Lent 4 Eph 2:1-10 ; Jn 3:14-21
Way back in 2021, I did my first sermon here (or ever) and I talked about my discomfort with unconditional love. I want to return to some of those ideas today, and I’m sorry if you have such a perfect memory that that bores you.
Late in high school at one point, I was in the backseat of my mum’s car when she was talking to a friend about the friend’s son. More specifically, talking about his hair. A few years before that, this teenager had moved from a boy’s school with a pretty strict military-inspired dress code, into a public school, and had grown a lush mane of hair. Just so much wavey healthy hair. It was clearly an expression of freedom and release, and at the time I had heard my mum and this woman discuss it and how positively this reflected his sense of creativity and joy returning.
Now, a few years later, he was considering shaving it all off. That wasn’t the reason the mum’s were talking, though. The point was a funny anecdote about the things teenages say, because apparently one of his friends had said “but your mum loves your hair! You’re sure she won’t like… disown you?” Cue both mum’s bursting into giggles.
At this point I chirped up from the back seat, saying “yeah, it’s just hair.” You may as well have heard a record scratch, as the women looked back at me. In a much more serious tone, his mum said. “nothing would have me disown my son.”
Which is perfectly fair, a valuable sentiment, and expression of love.
But I felt then, what I sometimes feel now, that that is less satisfying. That there would be something comforting about the chill-ness of “hair is no big deal” or even better the validation of “I love all your hairstyles and I love the way you try different ones” that is missing from “nothing would have me disown you.”
And I wonder whether that’s about fears. I spend a lot of time fearful about disapproval, or missed approval. And certainly at the time I was very very worried that I may be disappointing my parents, or that any approval I had now may slip away into disappointment in the future. I was afraid of disappointing my teachers, my friends, my church.
On the flip side: I never feared that I would be kicked out. Disowned. Expelled from school, banned from my church. That wasn’t a real fear for me. And in the absence of that fear I did not notice how lucky that is. How lucky I have been to be loved in ways such that I did not fear that the rug would be pulled from me completely. And, therefore, I was not grateful to have that affirmed.
In fact I was so solidly in the belief that this was not at risk, that to state it – to state I would not disown my son – felt like disapproval. If the behaviour was something you were happy or neutral about, then that is what you would say. The fact that you have returned to first principles, to the foundation that you would not disown him – is to say that you do feel negatively about what he has done. That you do disapprove.
Now maybe I am the only one in this room who would do that little logic dance. Welcome to my brain, especially at a particularly anxious time in my life. But I wonder if this resonates further when we talk about God not parents.
In the Ephesians reading we had today, it says “You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve. This is God’s gift to you, and not anything you have done on your own. It isn’t something you have earned, so there is nothing you can brag about.”
There’s a song I like that refers to God’s “humiliating grace”. At first glance that might seem odd. It’s not a language we hear in hymns much. The full sentence is “there’s nowhere I can hide from your humiliating grace.”
I like this line, I like this song, because that’s sometimes how it feels. Like the love of God shines a spotlight on my inadequacy. Draws attention to the fact that maybe I would not have earnt that love if it was up for earning. That’s what we are reading in Epheasians today.
We can contrast this to the much more well known lyrics of Amazing Grace. “How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” Different mindsets, but fundamentally the same claim: I could not have earnt this.
But in one case we get that logic skip, like I talked about with the disowning. The affirmation that God’s love is not earnt, that regardless of God’s thoughts about your hair he will not disown you, focuses attention on our own behaviour. My failure. My shame. While in the other case, it stays informing the understanding of God. The breadth of God, the mercy of God, God is amazing.
I wonder if this reflects the fears from earlier. To the one who feared being disowned, cast out from God’s love, there is a huge relief in receiving it anyway. But to the one for whom that has never been questioned, for whom that foundation is stable, we may jump to the next step, and the humiliation of needing grace.
I think this is why a lot of testimonies that get shared, stories of people who come to christ and why, concern those who felt fundamentally unlovable, or hit rock bottom: because that is the narrative from which it is easiest to wholeheartedly affirm the wonder of being loved by God.
