Are you the sinner-in-touch-with-your-sin or Simon-in-denial?
In helping you to answer that question, I have been making a few observations I hope will be helpful. Today, this:
The only way to receive love and forgiveness is to own our need for it.
The literature of spiritual direction talks a lot about false selves — the images of ourselves we project, the things we hope people will think about us, the edited versions of our lives fit for public consumption. It is not just movie stars or politicians who do this — though they have reduced it to a fine art. We all do it to one degree or another.
And, to some degree, it may be unavoidable. Not everyone can be trusted with the unedited version of our lives. Not all relationships warrant it.
But what people do know about us needs to be consistent with the full nature of our lives. Some people need to be trusted with most of what we are. And — above all — God needs to know us as we are.
Until that happens, we cannot fully receive God’s forgiveness, nor live completely into God’s love.
And that — not the fact that he was religious — was Simon’s problem. He didn’t know his own sinfulness fully and he didn’t own it fully in God’s presence. That was clear in his reaction to Jesus’ visitor. His false self — the image that he wanted Jesus and others to see short-circuited his ability to receive God’s forgiveness. He thought he was on the right path and she was not. What he failed to see, in a sense, is that there was no difference.
So, in what Jesus says it becomes clear that neither Simon, nor the woman are our models — what is at issue is the degree to which we are in touch with how much we all depend upon God.
Now, that might leave us all wondering if it wouldn’t be better to be like Henry —- new born, no scars, no losses…
The problem, of course, is no one gets to stay a baby forever. But there is another kind of innocence — an innocence far better than innocence of our making: the innocence of complete dependence upon God.
I have a friend like that who is a recovering alcoholic. The thing about alcoholism is — if you survive it — you get clear about your own frailty in a hurry and you live in daily dependence upon it.
And Skip is like that. He has gotten over his several false selves — some the product of a Harvard medical degree —- some of it the product of building a one of a kind medical practice — and some of it the product of the pride that accumulates around dealing with life and death, as physicians so often do.
There were layers of false selves and the lies to go along with them — and a portion of his own testimony is that he no longer needs to keep track of the lies. And as a result, he also lives with reckless, generous abandon. Caring for people who don’t know him, giving extravagant gifts to people in need, sitting for countless hours for others facing the same struggles he confronted.
He knows he needs God — God’s love, God’s forgiveness. And he is neither as young nor innocent in the way new-born Henry is, but he doesn’t need to be —- nor do you.
He has found innocence version 2.0, the kind of innocence only God can give. The kind that follows on forgiveness and builds in love.
That’s the kind of innocence meant for every sort of sinner who is prepared to acknowledge his or her need.
This set of observations is just loaded, Fred, at least for me. I recognize and resonate with every syllable of it. As one of the multitude of clergy who are the surviving adult children on alcoholics I recognize and resonate with it all. Thank you for being a priest online as well as at the altar and in the pulpit.
Larry
The other day I decided to repot some plants. I couldn’t get the cedar out of its container which was within a larger container. So I turned it on its side to pull the cedar more easily out of the pot. When I did there were black ants that went running away. It took my breath for a moment as I did not know any ants were underneath the pot. That pot had been in the same place 2 years.
More importantly than this little episode is what I thought about when I saw the ants. Of course, I went inside the house to get some ant spray but my mind was on these ants running away. I kept thinking this is how it is with Jesus and me. He shines His light on my heart and my bad habits/sins are opened. I may want to run and hide as the ants did and I may do so for awhile but I have learned and am learning that what I need most of all is just to “fess up” to my faulty condition.
We can’t receive forgiveness by covering up ourselves. Being open and vulnerable with the Lord is our only hope. Simon seems to have wrap himself in his own righteousness and he didn’t think he needed the Lord. But once Jesus has truly shined His Light upon our heart there is no escaping. And why would we want to run from Him. There is Life no other place.