Faith + Life

Text: 1 John 2:9-11

9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (ESV)

A nearby church declared in a marketing campaign that “Jesus Hates Religion…and so do we.” As I sat in a living room with others in their 30′s, all of us having some affiliation with the Christian way, I heard many different reactions to the notion that Jesus hates religion. The reflection that seemed most prevalent, at least on the surface, was anger. The foci of this anger were

• churches in which we’d been active,
• others we’d known whose “witnessing” tactics seemed harmful,
• family members who had been parties to the aforementioned churches/tactics,
• people who had criticized us for our own part in harmful “witnessing” activities, and
• people who criticized churches, or a specific church, for hurtful practices/actions.

The list is actually longer, but that’s enough to see the trend.

In those angry expressions I heard many feelings.  I heard hatred for some people, groups and churches.  I heard some guilt and shame for having acted in harmful ways toward others in the name of Christianity.   I heard others expressing anger at the notion that what they had been taught to do and say in service of Jesus might actually be…wrong.

Of all that anger, hatred, and pain, who is the real victim?

The Real Victim is…

History is filled with dastardly acts to which hatred has driven humanity.  The bodies are so many and the vendettas so enduring, that the individual victims are hard to see.   The kind of anger and hatred that appeared in that living room is a little more personal and the victims are identifiable.  No matter how deep the wound or how enduring the grudge, when I hate you, the victim is also… me.

I use the discussion among people who profess the Christian faith as an example because if it can happen there,  it can happen anywhere.  The people who were present all express a desire to live differently.  When we listen to John’s words, he replies “so what?”

Hatred expressed by one who claims to follow Christ is visible evidence of the falsity of that claim (at least for the moment).

Huh?

If one hates another and claims to follow Christ, then one is lying about following Christ.

Drowning…

I’m neither as naive nor as idealistic as I may seem to be.  Most of us have been hurt by others so deeply that it is hard, or nearly impossible, to let go of our anger.  My journey hasn’t been immune to this disease. I have been an accomplished hater of myself and others from time to time.  I have even expressed hatred for God.  (Keep reading…it only lasted for about five years.)

What I found is that my anger, hatred and pain mostly hurt me.  I was the victim along with

• my outlook on life (mood)
• my relationships with others
• my job performance, and
• my relationship with God.

John is right.  Hatred, anger and pain drown us in darkness.  They isolate us. They lead us to wallow in a mire of our own making.  How do we get out of the pool?

Learning to Swim…

When I worked as a chaplain, we called it “processing.”  I like that term because it reminds me that life is a process and that confronting fears, failures, feelings, anger, hatred, and grief are processes, too.  While there are divine helps, there are no magical and immediate cures.  My process may not work for you, but I offer it in the footnotes as a place for you to start thinking about your journey out of anger, hatred, and the darkness they provide.  The bigger picture is of one of spiritual formation.

Spiritual formation is about learning to respond to the forgiveness God offers and to the healing, recreating work he wants to do in us. It is learning to swim in the same dirty pool with the same broken body, but with a renewed nature. It is getting out of God’s way and letting him work in us. It is being conformed to His image.  ( By the way, Conformed to His Image by Ken Boa is a worthwhile read!)

The Bigger Picture

I have repeated this process of forgiving myself and others many times.  At times it is simpler and shorter than others.  I have learned many lessons along the way.  The most important lessons of my Christian formation are

• Only God saves/heals.  Let him.
• Forgiveness is amazing.  It’s amazing to experience how freely God offers it.  It’s amazing to realize how reluctant we can be to experience it before we wrap our heads around it.  It’s amazing to see how reluctant we are to offer it, both to ourselves and to others.  It’s amazing how withholding forgiveness mostly hurts self, often to the point of self-destruction.
• Life and eternity are too beautiful for me to sully it by harboring anger, hatred, vendettas, grudges, and the like… Even in the midst of pain, fear, and sorrow, the consequences are too expensive.

If you take nothing else from our time together, learn this lesson well: forgive.

If you don’t want anything to do with the way of Jesus, learn to forgive.  Forgive yourself. Forgive others.  To do otherwise is to condemn yourself to endure a rotting of soul and personality. It is the way of ever increasing darkness within and without.

If you do profess Christ, denying forgiveness to yourself and others is even more dire.  It means that you are lying about your faith and that you haven’t discovered the beauty of being forgiven. Rediscover forgiveness beginning with the magnitude of the forgiveness God offers to you.  That should overwhelm you long enough for you to experience the gift a whole new way of looking at forgiveness.

May increasingly more of your footsteps be in the light.

Blessings,

/jmt

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ESV Copyright and Permissions Information: The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®)
Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2007

My Process

1. Acknowledge the feeling.
2. With God’s forgiveness as a basis, struggle to forgive myself.
3. Process the feeling/situation in a safe place.  That may be in my journal, in prayer, or in conversation with a confidant (who knows the meaning of the word confidential!).
4. With God’s forgiveness as a basis, struggle to forgive the other.
5. Repeat items 1 through 4 until I have actually forgiven the other.
6. Work to avoid picking that burden up, again. Let it go and let it be gone.
7. As I gain perspective and some healing, I start examining the situation for lessons.  Be patient with yourself in this stage.  If it hurts to much or the initial feelings start to return, slow down. Progress is more important than finishing “on time.”