When I was a young child I loved the TV show Romper Room. Miss Delores or Miss Marjorie or Miss Nancy, or some other Miss, would sing a little song about two bees, a Do-Bee and a Don’t-Bee, to teach lessons about good behavior. “I always do what’s right; I never do anything wrong. I’m a Romper Room Do-Bee, a Do-Bee all day long.”
I was all on board with this, being a Do-Bee. Romper Room Lady had all my attention, my complete loyalty. My grandmother would tease me about this, though. She would sing, “I always do what’s wrong; I never do anything right.” And I always reacted the same way, utterly scandalized that she would mock the idea of the Do-Bee. She would just laugh, tickled pink. It never got old – poking at my little four-year-old prissiness.
I just thought it was important to be perfect, that’s all. And I thought as long as I knew the rules and they were manageable, I would make it.
And although I grew up, and I learned to poke fun at the Do-Bee song too, I still hate to be wrong.
Even when we outgrow the Romper Room Do-Bee song, we still work hard to see ourselves as faultless. And one of the ways we manage that is by comparison. This is how it works.
If necessary, we acknowledge that we may have possibly upset someone, but then we say, “At least I’m not as careless as she is, or a liar like he is,” or whatever criticism seems most apt. As long as I am not like that, I think I am okay.
This is where it is important to have a bar, a dividing line – and to know what side of the line you are on – the Do-Bee side or the Don’t-Bee side. The law provides such a line.
If you can say confidently that you have never murdered anyone, then you’re in good standing.
If you can say confidently that you have never committed adultery, then you’re safe. And on it goes. Comparative goodness: when we say, “compared to some other people, I’m doing pretty good!”
You just have to find someone you can be very critical of. Someone you can look at and think, “O my goodness. How could they do that?” Someone you can point at and say, “I would never do that, ever.” I’m a Romper Room Do-Bee.
In our weekly Bible study, we have been reading the Old Testament stories about the kings and the prophets of Israel, and we see quite a few examples of Don’t-Bees. There is a sentence that we read again and again, “they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” And we say to each other, “Incredible. They did it again. What is the matter with these people?”
The stories are repetitive, stories the same bad behavior we have seen a hundred times before – it’s not even original. And we look at these sinners disapprovingly. Because we have read the books of the law, haven’t they? We know what is permissible and what is not permissible, don’t they? Are they incapable of learning? Of getting something right?
And there is something satisfying about this, for us, to point at them and condemn them for their sins. To hold them at arm’s length and think how incredible this is that they keep screwing up.
But sometimes I wonder, what if someone wrote a book about us? Would it possibly sound the same way? Would there be the refrain, “They did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” They worshiped idols of all sorts, they nurtured hate in their hearts to varying degrees, they mocked people they found disagreeable. They were careless about keeping sabbath and worshiping God and caring for the most vulnerable among them. They did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, in the most ordinary and banal ways.
It’s an uneasy feeling, thinking that these things could be said about us. We wouldn’t call ourselves evil; we have been careful to stay well away from that line in the sand, keeping evil far away from us. We like to think we are safely on the right side of the line. I never killed anyone. I never swore falsely against anyone.
But then Jesus kind of whisks that line away.
You have heard that you should not murder, but I say to you that if you harbor anger toward a brother you are liable to judgment. And who has not harbored anger?
Jesus says, you have heard that you should not commit adultery, but I say to you that if you have looked at another with lust in your heart you are guilty.
If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. And before you know it, you feel like you are drowning. How is it possible to live like this? How is it possible to be okay? Where is that line now?
Honestly, I think that was Jesus’ agenda. Take the line away. Because it just makes it far too easy to excuse ourselves. Take that line away. Because if your concern is simply not crossing the line onto the wrong side, then you are doing the bare minimum. But is that really good? The bare minimum?
If you are only concerned about avoiding doing wrong, then are you giving any thought at all to what it would look like to do right?
If all your attention is on the boundary line, and looking at the people who are on the outside of the line, the wrong side, then do you ever bother turning the other way and looking toward the center?
A character in Graham Greene’s story, The Heart of the Matter, goes to confession once a month, and he says to the priest, “I have done the minimum.” This is what he has spent his entire life doing – he has scrupulously kept his eye on the line. He has utterly failed to see and understand the heart of the matter.
This week we begin the season of Lent, which is a period of penitence, of reflection. As we prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of Easter, we are encouraged to take an honest look at ourselves, to begin – or re-begin – a walk of spiritual discipline. We are invited to take up a practice that will aid us in this journey.
When we immerse ourselves in something like this, we are likely to see differently. To see that figuring out how to do the minimum is not the desired goal.
Jesus said from the mountaintop, “I didn’t come to abolish the law.” But he did intend for us to understand the law in a whole new way.
That is, to understand that it’s not about us, it’s about God. It’s not about how good we are, how we measure up, whether we stay on the right side of the line. It’s about the truth that no matter where we are, in relation to the line, God loves us. No matter how we measure up, or don’t, God accepts us. No matter how good we are, or are not, God forgives us.
God’s mercy is wide and God’s grace abounds. And the truth, as Jesus shows us, is that all of us are in need of that grace.
Of all of God’s gifts that keep on giving, this one is the most meaningful. The gift of God’s radical and abounding grace.
Grace will see us through all the times we stumble. Most amazingly, grace will help us worry less about that line and enable us to see the heart of the matter, the love that God is drawing us into. Grace will equip us to show more compassion toward those people we figure are hopelessly, outrageously, on the wrong side of the line.
For, as Jesus also said, the whole of the law can be summed up in these two commandments – love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. And if love is the essence of the law then we know these things:
That it is right to seek reconciliation rather than retribution.
That we should speak the truth always, in love.
And that we should never, ever lose sight of the essential humanity of anyone.
Heaven knows, God doesn’t lose sight of it. Remember that. God calls us to stand in that place where Jesus stands, and God’s grace will lead us there.
Photo: ChurchArt,com
No comments:
Post a Comment