The Claim That Lasts--August 11, 2022

The Claim That Lasts--August 11, 2022

"And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." [1 Corinthians 6:11]

It is terribly easy to reduce other people to the sum total of what they have done [or, more honestly, the partial list of things we have seen them do from our limited perspective].  A better and more honest view can ask, "Who are you?" rather than stopping with, "What have you done?"  And maybe for the followers of Jesus, even the question, "Who are you?" can only lead further to the deepest question, "Whose are you?"

And from our earliest beginnings, the Christian community has been willing to say that our deepest identity is rooted in God's claim of love on us, even more than the other labels and descriptions we could use for ourselves, and certain more than the list of actions we have done or left undone.  God's claim on us is permanent, where other descriptions are changeable, tenuous, and conditional over a lifetime.  

For a season of my life [from about first grade through fifth grade, I suppose] I was a Cub Scout--I'm not anymore.  For a while I was a legally licensed amateur radio operator, novice-level--but that certification has expired.  There was a time when I was single; now I am married.  I have been a resident of different states, enrolled as a student at different institutions of higher learning, and rooted for different teams over the decades of my life.  I was often on the honor roll for my high school, and I've gotten a speeding ticket before, too.  These are all actions and descriptions that have been true about me, but none of them are as permanent as God's claim on me, which is unconditional and unwavering.  And while I can be both a child of God and any of those other things at the same time [they are not mutually exclusive], I lean on my belonging to God in Christ Jesus in a way I never leaned on my amateur radio license or Scout uniform for my identity.

The same plays out in conversations with my kids on a regular basis.  If my son or daughter have been rude to each other and broken out into calling each other names, I might tell them, "That kind of talk is childish and inappropriate; I love you always, but that kind of behavior is not okay."  And when one of them retorts [as they often do in such moments], "So you're saying I'm childish?  Then you can't really love me if you're saying I'm acting like a toddler."  And after a sigh of frustration and resignation, I will invariably say to them, "Both things can be true at the same time.  Yes, I love you always.  And yes, you also did something that was childish and rude.  Both are true at the same time, but you will always be my child, regardless of what your behavior has been."  That's a hard concept for kids to get, I know; it's a hard thing for grown-ups, too, to be fair.  But that's the idea we're given here in First Corinthians:  for whatever actions, descriptions, or labels we have had put on us in life--whether rightly or wrongly, I might add--God's claim on us in Christ gets the last word.  We are all, to be honest, having the same conversation with God as I do with my kids--God keeps on reminding us BOTH that we are forever Christ's... AND that we sometimes do things that are out of character with that identity, which we are called away from as we are drawn closer to Christ.

But sometimes we just need to sit with the reality that we can be forever beloved of God, even alongside other descriptions or actions in our past.  Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are not reducible to the list of good things or bad things we have done.  I was reminded of that again recently in a really powerful way reading Bryan Stevenson's book Just Mercy, about his work helping to advocate for death-row inmates, both those who have been wrongfully accused or convicted and those who are guilty of the crimes for which they have been sentenced.  He writes near the end of this powerful book:

"Simply punishing the broken--walking away from them or hiding them from sight--only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity....Whenever things got really bad, and they were questioning the value of their lives, I would remind them that each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. I told them that if someone tells a lie that person is not just a liar. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, you are not just a thief. Even if you kill someone, you're not just a killer. I am more than broken. In fact, there is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy."

Stevenson is very much in the same vein as Paul is here in First Corinthians.  As Paul wrote to the congregation, he knew full well that they all had long histories of different kinds of "wrongdoing" [or "injustice," to carry that thread from our recent conversations].  From the kind of petty infighting or intimidation of taking one another to court, to the list of "wrongdoing" Paul had rattled off casually in yesterday's verses [which included everything from sexual exploitation to greed to weaponizing your words], the congregation in Corinth was full of people who have "done wrong" to others.  To hear Paul tell it, they were still entangled in "wrongdoing" even as he wrote to them.  But their identity wasn't reducible to the worst thing they had done or even the sum total of all their actions in a lifetime.  Maybe before their belonging to Christ, they would have defined themselves by those labels, "reviler," "robber," "greedy," or whatever.  But in light of Christ's claim on them, they are all beloved of God, washed [probably a nod to having been baptized], made holy, and, as Paul notes, too, "justified."

That's another really important idea that we might easily gloss over, especially in our English translations.  You can probably spot the root "just-" in the word "justified," and, yeah, it's the same word-family we get our word "justice" from.  It's the same in Paul's Greek as well--there's the sense of "justice" there, which is huge given that Paul has accused them [rightly] of being "doers of injustice" toward others.  To be claimed by God is to know that God has already seen all of the injustice and wrongdoing in us, to have loved us nevertheless, and to see God redirecting us FOR justice, which is to say, for right relationships.  If we have been used to relationships of greed, exploitation, indifference, apathy, or manipulation [and I suspect we have], God's claim on us has changed things for us--we are "justified."  That means not only that God refuses to reduce us to the worst thing we have ever done, but also that God's kind of love is making us capable of new kinds of good, loving, and "just" relationships--with God and with one another.  

God claims us forever like parents claim their children forever... and God is making us into people whose relationships are compassionate, honorable, caring, and decent toward all.  Like Stevenson says, when we are able to hear that we are beloved even in our brokenness, we are able to both to receive mercy... and to show it to others.  When we realize we are unconditionally loved by God, we are able in turn to love others without needing to "get" something in return from them, and without exploitation, manipulation, or strings attached.  When we realize that God doesn't treat us as merely the list of actions we've done [as "liars" or "cheaters" or "stealers" or what have you], but claims us as children in the family, we become capable of regarding others as more than their list of good or bad deeds, too.  And in all of it, we move away from an old "normal" of wallowing in injustice toward each other, and into something new, where justice and mercy are our way of life... because they are God's way.

I don't know what labels you carry with you every day, whether the ones you have chosen or the ones you have had others place you, but I do know this: God doesn't regard you or me [or any of us] on the basis of the worst things we've done, the temporary affiliations we've carried, or the habits we have never been able to shake.  God says of you, "You are beloved--forever." And that is a claim that goes all the way down to our core. What would it look like today to live out of that identity?

Lord Jesus, remind us whose we are, and who we are now because of your love for us. Allow us to leave behind our old unjust and crooked ways, and to be reshaped in light of your kind of justice and mercy, today and always.