Saturday, March 30, 2013

Forgive me and help me


Good Friday services are quiet and dark, no matter the lighting. To fit the mood, last night's music included old pieces which I imagined being sung by medieval voices within echoing stone walls.

It is natural to feel guilty on Good Friday, and so that's where I went. I forced myself to continue exploring my own personal sin-monkey, the grand poobah: pride. Unfortunately my pride takes the most ugly and inexcusable form: it is spiritual.

When I first began this blog I wrote with conviction that the view of spirituality I was exploring was the right one. I thought I had discovered the fullness of faith, and was simply entering into it and trying to share it. The beauty and majesty of what I studied kept me in a state of breath-constricting wonder. All I wanted to do was help others enter into the same place. To share the joy and "rightness".

My desire to share the beauty was good. But the pride I took in my stance was not good.

It is now several years later. The awe continues, but the theology has shifted. Considerably. The Catholicity that I find so gorgeous is under review. Not dismissed, not tarnished, but evaluated. God set me on a road of such strange beauty and love that I have no choice but to revise my understanding.

That revision remains under way. Who knows where it will eventually lead. So far it has led to an increased focus on Christ's teaching of love, and in particular, on His words about the Law.

I find myself engaging in a new form of debate, from a position polar opposite to the one I formerly held.

What I've discovered this Holy Week is that I'm still a judger of right. I'm still full of pride in knowing that opposing Christian views are "wrong".

My focus is now on the love of God rather than on the law of God, and that's good. But my judgementalness is still there, and that's not good. I still yell "Crucify him!" with the rest of the crowd.

Please Lord, help me not to be a pharisee. On your most holy day of resurrection, forgive me and help me.

1 comment:

Ike said...

What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified... the all-sufficient Savior of sinners... who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up... not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause... not standing aloof but embracing them freely... not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).