subtle penance
Mar 5, 2010
most of us actually prefer punishment. we prefer a bit of penance. a gentle self-flogging actually feels good in some twisted sort of way. to fail and not have to bear the consequences feels cheap…weak. it feels out of balance – like we owe somebody something. i slap you; you slap me and we’re all square. i say an unkind word to my spouse; i vacuum the house…all square. i promise God I’ll have a quiet time every day this week…i fail…so i spend 3 hours on Friday making up all the reading…all square. AND, i feel better…about me. that’s law. an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But that’s not where Jesus lives. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to live where he lives.
we need to humbly embrace grace. Jesus says, “I bear/ed the burden for your failure…your sin…so you don’t have to. you can’t do enough anyway. when (not if) you fail, come to Jesus. The alternative is penance. You can’t do both. We say, “Jesus, i hope you love me now…i beat myself for my failures, issues and sins.” To which you might imagine Jesus saying (for the sake of this metaphor), “Oh, well then, you don’t need me. You took care of it yourself.”
But if we choose Jesus/grace over penance, I feel indebted to him…like I owe him. Right! But we want to feel “all-square.” Sure we do. Especially if you want Jesus to love you because your awesome, instead of Jesus loving you because…well, because…he loves you.
Beware of practicing subtle penance, it subtly leads you away from Jesus. Have you fallen behind in your 40 Days agenda…or in anything? So? Remember, we’re pursuing Jesus, not a successful execution of our 40 Days plan. The plan is to meet with Him…where HE lives. Thank Jesus for his love and grace in your life…and just pick up where you left off. And enjoy him in the rich moments of grace and faith.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
What a healthy and necessary reminder halfway through Lent.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Your words are a reminder to me of how I often underestimate the effect of man’s ‘Fall from Grace’ that took place in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3:6 reveals, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” The wisdom that our first parents gained in consuming the fruit was, and continues to be, the type of wisdom that we humans use to come up with a host of strategies apart from God, such as the “subtle penance” about which you write! I pray that Jesus would continue to point out these dead-end works in my life and the lives of His children and daily help us, as you conclude, to “enjoy Him in the rich moments of grace and faith.”
“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life…So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness”(Titus 3:5-7; Colossians 2:6-7).