Monday, April 1, 2019
646 - Do the Right Thing
Spirituality Column #646
April 2, 2019
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Do the Right Thing
By Bob Walters
“Humans find it easier
to accept punishment than grace; punishment is closer to our experience and is
familiar to us while grace is unfamiliar.” – Cyril of Alexandria, 5th
Century bishop and church father (modern paraphrase by Dr. George Bebawi)
Any
relationship built on the things we do wrong is shaky indeed.
I’m
thinking here not solely of the cop who writes you a speeding ticket, the boss
who fires you for cause, the coach who cuts you from the team, the loved one
who gives up on you, the betrayal by (or of) a friend, the neighbor with whom
there are disputes, and on and on. Contention – so abundant – is not a model
relationship builder.
We do, in this life, find much to
criticize in others and much to feel guilty about in ourselves. We judge, we are judged, and we’re used to
it. Our reflexive inclinations are
primal “fight or flight,” meaning we disparage others in disgust or duck in
self-defense.
When our
experience with another person is all about failings, shortcomings, criticism, anger,
and guilt, our default position is rarely to sit down and share a meal in
fellowship, peace, harmony, and reparation.
Misery may love company, but relationships of angst and desperation are pure
punishment, and they happen a lot.
Now enter
grace. If we consider it a basic human
endeavor to do better, to improve, to recognize, address, and maybe even fix
our manifold and manifest faults, well, someone – noting our strivings,
struggles, and sincerity – may just love and encourage us in spite of it all,
in grace, to share our hope and offer their kindness. Even at that … stumble in a misstep or lapse
in judgment and we expect punishment.
Now enter
Jesus Christ. He was the philosophically
most opposite character to ever show up in history. Despite more than a millennia of prologue and
prophesy pointing to a saving Messiah from God – who as it turns out, is God –
is greeted by those who should have known best his mission with their very
worst shortcomings. The Jewish leaders
had replaced God with their legalisms, and could not see the gracious saving
divine king standing before them. Jesus
came to do the right thing.
After His
death and resurrection, and as his stories were told, the church was formed, the
Gospels were written, and believers came to understand all that Jesus offered
humanity: grace, forgiveness, Godly relationship, spiritual wealth, heavenly
adoption, and eternal life. Yet for centuries even up to this modern day, our
human experience in the world is of duck-and-cover defensiveness. As Cyril noted 1,500 years ago and in many
Christian circles still, Christianity is made small by its believers trying to
avoid punishment rather than grasping and modeling Godly grace.
And it’s no
wonder. The world in all history reliably presents the bad in great heaping
helpings: note today’s media planting outrage, politics promoting guilt,
theology threatening Hell, academics sowing doubt, and culture that controls
with fear.
In God’s world – in His eternal,
righteous, loving and good kingdom – punishment is not the norm. Instead, the grace of Jesus is a wonderful
and refreshing shock of love and hope, something so difficult for us to embrace
yet so total in its salvation.
As the line in the movie “Pretty
Woman” says, “It’s easier to believe the bad stuff.” Yes I suppose it is; but punishment will not
save us. Only grace can do that.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) cites John 1:17: “Grace and truth came
through Jesus.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment