We hear about sinners sinning and we shake our heads and
cluck our tongues. The fires await them,
we think. Then we bury our heads in our bibles and smile at how very holy we
are. We attack homosexuals and democrats as if they had erupted from a crack
traveling up from hell itself. And we feel satisfied with ourselves, and sing
our songs and thank our God we’re not like them.
At times, God will show me something that I’m wrong about. I
find myself humbled and thankful that he would be so kind to love me amidst such
ignorance. Then, I encounter someone who is still wrong about that thing, and I
immediately judge them for not being as spiritual as me. There’s something
about us that habitually turns the best of gifts from undeserved grace into deserved
veneration in our minds. So we start to believe that God’s love is something
which began as grace, but soon enough began to sprout from God’s admiration of
our goodness.
The love of God should leave us breathless. Hit us square in
the gut, silencing our doubts and fears of never being fully accepted. It
should be the water which nourishes our faith. But the awe has worn off and
we’ve patted God on the shoulder, telling him that we’ll take it from here.
And, now, it is pride which feeds us, fertilizing our hate. The one so deep in
debt no amount of work could pay it back, freshly forgiven, is running the
streets, pointing fingers at all the other debtors.
We were all born ugly and we’ve found our beauty. Should we
then use it to shame others? Because God’s goodness has been superimposed over
our evil, is our evil now acceptable?
Because we can’t be the things God desires of us, we don’t
then humble ourselves before God as logic dictates, we raise up superficial
works that can be easily accomplished as that which God desires. We baptize our
opinions as law and wedge them into legitimate Scripture. These clownish replacements
for God’s righteous demands make us feel
superior, and so we stand judge over anyone who dares oppose us. But, until the
church rejoices with the weak, shouting, “You too?” instead of scowling behind
pious masks, we say Jesus’ death was a band-aid.
If it were ever about us, and our goodness, God would have
sent a holy scoreboard for each believer. Instead, it is about what Jesus did. Because
we’ve accepted his love, we’re not then better than others. We are humble
receivers of a great gift.
We are the hungry, and having found food, we arrogantly judge
other beggars for still being so hungry.
What could be more beautiful than the undeservedly loved
shouting, singing and whispering that the loveless are loved too? Instead of
berating them for their lack, we should nourish them with the happy news. But
first we have to remember who we are and who God is. We are Sinful. And our sin
runs deeper than too much drinking or marital unfaithfulness. Those are just
symptoms of who we are. Our entire nature is evil. That’s what we’ve been saved from—ourselves. So, there is no room for pride.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so
that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
God forgave us so that our sin is no longer the issue. We no
longer have the demand of impossible rules to earn the favor of God, it was
given to us freely by Christ. So what makes us so prideful? Is it because we
can’t accept that it’s all free? Is it because we feel better thinking we’ve
contributed? Believing spirituality is as easy as wearing nice things to a church
service?
But spirituality isn’t wearing a tie to church, that’s a
cop-out for the real deal of loving so much it may break you in two, knowing
that only God can put you back together. Our well-manicured Sunday
go-to-meeting clothes are ridiculous replacements for a clean heart that only
the death of God can provide. We bite our tongues to keep from saying
four-letter words when our tongues are swelled with evil expressions for those
not like us. But all any of us has is grace.
All you have is grace.
You are naked and think you’ve succeeded in covering
yourself with the abundance of air around you. All you have is grace. We smell of death and the bones inside
rattle when we angrily shake our bible at others, but we think the whitewash is
good enough. We need a resurrection, not a paint job. We need to lose ourselves
in the truth that we are loved not because
of what we do, but wholly in spite of it. All we have is grace.
We are thieves and vandals, adopted by a good man who
cancelled our debt and announced to the entire kingdom to put anything more to
come on his account. Murderers and whores for whom God danced so violently when
we came home that we couldn’t help but laugh and dance along.
We are not fit to jab our fingers at anyone else's failings.
That finger-pointing is sometimes why they giggle at us and
shake their heads. And we fret over us losing our moral authority. Please God,
let us. Let us have nothing but our sin at so arrogantly slapping the hands of
others when our own are still so freshly bruised. Then remind us that sin is
all we’ve ever had. It’s all we ever brought to the table. Even the table was
yours, God.
Then, maybe we’ll laugh and remember how to dance again.
Maybe then, we won’t care about being the moral authority.
We’ll become the house of joy! A parade of rowdy misfits. And we’ll all become more
like you, but we’ll barely notice because we’ll be so fixated on giving your
love away.
Then they’ll look at each other, these children yet to come
home. I know some will still scowl and roll their eyes. But others will chuckle
and slap their hands across their mouths, unsure where it came from—not knowing
the Happy Spirit. But soon they’ll let it come freely—straight from their
bellies, and shortly they’ll be dancing too.
The dance of the free.
The dance of the filthy, rotten sinners.
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