Wars were all very well in their way, made young men self-reliant or something, but Horace felt that he could never forgive the President for allowing a brass band to play under his window the night of the false armistice, causing him to leave three important sentences out of his thesis on “German Idealism.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald • “Head and Shoulders” (1920)
How do you reconcile the antinomy between these two excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount?
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:14-15).
and
Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven…[W]hen you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charitable giving will be in secret…[W]hen you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret…[W]hen you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be noticed by people but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:1,3-4,6,17).
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald • “The Rich Boy” (1926)
This made me think of Donald Trump.
[I sent the following email in answer to a question from a friend:]
Hi!
No, there is nothing inherently wrong with using large scale processes and mass communication to train people to do micro church. Recall that Jesus and the first apostles and evangelists did preach to crowds. And some parts of the New Testament were purposely written with the express intent that they be circulated widely. I could be wrong, but I think writing was the most advanced, wide-reaching communication technology of the day!
Nevertheless, there is more than one thing inherently risky about this stuff. Namely, it can too easily:
So we keep watching and praying that we may not enter into these temptations. We use these tools, but always vigilant against their potentially corrupting influence, which you and I have seen again and again. Maybe it’s kinda like Bilbo and Frodo using the Ring.
I should add that there’s also nothing inherently wrong with a desire for reach itself—provided that the desire is itself merely an extension of a desire for the good of the hearers and not some generalized desire for audience or impact. This can be hard to distinguish, but we must learn. Do we actually care about these people specifically?
Specificity can be a good indication we’re pointed the right direction. Paul really really wanted to preach the News in Rome. He also loved his Jewish brethren so much that he made it a point to preach in synagogues first every time.
I have wrestled on and off over the past several years with the harshness of Jesus’ words to some folks. In some cases, I have been able comprehend the loving meaning behind His words by understanding cultural differences or cultural milieux (e.g., the word about the dead burying their own dead in Matthew). But in a general sense, it still bothered me.
Until today.
There I was, walking up Enterprise Drive midday today, kvetching to You about this, asking you for an understanding—when, boom, it hit me: Carla often cannot evoke the change she wishes to see in me, Sullivan, or Éa without yelling, cursing, or calling us names. Now, to journal this is to make Carla sound like a monster, which she is demonstrably not. She only deploys this strategy when we are apparently refusing to respond to any other approach of hers.
And it works.
Case closed. Jesus wins. He knew what His hearers needed. He spoke harshly because He loved the Pharisees, et al.
Sometimes, behavior change only happens with harsh, hyperbolic epithets.
Life is people. Bored? Be with people. Feel like nothing’s happening? Sidle up next to someone. Conversation will come up if simply put yourself next to someone and apply yourself.
Think about it: I get to spend half my waking hours on weekdays and all my waking hours on weekends not working to live. That’s amazing.
A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest— Your poverty will come in like a vagabond And your need like an armed man.
Proverbs 6:10-11
New habit: When I think of someone, I will do something to indicate their importance.
“Feeling good about what you’re doing is no guarantee that you’re doing any good.”
— David Mesenbring
“Their question is haunting: Who will tell our stories well when we have forgotten who we are?”
— John Swinton, Dementia (23)
What I really want in this instance, as George MacDonald taught me, isn’t the forgiveness for the consequences of my sins (e.g., the wrath of God) but freedom from my actual sins. I’d like to become the father that doesn’t snap at his son. I don’t want an imputed purity. I actually want to be, myself, pure.
Good working definition of joy from Richard Beck: “great delight regardless of external circumstance.”
On the subject of the solo satisfaction of biological and psychological drives (e.g., eating, masturbating, sightseeing): As long as they are not harmful and they are undertaken with thanksgiving, they are done in love, and are thus good.
“[A] Christian sexual ethic is a process of transforming eros into agape.”
Shame and guilt can be healthy, life-giving emotions. There’s a reason we have them. Sure, shame and guilt can become toxic and debilitating. But let’s not think that there’s something unhealthy about feeling shame or guilt when you do something that violates your conscience. That’s called being a human being.
Love is hardly love if it is lazy.
“…[w]ith humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves…” (Paul). This is a crucial verse for me if I’m going to bear the fruit of love. It’s this regard of others as more important than myself that is going to turn up my inner hearth of love for others. Without that phrase, my love risks being too mechanical, too principled. If I can honestly regard others as more important than myself, I will fulfill the second Great Commandment.
But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.
— Ben Patterson, as cited in Philip Yancey’s Prayer
At the level of the individual, there is wisdom in my friend’s aversion to marriage, which she stated the other day as “I don’t know why people would want to get married.” I prefer to reword it as: “Don’t make a commitment you don’t think you can keep.” But at the level of society, there needs to be a complementary wisdom: Cultivate people who are capable of making lifelong commitments.
If the universe is 13.8 billion years old, Earth 4.5 billion years old, life 3.5 billion years old, and homo sapiens 200,000 years old, then God is in no hurry. Neither then should we (unless He say otherwise).
The below is an outline of a word of instruction I gave sometime in the months after news broke of Bill Hybels’ sexual misconduct.
Where does this topical teaching, submitted under full subjection to you, come from?
The starting point: The sin Jesus directly addressed via the Cross was our sin against God and did not include our sin against one another. This is never stated explicitly directly in Scripture, but consider:
So there are still sins that can remain unforgiven after the Cross. Against whom? There is only one possibility: Against one another.
Therefore, after sinning interpersonally, there’s one thing we can say and one thing we cannot:
Here’s the primary point of this teaching: Human-to-human forgiveness and reconciliation will require work on the part of the sinner.
Even reconciliation to God isn’t automatic after the Cross. It probably requires:
Not to mention: It required the Cross! (Granting us forgiveness with total impunity would not have been good for us.) Wouldn’t reconciliation to people require similar things?
So, when we sin against someone else, instead of assuming a quick apology will be enough for interpersonal forgiveness to be automatic, what should we do?
The point is: Offenders must work at reconciliation.
Obviously, there is a major emphasis in the New Testament on the duty of the offended to forgive, e.g.:
But it’s like in some corners of Christian culture, including the corner I come from, we have successfully internalized this duty of the victim to forgive without also internalizing the duty of the perpetrator to bear fruit in keeping with repentance and to be truly reconciled.
So, the next time we encounter abuse, let’s not approach it as if the main objective is to coerce a statement of forgiveness from the victim. Let’s instead look at Luke 17:3-4’s additions to Matthew 18: “If he repents, forgive him…”
Cheap grace from God would be no good to us. Likewise, our extending cheap grace to offenders is no good to them. If there are no consequences and we all proceed parading an ersatz reconciliation instead of the real thing, the victim is left harmed and offender is left degraded.
[also posted to scottstilson.substack.com/p/forgive… with links; the date is half made up; I probably wrote this and delivered in January of 2019, actually]
A set-aside half-hour or so every day for pure leisure (no work or duty, even social duty, so probably solo). And the eventide for resting and relating!
clotheshorse noun : 1 : a frame on which to hang clothes 2 : a conspicuously dressy person
I looked this one up because having decided last year that at the beginning of this year I would spend 75% or 80% of my apparel budget, I have slowly allowed myself to become consumed with systematizing it all and finding the perfect options and shopping ethically (i.e., sustainably, locally, etc.). I am convicted by Jesus’ words on the subject. And I am mildly surprised to find out that a clotheshorse is a slightly derogatory term for someone who obviously concerned with wearing fashionable clothing. I’m not so much that, but I am allowing my mind to be consumed by clothes right now.
“Don’t worry about…your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t…the body more than clothes?
— Jesus
I am convicted by this verse today.