Christianity seems to present us with God’s good books and his bad books. How do you tell which one you are in? Christianity seems to present us with either a great thundering about how sinful we are because we are disobedient, unloving, too unconcerned with the poor, etc.–in other words, we are faced with God’s justice–or Christianity presents us with a God saying never mind, I love all my broken children, and I know you can be nowhere near what I want you to be on your own efforts. Relax. I always love you no matter what.
The young rich man is told he must give all he has to enter the kingdom of heaven–an apparently impossible task. Later in that tale we hear that with God all things are possible. I always wonder what, exactly, is it that is possible? Is it possible for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of God without having given his riches to the poor? Or is the meaning instead that God will help the rich man to give up his riches in order to enter the Kingdom?
Which one is it? How does God look upon me right now? Can one be in the good books and the bad books both at the same time? How do we get into God’s good books and know we are there? It is very well to say here are the commandments, or here are the two great commandments upon which all the law hangs (love God with all you’ve got and your neighbor as yourself) but we know we are going to fall short here. How close to the mark must we get before we are in the good books as opposed to the bad ones? Or are our efforts here irrelevant?
Christianity has tormented us for two thousand years with such questions, and with no answer that I can see, except for those who have been given one on some mystical level.
When we say that God welcomes sinners, do we really mean it, or do we just mean “sinners” in an ironic way. It seems to be the conservative way to be highly censorious of those society already treats as garbage, putting temptation before them and then blaming them when they fall. The liberal way, on the other hand, is to treat “sinner” ironically and dishonestly. All too often what is meant here is simply a person who is a sinner in a conservative’s eyes but not in a liberal’s. Let’s get over a sentimental idea of “sinner.” It is easy enough for liberals to castigate conservatives for being harsh on prostitutes, for example, or drug users, the poor, and other underdogs. When the liberal says “sinner” he doesn’t mean literally “sinner,” but actually “those whom conservatives falsely label as guilty.”
Well, if God welcomes those people, it’s not such a big deal, is it? Why would he reject helpless innocents, if that’s what they are, just because conservatives do?
When Mary Magdalene wept and washed Jesus’ feet with her own hair, she presented us with the quintessential image of the repentant sinner. Personally, I am not inclined to judge prostitutes harshly. The chief cause of their situation, as far as I am concerned, is poverty caused by economic injustice. I’m not even sure that prostitution, as such, is always and inherently immoral. But if the whole message of this Biblical incident is taken to be that prostitutes are not such bad people as the world makes them out to be, I think we have missed something.
And for the pharisee who said “I thank you that I am not like other men” there is always another pharisee thanking God he is not like the first pharisee, and another pharisee after that one . . .