Freedom from Offense
A friend of mine, Cassandra Joubert, who I worked with in Tulsa in
the Episcopal Church, back when we both lived there, sometimes sends me
witty little sayings based on the Bible. I remember she sent me an
ink-stamper that simply said, “the meek are getting ready . . .”
And more to the point, she sent me another that said, “The truth will
set you free, but first it will make you mad.”
There is a lot to that. a lot of truth to that. And we can see it
in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles today. What has Stephen
done but spoken and lived by the truth, and boy, has it made people
mad, so mad that they stone him to death. The beauty of it is that the
truth does set him free – free from every bond that would hold him,
free even from holding onto a grievance or a grudge against this angry
mob, free from holding their madness against them.
It’s an interesting thing, and one easily forgotten in the world in
which we are living, that the state of sin is rooted in taking offense.
When we pray to be forgiven for our sins and offenses, the language is
not archaic or mistaken, it means just that. This refers to our nasty
habit of taking offense at others. That is sin. We have no business
doing it. But we do it every day. And so, the Prayer Book reminds us,
we must pray, every day, for the offenses we have taken. The
problem is not so much that we might have offended other people – the
problem is that we have taken offense at others. When we are
offended, it is not somebody else’s fault. Taking offense is our
problem, and it is a clear sign that things are not right between us
and God.
Is that a strange thought to you? I would guess so. It took me by
surprise when I first encountered that teaching – it shocked and amazed
me, it made me mad, and then it set me free. Because after a lifetime
of growing more and more mired in sin by constantly taking offense at
every little thing, I could see the utter truth of it. The only way to
freedom was to embrace the truth and examine my own sin – not the
imagined sins of other people. It was time to turn things around. When
I take offense, then I must look within myself, watch my thoughts, see
the utter ridiculousness of them, and seek to change not the other
person, no, to change myself.
In the ancient practice of confession of sins you begin with looking at
where you are feeling resentful, aggrieved, hurt, offended, slighted,
wounded, sorry for your self. Yes, self-pity, worry about oneself, and
taking offense at what others are doing or saying – these are the
doorways for understanding our own sins, these are the red flags that
let us know things are out of order within the soul, and that we are in
dangerous places spiritually.
Is that a strange idea?
Sure it is. The normal habit is to blame other people for these
states. The idea that these states would lead me to
self-examination, and even to the examination of conscience, and then
to repentence and amendment of life is very strange. But you
know, the Gospel is weird like that. It does not follow
conventional wisdom – it throws us some real curve balls. It asks
us to be utterly transformed. And here is one way – take the road
less traveled and discover the gold-mine of grace in the practice of
turning your offenses around towards honest self-examination and
repentance.
You see, much of my life I have been ruled by the ego and thus very
eager to take offense. Egos are easily offended – that is one of
their chief characteristics. My ego gets offended if I have to
wait behind a slow driver in traffic. My ego gets upset if the
check-out girl doesn’t speak kindly to me. My ego wakes up
offended by the thought that I have to cook breakfast for the children,
take care of their needs, and the dogs and the cats, and whoever else
has brought in dead animals during the night or thrown up on the
kitchen floor. And lots of times, my ego have just been upset and
offended period by something that may have never even happened – it
will cleverly put together a sinister fantasy about someone or
something from a few stray hairs of supposed evidence.
My children will never forget the Christmas tantrum of 2005 when I went
crazy a couple of days before Christmas because I could not find a new
pair of glasses that I had just gotten that morning for a hefty chunk
of change. I immediately assumed the dogs had chewed them
up. And I roused everyone from bed with my raging as I pulled
back sheets and bedcovers, moved furniture and all the while shouted,
“Those dogs are going to the glue factory.” The glue
factory? Nice thing to say at Christmas. My children were
terrified. And then I found them, the glasses. Under the
bed. The cats had had an early Christmas and batted them about
like a new toy, but they were intact and even unscratched. As I
looked at the cowering dogs and frightened faces of my children, I was
filled with a proper sense of shame. And then grace could walk
through the doorway of the truth and I had to laugh at my utterly
ridiculous and unreasonable behavior and assumptions. Thanks be
to God’s grace, the children laughed too. And then they made
merciless fun of me for weeks afterwards. That was good and
healing, and just what the ego really needs – to be made fun of again
and again and again.
How wonderfully embarrassing (and liberating) to realize that the ego
got it completely wrong. I have learned to love those moments of
embarrassment. The truth will set you free, but first it will
make you mad, embarrassed, ashamed, all that miserable, wonderful stuff
that leads away from thinking the ego is god and finally putting God in
God’s rightful seat.
What is the main thing you notice about people who are in a terrible
state spiritually? In such a state, we take ourselves so
seriously and there is no ability to laugh at ourselves. There is no
lightness in our being. We take everything heavily, and so
wrongly. We can’t lighten up. We can’t honestly laugh at
ourselves. When you find yourself in such a place, get to confession
quickly – make use of the riches of our tradition. There is help here
for the suffering soul. The truth will set you free – it may well make
you mad first, but then it will make you laugh.
Years ago I heard a Methodist Bishop preach. He had lost his two
adult daughters in the Jonestown mass suicide. He said he had
been visiting them regularly during their time with Jim Jones, and
things had seemed good for a while, but then he noticed something that
disturbed him deeply. His daughters could no longer laugh at
themselves. They could no longer see the silliness and absurdity
of their own behavior, their own thoughts – they lost the sense of
humor. They took themselves so seriously.
Not being able to laugh at oneself – also a red flag – the ego is
definitely in charge when that happens, and taking itself very
seriously, taking itself and its ideas to be God.
What are the first words that God says to his chosen people? Do
you remember in Exodus when God addresses the people for the very first
time? The first words – this is something that Archbishop Desmond
Tutu emphasizes again and again as revealing the nature of God’s
relationship with us. The first words: “I am the Lord your God
who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, you shall
have no other gods before me.”
But we have another god, and it’s named “Me, Inc.” and it is this wily
little thing called the ego. Having an ego is fine – we need one
– but making it into our god is a problem – it keeps us in bondage, and
it keeps us in a state of being easily offended, and it keeps us from
seeing the silliness of that, from laughing at the absurd thoughts and
actions.
What happens when we see through the ego and its charms? What
happens when instead of seeking to satisfy the ego’s needs, we seek
first the Kingdom of God? Then we begin to be put into right
order, and we can even be filled with the Holy Spirit, and we can even
sometimes express that in our words and actions. This is the
place that Christ prepares for us, our true home. This is the
place where Stephen lives and was even living in his last moments of
mortal life when he could see the glory of God. From the
perspective of the glory of God, things look very different.
Stephen could even forgive, from the depths of his heart, the people
who were angrily putting him to death at that moment. From seeing
the glory of God and being filled with the Holy Spirit – it was and is
possible. Now that is worthy of our attention, worthy of our life
energies, worthy of our time, and worthy of being sought after.
Amen.
The Rev. Edie Bird
Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 20, 2008
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