A Dangerous Game

It’s a dangerous game—one with devastating consequences spiritually. It’s one I’ve played. It’s one we’ve all played. It lies at the heart of and fuels our polarized political climate. During this election season, it’s one I catch myself playing even though I don’t want to play it. It’s one—if I could—I’d never play again.

I call the game “I’m right, you’re wrong.”

You know how the game is played. Pick an issue, any issue—moral, political, religious. We all take sides on the issue—some on one side, others on the opposite side. We can all argue why our position is the “right” position. As our position is the “right” position, the other position is naturally the “wrong” position. We can point out why that position is the “wrong” position.  

The game includes a subtle shift. The focus shifts from the position to the person holding the position. Since we are “right,” the other person is “wrong.” Sadly, this game in its most destructive version views the other person as ignorant—even depraved—eventually, evil—for believing what they do. “I’m right, you’re wrong” fuels “us-them” divisions in which we attack the other.

The game is built upon black-and-white, either-or thinking that ignores the subtleties, nuances, and many-shades-of-gray that are a part of any issue. No issue is as simple as either-or, right or wrong. If truth be told, the game doesn’t require any thinking at all. All that is required is listening for catch phrases that trigger angry reactions.

The game rides on fear—unrecognized fear of differences, of diversity, of those who are not like us, of thinking that challenges what we believe is true. It seeks to use certainty—i.e., black-and-white, either-or thinking—to calm the nebulous anxiety that lives just beyond the surface of our awareness.

The “I’m right, you’re wrong” game is foundational to our sense of identity—well, to our egocentric, constructed self. Our egocentric, constructed self is the persona we created based upon what the world (family, church, society) said we needed to be and do if we wanted to be accepted and valued. It is the persona we use to gain acceptance and belonging, value and significance in our social groups.

Because this persona is something we manufactured, it is fragile. We have to constantly reinforce it—through achievements and accomplishments, through recognition, accolades, and applause, through gaining status and standing, through having affluence, an abundance of things, and the status symbols affluence makes possible (neighborhood, house, car, adult toys, clothes, jewelry, etc.). One of the primary ways—if not the primary way—we prop up our fragile sense of self is by playing this game. By playing “I’m right, you’re wrong”—comparing and competing, criticizing, judging, and condemning—we unconsciously build ourselves up in our own eyes while putting the other person in a one-down position in relation to us. We need the “I’m right, you’re wrong” game in order to feel okay about ourselves. 

Therein lies a key danger of the game. It becomes a hindrance to ever discovering our true self—the person God created us to be. We substitute a persona we manufactured for the person God designed us to be. As a result, we live our lives endlessly striving for more. We never escape the comparing-and-competing mentality. We always see ourselves through the lens of what other people have.

This game is particularly dangerous when it is played with religious overtones—religious beliefs, religious practices, church involvement, “the Bible says,” moral issues. Reinforcing the “I’m right” posture with the God-card produces a closemindedness in one’s thinking and a rigidness in one’s position. The religious “I’m right” position cultivates spiritual arrogance that exists outside of the person’s awareness. This arrogance is seen in the criticizing, judging, and condemning that the person directs at others. If these outcomes were not enough, they are compounded by spiritual blindness. The person is not even aware of the spirit and attitudes that reside in their heart and surface in their criticisms, judging, and condemnations.

The ultimate danger of playing this religious “I’m right, you’re wrong” game is the person never knows the heart of God or experiences the gifts of God’s grace and forgiveness. Stuck in merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking and living, they are blind to the nature and character of God. They never learn or experience the grace-based ways of God.

How do we move beyond playing this “I’m right, you’re wrong” game that is so common to our human condition? We cultivate humility—the acute awareness that all that I am, that all that I understand is a gift of God’s grace. We cultivate a teachable spirit—the willingness to think, to learn, to grow beyond what I already think and believe. We work at listening, attempting to hear and understand the other’s position and what led them to it. We seek to understand the emotional components that led them to their belief? We refuse to argue. We respectfully state our position without attacking theirs. We refuse to play the game even when the other person baits us, attempting to engage us in it.

It is indeed a dangerous game to play—dangerous to our spiritual wellbeing.

The Heart of the Matter: the God Revealed in Scripture

Those who identify as Christians fall, for the most part, into two categories, regardless of their denominational affiliation. Which category is determined by how they view and use the Bible.

