POOR PAUL, POOR ME

St. Paul was never one of my heroes, a saint that I admired and wanted to be like. It’s not that I doubted his sanctity or his devotion or anything like that. He was a great man who was indispensable to the growth of the church. He was our first real theologian even though he got some things wrong and was sometimes too hard headed for his own good and the good of the church.

Rather, I think Paul spent too much time patting himself on the back, even though he deserved all that adulation and more; and he whined too much even though he was treated horribly by foe and friend alike. Given all that, it would seem that Paul was a person one should admire and want to emulate. It would seem, even though for some reason I cannot find myself in that position.

However, I do find myself moaning and groaning for the same reason Paul did. He wanted to be a perfect example to the people he was proselytizing of someone who followed Jesus almost to the letter. But the more he tried, the more he was tempted to be and do otherwise. As he wrote in his letter to the Romans, he was constantly tempted to do that which he knew he should do and not do that which he knew he should. What is worse, all too often he gave in to those temptations. Poor Paul.

Now there is someone to whom I can and do relate! While I may not be tempted in the same way Paul was (what temptations he received he did not detail), nevertheless I often find myself in the same position of wanting to do that which I should not and not doing that which I should. Poor me. Poor all of us, because none of is exempt from being tempted to be selfish, which is what all temptations are about.

Actually, temptations in and of themselves are morally neutral They are just temptations: temptations to utter an unkind word, temptations to refuse to help when one is perfectly able, temptations to eat or drink too much, temptations of every kind and degree. They are morally neutral until we respond to them either by giving in to them or by rejecting them and moving on.

The rejecting and moving on is what is difficult. We all know that, as did Paul, from personal, firsthand experience. We’ve all been there and we’ve all done what Paul did and what Paul did not do. And like Paul, there have been times when we cried out to God to rid us of these temptations because, at least at that moment in our lives, they seemed to be so overwhelming that we were ready to give up and give in.

Yet, as Paul knew and we know, there is no escape. As long as we are alive we have free will. Because of our free will there will always be temptations to go either way: to do or not to do. But temptations are really choices. When we give in to a temptation, we are making a choice, a free will choice. We do not have to be unkind or selfish but we freely choose to do so. Like Paul we can whine because we are tempted and we can try to blame someone or something when we give in. But the truth is, like Paul, in the end, we have no one else to blame but ourselves.

WE HAVE EVERYTHING WE NEED

When we listen to the news, read the newspapers, even look around our neighborhoods, it is sometimes easy to believe that the world is going to hell in a handcart. Wars and uprisings, poverty and natural disasters, sickness and disease, conflict and controversy are everywhere. A peaceable world, a world where people live in harmony with one another seems so far off if not totally unrealistic and unobtainable.

When the world is perceived as such, most of us look for someone, some hero, some Lone Ranger as it were, to come riding in on a white horse to rectify it all. We know, or believe, that we cannot do it, that we are not that savior, that messiah; but surely someone has to be. The Jewish people in the Old Testament were always looking for that savior, whether in a king, a judge or even the real Messiah, to save them for the messes they were in, messes created mostly by their own sinfulness and selfishness. We are no different today.

What they forgot, what we forget, or perhaps what we all would rather discount and even deny is that we have everything we need to make this world a better world, a peaceable world. The list of what is needed is short: two hands, two feet, two eyes (Helen Keller did it with none!), two ears, a brain, a mouth and a heart full of love for God and one another. That’s all!

That’s easy to say, you say. And, of course, it is. But it is also the truth. It takes a special person, you say. And, of course, it does. It takes a real saint, you say. And, of course, it does. But why were the saints saints? As someone once observed: they were saints because they were cheerful when it was difficult to be cheerful, patient when it was difficult to be patient, and because they pushed when they wanted to stand still, and kept silent when they wanted to talk, and were agreeable when they wanted to be disagreeable, That was all. It was quite simple and always will be.

We are those people, those saints, even if we would never, ever consider ourselves as such, whether in pride or humility. But saints were and are ordinary people: people with two hands and feet and ears and eyes, people who were willing to get involved in the world in which they lived – who get involved in this world. They do not stand idly by and wait for some savoir to do the work needed to be done.

