June 13, 2010 | 8:00 a.m.

Brokenness Is Normal

Jocelyn C. Cadwallader
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 32
Luke 7:36–50
Galatians 2:15–21

“Yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”

Galatians 2:16a (NRSV)

A theology of grace does not negate the law, but it seeks to transform those aspects of human relationships which the law cannot touch.

Pheme Perkins

Our reality, our shared reality today, is a confusing one. We live in a world, in a society, where information is easily accessible. We have the Internet, television, movies, cell phones, texting, Facebooking, radio, newsprint, magazines–information can be communicated across the globe in a matter of seconds. And so we are more readily exposed to the tragedies of the world. We can see the oil that has been gushing into the Gulf and have been for weeks, as there is even a camera on the bottom of the ocean, a mile under water. We don’t have to wait to see feature films based on the war in Iraq or Afghanistan; we can simply turn on the television or the computer to see the violence, even to the point that the images have become seemingly normative. We are aware of the violence that dwells in the streets of this city, the school shootings, the gun violence, the abuse of children and women. We have all felt the effects of the economic downturn. We have been told, time and time again, that our identities are based on the work we do, and this downturn has been interpreted as us being less than, not as good as, or not enough, regardless of the truth. I could go on and on about the tragedies of this world that we all experience in one way or another as citizens of this world, but I know you are all familiar with that part of the picture.

In this age, in our shared reality, with the communication abilities that we have today, we are also made more aware of traditions different from our own. We are exposed to cultural traditions of other countries and can learn more about our own. We are exposed to different religious traditions and can learn more about our own. In the Christian tradition, we hear arguments, claimed to be based on our Bible, from across the spectrum, that are built to defend a political agenda or are used to make judgments of one another. We could easily turn on the television or a computer and hear messages such as “We must love one another as we love ourselves,” “We must follow the golden rule,” or “We are sinners; you are a sinner and therefore must change your ways to be right with God and therefore with me.” We are exposed to so much information these days—sound bites and nuggets of information at our fingertips—yet when asked, we often find ourselves without the words to articulate our faith. As Christians, we often find it difficult to articulate what it is that we believe. So I’d like to take a little time this morning to talk about faith, in hopes that we might find together some language to articulate what we believe in the midst of what we find with the click of a button.

Martin Luther, the first Reformer, was a man who harbored torment. He was tormented by doubts about his relationship with God, what God thought about him, if he was good enough. Luther believed that God does not let sin go unpunished, and he was constantly fearful of the wrathful judgment of God. So he sought the answer to the question, “How can I find a gracious God?” Luther devoted his life to seeking God’s acceptance, becoming a monk and living a life of religious righteousness. He tried harder and harder to merit salvation, and the harder he tried, the more despairing and guilt-ridden he became. And then he discovered this Good News and began to articulate a doctrine of justification.

Shirley Guthrie, a systematic theologian and former professor at Columbia Theological Seminary prior to his death in 2004, articulates what Luther experienced and of the foundation of the Reformed tradition, this doctrine of justification, as this:

We do not have to save ourselves by “being good” to satisfy God’s righteous demands. What we cannot do for ourselves, God has done for us in Christ. We are “justified”—made right with God—not by our own efforts to climb up to God but by God’s free grace in coming to us. Just when we give up the futile attempt to merit God’s love, acknowledge that we are and always will be unworthy in ourselves, and trust God’s goodness instead of our own—just then we will discover that salvation is not a prize to be won by our good works, but a gift to be accepted by faith.

Today most Protestants and many Roman Catholics would still agree with this discovery of Luther’s, with this claim of Paul’s in his letter to the Galatians. However, we often have a more difficult time believing it. We understand, intellectually that we are sinners, that we are imperfect. We even have coined phrases that describe our knowledge of our inability to be perfect. We say, “I’m only human,” where something happens that we can’t fix, that we can’t do. “I’m not a miracle-worker; I’m just human.” We have an acknowledgement, intellectually, that we are not able to save ourselves, much less someone else. Yet, we still try. We continue to seek ways in which we might solve our sin problem, when, really, that’s not what it’s about. We, as Protestants, are not substituting “faith in Jesus” with other forms of atoning for our sins. We are simply discovering that in living faith, we are free to love, free to explore more of our lives together, rather than getting bogged down in the mire of deciding the pecking order of sinners.

