Hello,
I went to the grocery store last week to pick up a couple of things…broccoli, croutons (I got the wrong kind….I didn’t know there were stuffing croutons and salad croutons), and some tomato paste. With only three things in my basket, I determined that I was eligible for the “express lane” where there were only two people in front of me. When I stepped into line, I noticed that the woman who was leading the line had emptied a shopping cart full of items in front of her. Had she not seen the sign “12 items or less”?
I confess that on a few occasions I have pushed the limit of 12 to 13 or maybe 15, but never to 20 and never to a cart-full. So, as I stood waiting in the “express lane” two things happened. First, my patience waned as I saw the regular lanes emptying out. Second, I noticed that she had separated her purchase into two sections, placing the dividing bar between them…each section still excessively exceeding the limit of 12, but closer than her cartful.. Clever…but aggravating!
Her rule parsing may have soothed her conscience from guilt, but it certainly struck down the purpose of that lane for those of us who stood behind her in the “fast” lane. I was ready to cast stones – stones of guilt upon this one whose concern for others seemed to go no further than the glasses upon her nose.
But wait…..I, too, have glasses upon my nose, and when I look through them to take a clear look at my life, I have to confess that my care for others often doesn’t even reach the lenses, instead they are drawn back into myself in my own black hole of self-centeredness….or in Christian terms….my own black hole of sin.
For these past few weeks in the Lutheran churches throughout the world, we have read together Jesus’ words from his Sermon on the Mount saying things like, “You have heard it said that you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that when you look upon a person in lust that you have committed adultery in your heart.” Rule parsing , so says Jesus, may dilute personal guilt, but it doesn’t diminish the pain and fear that comes when that rule parsing shakes the ground upon which relationship build their foundations.
So where does that leave us rule parsers? Will our relationships with dear ones near to us and those dear to God in places far away from us always be as precarious as walks on springtime ice?
I am afraid the answer is “yes”…”yes” as long as there’s a black hole of sin in each of our lives. But the answer that comes from God is “no”…”no” because God who is the antithesis of a black hole of self-consumption has taken aim at the black holes in our lives. He took a shot of divine grace and mercy that travelled through a Bethlehem manger, hit with a lethal blow upon a Golgotha cross, and punctured every black hole as it exited the gates of an emptied tomb …going on to strike you and me in the waters of Baptism and the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.
“No,” says God. “No, your relationships are not built upon the thin and cracking ice of black holes. They are built upon the ever-expanding pulsing of my grace.”
Sunday after Sunday that grace of God thunders and throbs as we gather together, shaking and rattling those deflated black holes so that the holes God pierced in them might not scab over ever again. Maybe you have never thought of going to church in this way….maybe to you it seems more like a sedative than a shot of divine adrenaline….but you just might be surprised…surprised to find out that something deep is going on under the surface….God is at work, infusing you with his grace, building a pressure of his love and mercy, that cannot be tamed but will explode in your life…bursting black holes and drawing you closer to him and casting your vision and care well beyond the glasses sitting upon your nose.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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