Focus less on shortcomings and more on growth

15 But the free gift of Christ isn’t like Adam’s failure. If many people died through what one person did wrong, God’s grace is multiplied even more for many people with the gift—of the one person Jesus Christ—that comes through grace. 16 The gift isn’t like the consequences of one person’s sin. The judgment that came from one person’s sin led to punishment, but the free gift that came out of many failures led to the verdict of acquittal. 17 If death ruled because of one person’s failure, those who receive the multiplied grace and the gift of righteousness will even more certainly rule in life through the one person Jesus Christ.

18 So now the righteous requirements necessary for life are met for everyone through the righteous act of one person, just as judgment fell on everyone through the failure of one person. 19 Many people were made righteous through the obedience of one person, just as many people were made sinners through the disobedience of one person.

Romans 5:15-19, CEB

Step 7: We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Last Sunday we had a lovely and wide-ranging conversation about Step 7. We talked about all of it, with particular attention given to humility and shortcomings. When it came to shortcomings- different definitions were given. Some believed they weren’t the same things as “sin,” others disagreed.

I’m not sure where I stand on this. For some time now I’ve focused my energy on Sunday mornings encouraging people to stop being fixated on sins or shortcomings, if they are indeed  two different things. One definition of sin that resonates well enough with me is the idea that it is a kind of “missing the mark.” Sin’s a bit more complicated than that because it’s not just a particular action that happens in a particular moment. It’s also a force in the world that exists outside of us that comes for us and tempts us into “missing the mark.”

People of faith for quite some time have made it their mission to take sin seriously. It’s just so serious, you know? All these people are out here sinning. We’ve got to put a stop to this! In America, the gospel has been completely distorted since the time of frontier revivals. A couple of amateur pastors figured out that if you make people feel really badly about themselves and threaten them with eternal damnation then you get a lot more people converting to Christianity.

And for the next 150 years, fear sold. Fear sold pretty hard. It sold so hard that many people in our country believe this is the only way the Gospel has ever been preached! Well, that isn’t the case. And European Christians think the way we present the Gospel is silly and confusing.

In the rest of the world, the Gospel is about what God does. God is creating a new reality that will be defined by grace, forgiveness, mercy, and love (as opposed to greed, conflict, violence, and competition) and He calls people into faith to help people see what that new reality will be like. These faithful people embody those principles so that other people can see God for who he is and to try to create a glimpse of that new reality in the here and now so we can begin to experience the benefits through the work of God’s holy spirit. (Side note: Other cultures emphasize different aspects of the gospel and there are always some things that are given greater weight and some things that are left out depending on where you are. That’s just part of the deal).

It’s so weird. I just described the Gospel and I didn’t even talk about what a sinner you are. I would guess that at least some people reading this believe that I haven’t described the full Gospel. Well, that’s true in a way. Nobody describes all aspects of what God is doing in 3 sentences. But this description has significantly more theological meat on the bone than the version of the gospel that goes, “You’re a sinner, repent or die a painful death in a sea of probably pretty good people who missed their last chance to say a prayer.”

Why am I talking about this? What’s it got to do with Step 7?

We, as a culture, have been absolutely saturated with talk about sin, failures, and shortcomings. Few cultures on earth deal with more guilt, shame, and preoccupation with our own “wrong-ness” than ours. And the reason for this is because we had a whole big movement that, for 150 years, told us that we were at best nothing and nobody and at worst deserving of eternal torment. So we, as a culture, have lived in fear and anxiety of our own bad-ness and wrong-ness.

I wonder where it has gotten us? Do we seem to be thriving? We have taken sin awfully seriously as a culture. Does sin seem to have declined? Are we becoming more “pure”?

The solution, so the thinking of the church so often goes, is more people in church. More people praying, more people confessing their sin. More people feeling guilty. More people saying the word “God” in public and praying in public and just generally acting like a Look-at-Me-Louie for the Lord. More people sending their kids to Bible studies focused on trivial matters like: Do you think David was afraid when we fought Goliath? Why or why not? Discuss amongst yourselves and nominate one member of the group to share your answers with everyone else.

Has this been the solution?

No because what’s happened is people have either left the church or stayed in it while hating themselves. Why wouldn’t they hate themselves? It’s strongly implied (often enough) that God does.

What does this do?

