Gifts Freely Given
I don’t know if y’all have been following the conversation between Jason and APFG (see “Childhood and How It Affects You Now“, for example), but it has been getting very interesting. They are both very strong people and I have appreciated their back and forth. I think that Jason is younger and APFG is older than me, from what I can guess.
I wish that I was as gracious as APFG. I’ve really appreciated Jason’s comments, for a variety fo reasons, including getting some powerful personal talk from APFG. And I’ve appreciated the things that Jason and APFG have been discussing.
In the Childhood page, APFG said:
…although I have truly got that you do not wish to be a victim until you move the ownership of the problem from him to you, it is a virtual impossibility to derive a sense of completion for yourself. Whether or not you choose to do this is entirely your choice and the choice need not be made now, it can be made later.
………………
You might decide in the future to accept the gift, and then again you may not. It’s your choice of course and it’s one that may only be distinguished as a gift some time in the future and it’s not as though it needs to be returned to the store, thus I suppose it’s kinda sitting on the shelf.
I know that APFG is an atheist, but I hope that he doesn’t mind me using this to springboard into a discussion about Christ. It just popped into my head when I read it.
These two ideas are important for me, and I think that they underlie the love of Christ in the Christian faith. That’s Christ’s love for us, not our love for him that I’m thinking about.
From the Christian’s perspective, God ended up being let down by someone else: us humans. He created us and we tried to hedge the deal in the Garden of Eden. And continue to make sidebets. I know that a lot of you don’t believe in God, or Jesus as Christ, or the Garden of Eden. You don’t have to for this to be interesting: just think of it all as a grand myth that I am taking as true for this argument. Because I think that it’s interesting.
God then, in a very odd way, gets victimized. More like a parent gets victimized by a thieving child than a child’s victimization by his or her parents. He got a raw deal. He gives humanity perfection and we want a little bit more. “I do and I do and I do for you, and this is the thanks I get?!”
Except that’s not what God does. Oddly to me, God decides not to play the victim role. At every point, God follows APFG’s advice and takes responsibility for himself and his situation rather than take up being a victim. Think about the covenant God makes with the patriarch Abraham. Instead of requiring anything of the man, God makes a covenant with himself that he will bless Abraham. Abraham is part of the deal but not a signatory. God takes the initiative. He continues this with the Israelites. When the deal goes south, instead of waiting for them to “repent” of following other gods, he seeks them out. Sure, he says “if you return to me with all your heart” and then makes allowances and says that he will keep his covenant or promise he made with himself and bless them anyway, that this is all temporary.
With Christ, it becomes even more interesting. Christians believe that humanity’s sin separates it permanently from God. God cannot enjoy fellowship with his creation. We broke faith and God is the injured party. But God does not take on the role of victim and blame us. He decides to take matters into his own hands and provide the solution himself by coming down, being born from a woman’s womb, living and eating and laughing and crying with humans, only to suffer and die so that he can pay his own price for something that we did.
You don’t have to buy any of that: I’m simply saying that it’s interesting to look at these stories this way. The story of Christ is about God taking initiative as the injured party, about him making the way of peace for us. Even as a myth, it has powerful things to teach us for living with each other.
And this way is simply a gift freely given, as APFG says about his own gifts to Jason. It’s a gift that you don’t have to buy and that you can’t return. Whether Christians believe a more Arminianist line (you choose to believe in Christ) or a Calvinist line (God chooses you to get the gift), both would agree that the gift was freely given and that the arrangement is from God. The gift sits there, ready for us to have if we want it.
We lose a lot of the power of this in our Western understanding of the Bible stories. When the prodigal son returns, his father runs out to greet him. The father runs to the son who has said “I wish you were already dead!” In the middle east, this is scandalous. It’s a very offensive story. But the father did not want to take on the role of Victim but of Father. The son wrongs him but he decides to take control of his own life. He reframes the situation from “Here my son who hated me returns!” into “Here my son whom I love returns!” The first focuses on the actions of the son; the latter on the choices of the father.
It’s not a fully developed idea. I just found it interesting when it popped into my head reading APFG’s post. I can certainly learn more about the idea of taking responsibility for my own situation. I cannot change anyone else but I can choose today whom I will serve.
Thank you to both APFG and Jason for this valuable lesson.
