Day 12

I read somewhere that it takes 66 days to form a new habit. In the interest of getting into the habit of blogging regularly, I plan to publish one post a day for the next 66 days, finishing up on October 19, 2020. Content-wise, each day's post can include anything that crosses my mind and that I hope will spark something in yours, whether poetry, prose, art, or the occasional rant. Here's to 66 days of finding something to say :)

For Day 12, I'm analyzing the poem I posted yesterday.

 

Yesterday I shared a poem with y'all as part of a mini-series of sorts. Link below to get you caught up:

https://dangerofdreams.blogspot.com/2020/08/day-11.html

I mentioned the context of the poem, "World Keeps Turning": it was born out of frustration with a theology that emphasized God's grace without jointly emphasizing our great need  for that grace as sinners. I get it. You don't want to scare people away from the gospel by heaping condemnation and judgment on their heads right off the bat. And you don't want them to view God as angry and vengeful, just waiting for sinners to stumble so he can cast them off into the outer darkness.

God is easier to introduce to others as loving, forgiving, and saving. And He is, and He does.

But without a full understanding of how unworthy of love we are; how little we deserve forgiveness yet how much we need it; and how vast the rift between our sinful selves and our holy, righteous Savior; we can shrink God's grace too small.

We can lull ourselves into complacency,continuing in sin "that grace may abound" (Romans 6:1).

We can end up with a distorted view of God's love as enabling us to do whatever we want, which in turn distorts our love for others into enabling them to do whatever they want. And that's not a show of love to them on our part: it's a lack of care.

Now with all this in mind, we can start unpacking "World Keeps Turning". Throughout, the stanzas of the poem (formatted like this) are juxtaposed with their meanings and my haphazardly reflecting on them.

 

We tell the story as we heard it long ago

They gathered stones and threw her at his feet

He stooped in silence while they watched and let her go

Their quaking footsteps sounding out defeat

This first stanza recounts the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). Intending to trap Jesus, the religious leaders of his day brought before him a woman whom they claimed to have been caught in adultery and asked him whether he would stone her as the law prescribed. Instead of answering their question, Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger, and then told them that whoever among them was without sin should throw the first stone at the woman. They left one by one, till finally only the accused woman was left with Jesus.

 

But we end the telling there, we forget the final lines

When he told her go, and sin no more, and looked her in the eyes

It's a powerful story with a poignant ending. Seeing that the Pharisees and scribes had all left, Jesus asked the woman if there was anyone who condemned her. She answered that no one had, to which Jesus said in his last recorded words to her:

"Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more" (John 8:11, ESV).  

I feel like the tendency here is to emphasize Jesus' compassion and lack of judgment of the woman. 

Come as you are and the Lord will not condemn you.

But that's not entirely accurate. By calling her previous action sin, Jesus does make a judgment of the woman, albeit in a compassionate manner. And how else can his order to "sin no more" be taken but as a charge for her to repent and live righteously?

Yes, by all means, come as you are. But know that the Lord who loves you enough to take you as you are also loves you enough not to let you stay there. 

 

Tomorrow I plan to unpack the next few lines of "World Keeps Turning", which speak to the effect produced by our tendency to gloss over sin with a wrong view of God's love and grace. I realize that this content is quite different from a lot of the writing I post on here. In the past, I haven't mentioned my faith much, if at all, because I didn't want to alienate any potential readers. But it's such an important part of my life, and I couldn't continue to write honestly without letting it permeate into my work. 

Thanks for sticking around through it all.

 

 

Till tomorrow,

Clara