Divine Plagiarism

‘Sin boldly; and repent and rejoice in Christ more boldly still.’ - Martin Luther.

In a snippet from one of the most beautiful stories I have read, a man finds himself in a chilly truce with a woman. There are many words that should have been shared, fiery words of anger and love. But neither the guy nor the girl find the courage to voice them or hear them. They end up covering over those words with milquetoast platitudes about friendship, bringing a modicum of stability to their worlds. All hell threatens to break loose should the man decides to break that truce. He does nonetheless, telling her ‘I’d rather fight with the real you than have peace with a caricature.’

Pride is about image. Specifically, it’s about constructing an image for ourselves other than the Imago Dei. Will Farrell, playing an insecure father on a SNL skit, shouts ’I’m important… I drive a Dodge Stratus!’ We may not be so blatant, but we are no less foolish in our idolatries. No graven images, the commandment goes. Our images are engraved on plaques, business cards and diplomas. The quintessential idol of modernity: success. It even comes in a Christian flavor. Perform the correct conditioned responses and you will be rewarded with the respect of Christian-ese culture. Christians are supposed to be joyful, so we paint on a Sunday morning smile and say ‘God bless you’ through our teeth. Christians are supposed to be righteous, so we confine ourselves to acceptably hidden passive-aggressive sins. The image of Christian success. The temptation all the more acute for those in leadership, for they derive their social capital and their livelihood from their performance. ‘I will do these things, because these are the things a Christian leader does. And I’m a Christian leader. Really I am.’ I am a Christian leader, and Christian leaders are supposed to forgive people. So I will say that I forgive them, whether I really do or not. Because I am scared to death of being honest with myself, others or God.

My once-friend and I went through several iterations of ‘forgiving’ each other. We were both Christians in leadership, and undoubtedly we had read some of the same counseling books. Start with the good things about a person, throw in a few verses as you say the things you need to say, conclude with some sort of positive send-off. We both knew the things we should say to each other, the things that would reflect well on the public perceptions of our walk and our Christian social capital. So we said those things through gritted teeth and fake smiles. In exactly the same way that we tell people we are blessed when in reality we are dying inside. We hid behind saccharine words, but behind those words we always kept our swords drawn.

The last battle, as it were, was the first time that we were ever honest with each other. The fictional contrition and forgiveness melted in the heat of our rage, and we finally faced each other honestly. Her words were telling. ‘I hate you. I always have. I find you disgusting and pathetic. I want you to go away forever.’ She hated me. But she had all along. Our friendship was dead after those words, to be sure, but I do not think it was any more dead than before those words. And as much as her words hurt, at least at long last she was honest, as she finally voiced the sour chord I heard all along beneath her approved Christian-ese words. Here is the irony of plastic righteousness: you only deceive yourself. It is far easier to hide from all the troubling questions that remind us that we are infinitely imperfect. ‘Why do I hate him?’ ‘What did he do that caused me to hate him?’ ‘What does he represent that I find hateful?’ I don’t know the answers. But I know she will never find them until she faces the questions.

I wonder if it is any different in our relationship with God. Whitewashed tombs, we were called. So concerned about keeping all the religious cultural rules, so concerned about proving our righteousness to everyone but Him. All legalism starts at home. It was not as if the Pharisees woke up each morning reveling in their corruption before donning their flowing robes. The first person they deceived was themselves, and their hypocrisy grew from there. A sepulcher is locked from the inside, which is why it stays locked. Better to be a disheveled hovel, full of filth but open to renovation. Better a pimple than leukemia: A pimple is uglier, but leukemia is far deadlier. So Christ came instead to the drunkards and the whores.

Passive-Aggressive sins, perhaps we could call them. Like a man who never finds the strength to face his spouse, expressing his rage in dirty dishes and unpaid bills. No less expressions of spite, yet ones easily denied if confronted. They are cowardly sins, ones that hide behind innocent acts and words. Instead of finding the honesty to openly hate someone, we instead turn to the plausibly deniable weapon of pity. Instead of having a thief‘s honor, we hide our robberies behind economic theory. Instead of acting on our lusts, we find a readily pliable mate and mold them to placate our insecurities.

