discarding stale items shoved into the corners. Old magazines and loose papers of no lasting value get tossed out. They inventory their closets for clothing they’ve ignored—or had no use for—during the past 12 months. Getting rid of outdated stuff makes room for new blessings. It’s an exercise in creating clarity, the means to free oneself of unnecessary encumbrances.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I’ve never known anyone who followed this custom all the way through. It’s a massive undertaking that demands enormous energy—usually in short supply coming on Christmas’s heels. But the tradition remains compelling because its intent focuses one’s thoughts about the New Year. It raises important questions about what we carry with us, along with what we don’t need, as we move forward in time. While we may not have the wherewithal to purge our homes of a year’s worth of obsolete rubbish, we can surely find time to survey our lives. Are there stale ideas cluttering our cupboards? Are we hanging onto things with no lasting value? Are our closets crammed with unbecoming attitudes and habits we should be relieved of? Entering the New Year with a clean house is a wonderful thing.

The Ugly Stuff

A big part of our trouble with letting go useless—and often detrimental—things we’ve taken on springs from not knowing what will replace them. If I discard unproductive resentments, anxieties, prejudices, and memories I’ve clung to, what’s left? Something in us fears looking at a severely thinned-out closet. Yet Sunday’s New Testament reading (Colossians 3.12-17) presents an enviable wardrobe of new fashions for the taking. In verses 12-14 we read, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” The long list of desirable clothing the writer names—compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love—is extremely helpful in two ways. First, it tells us what should be in our closets; it calls out attitudes and behaviors that define the faithful believer’s style. But it also identifies what shouldn’t be left hanging around. Anything that contradicts or compromises the qualities it describes must go. There’s no room in our closets for injustice, cruelty, pride, aggression, impatience, resentment, and hatred.

Of course, such negative traits are ugly things—too ugly for most of us to imagine ever wearing in public. But they have a way of creeping into our wardrobes because they’re all too common in fashions we see every day. They’re like trendy clothes we’ve worn in the past, donned under pressure to appear “stylish,” only to look back once the trend has faded and see how hideous and unflattering they really were. What’s more, if we’re not thorough in our resolve to toss out the ugly stuff, it tends to turn up in trivial accessories that detract from an otherwise attractive style. All it takes is a funky belt or scarf or set of earrings to throw the whole look off. What seems subtle and inconsequential at first becomes glaringly gauche. Anything that clashes with Colossians’ classic Christian look puts us at risk of ruining God’s reflection. The tiniest lapel pin can be a dead giveaway that our witness isn’t what it should be.

Wear What We Are

The style that Colossians urges us to adopt is hardly haute couture. It’s not an elitist fashion that costs more than we can afford and makes statements about our social and economic standing. Indeed, the Colossians collection is ready-to-wear, or as French designers call it, prêt-à-porter—literally, for the taking. (US merchants call it “off the rack.”) As God’s children, these qualities are readily available to us. They’re styles that we can easily understand and emulate, having experienced their grace and beauty through Christ’s power. Being recipients of God’s compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love, we know what they look like. We know how well they work together, bound, as the writer says, in perfect harmony. We know the joy they bring, how appealing they are, and how well they fit us.

The call that arises from Colossians challenges our intentions. Will we embrace a classically Christian fashion sense that mirrors all that Christ offers us? Or will we settle for quickly outmoded trends and funky touches that diminish us? Will we persist in being slaves to worldly fashions or will we clothe ourselves in keeping with our identity as holy and beloved children of God? Personally, I’ve never put much credence in the adage “you are what you wear.” But the Colossians writer invites us to view the notion in reverse, encouraging us to wear what we are.

I pray we all take time to inventory our closets during these closing hours of 2012. May we enter 2013 with clean houses and wardrobes filled to overflowing with attitudes and behaviors becoming to God and us.

Happy New Year!

Colossians urges us to adopt a classic Christian look that is becoming to God and us—and the New Year presents a prime opportunity to inventory our wardrobes.

Good for Nothing

Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. (Matthew 6.2)

The Good Life

Walt and a group of friends were discussing various life philosophies, and one of them said, “Mine is simple. I try to be good for nothing.” Eyebrows shot up and heads tilted. He explained that he looks for opportunities to do something good without anyone knowing it. “I want to leave things better for the next guy,” he said. “I pick up litter when I see it. I give a little extra to homeless people—not so much for them as for someone who might not have it to give. If I see an open gate, I close it, because people lose pets that way.” Someone in the group likened it to the “pay it forward” concept. “Not really,” he said. “There’s no payment back or forward. It’s all for nothing.” So they’re just random acts of kindness? “It’s not random at all,” he countered. “I go looking for ways I can be good for nothing.”

