Tag Archives: Caroline Coleman

you can read the New Testament in a year if you read a chapter a day, 5 days a week. A blog to walk you through it, at the intersection of Scripture, literature, the arts and culture in NYC

how to win by losing: 1 Corinthians 6

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Thank you, President Putin.  We the American people appreciate that you’ve reminded us to follow the rule of law.   We agree that sometimes governments in power can set up their opposition.  We value your reminder to use diplomacy first.  We agree that the shedding of innocent blood must be avoided at all costs.  We look forward to working together to try to help the Syrian people resolve their own internal conflict.  We say Amen to your admonition that God created us all equal.  Finally, we’re so glad that you recognize the positive power of freedom of the press, a freedom that enabled you to write a letter to us in today’s New York Times.   “A Plea for Caution from Russia,” by Vladimir V. Putin

President Putin’s letter to the American people reeks so strongly of hypocrisy that I nearly gagged from the fumes seeping in under my apartment door when I woke up this morning.  And yet the above is how I imagine Dale Carnegie might recommend responding to President Putin.  Why?  Because Carnegie knows that responding with humility accomplishes far more than lashing back in pride.  He knows the value of losing a battle in order win the war.

BBC World News posed the question this morning: do the American people WANT the Russian President telling us what to do?  It’s the wrong question.  Why?  Because in the battle of good against evil, we need to keep our eye on the prize.

In today’s Scripture, Saint Paul makes the stunning claim that it is better to be cheated than for a Christian to sue a fellow believer in a civil matter.  Read 1 Cor. 6.  It’s the kind of claim that sends shivers up our litigious American spines.  Seriously?  You mean if a Christian sister steals your money, you’re not supposed to sue her in a secular court?  Yes, that’s exactly what Saint Paul says.  He’s not against all legal action.  In Acts 22 and 25 he appealed to the Roman courts for his rights.  So why this advice here?  His reasoning is that when Jesus comes back, the Christians will judge even the angels.  So Paul asks: is there not even one Christian person who can fairly judge between Christians?  Why would a Christian assert their rights before someone who doesn’t respect or submit to the laws of God?  Paul says Christians should try to work these matters out amongst themselves, and to find an honest Christian arbiter, and if that’s not possible, it’s better to be cheated. God is the ultimate judge of wrongdoers, and Paul provides a long broad list of behaviors God rejects unless they’re covered by the cross.

If we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we find Jesus making the same kind of stunning claims as Saint Paul.  Turn the other cheek.  If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also.  Give to anyone who asks.  When things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back.  Luke 6:27-30.  These claims come bang up against our pride.  But our pride is based on the lie of our perfection. As Paul says, the reason we should let things drop if we have to, is that we’ve cheated other people, too.  The truth is that we’ve all hurt other people and taken things from them unjustly.  Sometimes we take their boyfriends and girlfriends, or even their spouses.  Sometimes we take their reputations.  Sometimes we take their belongings.  Sometimes we take their self-esteem.  We rob them of their dreams, dash their hopes and yell at them for being too sensitive when they protest.  When we realize we’ve done these things, we fling ourselves on God’s favor, mercy and goodness to release us from guilt.  We rely on the cross alone.  If we’re honest, we can never rely on our perfection.  And so we, in turn, would be fools not to offer that kind of forgiveness to others.  Who wants to live in a world of pure justice?  None of us would survive.  We need a world of grace.

Grace leads us even deeper into the heart of the matter.  The reason we can follow this off-putting advice about allowing ourselves to be cheated in certain circumstances, is that God’s grace proves to us we can trust God.  We grow to trust God more and more, the more we take in how kind He is.   We start to rely on God to rescue us.  And if God says we’re not to sue a fellow believer, and that we’re instead to try to get a Christian to judge between us, we’re to trust Him to bring good out of that situation.

Which brings us back to President Putin.  What’s our goal in Syria?   Is it a zero sum game, where either the Russians or the Americans win?  Or is the goal truly to help minimize evil in the world by using our influence to persuade governments to not kill their own citizens, and especially to never use chemical weapons?  If so, the kind of forgiving nature God calls us to counsels that we get off our high horse in the interest of achieving the greater good.  In this conflict the Russians have to date stymied our ability to work within the UN Security Council.  The fact that President Obama’s red line in the sand means there now seems room to maneuver within the diplomatic channels means that the most powerful thing President Obama can do right now is agree with the Russians.  Of course, everything Putin says is pure hypocrisy, but who cares?  “What a GREAT idea!” our President can say to the Russian President.  “I’m so glad you appealed to God and the law.”  And together, they can try to wipe out chemical weapons from the face of the planet, as difficult as that may be in practical terms.

Why do we Americans want to help the world?  Here is where we get to the worst thing President Putin said.  Putin is right to say that all are equal before God.  But he’s wrong to say that therefore none can claim to be exceptional.  It’s the other way around.  God sees us each as exceptional.  As Paul says, our body is as exceptional as God’s body.  We are all exceptionally loved by God.  How do we know?  Because God loved us so much, that even though we weren’t obeying His laws, God chose to be unjustly tortured and killed to set us free from the consequences of our sins.