So how do we get involved, we saints of God? Thomas Merton put it rather succinctly: “Before you do a darned thing just BE what you are, a Christian; then no one will have to tell you what to do. You’ll know.” We know Merton was correct. We know in our hearts what to do and what not to do. It is written there by the God who created us and who lives in us and who acts through us. We know.

We have everything we need, individually and collectively, to make this world of ours a better world, a peaceable world, where there is liberty and justice for all, ALL. Not some, not the privileged few, not the powerful: ALL. What we seemingly do not have is the will to do what needs to be done because that will involve personal sacrifice. That is sad.

GENERALIZATIONS ARE JUST THAT

"Our youths love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority – they show disrespect for their elders, and love to chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up food, and tyrannize teachers.” That was Socrates’ opinion over 2500 years ago. As the wise Ecclesiastes opined even before Socrates’ observation, there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes’ opinion was correct and valid. There is nothing new under the sun. Generation after generation not only learns from the previous generation but they also make the same mistakes as their ancestors. We learn from history, but not always and never enough. The world would be better and life would probably be so much easier if we learned from the past not to repeat the mistakes of the past. We do but not always.

Socrates, on the other hand, was generalizing and was thus generally correct in his observation of not only the youth of his time but also of all youth. While many young people love luxury and have bad manners, not all of them do. While some talk too much, don’t listen when they should, and make life miserable for their parents and teachers, not all do, not even the majority do; but enough do to make adults generalize when they should specify.

It is easy to generalize, of course. When we do, it is usually about those who disagree with us or who are simply disagreeable. Then we can write them off as being in the wrong or simply wrong because they are different. The problem, of course, is those whom we categorize also categorize us. Whenever we judge others with our sense of our own superiority, we can be reasonably certain that they are returning the favor. Just ask young people what they think about their elders if you don’t believe me!

It is not only easy but it is also safe to generalize. That way we do not have to get to know the other on a person-to-person basis. Yet that is also the only way to not only learn about the other; it is also a great way to learn about ourselves. Once we get to know someone whom we have categorized, however we have categorized that person, we will, more often than not learn that we were wrong. He didn’t fit our generalization. In the process we will have to come to grips with why we were so ready to stuff him into a box in which he obviously did not fit.

I once spent almost ten days with four teenage boys, like 24/7 with them: slept in the same room, rode in the same van, walked the same trails, ate at the same table. None of them fit Socrates’ description of his or our youth. I knew that before we went on our Journey to Adulthood Pilgrimage to the Upper Northwest with our theme of “Finding God in Nature.” We found God there and I found God living in them even if they sometimes talked too much or ate as if this were their last meal. Boys will be boys, we say, whatever that means. However, when we spend enough time with them, whether as adults with youth or youth with adults, what we will all learn is that our generalizations are just that and no more and probably just plain wrong.

FORGIVENESS….AGAIN

It may be an exaggeration, but I think only a slight one, to assert that forgiveness is the most difficult concept to accept or understand. Yet it is the basis for living in this world and a basic of our faith. We cannot live in this world unless we forgive and accept forgiveness and we cannot be fully Christian unless both are part of our daily lives. Forgiveness is simply that basic to life as we know and live it.

Forgiveness comes after the pain, often in the midst of the suffering. Someone has done something, said something, to hurt us and to hurt us deeply. The pain is real, is ongoing, begs for redress. The hurt was deliberate which makes the pain even more difficult to bear and the thought of forgiveness almost impossible to conceive. Yet, unless we can forgive, we cannot move on in life.

In fact, not only are we not moving on in life, we are not even living in the present. The hurt that was inflicted in the past is keeping us living in the past. It is there and it is preventing us from moving on, so consuming is our pain, our hurt and our anger. This did not have to happen. The hurt may have been fully deliberate or have been caused because the other lost control which may lessen that person’s guilt but does nothing to alleviate our pain.

