I always heard that as embrace the questions, dance with the questions or wrestle with the questions as a kind of a visual image of loving and living with them. That is just to say, maybe the dancing, wrestling and embracing the questions are a part of our growth. If that is so, when we stop wrestling, dancing and embracing the question, do we stop growing?
In a movie staring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, they are sharing a beverage or six and talking as friends do. It seems that Dolly is getting some trouble from the locals. She asks Burt, who is playing the part of the local sheriff and wise one, in the script this question. In her frustration, she blurts out, “Why is it that God is so forgiving and loving and some Christians are not?”
It is an interesting question since if Christianity were a club, the main requirement to be in the club would be to admit that one does not deserve to be in elite group.
Imagine the service in which someone decides to join a church and had to get signatures of three members who could personally attest to the individual’s sinfulness, with examples. Now that would be lively time!
Now before you get all up in arms, let’s be real. Most of us can find at least three people that will talk for hours about our sinfulness. And that is just among our friends and family!
As has been said often, the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for the saints.
Now back to Dolly’s question about why God is loving and forgiving and some Christians are not.
Ed Earl, the sheriff played by Burt, stated the obvious when he said, “I guess it is because some Christians are not very godly.” Ouch!
So here is the question we all dance with if not around— why are we not more godly, in that loving, accepting and forgiving way?
I have a theory, that one day might go on my page of possible answers.
It is easier to pretend to be someone than to be the real someone. It is easier to look respectable than to be respectable. It is easier to act holy than to be holy. It is easier to find someone who is worse than the individual than to look at the individual in the mirror.
In short, it is hard to love, forgive and accept ourselves as God has accepted, loved and forgiven us. And since we have never gotten in touch with our own sinfulness and therefore never received pardon and absolution for our own “stuff,” we cannot share what we have never received. Perhaps we have concluded that we needed only a small dose of love, acceptance and forgiveness, and so we only dole them out in less than generous quantities.
Maybe we forgive, love and accept those who are our peers in sin, those who commit sins we conclude are no worse than ours. And heaven forbid we get to the place that we think we are beyond sinfulness and forgiveness and do not pray, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” with head bowed and heart aching.
So, we dance, we wrestle as we try to embrace not only our sinfulness but our forgiveness. It is a part of our growth. It is a part of living, a part of loving.
And we endeavor to embrace another who may also need to hear that God is a loving and forgiving Deity that has loved and forgiven the likes of you and me as we say, “Welcome to our club.”
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