Uncounted Beans

Uncounted Beans--March 12, 2018

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us." [2 Corinthians 5:18-19]

It's a done deal.

From God's perspective it always has been.  God has already forgiven, buried, and put away everything we had on our collective planetary tab, and God is done with it all.  Done with the bean-counting, done with the grudge-holding, done even with simple basic record-keeping. You could say that God has chosen to be done with it all because God refuses to be done with us.

Now this is another one of those truths that should make us blush if we take it seriously, because the overwhelming majority of Christian thinkers and writers and teachers for the last two thousand years have spent an awful lot of time trying to blunt Paul's words or look for places to add fine print and little asterisks in the text.  We are, frankly, uncomfortable with the notion of a God who keeps no record of wrongs, because some part of us still keeps chirping about the need to show ourselves worthy of forgiveness--which, of course, is an utter contradiction in terms.

Somewhere deep down a good many of us still secretly believe that God is a cosmic accountant, keeping track of wrong actions, good behaviors, and the cumulative net difference between those raw scores in each person's life.  We imagine that this is what God's justice looks like, and we still sort of imagine that all the Bible's talk about "grace" is really just describing a sort of spiritual boost or kick-start for those times when we need a little help to get back on the good-deeds-bike.  That kind of grace would be ok for our sensibilities, because there's nothing reckless or scandalous about helping a kid get back on his bicycle seat with a friendly push.  But the idea that grace is a complete and total wiping away of the records of black hash-marks and red pen corrections on our spiritual permanent record--that just seems too... reckless... at least for a respectable deity. 

So we usually say things like, "God is perfectly willing to forgive someone who is at least trying to be good..." or "Grace is available for all regular attending church members, because they are the ones who get access to God's great grace-dispensary-vending machine."  Or religious folks say things (completely incorrect things, mind you, but churchgoing folks still say them) like, "God won't help people who haven't explicitly invited God in--and that's why God lets horrible, violent things happen in public schools." That puts some controls and some guardrails on this grace business--it'll keep it reserved just for the ones who are really worthy of a second chance.  And it will keep some boundaries around forgiveness... you know, to keep the riff-raff out.

Ah... a bounded gospel of limited access to conditional forgiveness for the promising and the penitent--that sounds like a respectable religion to me.  That sounds, honestly, like the beginnings of pop Christianity as we let it be marketed by televangelists, radio preachers, and social media memes. 

And, to be clear, the actual living God we meet in Christ--the God of the cross--will have absolutely none of that.  It's a load of dingo's kidneys. Unqualified horse manure.  

With the God of the cross, there is no half-measure or condition permitted.  It's either a blanket amnesty over all creation or nothing.  But God will have no truck with going Dutch.

At least, if we are going to take what Paul says here to the Corinthians seriously (and Respectable Religious types do tend to want to take the Bible quite seriously, after all), then we will have to get accustomed to the idea that, <ahem>, "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them."  We are just going to have to let that steep, because that's how Paul says it is.  There is no room for tacking on some legalese for weaseling God out of such a broad sweeping statement, and there is no possibility of a later heavenly press secretary stepping up to the divine podium later having to walk back these plenary promises.  There is simply taking God's Word on its own terms: God has already--already!--reconciled the world--the world!--to God's own self.  Christ has done it from his side of the relationship, his side of the equation, so to speak, without any input from us and without consideration of what we bring to the table... because all we do, in fact, bring to the table is a record of trespasses, infractions, and debts.  And at the cross, God has simply decided to be done with keeping those records.  The beans shall go uncounted, forever and ever, Amen and Amen.

Now, it should be clear why some part of each of us is probably a little squeamish about actually taking these words from 2 Corinthians seriously.  This talk of a God who has already granted unconditional pardon over "the world" sounds terribly reckless to us.  We would rather put boundaries and caps on those for whom Christ died.  Yes, yes, it's fine to sing "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.." in church, because well, if you're singing it in church, you're already one of the good people who is trying hard.  But to say that God has already reconciled with a world full of people who don't want anything to do with Christ?  That sounds scandalous.  That sounds like it's too easy and too loosey-goosey.  And yet, it is precisely the way God operates.  In fact, according to Paul, it is the only way God ever has.

Christians believe--on good authority, mind you--that Jesus' death at the cross actually accomplished something, that it actually did something.  Jesus' own dying word in John's Gospel, "Tetelestai!"--that is, "It is finished!"--says as much.  Something was begun and ended there, something that is not open for revision or rescinding.  If that is true, then Jesus' death isn't just a kickstart of forgiveness for the times I was trying hard but fell off the bike, but rather the whole world's complete rap sheet, all wiped away and thrown out, including the sins I haven't gotten around to sinning yet as I write.  All of it--all of human history's sins and selling-out all of our iniquities and indiscretions, all of our salacious wrongs and our self-righteous hypocrisies--they are all let go of from God's side at the cross, even the ones that are still in the future from our vantage point.  God has either reconciled with us and dealt with all of it, or Paul the Apostle can't be trusted.

So... dare we let the Scriptures themselves poke holes in all the partitions we were trying to set up to contain the grace of God?  Dare we see that it's the New Testament itself driving the bulldozer that knocks down the walls we had put up to corral and separate the "worthy" class whom we think have earned forgiveness, away from the "unworthy" class of unacceptables?  And could we allow the possibility that--just as Paul himself says it--the cross is God's complete pardon and total amnesty over creation?

Because that's what the message of the cross is.  Anything less is still a variation on our imagined picture of eternal bean-counting.  But if we dare listen to the Bible on its own terms here, the cross means that from God's vantage point, it's all a done deal.

Lord Jesus, let us dare to see your reconciliation is as wide as you have dared to make it.  Let us share the news with everyone we meet that you have made things right with us already from your side.