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out of commission

i'm kinda' out of commission internet-wise for the next days. so i'm posting a few old papers in case anyone wants something to read. The first is a reflection on being on the verge of crying out "My Lord and my God," and the second is a reflection, based on Les Miserables, on being a grace hater. Be back in a few days.

::

:: response to Eugene Peterson's book Under the Unpredictable Plant, highly recommended::

“Everyone is on the verge of crying out, ‘My Lord and my God!’”

This is the heart of ministry, and, as such, the heart of Peterson’s writing. Page 185, quite unexpectedly, was the watershed of the book, the moment when shedding tears became inevitable. How, why, whenceforth they came, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. This is evidence of the Spirit in his writing. No, this is not a book about being a pastor. It is a book about being pastoral. Not a how-to, but a why.

Why? Because the reality of our lives, all of them, is that we stumble around underneath and between a vast unknowing, and these things we call years and then periods of our lives are, in the end, simply “pauses before mystery” (186). And we, as Christians, are “always coming in on something that is already going on” (128); and we, as Christians, have the distinct honor and responsibility of naming and representing that something. Everyone, wittingly or not, is “on to something that matters” (157), because everyone is made in the image of God, and that fact alone renders him matter-ful, valuable, beautiful, worthy of my respect and awe.

As one beginning to feel the call to write, to hone this gift of naming and identifying the nature of this “verge,” I am profoundly grateful for Peterson’s insight and facility with words. I recognize the power such a position facilititates, and I recognize my heart, which is so prone to buy into a “hubris of contemptuous disrespect” (60). But Peterson, who has this gift, uses it like the fine point of a whale’s rib, and with it he scrawls honestly and respectfully on the calloused surfaces of our hearts. That I should write so truthfully and respectfully and, above all, honestly.

Anne Lamott, in the prologue to her book Traveling Mercies, recounts her journey to faith. The Spirit has hounded her through cocaine and abuse and alcoholism and an agonizing abortion decision – her life has grown and shaped itself like an unpredictable plant. One evening, she stands in the doorway to her boat-house bedroom, and, as sure as if it were a dog crouching in the corner, she senses Jesus’ presence. And she can run no longer, and she says, “Fuck it. I quit. You can come in.” Hallelujah. That is the honest truth, the way so many people experience conversion, and, because of her willingness to abandon Sunday-school explanations and the “thesaurus of self-deceiving euphemisms” (7), her writing has been used of God to touch so many lives. She has named the “verge of crying out,” the “basic reality” of so many lives.

How I have tasted of God, and how quick I am to try to “reproduce [that] experience [as] God” (12); I have perverted the call of God and used it to flee God. I am Jonah in this respect, and I need the “hovering Spirit of God” to reveal again the basic reality of my lives. Peterson has stormed into my life and made me to say for the first time, “Fuck it. I quit. Come on in.” And, though I may still be running, I feel like my route has been re-directed, and I am encouraged to use rightly these words the Spirit has given to me, and I can’t help but shout out, “My Lord and my God!” Hallelujah.

::

::reflection on Les Miserables (the movie version), for a Pastoral Theology class::

Javert, God, and In-Justice

A homeless man lies on a bench. A woman doesn’t want him there and suggests that he try the surrounding houses:
“Go away. I asked everywhere. Leave me alone.”
She changes her tone slightly and speaks from experience rather than contempt:
“You didn’t knock on that door.”

It’s not that I can’t accept the existence of God. I am becoming increasingly aware, and increasingly concerned, of my inability to accept the grace of God. Or maybe I should say my refusal to accept the grace of God. Quite possibly it’s both, and herein lies my sin: I despise grace.

The homeless man knocks on the door. A man answers, and he wears a cleric’s collar. He asks no questions of the man, homeless, dirty, and possibly dangerous: “Come in,” he says. The homeless man feels the need to explain himself, the need to display his lack of worth, to give the priest reasons why he shouldn’t take him in.
“I’m a convict,” he repeats.
“I know who you are,” the priest replies. What the convict can’t understand is that the priest is not letting or refusing to let the convict in based on the convict, but on his own grace.