Ever since Walt brought the idea home, we’ve talked about what a liberating notion it is—to do good with no strings attached, no names, no plans, no credit, none of that awkward business of being thanked or praised for thoughtfulness that springs out of one’s heart. To be good for nothing. Living lives of kindness in motion. Leaving jet streams of compassion and generosity and harm prevention wherever we go without any indication of where they came from. And to make that our purpose, going beyond the odd moments when it dawns on us to do what’s good, kind, and just. To go looking for ways we can be good for nothing. This is precisely the life Jesus calls for in Matthew 6.2: “Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.” This is the life in which goodness is its own reward, the life of goodness that seeks no reward. This is the good life.

The Discipline of Being Good

The more I think about this simple plan for living the good life the more I wonder how the discipline of being good for nothing plays out in relationships and situations where we’re inescapably present and known. How do we practice drive-by goodness there? Jesus shows us how in His admonition about what not to do. “Do nothing to draw attention to yourself,” He says. “Don’t get all holy and self-righteous about goodness you convey.” Doing what’s good to prove we’re as good—or, more often, better—than those who benefit from it proves nothing. Their gratitude and onlookers’ praise become the prize. If that’s all we want—to be seen doing good—we won’t be disappointed, because that’s what we’ll get. But in going that way, we should also be aware that’s all we’ll get. Jesus promises something much greater than looking good will come of our goodness when we divorce it from any hopes or intentions of being noticed. “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father Who sees in secret will reward you.” (v3-4) Many translations attach “openly” to the end of verse 4, underscoring the implication that being good for nothing ultimately results in rewards that openly attest to goodness in us—goodness that need not wave flags and sound trumpets, goodness that is simply, irrevocably, obviously there.

This is a hugely important lesson for all of us. And it’s especially vital for those of us who’ve been disparaged as “good for nothing.” Learning Jesus’s way of being good for nothing restores and reaffirms our dignity and worth. When kindness in motion becomes a way of life, it transforms every situation into a good-for-nothing opportunity. Jet streams of compassion, generosity, and harm prevention smoke out the hornet’s nests and purify atmospheres of hatred and degradation. Seeking no reward for good relieves the burden of hoping our intentions will be appreciated. Others’ responses don’t affect our decision to do good, because we do it for nothing. If they get it, that’s great. If they don’t, so be it.

For the Better

As we listen to Jesus talk about doing good for nothing, we bear in mind He’s addressing a culture of disempowerment, speaking to an oppressed people who’ve lapsed into a perpetual reactionary state. In many ways, His listeners resemble post-traumatic patients. They’ve witnessed, experienced, and absorbed so much suffering that they’re naturally reluctant to extend themselves to others without some guarantee of repayment. They’ve already lost so much that asking what’s in it for me is their first line of defense against future losses and greater suffering. And so it is with us. We too live in a culture of disempowerment, where belittlement and demoralization are handy tools for anyone seeking to control who we are, how we behave, and what we believe. Before we do anything good, we’re apt to weigh potential risks and rewards. When we’re unsure that doing good will result in something better for us, we hesitate.

Given the suffering we’ve endured and absorbed, we have no reason to condemn ourselves for thinking that way. Yet Jesus challenges us to think again—to realize abuses that befall us grow out of a climate starved for goodness, a world where oppression, demoralization, and hatred are clothed as moral and religious righteousness. “What’s in it for me” strips the good from goodness and replaces it with hypocrisy and deceit. Whatever we may reap from rewards-based goodness benefits no one—not even us—because all we’re doing is counterbalancing evil with good, rather than increasing goodness by foregoing any desire of repayment. To be good for nothing is to participate in an additive process that fills the gaping void of goodness in our world. It changes our relationships, situations, culture, climate, and, yes, us for the better. This is goodness that God rewards. This is the good life. So the next time anyone dares to say you’re good for nothing, dare to smile, nod in agreement, and thank them for the compliment!

Doing good without seeking reward invites us to participate in an additive process that fills the gaping void of goodness in our world.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/04/09/good-for-nothing/.

Repost: Fasting

When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. (Matthew 6.16)

Gravity and Joy

“Saints, it’s time we turn our plates over, set our wants aside, and seek God,” the pastor would say and the church would answer, “Amen!” The room would fall into stillness as believers listened intently to the pastor’s instructions. Sometimes the fast lasted a week. At other times the minister called us to fast one day a week for the indefinite future. Sometimes it was called without protocol, leaving each person to decide what, when, and how long he/she would practice self-denial. Whatever the fast’s form, what I recall most from my youth was the galvanizing mix of gravity and joy it produced. We rigorously obeyed its command to make more room and time for God’s presence in our lives. Yet we entered the prescribed test with high hopes, knowing we’d be stronger, richer, and purer when we came out.

