Who Are You
“I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?”
I am disgusted by self righteous, judgmental people. You know why? Because those people are me, or I am those people. I have a lot of sins, but those two are my worst. And I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how I can proclaim to follow Christ, screw that up so miserably day after day and still find a soap box big enough to stand on and preach to someone else about their sins.
That kind of behavior is what I told myself for years kept me out of the church. I used to joke that I had a terrible dilemma. My dilemma was that I didn’t want to go to hell, but that no one going to heaven would want me there. Of course I was self righteous and judgmental about that as well.
But I grew up a cynic, I suppose. I grew up in an age where belief fell apart, where the walls came tumbling down. I grew up in the aftermath of the curtain having been pulled back on the great wizard of oz, i.e. the government, the church, corporate America. I got to see all the crooked dealings exposed and yet still see the little man working the controls make the big machine say, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
And I gravitated to other cynics. I loved the challenge of witty repartee, of finding clever ways to criticize the government, the media, religion, politicians. And I was rewarded for my clever insights with pats on the back and inspired by other clever insights to find a way to go one step further. I don’t know how but somehow all that cleverness masked the fact that I was judgmental, that I was as naked as the king of whom I shouted, “He has no clothes”.
I still do it. Having followed the voice of Jesus that led me back to the church, I still give myself the right to inspect others hearts more than I do my own. I still pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.’ Even after all that Jesus taught, and more importantly did, to free me from the need to judge others, I am still self righteous. It absolutely stuns me that God could become man and die a horrible humiliating death just so I, with all my dirty deeds and wicked ways, might be able to be seen as blameless in the sight of God. It stuns me that God would do that and say that He came not to judge but to serve. And it stuns me the most that with all of that, I would still think so much of myself that, in my continuing sin, I would stand up and point to what I thought were the sins of others.
Yet most of all I am stunned that Jesus still, with the utmost patience and love, seeks me. He calls to me and says, “Come here, I love you and I forgive you.” I don’t know if that is what Pete Townshend was thinking of when he wrote the words I used to open this post from the song, “Who Are You”, but boy did they hit home today.
“I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?”
There is no way to measure up. All that is left is to fall down, again and again, and beg forgiveness.
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'”
I think the other thing for me is to learn to better measure my life by how Jesus would live were He in it, rather than by the standard of a clever cynic. I don’t mean, what would I do if I were Jesus, but what would Jesus do if He were living my life. I need to learn to stop moment by moment and ask myself, before I respond, “If Jesus were in this situation with the background and the possible future outcomes, what future would He pick and how would He move toward it?”
How would anyone know that, you ask? Well, it’s all written out in the first four chapters of the New Testament. Even if you don’t have time to read all four chapters, Jesus summed it up in two simple guidelines: “love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself”. It’s really not that hard to figure out what to do. Truthfully deciding to really do it is the hard part. At least it is for me.
So let me end with my new prayer,
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?”
I am disgusted by self righteous, judgmental people. You know why? Because those people are me, or I am those people. I have a lot of sins, but those two are my worst. And I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how I can proclaim to follow Christ, screw that up so miserably day after day and still find a soap box big enough to stand on and preach to someone else about their sins.
That kind of behavior is what I told myself for years kept me out of the church. I used to joke that I had a terrible dilemma. My dilemma was that I didn’t want to go to hell, but that no one going to heaven would want me there. Of course I was self righteous and judgmental about that as well.
But I grew up a cynic, I suppose. I grew up in an age where belief fell apart, where the walls came tumbling down. I grew up in the aftermath of the curtain having been pulled back on the great wizard of oz, i.e. the government, the church, corporate America. I got to see all the crooked dealings exposed and yet still see the little man working the controls make the big machine say, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
And I gravitated to other cynics. I loved the challenge of witty repartee, of finding clever ways to criticize the government, the media, religion, politicians. And I was rewarded for my clever insights with pats on the back and inspired by other clever insights to find a way to go one step further. I don’t know how but somehow all that cleverness masked the fact that I was judgmental, that I was as naked as the king of whom I shouted, “He has no clothes”.
I still do it. Having followed the voice of Jesus that led me back to the church, I still give myself the right to inspect others hearts more than I do my own. I still pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.’ Even after all that Jesus taught, and more importantly did, to free me from the need to judge others, I am still self righteous. It absolutely stuns me that God could become man and die a horrible humiliating death just so I, with all my dirty deeds and wicked ways, might be able to be seen as blameless in the sight of God. It stuns me that God would do that and say that He came not to judge but to serve. And it stuns me the most that with all of that, I would still think so much of myself that, in my continuing sin, I would stand up and point to what I thought were the sins of others.
Yet most of all I am stunned that Jesus still, with the utmost patience and love, seeks me. He calls to me and says, “Come here, I love you and I forgive you.” I don’t know if that is what Pete Townshend was thinking of when he wrote the words I used to open this post from the song, “Who Are You”, but boy did they hit home today.
“I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?”
There is no way to measure up. All that is left is to fall down, again and again, and beg forgiveness.
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'”
I think the other thing for me is to learn to better measure my life by how Jesus would live were He in it, rather than by the standard of a clever cynic. I don’t mean, what would I do if I were Jesus, but what would Jesus do if He were living my life. I need to learn to stop moment by moment and ask myself, before I respond, “If Jesus were in this situation with the background and the possible future outcomes, what future would He pick and how would He move toward it?”
How would anyone know that, you ask? Well, it’s all written out in the first four chapters of the New Testament. Even if you don’t have time to read all four chapters, Jesus summed it up in two simple guidelines: “love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself”. It’s really not that hard to figure out what to do. Truthfully deciding to really do it is the hard part. At least it is for me.
So let me end with my new prayer,
'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
posted by MickyMcB | 9:49 AM
1 Comments:
I found your link on Craig Borlaise's site. Well, I guess the feeling of "un-worthiness" is one that can never amount to our True nature. We will never fully comprehend the capacity of our sinfulness (such as those you have mentioned selfishness, jugdement and pride.) We will never also fully understand the measure of our inherited righteousness and 'Sainthood' in the measure in which our God has directed it unto us, by Grace. No wonder we always Complain about our Nature. But I feel that there is still something bigger than our Frailties, (which we will always find ourselves enwrapped by). There's a Grace that looks deeper than that which we find wrong in us. There is a place (the Cross) that seeks us even with our Dirty hands. There is a Heart that still longs for our tainted, scarred souls.
We, as the Church, have to rise above our own feelings of ...(whatever). Hold on to the "there's no comdemnation for those who are in Christ" statement and push on to ensure that the "Bigger than Us" mission of Salvation is persued upon the Earth. And let us rather make that our new found Identity.
Salvation is the bigger Picture!
From Benzo.
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