When Love and Faithfulness Meet

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. (Psalm 85.10-11)

Reading the psalms often feels like stumbling on a private conversation in midstream. It’s hard to say exactly what prompted the discussion. But the closer one listens the keener one’s sense that something’s happened and the poets are working things out with God. Sometimes the verses burst with gratitude and praise, leaving little doubt that God has done a wonderful, altogether unexpected—and perhaps undeserved—favor for God’s people. Then again, there are psalms that appear to be composed after the relationship with God has completely fallen apart. The writers’ pens bleed with remorse and pleas for forgiveness.

The conversation—the side we hear, that is—in Psalm 85 sounds like a follow-up to a prior one in which the people begged God to forgive their infidelity. With the repentance taken care of, the poet seeks God’s help in getting things back on track. “You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You pardoned all their sin,” he reminds God. (v2) Yet he’s not quite sure if God’s ready to pick up the pieces and start over, causing us to suspect something very serious caused this latest flare-up in Israel’s perpetual on-again, off-again love affair with God. The psalmist beseeches his Maker with the tremulousness of a faithless suitor hoping to return to his lover’s good graces. “Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong Your anger to all generations?” he asks. (v5)

What’s more, he and those he writes for are exhausted. The longing to put the entire nasty episode behind them thrums in the writer’s panic: “Will You not revive us again, so that Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us Your salvation.” (v6-7) The real question, of course, is, “Is God through with us?” (Massage the lyric slightly, put a steel guitar under it, and you’ve got a country-western let’s-give-it-one-more-try hit single.)

As if to silence his audience’s sobs, the poet says, “Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for the Lord will speak peace to God’s people.” (v8) He goes on to assure his listeners that God will restore them to right relationship. The closing stanza swells with hope. “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.”

If this conversation sounds familiar, it should. For five weeks now, we’ve trudged across Lent’s desert, wrestling with our failures, praying God’s forgiveness, and trusting God’s mercy and grace will find us. Confronting weakness is an exhausting process. We’re desperate to feel the security of God’s love. By this stage of the journey, we’re liable to panic, wondering why God would stay with us. But God is ever faithful. All the inner turmoil that Lent stirs up will be calmed. God will speak peace. “Surely God’s salvation is at hand for those who fear God,” verse 9 promises.

Unknowingly, the psalmist provides a glimpse of where our journey leads. When love and faithfulness meet, when righteousness and peace kiss each other, faithfulness will spring up from ground in the form of a rugged cross. And righteousness will look down from the sky, brimming from the tender eyes of our Savior. Is God through with us? Hardly. Is God ready to give it one more try? Oh yes. Always. This conversation that began in anguish weeks ago will end with the most forgiving kiss we'll ever know.

Repression Obsessions

I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. (Psalm 32.5)

The hit musical The Book of Mormon is ostensibly about the comic—and cosmic—travails of a group of Latter Day Saint missionaries who have the bad luck of being assigned to a Ugandan outpost. But in short order, you gather it’s really about people of all walks who suffer from having their religion screwed on a little too tight. You know who I mean. They’re the folks who are terrified of God, terrified of temptation, terrified of Hell, and, most of all, terrified they’ll get caught doing something unseemly by people as terrified as they are. And the only way of managing the terror they’ve chosen to live with is to mask it with manufactured happiness. 

The show quickly dismantles its characters’ clean-cut, cockeyed (and cocky) optimism with “Turn It Off,” a hybrid show tune and Sunday school ditty that says:

When you start to get confused

Because of thoughts in your head,

Don’t feel those feelings!

Hold them in instead

Turn it off, like a light switch

Just go click!

With every conflict a missionary confesses, the answer is, “Turn it off!” Feeling guilty about not protecting your mother from domestic violence? Turn it off! Troubled because you left your dying sister’s bedside to get in line for a new iPhone? Turn it off! Worried about being attracted to your own sex? Turn it off! But what if these gnawing emotions don’t go away? “Then you only got yourself to blame. You didn’t pretend hard enough. Turn it off!" If repression obsessions were unique to Mormons, this cheeky little number would be lamentably tragic. But haven’t we all, at one point or another, been told by someone—parents, ministers, teachers, counselors, you name it—to turn it off?

Repression is no help when confronting confusion and weakness. It’s a defense mechanism against guilt of both varieties, deserved and undeserved, and it’s completely ineffective in overcoming either kind. Repression feeds on guilt. If we stop feeling guilty, the thing we’re trying to conceal has no reason to hide. As long as we keep it hidden, we won’t come to grips with what it actually is. It may be something sinful and unhealthy and offensive to our Maker and those around us. Yet it may also be something holy and life-giving and essential to our God-given identity and purpose. As long as we refuse to examine it, we’ll never see exactly what it is.

