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United Methodist Church |
Change and Repentance | |
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Pecot's Puttering
My minstry comes most often not by intention or plan or design (all of which are important) but by milling around close to where God is. Pecot's Putterings is my attempt to articulate what I am bumping up against as I move around the congregation, questions asked and the wisdom of ages sought. |
The past two months have put the whole country into a tizzy. It is hard to escape the spiritual issues around President Clinton’s infidelity. The news has been full of pastors speaking their minds and offering advice mostly where none was asked. Sadly, I am rather embarrassed by how little the faith community has had to say that is helpful and by how easily it has been for the people of this country to dismiss the church’s voice in basic matters of morals and faithfulness (oh how we have corrupted that marvelous word and made it mean so little). Faced with compelling examples of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment, we have found ourselves sadly preoccupied with power as attention focuses on the President and not his victims. Our lurid voyeurisms make the victims suffer even more, shoving their noses in the abuse and continually blaming them for it. What does that mean for our society which is full of sexual victims? We have seen an incredibly complex situation arise where the arenas of the legal process, justice and punishment, and personal and spiritual repentance are completely muddled together. Bill, Hillary, Chelsea and Monica (the real people) are put in the horrible place where there is no way to bring justice, and the issue of legality and healing are put in direct confrontation with one another. Mercy, justice, law have all been tarnished by this experience and we have all lost a great deal in this battle. Congress is obsessing in scandal in the hopes that it will be politically advantageous somehow while the needs of the nation go unnoticed. On the other hand, the Bible is filled with situations where the events in the life of the King are made parables for God’s work with the people. We ask, what if Bill or Monica were members of our church asking for a path of repentance? Would we know what to do with them? And in fact, in a country where the incidence of affairs and betrayals is so extraordinarily high, it is telling that most folks would never in a million years ask for the help of their church. It would be a rare church that didn’t have two or three of these scenarios playing itself out right now. How do we join this dialogue in the way that leads to spiritual transformation, healing, and growth for all of us? We have seen some signs of healing in community but also the fact that community can greatly impair a healing process if it is implicated in the sin itself. In our media dominated world, where we need things dramatic and quick, we have developed a short memory. And whereas forgiveness is something that can happen in a flash, the process of repentance is often very long, very slow, sometimes taking a lifetime. People can show great remorse which is not repentance at all, but simply a part of the unhealthy behavior patterns. So, it makes sense for us all to become more literate in our spiritual heritage of repentance, of changing directions. I think it is very telling that most members of a church, when asked what they would tell Clinton to do in his job of repentance would not have the slightest idea. On the other hand almost any member of any twelve step group meeting in a thousand meetings all over our country would have very explicit and helpful advice for one wanting to change from a destructive pattern. And they would use the two foundations of community and spirituality. So, in this newsletter we will explore change and repentance.
Ted |
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Doug Norris, a minister in the California Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, was teasing his parishioners once as he was fidgeting in a committee meeting. He said that God never made anything in a straight line, everything in squiggles, which, he continued, made him one of the most Godly people alive. Aside from being fun, this was also good, and rather profound theology when it comes to looking at the process of discernment and following God’s path. We find often that we gain a sense of God’s direction and naively site a course and take off only to find that after the first step the course has shifted and we are suddenly off the path again.
Within the Christian tradition, this is why we emphasize relationship over creed or doctrine. We are called not to believe certain precepts but to walk with the God who comes close. It should be the case that Christians find forgiving one another easy because we are constantly finding ourselves on the wrong path, constantly needing to turn toward where God has mysteriously emerged in our lives.
Repentance in this dynamic system is a life style, not simply something we do in those hopefully rare times when we do something incredibly wrong or hurtful. Repentance is the process of constantly checking in to see where God is going in your life and trying to be there. It is also the constant process of letting go of our own plans and expectations in order to follow God.
Ignatius of Loyola offers this pattern for repentance and discernment of God’s path.
If at any point in the following process you become clear of God’s leading, then do it.
Take stock of your situation and name yourself and the problem.
Use any resources you have including (and especially) your imagination and intuition.
Choose the best of your options and try it out for a while evaluating your spiritual state of being using the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness. Galatians 5)
Sometimes we just don’t know and no amount of discernment will bring us any closer to a decision or path. At these times, just choose one and confidently move knowing we are held in the understanding and grace of God.
Ted’s Fourth Rule Of The Spiritual Life is: guilt is worthless. Guilt gets in the way of almost all spiritual growth. A distinction needs to be made however between guilt and distress of conscience. Everyone needs a well functioning conscience. People that don’t have one we consider to be mentally ill – it is a sickness, a dysfunction of brain activity. Conscience helps us see and feel when we are doing something "wrong", either in our society or in our own values and hopes. Guilt however is when we start living in the negative feelings of conscience. We refuse God’s forgiveness. We refuse to act in repentance or defiance and move on. Instead, we dwell on our feelings of inadequacy and this is nothing less than pridefulness. It separates us not only from God, but from others around us and from ourselves. Guilt is worthless. Often we feel guilty because we have no idea how to receive forgiveness. We will not open ourselves up to the blessings from others or from God, and this separation is how we define sin. God does not desire us to feel bad about something we’ve done. God desires us to change. And to change, we must often give up dwelling on our past and moving into the future. Guilt, if it does anything at all, reminds us that we haven’t done our work of letting go.
In another lovely little book, Lewis B. Smedes, (New York: Pocket, 1984) talks about four stages in the process of forgiveness.
We hurt.
We hate.
We heal ourselves.
We come together.
How do we come to forgive someone who has wronged us?