After my need for a more affirmative faith environment led me to a “mainstream” church, I found a very similar, if less demonstrative spirit arose as the people prepared for Lent. Prior to that, since my family’s tradition didn’t observe Lent, the little I gleaned about it from friends and colleagues jaundiced my perceptions. From what I heard, Lent was a 40-day obligation to “give up” something they could easily do without (chocolate, alcohol, red meat) or shouldn’t do at all (cursing, gossiping, fibbing)—more about self-discipline than self-denial. I didn’t realize my exposure was limited to Lent lamenters, however, people whose hearts weren’t in it and apparently understood it no better than I. Once I met believers who greeted the season with the same gravity and joy I associated with fasting, Lent came to life. It was a deeply personal, yet significantly collective experience, an intensely sacred testing period begun in hope and ending in renewed strength and fervor. What’s more, I learned this mainly by observation because, unlike Lent lamenters, authentic Lent fasters don’t wear their sacrifices on their sleeves.

A Curious Business

Fasting is a curious business. Its primary focus—clearing distractions to make way for prayerful contemplation—must be preceded by prayerful contemplation of what distracts us. The verb “to fast” is interesting and enlightening in itself, as it derives from the gothic German fastan, “to hold fast.” Thus, the benefits of fasting aren’t in what we’re rid of but what remains. That’s why sacrifice is secondary to experienced fasters. Their attention literally fastens on spiritual priorities. They go into fasts having already considered what they can and can’t do without, and they concentrate on the former by denying the latter. This transforms fasting from obligation into opportunity. It becomes a season of joy and growth rather than one of angst and deprivation.

Many misconstrue fasting as a means of honoring God by voluntarily refusing to indulge in things they love. They think fasting denotes commitment and piety, and approach it as a sort of holy drudgery. By no means is fasting easy, but neither is it intended to impress God with how tough it is to give up what we don’t truly need. That’s Jesus’s message in Matthew 6. “Don’t look somber as the hypocrites do,” He says. “For they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (v16-18) Jesus’s logic completely checks out with what fasting actually means. It’s a sifting time that gets us back to what really matters. The opinions of others don’t merit the effort to make a big deal of what we’re letting go. The reward comes when what we decide to hold fast in our hearts pleases our Maker.

Essentials from Non-Essentials

Lent gives us time to separate the essentials from non-essentials. What needs to go so what remains can resume prominence in our lives? If only it were as simple as surviving from Ash Wednesday to Easter without a candy bar or tasty morsels of gossip! To get the most from our fast entails much introspection. It asks us to undertake the trial fully aware of any weakness that loosens our grip on virtues and aspirations we hold dearest. And whatever that is (or they are), that’s what we must sacrifice. When we understand what fasting is really about, we realize Lent is sacred, not somber, joyful, not lamentable. It isn’t about giving up what we’d love to keep. It’s about holding on to what we'd hate to lose.

Fasting is a sifting time. We let go of what we can’t use to hold on to what we value most.

Postscript: Question 9

Is fasting a lost art?

Esteeming Grace

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. (1 Corinthians 15.9-10)

Significant Costs

Our church’s Lenten Bible study rounded a major corner this week, as the 40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer turned our thoughts from the disciplines of discipleship set forth in The Beatitudes to properly evaluating God’s grace. Although Bonhoeffer’s terminology has become common among theologians and seminarians, it was new—and somewhat unsettling—to us. He writes, “Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” (p52) Cheap grace? Costly grace? Affixing financial modifiers to grace seems inappropriate, since it’s a priceless gift. That’s the paradox of grace: while it’s too great to be earned by good deeds or moral virtue, it’s offered to all. And, ironically, its being beyond our means is what causes us to undervalue it. We cheapen grace by treating it like carte blanche to persist in harmful habits because we know God’s grace will always be abundantly available. Yet grace is anything but a license to ill. Its primary purpose is enabling correction.

Grace clears our slates so we can replace unhealthy attitudes and behaviors with those that please and reflect our Maker. Thus, it’s given freely, without favor; yet in accepting God’s gift of grace, we assume significant costs: self-honesty by confession of sin; repentance that renounces wrongdoing; constant discipline and awareness to follow Christ faithfully; and active obedience that transcends lip-service to Christ’s principles and commands. In the final analysis, grace may be free, but it sure ain’t cheap. Its demands are costly and entail many sacrifices.

