God Has Our Number in Holy Week (eCrozier #294)

On March 25, 2016, in forgiveness, grace, Resurrection, by bishopbenhase

I’ve always been fascinated by numbers. With today’s technology we can look back almost 14 billion years into the universe’s history and see the cosmic explosion of God’s creative Big Bang. It’s mind-boggling to think that anyone can even conceive of a number like 14 billion. Cosmic numbers are on my mind this Holy Week. But more mundane numbers are also crowding my brain. 68 teams started in the NCAA basketball tournament. After today there will only be 8.

When I was a teenager we sang along with Three Dog Night: One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do; two can be as bad as one: It’s the loneliest number since the number one. When my father caught me in some transgression as a child, which was quite often (I was not the most obedient of children), he used to say to me: I got your number, buddy! It was his way of saying I wasn’t fooling anybody but myself.

I have another number for you: umpteen. I didn’t know this, but it’s a real word according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It’s a blend of umpty (such and such) and -teen (as in thirteen). It’s first known use was in 1918, but I first heard it used when my father would say to me: “I told you umpteen times to _______.” Since I didn’t know how much umpteen was, it became a word of grace indicating my father wasn’t really keeping a precise score of what I had “left undone.” If he’d said: “I told you 237 times to _______” then that would’ve meant he was meticulously keeping an exact score of all my sins. As it was, umpteen left room for grace to take root. My father still “had my number,” but it was an inexact, graceful number: umpteen.

The events of Holy Week starkly remind us that God has “our number.” From Judas’s despicable betrayal of Jesus to Peter’s broken-hearted denial that he even knew Jesus; from Pilate’s effort to wash his hands of the whole affair to the religious leader’s blood-thirsty tenacity to see Jesus dead; from the disciples running away like rats from a sinking ship, to the faithful women who steadfastly refused to abandon Jesus as he was taken from the cross and buried: God indeed has our number.

If we numbered every human virtue and vice, my hunch is we’d find each one of them on display in the biblical characters of Holy Week. You see, the Bible not only reveals to us the truth about God, it also reveals to us the truth about ourselves. And that truth about humanity is completely unmasked and laid bare in the story of Holy Week. God has our number, all 7,411,382,569 of us.

But thanks be to God, God isn’t keeping score. In raising Jesus from the dead, God ended score keeping forever. That, however, doesn’t stop some from the seemingly pathological need to keep score, a way for us to be “one up” and pass judgment on others. But when God raised Jesus from the dead, God eliminated the need for scorekeeping or for even settling scores. God reduced the number down to one question for us: God either raised Jesus from the dead or God didn’t. Either God is in the business of bringing new life to humanity or God isn’t. Only one of those can be true.

+Scott

 
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Forgiving Others (eCrozier #254)

On March 13, 2015, in forgiveness, by bishopbenhase

Forgiving others is one of the hardest things we’re commanded to do by Jesus. The hurt can be so deep. And since we can’t undo what’s been done (although many hold on to a fantasy that the past must change), where does all the pain and anger of the sin go? Often it gets projected on to the people around us. Or it gets directed inwardly into self-destructive behaviors and, sometimes, into self-medication.

Yet, this isn’t a minor teaching by Jesus that can have many interpretations. Jesus is clear: we must forgive, if we expect God to forgive us. He states this plainly in the prayer he taught us to pray: “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who sins against us. (Luke 11:4)” So, we must learn to forgive. Minor transgressions against us are easy to forgive, but when we’ve been deeply wounded by another, it’s hard to forgive. And then when we hear the command of Jesus to forgive and we can’t yet forgive, we can experience guilt over this inability. If that happens, things become compounded: we haven’t forgiven the other person and we’re also now paralyzed by guilt that we haven’t forgiven. This is where real, deep despair occurs.

