Appalling Strangeness

You can't conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.

-Graham Greene

Several conversations around this 40-Day Journey with Bonhoeffer have centered around a very familiar theme: This whole discipleship business that he is talking about seems like an impossibly high ideal. And, what is further, it seems like he lifted the ideal so high that he himself was not able to live up to it, what with the whole story of his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Doesn't his own biography counter the ideal for which he was striving?

I have to say that the timing of these conversations and questions is rather appropriate. Here we are at Day 18, almost halfway in our 40-Day Lenten Journey. We are getting to know Bonhoeffer a little more, and balancing that with, possibly, a few insights about our own lives and how we live. And what is emerging for several of us is this idea that, try as I might, I won't ever be able to live up to what a follower of Jesus ought to do, or ought to be.

Now, if we take a step back for a moment and just ponder this conundrum, we can notice a few things. 1) For some reason we think that there is a perfect ideal out there, and that it is our business to pile up the entire resources of our human experience and reach it. 2) For some reason the effort we expend "trying to be good and reach the ideal" often makes us blind to the presence of Christ in our lives; only looking to Christ when we need some tips on how to live better to achieve the ideal. 3) Doesn't this cheapen the actual grade, and, our word for the day, appalling strangeness of the mercy of God? Because the fact is, try as we might, that ideal will never be reached, and, just as in the best and healthiest of human relationships, God's abundant love can never be earned. It is given. It is given. It is given. It is grace.

The cost of that grace was of utmost concern for Bonhoeffer. He thought of it as worthy of our best attention; our deepest reflection; and the basis of our convictions out of which our most passionate actions arise.

Question for the day:

In what ways do we cheapen the grace and mercy of God?

"The word of cheap grace has ruined more Christians than any other commandment about works...

For integrity's sake someone has to speak up for those among us who confess that cheap grace has made them give up following Christ, and that ceasing to follow Christ has made them lose the knowledge of costly grace. Because we cannot deny that we no longer stand in tru discipleship to Christ, while being members of a true-believing church with a pure doctrine of grace, but are no longer members of a church which follows Christ, we therefore have to try to understand grace and discipleship again in correct relationship to each other."

-from his book Discipleship

Scripture to consider:

What then are we to say? Should we continue to sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

-Romans 6:1-4

Prayer for the day:

Lord Jesus Christ, I would follow you, no matter what the cost; lead me in the way of true discipleship.

Amen

he is close

... So many nights the angel of my house

has fed such urgent comfort through a dream,

whispered, "your lord is coming, he is close"

that I have drowsed half-faithful for a time

bathed in pure tones of promise and remorse:

"tomorrow I shall wake to welcome him."

-excerpt from Geoffrey Hill, Lachrimae Amantis

The treasure of these last handful of days here in Chicago has been the fact that the sun has been out. After weeks of tentative light and persistent cold, the sun has begun to carve an arc in the sky just a little higher, just a little warmer, and just a little brighter. It's a wonderful thing to experience even a little bit of warmth on your back after so long. Walking back from campus yesterday, I even saw a crocus peeking out from behind the base of a shrub. Premature and ill-fated though it was, it was still a crocus. Spring, dare I say, is close.

That said, such bright days set the evening darkness into starker relief. It's not at all a sense that the nights are darker. It's rather a sense that life is beginning to once again rev up the fullness of its contrasts. Rather than the continuous dull grayscale of Chicago winter, my body and soul must once again be ready to take in both glorious brightness and vast darkness, all within 24 hours.

How do we balance and receive such stunning contrasts? Because if we step back even just a little, that's what we're surrounded by. Contrasts. In the Geoffrey Hill's poem above, that's part of what he's talking about in the mingling of "promise and remorse." Sometimes the best we can do is "drowse half-faithful" in anticipation of what Christ, in his coming, will renew and redeem. The contrasts of life can be all too overwhelming. That's why the whisper of the angel, "your lord is coming, he is close..." can penetrate so deeply into our souls: we want so badly for the contrasts and tensions to be set aright, for resolution to come. Because, so often in the evening hours, in moments when we are really honest about our lives, our world, and our selves, we long for that peace most of all.