The priest sits at the table with the convict, asks his name, and the convict, Jean Valjean, continues to try to justify himself:
“I stole food, I admit, but I paid for it in jail.”
That evening, Valjean dreams about prison. He is haunted by the memory of penance. He wakes from his dream, robs, and abandons the priest. This penance, rather than driving him to the grace of the priest, drives him back to himself.

Two summers ago, through Wade and the L’Abri community, God began to teach me to trust him to love, to show me what that love looks like. Since then, I have offended and disrespected people, but occasionally, genuine love has spilled from my mouth and hands, and I am encouraged. I am learning to trust God to love me, which, and which alone, frees me to honesty with others, honesty for the sake of love. I remember the reality I used to operate in – I dream about it and am haunted by it – and, having been imprisoned by that story for twenty years, I would rather die than return to such bondage. But I still find myself acting like a man imprisoned; my actions belie a man in prison, and it frightens me. Why do I keep running back to myself?

On some ordinary day a week later, a policeman presents the priest with a hand-cuffed Valjean and a bag heavy with silver. This man, having been freed and shown grace by the priest, has run away, back to himself. The police, eager to send Valjean back to prison, presents Valjean for identification. He cannot bear to look the priest in the eyes, inspecting his feet, instead. The priest places his calloused hands under Valjean’s chin, lifts his eyes to meet his own, and chides him:
“Why, Valjean, I’m disturbed by what you’ve done.”
The police glance at each other hungrily, and Valjean re-turns his face to the ground.
“You took the silver utensils, but you forgot to take the silver candlestick.” The priest sends for the candlestick, burdens Valjean’s bag with its weight, and turns to the baffled policemen:
“Monsieur Valjean needs to be going. He’s lost a lot of time.”
Valjean is unfettered and left alone with the priest, who looks into his eyes and says, “Don’t forget. Don’t ever forget. You’ve promised to become a new man.”
“Promise? Why are you doing this?”
“You no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I bought your soul. Jean Valjean, my brother, I’ve ransomed you from fear and hatred, and now I give you back to God.”

It would take more than two hands to count the well-meaning homileticians-in-training who have illustrated grace using the priest and Valjean. I sit back and listen to the candlestick scene, becoming less and less moved by it, due mostly to the repetition of its telling. Even before the climax, I begin thinking to myself, “Yes, yes, I am like Valjean, and Jesus gives me candlesticks.” In the hope of enervating my callousness, I decided to watch the film. And I realized, through the course of the film, that though, in some respects, I am like Valjean, I am by all accounts represented more faithfully by Inspector Javert.

Ten years later, Valjean is the Mayor of Vigo, having won the townsfolk over with his wisdom, humility, and grace. A man with granite teeth and an intent stare steps from a carriage and presents himself to the interim head of the Vigo police force. The interim humbly stands, introduces himself, and extends a soft hand of greeting.
“Inspector Javert, we’re thrilled to have you here. Let me show you around.”
“You haven’t even looked at my papers.”
“Oh, there’ll be no need for that. We’ve been expecting you.”
“I would like for you to follow procedure.”
The interim submits to Javert’s orders, then proceeds to show him around the town, introduce him to the order of the town, the results of Valjean’s gracious presence. Javert is eager to meet the Mayor, the “force behind everything.” After much hesitation on Valjean’s part, they meet.

Weeks and several incidents later, Javert remembers a criminal under his watch in the prison where he wardened, and he suspects that Valjean is the very criminal. Valjean avoids the Inspector and his questions, but Javert is driven to maintain law and order, so he devises a census, in hopes of un-earthing Valjean’s past. The interim, perplexed by the need for such measures in such a town, questions the need for Javert’s proposal. Javert responds, “Without information, we cannot know how to control the dangerous elements. . . .” Without laws and rules, there is no order in Javert’s world, and, since no one else in his town is willing to abide by these rules, he will take care of things himself.