Nothing and Everything; Everything and Nothing

God’s gift of grace is the crux of Jesus’s message, and it’s impossible for us to comprehend how absurd the concept strikes those who first hear of it. Like all ancient worshipers, they pay for wrongs via specific animal sacrifices mandated for two classes of guilt: moral trespasses and physical impurity. Trespass offerings require a sacrificial ram—symbolizing one’s social and financial stability—to make restitution for losses inflicted on others. Sin offerings secure forgiveness and purification on a sliding scale; prices range from a young bull for high priests to one-tenth a bushel of fine flour for very poor people. Both trespasses and sins are assumed to be unintentional errors. Intentional crimes are adjudicated per a labyrinthine penal code that exacts extremely brutal punishments. Thus, when Jesus talks about God’s unconditional love and grace—a God Who gives rather than demands—He unravels the fabric of Jewish worship and society. That’s why we often hear disciples and listeners question how this works. Freely given forgiveness and mercy sound improbable to them. There must be a price. And there is, which is why Jesus repeatedly emphasizes how costly grace is. Because nothing about us can possibly earn God’s love and forgiveness, grace costs us everything. Or, as Jesus puts it in one of many similar statements, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10.39)

When Jesus introduces the concept of grace—which He teaches relentlessly and ultimately ensures by sacrificing His life—it’s so revolutionary it has no name. Although Luke 2.40 says from childhood Jesus “was filled wisdom, and the grace of God was on him,” and John 1.14 declares Him “full of grace,” none of the Gospels cites any instance when the actual term passes His lips. It’s only after Early Church leaders consolidate Jesus’s words, life, death, and resurrection into a unified doctrine that “grace” enters Christian usage. No surprise, Paul rallies as its greatest champion. (Of the 124 times the Bible mentions grace, 80 are credited to him.) Virtually every statement he utters in the Book of Acts and every sentence he pens circle back to God’s grace and our responsibilities as its recipients. His confidence and enthusiasm know no bounds because he, above all Apostles, knows from experience that God’s grace is boundless. As he confesses in 1 Corinthians 15.9-10, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.” From the moment Christ halts him on the Damascus road to his dying breath, God’s grace flabbergasts Paul. He owes everything to grace and nothing it costs is too much to pay.

The Riches of God’s Grace

Esteeming grace becomes Paul’s lifelong theme, while inspiring all believers to do likewise becomes his life’s mission. One marvels at the passion in passages like Ephesians 2.4-8: “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Love, mercy, life, acceptance, honor, kindness—the riches of God’s grace are not to be cheapened by underestimating them. Nearly as often as he extols grace’s inexhaustible wealth, Paul insists there’s no excuse for abusing it; knowing God’s love and forgiveness know no bounds isn’t our ticket to do as we please. After five chapters of reveling in God’s grace, he begins Romans 6 by posing and answering a hypothetical question: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” In other word's God's grace doesn't free us to sin. It frees us from sin.

Lent is traditionally regarded as a season of penitence, when the desert’s harsh solitude sets our failures and frailties in sharp relief and we confess them to God. This is an invaluable pursuit that every believer should practice every day of the year, not merely 40 of 365. The self-honesty predicating sincere penitence unlocks grace’s treasures. “If we confess our sins,” 1 John 1.9 tells us, God “is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” At the same time, it accounts for costs we incur as recipients of grace: conscious repentance that renounces sorry attitudes and behaviors, fervent obedience to Christ’s commands to love God and our neighbors, and the disciplines of true discipleship. Esteeming grace always, never underestimating its riches, keeps us mindful it sure ain’t cheap. Yet how could we possibly believe it’s not worth the price? We owe everything to grace and nothing it costs is too much to pay.

God’s grace is a paradox. While it’s freely offered to all, those who accept it incur significant costs.

Processing

The time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7.29-31)

From Service to Sentience

One of Lent’s abiding beauties is discovering each season’s character, for no two of them is ever alike. As a relative newcomer—my traditional upbringing didn’t observe Lent—I’ve walked sacred deserts, revealing ones, and one or two bordering on the mystical. Still, none has confronted me with the intellectual rigor of the current one. In part, it results from the 40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, our church’s adopted Lenten guide. Bonhoeffer’s all-or-nothing map is tough-minded stuff aimed at restoring the disciplines of discipleship by revolutionizing how we perceive following Christ. It’s less about our response to life’s daily challenges than the thinking that molds responses to Christ’s commands. This adds unusual stress on reflexes not often exercised by Lent’s passage. Meanwhile, the standard pursuits—self-denial, contemplation, prayer, consecration, penitence, etc.—are assumed, not replaced. At two weeks into this journey, I find weariness of mind and the toil of reorienting my concept of discipleship from service to sentience are my closest companions. They ask much of me; based on comments at last Tuesday evening’s study group, I’m hardly alone. Throughout the discussion, people said, “This was a rough week.”

