Sinning Without Guilt

Paul tells us in Romans 7:8 that "sin takes advantage of the law" to achieve it's own purposes. What does he mean by that? Our unconverted and natural egocenticity (sin) uses religion for the purposes of gaining self-respect. If you want to hate someone, want to be vicious or vengeful or cruel: Do it for religious reasons! Do it thinking you're obeying the law, thinking you're following some commandment or some verse from the bible. It works quite well. Your untouched egocentricity can and will use religion to feel superior and "right". It is a comon pattern.

... But because we have not taken Jesus' and Paul's teaching seriously, we have often created a religion of smugness - where people actually think they are not sinners and have obeyed the law. They have "saved" themselves, as it were, and have little need of mercy, compassion and the generosity of God. God is a good enforcer for them, but not the Saving Love revealed to Israel. They have achieved a certain level of good manners and self-control, but with no real need for divine union, surrender or trust in Anybody Else.

Fr. Richard Rohr
Things Hidden
Scripture as Spirituality

 

Predestination and Old Souls

Predestination: the idea that some people are somehow chosen to be children of God while others aren't, has been debated and argued for centuries. What if this is yet another example of something the church has profoundly misunderstood? What if people on both sides of the argument have missed the point completely?

The other night there were several people at our house. I was in the kitchen doing something and the rest were in the living room just chatting when suddenly everyone burst out in laughter. This is not an unusual
thing with this particular group, but when I came in, my wife explained to me that one of our members - who is more concerned with social justice than the rest of us - shared the fact that when she was younger, she thought that she wanted to marry a black guy to show that there was nothing wrong with that sort of thing. In and of itself there is nothing funny about this, but the reason it was so funny to everyone else is because it is totally in keeping with her personality, and that even at a very young age it was evident.

I didn't really think much about this until a couple of days later when I was trying to work through some other perplexing scenarios in the bible, and my mind wandered to predestination. Somehow my mind tied

The Complicity of the Church

You have probably heard it said that Satan's greatest trick is convincing people that he doesn't exist. But I wonder if he hasn't pulled an even faster one. One that actually gets some people into heaven, while keeping the majority out. One that has permeated the entire Church, and is so ingrained into Christianity, that very few people would even think of questioning it. Think about it: At least some people will question the existence of Satan, but very, very few Christians will question what actually drove them into heaven.

Embracing Sin

I typically have 3 or 4 books on the go at any one time. They are usually fairly deep, which accounts for my watching too much TV: my brain sometimes needs the mind numbing aspects that only TV can give. One of the ones that I am currently reading is a book by Franciscan priest Richard Rohr entitled Falling Upward. (All you evangelicals out here take a deep breath and keep reading). It is quite fascinating. He makes several very insightful observations and statements, but the one that just stuck out at me is this;

The Rose

If you want to smell the aroma of christianity, you must copy the rose. The rose irresistibly draws people to itself, and the scent remains with them. Even so, the aroma of christianity is subtler even than that of the rose and should, therefore, be imparted in an even quieter and more imperceptible manner, if possible. - Mahatma Gandhi

If you have a nose and an eye for beauty , you will recognize the inherent authority of the rose. In fact, it's inner authority might well be so pressing and demanding that you might say to the rose, as did St. Francis de Sales, "Stop shouting!"

If christianity relied on it's inner authority, the weight of it's truth and the sheer power of genuine goodness, the world would also say to christians, "I hear you - stop shouting!" And we would not have preached a sermon or spoken a single word. - Richard Rohr

Share the Pig

Once again Richard Rohr strikes. I was reading through the Daily Meditations. It happened to encompass a series of quotes from, Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction. The  first thing I read was about was Too Much Access, and how we have too many gadgets to make our life simpler and give us more free time, even though it seems to have the opposite affect. He ends the section with a quote from Pope John Paul II, "In a culture of affluence you will predictably see a decrease in spiritual values: time, knowledge, wisdom, love and friendship. Those decrease almost in mathematical proportion as you move toward materialism."

The second story is about a wealthy family that lives very simply. Instead of spending all their money on the things that you or I might, they live simple lives and give away the rest. One of the interesting things they do, is that each month the mom gathers up the six kids and she writes out cheques to all the people that need it. With each cheque she explains who is getting the money and why they need it more than they do.