The next point at which I trip up when thinking about grace, is when I try to push down my sense of humiliation and direct my eyes to God. To put a bit more Amazing Grace into the narrative.
When I do this, I can feel like Flash – the little boy from the incredibles – telling his mum: “Saying everyone’s special is just another way of saying no one is.” There’s a bit of my brain that says that if God loves me because of what I do then I am Good, but if God loves me regardless of what I do, then God’s love is cheap and I am still no good.
I think that part of where this comes from is the constant near-instantaneous judgements that ,I as a person, perform to critique and rank other people. That I know are also made about me. People! We have brains which are very good at pattern matching, and quick fire judgements – telling us to run because there is a tiger nearby, telling us not to eat that; not to touch that; not to swim there. Who we can trust to look after us.
Human judgement stems from the less negatively connotated discernment, or assessment. To make a reliable assessment of situations can keep us safe. To make a reliable assessment of other people is similarly protective.
But it would be naive to say that we exclusively use our judgement to assess whether we are safe from harm. Far more frequently we are judging for far more trivial assessments of ourselves and each other. And our brains just do it! Near instantaneously, running the background processes at all times. We might be better or worse at filtered out those judgments in our conscious behaviours and decision makings, but they are still there.
And I would say that that slips out in the feeling “if everyone is special, then no one is.” But before that becomes another reason to feel ashamed and humiliated, and demote myself in that ever present ranking, I would also add a more generous layer of interpretation.
At one point in our difficult tween phase my mum sat me and my sister down and said: “look. Sometimes I want to say ‘wow esther, you’re such a good conversationalist’ without JJ storming off in a huff. And I want to be able to say ‘wow JJ, you’re such a good thinker’ without Esther saying I must think she’s stupid. I need to be able to give one of you a compliment without the other experiencing it as an insult.” And obviously she was right. She was at her wit’s end balancing our moods and trying to hurt no one’s feelings.
But it was very hard, in that highly anxious phase of life to not see the absence of a compliment as a critique. To not feel that everything was being constantly ranked and compared and usually finding us wanting, even when our parents were trying desperately hard not to do that.
There is a genuine fear and sadness in being loved but not liked. Saying “God’s love is limitless and unearned” sets the foundation of “I would never disown my child”. And that foundation does need to be said, because it is extremely valuable, even if it does not ping off any of my fears. I do need to be able to hear it without defining that as cheap, and with jumping through to “you are a disappointment”.
But I also think that it is completely understandable to want the second layer of affirmation as well. To want to know the parent isn’t just suffering through loving you, but also likes you. Is proud of you. The number of novels and films that glamorise a magical moment where the gruff father finally says “I’m proud of you, son” show that a lack of affirmation of this sort is a deep wound for many.
What would it take to feel like God likes us? That God is not putting up with us in his disappointment, but is a proud father? To feel the poetry of Genesis one, that God beholds us as very good? And what would it look like to feel that, without needing for it to mean that we are better. Without bragging about it, as Ephesians says?
The language of humiliating grace is something I find beautiful, and resonant. And when I am capable, it pushes me to ask myself why.
That feeling of humiliation nudges me towards a need for compassion with myself: Why do I feel humiliated? Where are you vulnerable and hurt and desperate for the affirmation of God? What does a narrative of love soothe us, give us compassion for ourselves? Where do you need God to tell you he’s proud of you?
And that feeling of humiliation nudges me towards a need for compassion with others: Am I comparing myself to others, and desperate to rank highly? Am I letting myself cheapen a gift of love by my judgements over who else qualifies? How does the reminder that I do not earn God’s love expand my compassion for others?
The un-earnded-ness of God’s love does not have to be a judgement. It can release us from judgement of ourselves and others. But if you, like me, find it easier to see the spotlight on your shame, then may we both make the first small step to compassion by not judging ourselves for that impulse, but meeting it with curiosity.
Thank you.