Snake-handling our own Self-righteousness (eCrozier #209)

On February 21, 2014, in grace, self-righteousness, by bishopbenhase

I feel in my heart, because God opened it up to me, if I stopped taking up serpents I would die and go to hell. It is in the Bible, and we tell people because it’s in the Bible you must believe it. – Jamie Coots, dead at age 41 from a venomous snake bite

He died Saturday night after refusing medical treatment from a rattlesnake’s deadly bite. Jamie Coots was a pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus’ Name in Middlesboro, Kentucky, a town near where I met my wife, Kelly, just a few miles away on the Tennessee side of the Cumberland Pass. It would be easy for anyone of us to condescend about Pastor Coots’ death, rolling our eyes and saying, “what an ignorant fool!” He may have been foolish, but he was true to his faith as he received it. Yet, his death has given license for people to make fun of him and his fellow travelers, and thereby also furthering a misunderstanding of what the Gospel of Jesus is all about.

So, I won’t make fun of him. I attended a snake-handling church once in the summer of 1979, north of Middlesboro in Leslie County Kentucky. Just in case you were wondering, I sat in the back of the church right next to the unlocked door (O me of little faith). It was a powerful experience and the people’s faith there was real. While I disagree profoundly with fellow disciples of Jesus like Pastor Coots, I don’t question their whole-hearted commitment to what they believe, nor their faith in God.

No, I won’t make fun of him, but I’ll certainly question his theological assumptions. As Pastor Coots said: “if I stop taking up serpents, I would die and go to hell.” Think about that statement: That’s just the same works righteousness snake oil the Church has been struggling against for centuries. There’s a clear path from Pastor Coots’ theology to the warped theology of the “prosperity gospel,” which says that if you just follow certain biblical principles and have enough faith, then God will shower you with wealth. Joel Osteen and Pastor Coots are just two sides of the same misguided, theological coin. Both hold that our particular actions can manipulate God’s decision about us in Christ.

The Gospel begins not with what we do, such has handling snakes, following biblical principles, or even trying to be a good person, but what God has done for humanity through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel isn’t primarily about what we believe, but what God in Jesus did on our behalf. Our salvation is an unmerited, free gift from God bought and paid for by Jesus on the Cross. It isn’t a reward given for any particular behavior on our part that tries to influence or force a decision by God.

So, we should be careful when rolling our eyes at the likes of Pastor Coots. Many of us have our own version of snake-handling: Proving to God we’re better than other people, showing God how we’ve achieved success in life, or believing God must share our clearly correct political convictions. While we publicly acknowledge living by God’s grace alone, many of us in the Church live as if our lives are actually in our own hands; that God must give us our desired outcome based on our performance. We’re figuratively snake-handling our own self-righteousness. Pastor Coots just did it literally.

+Scott

 
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New Year’s Resolutions and God’s Medicine for Sinful Saints (eCrozier #202)

On January 3, 2014, in Community, culture, gospel, grace, by bishopbenhase

I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions because I’ve never been able to keep any of those ones I’ve made. All they do is make me feel bad when I fail once again to do what I said I was going to do or what I think I should be doing. This begins a downward spiral that leads me to reach the conclusion that I’m a pretty sorry human being if I can’t even keep one, small resolution. About all these failed resolutions do for me is to prove the Gospel truth that I’m a sinner with inconsistent resolve. Not a news flash. No need for film at 11 p.m. I guess I could resolve never to make another New Year’s resolution, but then that would be a resolution and I’d probably not keep that one either.

Our lack of resolve (I assume you share it to some extent) is just one sign of our sinful human nature. And you and I live in a time where any sin gets amplified by the every present media, social and otherwise, as if human sin were somehow breaking news. Whether it be Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty whose ignorant remarks about women and race have been written about ad nauseam or New Hampshire state Representative David Campbell who recently plowed down a group of ducks that he said didn’t move out of the way fast enough in front of his BMW, our response seems to be to fly into a morally superior outrage and utter something to the effect of “how dare he!”

This isn’t to suggest that we should support either Mr. Robertson’s or Mr. Campbell’s remarks or actions, but it’s to suggest that maybe we should check out the beam in our own eye a bit more often, especially if we’re going to base our outrage on our Christian faith. You see, central to the Christian faith is the Good News of Jesus, and not the good behavior of Christians. The Good News is while we remain sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). But so much of Christianity today is less about that Good News and more about how Christians, especially prominent public ones, should be living blameless lives.

