Pastor Dave,
In today's sermon you said that part of committing to God's call is committing to goodness, being married to it even. I understand what you're saying but part of me also asks how this is possible. I want to be committed to goodness in everything I do but I don't seem to be able to achieve that! I make mistakes. Sometimes it seems like nothing is right. I suppose I'm saying that if I'm married to goodness I'm a bad spouse because I keep stepping out! How do I make this marriage work?
Great observation! The easy answer is, "That's what forgiveness is for." We need it in our marriage to goodness just as much as we need it in our earthly marriages and other relationships. Nobody can be around another person for any length of time without forgiveness. Fortunately God has an infinite supply.
I suppose we could leave it at that, save for your last question. Saying, "God will forgive you, just keep trying" is true but it doesn't make a strong basis for feeling committed to something. My gut tells me we need to add to the story a little by exploring the odd difference between "good" and "right".
In an ideal world--and frankly in the theological world as well--the terms "good" and "right" are interchangeable. What's good is right and what's right is good. End of story.
Unfortunately daily life tends to muddy our definitions. How often do you really get to make a "right" choice? I don't mean a choice that seems good in the moment or that addresses a certain situation, but a choice that's 100%, without exception or argument, right? Chances are the answer is, "Almost never." If you think you make the 100% right choices all the time then you need to get yourself a teenager. Within 48 hours you will be informed how not-100%-right your choices actually are!
In real life few, if any, choices are absolutely right. They all depend on context, opinions, culture, goals. Even when all those things align your choice still only ends up right for you and people who feel/think/believe/grew up like you. Let a stranger come into your midst and your "right" goes right out the window. And this isn't even counting all the times when the "right" choice is simply the lesser of two evils. *cough* *cough* election year *cough*
But as counter-intuitive as it seems to our pristine, theological minds, a choice can contain 100% goodness (in certain ways) even when it's not 100% right.
Let me give you an example.
Right after my parents divorced my sister and I spent hefty amounts of time in a new situation: living in a house with my dad as the sole parent without the influence of mom. As you may expect, some things changed. Among the most prominent of those was dessert. Heretofore portions of dessert had been strictly rationed. That was the sensible-mom, child-rearing thing to do. Now here comes dad, completely mom-free. "You guys want some ice cream?" Two heads nod. Out comes a ginormous spoon and three ginormous bowls. The spoon dips into the carton once, twice, thrice for each bowl. My sister and I are now holding the Machu Picchu of ice cream in our little hands. With huge, incredulous smiles we devour the wondrous bounty. It was amazing.
Now, was this right? Probably not. Even if you discount the dubious nutritional content of those enormous bowls for pre-teen children you're left with one middle-aged pastor who to this day has inordinate affection for large bowls of ice cream and the comfort they bring. This was not a sustainable, healthy pattern of eating for then or the years that followed!
But you know what? For two little kids now living in a recently-broken family, emotionally adrift, with precious little to reassure them--kids who privately wondered every day whether anything would be safe or comforting again--this was good. Oh yeah, this was 100% good, even though by many measures it was also wrong. To this day I cannot imagine what life would have been like without those large bowls of ice cream.
Being married to goodness doesn't mean that you're going to do everything 100% right. Rather it means that in everything you do, you can find goodness. That goodness is what causes you to make the decisions you do, right or wrong though they may be. And that goodness isn't just about you and your own needs, but also about the needs of those around you. You focus on the goodness rather than how right or wrong you are. As you begin to see the goodness in your (admittedly faulty) decisions your eyes also open to the goodness in other people's decisions...even those decisions which seem wrong by your internal measuring stick. This brings you closer together with those around you and allows that ever-necessary forgiveness to flow more freely.
Being right is a fool's task that, even when successful, ultimately drives people apart. The effort spent in being good, however, is never wasted.
Being right is a fool's task that, even when successful, ultimately drives people apart. The effort spent in being good, however, is never wasted.
I have been asked to my face before--several times--whether I think some of my decisions are right...by Scripture, morality, by our cultural norms, by church tradition. I'm always a little at a loss there. Who can ever guarantee that any decision is the right one even by one's own standards, let alone by those lofty measures? I can't tell you with certainty that my decisions and interpretations are right, especially by Scriptural standards. But I can tell you that they are good and I can point to that goodness in the lives of others. It may be in a particular way. It may be through an avenue or person that you don't like. It may only get acknowledged by a simple smile, a momentary widening of eyes, or puzzlement because the recipient expected a different response from a "church guy". But it's there. I can see that goodness and I can commit to serving my neighbor by upholding it. And really, what more could be asked?
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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