"Hope for Hot Messes"--September 20, 2019
"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" [Romans 7:15-25]
Maybe the thing to say at the outset here is that we are all hot messes.
Nobody really wants to admit that. I like to imagine I am in complete control of my life, my emotions, my choices, and my actions, after all, and confessing that I am a hot mess admits that all of that is a front at best. It sounds too harsh on myself.
But honestly, I don't think we really want to admit that others we butt heads with are hot messes, too, because we think it gives them too much credit. We don't want to consider that possibility with the people we disagree with are living the same struggles that we are, because we don't want to be that charitable toward them. We want to imagine that the people with whom we have friction are all terrible, villainous, and knowingly wicked, trying to make the world an awful place while they twirl their mustaches and adjust their black hats, rather than seeing that the folks with whom we most struggle are also living their own inner struggle... the same one you and I are each living, too.
And that's just it: we are all, every one of us, each a walking bundle of contradictions--a mix of beautiful possibilities and noble aspirations alongside selfish impulses and short-sighted appetites. And to hear the Apostle Paul tell it, this is the struggle of each of us--including Respectable Religious folks, deeply devout disciples, and committed Christians. We are just perhaps some of the worst at admitting the struggle is there, because we want to project the image of having it all together. Jesus is watching, after all--and so is our neighbor.
Let me offer an example or two, so that we don't just keep this conversation so vague and abstract that it never pierces me where I need it. For one, I watch my kids seemingly turn on a dime between sweet and selfless one moment to being nasty and vengeful toward each other the next sometimes. They can be playing happily, taking turns, and looking out for one another, and then without almost no explanation, erupt into a shouting match of pushing, shoving, grabbing, yelling, and insulting each other. It's not that they haven't been taught to share or to be kind or to take turns. And it's not that the blow-ups are so big or long-lasting that they can't reconcile before dinnertime usually. But it seems more like they are living in a struggle between, well like Paul puts it, two different "laws," or two different sets of operating systems. One moment they are living like they love each other and therefore want to put the good of the other before their own interests... and the next, they decide it's every kid for themselves and they are at each other's throats. Two different programs running--two different sets of inner logic, so to speak.
Or I caught, by chance, a random comment of someone on social media the other day (I know--this is a rabbit trail of terrible possibilities already). It was someone who would no doubt describe themselves as a devout and committed, church-going Christian who had no trouble at all spewing really rotten things about a politician they didn't like--not their policies, not their hypocrisy, not their temperament, but the elected official's existence. And with no hesitation at all, they rattled off some nasty remark about the public official like "That 'Person' is a waste of oxygen" (and yes, "person" was in quotes, as if the angry commenter was suggesting the one they were criticizing wasn't really a full human being, on top of being a "waste" of oxygen). Now, in a sense, that kind of comment is relatively tame in the big scheme of things--there are no words that would get bleeped or censored on television there, and there was no direct threat of violence. And yet, what struck me was that this same commenter was sharing schmaltzy and sentimental "Christian" posts in the next five minutes, too, talking about the love of Jesus and how important it was to "put God back" in our public life. And what jars me in all of that is that I'm sure we are all living these kinds of contradictions all the time. I happened to notice one commenter on one day on social media with one slant, but we are all living with these inner hypocrisies all the time, and maybe we are so used to them that we no longer see them as contradictions any longer. It's like we don't even recognize the disconnect between praising Jesus one moment and telling all the internet how important we think he is, and then the next moment we shout cruel things at the person we don't agree with, as though our disagreement refutes the image of God in which they are made. Paul would tell us we are living the tension of having two different "laws" at work within us--the old logic of Me-and-My-Group-First versus the new operating system based on the values of Christ, who loves even his enemies and who does not respond to unkindness with insults. And, whether we get called out on it in the world of social media or not, we are all doing it.
The same contradiction shows up a million other places in our lives. It's the recovering alcoholic who swears up and down on one day that he's done with his days of binge-drinking forever, only to "just happen to find himself" at the state liquor store two days later carrying out boxes full of bottles to start the cycle all over again. It's the churchgoing citizen who talks up a storm about the importance of "family values" in politics, but then who leaves their spouse because they just stopped wanting to make the effort to work things out any longer. It's the friend who says in one moment, "I'm here for you, and I'll listen while you go through this dark time," but then bails out after a few minutes of listening because they've got something more fun to do and didn't really want to get dragged into your mess in the first place. It's the preacher (ahem) who talks a good game on Sundays about loving neighbors, strangers, and enemies, but then get swept back into his old patterns of selfishness and isolation when he's not wearing his stole and robe. We are all, all the time, hot messes like this. And you could surely add more to the list--things you see in others, things you see in me, and if you are really brave, things you see in yourself.
What do we do with this unpleasant truth about each of us? Or, to use Paul's phrasing, "Who will rescue us from these bodies of death, these walking bundles of contradictions that are our lives?" And maybe we should even ask, "What would that rescue look like?"
Paul just throws his hands up and says, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!" Jesus, in other words, is the answer. But it turns out that this one-word answer (Jesus) is two-fold. And ultimately we need both halves of the answer. On the one hand, Jesus accepts us exactly as we are, while we are walking contradictions. Jesus loves me, died for me, rose for me, and raises me to new life while I am a glaring hypocrite and a divided self. Jesus knows when I am thinking loving thoughts as well as when I make some rude comment on social media--in fact, even before I click "share"--and he does not abandon me when I make mean and hurtful remarks or selfish and short-sighted choices. He loves me, this mess that I am. And that is a remarkable thing. And at the same time, Jesus doesn't simply leave us in the hell of the living contradiction for ever. Jesus has an agenda, and he is at work in us, shaping our hearts, our values, our lives, and our loves from the inside out, to make us more and more fully to reflect the beauty of his own reckless love. Jesus keeps pulling us, sanding us, poking at us, and leading us, because his unapologetic intention is to make me to be less of a jerk and more of a reflection of him. He loves me as a jerk, but he does not leave me as a jerk. He doesn't mind getting all covered in the hot mess that is my life, but he also insists on making a new creation of me.
And maybe it is only in little ways that the change comes. Maybe you don't notice it from one day to the next. Maybe today is one step forward, and then tomorrow is three steps back. Maybe sometimes my motives are mixed and I say or do something that is simultaneously graceful and selfish at the same time. The good news then is that my belonging to Jesus doesn't depend on the purity of my heart first, but rather the other way around: when Jesus says I belong, it has a way of purifying the garbage out of my soul.
So there's the truth of it, friends. We are hot messes, every one of us. It is worth being honest about that rather than pretending it ain't so. And then with that awareness, we can hopefully be more gracious with the people we struggle with, and we can be more honest with ourselves and our own pet hypocrisies.
Bottom line: you are loved, hot mess that you are, right here and right now, forever and always. And as that love goes to work on you and on me, it does something to us. Be we remain beloved, even in the midst of the mess.
Lord Jesus, bless this mess that is me. Make me to be like you.
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