Lately, I've been receiving quite a few apologies from a couple of different people I haven't heard from in a while. Those of you who know my life know who I'm talking about. Those of you who don't...well, you don't really need to know who I'm talking about. All you need to know is that these are two people I care about, whom I've known for a while, and whom I haven't heard from in a long time mostly due to a relationship meltdown that occurred a year ago between the three of us, particularly between myself and one of my friends.
There's plenty of blame to go around for what happened a year ago, and some of it isn't even localized to the three of us (and that, of course, doesn't even consider that there might be a spiritual dimension to what caused the conflict to fall apart). Nobody walked away from that disaster with his, her, or their halo intact. However, at the time, I was led to believe that all of that blame was mine to bear and that the other parties were innocent victims of my heinous acts. That turned out to be totally false and one particular party that would have gotten away scot-free is probably the majority at fault, it turns out, since it has produced a pattern of disasters just like the one I and my two friends experienced--a documented pattern stretching back for decades (though, at this time, said party seems to be trying to escape responsibility in this case by shifting inordinate amounts of blame to my two friends--in my opinion). However, these two people did do wrong and, in all fairness, they did owe me an apology. It's been over a year and in one case I've had no contact at all from my friend, so I'd given up hope on getting that apology. This weekend, I received it and I have to say that overall that's a relief.
However, that wasn't my initial reaction to seeing my friend's name pop up in my inbox for the first time in over a year with the subject line "Apology" next to it. My first reaction was just sorrow and fear. My first words were, "I don't need your apology." It's true. I don't, not for my own sake. I forgave this person a long time ago: I had to in order to move on with my own life. You don't need someone to apologize in order to forgive them: Jesus proved that when He prayed from the cross, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34). Neither the Romans nor the Jews who crucified Him ever apologized, and certainly no one apologized to Him at the time of His crucifixion--yet He forgave.
Like I said, I did not need an apology from this person, but I wanted it. I did not need to hear them say they'd done something wrong (I figured that part out all by myself, thank you kindly), but I did want them to say that. Why then was I so upset to see an apology email from them? Wasn't this what I'd been fighting for through hierarchies of red tape literally for months? At first I thought my reaction was pure irrationality and tried to shove it aside. Next I thought it was just fear--this person had hurt me deeply in the past and it's only natural I would fear they would hurt me again. But something about these rang hallow and I could not shove past my reluctance to open that email, my distaste for even having it.
I prayed about it and asked for prayer, and that was when it occurred to me. I wasn't upset because this person was apologizing to me or upset by the fact that they finally regretted some of their actions--I was upset because that's all I thought the email represented, and that wasn't what I wanted from them at all. At bottom, I didn't really care about the apology, or their regret--having them admit to themselves and God that what they'd done was wrong was a secondary objective at best. I hadn't fought through all this because I wanted them to feel guilty. I'd wanted to be reunited with them. I'd wanted a chance to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship with them. I'd wanted to be reconciled with them once more. My interest didn't lie in their apologies or regrets, it lay in a relationship with them, in fellowship, peace, love, and unity. Why the email upset me so was because I at first thought it would offer only an apology, only regrets, and then withhold what I was really after: a way to move on and pick back up a lost bit of sweet Christian fellowship.
As good as it was to discover that my own intentions in pursuing this issue were pure and loving rather than simply an attempt to goad a couple good people into a guilt-trip, I found something far, far better. As I prayed about that email, God reminded me of all the times I would apologize to Him over and over about a particular sin, thought, or action--about how I would brood for hours or sometimes days over regretting what I'd done. I'm not interested in your regrets either, He said. I'm interested in a relationship. The Bible says it's true. He pleads with His people in Isaiah 1:18, yearning for them to come to Him and have fellowship with Him, offering to cleanse them so that their scarlet sins are white as wool. He separates our sin from us as far as the East is from the West (Psalm 103:12). He remembers them no more (Jeremiah 31:34). In my own life, He has repeatedly rebuked me for dwelling on past sin. He does not do this for some mysterious capricious reason: He does it because He loves us. Our sin has separated us from Him, and all He wants is for us to put it away and return to Him so that we may know Him. He does not want to leave this process half-done, but on the other hand He does not let it take one second longer than necessary--for He longs to be with us! How great is our Savior! How great is His love!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Sacred Silence
In monastic orders, there's something called a sacred silence, a practice of not talking between certain hours of the day, using the silence to meditate on God. I think sometimes this is a good thing. We can get awfully caught up in our words, in our relationships, in our thoughts and feelings and expressing them to each other and God. Sometimes, it's good to stop talking and just listen.