Taking all the above into account, let’s look at what steps we can take to forgive:

1) Ease the pressure on ourselves. Forgiving others is a process of our spiritual growth. We aren’t born “forgivers.” We learn to forgive as we see it modeled in our homes, communities, and churches. We need patience with ourselves when it comes to forgiving so we can develop the spiritual maturity and capacity to forgive. Once we have learned to do so, it becomes more a part of spiritual practice in life.

2) Don’t get hooked into the emotional state of the sin against us. We must find a place to stand outside the sin (St Igantius called this “detachment”). When we’re emotionally entangled we can’t move towards forgiveness. Rather, we become fused to the hurt of the sin and we lose our identity as one who is washed in the forgiving waters of baptism.

3) See forgiveness as a gift from God. If we don’t ask God for the gift to forgive another, then we can’t receive it. Some folks don’t ask God for the gift to forgive because they’ve so defined themselves by the hurt of the sin against them that they wouldn’t know what to do if the hurt weren’t there anymore. It’s like the Hatfields and McCoys. They couldn’t stop the feud because, if they did, they’d lose their identity as the victim of another’s sin.

4) Forgiveness is about us and not about the other sinner being repentant or not. We should not connect the other’s repentance to our work of forgiveness. Yes, we pray for the amendment of life for the one who has done us wrong, but it’s a spiritually dangerous thing to wait for the other person to repent before we’ll forgive. Honestly, that may never happen. When we hold that in ourselves the event continues to define us. By not linking our forgiveness to other person’s repentance, we remove the capacity they have to keep us fused with the sin. Forgiveness is always about our spiritual practice and not about the actions or inactions of the other.

+Scott

 
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Have Yourself A Merry Non-Semi-Pelagian Christmas (eCrozier #244)

On December 19, 2014, in christmas, culture, forgiveness, grace, salvation, by bishopbenhase

Research released this fall illuminated something I’ve had a hunch about for some time: Many Christians, even those who claim they hold orthodox belief, actually have theological convictions that aren’t congruent with the Church’s traditional teaching. In some ways, this shouldn’t be surprising. We all have a tendency to believe that what we believe is right because, well, we’re the ones who believe it. So then what we believe must be orthodox. Of course, that’s a non sequitur. But sin in our lives leads us to one non sequitur after another, does it not?

This particular research showed divergence from orthodox teaching in a number of areas, but the one that showed the largest gap between the Church’s teaching and research participants’ belief concerned the work of God’s redemptive grace. In the research, two-thirds of the participants said that we’re reconciled with God by our own initiative and then God responds to our initiative with grace. So, we first seek God out and only then does God’s mercy and forgiveness become operative in our lives. This has its own internal logic based on Enlightenment constructs of individualism, fairness, and reciprocity (the old quid pro quo, as it were). It makes sense to us. It sounds like it should be the way God works. It has a certain truthiness to it, as Stephen Colbert might say. As Americans who are steeped in deep internal codes of personal responsibility, we like the idea that we have a co-starring role to play in our own drama of redemption. The problem is: That’s NEVER been the orthodox teaching of the Church.

And that brings us to the 5th Century Englishman, Pelagius. Yes, he was a Brit so we Anglicans have to claim him. He’s in our spiritual family tree. He’s like that crazy great uncle we have that no one in the family wants to acknowledge, but own him we must. Pelagius contended that humans first choose God by their own personal gumption. Our sin, original or otherwise, did not, according to Pelagius, impair our ability to choose wisely by choosing God. In other words, we must choose to appropriate the benefits of God’s grace through the power of our own will. This came to be known as Pelagianism. Two Church Councils, first in 418 A.D. at Carthage and then in Ephesus in 431 A.D., rightly rejected Pelagianism. A century later a spinoff of Pelagianism, known rather non-creatively as Semi-Pelagianism, became popular. This sought to affirm the orthodox teaching about humanity’s original sin, while at the same time still insisting that we must take the initiative for God’s grace to be operative. In 529, the Council of Orange said “nice try Semi-Pelagianists,” and rejected their views.

