Grace: The lazy man's approach to life.

I'm always doing something, thinking up schemes, remembering to do something while I'm in the middle of watching TV.  That gives some people the impression that I am a very hard worker.  But I'm really not.  I'm fairly lazy.  Most of the work I do is all about finding easier ways of doing something.

That's why I like grace over law.  Grace is easy and simple.  Law is exhausting.

Now some might like to say that forgiving and accepting others is incredibly hard compared with living life according to a certain structure.  Others might say grace is fine, but "you can compromise your beliefs or life just falls apart."  I disagree on both counts.  Grace is easy... it's just not comfortable when your foundational ethic is on law.

Here's what I mean:

A life with a foundation of law means you have to vet everyone and everything that comes into your life (vet means "make a careful and critical examination") to make sure that you stay on the straight and narrow, and that everyone else believes you do to.  That takes an incredible amount of effort.  If you make a mistake in the vetting process you run the risk of "appearing" sinful, so you have to make sure (and you actually never will be).  That requires you to hold everyone and everything at arm's length for a very long time.  Friendships never solidify, knowledge is stilted and walls begin to form around the society that happens to pass muster.

On the other end of the scale is a life based on grace.  You can accept everyone rather than except everyone.  New experiences can be judged for their value, not because they "might" be acceptable.  You lack walls that keep you from reaching out, or for others to reach in.  The only rules that apply are those you set for yourself.  You are answerable only to you, God and people God sends to you for accountability (and you'll be able to recognize them because you don't have to run them through the law filter.)

I'll give you an example.  Years ago, shortly before my conversion, I got into the marijuana clique.  I started consuming marijuana in various forms, but mostly in social settings.  But I didn't participate because I was coerced into it.  I wasn't trying to fit in nor was I trying to be a rebel.  I was curious.  I enjoyed the society of my friends and we did silly things under the influence.  One day, though, I went out to the beach, alone, just to think and lit up.  The same thing happened that always happened:  I started dry coughing and feeling light headed.  About 2 minutes in I started to think, "This is really stupid.  Why am I doing this?"

The next day I was with a very good friend that I respected and that knew I used the drug and I recounted my experience on the beach.  She breathed a sigh of relief and said "I've really wanted you to quit for some time."

She never told me that before.  Never said a word.  She was walking on a foundation of grace with me.  I thought about my beach experience and what my good friend had just said to me.  I decided at that moment that the drug was just not what best for me.  And I got rid of my stash.

Think about what exists today in the illicit drug society.  We have laws up the wazoo.  We have a legal multibillion dollar industry that works to get people off drugs, an illegal multibillion dollar industry to get people hooked on them; a multibillion dollar entertainment industry that both glorifies and demonizes the practice and a multibillion dollar government infrastructure to deal with it all.  Our society polarized on either side of the issue.  Drug users don't feel welcome in polite society, much less the church, and polite society wants the users put away in prisons and medical facilities so we don't have to look at them.

It's all so complicated and takes so much effort.

But I had a friend that decided to deal with me in grace and transparency.  She didn't shut me out of her life because of my practices.  She didn't look at me as a sinner.  She just looked at me as a friend.  And that influence was enough to nudge me away from a potentially darker lifestyle.

It was so simple.  Imagine how uncomfortable it was for my friend to not complicate the process for both of us.  But it wasn't hard.  It was simple.
Now I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of comments from this about my stand on drugs so let's make this very clear.  I'm not talking about drugs, dammit.  I'm talking about living in grace and how it simplifies your life and the lives of others.  The grace lifestyle transcends topics.

I have people whose opinions I value that are diametrically opposed to my political, moral, economic, sexual environmental, religious, literary, musical and artistic positions.  That we disagree is not a reason to avoid relationship.  It is the reason to pursue it.

The Bible puts it in many different ways.  "Iron sharpens iron," is the most common.  Finding people with hard positions that oppose our own is the best way of finding if our positions are correct.  Grace allows me to hear what other say and consider it.  Some believe, however, that opening yourself up to those contrary positions can cause you to stumble.

But the Bible also records the promise from God, over and over, that He will write His laws and words in our hearts... not the other way around... and his laws are always based on grace, not judgement or separation.  I have found that to be the reality in my life, which is good because I'm so very lazy.