One group views the Bible as the divinely inspired Word of God. Thus, it is treated as the final authority on all issues. These Christians use such terms as “infallible” and “inerrant” to describe the Bible. The Bible is to be read literally because “it says what it means and means what it says.” The historical context and culture that gave birth to a particular text are unimportant as the truth of what the text says is just as applicable today as it was in the day it was first spoken. Reading the Bible this way, every verse carries the same authority as any other—at least in theory. These Christians commonly pick and choose which verses they emphasize, depending on the issue being discussed. They commonly proclaim “The Bible says” to validate their positions and beliefs.

This way of reading and using the Bible leads to clearly defined right-and-wrong positions on every issue. It fosters black-and-white thinking with either-or positions on the issue. This black-and-white, either-or thinking tends to be fixed and rigid as “biblical truth—that is, “God’s truth” —is nonnegotiable. “Right belief” is central in this version of Christianity.

Those who view and use the Bible this way proudly call themselves conservatives and evangelicals. Originally, this group called themselves fundamentalists. This identity was tied to their embrace of seven core truths that they referred to as the fundamentals of the faith. The first of those seven fundamentals was this view of the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. In the last half of the last century, these fundamentalists chose the name “evangelical” to replace the term “fundamentalist.”

Those who view and use the Bible this way refer to the other category of Christians as liberals. Members of this other group generally refer to themselves as progressives.

These so-called liberals or progressives hold differing views of the Bible. Many of them also hold the Bible in high regard but do not view it as infallible or inerrant. They acknowledge that it is divinely inspired while recognizing a human element in it. They identify within the Bible multiple understandings of God and how God interacts with the world—what today we call theologies. These multiple understandings reflect the cultural setting from which they came. Some of those understandings are at odds with other theologies in the Bible. Some actually challenge and contradict an earlier understanding. In the progressive’s way of thinking, all texts do not hold the same authority.

Progressives speak of Jesus—not the Bible—as the Word of God (John 1:1-18). Most view Jesus as the in-the-flesh expression of God who reveals to us what God is like while teaching us the ways of God (the kingdom). As such, Jesus is the final authority to which they turn. The Bible is read through the lens of Jesus. What does not align with the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus is viewed as culturally conditioned and therefore nonbinding in today’s culture.

This approach to scripture emphasizes the teachings of Jesus as opposed to beliefs about Jesus. Following Jesus’s teachings about God, it understands the nature of God to be self-giving, servant love. Such love is expressed in grace and forgiveness. It embraces all—without exception, without condition—as beloved children of God. It is expressed in a servant spirit that seeks the good and wholeness of each beloved child of God. This focus makes justice issues a greater priority than moral issues. It seeks to establish a loving and just society for all—i.e., the kingdom of God. Thus, “right living” or right relationships (orthopraxy) takes priority over “right belief” (orthodoxy).

This way of viewing and using the Bible calls for disciplined thinking that is informed by biblical scholarship. It is less rigid as it continually seeks additional insight and understanding.

In my mind, the heart of the matter is the God revealed in scripture, not the scripture itself. Scripture is a tool given to us that we might know God and the ways of God. The God revealed to us in Jesus the-word-made-flesh—as recorded in scripture—is what is most important. 

The Heart of the Matter: Transformation

The Hebrew Scriptures describe God as a God of steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6-7). The Johannine community of the New Testament described God as a God of self-giving, other-centered love (1 John 4:7-10). Jesus and the apostle Paul knew God to be a God who lives out of a servant spirit. What would a God of self-giving, other-centered love desire for us? What would a God who lives out of a servant spirit seek to produce in our lives?

How we answer these questions shapes our understanding of the spiritual life as well as how we approach our spiritual journey.

The most common understanding—that proclaimed from the vast majority of pulpits on any given Sunday—focuses on our eternal destiny, i.e., heaven and hell. It is about escaping the condemnation and judgment we deserve because of our sins. In this understanding, God sent Jesus to die on the cross, taking on the punishment we deserve. Jesus’s death appeased God’s wrath, freeing God to forgive our sins.

While popular, this common understanding is not in harmony with the character of God or the teachings of scripture. Its fundamental flaw is its misunderstanding of the character of God. It views God as a God of wrath that must be appeased rather than the God of love Jesus proclaimed. This misunderstanding produces a second significant flaw: it is based upon merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking. It fails to understand that grace and forgiveness are how God—as a God of love—relates to us. This understanding centers God’s work solely on Jesus’s death on the cross, thereby ignoring his teachings and the significance of his resurrection. It is a Good Friday theology, not an Easter theology. At its core, it is me-oriented. It reflects a self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit that leaves us essentially unchanged. Perhaps that fact is a part of its popularity and appeal.