There is incredible wisdom in what you have distinguished. And, to the extent that one’s beliefs are the source for understanding and enlightenment and a world of possibility for a compassionate and accepting society we will need to be compelled to acknowledge the value associated with the beliefs. The interpretation that I have garnered from Jason’s message is one that suggests that blind enculturation and socialization into a particular doctrine without the awareness of one’s self and the risks that blind enculturation presents, holds with it the possibility of oppressing society as opposed to liberating it into a free and productive existence.
Be certain I have no objection, and am in fact honoured that you have launched this into a discussion regarding christianity for all of us, regardless of religious conviction need to understand your distinction.
And, (tongue-in-cheek) you have distinguished the most significant discovery recognizing that “At every point God follows APFG’s advice…” God is being advised by an atheist. I’m humbled by your generosity. Thus, we need to consider which is most important “what we believe” or “how our beliefs influence (or constrain) our ability to live an empowered life, for there is in many respects much to learn from each distinct group that has derived its sense of belonging and community identifying with particular sets of doctrine and unique points of view. I seem to recall the most compelling assertion as one that suggested that we all ought to do unto others as we would have done unto us.
With respect to relative ages, I can only disclose that I am 42. (The same 42 year old “policy wonk” you were going to provide a judgment of CPC to, that you haven’t got to yet.)
In November, we had had a sermon in church regarding waste. Wasting your marriage, sexuality, children, job, education, relationships, spiritual journey, health, etc. You fill in the blank that fits.
The message was about the inordinately expensive perfume that was “wasted” on Jesus before he went to the cross. I can’t even remember how all the dots were connected but the speaker felt God had revealed to her that Jesus took that perfume to the cross as a symbol that Jesus rectifies all. Even the things we humans have wasted. It was delivered as a message of comfort, but I was touched deeply with guilt during the waste sermon. It disturbed me for the next week as I was talking about it with my husband on the way to church the next Sunday. What was disturbing was how much guilt I was carrying over my personal waste. I didn’t realize it was there until this sermon stirred it up.
The next week, it was just before Thanksgiving and I felt like God was nudging me away from Thanksgiving and toward its precurser, acceptance of his gifts of love and forgiveness.
The fact that I as feeling so guilty over things for which I had already sought forgiveness pointed to the fact that I had not truly accepted forgiveness. I still wanted to work it out through my “human sacrifice” of guilt.
The next week at church, during the praise and worship time prior to the sermon, again, I felt nudged toward acceptance rather than thanksgiving. It occured to me that I really couldn’t be authentically grateful for something I hadn’t accepted.
That week, we have a gentleman from Singapore in our congregation who was raised Buddhist speak. He shared his experiences including the concept of karma.
This completely solidified what I had been thinking during praise and worship: I was a Christian who, in my heart of hearts, believed in karma. What a slap in the face to Jesus.
I shared this with the congregation after the message and they were kind enough to pray for me corporately.
This was a huge revelation for me. I’m not interested in accepting God’s gift. I want to do it on my own, an assignment I am doomed to fail. Just call me Eve.
Wow. Where do I go with that?
And the answer is: Back to God with confession and repentance. I guess fake it till you make it applies here for as long as I rely on myself to rectify this, I am repeating the cycle of self reliance.
One will not feel absolution until he or she has fully absolved others.
Within the chrisitian reference and specifically not “accepting God’s gift” the gift is not forgiveness but rather the ability to forgive. The ritual of confession is one that is intended to teach the ability to forgive, not to receive forgiveness. This is a distinction that defines who we are “being” versus “doing to have”.
One truly cannot authentically accept a gift until they have learned to bestow a gift authentically upon someone else.
From the parable you have described regarding the “wasted” perfume Jesus did not “take the perfume to the cross as a symbol that he rectifies all” The lesson is one where he indicated to his disciples who had scorned the woman for “wasting” the expensive perfume by pouring it over Jesus’ head when he was only going to be crucified that the perfume was not wasted but rather the woman had adorned it upon him and this was a great gift because although the expensive perfume would have served the poor he remarked that the poor would always be with those who remained and they remained to be adorned at any time.
“The fact that I was feeling so guilty over things for which I had already sought forgiveness pointed to the fact that I had not truly accepted forgiveness.”
Consider that the guilt is borne not from one seeking forgiveness and not accepting it but rather the understanding (conscious or subconscious) that one has not forgiven, thus it is not that we have not accepted forgiveness but rather that we have not bestowed forgiveness.
An idea worth cogitating.