That’s why the letter God wants us to worry about isn’t a letter written by any human hands.  We should pay no heed to those letters that point fingers and tell us what we’ve done wrong.  God wants us to tear up those letters of the law.  Instead, God asks us to look at His hands.  His liberating love for each of us is engraved there. His love letter to us is the one our hearts cry out for every day, in every way, in every hurt, injustice, crime and poison.  It’s the only letter worth reading, and if we keep our eyes fixed on the message of love there, we will find ourselves responding with humility instead of pride because our hearts have been melted down into rivers flowing with tears of repentance and gratitude.

posted by Caroline Coleman in A Chapter a Day, my blog on Scripture, literature, life and love… and sometimes war

no pointing fingers: Acts 25

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Acts 25.  In “Silver Linings Playbook” every character is delighted to use the insanity of Bradley Cooper’s character to make themselves look better.  “Okay, sure, I may be a little, shall we say, OFF sometimes,” each character implies.  “But am I BIPOLAR?  Hardly.  Am I CRAZY?  I think NOT.  Have I ever tried to MURDER someone?  Nope.”

Each person in the movie wants to put herself in a position of moral superiority.  But the movie implies that when we do that, we’ve become blind to the point of craziness ourselves.  Instead, we are nudged to ask: how can we love other people – and by extension ourselves — without judging?

It’s a good question.  How can we?  All too often we echo St. Paul’s indignation in this chapter of Acts at being unfairly accused.  “I am not guilty!!!!”  Acts 25:10.

The only way we can get indignant about our innocence, however, is when we are very, very selective about which of our actions we choose to look at.  We’re geniuses at this kind of selective morality.  We hone in with laser-like focus on those few areas where we have even a chance of claiming perfection.  Like sharpening our pencils, for instance.  We’re pretty good at that.  Or are we?  I came across ten unsharpened pencils this morning and had to stuff them in a drawer.  Okay, so maybe that’s not a great example.  Perhaps we can say we are terrific at walking out the door without forgetting our keys – whoops.  Scratch that one, too.  When it comes down to it, the list of what we do perfectly is miniscule.  But that doesn’t stop us from revisiting it like a favorite song.  Even worse, we find ourselves engaged in the unattractive task of turning around and judging others for not having a sparkly (short) list that looks exactly like ours.

Why?  Why do we care?  Why do we want to look so good anyway?  What’s our problem?

I’m not sure we know.  I mean, I know we can come up with reasons.  We can count on all our fingers the list of why.  We want to earn love, respect, promotions, honors, degrees, acclaim and admiration.  Fine.  But why do we want all that?  Let’s go deeper.  Why do we even WANT the moral high ground over anyone?  Why this drive for perfection at the expense of others?

The Biblical answer is that we all want to be like God.  Sound familiar?  It’s the refrain the serpent used to trap Eve: if you eat from that apple, you’ll be like God.  But why did Eve fall for that?  Why didn’t she say: “who cares?  I don’t WANT to be like God.  God is God.  I’m good with being Eve.”  Or better yet, why didn’t Eve say: “God loves me.  God walks with me and my man in the garden in the cool of the day.  I’m already made in His image. And that’s good enough for me.”

I don’t know.  But she didn’t.  And neither do we.  We DO want to be like God – or at least to be like what we think He is like.  We do want to be perfect – according to our own definition of perfect.  We want to walk to heaven on our own two feet – or roll our wheelchairs – or hop on one foot.  Whatever.   “I can do it by myself,” is one of the first things we say as toddlers, and we’ve been saying it ever since.  We spend our lives pushing away the helping hand that we all too often need.

It’s a lot of work pretending to be perfect.  It’s exhausting pretending we don’t need  any help.  It’s also doomed.  So we resort to a few other tricks.  We point fingers at others to try to distract everyone from our own faults.  We rarely fool others when we do this, and we certainly don’t fool God:  “You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing your misdoings?”  Romans 2:3 (the Message).   Well, we did actually.  But if God really is the all-seeing all-knowing one, it’s not the best strategy.

God longs to help each of us.  God is love, and love by definition is a verb of giving. But God makes it very clear that a condition for His help is that we have to stop pointing our finger at other people.  Isaiah 58:1. Why?  Why is it so important to stop pointing out that we’re not bipolar, psychotic, sex-addicted or a jailbird?  And if we are any of those things, why do we find ourselves coming up with another list of Nots?

The answer is that those it’s irrelevant.

The ground at the foot of the cross is level.  If we humble ourselves there, we find God lifts us up and sets us on our feet.  God let the fingers point at Him on the cross, so He could extend to us instead the hand of forgiveness.

All we have to do is accept it with thankfulness.  And when we can’t do that, or don’t want to, and find ourselves judging others with vile abandon — God’s hand is still there.  His hand is always waiting.  We can feel the press of His fingers all day long.  God’s fingers nudge us in the direction of giving up the moral high ground and taking instead the mantle of grace.  It’s the only playbook worth reading from.  Because it’s only when we’re standing on level ground that we find our true balance.

posted by Caroline Coleman in A Chapter a Day on January 23, 2013