"On Not Getting Over It"--July 5, 2019

"On Not Getting Over It"--July 5, 2019

"From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body." [Galatians 6:17]

I have come to believe that one of the greatest gifts that Christ-followers have to offer the world is the ability not to get over things--especially painful things--from the past.  

It is the capacity to keep scars, rather than to cover them up, hide them, or ignore them, and then to let them become places for God to show up.  That is a rare and much needed gift for the world, but often it just looks at first blush like the propensity not to "just get over it" when difficulties come.

I realize that may sound counterintuitive.  Christians, after all, are supposed to be in the business of forgiveness, and of announcing God's audacious forgiveness over us, too--the kind of mercy that removes our sins from us "as far as the east is from the west." The Scriptures say that God blots out our transgressions, and that Jesus left the record of our mess-ups nailed to the cross--that all sounds like we should just be able to put the past behind us, doesn't it?  Shouldn't Christians be the best at following the advice of a certain Disney princess and just "let it go"?

But maybe there is a difference between forgiving someone for past wrongs and pretending that what we have been through doesn't leave a mark on us--good and bad both.  Maybe it is possible--in fact, perhaps it is only possible--to forgive, or to accept the fact of our forgiveness, when we name the wrongs of the past, acknowledge our part in them as both wounder and wounded, and to own the marks they leave on us.  Maybe it is only possible to heal when we first acknowledge the cuts--whether one large cut or a thousand nicks--so that they can be bound up.  Maybe the way to truly offer forgiveness is to acknowledge that the things we endure in this life may well indeed permanently change us... and only after that, to say, "But even so, I will not weaponize the past against you and keep going after you for what you have done."

I think it is true, too, with the other kinds of struggles we endure in this life, even in situations where there is no need for forgiveness or repentance to be spoken. Sometimes things happen in life that are just plain terrible, and no one needs to step forward as "the guilty party," but rather life itself just is heavy.  No one needs to assign blame for the seemingly random cancer diagnosis.  Or when a hurricane wipes out your home and you need to start all over again, there is no point in asking the storm to apologize, or of granting it forgiveness.  Or when the economy takes a down turn and the local factory closes, or the farm has to go up for sale, it may not be any one person's "fault" which requires the saying of sorries.  

And do be honest, there are times when some of both is happening--an event that is beyond our control may set off a chain of consequences, and then the way we deal with those consequences becomes something we do bear responsibility for.  So, when the factory closes and dad loses his job, there is no one to blame perhaps--but when he starts drinking and abusing his kids because he is so depressed about the lay-off, now he has sinned against his family and forgiveness is required.  It may be that the hurricane is no one person's fault, but we may well responsibility for continuing to rebuild over and over again in the path of such storms, instead of changing how and where we build developments.  Regardless those kind of situations will affect us, and they will change the courses of our lives permanently.  

But each of these things that happen in life will leave marks on us.  And as much as TV-preacher religion often says that with a positive attitude we can just wink those things away and rise above them without any lasting effects, genuine Christianity is capable of owning the way we get scarred by those things.  We can acknowledge the ways that life circumstances affect us--both those that are beyond our control, as well as those for which we bear responsibility.  Sometimes confession and forgiveness is required... and sometimes lament is called for.  But the followers of Jesus are given the gift of being able to name the wounds and to acknowledge the scars we carry--on our bodies as well as on our hearts--in a world that wants to rush through (or skip over) talking about them.

And part of our gift to the world then--or maybe, Jesus' gift to the world through us--will be our ability not to sweep those things under the rug or pretend they aren't there... even if the world around at first thinks that means we aren't "getting over it."

Paul seems to see that as a part of his story--he talks about bearing the marks of Jesus in his body, and he doesn't seem ashamed or afraid of acknowledging those scars.  I don't think you have to jump to the conclusion that he is talking about any kind of mystical "stigmata" as sometimes the medieval church got obsessed with.  I don't think Paul means that when Jesus died on the cross the nail-marks somehow got transferred to his followers as literal scars.  But I do think that Paul did carry literal scars--and surely also wounds on his heart--from the scrapes and troubles he had been through because of following Jesus.  And Paul doesn't blush at having them, or deny they are there, or cover them up with long sleeves or concealer from the makeup counter.  He doesn't get angry or bitter about them, either--he just acknowledges that they are there, and they have made him the person he is.  And in a sense, his willingness to bear those scars--from the times he got stoned by a mob, or beaten up by the police, or lost at sea, or separated from friends--these were a part of how Paul saw his calling to bring the love of Jesus to other people.  The scars--both the marks on his body and the wounds left on his heart--were part and parcel of reflecting Jesus into the world.  It's not that being a follower of Jesus requires a certain number of bruises or broken bones to make us "good enough Christians," but rather that as we embody the way of Jesus, it will mean that we bear the pain of life in this world... because this is the world into which Jesus sends us.

Paul doesn't "just get over" all the things he has been through, because he has come to see in those marks on his life that these were moments in life when he was able to share the love of Jesus.  Sometimes in enduring physical suffering and responding with love and forgiveness.  Sometimes in the heartache of being separated from friends as he went on to the next town in his missionary journeys.  Sometimes in the sacrifices he made so that he could keep sharing the good news of Christ with people who had been told they were unacceptable and unworthy of love from God.  But Paul came to a point where he wouldn't trade the wounds away for anything--he came to see that, as the old line of poetry attributed to Rumi puts it, "the wound is where the light enters."

Today, perhaps our calling is simply to own the scars we carry in our life from what we have endured, and from where we have been.  That isn't the same as becoming bitter about how we have been endlessly wronged, and it isn't about becoming permanently victimized or seeking vengeance.  It is about truth-telling--naming the wounds we wear, without shame, and not trying to skip over them or deny the, even if at first it feels like "not getting over it." And maybe in doing so, we will make it possible for someone else to be courageous enough to show their own scars, and for us to come to see them transformed into the marks of Jesus.  

Maybe even a little light will enter in.

Lord Jesus, we offer up our wounds that you might be present and visible through them, and that in your scarred hands we might reflect your light at our broken places.