A Long Gospel
It dawned on me recently that I’ve been at this weekly email thing for over six years. It started in early COVID days to keep contact with a few folks from church and morphed into whatever this is. Claudia graciously prints them out and we have them in a binder for no apparent reason, so the other day I pulled it off the shelf and scanned some of the entries.
If I didn’t know me, I’d think I’m all that and a bag of chips, that I have much of this faith-life wired and that growing in grace, walking in love, and serving relentlessly comes quite easily. Reading these again made me blush a bit since so often I am a fraud.
Not a fraud in that I don’t believe what I write, it’s more like I flop more often than I fly, then beat myself up for stumbling over the same rocks in my path I hit last go-round. What encourages me is to read biographies of Jesus-followers down through the ages who knew the same frustrations.
You can’t throw a frisbee without hitting a saint who would give a hearty “Me Too!” to Paul’s lament in Romans 7.
The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, still a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
St. John of the Cross and his dark night of the soul. Mother Teresa doing her thing but not sensing God in her work. J. Sidlow Baxter remarking his prayers felt like tossing BBs into a brass heaven. Any number of believers in the pews near you living checkered lives of obedience. You. Me.
What we need is a long gospel.
We need good news of new chances and do-overs.
We could use eyes to see the options before us clearly so we can choose to follow Jesus, again and again.
We hope for a heart that warms to what promotes kingdom goodness in us and others.
We are wise to pull out our compass, again, to check if we are heading toward our True North.
A long gospel. That’s just what we have and sometimes forget to remember.
Jesus’ good news of new life, here and forever, runs with the assumption that we all are works in progress. The long gospel reaches out and rescues over and over, because the gospel is relational not transactional.
A transactional gospel tells a person to believe, say a prayer and you gain heaven and a better life now. Unfortunately, that has been sold to so many for so long that it sounds like just another pitch to a prospect in search of a sale. People don’t like to be treated like a target to get to buy a product. Well meaning, but that’s not good news.
The really good news is relational as Jesus invites all of us to “follow me,” and “learn from me.” To describe the kingdom he inaugurates, Jesus uses pictures like vines growing to maturity and producing fruit, or seeds sprouting into more than could be imagined from the start. Pictures like these talk of slow movement and change over time. Even the invitation to follow talks of journey, and, like the picture above, the road is rarely in a straight line.
Back to Paul in Romans 7, after his honest personal assessment, he shakes the fog from his mind and sees this journey a bit more clearly.
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will set me free from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord….So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
Cutting yourself and others some slack seems right but often proves difficult. Our well-worn paths of saying to God some version of, “I don’t want you around right now” leads back to the same old failures. I know mine and you know yours, and we know it’s not good, and we still return.
Proverbs 26:11 says it well,
Like a dog that returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
But the great news of the Good News is that we do, indeed, receive a long gospel. Shame and regret keep too many away from fresh starts. The long gospel takes its time to do its work. Like a parent leading any child toward maturity, our God quietly works discipline, instruction, reassurance, guidance into the everyday of every day.
When Paul tells his Roman readers that God will use every bit of life to work together for good, it’s not a magic wand turning the bad of the world into sunshine and rainbows. Rather, the events of any life, however wonderful or vile, become the raw stuff he uses to form us more into the likeness of our Savior and Brother, Jesus.
And in the midst of it, you and I are not condemned when we blow it, again. Let that truth sink in, because while we might condemn ourselves while slipping on the cloak of shame, the resounding truth is almost too big to grasp.
So now there is now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
Before you rush along, read that line again and let the meaning sink in below the surface level.
Not free to do anything I want, but
free to be a bit more of the person I was created to be.
Free to quit returning to my vomit, like a dog.
Free to drop shame by the wayside.
Free to embrace the do-over for which my heart yearns.
Sure, I will face the consequences of my choices, and certainly I will carry scars of bad calls, but God he still invites me to follow as his child no matter how many times I walk the other way. Now, that’s good news.
So, I’ll keep writing these scribbles until I choose to be done, but know they come from someone who is shot full of holes but intent on getting better, just like you.
With that wind in our sails, let’s live as a free person in Jesus today!
Music for the week…
How ‘bout bad jokes for the day…
FUN THINGS TO DO ON AN ELEVATOR
~ Ask if you can push the button for other people, but push the wrong ones.
~ Bring a camera and take pictures of everyone in the elevator.
~ Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside, ask, "Got enough air in there?"
~ Hold the doors open and say you're waiting for your friend. After a while, let the doors close and say, "Hi Greg. How's your day been?"
~ Lay down the twister mat and ask people if they would like to play.
~ Listen to the elevator walls with your stethoscope.
~ Pretend you are a flight attendant and review emergency procedures and exits with the passengers.
~ Push the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.
~ Stand silently and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
~ Swat at flies that don't exist.
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Lunching with a friend in a fast-food restaurant, I was telling her about a teenager who had rear-ended my car. The teen blamed me for the accident.
"She even called me every dirty name in the book!" I said.
Just then I looked over to the next table where two nine-year-old boys had apparently been paying close attention to my story.
One said to the other, "There's a book?"