Make It Better--June 29, 2020

Make It Better--June 29, 2020

"'All things are lawful,' but not all things are beneficial. 'All things are lawful,' but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other." [1 Corinthians 10:23-24]

There's a song playing in my head again tonight. I first heard it sung by Jonathan Rundman, who credits the lyrics to Michael Hall, and the first verse offers these words, originally written about the loss of a friend:

Everyone is an artist... and everyone's a bureaucrat.

Everyone is a good guy... and everybody is a rat.

Everyone is beautiful... and everyone is base.

But you--made this a better place.

The whole song works like that--pairs of opposites, held in tension, about how each of us is a paradox of goodness and rottenness.  And then each verse comes to the recurring refrain, over and over: "But you... made this a better place."

In all honesty, I don't know that there is much more one can hope for in this life--to have made the world, for all brokenness both around us and inside us, a better place.

For Paul, writing here to a fractured congregation in Corinth (all divided along party lines and convinced each was better than the other), it's beautiful to me what simple clarity he offers.  This is the same Paul who has staked his life on the certainty that there's nothing we can do to earn God's love... the same Paul who elsewhere can be obstinate in refusing to add any conditions, requirements, or fine print to his freedom in Christ... the same Paul who is also confident that in the end God is making a whole new creation.  And yet, here that same guy sees so clearly that our calling, given that we know we are already beloved and saved by grace every day of the week, is simply to make things better for others.  

There it is, friends: a purpose for our days that we could each fill a lifetime with. How do I make the world a better place, not merely for myself, or for me-and-the-ones-like-me, but for "the other"?  How can I make this a better place?  If I get to the end of my life and that can be said of me, it will have been a lifetime well spent.

And here's the secret--which is no secret at all, except that we so often fail to hear what Paul is saying here--to living out that purpose:  we surrender the attitude that says, "I can do whatever I want, and you can't stop me!"  We let go of that childish way of thinking (as I sometimes hear out of the mouths of my actual children) that goes, "Nobody can MAKE me--I don't have to if I don't WANT TO!"  And we definitely let go of the mindset that puts Me-and-My-Group-First, because we realize that just isn't how God operates in the world.

Paul puts it so directly: don't just look out for your own advantage, your own comfort level, your own convenience.  And he pushes further, insisting that we cannot try and bring God into it by saying, "It's my God-given right to do as I please!" That's not how followers of Jesus are meant to think about "rights."  So, while Paul will readily concede that there are a lot of things we are technically "allowed" to do, that kind of misses the point.  For Christians, Paul says, that's the wrong framing of the question.  It's not, "Is there a rule that says I can't--and if so, who says I have to follow it?" but rather, "How can I make things better for others?"

That's the revolution of love we have been pulled into, dear ones.  It's a revolution because the world around us still thinks it is a good idea only to see things in terms of self-interest and childish "You-can't-make-mes." And we are freed from having to see the world like that.  We are free FOR the sake of our neighbor, even to the point of putting the good of the neighbor before our own.  In Paul's world and time, that meant things like being willing to forgo meat that had been sacrificed to idols if that was going to cause upset and offense to someone else who was really hung up on the source of the meat, rather than insisting, "But it's my God-given right to eat meat, and you can't stop me!" Maybe in our day it's little things like being willing to wear a mask in public to minimize the risk of spreading sickness to someone else because you don't know if you could be carrying the virus.  Maybe it means we stop complaining about other people being offended by things that may not offend us directly, and instead ask the other person to share their experience, and to go above and beyond not to cause hurt or harm to someone else.  My goodness, it seems we so easily become like little children again complaining that we are being told to be kind to others, when it is an easy win for making the world a better place to do the kind thing, rather than trot out the same tired "But I have the right to do what I want" cliche.  Sure, I guess we do have the "right" to do lots of things... but my "rights" can't love me, and other people can... and my "rights" are not made in the image of God, but my neighbor is.

It seems sad to me that we keep needing to have conversations like this--especially among church folks, since the New Testament has been making this plain from Day One.  But because we live in a time when Respectable Religious folks sometimes like to insist, not only on looking out for their own interests rather than the interests of others, but doing it in as obnoxious a way as possible and thinking that makes it virtuous, we have to keep coming back to the clear, simple refrain that both Jesus and Paul spoke, and that other wise voices have been singing to us ever since: do what makes this a better place.

That's enough of a calling for this day, isn't it?

Do the things that make this a better place for others today.

Say the words that will build someone else up.

Practice kindness rather than self-interest.

Build someone else up, rather than insisting only on securing your own "rights."

Be willing to be inconvenienced... or to feel a little uncomfortable... or to look silly... for the sake of someone else.

And then, when our time is done, may it be said of us, "You made this a better place."

Lord Jesus, you who put our well-being before your own, give us the courage, the love, and the faithful imagination to make the world in which you have placed us a better place for others today.  And let that be enough.