Another popular understanding is called the prosperity gospel. In this theology, God works to make us successful as the world defines success—in terms of material wealth. According to this teaching, God—who wants us to be financially successful—blesses us with material wealth when we meet the right conditions. This theology mirrors the theology known as divine retribution that is found in portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. This theology teaches God rewards righteousness with health, wealth, long life, and a large family. In this thinking, poverty and sickness, early death and family problems are indicators of sin in one’s life. They are God’s judgment for the failure to live righteously. This thinking is also merit-based, deserving-oriented. It is transactional thinking—the kind of thinking found in the world—“if I will . . . then God will . . .” The book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures was written to refute this way of thinking.

The scripture bears witness to God’s desire for us and what God seeks for us.

God wants us to know God and the ways of God. God sent the Son into the world that we might know what God is like—that is, the character of God and the ways of God (John 1:18; 14:9).

God wants us to live in relationship with God as beloved children. “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

God wants us to participate in God’s kind of life, possessing the divine character as our own (Romans 8:29), knowing the joy of living God’s ways (John 15:11).

God wants us to live as the followers of Jesus, learning and living the ways of God Jesus taught.

God wants us to grow spiritually into the likeness of Christ—“to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ”—(Ephesians 4:13; 2 Peter 3:18).

God is at work through the Spirit to set us free from the self-life that enslaves us, robbing us of life and wholeness—what Paul called “slavery to sin” (Romans 7:14-20; Galatians 5:16-25).

God is at work through the Spirit to transform our hearts and minds (2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 12:2), engraining the character of God in the core of our being so that the self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me sin nature is rooted out.

Through the Spirit’s transforming work in our lives, we live as God’s partner in the Godhead’s eternal, redemptive purpose of restoring oneness to all of creation (Ephesians 1:3-14; 3:10; 4:1-7).

Any religious teaching or position or belief that does not center on the transformation of our hearts and minds into the likeness of Christ misses the essence of what God was doing in sending Jesus the Son into the world—i.e., salvation.

The Heart of the Matter: A Servant Spirit

The New Testament Johannine community identified the character of God as love—self-giving, other-centered love.

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world (self-giving) so that we might live through him (other-centered). In this is love, not that we loved but that he loved us and sent his Son (self-giving) to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (other-centered)” (1 John 4:7-10).

That community’s understanding of the character of God was founded upon God’s self-revelation to Moses (Exodus 34:6-7) and upon the teachings of Jesus whom they viewed as the Son sent by God. The Son was sent that we might know God as love—self-giving, other-centered love.

The heart of God’s character, according to God’s self-revelation to Moses on Mt. Sinai, is love—steadfast, faithful love. This love gave birth to Yahweh’s covenant with the nation of Israel (Exodus 34:10). It is God’s covenant love—chesed. God’s love for Israel was steadfast. It never waivered in spite of their failure to be faithful to the covenant. God’s love was faithful. God never gave up on or abandoned the people even when their unfaithfulness resulted in their experience of exile in Babylon. Even in that experience, God continued to work on their behalf, leading them into a deeper understanding of God’s nature and into a deeper understanding of who they were as the people of God. God was at work in ways they could not see—what the prophet to the exiles identified as a second exodus experience (Isaiah 43:16-21). God was at work to restore the nation in its homeland.

In this covenant love of Yahweh, Jesus saw the self-giving, other-centered love of God. He saw the servant nature in the heart of God and patterned his life after it. When his disciples argued about who among them was the greatest, Jesus taught them, “Whoever wants to be first must be the last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). In the world, greatness (status) is tied to position, power, and wealth, but in the kingdom, greatness is measured by the spirit out of which one lives—specifically, a servant spirit. Jesus himself embraced and embodied the servant spirit. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45).

The apostle Paul grasped this deep truth, urging the Philippian church to adopt the mind of Christ by embracing a servant spirit (Philippians 2:5-11). The author of 1 John urged the Johannine community members to love one another with God’s self-giving, other-centered love—i.e., relating to one another out of a servant spirit.

God’s self-giving, other-centered love is expressed in a servant spirit. Any religious position or belief that does not reflect a servant spirit that seeks the good of another is not of God.

