Your Road Is Not My Road
Penelope Trunk has an interesting Yom Kippur post on her blog, and the comments are equally challenging. A lot of people out there are seeking, and an equally large number of people have been hurt by organized religion. After reading some of the comments, I felt compelled to post a comment myself. I am copying and expanding that comment here.
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I am a Christian who did a lot of seeking and searching in my teens and twenties. I studied with a rabbi when considering conversion to Judaism. I studied with a priest when considering conversion to Catholicism. I’ve studied with various pastors while seeking a denomination that was a “fit” for me and my beliefs. I think I am now too ecumenical to “fit” anywhere very comfortably. But I’m a devoted and contented Christian.
The problem that I have observed in all religions I have studied is that some people take things too far and become rabid proselytizing zealots who fail to respect individual choices. When that happens, atrocities and outrages result. When enough of them get together, you get inquisitions, witch-hunts, and other really appalling consequences of human depravity.
Jesus did not operate that way. When the rich young ruler came up and asked Jesus how to get to Heaven, Jesus told him. And then watched sadly as the young man walked away. Jesus didn’t tell His followers to cram His teachings down others’ throats. He did tell them to go and teach and baptise, but He did not tell them to force their beliefs on others. In fact, He said that if they were rejected, they were to simply leave, shaking the dust off their feet as they went.
Jesus reacted harshly against dishonesty and cruelty, but He was gentle and compassionate to sinners who were open to the truth, even when pointing out gross misconduct. It was the “holier-than-thou” people (the Pharisees and Sadducees) who condemned others for their failures while glossing over their own issues that raised His anger and incited Him to harsh words and shocking actions. Jesus reacted with scathing anger and severity against those people who put others under heavy burdens of rules and regulations — burying the love of God under the minutiae of the Law.
My goal, as a Christian, is to live a life of rectitude and humility, serving others as I am led, and presenting them with an example of a godly life. If they ask, I will tell them how and why I do what I do. I will tell them of the great love of God for His fallen creation, and of His willingness to pay the appalling price that was required for reconciliation. I will tell them of the power and joy that He gives to those who accept without reservation the incredible free gift of forgiveness and healing. I will tell them that it can all be theirs for the asking — a truly unconditional gift, given out of love, and with no strings attached.
But I’m not going to bang them over the head with the Bible and condemn them to Hell if they don’t live as I do. First of all, I’m told not to judge. It’s not for me to say that someone is going to Hell. That’s God’s job, not mine. And second, God makes it clear that my road is not anyone else’s road. When Peter, upon learning what his own fate was to be, asked Jesus “What about John over there?” (with the implication that “we all know he’s your favourite…”), Jesus’s response was “It’s not your business what John’s fate is. You follow Me.”
My struggles are different from those of others. I struggle against pride, deceitfulness, slothfulness, greed. Others struggle with unforgiveness, anger, lust, cruelty. The seven deadly sins get their hooks into each of us in varying ways, and the fight against them is very much an individual thing. Each of the Ten Commandments (or the 613 mitzvot) can be broken in a thousand different ways, depending on the person who’s breaking them. But no one can keep them all perfectly. And it takes only one transgression to make you a lawbreaker. So no one has a right to condemn another to Hell — “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
(That’s not to say that we should not punish sin and confront sinners. But if you think for one minute that you are a better person than Ted Bundy, Pol Pot, Stalin, or even your next-door neighbour, you’re mistaken. All sin is evil. The nasty thing that you said to your mother is just as despicable as Hitler’s wanton murder of six million people. There is no hierarchy of sin; all sin trangresses against Love. And God is Love. Just because you didn’t torture millions doesn’t make you better than Hitler. God judges our actions by one yardstick, and it is not by the magnitude of our impact. And who’s to say that your bullying of that kid in tenth grade didn’t have just as detrimental effect in the spiritual realm as did Saddam Hussein’s reign of cruelty in Iraq? But I digress.)
Unfortunately, too many Christians have lost sight of what their light is supposed to be. But then, so have many Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. Human failings corrupt the greatest spiritual teachings, reducing them to mere systems for personal aggrandizement. That doesn’t mean the teachings are wrong or worthless; it means that human nature is difficult to tame.
And that is where the Christian message comes in. Man is not able to tame his nature. But with God’s grace comes both forgiveness and change. God’s love is willing to pay the price for past wrongdoing and imbue us with God’s strength to conquer sin. We cannot earn it. We must simply accept it. And when God comes into our lives, He begins the transformation. He does not attack on every front at once. Nor does He choose the same plan of attack for each person who seeks transformation. Perhaps He will ask you to give up smoking before He cleans up your potty mouth. Or perhaps He will allow you to continue to smoke while addressing your issues with lust. That is why we are not to judge. Because God may have cured your greedy spirit in an early battle, but He is dealing with my pride before moving on to my greed. My road is not your road.
It is worth noting that He knows our frames, that we are weak and fragile. He does not come in with wrecking balls and pickaxes, but with chisel and mallet. His work is slow, painstaking, deliberate, and as gentle as it is possible to be. It will still hurt — all change is painful. But His goal is not to destroy us; it is to perfect us. And that means small improvements.
We are not a condemned house that must be completely razed before rebuilding can begin. We are a neglected house that must be fortified and restored slowly and with great care. First, He fixes the foundation. Then the joists and beams, the individual studs that make our frame. Then He patches the drywall, primes the surfaces, and paints. Only then are we ready for Him to install the fixtures and bring in the beautiful furniture to make us a fit house to dwell in.
But your house and my house will not be the same. (Those cookie-cutter neighbourhoods are so boring!) Just because you are a fifty-room mansion set on a hundred acres of beautiful rolling land, does not make you better than me — the five-room cottage on a tenth-acre plot. Your road is not my road.
As Paul said, “There are bowls meant for places of honour, and bowls meant for dirty work.” Both are needed, and both are valuable. When you are setting a banquet for special guests, the mixing bowl from the kitchen won’t do for serving the vegetables. And you’re not going to milk the goats into your Wedgewood teapot. Not everyone can be the eyes, ears, or mouth. Someone’s gotta be the big toe. It may seem a humiliating role. Until you try walking without that big toe. Suddenly, the big toe assumes an importance that you never would have guessed.
Your role is not my role. Your road is not my road. But our goals should be the same: to fill our roles, to walk our roads, as God leads, without minding the differences or the inequalities, and humbly assisting each other as our paths coincide. May you know His strength to meet that goal.