Is it any wonder, then, that being asked to forgive the one who hurt us is not only so difficult, it almost seems foolish. Why should we have to forgive someone who has hurt us? Won’t that make him even more likely to hurt us again and again? How will she learn from what she did if we so readily forgive? Will she learn? After all, are we not supposed to learn from our mistakes, especially deliberate ones? What kind of learning is that, being forgiven with no punishment or redress involved?

The wound inflicted is not something that will heal all on its own. It is not a surface cut but a wound so deep that it demands surgery or else it will eventually kill us, literally and figuratively, if it is not treated. And the only one who can treat our wound is we ourselves. We have to be our own surgeon. God will give us the grace and strength to begin the process and see us through as will those who love us.

The late Lewis Smedes has written much on forgiveness. He said this: “The only way to heal the pain that will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiving stops the reruns of pain. Forgiving heals your memory as you change your memory’s vision. When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was your­self. Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us to forgive each other.”

Forgiveness is never demanded nor deserved. It is simply granted and must just as simply be accepted when we are the one who is to be forgiven. Neither is ever, ever easy. But to live either unforgiving or unforgiven is to die while still breathing and that is not living.

OUR LIFE IS A MYSTERY STORY

The great (only a personal opinion, or course) mystery story writer Mickey Spillaine, in talking about how he read mystery stories, admitted that he read the end of the story first to see who did it and then went back to the beginning. He said that he read mysteries in this way so that he could better follow the plot. That would be a great way to follow the plot but it would also take all of the fun out of reading mystery stories.

Life, our life, is truly a mystery story that is still being written. It is a mystery not in the sense that we have to figure out who is going to do what to us or who truly was to blame for something that happened to us. Rather life is a mystery because we have no idea what the rest of our life will bring. We do not know how that story will end. That’s the real mystery, isn’t it?

Yes, we have plans for the future, near and very distant. We plan the day. We plan for our vacation. We plan for retirement. We all have plans, some more definite than others, to be sure, but we have them. However, we have no idea of knowing whether any of these plans will materialize. We may die before any one of them takes place. We may live to see most of them fulfilled. But we simply do not know.

Our life is not predetermined. No one, including God, knows how our life we till turn out, even how tomorrow will turn out. Our free will and God’s giving us that free will to do as we please help determine how our life will proceed and even end. What is more, the free will of every other human being also helps determine what happens next in our life. How often have we had to change our plans because someone or something else – a boss, a sick child, an accident – forced us to do so?

That may be unsettling when we think about it, but it is also a fact. In fact, instead of the mysteriousness of life being at times so much a cause of worry and concern, it can be a cause for some peace of mind. Much of our life is truly out of our hands and is in the hands of others, even at the whim of their free will. We cannot control what others do. We only have control over our own lives and even that control is limited by our own human limitations.

If Mickey Spillaine were alive today, and if he took a look at our life as it is right now, he would have no idea how it might evolve let alone end. Neither do we. Would we want to know? Do we have any desire to be like Mickey Spillaine and know how the end of our life will take place – all the details – and then watch as our present life unfolds that will eventually lead to that pre-determined end even if that were possible? I doubt it.

Just as the joy of reading a good mystery story is in paying attention to all the details, so the joy of life is living in the moment. It’s not that we are not concerned how our life will turn out; we are, we most certainly are and we moist certainly well should be. Rather it is the fact that the rest of our life has not been written. It is written moment to moment, day to day. We are called to live each moment as faithfully and as fully as we can and watch as the mystery of our life unfolds.

SIN AS DEBT

When you and I say The Lord’s Prayer, we ask the Father to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”, or in the newer form: “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” My Presbyterians friends, however, are accustomed to say “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” In fact, one of the more famous musical versions of The Lord’s Prayer uses the Presbyterian form.

Not to argue what is correct or, perhaps, what is more correct – trespasses, sins, debts – but a good case could be made that debt is the better term, or at least gets to an issue about trespasses and sins that we hardly ever think about. Both trespass and sin are words that indicate that something wrong has been done. The trespasser, the sinner, has hurt another and asks for forgiveness just as s/he asks for the same when s/he is the one who has been done wrong.

