Defining Ourselves

How's your Lent going? Did you give up something for Lent? Has it been hard, doing without? Did you take up something for Lent? Are you in the habit of adding good works to your daily living? Have you been looking within? Have you been examining yourself and measuring yourself against the person you want to be? Have you been measuring yourself against the person Christ wants you to be? Have you been loving your neighbor the way Jesus would want you to?

Well, as for myself, I neither gave up nor took up any new habits. Back at the turn of the New Year, I took up the habit of reading four chapters per day in the Bible, and I have been faithful to that practice. I just started at Genesis Chapter 1, and I've read the stories in Genesis and Exodus, the law in Leviticus, the summary in Numbers. I've read the last words of Moses in Deuteronomy and the conquest of the promised land in Joshua. As of this writing, I'm reading Judges, and I hope to have finished Ruth by the time anyone is reading this on the blog or in the newsletter. All through these early Old Testament books, I've found it hard NOT to examine myself and compare myself against the things I'm reading whether or not it’s Lent.

Reading the stories puts you in the position of the narrator, and the best-written stories evoke responses from yourself. You wonder: How would I feel if I were Abel, with the acceptable sacrifice? Could I send away my firstborn son, just because he was born to my wife's slave? Could I reconcile with my brother, whose birthright I stole? What would I do if my brothers wanted to kill our youngest brother, and could I lie to our father about his bloody end? Would I be able to resist Potiphar's wife, and could I stick to the true story, even if it meant going to jail? How would I feel reconciling with my brothers? Would I be brave in the face of unjust, oppressive laws like the Hebrew midwives? Would I be caught up in the revelry after Aaron made a golden calf?

Reading the law causes self examination, too. There's a great deal of "that was then; this is now" to account for. Thou shalt not steal, sure. Thou shalt not kill, but then there's a lot of killing going on in all those stories. We entrust the government with the power of deadly force today and say that's all right, but then are we complicit when that force results in death? Leviticus prohibits tattoos, which our culture does not care about one way or another. Leviticus also says we should sell our daughter into slavery in order to get out of debt. The laws around forgiving debt--restoring people every seven years and having a year of Jubilee every 49--would not work in our economic system today. Was the ancient way naïve? Or is our modern capitalism the one that's somehow wrong?

It's important to distinguish the parts of the Bible that are meant to be examples for good and the parts that are meant to be examples to avoid. It's both important to distinguish, and it's really difficult to distinguish. The story of conquest is framed in sociological markers of us vs. them. We follow the Lord; all others are evil. Is this like "Thou shalt not steal?" or more like "Thou shalt not get a tattoo?" Is the command to utterly destroy the people of the land like "Worship the Lord and serve only God?" or more like "Sell your daughter into slavery to get out of debt?" In theological humility, we reach out to other denominations and even other religions. We might respectfully disagree with our understanding of the truth about God, but we would never commit genocide. We stay true to our Lord by staying true to our Lord, not by wiping out others who disagree with us. Each week when I'm preparing the sermon I take seriously the task of drawing meaning out of the text, and I bring all the tools I have to the task. I make sure I understand the words, but I also make sure I understand the context. I use what intelligence I can muster, and I read commentators who are smarter than me in order to check myself and stay humble. Even so, such distinctions are still really hard.

When examining yourself and how you measure up against how God wants you live, the hard part is the balance between knowing God's will and staying humble. We examine ourselves in Lent and we examine ourselves when we read scripture. In humility, we (at least in the Reformed tradition) start with the assumption that we are fallen. Calvin would say that we cannot live right by ourselves; we have to read scripture. Calvin would also say that we cannot even read scripture correctly by ourselves, but must depend on the Holy Spirit to teach us. If we're humble-smart, then we should pray for the teaching from the Holy Spirit every time we read scripture.

Don't gloss over that. We should pray. We should stay in relationship with God, and prayer IS that relationship. The very last sentence in the book of Judges is "all the people did what was right in their own eyes." They consistently went wrong when they worshiped mute idols. The problem was not that they were worshiping other gods; there WERE no other gods. The problem was when they stopped worshiping THE ONLY GOD and tried to make up things for themselves. We might think that we know what to do when we are reading scripture, but drawing meaning out of scripture is hard. We might think that we know what to do when we read scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit, but how will we do THAT if we are not in prayerful relationship with God?

I have to back up and talk about another aspect of self-examination. Sometimes we define ourselves in terms of what we are not. I am this only because I am not that. I am smart or rich or righteous only because I am NOT something else. I am not uneducated or lazy or wicked. This is called defining yourself "by abjection." One problem with defining yourself by abjection is that you create a false sense of disgust at the thing that you are not. I'm NOT a smelly hippie, or dirty Irish. I'm NOT a welfare mom or homeless person. I'm not a gang member or drug addict. I'm not one of those despised Samaritans. Be careful who you hate; it might be someone God loves.

The other major problem with defining yourself in terms of a negative is that it leaves an automatic void in your own self. If I say what I'm NOT, then what am I? If I am NOT someone who sacrifices to Chemosh or Ashera or Baal, then I am still nothing. The more important thing is that I am someone who worships the LORD. I am someone who worships I AM. In Luke, one man was standing by himself (NOT a part of the congregation at all) and praying, "O God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector." This is self-definition by abjection. Does it make him righteous? Does it make him anything at all? We must be careful what we fill that void with. We must not fill it with idols of our own making, lest we find when we say "O God, I thank you" that we are not praying to the god we think we are.

I was talking to someone about the question we ask everyone when they join: "Who is your Lord and savior?" The answer, of course, is "Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior." It's hard to know what that means in a democracy, in America; we don't have kings here. In an ideal view of free market capitalism, it's hard to know what a "Lord" is; we don't have feudal serfdoms where we are tied to the land and owe our fealty to the one who owns the land. What does it mean to say Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior? It is to define oneself, not by abjection, but by a positive statement. It is to fill the void that would have been left by saying what we are not--to fill that void with Jesus Christ. Instead of "I am not . . . " whatever you find disgusting, you say I am a follower and servant of Jesus Christ. That's what I am. There's no need to be disgusted by anyone or anything. I have filled the void in my identity with the Lord of Love. I am someone who humbly studies and learns all I can about what Jesus wants in the world. I am someone who is open to the teachings of the Holy Spirit. I am someone who actively seeks relationship with God. I am someone who loves my neighbor the way Christ loves.

I know that Lent is hard. Resisting temptation is hard. Making good habits is hard. Self-examination is hard. Being sure of yourself when reading scripture and listening for God's will is hard. We stay humble, and that humility is the key to a successful Lent and a successful life. As we make our way to Palm Sunday and the events of Holy Week, I pray blessings upon you.

--Chas