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| The Questions to Consider | ||
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| Comments by Larry Fisk | ||
| The major thrust of Session 6 is to consider “Grace Put to the Test”, i.e.,
examining “Grace in the Face of Disagreement”. Yancey stresses throughout
these sections the importance of “growing a new set of eyes”, or seeing
everyone as a “thirsty” person, thirsting for the water of well-being and
wholeness. Seeing others as “thirsty” is to view them as Jesus did the
Samaritan woman at the well: a “half-breed” to Jews, a prostitute, five
times married and a total failure in the eyes of her cultural peers and
in her own eyes. But, in the eyes of Jesus and his truly radical inclusiveness
the Samaritan woman was simply a thirsting human person, not just for water
but lasting water and meaning. When Yancey asks “what moral issues can
you think of that are particularly divisive among Christians today”, we
might answer “our attitudes to divorce, war, pedophiles, abortion.” The trigger behind this section of his book, however, is homosexuality. It was Philip Yancey’s relationship with his friend Mel White which originally prompted his rethinking of a key moral issue over which he disagreed with a long-standing friend. Yancey is interviewed on this matter in whosover - a gay Christian magazine. In the case of Mel White it was his revelation to his friend Philip Yancey that although married with several children, he was a deeply troubled man of gay orientation. (See Mel White’s biography and reviews of his book “Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America”) In the video segment Philip Yancey owns that he was challenged to rewrite his chapter on Mel White, and his, Yancey’s, declared difficulties accepting his friend Mel White’s status. What is revealed in the video is that Mel White had fought equally as strenuously to gracefully accept Yancey’s position (the lack of acceptance by Evangelicals and their total condemnation of all homosexuals) as Yancey had of Mel White’s orientation. Group discussion around the video struggled with the question of accepting those who think and live very differently than we do. An old adage “agree to differ, but resolve to love” seemed to be something of the essence of much of our discussion. Some of us recognized the value of the God-given opportunity to rethink our judgements about which we are so convinced. The differences between a Mel White and a Philip Yancey raise the question “Can you disagree with me and love me anyway? If we choose not to work on the deeper honesty between us, there cannot be true grace”, it was argued. Others of us saw the reality of grace not always so much in what we are challenged to offer others with whom we disagree but the realization or “taking in” of unsought, or undeserved grace which so fills us that we act out of joyful gratitude and love. One clear example is the so-called “Ragamuffin Gospel” of Brennan Manning, another of Yancey’s friends. As a former Franciscan, missionary, retired priest, married and divorced, in cognito prison inmate, outcast, alcoholic, Manning recognizes that we are all “ragamuffins” and like the Samaritan woman at the well our self-hatred, or fear of accepting God’s unconditional mercy because we are not good enough, is the real crux of the grace question and our public morality disagreements. It is, in Manning’s eyes much more a question of appreciating, accepting or acknowledging that God’s grace means trusting that we are accepted just as we are. Flannery O’Connor, the iconoclastic Catholic essayist, who like Yancey grew up in the South and grappled with the evangelical styles and moral positions of Southern Protestant Churchgoers, writes cryptically that “you have to make your visions apparent by shock”. Ralph C. Wood, said to be one of America’s finest Christian literary critics writes about a position which is common to both Manning and O’Connor and was most germane to our discussion. The failure of most Christian communities in worship and witness is the failure to provide an alternative to the “terrible world” around them. O’Connor’s fiction, Wood asserts, is that “the glad news of … God’s goodness is even more shocking than our violations of it. The God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Jacob and Rachel, of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary—this stubborn, relentlessly pursuing Hound of Heaven—is determined to deny all our denials of his mercy”. (See Ralph C. Wood, “Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South” Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdman’s Pub., 2004. pp. 9-10.) and an excellent chapter by chapter review in “The Journal of Religion and Society.” Yancey’s questions seem perennially to be related to how we treat others, forgive others and learning HOW to treat others. The biblical quotations he employs to illustrate these difficulties, even in the ancient church (Romans 3:21-24; Colossians 4:5-6 and 1 Peter 4:7-11) seem to call upon Christians to address the question as to what prevents one from being able to love those who are so different in morals and lifestyles. Is there any advantage to being the “circumcised Jew”, or the one who refuses to eat pork, scallops and lobster? Are we to differentiate between forms of “sin”, murder from masturbation, or inclinations towards evil acts: from mental illness, or from power and greed. Even the common cry “hate the sin, but love the sinner” assumes that we fully understand the nature of both, yet we do not live in the other’s shoes or skin. The Colossians and 1 Peter texts advise Christians to act wisely with “outsiders” and “make good use of opportunities to be pleasant, always gracious in speech, clear-minded and self-controlled, loving deeply, acting hospitably and without grumbling”. But, it was suggested by some, such discussions address the “how” or “morality” of acting gracefully towards others, more than they address the roots or bedrock from which such action grows. Brennan Manning, for example, when asked “Why are we afraid that God won’t love us as we are?” responds: “To me, it’s more important to be loved than to love. When I have not had the experience of being loved by God, just as I am and not as I should be, then loving others becomes a duty, a responsibility, and a chore. But if I let myself be loved as I am, with the love of God poured into my heart by the Holy Spirit, then I can reach out to others in a more effortless way.” What a contrast between, on the one hand, an evangelical notion rooted in the American culture of “no pain, no gain” – “there’s no free lunch” – “you get what you deserve”, i.e., the “house of fear” which seems incapable of understanding and living a grace-full Gospel, yet alone proclaiming it; and, on the other hand, the good news which enables us to know we are loved, ragamuffins that we are, just as we are. “The poet said that the last illusion we must let go of is the desire to feel loved. There’s a monk up in the Genesee Abbey. He’s been there 30 years. And a visitor asked him ‘Do you still feel as close to God as you did when you went in 30 years ago?” And the monk’s glorious answer was, “No, but now it doesn’t matter.” He was so freed from the need to feel loved that he could indiscriminately accept consolation or desolation, God’s presence or god’s absence, as one and the same thing. With the rise and fall of my fragile feelings, thank God that the presence of God within me doesn’t depend on my fickle feelings, or I’d be in deep caca”. (From: “The Dick Staub Interview: Brennan Manning on Ruthless Trust) |
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Oct 2006