By all accounts, God has made me a citizen of his kingdom. I have been around long enough to know that justification and sanctification, though kissing cousins, are not twins, and the church is still messy. And I am convinced, as well, that I am still messy and dangerous. And I want everything to be fixed now, and no one else is doing it, and God doesn’t seem to be doing it, so I begin to take things into my own hands. Grace demands passivity, and, in response, activity, but I don’t have time to sit around passively. Things aren’t getting fixed that way, so I must get things done on my own. There’s enough beauty and change in-flux around me to convince me of the goodness of grace and make me wait, but I demand perfection, and now. In this way, and in so many others, I hate grace. And my refusal to wait in-grace leads, inevitably, to a need for control. I can’t trust anyone, Jesus included, to get things done the way I think they should be done, so I refuse to let others do anything for me. Whether that means the inability to receive a compliment with an un-qualified “thank you” or to let someone contribute to the writing of a group paper, I want control of the “dangerous elements of our nature.” I forget the candlesticks, and cynicism tarnishes my heart, and I can’t believe that people are actually changing and healing and moving toward glory.

Javert confronts Valjean, sure of his identity, and Valjean suggests that people may change for the better over time.
“Reform,” replies Javert, “is a discredited fantasy.” And Javert sets out on a mission to prove to himself, and to anyone who will listen, that Valjean is the same dangerous convict who worked in his chains. Valjean appears to be a soft man, lenient and gracious toward his townspeople. Javert is a hard man, devoting his life to following the rules.

A prostitute hangs like filthy rags between the arms of two policeman, begging Javert for mercy. She has broken the law, and Javert intends on making her do penance for her transgression. Valjean walks into the prison, whereupon the prostitute looks into his eyes and says, “You, you did this.” When her words trail off, her spit follows into Valjean’s face. Javert, too, directs his attention to Valjean, who then orders Javert to release the prostitute. He wipes the spit from his brow, looks into her eyes, and forgives her. Javert turns to Valjean and says, “You don’t have the right to forgive her.”

I forget that Jesus has the right to forgive me. I forget a God staked to a cross, spit dripping from his brow, and I forget that Jesus earned the right to forgive me. If someone is going to forgive me, I want him to have a good reason for it, a reason predicated upon me. My Confession tells me that God’s grace is a good reason, and the exclusive reason, for forgiveness, but my heart refuses to search outside itself for reasons. Because I need to do things on my own, I need to provide a reason to be forgiven. In this way, I hate grace. And, in the process of always turning to myself for evaluation, I develop the need to compare myself to others, and, ultimately, to God. And inasmuch as I attempt to justify myself, I set a human standard for justification:

Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.

Jesus tells me stories about workers and payments, and I sympathize with those twelve-hour workers, and I can imagine how angry they would have been, and I become angry in the process. Compared to those other guys, these men deserve so much more. Compared to those lazy men who were sitting at home not even looking for work, these men deserve so much more. Compared to that employer who has no regard for work, these men are so much more obedient to the rules of employment, and they might as well go find someone who will reward their work. Such in-justice. Had they only worked one hour, surely they would have demanded justice and requested but one-hour’s wages. Surely I would have done the same.

Javert, upon hearing false testimony in Paris, thinks he has falsely slandered Valjean. He approaches Valjean and demands, according to the rules of the city, that Valjean dismiss him from his post:
“I must be punished. You treated me unjustly . . . . This time, you must treat me justly. . . . You must punish me, monsieur, or my life will have been meaningless.”

I stopped the film for five minutes, contemplating Javert’s confession. Truly, according to his commitment to justice and law, he must be punished for what he thinks is a transgression; and in his demand, I admire his consistency and integrity, by which he shames my pseudo-demand for justice. But what gives me pause, and what frightens me, is his choice of word. He does not say, “You treated me graciously”; he says, “you treated me unjustly.” Herein lies the foundation of Javert’s, and my, righteousness. By labeling Valjean’s mercy “injustice,” Javert manages to house Valjean’s actions in the world of merit and conditions. Rather than attribute Valjean’s actions to the person of Valjean, he attaches them to law. Valjean’s mercy becomes a transgression of justice rather than a display of mercy un-conditioned by law. Mercy, ultimately, plays prisoner to righteousness, and Javert, whose life is ruled by righteousness, can neither understand nor accept such actions apart from the rubric of merit.