I think this is one of the reasons some people would just as soon stay home on Sundays and not join the Church for worship. Why would anyone want to come to a place of worship where they have no expectation of receiving Good News? They may suspect that if they do come for worship, then they’ll be judged because their lives don’t measure up. This is akin to the cartoon of Charlie Brown preparing to kick the football only to have Lucy yank it away at the last second. Grace is dangled for them like the football in front of Charlie Brown, but as they approach it, it’s swiftly removed by an insistence on moral performance. The Church then becomes less a community where sinners receive mercy and more a community where those gathered can pharisaicly thank God that they’re not like other people who clearly must be worse sinners than they are (see Luke 18:11).

Yes, the Church is, as the old saying goes, both a hospital for sinners and an academy for saints. But sinful saints are made only through the medicine of God’s grace and never through the performance evaluation of one another. In Jesus’ cross, we sinners are given the “balm” in Gilead, not the “bomb” of Gilead. If you’re going to make a New Year’s resolution, resolve to ask for God’s help in being quicker to show mercy, but slower to pronounce judgment on those who don’t measure up to your performance standard.

+Scott

 
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There’s No Creeping Conditionalism in God’s Love (eCrozier #194)

On October 18, 2013, in grace, by bishopbenhase

If you’re wondering what book to read next, then I suggest One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World by Tullian Tchividijan. Tchividijan is, by the way, the grandson of Billy Graham. As much as I’ve admired Billy Graham’s preaching over the years, I’ve always been struck by what I heard as “creeping conditionalism” in his preaching. What I mean by “creeping conditionalism” can be best evidenced by a statement like: “God loves you, but only if….,” as if there were a quid pro quo in the grace of the cross of Jesus. I don’t wish to be unfair to the Reverend Graham, and maybe I misunderstood him, but nonetheless that was his effect on me growing up.

So, I thought that the Christian faith was about being good. It was for nice boys who obeyed the law. It was about clean thoughts and good boys who drank their milk and ate their spinach. Of course, there was more to it than that: Jesus also loved me. That was the official position. But as I actually lived in Christian community, I heard something else: what really mattered was being good. There were strings attached to God’s love. Even though the message started out as “Jesus loves me,” it wound up: “Jesus loves me, but with certain conditions.” It was hard to be sure of those conditions. Just how good did I have to be and how often? 51% of the time? 75% of the time? All the time? Where was the cut-off line?

But the Gospel of Jesus isn’t about being good. It’s actually about our recurring failure to be good. It’s about the sin and brokenness of life. It’s about our repeated inability to be the people God intends for us to be. It’s about how everything about us, even our best intentions, can become an avenue for sin. So, the Church isn’t a community who has come together to be good. Rather, we’re a community called together by God to proclaim God’s grace in the cross of Jesus. In spite of all we are and all we do, God loves us. Now that bears repeating, because many of us need to be deprogrammed. God loves you and me and this world (see John 3:16) no matter what, no strings attached.

Tchividijan is clear that there are no “but only ifs” of God’s love. God’s love is One Way Love. It’s without condition or required response from the one loved in order for that love to be true. He writes about what he calls “performancism” in the Church. He’s quick not to downplay loving one’s neighbor as one’s response to God’s one-way, sacrificial love, but that’s not a pre-condition for God’s love of us. He contends that    

 The good news of God’s grace has been tragically hijacked by an oppressive religious moralism that is all about rules, rules, and more rules; doing more, trying harder, self-help, getting better, and fixing, fixing, fixing–—ourselves, our kids, our spouse, our friends, our enemies, our culture, our world. Christianity is perceived as being a vehicle for good behavior and clean living— and the judgments that result from them—rather than the only recourse for those who have failed over and over and over again.

He’s right. The only recourse is God’s inexhaustible Grace for an exhausted world. Read this book and then read Grace in Practice by the Reverend Paul Zahl.

+Scott

 
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Alex Rodriguez, Narcissus, and the “Law” that Kills (eCrozier #186)

On August 23, 2013, in culture, grace, by bishopbenhase

Narcissus in Greek mythology was the son of a god named Cephissus and a nymph named Liriope. He’ll forever be known as one who, upon gazing at his own reflection in a pool, was so enamored with it that he refused to leave that place and died there. I recall this myth because we live in a time where we’re actively encouraging the creation of one Narcissus after another. Enter Alex Rodriguez from stage left.

I have sympathy for this wounded soul. In another culture, one that didn’t encourage, even demand, his creation, he may have had the opportunity to show his amazing athletic skill without the ceaseless pressure of the larger culture. I’m not saying he isn’t to blame for his actions. Clearly he chose to cheat. I’m merely saying we as a society have a share in creating what’s become the Alex Rodriguez we now see in all his shame.

