“Raised Right”
Colossians 3:1-11
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
7/31/16
One of my
favorite authors is Ferrol Sams. Sams, a physician who died in 2013, wrote a
trilogy based largely on his own experiences growing up in the very stereotype
of a rural, southern community during the Great Depression. In the first two
books, we hear many times that the main character, Porter Osborne, Jr., was
“Raised Right.”
“Raised Right”
looms over the academically precocious and insatiably mischievous Porter as a
kind of farcical deity whose primary concern is to shame well-bred boys and
girls into “goodness.” A child who is “Raised Right,” says the quaint logic, will
never embarrass their family.
Now, of course
children need to learn right from wrong. It’s also true that very young minds
cannot think abstractly, so their early lessons need stable structure and clear
expectations. Nonetheless, “Raised Right” becomes a euphemism for a mercilessly
narrow value system, a system based on a legalistic reading of scripture, on
regimented piety, on strict adherence to prescribed roles regarding age, sex,
skin color, and wealth, and on any other obstacle erected to guard against the
soiling of one’s reputation or that of one’s tribe.
It’s a sad reality that rightly raised children often become
adults who mire the church in a kind of perpetual growth-stunt. Church becomes
a place simply to placate or even to hide from God. If I practice the stipulated piety, maybe God won’t recognize my sins
and vulnerabilities! The result is spiritual sterility rather than holiness.
“So if you
have been raised with Christ,” says Paul, “seek the things that are above,
where Christ is.”
In the first eleven verses of
Colossians 3, Paul reels off two lists, but doesn’t name “the things that are above.”
He names things he apparently associates with life below. And this has created problems for the Church. It has allowed
us to focus on avoidance rather than engagement. It has allowed us to compare
and judge one another rather than to encourage and forgive one another. It’s
like some kind of moralistic poker game. Okay,
I’ll see your fornication, and raise you one
evil desire. But when we show our hands, it’s always a draw. Everyone has a
full house of something, don’t we?
In our full
houses, we have tended to reduce “raised with Christ” to “Raised Right.” And we
miss the scandalous hope behind the whole notion of being “raised.” I hear Paul
talking about being raised with Christ to a mature spiritual consciousness, to awareness
of our true selves as we die to our old, childish, dualistic, ego-driven
selves.
To be “Raised
Right” is to be “raised with Christ.” It is to discover that all the clutter we
call sin, hamartia, “missing the
mark,” is not the truth of who we are in God. To be “Raised Right” is to be encouraged
to grow into the wholeness that is Christ, who is the eternally true, human self. He is our “life…revealed,” or as
J.B. Phillips translates it, “our secret centre.”
When I hear Jesus called “our
secret centre,” ceilings and walls crumble. Stones roll away. I begin to encounter
eternity within my very being, and that makes this life a voyage of discovery that cannot be completed. Mystery becomes
the gift that makes redemption possible and perfection futile.
“In the divine
economy of grace,’ says Richard Rohr, “it is imperfection, sin, and failure
that become the…raw material for the redemption experience itself. Much of
organized religion, however, tends to be peopled by folks who have a mania for
some ideal order, which is never true, so they seldom are happy or content.”1
“Salvation,”
continues Rohr, “is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in
fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor. This is
how divine love transforms us…We eventually discover that the same passion
which leads us away from God can also lead us back to God and to our true selves…your
‘sin,’” he says, “and your gift are two sides of the same coin.”2
In Capernaum,
Jesus goes to Simon the Pharisee’s home for supper. A woman crashes the party.
Everyone knows her reputation. She’s a sinner. Drawing on the same rash abandon
of her sin, though, she walks into that roomful of men, kneels at Jesus’ feet,
and bathes them. And all those guys who were “Raised Right,” are disgusted with
both the woman and Jesus.
He
should know better, they say. He knows
what kind of woman this is.
“Simon,” says
Jesus, “I have something to say to you.”
“Speak,” says
Simon.
And Jesus
tells a transparent parable about debt forgiveness. Then he says that the only
person to offer him true hospitality in Simon’s home is the “sinful” woman who
knows what forgiveness feels like. What had been her desperate recklessness now
reveals a capacity for profound openness, welcome, and, therefore, witness to
the scandalously inclusive household of God.
This holds
true for realities in our lives which are not sin but which can carry similar
weight. I’m ADD as the day is long, always have been. Since ADD wasn’t a thing
in the 1970’s, though, I was just the boy whose report cards always included this teacher comment,
“Allen could do so much better if he would just apply himself.”
Feelings of defeatism and
resignation to mediocrity still linger. And I still have trouble focusing.
Reading a book or even a longer article takes several starts, and finishing one
is a success worth celebrating.
As frustrating as this has been, ADD
also reveals my “secret centre.” I call it my “gift of hyper-awareness.” I
don’t mean to brag, but I can be kind of fun to hike with. Chances are that I’ll
see or hear things that others miss. In conversation, I might see or hear
things that you want to say but can’t, or that you want to hide but don’t. And
you’ll just have to forgive me when we’re talking and I see or hear something
interesting across the room. I’m trying to be two places at once.
“Fornication,
impurity, passion, evil desire, greed (idolatry), anger, wrath, malice,
slander, abusive language…” While such things never make us “abhorrent to God,”
they can make us dangerous to each other. Yet even our sins and vulnerabilities
show us what God sees in us. The bright sides of our burdens are gifts that empower
us to Love, serve, advocate, prophesy, or to speak truth fearlessly in the face
of prejudice, injustice, and fear.
When Jesus
says, “Love your enemy,” he challenges us to do more than to be nice to those
who are not nice to us. He challenges us to find peace within our conflicted
selves, too. And while he raises us to his peace, his holy Shalom, full peace
comes for each of us only when there is peace for all, for “Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised…slave and
free,” because Christ, who is “our secret centre,” “is all and in all!”
2Ibid.