The next story is called Share The Pig. This is the abridged version; [In talking about third world countries] As soon as you come to the village, in a very short time you will hear the squeal of a pig or the squawk of  a chicken. They're killing it for you. They've been saving it for you. And sometimes you find out that it was the last pig or chicken. The poor are so generous... ...after you're finished eating with the people who were originally invited to the meal, there's lots left over. What would we do in our country? We have Tupperware and refrigerators. To save it would be the good, responsible thing to do... ...Here's the perfect example of how technology has a good side and a bad side. The Guatemalans have to immediately share the pig [they have no refrigerators]. Bringing food from one house to the next, which creates family, is a daily experience. It creates community and interdependence... ...The poor have an amazing politics of abundance precisely because they can rely on the group and are not as tempted to securing their future. Our biases see this as irresponsibility, but the poor actually are closer to faith, community and the Kingdom of God.

The next reading is called Announce the Gospel. I'll just let you read it: "There is an unbelievable vitality in the church in parts of Central America and Asia. There's such excitement about faith that I felt like staying there when I visited. When I said. 'Maybe I should stay here' people, without exception, said, 'No, go back to America. It's America that has to be converted and really recognize the gospel.'

'We don't need you down here in Central America,' as they'd jokingly say. 'We're actually doing better without so many priests. You go back and preach the gospel in North America.'"

Then the section of readings goes onto something else, but the very next one starts off with the beatitudes. And we all know what the first one is,"Blessed are the poor in spirit".

Out of all the beatitudes this one is probably the most debated; does this mean actual, material poverty; is it a type of spiritual poverty, like maybe a lack of knowledge; is there some sort of redeeming benefit to being destitute; etc.

But when I first read this, after reading the other sections, a new thought occurred to me. Maybe this means to be "poor...in spirit". Not actual material poverty, but to have a spirit of poverty. To have whatever amount of wealth you have, but to act and run you life as if you were poor, like the family who lives simply so they can write cheques for the less fortunate. To live simple and not hoard things so that we can share the pig. 

After all, we do talk about doing things in the Spirit. We talk about the intention and spirit of the law, or a contract. We talk about giving in the spirit of season.

And what is the second line of this Beatitude, "The kingdom of heaven is theirs". Of course it is! It makes perfect sense. If we are living in a spirit of poverty, we are able to be more giving, more connected to community, family and friends, better able to use our resources where they will have the most impact for social justice. In short, able to live as if we have actually adopted, owned and invested in  the Kingdom of God, and not just talking like it.

Living with Weeds

My mother drives me crazy sometimes. She is in supportive housing, which is the step just before a nursing home. She understands a lot, but not as much as you think, which sometimes makes for major confusion, which I end up having to straighten out. It's like have a child, except with a child things eventually start to progress. With her, things will only get worse.

The slow, steady, almost imperceptible decline is very frustrating at times, and I'm afraid I don't handle it very well sometimes. You think that you are supposed to be reflecting the image of God in every situation, and just when you feel you are getting the hang of it, one of these situations comes up, and everything seems to go into the crapper.

Very frustrating.

I've been reading a book of daily devotionals by the Franciscan monk Richard Rohr. Most times I have no idea what he's talking about, but every now and then he comes up with these gems; like today.

"God is like a good parent, refusing to do our homework for us. We must learn through trial and error. We have to do the homework ourselves, the homework of suffering, desiring, winning and losing, hundreds of times."

And then a couple of days over he comes up with this;

(He's talking about the parable of the wheat and the weeds, where the servants discover weeds, but the landowner says not to pull them up until the harvest) "Folks now chase after the yin and yang of eastern religions as if they are new, honest teaching. As usual, Jesus already said it: We just didn't hear. ...we don't often translate mythic language into the human patterns that the myths point to. Maybe it never computed into 'half will be dark , half will be light, again and again.' Or, 'No matter where, when or what, life will be both agony and ecstasy.' 

The field contains both weeds and wheat, and we must let them grow together.... ...You cannot really pull them out, but don't ever doubt that they are there. Thus, the sacrament of penance is not the sacrament of the annihilation of sin, or even getting rid of sin. It is more reconciliation with, and forgiveness of, those dang weeds in the field."

How often have we heard it preached that this passage is about Christians and non-Christians and how God is going to separate the two, with one group going to heaven and the other to eternal damnation. And yet here he is saying that it's about character, personal actions and choices, which makes way more sense with my recent universalist leanings, and less than stellar performance concerning my mother. That it's about how God is going to separate our good actions and choices from the bad - eventually. But right now we are going to have to live with both, and accept the fact that we will screw up, but not to worry about it, just keep plugging along.

We will always have failures, but what is important is that we keep trying, doing our homework, and eventually we may start to move closer to the image that God is trying to create in us.