December 13, 2021
It's complicated.
“You should watch Impeachment,” a friend said to me recently. The third season of FX’s American Crime Story details some of the scandalous events leading up to President Clinton’s impeachment in December 1998. “I think you’ll like it because the characters end up being pretty complicated. Even Monica,” my friend said, noting that Monica Lewinsky was a producer for the show.
She was right. I do like the show, at least what I’ve seen in the first three episodes. And I do believe that the best stories are the most complicated ones. It’s usually bad fiction and bad film that presents us with a simple view of the world: evil people with warty, crooked noses; good people with silky, shiny hair.
In real life (and in the fiction and film that manage to convey the nature of reality), “good” people can be capable of great cruelty and “bad” people can be capable of moral courage. Sometimes, of course, you have outrageous moral good—(Geoffrey Rush playing Hans Hubermann in the film adaptation of The Lighning Thief)—or outrageous moral horror—(Anthony Hopkins playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs)—but usually in stories that remain true to the crooked, complicated nature of things in this world, it’s not always easy to tell who is hero, who is villain. And I’m not saying that I like moral ambiguity, only that it characterizes the human condition.
I’ve been reminded of this recently, and it’s been nudging me to pray a little differently in the morning, my Bible open on my lap. I’ve started to question my impulse to imagine every imprecation or curse or threat of judgment as reserved for someone else.
Example: Psalm 125.
“Those who trust in the LORD are as secure as Mount Zion; they will not be defeated but will endure forever. Just as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, both now and forever. The wicked will not rule the land of the godly, for then the godly might be tempted to do wrong. O LORD, do good to those who are good, whose hearts are in tune with you. But banish those who turn to crooked ways, O LORD. Take them away with those who do evil. May Israel have peace!”
It’s easy to take a psalm like this and imagine you are among those to whom God will do good because you’re good. It’s easy to imagine that God will punish your enemies. Just to be clear: it’s entirely appropriate for us to pray actively against those who explicitly oppose God’s kingdom and rule. And the Bible does say, good finally wins! With God as their defender, God’s people will triumph! And further, on this side of the events of Jesus’ death, life, resurrection and ascension, it’s certainly right for us to say, “Because of Jesus’ righteousness, I’m incorporated into God’s family, or into the family of the godly.” But what would be a leap too far would be for us to assume that in every marital conflict, every disagreement with friends, every occasion of sibling strife, that we figure as the godly—and those opposing us as “those who do evil.”
What’s safest for us to assume is that in all likelihood, we are part villain, part hero. As my brilliant friend Bronwyn Lea said to me recently, “Jesus didn’t just have to justify the sin we commit. He also had to justify our seemingly ‘righteous’ deeds.”
Reading the Bible can fossilize your own self-righteousness, if you don’t allow for imagining that God might be speaking to you when he says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning” (Joel 2:12). Humility grows when we let God assign the roles, when we recognize our own inner contradictions, which Paul put so perfectly in Romans 7: there’s good I want to do—and I’m incapable of doing it; there’s evil I hate—and yet this is the very thing I practice.
Advent is a reminder that Jesus came to save every single one of us refusing grace.
Jen
On the second week of the month, I like to reflect on Scripture in some way. Here’s another nudge to make regular Bible reading your habit. (Links to some of my work on this subject: CT article, How can I make reading the Bible a habit? Podcast convo with Jennie Allen, Faith as a Habit; 5-Day Jumpstart to Faith Habits, including Bible reading, on my website).
I love the One Year Bible in the New Living Translation. I think a reading plan takes care of the hard work of deciding what to read. All you have to do is find your bookmark (or, in this link, the website). In the One Year Bible, every daily reading includes an Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage, a psalm, and a proverb.
Why not find a friend to read Scripture with in the New Year? Here are some easy ideas for building accountability around that goal.
1. Text a verse from your daily reading to each other.
2. Text a short sentence of reflection.
3. Text a quality of God highlighted.
4. Text a quality of the human condition highlighted.
5. Text a gospel truth.
6. Send a longer weekly text/email, summarizing how God has been speaking to you through Scripture. Or go all 1980s and try a phone call!
7. Whether or not you’re reading with a friend, keep track of your own reading habits. How many days did you read? Skip? Why? What patterns emerge?