Because of my desire to do things for myself, to earn my own righteousness, I cannot accept grace. I see Jesus on the cross, and because his actions don’t work in the rubric of merit – they are absurd as such – I cannot accept it. Because I am so ruled by the rules of righteousness, and because I cannot escape the rubric of self, I see Jesus’ actions as an assault on the rules of my reality rather than an act of mercy – the only act of mercy – that is not bound by law and that can, thus, free me from my bondage.

“Then blame me, Javert. . . . Blame me for that mercy.”

And even in this act, Valjean appeals to Javert’s heart and gives him some rule to obey: “Blame me for that mercy.” Jesus, being punished for me and at the same time being shunned by me, appeals still to my heart and gives me the only rule that can both appeal to my need for rules and turn me away from myself: “Blame me for this mercy.” I hate that, because I know that it’s the only way out, and I know that it’s something that, even in my doing, I cannot have done nor cannot do on my own.

In the reality that I have shaped, such an action is absurd. I keep telling myself that without justice, my life “will have been meaningless.” But this man on a cross is being dealt with justly in my place, and he does it to free me from meaninglessness. It’s irrational, beyond my control and my explanations, and beyond compare. And though this cross slams my heart against the wall of the reality I have bound myself to, I refuse to let go of my world – at least I have a say in how things run.

Javert has found Valjean out, and in the crux of a violent confrontation, Valjean manages to overpower Javert, who will kill Valjean given the chance. Valjean grabs Javert by the neck and slams his head into the wall. Blood sliding down his brow, Javert says, “Where will you go, Valjean?” Another slam, and more blood, “I’ll find you, Valjean. I won’t give up.” One more slam, and reality fades from Javert’s eyes as he collapses to the floor unconscious.

Javert’s drive to justify himself by capturing Valjean and restoring him – and, thus, Javert’s world – to justice, leads him on a ten-year search for the ex-convict. The more that Valjean’s mercy confronts Javert, the more passionate Javert becomes about putting an end to the man and his mercy; it will take something drastic to turn Javert away from his efforts, the search that gives his life meaning. Javert’s life is absurd to him without justice.

After ten years of searching in Paris, Javert finally has a solid lead on Valjean. Revolution is raging in the city, and Javert turns his attention to Valjean. He informs his colleague of his change-in-plans, and after being asked if he should really leave at such a tumultuous time, Javert replies, “It will be an important arrest, sir, possibly the most important of my career. . . . It’s under control, sir.” Bullets and blood are flying, walls and men are falling at an equal rate, and Javert, as long as he smells the possibility of capturing Valjean, absurdly feels that everything’s under control.

In his search, Javert falls into the wrong hands and ends up, once again, under the control and mercy of Valjean. Valjean pins Javert to a back-alley wall:
“Why couldn’t you leave me alone? I’m nothing, no one.”
“Yes, but you’ve managed to beat me.”
“I’m not trying to beat you!”
After Javert’s confession of control and competition, Valjean releases him, and Javert, un-trusting of this most recent act of grace, responds:
“You’re going to shoot me in the back.”
“I’m letting you go, Javert. They [revolutionaries] won’t be merciful. Go on.”
“You should kill me. I won’t stop. I won’t let you go – kill me.”
Valjean fires his last bullet into the fiery night sky:
“You’re dead, Javert.”
Javert, still physically alive after Valjean’s final act of mercy, continues to pursue Valjean until he corners him at the riverside trying to rescue his orphaned daughter’s love, Marius. Javert proceeds to have Marius shackled and bound, as a revolutionary, for execution. Valjean interecedes:
“It’s me you want. Arrest me. Let him go.”
“Is that all you care about?”
“You’ve caught me. That’s what you care about.”
“Let him take the boy where he wants. Then bring him back here to me.”
Valjean returns, and Javert speaks:
“I’m glad I had time to myself. I needed to think . . . about what you deserve. You’re a difficult problem. Move to the edge.”
A shackled Valjean asks Javert, “Why aren’t you taking me in?”
“You’re my prisoner. Do what I tell you. You don’t understand the importance of the law. I’ve given you an order. Obey it.” The two men near the river’s edge, and Javert stops and asks the question that his been hounding him as hard as he has Valjean: “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“I didn’t have the right to kill you.”
“But you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I don’t feel anything.”
“You don’t want to go back to the quarries, do you?” Valjean nods assent. “Then for once we agree. I’m going to spare you from a life in prison, Jean Valjean. It’s a pity that the rules don’t allow me to be merciful. I’ve tried to live my life without breaking a single rule.” Javert leans over, unshackles Valjean, and pushes him backward: “You’re free.” He shackles himself, leans backward, and falls like a corpse into the river.