Because God is love—self-giving, other-centered love—the heart of the matter is a servant spirit.

The Heart of the Matter: Grace and Forgiveness

The central, defining element in the character of God is love—covenant love, chesed (Exodus 34:6-7). God’s covenant love is steadfast and faithful. Steadfast means it never waivers. Faithful means God never gives up on or abandons those God loves. God abounds in—overflows with—this steadfast, faithful love. It extends to the thousandth generation—a Hebrew phrase meaning it is never ending.

Following this revelation recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament Johannine community also identified the essence of God’s nature as love—self-giving, other-centered love (1 John 4:8-10). God gives freely and sacrificially of self (self-giving) on behalf of the other (other-centered). Such love is expressed in a servant spirit—giving oneself without reservation to seek the wellbeing and wholeness of the other.

The heart of God is self-giving, servant love.

God’s character of steadfast, faithful love, of self-giving, servant love governs all that God does—including how God relates to us.

God relates to us out of who God is—that is, out of this self-giving, servant love. Consequently, God relates to us out of grace and forgiveness.

We humans naturally think in terms of merit—of what we deserve. Our merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking makes it difficult for us to grasp, much less embrace, grace and forgiveness. We struggle to grasp that merit—what we deserve—does not come into play in any way. How God relates to us is not based upon who we are or what we do or what we deserve. It is rooted in who God is. It is an expression of God’s character of self-giving, servant love.

Grace is unconditional love that is given freely and joyfully. It is pure gift.

Forgiveness is an expression of this unconditional love we call grace. It too is a gift. It is given to remove any barrier in the relationship—guilt, shame, fear, regret—created by our failure in the relationship. It allows the relationship to continue unhindered in spite of our failure (sin). (Read that again.) Because of God’s forgiveness, sin does not separate us from God (in spite of what we have been taught). It does not destroy the relationship. God refuses to let sin be a barrier in the relationship with us. Because of God’s steadfast, faithful love, God deals with our sin by forgiving it.

Forgiveness too is unconditional. It is not given if or when we repent. It is given freely, joyfully, lavishly because it is not about what we deserve. It is an expression of who God is—of God’s steadfast, faithful love. God’s unconditional love and gift of forgiveness are what give us the courage to face, acknowledge, and turn from (repent of) our sin. They allow us to turn to God for help (Hebrews 4:14-16). They allow us to learn from our failures so that we don’t repeat them. They allow us to grow spiritually. They lead us to grow more deeply in love with God and with who God is.

Jesus understood the unconditional nature of God’s love. He understood the unconditional nature of forgiveness. He repeatedly told people “Your sins are forgiven” because he understood that God had already forgiven them and their sins. In contrast to Jesus, the religious leaders of his time bartered forgiveness, making it a transaction. When the proper sacrifice was offered, then forgiveness would be proclaimed. This bartering of forgiveness indicated the religious leaders did not know the heart of God. It was an expression of merit-based thinking, not of the character of God.

Because God is love—steadfast, faithful love; self-giving, servant love—God relates to us out of grace and forgiveness. Any religious position or belief that is not an expression of God’s grace and forgiveness—that is, of God’s steadfast, faithful love, of God’s self-giving, servant love—is not of God. (If this statement is true, it calls into question how we commonly think about confession and repentance, about condemnation and judgment, about heaven and hell.)

Because God is love, grace and forgiveness are the heart of the matter.

The Heart of the Matter: Love

The heart of the matter is love.

Love as a way of living and being - not feelings or emotion but choosing based upon a foundational principle that governs how one thinks and lives.

Love - covenant love, chesed - is the central, defining element in the character of God (Exodus 34:6-7). Such love is steadfast, that is, it never fluctuates or waivers. It is faithful. It never gives up on or abandons those God loves. God abounds in, overflows with such love. God's covenant love extends to the thousandth generation - a Hebrew phrase meaning "never ending."

The apostle Paul recognized love as the heart of God. Paul wrote, "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). God's love underlies God's work of salvation - accepting us unconditionally (justification, Romans 3:21-5:2), transforming us (sanctification, Romans 5:1-8:17), conforming us to the likeness of Christ (perfecting grace, Romans 8:18-39). Paul ended his description of salvation by asserting that nothing "in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).