It turns out we (i.e., our local faith community) are hardly alone. Comments here, along with posts and comments elsewhere, email exchanges, and conversations with other believers—none of whom, to my knowledge, is digging through Bonhoeffer—express comparable sentiments. Numerous bloggers journaling their travels, sharing personal impressions or daily contemplations, likewise seem to hear a call for heightened awareness of Christ’s presence and lordship in their lives, a sentience that informs their service to God and their neighbors.

Schooling

Such an endeavor is wearying work, even vexing at times, as we labor to wrap our minds around concepts we thought we understood or overlooked because we don’t understand them as well as we should. At the risk of gross presumption, our present desert seems to be guiding many of us back to basics, asking us first to distill what we know about the mind and nature of Christ and then ground our thoughts and behaviors to reflect them more accurately. This schooling is very close in form to Jesus’s wilderness experience. Matthew 4.1-3 confirms the desert’s 40-day course prepares us for temptations awaiting its end: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. [Then] the tempter came to him.” The desert's cauldron refines our character down to its essentials.

Lent endows us with discipline to overcome future tests. It clears our heads of what we think and are told to believe, leaving us with what faith teaches us to know. It’s the training ground where we identify and confront weaknesses that compromise discipleship in a constantly changing, uncertain world. Year after year, Lent’s message is “Be prepared.” Since only God sees what’s in store for us, individually as disciples and collectively as the Body of Christ, our course of preparation is the Spirit’s domain. In John 16.13, Jesus says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” Thus, this season’s widely noted call for keener sentience to Christ’s presence and principles anticipates the coming months. We’re being schooled for future service to God and our neighbors.

Urgency

Processing Lent’s lessons mounts our sense of urgency. This year, our desert travels seem constantly interrupted by proof of how desperately the world needs authentically disciplined, fully prepared followers of Christ—people who take their duties as the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and living beatitudes with the utmost seriousness. If nothing else, the past two weeks have vividly taught us how fragile our existence is. Not even the ground under our feet is stable. Every day finds us leaping headlong from one disaster into another. Preparing for any eventuality leaves no time to for haggling over what we can hang onto and still meet discipleship’s demands. Paul’s urgency for the Corinthians to release any impediments to their preparation speaks to us: “The time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” Be sentient. Be prepared. Only God knows what lies ahead.

The Holy Spirit sets our Lenten course, preparing us for what lies beyond the desert.

Renouncing Righteousness

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matthew 5.6)

The word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. (Psalm 33.4-5)

Right All the Time

Great-aunt Pearl was a loving, godly woman with one exasperating flaw. She believed she was right all the time—so much so she felt she’d never been wrong. One evening, the family listened as another great-aunt read letters written by her sisters when they were young women. She came on one Pearl sent soon after she married, before she and my great-uncle switched from the denomination they grew up in to a Pentecostal church. “Clyde has a good job and we’re tithing at First Methodist,” the letter said. Pearl stopped the reading. “I didn’t write that letter.” She agreed it was her hand and signature, but insisted she didn’t write it. We asked why. “Because we never tithed anywhere but The Church of God.” We did our best to persuade her tithing to any church is always correct. Yet she was so certain that her current denomination was the right one she preferred looking foolish rather than conceding she once held different beliefs. At first, we laughed. But when she wouldn’t drop the matter—as if someone forged the letter to discredit her faith—we called it a night. The whole thing got too silly to pursue. Now that I look back on it, however, I’m sad twice over. Once, because Pearl’s compulsion to be right all the time severely distorted her idea of what being right was. Second, it saddens me because her denial was flagrantly wrong. She knew like the rest of us that she wrote the letter. In rushing to tout her righteousness, she lied.