We all know that we are sinners, that we have hurt others, and deliberately so, with our words and actions. We make no bones about it and are never hesitant to say The Lord’s Prayer. We’ll even make a public confession of that fact during the Eucharist. We do not shy away from such admissions because we know we cannot and because we also know that everyone around us, everyone period, is in the same boat as we are. We are all sinners, no questions asked.

That is all well and good as far as it goes. But does it go far enough? Does simply admitting our sinfulness suffice? The Presbyterians, at least as far as their version of the prayer goes, do not seem to think so. We should not think so either. Think about it: whenever we hurt another, we owe them something. We are in debt to them. What we certainly owe is an apology. We might be in even more debt as well. We may have to make amends, repay, somehow in some way, what we have damaged. There may be occasions when we are in debt big time.

Too often, I think, we do not think about the consequences of our sinfulness, do not even consider that we are indebted to the one we have hurt just as the other is indebted to us whom he or she has hurt. We owe and are owed as a result of our sins and trespasses but we often think little or nothing about this truth – or, even worse, how we are going to pay off the debt that we owe.

Years ago a prominent psychologist asked the question, “Whatever happened to sin?” because he believed we human beings were simply taking our sinfulness for granted and were satisfied that that was sufficient. “We’re all sinners, so what’s the big deal?” we said and asked and went on with our lives. In doing so all the debts we built up because of our sinfulness and selfishness only got higher and higher and we became more and more alienated one from another.

The only way to remedy such alienation is to take responsibility for our sins and somehow begin to repay the debts we owe. Perhaps if we were more cognizant of the fact that our sins require debt payment, we would sin less and love more. Perhaps.

THAT EXPLAINS IT ALL

Ever wonder why we human beings can sometimes be so smart, do so much, be so intelligent that it often staggers the imagination? Every time I look around, it almost seems that there is another newer and better and faster technological gadget on the market. My first cell phone years ago had more computer stuff than the Apollo astronauts had. My new phone is a less than a year old and it is behind the times.

That is only for starters. One only wonders what will be next so smart are we. And then, at the same time, we have to wonder why we same human beings can do some of the dumbest and most foolish things. We make serious decisions often on the spur of the moment and live to regret what we’ve done, regret it for a long, long time. We all have skeletons in our closets we had to hide there out of sight and out of mind because we did not want to be continually faced with our foolish past actions.

So why do we very smart human beings often do what is quite foolish, what we would not do had we given some thought ahead of time? Mark Twain had the answer. “Man was made at then end of the week, when God was tired,” he opined. Sounds like a plausible explanation to me given that I know I make foolish and rash decisions when I am tired, when I should have waited, that I do not do my best when I am exhausted.

Tongue in cheek or not, Twain was on to something there. Of course, no matter when we were created, we would still do what is unwise and foolish, free will being what it is. That being a given, something else Twain observed goes hand-in-hand with our ability and proclivity to do the foolish after which we often grieve over our mistakes. We grieve alone because we are not going to find a sympathetic ear. We made our bed freely even if foolishly. No one is going to join us in it just to ease our guilt. That is how we learn.

Grief can take care of itself, says Twain. And it should. But, he says, “to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” We can and do – must – grieve over our foolishness alone. We do not rush out and tell everyone, tell anyone, about the fool we have been. But we do not rejoice over our good deeds all alone. We need someone else, many others, to share our joy. When something good has happened to us, we can’t wait to share our good news.

God may have created us on the last day when God was worn out, exhausted, and did not give us his best shot. I can live with that. We all can because we must. What God also did, as the creation parable makes very, very clear is that God created us for one another. It is not good for us to be alone, especially in our joy and even in our grief and sorrow.

Yes, we need to grieve alone in order to personally deal with whatever it is we are grieving about – a foolish action, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, a failure of some kind. We need that time alone, but we need others to be close at hand.

We are who we are: each of is wise and foolish, weak and strong, sad and joyful all rolled into one human being. We are God’s creation. That explains everything even if we can’t understand the half of it.