The Johannine community said it most simply: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). The author described this love as self-giving and other-centered. "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9). Such love seeks the wellbeing of the beloved. It is unconditional - given freely and lavishly out of who God is.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul spoke of the servant nature of God's love. "Though he was in the form of God, (Christ) did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on the cross" (Philippians 2:6-8). In the incarnation, the self-giving nature of God's love was expressed in the Son's self-emptying -  giving up his position in the Godhead to become human.

The heart of God is self-giving, servant love that seeks the wholeness of those whom God loves.

Thus, the heart of the matter is love. Any religious position or belief that does not align with God's nature of self-giving, servant love, with God's steadfast, faithful love is not of God. As the writer of 1 John said, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love" (1 John 4:7-8).

Love is the bottom line for God.

Second Sunday after Pentecost - Recognizing the Danger We Face

It is a danger we all face on our spiritual journeys. How we deal with this danger determines the spirit with which we live. How we deal with it sets the trajectory of our spiritual journey. Ultimately, how we deal with this danger defines the character of our spiritual lives.

This danger is inherent to religious life. This danger is so deeply engrained in religious thinking that it is generally not recognized. As a result, we do not recognize it lurking in the recesses of our own thinking. The more trapped we are in its power, the more blind we are to its presence in our own lives.

Religious life, by nature, is built around a religious rule that governs the life of the community. This rule includes accepted beliefs (theology-orthodoxy) as well as a set of expectations regarding what to do or not do (morals-orthopraxy) based on those beliefs. It is the standard by which the community lives. Over time, this religious rule translates into religious traditions that are considered sacred.

The purpose o the religious rule is twofold. First, the rule shapes the community's identity. It helps the community define itself. It sets the community apart from others. In addition, the rule is a guide pointing the way for the members of the community. It helps them as they seek to make progress on their spiritual journeys. It is the standard by which they measure themselves and their progress.

The danger of which I speak arises when this religious rule - the standard that defines and shapes the religious community - is used to judge others.

Let me be clear. Judging others - a critical, judgmental spirit that focuses on how others fail to conform to the religious rule - is not the danger. It is an indicator of the danger.

What, then, is the danger? I don't have a name for it. I can only describe it.

It involves focusing on the wrong thing - on behavior rather than attitudes, on right beliefs rather than a right spirit (a servant spirit), on externals rather than the inner realm of the heart, on rules rather than relationships, on conformity to expectations rather than compassion and understanding, on finding fault rather than forgiving, on comparing and competing rather than accepting and valuing, on keeping score rather than making progress.

It operates out of merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking rather than the grace and forgiveness with which God relates to us.

It creates us-them relationships, build walls that divide, reinforces alienation and division. It fosters a not-so-subtle arrogance of being better-than another, placing others in a one-down position in the relationship.

It blocks compassion - a defining dimension of the character of God (Exodus 34:6-7) and an essential element in the spiritual life (Colossians 3:12) - as well as any effort to understand the other's situation.

It reflects a fragile sense of self - what I call an egocentric, constructed self. This identity is the persona we created based on what the world - society, family, culture, church - told us we needed to be and do if we wanted to be accepted and valued. Because it is fragile, this persona needs to constantly be propped up. That's where judging others comes in. Every time we judge another, we unconsciously say "I'm not like that. I'm better than that." A critical, judgmental spirit is evidence that we are living out of an egocentric, constructed self.

It involves spiritual blindness - the inability to see in oneself what others see, the inability to be honest with oneself about struggle and failure. It projects onto others the very things we disown in our own lives - what is called scapegoating. It is thinking we are right when we are wrong.

We see these dynamics in today's lectionary gospel reading - Mark 2:23-3:6. The text relates two occasions in which Jesus failed to follow the scribal teachings and traditions related to Sabbath observance. His actions triggered criticism by the Pharisees. "Why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?" (Mark 2:24). It led them to plot his death (Mark 3:6).

Their attempts to get rid of Jesus reflect the heart of the danger I've attempted to describe - the danger of missing authentic spirituality. Authentic spirituality involves more than right beliefs and behavior. It is found in relationships - loving God by loving others (Mark 12:28-34). It is not found in conformity to some religious standard or in following some religious tradition. It is found in the transformation of heart and mind that leads us to love God and neighbor.

I'm not sure we are ever free from this danger on the spiritual journey. After all, the inclination to judge others is an inherent part of our human condition, of how we seek to establish our identity. Consider how quickly we are to be critical of the Pharisees. Our best protection against this ever-present danger is our awareness of our own need of God's grace.