As I listen to Christians in America, it seems to me that the vast majority of us are de facto Semi-Pelagianists. God’s grace makes us uneasy. Grace doesn’t feel right or fair. It’s like we’re getting something we don’t deserve or didn’t have to work for at all; that we didn’t get it the old fashioned way by earning it. It’s as if someone gave us something exceptionally amazing at Christmas, something it turns out that we really loved and needed, and it’s not that we just forgot to get him anything in return, we actually chose not to get him anything at all. EXACTLY. And, for me, that’s what puts the “merry” in Christmas.

+Scott

 
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Drinking Poison Expecting the Other Person to Die (eCrozier #187)

On August 30, 2013, in forgiveness, by bishopbenhase

The New Yorker cartoon below is just too funny, but it also strikes me as unrealistic. I don’t think it’s unrealistic that someone would actually keep a scrapbook of “pastinjustices and imagined slights.” I don’t know anyone who, in fact, does, but I do know people who live their lives as if they would. They seem to hold on to resentments and grievances for years. I had a man in one of my former parishes who expected a priest to bring the Sacrament to him in his home weekly. He had not attended our Sunday Eucharist in over 20 years, because a “hornet” (his chosen term for a particular woman) had given him a “stinging” look one Sunday in the 1970s.

So, for me it’s quite plausible that such scrapbooking would take place. But what seems unrealistic to me is that a person like that would have someone to talk to on the phone. Anyone holding on to such grievances would have a hard time retaining any meaningful relationships. As the old saying goes, it’s like drinking poison, expecting the other person to die.

A team of researchers at San Diego State University recently collated the use of the words “I” and “me” in hundreds of thousands of fiction and nonfiction American books between the years 1960 and 2008. They found that the use of these two words increased 42% during that time while the use of the words “we” and “us” declined by 10%. These changes in word usage parallel the rising level of individualism in American culture.

Our growing individualism as a culture has led to our greater isolation and a diminished ability to experience empathy for the sins of others. Rather than seeing the capacity for other’s sins, shortcomings, and faults in ourselves, we can tend to absolve ourselves of such things all the while retaining judgment on others. Late into the night we can keep a precise score of how we’ve been wronged by others and yet conveniently never keeping score of how we have wronged others. Psy­chologists call this “splitting.”

This week we mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. To me, the most remarkable quality of Dr. King’s speech then (and of his entire ministry) was his persistent effort not to hold onto poisonous resentments. If anyone would’ve been justified in doing so, it was Dr. King. But he steadfastly didn’t. He believed the Gospel of Jesus. We have to forgive the sins against us if we’re ever to live into the very nature of God defined by the cross of His Son Jesus. When we truly do so, we not only experience freedom for ourselves, we create an environment for others to be liberated as well.

+Scott

 
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Ann Tyler’s “Saint Maybe” and getting clear on Jesus’ Gospel (eCrozier #112)

On November 11, 2011, in culture, discipleship, forgiveness, gospel, by bishopbenhase

As a Church, we face many external challenges from an increasingly post-Christian culture. Those challenges include, but are not limited to, a growing ignorance of just what the Christian Gospel means. A generation ago, if someone referred to another as a “Prodigal Son,” then many people would’ve known that term referenced Jesus’ parable about a father who forgave his son. I don’t think we’re there anymore as a culture. I believe, however, our internal challenges are even greater.  It’s also more pressing that we address them. Besides, we have very little influence over the larger culture. And we can deal with how the Gospel is taught and lived out in our Church.

Ann Tyler, in her book, Saint Maybe, tells the story of Ian Bedloe, who as a 17 year-old mistakenly tells his older brother that his brother’s wife is having an affair. His brother angrily drives away recklessly in his car. Soon after, Ian learns that his brother has died in a car wreck, apparently from being so distraught over the accusation. His brother’s widow is shattered by the loss and a few years later, consumed by the grief, she dies leaving three young children. Ian is racked with guilt over what he seemingly caused. Seeking forgiveness for his sins, he visits a storefront church called the “Church of the Second Chance.” There he learns there’s no such thing as cheap forgiveness. He must do something particular about the lives he has devastated. The church’s pastor counsels him to take responsibility for raising his dead brother’s three children.