At the heart of every sin is a deep distrust of God’s plan for our lives. We tell Him, ‘I don’t believe this place where You’ve put me is really the best place for me.’ So the single guy, frustrated with God’s seeming slowness in providing a spouse, decides to meet his needs on his own. Instead of trusting God with His singleness, he seeks out safer imitations of intimacy. I wonder if the authorized Christian-ese version is much better. Unwilling to face the consequences of open rebellion, he mouths ‘I’m sure God will provide,’ without believing the words at all. Sin leads to death - he just short circuits the process by killing his heart himself. Either way, he still doesn’t trust God. The woman in pain, deeply wounded and cast out, decides to take her identity into her own hands. Instead of trusting Him with her heart, she asks cocktails, men and fashion magazines to tell her who she is. The authorized version is subtler but no less deadly. Using words like blessed when she feels cursed, she hides in the idol of Christian success until she forgets the pain of being real. Unwilling to trust ourselves to the heart of God, we hide in our hearts in whitewashed tombs.

I’ve heard some Muslims say that a sin hidden is half forgiven. God is not so easily deceived. He will not partner with us in our excuses: He has paid far too dear a price for our forgiveness for that. A jealous lover, God demands all of our hearts. Our God is a consuming fire. Whatever will not be consumed must be destroyed. A sin hidden is twice damning. He is still faithful to complete the work that He started within us, but the surgical process will likely be far more painful for a passive-aggressive sin. It will likely take a much more extreme circumstance to bring that sin into the light, as we have seen far too often with Christians in leadership. I wonder how different New Life’s story would be had Pastor Ted confided to a friend his doubts about God’s provision in fidelity. I wonder if any of us would have had the humility to face such honesty, if any of us would have had the courage to recognize that our leaders are fallen just like us. That is where it has to begin: in the recognition of our fallenness. A whitewashed tomb can no more face the wretched contents of another sepulcher than it can face its own. But one hovel under renovation surely has a few home repair tips for another in the same position.

‘Be hot or cold, or I will spit you out of My mouth.’ If you’re going to be cold, be cold. If you’re going to sin, then sin. It is far better not to sin, but it is far worse to shelter sin in your heart and cover it with the appearance of righteousness. All sin is rooted in pride, so let us at least have the integrity to sin proudly. Let us find the courage to say, ‘God, I don’t trust you. I’m going to do things my way.’ Don’t whitewash it or water it down. Don’t find some way to justify it. Don’t pretend it’s okay. If you must sin, sin in the light.

Of course, if you find the courage to sin openly, you must find the courage to face the face the consequences honestly. For the open sinner, there can be no excuses or explanations, no blaming others, no chalking it up to circumstance. Only ‘I fought the law, and the law won.’ The wages of sin is death. For exactly that reason, Paul tells us to cast our the unrepentant sinner, that he may taste that death and turn from his wicked ways. Should we not do the same with the sinful parts of our hearts? Insurgencies rarely survive long in open combat. Sin openly, suffer the consequences openly, repent openly, and rejoice in His grace openly. In the wreckage of our independence, we rediscover our depravity and our dire need for redemption. Sin always ends in death. Breaking ourselves upon death, relearn to end our sin in the death of the One who broke death.

It all comes down to honesty. Be real with God. The Pharisees excelled at the appearance of righteousness. Their sins were well masked, hidden even from themselves. Certainly few of them had the bloody hands of a murderer, or the stench of adultery on their robes. Yet in their hearts they were adulterers and murderers. David certainly experienced more pain in the course of his choices. But the Pharisees were so filled with pride that they were no longer capable of pain. And hence no longer capable of love - leprous Ubermenschen, incapable of guilt, desire or redemption. King David was an adulterer and a murderer. Yet he was called a man after God’s own heart. Surely he experienced the consequences of his sins: one child dead and another gone rebel. Each time, though, he allowed those consequences to bring him back to the altar humbled. And each time, God restored him. A passive-aggressive couple must learn to fight, if they are ever to heal the relationship. They must trust that the other will not abandon them if they are at long last real with their feelings. God has promised that He will never leave us, nor forsake us. Perhaps we should learn how to fight with Him honestly.