Slowly, with a little understanding, in confusion, with anger left over, a little at a time, freely, or not at all., with a fundamental feeling.
David Augsburger has written this great little book. On the one side is Caring Enough to Forgive, and if you turn the book upside down and over then reading from the other side is Caring Enough Not to Forgive. It is a when to and when not to book. The core of his discussion about forgiveness is that forgiveness is part of a relationship and it is always a deepening of the intimacy of a relationship. Using this starting point, there are important descriptions of the process of forgiveness. I give you but a taste in this newsletter and encourage you to read the book.
Don’t forgive when forgiveness puts you one up.
Don’t forgive when forgiveness is one way.
Don’t forgive when forgiveness distorts feelings.
Don’t forgive when forgiveness denies anger.
Don’t forgive when forgiveness ends an open relationship.
Forgive by realizing wrongdoing.
Forgive by reaffirming love.
Forgive by releasing the past.
Forgive by renewing repentance.
Forgive by rediscovering community.
One helpful tool to work with changing ourselves is the seven deadly sins. These are not rules or judgments, but guides to the most treacherous pitfalls that await us that kill the spirit within us. The result of each equally is death. Or, if we honestly face ourselves using these guides, we move to a place of grace and abundant life.
The list of the "seven deadly sins" used here is actually "nine deadly sins" used by the Enneagram. As the Islamic tradition reflected on sins it found two that the Christian church seems almost blind to. Most importantly fear, because the Christian church has used fear too often to guide and direct for two thousand years, even today. And yet there is no "sin" which Jesus speaks against more.
You will notice that each of these sins is often a strength that is obsessively used until it saps rather than protects life. Augustine used the word "concupiscence" to describe this insatiable distortion of some natural human need or emotion. We present the "Nine Deadly Sins" in the order presented in the Enneagram.
Anger – The sin of anger is not the feeling of anger. We all get angry; anger is good. The Deadly Sin of anger grasps onto our anger and uses it not as a feeling in ourselves, but as a tool to manipulate others or ourselves, usually in some kind of judgment.
Pride – The sin of pride is not the positive self esteem. God desires for us to feel good about ourselves, claim our gifts and strengths – this is the essence of humility. The Deadly sin builds a self image on what we do for others. In pride, we raise and separate ourselves from those around us. This separation is pride.
Deceit – The Enneagram sets a context for seeing deceit which is very helpful. When we place such importance on success and image over real values, then slowly we begin to make ourselves look good in order to get done what we want. End products are more important than truth or relationships. Little lies, little ways to slant the truth (or in the case of Clinton, we define the world the way we want so we can say whatever we want – "I don’t consider what we did sex.").
Envy – This Deadly sin makes us step outside of ourselves because someone or something else is better than we are. We deny God’s creation over an image of what is better, bigger, fuller, and thus walk straight out of God’s world.
Greed/ Avarice – The wisdom of our ancestors suggests that there are those of us who only consume. We want more and more and more, never giving back. Greed separates us from the very foundations of a world that is created in relationship, in a cycle of giving and receiving.
Fear – Jesus speaks against this sin more than any other. Our need to be safe and secure paralyzes us, makes us angry and hostile, consumes us with ways to protect ourselves, and finally drives us apart and against one another.
Gluttony – Gluttony is the sin of eating ourselves to death, one way or another. In eating, our needs are fulfilled. Our need for friendship is eaten. Our need to experience grief is eaten. Our need to be sad is swallowed right down. Gluttony collapses our experience of life and emotion, pain and joy, into one activity. The Enneagram explains that this comes when we cannot handle negative emotions, so we have to be joyful and celebratory. But neither joy nor celebration can come when we so limit the world. Addictions form in the sin of gluttony. We drink to feel better. We smoke to get through the day.
Lust – When natural sexual desire becomes an endless pursuit of sexual fulfillment or sexual stimulation, we die. Sexuality is abstracted from relationship, something to get rather than something to be lived and shared. Augustine called this concupiscence which is endless desire. In lust, people are constantly looking for something that can never be found. And in this way, we move beyond sexuality to a way of living life lustfully, and thus never satisfied.
Sloth – When we cease working, ceasing doing it can be a great blessing and contemplation, or it can be deadly. It is so important for us to relax, but when relaxation becomes a way of life driven by the fear of action or the lack of call, we die.
We each display each of these sins sometimes. We each probably have one that we live in and that harms our life in a big way. Each is an overemphasis or misuse of something that is natural, good and full of grace. To know these sins, we can learn from them, see ways that they separate us from God and each other. We can then, accept God’s forgiveness and there are many wise counsels in how to overcome them.
Ghandi’s Seven Deadly SinsPolitics Without
Principle. |
Do you want to heal from an addiction? Do you want to work out a flaw in your character that leads to abuse or destructive compulsion? There is no process that is more effective than the twelve step process. Therapists, jailers, courts, churches, communities, who have been wracking their brains to figure how to help child abusers, alcoholics, and other addicts, overeaters, find help in this process that very simply calls someone who is dying from destructive behavior into the honesty and accountability of a group where they must name themselves and their disease and then rely on a "Higher Power" to lead them back into life. Remember, that each of these twelve steps is done within the context of a community of healing, and often with a sponsor who can hold the person honestly and accountably to their path or repentance. One "works" these steps building one step at a time, constantly traveling the ground of the earlier steps.
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol/drugs, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand that Power.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand that Power, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics/addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Originally published in October 1998 issue of the Good News Letter, Morgan Hill United Methodist Church.
Last update: 1/16/03WG