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.
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.
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.
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.
“…[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).
Pardon is only one half of the initial work of reconciliation.
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?
a response to some mishandling of sexual misconduct I’ve heard about in the church,
inspired by my reading of Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion, and
a realization of what has worked in my own battle against my own sin (especially against my wife).
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:
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?
Leave your offering and be reconciled (Matthew 5:24).
Understand the gravity of sin:
If you call somebody a good-for-nothing, you’re guilty enough to “go before the court” (v 22).
If you call somebody a fool, you’re guilty enough for Gehenna fire (same verse).
“Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8) and “perform deeds appropriate to repentance” (Acts 26:20).
Imitate Jacob (Genesis 32-33), whose brother was justifiably angry with him.
Notice he lets his victim—who had in return threatened his life—call the shots. Jacob submits himself to Esau.
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.
It appears that middle-class U.S. friendships are not generally expected to bear the weight of deep and diffuse obligations to care. More like pleasure crafts than lift rafts, they are not built to brave the really rough waters—and [dementia is] rough, corrosive, bitter waters indeed. Dementia seems to act as a very powerful solvent on many kinds of social ties. I doubt that many friendships survive its onset.
There is no doubt that it can be difficult to be with someone you know who has forgotten who you are and, indeed, who they are. At times it takes a leap of faith to remember them as the person that you know. But no matter what, your friends remain your friends, don’t they? The ease with which people with dementia can be unfriended raises a dark question: What is it that we actually love in those we claim to love?
Time is not money. It is the gift of God. Live in the moment and assign value to the present. Be with people.
Visit the sick, especially demented folks.
Dementia sucks.
Hospitality among strangers is an important concept to bring to bear on all relationships, especially those with demented folks.
We are all contingent, embodied people.
Hanging out and friendship can change the world.
God remembers us in the present even when we forget who we are.
[edit June 9, 2023] Our windows into the conscious experience of folks suffering from dementia are quite foggy, so we can’t assume to know what they’re thinking and feeling. Even if someone’s dementia is so far progressed that they can’t even talk or move, their inner life might still be quite rich. And even if they’re expressively tetchy, they might be hating that on the inside and unable to express as much. Don’t assume. Always with interact with tenderness and patience and love. One of the main things they need is plenty of good company.
God still speaks today as he spoke to our forefathers in days gone by, before there were either spiritual directors or methods of direction. The spiritual life was then a matter of immediate communication with God.…All they knew was that each moment brought its appointed task, faithfully to be accomplished. This was enough for the spiritually minded of those days. All their attention was focused on the present, minute by minute, like the hand of a clock that marks the minutes of each hour covering the distance along which it has to travel. Constantly prompted by divine impulsion, they found themselves imperceptibly turns toward the next task that God had ready for them at each hour of the day.
— Jean-Pierre de Caussade, as quoted by John Swinton in Dementia (256)
This excerpt floored me because it sounds just like how Carla does things. And it strikes me as right. It’s how I want to walk through life.
One of the things that can serve as a guideline to discerning God’s leading: Do I feel hurried? It’s probably not God’s way. Do I feel obsessed with something about the world, like finding an Airbnb to stay in for on our way trip to Florida or finding good, vegan walking shoes again? It’s probably not God’s way. I might have to do that thing, but I don’t have to do it in that way. It’s not being in the present.
Swinton has rearranged how I approach time: It’s a gift that I have received, all my time. Freely I have received, freely I shall give, waste, live my time with others.