Oftentimes we say with our lips that we believe in Christ, yet all too often we become distracted by feeling the need to work for forgiveness, the need to work for God’s grace. Too often we believe that we need to let God know when we think we deserve forgiveness and when we don’t. We are a busy people, fixers, doers, givers, and not often enough are we receivers. We, like Luther, spend so much energy punishing ourselves by trying to convince ourselves and one another that if we do good things, live good lives, then God will know that we are persons of faith. Yet as we do this, we tend to forget the simplest nugget: that we don’t need to. We don’t need to prove our faith. Not to ourselves or to anyone else. We do not have to be bound by projected images, our fears, by our self-insecurities of what others or, more importantly, what God may think of us. This is the gift we receive in God’s love. Guthrie helps us to understand:

Our faith does not force or enable God to love us, but it is our way of acknowledging, receiving, and enjoying—and returning—the love that God had for us long before we ever thought of loving God. We are not made right with God by our faith, but we are made right with God through our faith. Our faith does not change God from being against us into being for us, but it does change us from being closed to being open to receive the love God has always had for us.

About a week after spring break, towards the end of the Coffee Hour following the 9:30 a.m. service, I remember trailing Steve Bumpus. I wanted to ask him about his trip with his family to Colorado, to hear his thoughts on the colleges they had visited, the slopes they skied down, when a gentleman walked up to us and introduced himself. Neither Steve nor I had met this man before; he was a visitor that Sunday and was interested in learning more about our tradition, our faith. We spent the next hour in conversation with this man. He shared with us that he comes from a Baptist tradition, and he claimed the label of ultra-conservative. He shared with us the worship traditions that he is most comfortable with, most familiar with, and asked us about ours. He showed curiosity in my being clergy, as a woman, and what our tradition believes about homosexuality. But the portion of our conversation that I remember most vividly is when he asked about sin. I had shared with him our tradition’s belief, articulated in our Confessions, that “nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God.” He responded with the question, “Well, what about sin? Doesn’t sin separate us from God?” To which Steve responded. “We don’t worry about that. We know that our sin was taken care of in Jesus. We don’t know exactly how it happened. We simply know that it was. Because we believe in Jesus, we trust that our sin no longer stands between us and God but that we can live fully into our relationship with God.” As I stood and listened to Steve’s words, I sensed, in a way that was more tangible than ever, that “great is the mystery of faith!” We don’t know exactly how it happened; we just know that it has. And we are free to live into a life that reflects that knowledge. A little under two weeks later, Steve passed away. Too suddenly, too soon, inexplicably, Steve passed away, yet I am, we are, left with this beautiful articulation of our faith.

Our Gospel lesson this morning also offers us a beautiful image of living in faith, of living into this existence of justification by faith. This story in the Gospel of Luke of a woman of great faith who, according to others, wasted a year’s wages on an alabaster jar of ointment only to pour it on the feet of Jesus whilst he sat at the dinner table, with less articulation, is pregnant with expression of how one lives into this faith. Of course, the woman knows her place in society, the sins she has committed. She knows the social roles she should be playing, how the law tells her to act, yet she interrupts a dinner with invited guests nonetheless. When the Pharisee showed annoyance with Jesus, as Jesus should have known who she was and how imprudent it was for her to be touching him, Jesus responds by reminding him, “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.” I’ll say that again: “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.” You see, her faith, her belief, her recognition that Jesus takes care of her sin has opened her up to the opportunity to love more freely. She was no longer bound by her sin to dwell in solitude, self-hatred, or self-deprecation. Her faith that Jesus took care of her sin for her allowed her to look beyond herself to those around her.

Kathleen Norris adds this to the conversation: “God can look right through whatever evil we have done in our lives and get to the creature made in the divine image. . . . Maybe that’s why we worship—to respond to this grace. We praise God not to celebrate our own faith but to give thanks for the faith that God has in us and in others.” To celebrate the faith that God has in us.

In the confusing world that we live in, with information and communication at the tips of our fingers, we see deep need in our world. Amidst the war and the environmental atrocities, the violence and the hunger, we still find ourselves stunted by our fascination and obsession with sin and assignments of judgment. Suppose we did truly believe in Jesus. Suppose we did truly have faith and could be open to the amazing gift of God’s grace and love. Suppose our experiences lived—whether resonating with the words of Shirley Guthrie, the woman with the alabaster jar, Steve Bumpus, or Kathleen Norris—suppose our experiences help us to articulate in this world of sound bites and judgments that it’s not just about us; it’s not just about the work we do to show to one another our faith in God but that our lives reflect the faith that God has in us. Suppose we live into our confession that nothing, in life or in death, can separate us from the love of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.