From the beginning of his professional career, he was put on a pedestal and told he was entitled to everything he could get because of his baseball prowess. When he became a free agent in 2001 (the same year we were told to “go shopping” rather than sacrifice for the common good), teams were falling all over themselves to bid for his services. The Texas Rangers signed him to a $252 million, 10-year contract. Baseball’s free market was telling him he was worth that much. This channels the old Mac Davis song: “Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way. I can’t wait to look in the mirror ‘cos I get better looking each day, to know me is to love me I must be a hell of a man. O Lord it’s hard to be humble, but I’m doing the best that I can.”

While not a psychologist, I would think that someone like Mr. Rodriguez, upon being told his baseball acumen was worth $252 million would find that anxiety-producing. How could he possibly prove every day that he was worth that much? The “law” (in the Pauline sense) crashed down on him. Could he ever be good enough (perfect?) to justify such compensation? The performance enhancing drugs were his solution.

Some have classified Mr. Rodriguez’ story as a “fall from grace.” But that assumes he was ever “in grace.” From what I know of his life, it’s been a relentless pursuit to prove to others he was worthwhile, deserving of adoration, and the best baseball player ever. So, rather than a fall from grace, I see his life as a predictable capitulation to the demands of our cultural “law” (again, in the Pauline sense) where he (and we) will always come up short. The twin drivers in Mr. Rodriguez’ life were the internal fear that he’d never be good enough and the external demand from a voracious public that he prove he was worth his contract. Those two combined to produce a predictable outcome.

How much wealth, celebrity, and status are enough? For those living by the “law” and not grace, there’s never enough. Thus, we see income disparity widening because the wealthy can never seem to have enough and constant campaign dollars being sought because politicians can also never seem to have enough. Alex Rodriguez merely reflects back to us in our own Narcissus pool the world we’ve created for ourselves. The “law” that tells us we will never have/be enough is simply killing us. Only grace can save us.

+Scott

 
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Self-Mercy Shows God’s Mercy (eCrozier #166)

On February 22, 2013, in grace, sin, by bishopbenhase

Henry Ward Beecher, the great 19th Century Protestant preacher was about to deliver a lecture series on preaching at Yale, but was unsure of what to say. Maybe the erupting scandal in his personal life was giving him writer’s (preacher’s?) block? In his hotel room on the morning of the lecture, his life came crashing down. He was confronted, looking in the mirror, with the shame, vanity, and hypocrisy of his life. Frederick Buechner describes the scene this way:

When he stood there looking into the hotel mirror with soap on his face and a razor in his hand, part of what he saw was his own shame and horror, the sight of his own folly, the judgment one can imagine he found even harder to bear than God’s, which was his own judgment on himself, because whereas God is merciful, we are none of us very good at showing mercy on ourselves.

Buechner’s insight is searing. Such awareness of our own self-judgment is necessary for a truthful and faithful relationship with God as revealed in Jesus. My seminary chaplain, the Reverend Churchill Gibson, was full of wit and wisdom. He always preached the same sermon, entitled: “God Loves You!” About halfway through the sermon right before he’d get to the Gospel medicine that cures us, he inevitably offered the following words: “Well, sin being what sin is…” That was his way of getting to an admission of our lives as they truly are.

The Prayer of Manasseh tells us the truth: “I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I know my wickedness only too well” (BCP p. 91). OK, I get it. While I need reminding (daily) of my sin, I also need reminding (hourly) of God’s mercy given in Jesus. My self-judgment, which can be harsher than anything or anyone, can become a real roadblock to my discipleship. It can lead me to become a person who is hard and rigid, unforgiving and merciless to myself. And that, of course, leads me to share that “gift” with others.

I know people who appear to me as merciless. Maybe they’re not that way always, but it is how they show themselves to me. They seem angry all the time. They seem to have contempt for other people’s sins and believe that those bad people just get what they deserve. My hunch is that such merciless people are full of self-contempt. They seem unable to love their neighbors, or to show mercy to them, because they’re unable to love or show mercy to their closest neighbor, themselves. Their merciless judgment on others comes from their own merciless judgment on themselves. They have little compassion for others because they have little compassion for themselves.

The Good News of Jesus begins with the truth that I’m a sinner; that, as the Bible says, I’m “evil in the imagination of my heart.” Or as Buechner writes: When I look in the mirror what I see is at least in part “a chicken, a phony, and a slob.” But the Good News of Jesus is also, to be sure, that I am “loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for.” That’s the whole truth and without it we will never be people of love, compassion, and mercy.

+Scott

 
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