Commitment over Convenience
The Daily Cost of Following Christ
I need to address something I’m seeing in the larger Christian culture: cultural Christianity, the idea that we can claim to be Christians as a cultural marker without living into the values and teachings of that faith.
It’s noxious.
The faith often gets used as a merit badge or a calling card. There are those who hold it up as if to say, “Yes, I’m a Christian. Please treat me differently, as you can see I am worthy of special treatment. I believe the right things, do the right things, say the right things. I need to be recognized for my efforts.”
And then life gets complicated. The larger narrative butts up against the norms of the faith. You’re faced with a choice that requires checking in with what the faith commands. And suddenly we can hear the rooster crow. Being a Christian becomes an “option,” something that only goes so far. I go from someone who believes in Christ to someone who likes the idea of Jesus from time to time. And the problem is, we all do it.
This came to a head for me in the last several days, when Senator Lindsey Graham passed away. I don’t think his body was even cold before the first choruses of “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” began ringing out. Some of these cries were coming from Christians, and to say that behavior is unseemly is my version of gentle pastoral correction.
I am not here to rehabilitate Lindsey Graham. I am not here to hold him up as a paragon of Christian virtue. The decisions he made as a senator perplex me, as does how he seemed to change his mind whenever the wind blew. He helped make decisions that caused real hurt in the world, I am not denying that. What I am saying is, despite the way he lived his life, we are not in a position to judge his soul, though we can still name what he did wrong. And we are in no position to deny him the dignity due every human person.
Or is Christianity only applicable when it’s easy?
Or when we want others to live into it for our sake?
Or when it is convenient?
Celebrating a death and making decisions that hurt people both come from the same failure: refusing to see the other as a child of God. Everyone is losing in this conversation. There is a way to confront bad behavior without resorting to hate, dehumanization, and a general disregard for the lives we don’t care to see.
It is a question of commitment over convenience.
What have we promised to do?
The Episcopal Church lives by the Baptismal Covenant. Beyond expressing our beliefs, it asks us about specific behaviors we commit to as Christians. To my mind, it’s the bare minimum expected of any Christian.
Celebrant: Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People: I will, with God’s help.
I can’t find an exception in here for people elected to high office. Christians don’t get to pick when these expectations apply to them, or to whom. We like the parts of the covenant that make us feel righteous. But when it comes to serving Christ in all persons? “Well, what you have to understand about that is...”
When we pick and choose who is worthy to be served as Christ, we ignore the hungry on the street and add to the injustice of the world. When we keep a list of people we don’t have to love, we’ve disregarded Christ in our neighbors and only lived into the parts of the covenant that suit us.
When Christianity becomes a culture we occasionally visit rather than a life we’ve committed to, we fail to return the love of the God who created, sustains, and redeemed us. When Christ has made all people worthy of love, who are we to decide when it’s okay to mock and celebrate someone’s death?
It shows us for what we are: people who don’t actually live into what we say we believe.
That doesn’t mean we can’t balk at bad decisions that hurt others, or that we have to accept the injustice they caused, or that we say it’s okay when someone hasn’t repented of what they’ve done. We should balk, refuse to accept injustice, and ask for repentance when someone has done wrong.
But it also asks us to remember that we are called to show mercy and withhold judgment, knowing we are limited in what we can see and understand. We can confront those in power with the wrongs they’ve committed, but in love, not hate. We are called to be a righteous witness in the world consistently, not just when it suits us.
I pray that Lindsey will hear the rooster crow like Peter did. And like Peter, he will have to face Jesus on the beach after the denials he may have made. Like Peter, the rest of us will make the same accounting when we come face to face with Jesus. I imagine that will include the places we denied seeing Christ in our neighbors and passed judgment that was never ours to pass. We will have to account for the decisions we helped make that injured other people, and reckon with how we chose convenience over commitment, and the times we denied Christ to get what we wanted.
We’re no better than Lindsey. We should show the kind of mercy we would want to receive if we were in his shoes. Because one day we will be. People will make an appraisal of our behavior. Would we want Christ to say that we were the kind to show mercy, or the kind to pass judgment?
“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Luke 10:36-37