Ian does this. The story comes to an end when he’s middle-aged and all three children are grown. As he reflects on how his life turned out, he wonders if he’ll ever experience forgiveness and absolution for what he did. As a young man, he sacrificed his own dreams in order to raise his brother’s children. In an apocalyptic moment, he realizes he hadn’t been doing penance all along. Having the privilege of raising the children into fine adults was a gift he never could’ve expected. As this comes to him, he experiences the forgiveness he has longed for. It was in the actual practice of the Christian faith that Ian discovered the truth of what he was taught at the “Church of the Second Chance.”

Tyler’s book calls into question some of the misguided assumptions many people have about forgiveness, grace, and what it means to live the Christian life. And that continues to be an internal challenge for us as a Church. The Church needs to be abundantly clear about Jesus’ Gospel of forgiveness and grace and then preach and teach it consistently. Jesus’ Gospel demands a response from us not passive assent or thoughtful intent.

Many people in the Church today want to be tended and serviced, not served and led. We don’t lead and serve them truthfully if we somehow convey to them that being a disciple of Jesus can be reduced to church attendance, a few bucks in the offering plate, and just saying we’re sorry when we sin. Discipleship must engage our whole being. It’s who we are, what we do, all the time, even when no one else is looking. Internally in the Church, we must teach people that. Rather than bemoan what our culture has become or seek to use it as an excuse for passive resignation, let’s get clear on what the Gospel demands of us and then let’s respond.

+Scott

 
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Scorekeeping, Forgiveness, & September 11 (eCrozier #103)

On September 11, 2011, in forgiveness, by bishopbenhase

Peter: How often should I forgive? As many as 7 times?
Jesus: Not 7 times, but, I tell you, 77 times

Peter asks a scorekeeping question. He wants to know the exact number of times he is to forgive. Jesus responds by saying that seven isn’t enough. In a sense he’s saying: “Peter, if you need to have an exact number to keep score, then how about 77, because your concern shouldn’t be with how many times you forgive. It should be for your soul and the soul of the other person. That’s why seven times can’t be enough. When you keep score of sins against you, you end up forgetting the purpose of forgiveness.”

The Bible is clear: God’s prime reason for sending Jesus to the cross wasn’t to even the score on sin, but to forgive us sinners. Forgiveness isn’t something we do because we happen to be exceptionally nice people. It’s not something we practice because we’re “soft on sin” or are too week to hold others to account for their sin. Forgiveness is something we practice because it’s God’s commandment. It isn’t just about good relationships with other people. It’s about our salvation.

The world, however, tells us that forgiveness only encourages sinful behavior. But the world’s standard doesn’t guide us. Besides, do we want God to relate to us by the world’s standard? Do we really want God keeping score of our sins, totaling them up, and then lowering the boom on us? I don’t want God keeping score of my sins, because I know the score: It’s God, 1 billion, Scott, zero. Las Vegas wouldn’t even publish the odds of God and me squaring off. If we’re honest with ourselves we have to admit that in our less faithful moments what we really want is for God to treat us according to the divine standard of forgiveness while we treat everyone else by the world’s standard.

As we approach the 10th Anniversary of the terrorist attack on our nation, we still grieve for those who were killed that day and for their families. And we wouldn’t be human if didn’t continue to be angry about that awful day. But to hold on to our anger and not forgive is not the way of Jesus. Yes, it was right to seek justice for the criminal planners and perpetrators, but what we’ve done is taken out our anger against an entire people.

Some whose loved ones were killed that day formed the group Peaceful Tomorrows. They’ve worked to break the cycle of violence caused by war and terrorism. They’ve also done this for the health of their souls for they know that hearts stained with resentment grow weak and bitter and confine us to self-made prisons of sin scorekeeping. Or, as Nelson Mandela said: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”

Forgiveness, as Jesus tells us, is about our spiritual health and the spiritual health of our communities. But Jesus tells us it is also about much more. It is about the very nature of God. Thus, forgiveness is about our salvation. For without our capacity to forgive, there is no salvation for us.