Peace, deep peace, is not merely a social ideal to pursue. It's the deepest reality of all creation, as God breathed it into life. We draw our understanding of peace from incredibly deep wells: Shalom, that wonderful Hebraic word, has a depth of meaning, ranging from inner peace and wholeness for the individual, all the way to the healing of the brokenness of the entire world--the cosmos.

What a fitting passage from Bonhoeffer, then:

"Jesus' followers are called to peace. When Jesus called them they found their peace. Jesus is their peace. Now they are not only to have peace, but they are to make peace. To do this they renounce violence and strife. Those things never help the cause of Christ. Christ's kingdom is a realm of peace, and those in Christ's community greet each other with a greeting of peace."

- from his book, Discipleship

Scripture to consider:

Which of you desires life,

and covets many days to enjoy good?

Keep your tongue from evil,

and your lips from speaking deceit.

Depart from evil, and do good;

seek peace, and pursue it.

Psalm 34:12-14

Prayer for the day:

God of peace, you give me peace, now teach me to be a peacemaker.

Amen

Hiatus and Healing

Greetings after a few days of hiatus. This weekend, into Monday, marked the one-year anniversary of a momentous tragedy at our church, so it was fitting to just let the pen, or the keys rather, rest.

Earlier in the blog I mentioned having a good companions along the way. Well, one huge example of companionship for me has been the representatives of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance who are trauma specialists who have been walking with our staff and our congregation for this whole year. They have really modeled "Christ with us" in ways that have been full of comfort, healing, and peace. They have helped us all live into the motto that is the banner of their organization: "Out of Chaos, Hope." I am, we are, so thankful their presence.

Proximity is an ongoing theme in Lent: getting close to things that, in ordinary time, we wouldn't necessarily be getting close to. Borrowing from a phrase that some of us were working through this weekend, if we picture our lives and our selves in terms of houses with rooms, in Lent, the question becomes "What rooms haven't we gone into lately?" Getting in there, "cleaning house," opening the doors to those dark closets; it gets us in touch with what we are, what we are not, and how amazing it is that Christ walks with us into every space of our lives.

There is simply something about Christ's life that is constantly drawing us into closer proximity with God. What is more, that movement of God closer to us actually loops us back into our own lives and, even further, our world. And as a result, we get to know ourselves and our world in deeper, sometimes uncomfortable, and nearly always more truthful ways. In Lent, it feels like Christ presses in even closer than usual. In this state of proximity, one of Kierkegaard's questions comes to us: Well, are you 'just' an admirer of Jesus? Or are you a follower? Kierkegaard says, "A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him." The proximity of Lent, I think, literally 'presses' the question. "Christ's life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it," says Kierkegaard.

No wonder the heightened awareness of proximity in Lent goes hand-in-hand with a longing both for forgiveness of sins and complete renewal. The "Light of Christ" literally shines into those rooms of our lives and we start to see some things as they are. No matter what we can do or try, re-newing that room can't happen on our own.

Bonhoeffer, in our reading for Day 11, puts it in terms of righteousness:

"Disciples live with not only renouncing their own rights, but even renouncing their own righteousness. They get no credit themselves for what they do and sacrifice.

The only righteousness they can have is in hungering and thirsting for it. They will have neither their own righteousness nor God's righteousness on earth. At all times they look forward to God's future righteousness, but they cannot bring it about by themselves. Those who follow Jesus will be hungry and thirsty along the way. They are filled with longing for forgiveness of all sins and for complete renewal; they long for the renewal of the earth and for God's perfect justice."

Question to ponder:

In what ways do you experience the proximity of Christ in Lent? In what ways does what you hunger and thirst for change as a result of that proximity? What do you do to alleviate that hunger and thirst?

Psalm to consider:

For the word of the Lord is upright,

and all his work is done in faithfulness.

He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

-Psalm 33:4-5

Prayer for today:

Lord, may your righteous kingdom come into all the rooms of my life, and into all the world.

Amen