How to really "Put Christ Back in Christmas"

"Really!?  You go away for months, not writing a single word here and you come back with that crap?  WTH?"

Yeah, I know it's a really trite statement for a headline, and every time I hear it I throw up a little in my mouth. But I was hoping it would piss you off just enough to read the rest.  Really want you in an agitated frame of mind for this.

I was out grocery shopping and finishing up at the checkout at one store.  As the bagger finished up he gave me a big grin and said "Happy Holidays!"

The human brain is amazing in how fast it can process thought, because this whole post came to me in the split second before I responded to his exclamation, which I will be my conclusion.

Every year around this time we enter into the great campaign to "put Christ back into Christmas" by making a distinct effort to say "Merry Christmas" to all, especially when others use the less specific "Happy Holidays."  We have conversations about it.  We hear sermons on it.  We even read blog posts on it.  It is a polarizing moment every Christmas season pitting dedicated and even nominal Christians on one side and non-believers on the other.  Well, that's not quite right. On the other side is a small contingent of angry anti-religionists.  In between is the larger component of people who aren't sure what the problem is.  Those are the people this post is about.

In the Christian world, we have this thing called "The Great Commission."  In Matthew 28:19, Jesus tells his disciples to go into all the world spread the word.  The various translations say it differently, from teach to preach to "make disciples.  But the literal translation is "be a model of."  It's not about what you say, or yell or tell, it's about how you live.  So in the context of this post, I'm saying the best way to put Christ back in Christmas is to be like Christ.

So let's go back to the checkout at the store where the bagger wished me a happy holiday.  He wasn't making a theological statement.  I have no idea if he is or isn't a believer.  He may have very well been following a corporate policy.  But his attitude in delivering the non-committal benediction was heartfelt and enthusiastic.  All the above flashed through my mind at that moment and I put aside any sectarian discussion, looked him square in the eye, gave him my biggest smile and said "Thank you! Same to you and yours."

At that moment, we had reached an accord.  We wished each other well, warming in the glow of the beginning of a wondrous season and opening the possibilities of an incarnation of truth for both of us.  I had accepted what he offered without judgement or offense, just as Jesus had accepted the world without condition.  For a brief, shining moment, I felt joy and refused to let a theological position rob me and my new friend of that joy.

So in this season, put Christ back into Christmas by making a special effort to avoid judgement and confrontation for the sake of confrontation.  Be Christ for all this Christmas.

Digging deeper into our religious roots

I've received a lot of personal response to my last post on whether the US is a Christian Nation (it's not), most of it positive, and even the negative has been civil, which I appreciate.  Most of those that disagree go back further in the nation's history to the Puritan immigrants who landed in New England.  My understanding of the nature of the Puritan settlements doesn't change my opinion.  I can agree that the Puritans were a religious people, but not necessarily Christian in nature.
We've all heard that the Puritans fled England because "religious persecution" but that persecution was instigated by the Puritans' persecution of anyone who wasn't of their mindset.  Yes, the Puritans were fundamentalists who had decided that everyone but them was destined for Hell.  Even today that ends to piss people off.  
Of course, it is also not true that the Puritans fled England.  It was more like they were invited to leave.  there was a great deal of rejoicing in English government when they left because they no long had to spend resources protecting them from the angry mobs that wanted to do them in.  The Puritans just wore out any goodwill that might have existed for them in their home country.  So they left... for Holland.
Yep, the Puritans actually took up residence in the land of wooden shoes and windmills for a decade where they continued to push their legalistic beliefs on the Dutch.  Their new countrymen didn't really complain much (the Dutch are a quiet bunch) because they were an extremely tolerant society.  And that really ticked off the Puritans.  After 11 years, they decided that the influence of tolerance was infecting their children.  They needed to go elsewhere, and quick.  But they couldn't go back the England... especially because England didn't want them.  
So with the help of both Dutch and English government officials, the Mayflower became made available for the Dutch Puritans and those that had remained in England to take them to the New World.
What is really strange about this is that one of the leaders of this group, Roger Williams, preached against what he called  the "enforced unformity of religion" in the Church of England, and when they established themselves in the American colonies, they did exactly the same thing.  
When I look at our society today, I can see that tradition in spades.  Everyone is absolutely sure that there way is the right way.  We have entire broadcast networks dedicated to one view of the world over another.  If you want to say that America is a religious nation, then I can completely agree with you.  It's hard to find someone who isn't religious about something, even if it's being religious against religion.  That is what is both very right and very wrong about America.
But if you want this nation to be considered Christian, then you are going to have to abandon a strong focus on whether something is a sin or if something is sinful.  For this nation to become Christian we are going to have to agree that Jesus Christ died to eliminate sin past, present and future.  It's not about who is wrong or right.  It's about who God loves.  And He loves us all, no matter what.  He paid too high a price to have that fact adulterated.

