Divine Forgiveness

Years ago, when I was still Presbyterian, I was sitting in a Presbyterian church on a Sunday morning listing to the same kind of pastoral prayer that I had heard for most of my life and, when the minister came to the "prayer for forgiveness," it suddenly struck me as very, very silly.

The minister was talking (as Presbyterian ministers often do) about how sinful we were, and unworthy of God's love and grace, and how we were nevertheless humbly seeking forgiveness. But I had by that time come to believe that Jesus meant exactly what he said in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32.), and about how God causes the sun to rise on both the evil and the good (Matt. 5:45). God loves us, and has forgiven us, is forgiving us, and always will forgive us.

The reason that we need to pray is not so that God will forgive us, but so that we will forgive ourselves. The problem is not that God does not love us and forgive us, but that we have not yet figured out how to accept that love and forgiveness.

Guantanamo

(We recently "celebrated" the fifth anniversary of the establishment of a detainee camp at the U.S. military base oat Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and I wanted to republish this commentary that I wrote and published on June 30, 2004.)

As I watched the special report on the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay that was broadcast by ABC News on its "20/20" program (Friday, 6/25/2004), the terrible sadness and sickness of it was almost overpowering to me. I fear not only for our souls, but for our safety.

Nowadays, we say that "what goes around comes around." Jesus said, "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get." (Matt. 7:1-2)

In the form of the "Golden Rule," this becomes, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." (Luke 6:31)

The idea that there is a reflectivity in the universe appears frequently in the Bible, most often as a warning:

"As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same." (Job 4:8)

"For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind:" (Hosea 8:7)

"According to their way I will deal with them; according to their own judgments I will judge them." (Ezekiel 7:27)

The most frightening version comes from the letter of Paul to the Galatians:

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for you reap whatever you sow." (Gal. 6:7)

A teacher of mine sometimes said that "the only way to stop a behavior is to stop the behavior." What does that mean in real life?

It means that we can’t teach kindness by practicing cruelty.
We can’t instill a sense of mercy by acting mercilessly.
We can’t establish a rule of law through lawlessness.
We can’t expect justice by administering injustice.
We can’t create peace through war.
And we can’t stop terrorists through terrorism.

Which brings me to my favorite passage from the Bible:

"And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)

In the policies of the Bush Administration, there is no justice, there is no kindness, and there is no humility.

And I am afraid that we will reap the whirlwind.

Repent?

The word "repent" appears in the New Testament and in Christian literature and sermons. And yet it seems to be the result of a faulty translation, a translation faulty enough to distort our view of both Jesus and God.

The word "repent" is derived from the Latin paenitere, which means to regret or be sorry, from which we also derive the words "penitent" and "penitentiary." But the Greek word used in the manuscripts of the New Testament is metanoia, which means to change your mind or change your heart. (See "The Lost Gospel Q," Marcus Borg, ed., p. 34, n. 1.)

John the Baptist was not calling on people to express regret or feel guilty, but to renew their minds and hearts. Mark 1:4 (NRSV) says that John was proclaiming "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." In "The Lost Gospel Q," the same phrase is translated as "baptism and a change of heart leading to the forgiveness of sins." In "The Gospel According to Jesus," Stephen Mitchell translates the phrase as "a baptism of renewal for the forgiveness of sins."

The act of forgiveness is itself a change of heart or change of mind. When we forgive, we go from anger, resentment, or disapproval to a state of peace, love, and non-judgment. Similarly, we are "reborn" in Jesus because we can then change our hearts, putting aside our fears and sorrows and regaining the faith and innocence of a child.

It is true that, in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the son who has lead a sinful and dissolute life admits to his father that he has sinned when he returns home, but the father does not seem to pay any attention at all and immediately calls for a celebration. The son is never asked to perform any penance and his sincerity is never questioned. The son never even asks for forgiveness. He is simply accepted home and unconditionally forgiven as soon as he appears. His change of mind and decision to return home was enough.

Renewal and rebirth are central to the teachings of Jesus, and it is unfortunate that we have become burdened by the idea that we have to be penitent before we can be reborn and return to God.

A Thin Place

The name of this blog is based on a phrase used by theologian Marcus Borg to describe a place (or a thing) where the distance between the divine and the secular are narrowed, and we are able to come closer to experiencing the divine.

My hope is that this blog will help me (by writing it) and others (by reading it) experience that kind of "thin place."

This is a continuation of a web page I created some years ago, http://evans-legal.com/dbe/thoughts.html, and I will be copying my previous postings from there to here for the sake of "completeness."

Pascal's Wager

Pascal’s Wager (7/9/2006)

We have a choice as to whether or not to believe in God. I have chosen to believe in God, and one of the reasons I have chosen to believe in God is somewhat similar to an argument made by the mathematician Blaise Pascal.

Blaise Pascal was a gambler as well as a mathematician, and invented the mathematics of probability so that he could win more often when gambling. He was also a philosopher, and got caught up in discussions of "proofs" of the existence (or non-existence) of God. Briefly, Pascal proposed to his friends that, if an absolute proof was not possible, the mathematics of probabilities would suggest that you should wager your soul on the existence of God, rather than the non-existence of God.

Pascal presented the question of whether or not to believe in God as a kind of a choice, with pros and cons, and the choice you make depends on how you value the pros and cons. If you chose to believe in God, you must follow the dictates of the Christian church and give up the sinful pleasures of a sinful world, but your ultimate reward is a place in Heaven and eternal life after death. If you choose not to believe in God, then you get to enjoy your life without guilt, but you may suffer eternal torment in Hell.

Pascal’s reasoning was that, if there is any possibility of eternal life, no matter how small, the reward of eternal life is so overwhelmingly great that the finite pleasures of a finite life are insignificant by comparison, and you should "bet your life" by believing in God.

