A New Way to Walk--September 30, 2024

A New Way to Walk--September 30, 2024

"Let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." [Romans 13:13-14]

I had this so wrong for so long. It's not about nervously worrying that Jesus' reputation will suffer if the world finds out we're sinners. It's about being freed from being a self-centered jerk. And, despite the fact that I keep finding new ways to be a jerk, I really, really do want to be decent to people, kind to strangers, patient with others, and a person of grace and integrity. I want to be like Jesus--you know, to walk the way of Jesus.

But it's not that Jesus will be ashamed to be caught with me when I am acting like a self-serving, self-indulgent idiot. Jesus has a great tolerance for idiots, it turns out--some days that is my only hope. But Jesus doesn't leave me there, either, wallowing in my idiotic self-absorption.

This is the thing I have learned. For a long time, I heard this talk of Paul's about "putting on the Lord Jesus Christ" like I was supposed to pretend to look more religious, more devout, more holier-than-thou, so that the world would think better of me, or so that Jesus wouldn't be ashamed of being associated with... you know, "those sinners." But maybe this idea of "putting on Christ" isn't like dressing up in the starchy dress shirt you hate to wear but have to put on for special occasions. And maybe it's more like wearing a brace on your ankle that helps retrain your foot from being bent painfully inward. In other words, maybe it's not about keeping up appearances at all, but about being healed and redirected.

Honestly, it's not that we have to "be good" and "look respectable" or else Jesus will get a bad reputation. No, as the Gospels tell it, Jesus of Nazareth seemed always pretty ready to be known for scandalously hanging out with the disreputable, the disinherited, and the despised. It's more that instead of being bent in on our selves (which was Martin Luther's working definition of what "sin" is really all about), we put on Christ, who pulls our souls out of their self-centered crookedness by covering us and reshaping us, something like how a brace retrains your body to move in a different way--the way we were meant to all along.

To be truthful, on my own, sometimes it feels like my heart is congenitally crooked--like there is this impulse to be focused only about me, only about what is good for Me-and-My-Group-First--and I can't fix that on my own. I can feel that "bent-in-on-yourself" posture that Luther talked about, and it's almost like having a foot that is bent inward that you can't straighten out. It's the sort of condition that is not only painful by itself but also makes it harder to move gracefully, and which keeps getting worse over time when untreated. I catch it in those moments when I am particularly a self-serving jerk, but it's there all the time. And I can't just contort or untwist my heart by my own sheer willpower, any more than you can just wish away a pronated foot or claw-toe.

But I can trade old actions, old patterns, old ways of moving... in for new ones that are directed by Christ. When Paul makes his list of things to leave behind, that's what he's thinking. His list, which includes "reveling and drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy," is really just a recitation of ways we get bent in on ourselves and our own gratification. It's not that God blushes at the thought of someone drinking wine or beer or whiskey (Jesus, after all, not only famously performed a miracle producing a truckload of Cabernet for a wedding once, and had a reputation by association of being a "glutton and a drunkard,"). But honestly, it's that getting out-of-control drunk is a profoundly selfish thing to do--you aren't able to be available for someone else who might need you, if you're passed out on the floor or can't walk in a straight line. It's not that it's wrong to get angry, but being consumed by the need to argue and quarrel is really just another way of being self-absorbed with "being right" all the time. Even Paul's warning about "debauchery" and "licentiousness" (two words which are unhelpfully vague and abstract in English) really boil down to using people as objects--and again, that's the problem. Jesus doesn't blush at sex. He does, however, seem to have a sharp condemnation for treating people as disposable consumer goods when you no longer think they are attractive or use someone casually for a fling to make you feel good. In other words, it's not that Jesus is a wet blanket--it's that Jesus knows we are notorious for being self-absorbed, self-involved, and self-centered, rather than oriented outward at the people around us in love.

And that's what "putting on the Lord Jesus Christ" is all about. It's not covering up a list of naughty actions so that the neighbors will think well of us. It's about letting Christ correct the bent-ness of our hearts, and reshaping the crookedness of our spirits like a brace retrains your crooked footfall. And he does it, to continue with Paul's imagery, by making us to be more like himself.

It's not about covering up the fact that I'm a self-centered jerk with a veneer of religion and a cross necklace. It's about owning that I'm a self-centered jerk and letting Jesus turn this crooked heart of mine outward from being bent in on itself... so that I maybe, just maybe, will feel the freedom and relief of living and walking in love the way I was always meant to.

Now before you try a comeback that Paul's list of sins is "just so much fun," or try quoting Billy Joel's logic, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints--the sinners are much more fun, you know that only the good die young," at me, let me ask you a final honest question. Before insisting that Paul is just being a spoilsport who hates having a good time, think with me for a moment. Think of the people you know whose lives are described in his list. Think of the person you know who keeps letting down her family, her kid, her friends, and her job because she is consistently wasted from drinking. Think of the relative or acquaintance (you will often know them by their Facebook posts) who just seems absolutely consumed in bitter anger and is always spoiling for a fight. Think of the person you know who uses romantic partners up and then throws them away like empty cans when they no longer want them around. Think of the people you know who are unable to be content but are always jealous of what someone else has. And you tell me that any of those patterns of living are really how you want to spend your life... because, I sure as heaven don't.

I don't want to be the person who is so obsessed with myself, my wants, my wish list, my reputation for "greatness", that I can't recognize the needs of the person who has been sent across my path. I don't want to be the person known for being just a pompous, argumentative blowhard or for objectifying women because I think I can get away with it. I don't want to be the person so absorbed in my own good time that I cannot weep with the brokenhearted friend around me. I don't want to be the self-absorbed jerk anymore. I want to be like Jesus.

And that, dear ones, is just what we are offered. Not a fake religious veneer or starched-shirt of false piety stamped with a cross... but the gift of Christ himself, who trains these crooked hearts of ours no longer to be bent inward, but to walk in the freedom of love.  You know... the way of Jesus.

That's what I keep needing every day.

Lord Jesus, retrain this crooked heart of mine to love like you.