+Scott

 

 
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Ecrozier #86

On April 2, 2011, in forgiveness, love, by bishopbenhase

Good Friday

Many times I’ve stood vigil with others outside prisons before executions. We aren’t there excusing the guilty or claiming the one being executed is a virtuous human being. We’re there to witness to the sacredness of life and to God’s providence over all life. There are others gathered who come to celebrate the death of one they despise. Their logic justifies an evil for an evil. But even if their logic didn’t justify it, I’m afraid there’s a tragic lust for such evil hiding in all of us. On this Good Friday, we remember another crowd at another time and place; a crowd motivated by the same evil. In that place, at that time, the cry was “crucify him!” But when he died, the whole earth shook. In that death, an amazing thing occurred. Death itself died and new life erupted. And God said, “Amen.” Jesus offered up new life in the midst of the evil of the cross.

When faced with the evil that emanates from a murderer, or from a neighbor, or even from the nearest dictator, we can choose to respond with those who desire to return evil for evil. Or we can choose to respond with Jesus who, acknowledging the evil around him, responded with such a demonstration of God’s merciful love that not even the grave could contain him. This is what Good Friday is for me. God’s love for us is more powerful than our own collective ability to destroy what God has created. The savage execution of Jesus on the cross holds up for us the fact that evil is very much a part of our human existence. But it also holds a more important truth, namely, that God is not stymied by evil nor stumped by sin: God defeats it by the cross of Jesus.

The reality of evil and the more vital truth of God’s love are both present in the cross. And we who face both realities of the cross must learn to respond to the savagery of evil with the mercy of God’s love. We who receive the mercy of Jesus by his cross and precious blood have no other choice but to practice such merciful love with others. This isn’t some minor point of the Christian faith. This is at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus tells us that if we wish to receive mercy, then we must practice mercy. If we wish to receive God’s forgiveness, then we must forgive one another.

In our worse moments, we’re tempted to give way to the violent impulses that reside in us. But we must remember that when we reach down in desperation to the evil within us, then we have chosen to dwell with the very evil we wish to overcome. God, in Jesus on the cross, calls us to reach, not down in desperation, but up in hope to God who loves us so much that he chose to dwell with us and die for us. Jesus loves us that much. God allowed people like you and me to spit upon him and mock him. He chose to allow his life to be savagely ended, so death itself could die, and eternal life could come forth.

Each week in the Eucharist as we come forward we’re counting on God’s forgiveness and that God will feed us with his Body and Blood. Last fall, as I was administering the Eucharist one Sunday, a mother and child came to the altar rail. I asked the mother if her toddler received the Sacrament. She said, “Oh yes, if you don’t give it to him, he’ll scream.” That child knew on a deep level the truth of God. Without God graciously forgiving us and feeding us, we have no life within us.

+Scott

 
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eCrozier #81

On March 18, 2011, in discipleship, forgiveness, by bishopbenhase

David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote:

James McNulty had a paper in the Journal of Family Psychology last year suggesting that forgiveness has a down side. It may increase the chances that those who are forgiven will offend again. McNulty studied family diaries and found that newlywed partners were more likely to report misbehavior on days after they were forgiven for something else. It should be added that forgiveness is still a good thing to do. The downside probably doesn’t outweigh the positive effects.

I have enormous respect for David Brooks. I just finished reading his most recent book, The Social Animal, and it was compelling. But I find what he wrote above somewhat humorous and at the same time an indication that Brooks apparently has a pretty paltry understanding of forgiveness, at least as we have it incarnated for us in Jesus. The humorous aspect of this is simply the human condition. If we don’t find human behavior in all its complexities somewhat humorous, then we are not paying attention to ourselves or to the people around us. Of course, an immature reaction to being forgiven may give a person apparent license to misbehave again. Human beings do such silly, immature things (I know, like you, I am one of us).

