Throwing Good After Bad--October 13, 2021

Throwing Good After Bad--October 13, 2021

"See to it that no one becomes like Esau, an immoral and godless person, who sold his birthright for a single meal. You know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, even though he sought the blessing with tears." [Hebrews 12:16-17]

I've got a soft spot for sad songs, especially ones of lost or unrequited love. They help me, as it turns out, to hear the words of Scripture in a new way quite frequently.  A song that comes from a broken heart helps me hear the pleading of God's Spirit, calling to us over and over again, even though we keep bailing out on that same God and chasing after what won't satisfy us.  Lyrics that come from a place of loving vulnerability help me to hear that same kind of woundedness in God's own heart, as God keeps loving us even through pain and betrayal, whether it's thirty pieces of silver, a golden calf, a bowl of lentil stew like with Esau, or the latest shiny thing to come along and make us empty promises.

So I'm not exactly surprised, that another lost-love song has been singing to me alongside these words from Hebrews.  Lately, I've been listening on repeat to a tune of Brandi Carlile's, called, "Throwing Good after Bad," and hearing clear echoes of the heartfelt admonition from Hebrews not to throw away something good and enduring for something that sparkles and fades.

The song starts simply and plaintively: "I know you're leaving me, I know I'm not your home. You want a movie dancer, you want blood from a stone."  (She's got me hooked from the get-go, I'll confess it.)  But then she addresses her beloved further, and there's this plea not to throw away the good thing they have: "But I'm onto you--and you will pour your heart into any shimmering fad... throwing good after bad."  The song continues, "People get addicted to the rush, the chase, the new--just hoping that all that chaos will lead to something like this..."

And with that, I know that she's got all of our number.  It's not just the lover in the song--we all have this way of throwing away the good thing we have with the One who loves us to go chasing after the latest distraction that promises us something good... but always leaves us feeling empty inside.  That's what the writer of Hebrews has in mind when he alludes to the story of Esau, the elder twin brother of Jacob, who famously sold his brother his birthright when he was hungry for a bowl of lentil soup... only to regret it later.  (Now, we can certainly have a conversation later about how Jacob should have just given his brother some soup instead of being a jerk and a schemer trying to cut a deal with Esau, but that's for another time.) Esau comes to epitomize that penny-wise-but-pound-foolish thinking that trades something of lasting worth for something that only satisfies in the moment.

It would be easy to hear the writer of Hebrews just scolding us here, but I think there is something much more tender than just a lecture in the principal's office in these words.  I hear the heartache of a love song here.  I hear Brandi Carlile's jilted narrator asking her beloved not to throw away the good thing they have just for the chase of someone or something new.  And I can't help but think that's how God seeks after us and pursue us--not threatening with a bolt of lightning to zap us if we go astray, but knowing that we are setting ourselves up for disappointment and heartbreak if we go chasing after "any shimmering fad" that comes along to lure for for a moment.  It's that vulnerable God--who bears the wounds from our unfaithfulness--who calls us not throw away a good thing.  It's that (dare I say it?) woundable God who wants to spare us the pain of being let down by the smooth-talkers peddling "the rush, the chase, the new."

If you have been there before--if you know what it is like to be discarded by someone you once held dear--then you can hear the same tender warning here from the Scriptures like it's a song of lost love: "Don't go throwing away a Love that would last, a Love that would give its life away for you, just because you think someone new will come along to dazzle you." And maybe we can also hear the quiet, but still very real, offer of a new beginning, adding a new verse that says we can start over... you are always welcome here... love is still here waiting for you."

That's the tragedy and the comedy of a love story like ours with God: for God (or a biblical writer) to say, "Don't throw good after bad" is also to say, "You've already got something good in your hands right now!  Please don't waste it or discard it. Please don't throw away the One who loves you even for all your fickleness and faithlessness.  Please don't cause yourself that pain."

You have a gift in your hands right now--you are given the gift of God's faithful, enduring love, when others are going to bail out on you.  Today, treasure the love you have been given from this God, and don't throw it away. Don't go throwing good after bad.

Lord God, let us say Yes back to your unabashed Yes of love to us, and don't let us take your love for granted.