justice vs love

I went to a Bible study meeting last night. I haven't gone to a meeting like that in years!! Not that I have anything against Bible studies. Quite the contrary, in fact!

So anyway, a good friend of mine invited me to this meeting, and thus I found myself last night in a large room sitting in a big circle along with about thirty other people or so. It was a raggle taggle bunch of Christians, the average age was probably well over 50. And it was great!!

I really enjoyed hearing what people had to say about the bits of the Bible we looked at. Our texts for the evening included Colossians chapter 3 ... the chapter that contains the well-known controversial imperative from Paul to Christian wives: wives submit to your husbands. And a few verses later, the imperative for bondservants to put their hearts into serving their masters.

Funnily enough, not a single word was said about those verses during the whole meeting. There was a general sense of people wanting to work together, and nobody particularly wanting to stir up controversy, and most people in the room seemed fairly egalitarian. That isn't to say that everybody in the room interpreted those verses flexibly. I know for a fact that one particular person in the room took those verses quite literally, and he believes it's quite important for him to do so. But he didn't say anything about it last night.

At one point, somebody wondered aloud if perhaps we as Christians worry too much about doing the right thing, and being cut off by God. And I responded to that with, "Any amount of worry at all, on that point, is too much worry, because God would never cut somebody off ... " And then I kind of choked up, and almost teared up, saying, "As a mother, the thought of cutting off my two-year-old son from myself is unthinkable ... so how much more so would that be the case with God who is LOVE?? We are God's children!!"

And the guy facilitating the meeting (with great skill too, might I add) at that point brought up the prodigal son, and how the parable illustrated exactly that point ... that God is love, and doesn't cut us off, no matter how we behave.

And that sent a little murmur through the room and a few protests from people who wanted to qualify that with "But the son had to make the decision to return to the father ..." ... i.e., God accepted the son back, but the son had to take responsibility. That takes us back to the tension between God's grace, and our responsibility. It is so difficult for people to believe that God's grace and love can and does overcome everything in the end ... People seem to need to believe that somehow, in some way, no matter how small, we have to do something to merit God, earn God. But this is part of the mystery of grace. It is completely outrageous. And I think we as Christians need to get over it ... simply be thankful for it, and not try to find ways constantly to earn it and insist that others need to earn it.

There is no earning. That is grace. Amazing grace.

Yes the prodigal son did turn back. But he wasn't trying to behave responsibly or do anything good. He was simply responding to his own basic needs ... he was hungry and starving and tired. So he decided to head for a place where he knew that he could get some food and rest. I don't really see that as an example of how meritorious he was. In fact, it's the exact opposite. He was completely self-serving throughout the story, right up to the end, and the father (God) didn't care ... was overjoyed that his son was returning, even if it was just for food ... and from a long way off the father saw the son, and ran with joy to meet him.

(Aside: Now most Christians see that parable as a metaphor for the 'lost' coming to God. That interpretation is very useful and has some profound nuances. But I think it can also be useful to stop differentiating between Christians and non-believers in that way, in interpreting this story. That story is about all of humanity. We are all the prodigal, every day ... every day we get self-interested and ignore the Spirit ... and at any given point if we are hungry and turn around, looking for food, God comes running to embrace us. It's highly gratifying. And humbling.)

At this point in the meeting (this was the height of tension in the meeting) one man piped up, that he felt we were all treading on dangerous territory by pursuing this whole GOD IS LOVE train of thought. He said, "Yes God is love, but God is also JUST!!!" And he shared how his daughter had strayed from God, and how serious a matter that was ... how sad it made him ... how much he worried about her.

And perhaps I said something that I shouldn't have, at this point. I said that yes, that must be very difficult for him, but worry is a by-product of desire for control, and ultimately we have to trust even our own children to God and let go of worrying about them, let go of our desire to control outcomes for them. It's an obviously true statement, to me, but I don't know if it really was helpful for that man to hear it.

The good news is, I don't have to worry about it! I will leave it to God, and hopefully get better at discerning in future what is and isn't helpful to say ...

The message for us as Christians is freedom, freedom from worry ...... !!! Worry and fear and control are all part of the same thing ... and those things cannot co-exist with love. Love will drive them out, every time. No matter how good your reasons for worrying, they aren't good enough to fight God, Love himself. Hurrah for that!