The life of living graced is one of radical reliance on God (freedom) and radical obedience to God (service).
The reliance is the hard part. You’d think the obedience would be – but no, it’s the reliance. This is so because reliance comes from being put in our place from rebellion being squelched by God in Christ. To have nothing to provide or “bring to the table” for our identity, community, meaning and destiny is all together unnerving to our “Old Self.” To be defined not by the possibility of our own new and ambitious plans or accomplishments that will transform or save us (“a new you in 60 days” or “why can’t they cap that oil well if we know enough to go down there and drill” or “there is no military solution in Afghanistan” or “we are the world, we are the children, we are the ones…”) is not, it’s safe to say, our preference! To be defined not by that possibility, as invigorating and, indeed, critical and vital as that can be in its own right (there is a place for rigorous optimism that translates into action for improvement) but rather by the promise of God that all things are made new in Christ Jesus, well now, that is really something new! Not something reformed or revamped but rather something resurrected! That is to say, you and I cannot accomplish it We can’t get to that place of radical reliance. We must be brought there. And I think we only go there kicking and screaming because nobody wants that peace brought by being humbled until they are actually there. Once there, well, there is no place you’d rather be.
Instead of being done in by God (we would traditionally call this “repenting of our sin,” not an active move by us on God but an allowing of the active move by God on us) we turn to religious journey and pilgrimages. These forays can be “sacred” and filled with “spiritual practices” of prayer, bible and the like or “secular” and filled with “lifestyle changes” of yoga and book clubs or financial makeovers with debt reduction. What they hold in common is dependency on our aspirations and actions. If you can do these things they can be, and usually are, salutary. And the more power to you! But if you think they will provide peace, I’d have to say “good luck with that.” Not because they are not of value and you are not accomplished. But because of their nature. They are you. And you are not you. You are not made for you. Rather, you are made for God. Now by this I don’t mean to deny each person’s individuality, uniqueness and freedom. I mean rather to state in blunt terms, perhaps to get our attention (I can hear our objection: “What do you mean I am not me! I am the real deal!”), that all our personal singularity finds its strongest expression when we live as mortals in the larger ecology of life rather than as conquerors over each domain, real or imagined. This whole business of being most “found” as an individual when we are most “lost” in the community is what I believe Augustine was talking about when he said “our hearts are restless until they rest in God.”
The whole Adam and Eve story is not one to describe how we break God’s rules and need to be forgiven, but rather how we are made to live in this radical reliance on God but refuse to do so. So, you are indeed you, but you might say it this way: the real you lives most fully when defined by God rather than your own futurings.
So, this is all just a bit on the “radical reliance” piece of the puzzle. Much more could and should be said just about this, let alone all that needs to be said to describe the “radical obedience” piece.
But before I close on the “radical reliance” piece, but me say just a bit more. Being there, at that place of radical reliance, is called faith. And if you look closely at what I said above regarding “repenting” you will notice something critical. It’s something that has been at the heart of the disagreements, not to say also disruptions, within the Christian family pretty much from day one. It’s that “allowing” part of the dynamic. We don’t save ourselves, but we “allow” Christ to save us. And isn’t that “allowing” something we do?!
In order for Christ to be our Savior and not some quaint or even severe disciplines of our own to be so, the answer must be “no.” But we are active and we do believe don’t we? No doubt.
To get a sense of what this struggle to actually live out faith in serenity that comes from letting it be given to us versus living out the faith in striving that comes from taking hold of it ourselves…..to get a better look at what this struggle is actually like, let’s take a look at one of the more common ways we live it out.
There is hardly a mantra more prevalent in Christian circles when engaging the storms and struggles of life than, after all the striving, you end up at the place of saying “well, I’m just going to ‘let go and let God’!”
And everybody kind of shakes their head in recognition and approval of this time-worn and seemingly now so popular strategy for spiritual and mental health.
The problem is it doesn’t work. Not because its not actually a place of peace, this place of being cared for and carried along by Benevolence, a merciful and good-giving God. It is a place and it is real and it is salutary and life-giving. It’s just that you will not go there on your own, no matter what lip-service you give it. You will not because if you did you would be taking yourself out of the driver’s seat….and that is something that you simply will not allow. It’s too risky. It’s too, well, dependent.
And you, by your very nature, are independent.
So how do you get to this place of peace where God is the control and security?
The answer lies in realizing it’s not a place you can go on your own. You have to be taken there. You have to be put there. You have to be put in this place. You have to be put in your place.
Many people wonder why they keep struggling with being able to “let go and let God” even when they walk away from a conversation with a friend where that’s the conclusion for the best strategy. There is no getting there, there is no letting go because the moment you attempt to do so, you, by definition and de-facto, are attempting to let go instead of actually letting go. You are actually, in the attempting, hanging on to yourself and your capabilities and not relying on God.
But our bondage to this condition of self-determination is more than the philosophical bind of activity versus passivity. It’s more profound than that. You cannot let go because you will not let go. We will not will it. The only thing we are willing to do is will our own preservation. We will not not do everything to save ourselves. We cannot “let go” because that would mean the end of us, and that is something we will not allow.
But I did say that place of peace and serenity, that place of letting go, is possible.
So how?
Jesus Christ brings you there. He looks at you and has the first word about you before you have a chance to speak: “I choose you” he says, and does not even give you the chance to choose him. He chooses. He decides.
You don’t find that place of peace and serenity of living in his first word decision about you by figuring out how you are going to let him in or let him take over. Here’s the key: You find that place by confessing that you do not let him in or over. You simply stop all the protesting and acknowledge your resistance. You don’t “let go and let God” to find the peace but you confess you will not “let go and let God” and you are given the peace.
This, I believe, is why confession is so necessary. Confession has gotten a bad rap over the centuries, and for good reason. The church at large corrupted it’s meaning of recognition of identity and place (I am a child of God, dependent on God, earthbound and mortal) that receives the already given grace, to make it an active payment for benefits (I am a person who has disobeyed God who, through this statement of guilt and perhaps some added service, can only receive grace fully by taking these steps). Confession can enumerate sins (the things done or left undone) but that is not its core: its core is simply stating we can’t and don’t do this on our own, this finding of peace, inwardly and outwardly, and that God can and does.
The problem with grace is that it’s just too easy. We can’t simply be given peace can we?! What about all the spiritual disciplines and all the religious life we hear so much about and within which we have so much invested?! What, in essence, about “me”!?
Grace as radical reliance and radical obedience.
A radical reliance that can only be done by admitting you cannot and will not do it.
A radical obedience that can only be done by not even knowing you are doing it.
Here we have only touched on the radical reliance, and that only in a fast-handed sort of way. We haven’t said a word here, for example, of how the cross, what Luther called “the theology of the cross” is the touchstone of it all.
We haven’t spoken at all of the radical obedience so desperately needed in our world full of debt, war-torn and melting down. That speaking will have to wait for another writing.
Those of you familiar with Luther’s “freedom of a Christian” will recognize in radical reliance Luther’s “subject to none” and in radical obedience Luther’s “subject to all.”
Maybe future blogings can unpack that as well.
