sin boldly: a review

There are plenty of books out there on the subject of “Grace”. This could be perhaps the most discussed theological concept within the protestant tradition. The problem, however, is that grace is very rarely something that can be talked about, but is really something that has to be experienced. Perhaps this is why there is such a profusion of literature on the subject. Everyone is trying to identify, dissect, and explain their own experience of grace. This sometimes has the effect of taking all the wonder and joy out of the experience, draining it of its power.

“This collection of stories is about the author’s experiences with grace–in ridiculous moments and in those that seem trivial but are anything but.” (from the front flap)

In this collection of stories entitled Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, Cathleen Falsani tries to simply relate her experiences of grace. The times when she felt something of God in the circumstances around her. The times when people showed her the heart of God. The times when her faith has been shaped as she was introduced into deeper expressions of grace.

I have to admit that I found this book to be lacking in some ways. I found a distinct lack of true wrestling with scripture and how the experiences Falsani was having fit in with the experiences of those who recorded the scriptures for us. A very important part of finding God in everyday life is learning more about God from his revelation to us. It is not as though Falsani led us down any heretical paths, but her abstinence from any kind of commentary on the stories did little to expose how she was experiencing God in them.

The title of the book comes from a famous quote of Martin Luther.

Sin bodly.

Believe in grace even more boldly.

Love without limits.

Live this life.

Luther was trying to relieve the people he was talking to from the cripling guilt that they were experiencing. They had a tendency to become overwhelmed with their sin, and their lives become joyless and unsatisfying. Luther was attempting to remind them that their sins do not create an insurmountable barrier between them and God. There is grace which will cover our sins. So, we may sin boldy, not in the sense that we deliberately go out and commit more sins, but that when we do sin we can admit the mistake and move on.

Falsani attempts to convey a life that is organised in this manner. She attempts to collect stories which will lead us into a place where we need not be debilitated by guilt, but can be overawed at the grace of God all around us.

While I wish that Falsani had done more reflection on her experiences in the light of scripture, this collection of stories do provide glimpses of grace which can lift up our eyes from contemplating our own sin to a place that recognises God’s grace.

waiting

I have had this tune running through my head for a while, a tune I made up while tinkering around on the piano in our home. Every time I pass the piano I bang it out.

My wife has begun to hate it.

Today, as I was playing around with it, I decided to add some words to it. Now it is hard for me to put the tune into this post I decided to put down the words I came up with today. I should note that there is a sort of minor key to the song, a longing which comes to a bit of a resolution by the end. Anyway, here are the words.

I am tired and suffering, Lord.

I am waiting for your Word.

Send your love and grace my way.

This is all that I would pray.

I am tired and suffering, Lord.

I am waiting for your word.

May your truth give life to me.

It is by your light I see.

grace

There seems to be an unwritten rule in our culture that if you are given something, you should return it with something equal or better. This is why some Christmas gift giving seems to get out of hand. This is also why some families have decided to simply allow everyone to get their own gifts with the money they would normally have spent on everyone else.

Sort of defeats the purpose of Christmas celebrations, eh?

This also explains why some people are so reticent to invite someone over. See, we seem to think that one invite requires another. If I invite them over, and they do not invite me back then I feel slighted.

If this happens more than once, I feel used.

I fully recognise this as an irrational expectation on my part, and is actually quite contrary to my stated intentions, but it is, none-the-less, my gut reaction. There have been times in the past when I have refused to invite someone over because it was “their turn”.

How sad. I refuse the fellowship and joy of their company because I refuse to give grace.

But, you know, the real reason probably comes from my lack of ability to accept grace. See, if someone invites me over then I feel this weight of responsibility hanging around my neck until I invite them over. I feel as though I am in their debt.

I hate owing anything to anyone.

Which is probably why I find it so hard to accept grace from God. It is so difficult for me to surrender to God because I do not want to owe him anything. Its not as though I want to earn my way to heaven, I know I cannot do that. But I still find it hard to accept his grace. I think that if I do as much as I can, then at least I will owe him less. If I can overcome this addiction on my own. If I can lead a few people to Jesus. If I can bless someone with a cup of coffee and conversation.

If I can …

Then maybe God won’t feel bad about letting me in heaven. Then maybe God won’t look at me everytime he sees me and wonder when I am going to give him something back.

Irrational, I know, but this is how I feel sometimes.

But being reconciled to God means becoming a part of his family, and despite how many families opperate, there is no fee for being a part of a family.

Maybe part of our inability to accept the love of God has been the inability of our own families to offer that love, unconditionally.

forgiveness

I have been thinking much about forgiveness over the last few days. This is not something that is easy to do, but it is something that we are called to do.

One of my seminary profs said that forgiveness is “reliquishing our right to retribution.” It is letting go of our need for justice and extending mercy to the other person. This may include reconciliation, but it may not either.

Sometimes hurts are too big to overcome.

“In the Bameba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every many, woman, and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and acts of kindness are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe.” (from The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace by Jack Kornfield)

Too often when someone hurst us we go over the ways that person has failed.

What if we remembered the good things they have done instead of the bad?

crisis of significance

Where do we find significance? Do we find it or is it given to us?

The following video argues that we find significance in ourselves when we are able to integrate all of our lives into one self, breaking down the barriers we place between “work-life”, “home-life”, “friend-life”, “___-life”, and breaking down the barriers that we have placed between us and the other.

Watch the video (it’s only about 6 minutes) and I’ll give some thoughts after.

This is a very humanist approach to the problem. If we would only realise how we are all connected, then we will be able to (re)create this space where we are all living in harmony.

I realise that the breaking down of barriers can only be good, as he says, but I think this will not come by “reintegrating our selves”. This will only come when we choose to give up ourselves for the sake of the others.

When we die to ourselves.

Only when we ignore the call of the world, and that desire within, to think only of ourselves will we be able to live this new life that thinks of others as our equal. I think this is what Jesus was talking about when he said we needed to die to ourselves.

The defining moment in the Bible is the death and resurrection of Jesus, the man from Nazareth. The whole story before it leads up to it, and the whole story after that event tries to figure out the significance of it.

Jesus’s death brings life.

And not just life for him, but life for us as well, because in Jesus’s death he broke the bonds of all those things that lead us away from one another and from God. Jesus said that he came to give life,

life to the full.

How many times have you wondered if there was more to life? How many times have you sat in your room on a rainy day and questioned the meaning of your existence? How many times have you kinda stood outside yourself, looked around and said, “Is this all there is?”

The guy in the youtube video nails the problem on the head, we no longer know if we are significant to anyone (even ourselves). The answer, however, is not to claim our significance by uniting our disparate selves (those pieces of us we show to others depending on our location and context).

The answer is to see ourselves in Jesus.

It is only in dying to ourselves that we see God and others.

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