Recovering Bullets

Recovering Bullets--February 10, 2017

"You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." [Ephesians 2:1-10]

I have this bell... and it used to be a bullet.

It's round like a ball, no bigger in diameter than a nickel, and the metal is pretty roughly hammered. It's rustic. But it will jingle if you ring it; it is a real, functioning bell. I like to imagine that if I were inclined (and permitted by the local municipal authority) to have a goat, I could put this bell of mine on its collar to help me knowing whether it was eating my front lawn or my back yard.  But I keep it, even absent a goat, because it used to be a bullet.

A few years back I got my hands on this bell through Church World Service, which had a program where people in Cambodia would pick up the empty casings from rifle and machine gun ammunition that had been used by the Khmer Rouge on their own people and that were apparently just strewn all over the ground in some places, and then they would hammer these old weapons into bells.  "Shells into bells," they called it.

I used to think of that passage from the prophet Isaiah when I looked at my bell--that poetic vision about swords hammered into plowshares.  But lately, I have been thinking about these words from Ephesians, and about how the whole Christian life, right here and now, is encapsulated in my former-bullet-now-bell.  The whole life of following Jesus is about letting the living God remake us from an old purpose that was bent on destruction into a new kind of creation, with a new purpose, and a new existence. 

That is to say, I don't just have a bell that used to be a bullet... I am a bell that used to be a bullet.  All of us in this thing called the Mercy Movement are recovered bullets that are also recovering.  We are being transformed.

On its own, that old bullet casing was never going to be anything else.  Spent ammunition doesn't spontaneously make itself into something useful.  It took the will and the inspiration of some artisan to stoop down in the dirt, pick up something that was empty and unusable to just about any other eyes, and then to remake it into a whole new creation.  That is an act of artistry, of craftsmanship.  And even though the old spent shell casing lying on the ground was never going to make anything of itself, it could receive a new existence as a gift... which comes with a new purpose.

The newly hammered bell was made to ring--to be something constructive, something even musical, rather that a piece of scrap left over from a time of horrific violence.  It was given a new purpose, which the bell-maker had in mind all along from the moment she or he picked up that spent bullet casing off the ground, took it to a workshop, and laid it on an anvil. 

Now, from the bullet/bell's perspective, its transformation has been a complete and total gift.  And its new purpose--to ring and make noise, rather than to lay on the ground in futility as a testament to human cruelty at its worst--that new purpose was a gift, too.  But at the very same time, its new "being" as a bell, rather than as a bullet, carries with it a responsibility to be what the artisan made it to be.  A bell is made to ring.  That's what its new purpose is.

That's very much the way the second chapter of Ephesians talks about our life in Christ.  On our own, we were dead and spent.  That's what the life lived for self really boils down to--when my driving question is, "How can I get what I want?" I turn my soul into a cul-de-sac, a dead-end.  Like the old chestnut about the difference between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, if I am only focused on getting, and accumulating, and focusing on my own interests or comfort, I am setting myself up for becoming dead and arid.  When we are focused inward on preserving ourselves and getting our own self-interest, we are already on the path to death.  Whether it's me as an individual, a community or congregation, or a whole society, when our primary question becomes, "How can I preserve myself?" we are already spent ammunition laying on the jungle floor.  And the sad news is that this is the human condition when we are left to our own devices.  On our own, we do have that bent to be focused first on ourselves.  On our own, we can't will ourselves into new creations, either.

But God has not given up on us.  Not at all.  The story of the Gospel is of a God who sees a world full of us self-centered spent shell-casings and says, "I will reclaim them as my own.  I will save them from being lost to decay and corrosion.  I will rescue them from nothingness.  And I will make them into something new, with a new purpose that I have in mind."  Now, the word for "what-happens-when-God-stoops-to-pick-up-wasted-ammunition-casings-and-transform-them-into-something-good-and-beautiful" is... grace.  It is a gift we did not earn or make happen.  But there is also a new purpose that comes with grace.  The NRSV translation of Ephesians 2 says it this way: "For we are what he has made us."  But the Greek is richer--the phrase "what he has made us" is the Greek word poema that means "a piece of workmanship,"  or "a masterpiece," or a "creation of a craftsman."  It is also, by the way, where we get the word "poem" from--that is something, that is made or done with artistry, with care, and with great intentionality.  We are God's masterpiece--made with a purpose that is given to us as well.  Again, Ephesians says that we are "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared for us beforehand to be our way of life."  Notice--that's not optional.  An artisan doesn't take a spent bullet casing, transform it into a bell, and then ask the bell, "Would you rather ring now, or be shot out of a gun?"  The master artisan sees something that was bent on destruction and left to rust, and the master artisan gives it new possibilities.  Turns out those are grace, too.

God picked you up out of the dirt.  Me too.  God chose us and claimed us and is making something new out of us--and that will mean we are called to start asking a new question.  Instead of the old deathly question, "How can I get more of what I want?" we are given a new question, "What has God made of me, and what is God up to with me?"

So... how will you answer that question today?  What is God up to with you?  How can you be open to it?

Lord Jesus, make us your new masterpieces and make us all new.