In some modern churches, there's a sort of a sacred silence as well, but it is different. The silence isn't an agreed upon thing, temporary, so that all might focus their attention on the God Who speaks into silence. It's an interminable thing enforced between some believers and not others, designed not so that both can concentrate on God but so that one Christian need not be contaminated by the company of the other. It is a sacred silent treatment, a punishment resurrected from the juvenile antics of middle school and given the veneer of godliness. The theory is that since some sin is involved or anticipated on the part of one or both of these Christians, it's okay to separate them.
One of the most common examples is in gender relationships. Many churches have bought into the idea of emotional purity. The believe that the sexual purity the Bible admonishes us toward is only part of the equation. Sure, the Bible says we're not to commit adultery, nor to have sexual relations before marriage, that much is clear. The Jesus also said that to lust after a woman in your heart was to commit adultery with her, but the emotional purity doctrine says that Jesus didn't quite go far enough. Isn't it wrong to love someone other than your spouse? Assuming that your married already, certainly yes. The emotional purity doctrine goes even further, though, and applies this idea to the unmarried. It brings it to bear on the often-tumultuous world of dating relationships and condemns the whole idea of giving one's heart away to someone you aren't going to marry. Many of its proponents say that, in order to avoid this man-proclaimed sin, it's best to give your heart to no one until your certain they'll be your future spouse (methods of assuring this vary, but most rely on either the father or a church leader to basically play matchmaker). And how does one go about making sure they don't give their heart to someone of the opposite sex unintentionally--or worse yet, cause someone of the opposite sex to "stumble" and have feelings for them? Enter the sacred silent treatment. If the genders don't talk to each other, if they don't interact, they won't fall into the egregious sin of emotional attachment. Sometimes this is applied wholesale, sometimes on an as-needed basis between people who begin warming up to each other without a leader's go-ahead. In all cases it boils down to the same idea that lies at the heart of all sacred silent treatments (gender based and otherwise): because God wants me to preserve myself from this sinful contamination, it is okay to avoid my brother or sister in Christ as if they have the plague. God approves because keeping my purity intact is more important to Him than love and unity among believers.
Several problems arise. The first, with this particular application of the sacred silent treatment, is that the Bible is totally silent on the issue of emotional purity in singles. It says nothing about the horrible sin of having an emotional attachment or romantic interest in a member of the opposite sex, as an unmarried person. In fact, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:36 has his golden opportunity (as a life-long celibate) to condemn the sin inherent in the process of two singles falling for each other and considering marriage--and he passes it up. More than that, he explicitly says that "it is no sin." People who teach purity of heart have to essentially make up a sin from scraps of verses taken out of context (such as Proverbs 4:23, which says, "guard your heart" but from the context the writer clearly had no intention of speaking to emotional attachments, but to holding onto wisdom and instruction and shunning wicked ways) and from a number of extra-biblical arguments (note for example, how this author of an emotional purity book makes her case: notice that she neither has nor mentions a single verse to support her case but simply relies on drawing a pseudo-logical connection between sexual immorality and the emotional connections she thinks make it more likely to occur). The lack of proof is just the beginning, though. Emotional purity comes dangerously close to the heresies of denying that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2) and was tempted just as we are--yet without sin--(Hebrews 4:15), since Jesus did many things that some proponents of the doctrine would consider inadvisable or even sinful (remember His conversation, alone, with the woman at the well, whom He knew perfectly well was a loose woman?). It also seems to deny the Christian doctrines of redemption and renewal, by implying that the romantic longings of the single are irredeemably sinful. It causes a number of other ill effects by providing a formulaic approach to an aspect of the Christian's life, rather than an approach that is receptive to the Spirit and not led by man-made laws and codes. It devalues the heart, by teaching that the more you love the less worthy you are to be loved (you've given away "pieces of your heart," thereby cheapening it). Most of all, though, emotional purity butts heads with the Christian commands to love one another. Avoiding someone and giving them the silent treatment is simply not loving to them, there's no two ways about it. This failure of love is supposedly okay because avoiding the impurity is even more important to God...but is it really so?
The Bible, as it turns out, may be totally silent on the implicit sinfulness of emotional entanglements, but it says plenty about the importance of love between believers. Christ, on the night He was crucified, took the time to give His disciples some final instructions, comfort, and one command so important that He introduced it simply as "a new commandment" and "the command I give you" and stated it three times in that address. Later, John reiterated it over and over and over again in his first epistle. The command was this: "love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34 and 15:12). Notice that He did not take this opportunity to mention how important it was that His disciples kept themselves pure from emotional entanglements or bad company or even heresy. The most important thing to Christ's mind was that they love each other with the same all-consuming love that He had for them. Christ even brought it up again in His final prayer in John 17.