If not a Christian nation, then what?

Last week I wrote about the myth of the US as a Christian nation based on the religious beliefs of the founding fathers. Since I debunked that idea I've been considering what the founders actually gave us, and I have good news, bad news and, depending on your position, really bad news.

The good news is that what they gave us is a tradition of intolerance for intolerance. Say what you want about the Enlightenment, it opened up a lot of doors for discussion. you could believe practically anything you want and talk about it openly. And they did. Without TV and movies, entertainment often consisted of attending lectures on unpopular subjects. Easy access to printing technology (the internet of the 17th to early 20th centuries) made it possible for the most fringe elements of society to get their opinion out. Everyone had an opportunity to freely state what was on their mind.

The bad news is that, while they fully embraced freedom of speech, they didn't much care for the idea of freedom of responsibility for what you say. If you said something unpopular and got a lot of flack for it...even the occasional punch in the nose to the extreme response of a challenge to a duel, well that's what you get. The freedom to be angry at someone for what they said was as acceptable as the freedom to say it.

Today, we don't much like the idea of having to take any kind of flack for what we say. Conservatives were appalled when Democrat congressmen booed George Bush during a state of the union address (which included Nancy Pelosi), and liberals got all huffy (including Nancy Pelosi) when a lone congressman catcalled Barack Obama. But rude reactions to a president are well in keeping with the tradition of our founders. We like to call for a "return to civility" but there never was any when it came to opinion in this country. The only thing that is different now is we are calling for punishment for anyone who disagrees with us.

When I stated last week that the founders of this country were, by and large, not Christian, I did not mean to imply that we religious people in this country are not following their example. One of the primary products of the Age of Enlightenment was the complete abandonment of the doctrine of grace that came out of the Reformation.

"Enlightened" people of the 17th and 18th centuries were all about personal accomplishment and achieving good works. They were not into forgiveness. Washington, Jefferson and Adams took grudges to the grave and it gnawed on them to their deathbed. Alexander Hamilton died in a duel because he could not forgive Aaron Burr.

That's the really bad news is that most Christians in the US, be they liberal or conservative, still follow that example. We talk about grace as a good thing, but don't cross us, especially politically. And for heavens sake, make sure you toe the line in conversation in church. There is no intolerance for intolerance and there is no grace for the "sinner" in our midst.

And that's something we all need to work on

Sin, pride and what really matters.

As I said, I've been reading and studying the Book of Job. Last week I came across this passage in chapter 35.

6 If you sin, how does that affect (God)?
If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
or what does he receive from your hand?
8 Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself,
and your righteousness only the sons of men.

That's kind of weird, don't you think? So many Christians are concerned over offending God with their personal and national actions, yet in this series of sentences it states that God is not really concerned about out sins. Or our righteousness

Pride is the core of all sin. I'm not alone in that observation. When you think you know better than your creator, you have an issue with pride. Most people do the wrong thing when they believe they are too smart to get caught or because they really don;t believe that what they are going to do is wrong, even when everyone else says it is. But even if you are doing the right thing, you can still be dealing with pride.

In the church, there is a real pride issue in the belief that it is possible to thwart the plan of God in the world through our actions. Many in the church justify that position by calling certain actions as "compromising the Gospel." In other words, you do something that goes counter to the culture of your church (e.g. going to see a particular movie or reading a certain book) and you will be told you are free to do that, but if others see you do it, you could cause them to stumble and "compromise the gospel."

Number one, that is a very weird definition of "gospel." Gospel means "good news" and that news is that Jesus Christ died for everyone's sin since the beginning of time, for now and into the future. It means that there is nothing we can do to make us any closer or send us farther away from God. Everything we have done wrong has been taken care of.

Second, if that is true, there is nothing we can do to make God love us even more.

What we do affects only us and those we connect with. That makes all our actions very personal in nature.