My disagreement with Pascal is not so much in the mathematics, but in his assumptions. His assumption was that a belief in God requires giving up pleasures and live a joyless life. I believe the opposite, and that it is the life without faith that is joyless.

My belief in the existence of God has led me to believe that I am loved by God (along with all others), and has also led me to believe that my primary function in life is to be loved and to give love in return, not only to God but to those who are loved by God, which is everyone else. (These are the "two great commandments" taught by Jesus: that we should love God, and love our neighbor as ourselves.)

When I have not believed in God, my life has been full of fear. I have been alone and unloved, and my life has seemed short and meaningless. When I have believed in God, I feel that I am part of something large and holy, I have felt loved, and my life has seemed to be both eternal and essential.

The "sinful pleasures" that many believe that God commands we must give up are not really that sinful or that pleasurable. Neither sex nor alcohol are prohibited by the Bible, which only seems to counsel against excess and an excess of almost anything leads to more pain than pleasure. Excessive alcohol produces hangovers, sexual license leads to shame and regret, uncontrolled gambling leads to bankruptcy, gluttony makes us fat, avarice (and "workaholism") makes us tired and lonely, etc. In short, it doesn't look as though God is denying us any real pleasures in life, but only discouraging obsessive or self-destructive behaviors.

So, "Pascal's wager" seems to be no wager at all. If I believe in God, I automatically "win." Why would I want to "bet" any other way?

Prayer

I think of prayer, and approach prayer, somewhat differently from most people. Most of the things I hear and read about prayer are about very deliberate words and thoughts addressed to God at specific times, or for specific reasons. (I have read that, for the ancient Hebrews, a "prayer" was a public chant or proclamation to God, while Jesus was the first to suggest that prayer might be private.)

With me, prayer is more like an aside. I'll be thinking about something, really chewing on it or wrestling with it, not thinking of God at all, but then at some point a part of my brain will say, "What do You think, God?" And then I’ll get the answer.

(And, if you don’t mind my saying so, sometimes the answer is a little flip, but I've come to expect that from God because He usually doesn't waste time beating around the bush or sugar-coating it for me. ... But I digress.)

Jesus tells us that God already knows what we need, so praying for what we want is an exercise in redundancy. And Jesus also promised that God will provide what we need.

The great Christian theologian and Phillies center-fielder, Gary Matthews, once said that he believed that all prayers are answered, but that sometimes we don't like the answers.

So we need to distinguish between what we want and what we need.

I once heard a sermon about prayer that drew on the story of the death of King David's first-born son by Bathsheba. (2 Sam. 12:1-23) David had arranged for Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, to die in battle, and then David took Bathsheba as his wife. This "displeased the Lord," and God told David that Bathsheba's son by David would die. According to the Bible, David pleaded with God, fasted, and prostrated himself on the ground for six days. On the seventh day, the child died, and then David got up, washed, went to the temple to worship God, and then ate. His servants couldn't understand why David would fast and weep while the child was alive, but get up and eat once the child was dead. David explained, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said 'Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me, and the child may live.' But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." (2 Sam. 12:22-23)

The preacher used this as an example of the failure of prayer, but it is actually an example of success. David got what he needed, even though he didn't get what he wanted. What David needed was humility and the strength to accept God's will (i.e., the death of his son), and David got those things from his prayers. So David's prayers were answered, even though David didn't like the answer.

I sometimes think of prayer as a "reset" button for our brains. When a computer gets so hopelessly confused and messed up that it doesn't operate properly any more, the solution is to "reset" the system and start all over, with a clear memory and all of the operating priorities back in order. Similarly, prayer is I how lose the crazy thoughts with which I have become obsessed and am able to reconnect with God.

Which is what I usually need.

The Meaning of Communion

As a teenager in the Presbyterian church, I decided that I didn’t understand the meaning of communion. This is my body, broken for thee? Eat of it? Why should we eat the body of Christ and drink of the blood of Christ? It didn’t make any sense to me, and it seemed to be cannibalistic.

And so I stopped taking communion. I couldn’t share in something that I didn’t understand.

Later, when I was in my thirties, I started taking communion again, but not because I understood what it meant. Only because I thought I should share the communal experience.

Then, one Holy Thursday during a Tenebrae service, I decided to try to figure out what Jesus might have meant by the words of the Last Supper. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Why did he say what he did?

I tried to imagine that I was Jesus, and that I knew what the New Testament accounts said that I knew, meaning that I knew that I would be betrayed, that my disciples would desert me, and that I would be tortured to death. Imaging that, I felt alone and scared. Imagining myself at a Passover seder, an annual celebration that is rich with symbolism (and feeling somewhat melodramatic), I realized that I might have asked my disciples, when they gathered for the same Passover celebration next year and in years to come, to think of the bread that was broken as my body, broken for them, and to think of the wine as my blood, spilt for them, and to remember me as they eat the bread and drink the wine.

In other words, I imagined a plea from Jesus that he be remembered. He was lonely and scared, and he wanted to be remembered. So he asked his disciples to remember him during Passover meals in the future.

And that’s all there was to it.

And, in thinking of Jesus in that way, I saw a great irony in the traditional celebration of the Last Supper, because it is celebrated as a holy event, a sacrament, full of divine meaning. But there was no divine meaning. Jesus was asking for a very human thing: to be remembered. What is called "holy communion" has all of the theological significance of a group of guys hoisting a beer at a corner bar and saying, "Here’s to Jesus."

Which is a relief to me. It's a relief to know that I haven't missed something or misunderstood something. And it's a relief and comforting to think of Jesus in a very human and very understandable way.

As a result, I still don’t have much use for communion. But every year, before Easter and during Lent, I like to pause, lift a glass of something, and say "Here’s to Jesus."

I like to think that he’d like that.