Valjean has become so impervious to mercy, yet he has become so affected by it, that, even though he has caught Valjean and has the ability to do away with him, he can’t do it. He realizes that Valjean’s grace doesn’t reside in Valjean’s self, and that if he kills him, he’ll live the rest of his life unable to explain his behavior, unable to understand the reality behind the person. And such a life is absurd to one who must be in control, so the only rational thing left to do is to kill himself. It’s the only way that he can go out in control, on his own terms. He dies as he lives. Such frightening consistency.

I watch Javert drop into the river, and I am both frightened and ashamed. Frightened to see the logical consequence of denying the reality of grace, ashamed at my lack of consistency compared to Javert. Frightened that I’m comparing myself to Javert, but not surprised to find myself comparing. Surprised that I haven’t thrown myself into the river yet, but afraid that it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

I have not forgotten the candlesticks, and I know enough of my heart to realize that if I continue to remember, it will not happen by my own doing. I am terrified of the callousness of my heart to grace, and I know enough of it to realize that, left to itself, it will only grow harder.

Because I try to operate in the world of self, I take grace for granted, thinking that I have somehow earned it, and the brilliance and complete insanity of a God-on-a-cross tarnishes along with my heart. Wanting grace at some point to have something to do with at least someone’s works, I begin to think that grace is the result of, rather than the cause of, the crucifixion.

I know the Scriptures, and I have set up stones of remembrance in my life, but I continue to try to do things on my own, to live out of self, to hate grace. As I “determine to deal with the issue and come up with practical suggestions to overcome the problem,” I realize that my determination and desire to overcome are themselves the problem. I want to do it. I want to fix things. And a dear brother exhorts me to keep God’s sovereignty and my responsibility in balance, but my balance doesn’t work, and it always tips my way. Truly, God is on the other end, and He must have a good reason for letting the scales go; I recognize, in my saner moments, that I don’t really want justice, that I don’t really want to do things on my own, but those moments are so few and far between, and that’s so maddening. How can I be so calloused?

I believe that I have been delivered from the City of Destruction, but during my journey to the Gates of the Heavenly Kingdom, I must, as Flannery O’Connor’s freaks, find the trauma of the cross on the way. And do I dare pray that God convince me of the trauma of the cross? Do I dare pray for him to humble me? It used to roll so easily off my tongue, and I am so frightened to say it now. How can I pray for grace to seize me more violently than my opposition to it? How can I ask for people to pray for me when I know that they’ll pray for my humility?

This is my sin: I am a grace hater. And regardless of whether I write or teach English or serve on a session, my desire to control and compete will destroy those around me: brothers, students, colleagues, family. I am scared of myself, and I know that I need God to change me, but I’m as scared of that as I am of myself.

So I am told, like the homeless man, to go “knock on that door.” But I know who’s there, and I tend to think I know what he will do, so I hesitate. But staying out here in the cold will kill a man . . . .

~ Jeremy Huggins
17.12.01
Box 110
Pastoral Theology

Posted by ghetto monk at March 21, 2004 05:05 PM | TrackBack