But how does this command for love stack up when matched with all God's other desires for good works, sound doctrine, personal holiness and the like? It turns out, that time and time again in the Bible, His desire for His people to love one another trumps His desire for any of these things. In Isaiah 1:11-17 even contains a pre-church example. God had Himself proclaimed all of Israel's sacrifices, feasts, assemblies, and religious observances...but here He expresses absolute hatred for them because of the way His people abuse one another.
What, then, is so sacred about the sacred silent treatment? Seeing that love and unity between Christians (male and female included: Galatians 3:28) is so vitally important in the eyes of God, what gives us the right to, in His name, drive wedges between Christians and stamp out our love for one another? Does emotional purity: a "sin" whose existence cannot even be Biblically maintained? What about complete agreement on obscure doctrinal issues? Does the Bible say it's okay to hate Christians you disagree with? Last time I checked, it doesn't. The Bible, to be fair, does state one circumstance when shunning a person is the best solution, as a last resort: excommunication for gross and unrepentant sin...and that only after the sinner has refused to repent after being confronted by the entire church (Matthew 18:15-17). Since it's easier to shun someone privately than to convince an entire church that they deserve it (or go to the effort of restoring them), it's not surprising that many excommunication practices violate the procedures of Matthew 18. In almost every case where this juvenile discipline of silence is observed and deified, it is done in violation of God's word. It is not sacred, it is a sin. It is not acceptable to God, who loves unity above purity, such that He left His own holy glory behind to live among us in our filth, in hope of redeeming and being unified with us and uniting us with each other. By creating silence and separation between believers where it ought not to be, were are not doing God's work, but destroying it. It is a shameful thing, and it is no wonder Paul rebuked the apostle for this sin. Would he were here to rebuke us!
In some modern churches, there's a sort of a sacred silence as well, but it is different. The silence isn't an agreed upon thing, temporary, so that all might focus their attention on the God Who speaks into silence. It's an interminable thing enforced between some believers and not others, designed not so that both can concentrate on God but so that one Christian need not be contaminated by the company of the other. It is a sacred silent treatment, a punishment resurrected from the juvenile antics of middle school and given the veneer of godliness. The theory is that since some sin is involved or anticipated on the part of one or both of these Christians, it's okay to separate them.
One of the most common examples is in gender relationships. Many churches have bought into the idea of emotional purity. The believe that the sexual purity the Bible admonishes us toward is only part of the equation. Sure, the Bible says we're not to commit adultery, nor to have sexual relations before marriage, that much is clear. The Jesus also said that to lust after a woman in your heart was to commit adultery with her, but the emotional purity doctrine says that Jesus didn't quite go far enough. Isn't it wrong to love someone other than your spouse? Assuming that your married already, certainly yes. The emotional purity doctrine goes even further, though, and applies this idea to the unmarried. It brings it to bear on the often-tumultuous world of dating relationships and condemns the whole idea of giving one's heart away to someone you aren't going to marry. Many of its proponents say that, in order to avoid this man-proclaimed sin, it's best to give your heart to no one until your certain they'll be your future spouse (methods of assuring this vary, but most rely on either the father or a church leader to basically play matchmaker). And how does one go about making sure they don't give their heart to someone of the opposite sex unintentionally--or worse yet, cause someone of the opposite sex to "stumble" and have feelings for them? Enter the sacred silent treatment. If the genders don't talk to each other, if they don't interact, they won't fall into the egregious sin of emotional attachment. Sometimes this is applied wholesale, sometimes on an as-needed basis between people who begin warming up to each other without a leader's go-ahead. In all cases it boils down to the same idea that lies at the heart of all sacred silent treatments (gender based and otherwise): because God wants me to preserve myself from this sinful contamination, it is okay to avoid my brother or sister in Christ as if they have the plague. God approves because keeping my purity intact is more important to Him than love and unity among believers.