It creates people who are too paralyzed by their own fear and self-hatred to transform into a person of God who works to make the world a better place not so that they earn their spot in that world but just because it’s the right thing to do as an act of service to the God who is redeeming all things.

Our fear-mongering and emphasis on sin has not helped us live as more faithful people (more self-righteous maybe). It has, in fact, pushed us so far away from faith that the Church is wheezing and coughing as it slowly waits to breathe its last breath.

Fear mongering has led to cover-ups and sexual abuse scandals and spiritual abuse and verbal abuse and physical and money scandals and you name it. Just Google “church scandal” and try to read everything that comes up and watch as the years pass you by.

Are you following me? Taking sin seriously HAS NOT WORKED.

At least…taking sin seriously in the kind of way the church in America has tried to up until now.

But…is there another way?

Yes there is. Through Christ’s work, many have become righteous.

The better way is recognizing that God’s acceptance has gone before us and therefore our good behavior doesn’t earn the acceptance and the bad behavior doesn’t take it away. Acceptance went first. When we have acceptance, we can change. This is why being so serious about sin hasn’t worked- it doesn’t open us to change. It keeps us stuck in a pattern of guilt and shame and that simply does not transform us for the better. It brings out the worst in us.

And so, yeah, I’ve stopped emphasizing sin and shortcomings. Why? Because people grow when you see the best in them and when they see the best in themselves. If people are growing…there’s a good chance the world is looking more and more like God’s new reality. So…maybe there are some benefits to taking sin less seriously. Namely, that people start becoming more godly. Imagine that! They probably don’t even need to be lectured in order to become more faithful!

We have not been taught that the grace of God is a free gift of acceptance so that the world might be a little bit better as we wait for it to become completely transformed. God’s grace isn’t given to you so that you can stop having anxiety about using curse words. God’s grace is given so that creation itself can breathe a sigh of relief. So that people stop creating wars and killing each other. So that people can live legitimately peacefully together. So that all people are cared for and provided for. So no one has to hold up a sign saying, “Need help,” because all needs are already provided for. That’s where we’re headed.

And for that reason- I personally don’t give a shit whether or not you curse (yep, that was word play. And for the record taking the Lord’s name in vain has nothing at all to do with cursing. It has to do with making promises in God’s name that aren’t followed through on. So no I’m not sinning to say what I just said. And even if I was, it’d be the most harmless sin of my life). Or whether you occasionally drink too much, or smoke a little too much weed, or any number of other sins and shortcomings.

We need to focus less on this and more about living the kinds of lives that foster peace, forgiveness, mercy, and love.

This is a hard message to hear. It’s not hard in the sense that it’s hard to accept logically. Logically, it’s easy. Everyone thinks those are good things. The hard part is responding to it. This is because it’s hard to receive a gift. It feels like being in the one-down position. As if someone else has something over us. As if they have high status and we have low status. As if low status means undeserving. And this is the very reason why fear-mongering has worked. It plays into the core desire to earn love so that we don’t have to confront the fact that being in a one-down position is in our best interests.

The problem for us is that we may know this with our heads but our heart still says…I need the punishment. I deserve the punishment. The punishment will set me free.

This is a problem because punishment cannot,  does not, will not, never will set people free. It’s a prison cell. The bars of the cell are not our shortcomings. They are the voices that tell us that we are not good enough and we deserve to be miserable.

The voice of God says…the cell is unlocked. The door is open. You can step out if you want and live as a free person again. There is no catch…but it’s difficult to do. It’s difficult because it requires us to give up this silly notion that the world works in a predictable way: if i misbehave bad things happen, if i stop misbehaving then good things happen.

The world, as it stands, is more complicated than that. The message of God is more like this: the world is topsy-turvy, but one day good things will happen followed by more good things and after that: more good things.

You can get a little taste of it now…if you’re willing to set yourself free.

You set yourself free by admitting shortcomings knowing that there is no punishment coming. Knowing that it doesn’t disqualify you from love. In fact, it might just make you more deserving of God’s love. We do this knowing that, ultimately, God’s work has very little to do with our shortcomings and very much to do with creating a new and different kind of world in which to live. That world won’t have any shortcomings because he will have taken them away.

You can jumpstart the process by asking. It’s up to you whether or not you do it but, if you do, you may just find yourself feeling freer to grow in all the ways you think you need to.