If you’ve never met a Pearl or two, live long enough and you will. There’s no shortage of people so convinced they’re always right they’d rather sin than admit they’re wrong. And while I pray none of us fits this bill, I’d venture to say we’ve all fallen into the syndrome a few times (at least). That’s the problem with banking on our own righteousness. Sooner or later, we mess up. We impulsively say or do something undeniably wrong that backs us into a corner. Either we admit our error, and thus confess we’re not as righteous as we let on—which, for the record, would be the right thing to do—or we maintain the righteous façade at all costs. Plan B gets us in a world of trouble, though, because at some point it incites patently wrong behavior, whether its protecting our pride, lying, alienating others, and so on. Believing we’re right all the time is a fool’s game, a gamble we’re unwise to take, given that everyone who plays it always loses. “There is no one righteous, not even one,” Romans 3.11 informs us, echoing dozens of Old Testament texts like Isaiah 64.6: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”

The Source of Righteousness

Equal doses of reality and humility help rid us of faith in our righteousness. Yet once we’re cured, where does that leave us? Aren’t we called to be righteous? Actually, we’re not. If we think about it for a moment, it makes no sense that God would ask us to do what we’re completely incapable of achieving. With very, very few exceptions, when Scripture mentions righteousness and us in the same breath, great care is taken to qualify the Source of righteousness, making it abundantly clear our righteousness isn’t the subject. “Righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ,” Paul explains in Romans 3.22. In chapter 6, he tells us, “Offer every part of yourself to God as an instrument of righteousness.” (v13) Speaking of Jesus, 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In Philippians 1.11, Paul prays that his readers will be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.” Peter likewise addresses his second letter “to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours.” (2 Peter 1.1)

So our righteousness isn’t important, after all—a good thing, since what of it exists has yet to prove worthy and durable. We’re called to seek God’s righteousness. Matthew 6.33: “Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness.” Second Timothy 2.22: “Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” And finally, Beatitude No. 4: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5.6) That changes the dynamic, urging us to rethink this righteousness business in a different context, on a larger scale than being right, thinking right, and—everyone’s favorite—“living right.” We have to back up and ask, “What is God’s righteousness and how do we get it?”

Taste and Appetite

God’s righteousness permeates all God says and does. Psalm 33.4-5 does a splendid job of capturing the basics: “The word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.” Look at the attributes orbiting God’s righteousness: truth, faithfulness, justice, and unfailing love. God loves these qualities—and they’re typically the ones that get sacrificed when we try to prove how righteous we are. Thus renouncing our righteousness is the first step to finding God’s righteousness. Faith in human righteousness is—or should be—taboo for all believers, right up there with idolatry and hatred. Since God Alone is righteous, righteousness is not a state of being, but one of becoming. Gradual acquisition of God’s nature is what we’re after: growing in truth, gaining strength to stay faithful, practicing justice, and loving all people and creation at all times.

As Christ’s disciples, our happiness is shaped by our hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness. Jesus’s choice of verbs amounts to more than pulpit poetry. He’s telling us to discipline our taste and appetite to crave righteous thoughts and behaviors. They should become obsessions driving us to seize every opportunity to savor them. But first we must cleanse our palate by renouncing righteousness. Being right all the time is like a steady junk-food diet. It makes us heavy, sick, and tiresome. Once we get its poisons out of our system, we’ll starve for God’s righteousness. If we seek that, Jesus says we’ll be happy and satisfied.

Our righteousness is like junk food; it makes us heavy, sick, and tiresome. That’s why Jesus instructs us to discipline our taste and appetite for God’s righteousness.

Free from Tomorrow

Seek first [God’s] kingdom and [God’s] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6.33-34)

The Discipline of Discipleship

If you’ve followed the Lenten posts here—maybe even tracked them in tandem with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 40-Day Journey, the volume mapping our wilderness course—by now, you’ve got the gist of where it’s taking us. As the editor, Ron Klug, explains, “In Bonhoeffer you will find a bracing, challenging, totally unsentimental invitation to discipleship that makes a difference. The British essayist G.K. Chesterton once wrote: ‘The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.’ Bonhoeffer invites us to give it a try.” (p10; emphasis added) Lent is, above all else, a sacred summons to reinvigorate the discipline of following Christ. That’s what discipleship means: disciplined obedience to Jesus’s teaching. Without question, what we learn from Him leads to unexpected realizations, revelations, and personal epiphanies. Yet we arrive at transformative moments by hewing to a carefully plotted, not-always exciting, and rarely easy path. If we follow Jesus expecting magic and miracles at every turn, we’re bound for disappointment. If we dash into Lent’s desert looking to be wowed, we’re prime candidates for frustration and fatigue.

The discipline of discipleship has one objective: nurturing faith. Our belief makes impossibilities possible. In the Gospels, Jesus routinely punctuates healings by acknowledging the faith of those who are cured. In Matthew 21.21, He tells us, “If you have faith and don’t doubt, you can move mountains.” In Mark 9, a father brings his troubled boy to Jesus and says, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “’If you can’?” Jesus asks incredulously. “Everything is possible to one who believes.” The father pleads, “Help me overcome my unbelief!” The boy’s mind is freed.