Several problems arise. The first, with this particular application of the sacred silent treatment, is that the Bible is totally silent on the issue of emotional purity in singles. It says nothing about the horrible sin of having an emotional attachment or romantic interest in a member of the opposite sex, as an unmarried person. In fact, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:36 has his golden opportunity (as a life-long celibate) to condemn the sin inherent in the process of two singles falling for each other and considering marriage--and he passes it up. More than that, he explicitly says that "it is no sin." People who teach purity of heart have to essentially make up a sin from scraps of verses taken out of context (such as Proverbs 4:23, which says, "guard your heart" but from the context the writer clearly had no intention of speaking to emotional attachments, but to holding onto wisdom and instruction and shunning wicked ways) and from a number of extra-biblical arguments (note for example, how this author of an emotional purity book makes her case: notice that she neither has nor mentions a single verse to support her case but simply relies on drawing a pseudo-logical connection between sexual immorality and the emotional connections she thinks make it more likely to occur). The lack of proof is just the beginning, though. Emotional purity comes dangerously close to the heresies of denying that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2) and was tempted just as we are--yet without sin--(Hebrews 4:15), since Jesus did many things that some proponents of the doctrine would consider inadvisable or even sinful (remember His conversation, alone, with the woman at the well, whom He knew perfectly well was a loose woman?). It also seems to deny the Christian doctrines of redemption and renewal, by implying that the romantic longings of the single are irredeemably sinful. It causes a number of other ill effects by providing a formulaic approach to an aspect of the Christian's life, rather than an approach that is receptive to the Spirit and not led by man-made laws and codes. It devalues the heart, by teaching that the more you love the less worthy you are to be loved (you've given away "pieces of your heart," thereby cheapening it). Most of all, though, emotional purity butts heads with the Christian commands to love one another. Avoiding someone and giving them the silent treatment is simply not loving to them, there's no two ways about it. This failure of love is supposedly okay because avoiding the impurity is even more important to God...but is it really so?
The Bible, as it turns out, may be totally silent on the implicit sinfulness of emotional entanglements, but it says plenty about the importance of love between believers. Christ, on the night He was crucified, took the time to give His disciples some final instructions, comfort, and one command so important that He introduced it simply as "a new commandment" and "the command I give you" and stated it three times in that address. Later, John reiterated it over and over and over again in his first epistle. The command was this: "love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34 and 15:12). Notice that He did not take this opportunity to mention how important it was that His disciples kept themselves pure from emotional entanglements or bad company or even heresy. The most important thing to Christ's mind was that they love each other with the same all-consuming love that He had for them. Christ even brought it up again in His final prayer in John 17.
But how does this command for love stack up when matched with all God's other desires for good works, sound doctrine, personal holiness and the like? It turns out, that time and time again in the Bible, His desire for His people to love one another trumps His desire for any of these things. In Isaiah 1:11-17 even contains a pre-church example. God had Himself proclaimed all of Israel's sacrifices, feasts, assemblies, and religious observances...but here He expresses absolute hatred for them because of the way His people abuse one another.
"When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause."In Jesus' time, there were the Pharisees, who were so observant of laws of religious holiness that they not only tithed of their income (as the Bible commands), but also from their spice rack...and yet Jesus' condemnation of their loveless conduct is famous. When it came to the church, things were evidently the same. Paul publicly called out Peter "because he stood condemned" for giving Gentiles the sacred silent treatment over supper (Galatians 2:11-14)--which is notably the only recorded time in Scripture where one apostle said anything negative about another. In Revelation 2:1-7, Christ Himself appears in a vision to condemn the church of Ephesus, not because of heresy or impurity (He admits that the church is passionate in combating heresy and maintaining its own purity) but because of lack of love (which the church at Ephesus had originally being famous for: Ephesians 1:15), for the which He threatens to remove their status as a church of God. Finally, Paul writes famously in 1 Corinthians 13 about the one thing that is most essential to the Christian life--and it isn't purity or religious observance! It's love, without which he says that even the best Christian practices are reduced to meaninglessness.
What, then, is so sacred about the sacred silent treatment? Seeing that love and unity between Christians (male and female included: Galatians 3:28) is so vitally important in the eyes of God, what gives us the right to, in His name, drive wedges between Christians and stamp out our love for one another? Does emotional purity: a "sin" whose existence cannot even be Biblically maintained? What about complete agreement on obscure doctrinal issues? Does the Bible say it's okay to hate Christians you disagree with? Last time I checked, it doesn't. The Bible, to be fair, does state one circumstance when shunning a person is the best solution, as a last resort: excommunication for gross and unrepentant sin...and that only after the sinner has refused to repent after being confronted by the entire church (Matthew 18:15-17). Since it's easier to shun someone privately than to convince an entire church that they deserve it (or go to the effort of restoring them), it's not surprising that many excommunication practices violate the procedures of Matthew 18. In almost every case where this juvenile discipline of silence is observed and deified, it is done in violation of God's word. It is not sacred, it is a sin. It is not acceptable to God, who loves unity above purity, such that He left His own holy glory behind to live among us in our filth, in hope of redeeming and being unified with us and uniting us with each other. By creating silence and separation between believers where it ought not to be, were are not doing God's work, but destroying it. It is a shameful thing, and it is no wonder Paul rebuked the apostle for this sin. Would he were here to rebuke us!
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