Is it better to be right or be sorry?
I was pondering this nugget from Jesus in Luke 15:
There is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
Why would a repenting sinner garner more rejoicing than 99 righteous? Because the 99 are actually self-righteous and not truly righteous? Maybe, but let’s think a little more.
Most people try to be righteous and do a decent job most of the time. Even people who might largely be regarded as “bad” typically have a take on why they aren’t as bad as they might be perceived. (Say, the pot dealer who says at least he doesn’t sell crack outside schools. And he might have a point.)
Most people don’t think they are perfect. We know we make mistakes. So what do we do about it? Perhaps we self-justify. Or we sink into shame and guilt. Or we just ignore our failures and hope they go away. Or whatever else. And sometimes, that might be harmless. But often, it causes a lot of trouble. How much suffering comes into the world because of evil ideologies built around self-justification, or child abuse that grows out of the unprocessed pain of the parents.
Maybe what Jesus is thinking is, “I know what you can do with your failures at being a good person. Bring them to me.”
And maybe this turning to Jesus is actually better for the world than sincere attempts at righteousness. Because the person who just repented and turn to Jesus doesn’t self-justify, doesn’t blame others, forgives easily, lives shame-free, feels free from guilt, doesn’t have unprocessed rage, and can wake up tomorrow doing their best to be the good person they want to be without worrying about the high stakes of failure.
Because maybe the only purposes of morality is a pathway to global joy. We’re all trying to find the path- and Jesus is quite willing to help- say, in the Sermon on the Mount. But the question is, what do we do when we find ourselves off the pathway to joy. Pretend we are on the right pathway? Try to sneak back on without anyone noticing? Start making a new pathway? Maybe Jesus’ favorite answer would be for us just to say “Hey Jesus! I’m stuck over here again!” And then he’d just like to help us right back on.
Would you rather have a friend who was almost always perfect? Or a friend who made some mistakes but always apologized and worked at fixing it? I’m not sure the answer, but I’ve got a hunch we could make some case for the second friend. I suppose of the first person could pull it off without being insufferably boring and cloying. But I think pretty only Jesus did that. So I’ll take Jesus first, but after that, I’d rather have friends who are repentant than friends who are righteous.
Is this how religion goes off the rails? It thinks job one is to help people do the right thing, and job two is what to do when they screw up? Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe job one is to help people feel whole, forgiven, and healed in their brokenness, and then to point them on the way. Maybe every time I connect to God I should remember this. First, I need joy in him. Then he’ll help me figure out how to live. Otherwise, I become either an annoying pharisee, or a guilt-racked neurotic.
Am I on to something? Or am I just trying to make life too easy?
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Great thoughts here, Jeff. I think it’s interesting that you start out talking about sin/repentance and end up talking about brokenness/healing. I think that’s a good thing, myself.
I think so much of our sin is rooted in our personal brokenness and the relational brokenness of the fallen world/system we’re in (where destructive emotional and relational patterns get passed down intergenerationally through families, for example). I suspect we’re too often trying to face our sin without facing the brokenness out of which so much of it comes (and reciprocally fuels). And not surprisingly, we’re making little progress. If working with struggling/conflictual families and recovering addicts has convinced me of anything, it’s that avoiding our brokenness/hurt/pain/anxiety/etc. (i.e, our “issues”) seems to be one of our greatest “addictions,” if not the greatest. Maybe there’s more to be said for folding this into the repentance process so it’s not just a matter of “turning from our sin/wickedness/badness/evil.”
Major book plug–Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. I just read it last week. Impressed the crap out of me. Seriously. I think every church in America should encourage its small groups to go through it. The tag line under the title states, “It’s impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.” He brings together some of the most important things we tend to avoid/neglect in our pursuit of God…and even use God to avoid/neglect.
I interviewed Pete for CE last year. Interesting stuff.
I didn’t know you interviewed him. I just checked out the interview online. Interesting indeed. I didn’t find myself as gung ho about some of his responses as I do about his book.
Good thoughts Jeff. It reminds me of a quote I heard the other day from a sermon on apologizing: Biblical apologies mean I choose to prefer the relationship over being right.
I’ve learned that we can some times be so right we are dead right. The need to push our agenda to be right can actually bring death to the relationship and send us down a path that Jesus is not traveling on.
What’s more important? My relationship with Jesus and others or my need to be right and in the right?
I’ll choose relationship.
Hey Jeff,
I always enjoy your brain! I miss you brother.
Jesus was so engrossed in bringing people to a new kind of wholeness that he had no room for piety. He said to the pious, in Mark 2:17, that “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The thing I have always found interesting about this passage is the distinction Jesus makes between the righteous and the sinner. I do not believe Jesus was pointing out the difference in these two group’s good behavior. I think the difference was in the two group’s self-perception of their goodness and need of help (a doctor). How can a doctor help someone who doesn’t come to him since he believes he is in good health?
I have come to believe that there is a kind of back-and-forth that goes on in us as Christians that helps us maintain a healthy self-perception. The balance that we need strike remembers our birth in the faith, a completely undeserved gift, yet embraces the loftiest heights of sonship to the most high God of everything! The one speaks of utter humility and thankfulness, and the other of magnificence, power, and Holiness.
This balance is so easily thrown off-kilter and we see it result in all kinds of crap! Usually, either hyper-religiosity or what one pastor called, “God’s little wet rat syndrome.” Hyper-religiosity usually plays out as tons of judgment towards others or judgment and shame towards self. People suffering from “God’s little wet rat syndrome” are so focused on how infinitesimal we are compared to God, how dirty, and unworthy, that they miss that we are called to new heights as co-heirs to the kingdom of God and His sons and daughters. Their realization of the huge gap between God and us forms a kind of negative feedback loop that they can’t seem to get past, and they fool themselves into staying there under the guise of Holiness.
I think if we maintain a good balance, knowing from where we came and the heights to which we have been brought, we are apt to seek forgiveness and to forgive repeatedly. It keeps us from pride, but frees us to operate in the power God has given us as his children without seeking credit. It also keeps us off the works treadmill and out of the judgment and guilt game.