By design, discipleship helps us overcome unbelief. It’s the work that begets wonders, the toolkit that dismantles doubt. Thus it’s most appropriate that we follow Jesus into the desert by revisiting disciplines that build faith. After all, per Matthew’s chronology, The Sermon on the Mount—Jesus’s discipleship manifesto—soon follows His wilderness experience, suggesting faith He acquires in the desert directly contributes to the clarity and power of His message.

Precautions and Priorities

With the Sermon fresh in memory from readings prior to Lent, we understand why Bonhoeffer cites it frequently. Nowhere in Scripture do we find a more comprehensive manual of discipleship’s principles and practices. Jesus methodically lays out His topics step-by-step. After stating the concept, He issues precautions and sets priorities by teaching us what not to do, what to do instead, and what to do next. In today’s text—which we recently discussed, but deserves a second look—after telling us not to panic about our material welfare, He says, “Seek first [God’s] kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6.33) Setting aside mundane concerns like food and clothing—i.e., anxieties that plague non-believers—creates room to do God’s work and honor God’s purpose. It’s one of many counterintuitive disciplines that identify us as Christ’s followers. In addition to that, it stages opportunities to practice faith.

Having enough food and adequate clothing is important. But it’s not essential, because faith erases all doubt God provides everything we need. Entrusting God with our physical needs frees us to focus on what God needs from us. Belief is the linchpin in our reciprocal arrangement. When we make God’s concerns and desires our daily priority, God sees to our daily concerns and desires. Now, suppose we struck a similar deal with another human. We’d have every cause to worry, as we’d have no guarantee the other party can or will consistently honor his/her pledge. By faith, however, we know God will never fall short. Day in and day out, what we need for that day comes without fail.

“Therefore,” Jesus says in verse 34, “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” If He were a contemporary discussing our anxiety about the future, He’d put it like this: “What are you so stressed out about? You’re letting worries about tomorrow ruin your day! Hasn’t God always taken care of you? Why should tomorrow be different? Every day starts with no idea how it will end. Every day brings problems. Yet has one of them ever passed but what God didn’t provide? You’re all worked up over nothing. When tomorrow comes, do what you’re supposed to do and God will take care of you. For now, focus on today.” To which we’d hang our heads and say, “You’re so right.”

Faith for Now

Many of us obsess over the past, in many cases, reasonably so. Traumas and hardships we endure cast long, indelible shadows over our lives. No fewer of us obsess about the future—some to escape painful pasts, others to reach brightest dreams. Yet traveling with eyes glued to the rearview mirror or fixed on glittering horizons undermines our ability to navigate the now. That requires faith, because faith is our only means of knowing what to do and how to go in the absence of clearly marked signs and confirmed direction. “We walk by faith, not by sight,” we’re told in 2 Corinthians 5.7. Walk—present tense. Obsessions with the past require no faith, as what we’ve experienced is fully known. And while one might argue obsessions about the future inspire faith, the nature of said “faith” raises suspicions about its usefulness. At best, we harbor hope for tomorrow, since we can’t predict its blessings and challenges. Anything beyond hope finds us wishing, which feels nice, but offers no help for today.

Jesus instructs us to seek God’s kingdom and righteousness first so we’ll find faith for now. Discipleship trains us to surrender the past and overcome concerns about the future. Only then will we be where God wants us: in the moment, that ephemeral place we speak of so often, yet seldom inhabit. God needs us today—and provides for today’s needs—because we have work to do and a purpose to fulfill today, both of which demand faith. That’s why living free from tomorrow is every bit as crucial as leaving yesterday behind.

Now is what matters. Now is when we need faith. That's why we live free from tomorrow, trusting God to provide what we need now.

Postscript: “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow”

I love this old country gospel tune, beautifully performed by Alison Krauss and The Cox Family. Faith that God holds tomorrow frees us to believe we can accomplish what God asks of us today.

No Ordinary Time

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10.23-24)

Digging

Having been reared in a tradition that doesn't subscribe to the liturgical calendar,“Ordinary Time” always puzzled me. Even after learning what it meant, calling periods between Advent-Christmas-Epiphany and Lent-Easter-Pentecost “ordinary” seemed a bit odd. It smacked of “off-season,” as if the Church were like a resort community—sleepy and deserted between peak holidays, alive and kicking when tourists piled into it. The visual of huge sanctuaries jammed wall-to-wall one week and practically empty the next didn’t compute with someone steeped in an evangelical environment where steady growth was the norm. For us, no time was ordinary, despite our congregations also experiencing capacity crowds at Christmas and Easter. Still, I couldn’t imagine considering the interim months “ordinary;” if we were doing our job as disciples and witnesses, they should be anything but.