But I would argue that the person who does so repeatedly does not fully comprehend love or the depths of what forgiveness means when another person forgives us. That is the paltry side of this.  Forgiveness, as it is lived in Christian discipleship, becomes unintelligible if we first weigh its “downside” or “upside” before forgiving. If we stop to calculate its “positive” or “negative” effects, then we miss the whole point of why Jesus makes it plain that forgiveness is at the heart of the Gospel (And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us). We do not forgive because it “works” or because it has a greater “upside” than “downside.” We practice it, quite simply, because it is the way God has given us to share in the very life of God.

And another thing: whether or not the other person is remorseful is equally beside the point. That can be a hope we hold, but it is not a necessary condition for forgiveness. Practicing forgiveness is about us, not the transgressor, and it is about our relationship with God. And it is not an optional notion to discipleship. Yes, other people can hurt us deeply. And yes, that hurt can be so painful it lasts for years. And yet, Jesus takes all the subjectivity out of it when he very clearly commands us to forgive one another.

I’m not making light of the pain we suffer as a result of another person’s sin against us. Sometimes it seems bone-shattering. And I’m certainly not suggesting that forgiveness is easy or quickly accomplished. Often it is a process that takes a very long time. Still, it is central to our identity as disciples of Jesus and to our practice of the Christian faith. As St Paul wrote to the Romans: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God did not take a Gallup poll ahead of time to see if we would be remorseful or thankful if Jesus died for us. God just did it. It’s God’s nature. It’s who God is in Jesus Christ without qualification or condition. And it is who we are commanded to be in Jesus as well.

+Scott

 
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eCrozier #39

On May 28, 2010, in discipleship, forgiveness, by bishopbenhase

This is first in a series of Ecroziers on the practices of the Christian Faith

Forgiveness

Christian virtues are not values we hold. Values are changeable because they represent commitments we hold in relationship to other commitments. For example, we might say we value time with our family more than we value time at work. Values have a price tag on them and we daily weigh the cost of holding one value in relationship to another. Virtues, however, are ways of being we hold to be immutable. Virtues like truthfulness, compassion, and mercy cannot be values we hold. They are ways of being and acting in the world. For example, we cannot value compassion. We either live compassionately or we do not. Christianity is less a set of beliefs we hold as it is a way of being we embody. The Creeds of the Church are not set before us so we can be challenged to believe them. Rather, they are a summary of the faith Christians practice.

In Galatians 5, St. Paul writes: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. St. Paul is listing some of the virtues that disciples of Jesus are to incarnate in their lives. When he writes: there is no law against such things, he acknowledges that these are virtues that cannot be commanded, but ways of being each disciple must cultivate in her/his life. Such cultivation of virtue is a lifelong discipline.

Probably the most challenging of all the Christian virtues is forgiveness. It is also the virtue Jesus addresses most often. He makes it a central part of what we now call The Lord’s Prayer (forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who sins against us. – Luke 11:4). Jesus clearly saw forgiveness as being the cornerstone that enabled all other virtues. Without the capacity to forgive, incarnating other virtues simply could not be possible. Yet, forgiving others is clearly one of the hardest virtues for us to incarnate. The hurt can be so deep. The desire for vengeance can be so powerful. But we should remember. This is not a minor teaching by Jesus or one that can be open to several interpretations. Jesus is clear – we must forgive.

The Church teaches us much about forgiveness. She teaches us that our primary identity is as a child of God. Such an identity cannot be lost in our interaction with others, even if those others sin against us or we sin against them. That is why Jesus calls us to seek reconciliation: So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift (Mt 5:23-24). Jesus knows that our lack of forgiveness prevents us from finding our identity in a God whose very nature is forgiveness. Our call is to embody forgiveness as the central virtue of our life as we practice the Christian faith.

+Scott

 
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