The only way we can figure out what’s behind our repression obsessions is by turning the light switch on so we can see what’s really there. We invite God in and say, “Take a look at this. Here’s what worries me about it. If it’s wrong, show me the right way. If it’s what You want for me, grant me the grace to accept it.”

Psalm 32 models this prayer: “I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” Repression cannot lead to holiness. Pretending we aren’t struggling won’t open our eyes to truth. If what we’re struggling with is sinful, we need to see that and invite God to forgive our wrongdoing and remove the guilt it creates. If it’s something we’re afraid of, we need to overcome our fear and lead lives of dignity in keeping with God’s plan and purpose for us.

Lent is our great sifting season, when we search our hearts and lay all they contain before God. Whatever’s got us confused and feeling guilty is not to be hidden away in hopes it will go away. For repression to work, it needs the thing it wants to bury and it needs the guilt we carry because of what we’re hiding. None of that is constructive. None of it will improve our lives. “Turn it off” isn’t the answer. “Turn it on—like a light switch.” That’s the answer. If we can summon the courage to do that, we can boldly talk it over with our Maker and bravely heed God's direction for our lives.

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.

The Test

He had to become like His brothers and sisters in every respect, so that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest. (Hebrews 2.17)

In Miracles, C.S. Lewis repeatedly returns to the Incarnation as the standard by which all other divine manifestations are measured. “Everywhere the great enters the little—its power to do so is almost the test of its greatness,” he writes. As one ponders his statement, the “almost” becomes inescapable. The greatness of love borne in Mary’s womb cannot be exaggerated. Yet its arrival in the tiny frame of a vulnerable, speechless, Infant is dumbfounding. Surely there must be a bigger test that captures the scale of God’s power. We want something larger than life to prove the enormity of God’s grace and faithfulness—something so utterly overwhelming and definitive that we can’t possibly mistake it for anything else.

But the Incarnation epitomizes God’s baffling ability to display unequaled mercy and might as “the great enters the little.” If we are ever to know—as the angel tells Mary—that nothing shall be impossible with God, we have to recalibrate our expectations of how God works and moves and reasons. God does great and wondrous works in little, ordinary ways. What looks like a newborn is God’s offer of new life. The little Child who seems so reliant on us at first will redeem us and reconcile us to our Creator. The powerless Babe with no home will establish God’s kingdom on earth.

Almost—we almost get it. But we can never fully comprehend the simplicity of God’s great plan. We’re wonderstruck that God would choose so tiny a vessel from which to pour out unconditional love and unfathomable forgiveness. The test for us is whether or not we truly believe what we’re seeing.

Do the Math

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18.21-22)

“’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” was one of my grandmother’s favorite hymns. When she sang it to herself, she turned it into a prayer by replacing “Him” with “You”:

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust You

How I’ve proved You o’er and o’er

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus

O for grace to trust You more

I often hear her when I read Jesus’s admonition that we should forgive those who offend us many times (“seventy-seven” in some translations, “seventy times seven” elsewhere). I imagine Peter giving Jesus one of those “Really?” looks, and Jesus nodding with eyebrows raised, as if to say, “Trust Me.” All of this forgiveness calculus comes after Jesus lays out a very specific protocol for handling differences with fellow believers. He hasn’t mentioned forgiveness, but it’s clear that He’s concerned about unaddressed slights and sins enslaving His followers. Peter catches Jesus after the lesson and asks, “Should I forgive a repeat offender seven times?” It’s a plausible question, albeit a somewhat self-aggrandizing one. Since the Transfiguration, it’s increasingly apparent that Peter’s being groomed to take over when Jesus is gone, and he wants to reassure the Lord he’s got the right stuff. To his surprise, Jesus says he's grossly miscalculated what will be asked of him—either he’s off by 70, or a factor of 70. In any case, Peter’s magnanimous offer isn’t nearly enough. Really?

When we do the math, we realize the magic isn’t in the numbers. It’s in the product. Multiplied forgiveness goes beyond incidental pardon and seeds in us the daily practice of grace. Christ calls us to a transcendent state that frees us of weights we take upon ourselves by withholding forgiveness—heavy chains of resentment, confusion, despair, and cynicism. It’s not as simple as telling those who wound us, “It’s okay.” It’s not okay for someone to hurt us, denigrate us, or inflict violence of any kind on us. Yet the only way to overcome our pain and disappointment is to return grace for ill will. To do as Jesus says requires us to trust it’s in our best interest to repudiate insults with grace. So when we rework the equation, replacing the numbers with Christ’s meaning, this is what we get:

Forgiveness X Trust = Grace

Forgiveness multiplied by trust yields Christ-like grace—the same bottomless grace we seek for ourselves, no matter how many times we fail. Do the math. Forgiveness isn’t really about mercy we extend to those who fail us; it’s about witnessing the grace Christ extends to us.

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus

O for grace to trust You more