The missing link fell into place after my tradition’s intolerance for gay and similarly unorthodox believers proved intolerable, steering me to a welcoming community that tracked the liturgical year. Learning of the calendar’s tie to the lectionary—a daily map charting a three-year trek through the Bible—redefined “Ordinary Time” for me. It was more like “Digging Time,” a vital stretch when believers explore the depths of Scripture and uncover fresh truths in principles set in motion by events celebrated during high seasons. Ordinary Time, then, is a misnomer. Christians who avail themselves to the lectionary’s guidance find it a most extraordinary time of growth. It becomes a sort of virtual pilgrimage, as believers worldwide contemplate the same passages at the same time in a synchronized journey of faith.

One hears believers who don’t keep the calendar and lectionary dismiss them as needlessly regimented. They regard the uniformity as impersonal—anathema to forging a personal relationship with God, which suggests a more impromptu approach of being “led by the Spirit” to Scripture that holds immediate relevance to the individual. What this overlooks, though, is the Spirit’s ability to speak to each of us personally through all Scripture at all times. When you and I—and millions of others—read and pray the same texts simultaneously, living in the same world at the same time vests the readings with unparalleled personal immediacy and global relevance. While the Spirit speaks to you and me, the Spirit likewise speaks to us, the Church, as a whole. And that aspect is what makes Ordinary Time—Digging Time—far from ordinary.

A Grave and Serious Situation

In a 1940 speech to the Democratic National Convention, Eleanor Roosevelt evoked the liturgical calendar by refuting the ordinariness of time. She stood before her party to inspire them to nominate her husband for an unprecedented third term. Europe was plunged into the most brutal war in its history. Across the Pacific, Japan invaded China in a quest for empire. Meanwhile, America savored the first tastes of prosperity in more than a decade. Global instability constituted a new threat and isolationists vowed to keep the US out of war at all costs. FDR couldn’t reconcile protecting American interests with permitting Fascist regimes to run roughshod over our allies. Defending freedom under attack was a moral imperative, whether or not popular sentiment agreed. Mrs. Roosevelt challenged her party to look beyond politics and do the right thing. “We people in the United States have got to realize today that we face a grave and serious situation,” she told them. “You will have to rise above considerations which are narrow and partisan.” She concluded:

We cannot tell from day to day what may come. This is no ordinary time. No time for weighing anything except what we can do best for the country as a whole, and that responsibility rests on each and every one of us as individuals. No man who is a candidate or who is President can carry this situation alone. This is only carried by a united people who love their country and who will live for it to the fullest of their ability, with the highest ideals, with a determination that their party shall be absolutely devoted to the good of the nation as a whole and to doing what this country can do to bring the world to a safer and happier condition.

Historians cite her speech as the convention’s turning point, when the “wisdom” of isolationism was exposed as callous indifference. Mrs. Roosevelt’s address stressed becoming the richest, safest nation on Earth is secondary to accepting moral leadership. Her appeal to a higher calling resonated with her party. Its re-nomination of FDR and his reelection ushered in America’s finest hour to date.

Hope and Responsibility

We enter Ordinary Time keenly cognizant this is no ordinary time. Civic unrest and natural disasters trouble nations on every continent. Partisan politics, greed, and socio-religious differences fuel fires of hatred and divisiveness. Freedoms of speech, assembly, and belief have been hijacked to foment intolerance and violence. The Internet and media have become unduly influential Speakers’ Corners where the maddest among us provoke the worst in us. We’re transfixed by the sound of our voice. Our chatter chokes the atmosphere as each of us has his/her say about what’s said. In our clamor to hear and be heard, we have little time or interest in what the Spirit is speaking to us, individually and collectively.

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,” Hebrews 10.23-24 urges. Hope and responsibility—it’s a message for our time. We can’t allow pessimism and cynical resignation to overtake us. Our God is faithful. Our hope is secure. Nor can we forsake our duty to encourage one another to persist in love and good works. Millions of us are marching together, in synch, across time and through Scripture. We are greater than any government, more powerful than any tyrant, and more influential than any media empire. Faith is our shield. Love is our weapon. Obedience is our strategy. The Spirit speaks. We listen and obey, for our benefit and the good of humankind. We hear and accept the higher calling. We step out of the chaos to clear a higher road that leads to harmony, compassion, and justice. There is no off-season, no intermission, no rest period. This is no ordinary time.

The transition to Ordinary Time reminds us there are millions of hopeful, responsible believers marching in synch through time and Scripture. Together, we're greater than any government, tyrant, or media empire.