Image of a Transfigured Victimhood: On the Paradox of Victimhood Seen in Light of the Christ Event

 I received a Comment and Question from a friend last night. It's an important topic and I wanted to share some of my response here. I have made changes in the text to make the conversation more general, less specific to a particular person or persons. [[Dear Laurel, Today we dealt with the question: Have I ever been a victim?  Loaded word, that.  I know there are some who view Jesus as a victim, but I have often found that characterization repugnant. What is your sense of things here?]]

Sister, in doing theology I have long seen that in approaching Christian truths there will be paradox. There will and must ALWAYS be paradox. I have often found when struggling with this theological position or that and trying to understand why it falls short that most of the time it is because I have not located or articulated the paradox involved. For instance, how do we adequately emphasize the humanity of Jesus without diminishing his divinity? How do we emphasize his divinity without sacrificing his humanity? The answer here is less a doctrine of “two natures” or some kind of divine arithmetic re natures and persons than it is a paradox.  Namely: To the extent Jesus is truly human he reveals (mediates, makes real in space and time) the power and presence of God. Jesus is truly human to the extent he is transparent to God. And to the extent he is entirely transparent to God he is seen as himself at once human and divine. In some ways, this is precisely what we are each called to. And it is why the Eastern Church especially speaks in terms of theosis or divinization. Wherever there is authentic humanity there is the face/power/presence of God. It is what we mean when we speak of living/praying/working in the Name of God.

Regarding Jesus as victim, I think you have to see that as part of a whole host of related paradoxes; for instance: only to the extent Jesus was a victim, embraced victimhood freely in integrity, and remained open to God does he embody freedom. Only to the extent Jesus was a victim, are we enabled to see the power and reach of God’s empowering presence and love. Only to the extent Jesus becomes subject to the powers of this world, and does so obediently (openly) can the God he reveals (makes known and makes real in space and time) truly become victorious over those powers. And so forth.

There is shame in the incarnation and that deepens incredibly on the cross. I know you are aware of theological writers today who talk about God’s redemption of shame. Jesus’ victimhood was one of the most repugnant aspects of the cross, one of the things that spoke most profoundly of abject powerlessness and godlessness; it was this that proved to the Jewish leadership that he could not be God’s Messiah --- one expected to reveal (make real in space and time) God’s sovereign power. It is probably really good that you feel repugnance for this dimension of the passion because it means you have not “domesticated” the cross. It is a reason too to listen to Paul in this:[[ God chose the things despised by the world, things counted as nothing, and used them to bring to nothing all the world considers important.]] Or (better), [[God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.]] 1 Cor 1:28

Victimhood is the epitome of being stripped and emptied --- but it is the “sinful” expression of this kind of emptying, the precise opposite of the kenosis we seek as disciples. It means the loss of dignity and even of selfhood. You and I both know how real and terrible victimization can be and victimhood is. But that is only one side of the paradox and it must be pressed to its extreme if we are going to understand the depth of the other side of the paradox. And, at least as I understand it, the other side of the paradox is that in the depth of the loss/emptiness caused by victimization and reflected in the wounds of victimhood is, IN CHRIST, a love which gives one a self, calls one by name, confers and  absolutely delights in one’s dignity and freedom, and gifts one with almost infinite potential. . . The bottom line on the cross is that we now know we can find God (or, better perhaps, be found BY God) in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. In Christ God precedes and accompanies us there. It is this other side of the paradox which transforms the distorted, sinful stripping and emptying into fruitful kenosis as well, I think.

So Sister, feel the repugnance. Identify what causes it. Feel it deeply. It gets you in touch with something truly shameful in the Christ Event (and shameful not just in terms of real victimhood but also the culture of victimhood which so denies grace and trivializes real victimhood), but do it as part of your appreciation of a paradox: In victimhood, Jesus reveals a God who knows and redeems that reality as well. In the shamefulness and shame of victimization and victimhood, Jesus reveals the nature of genuine freedom and the source of all authentic selfhood and it is a God who meets us in the unexpected and unacceptable place. Thanks be to God! (I would note for those who simply believe themselves to be victims, this would call them to greater courage and to adopt a new way of seeing themselves, a new way of being.)

Very sorry for all the preaching!! Many whom you or I work with have been (and in some ways still are) victims themselves (i.e., they have been and still are wounded in significant ways by victimization), but they are that while on the way to theonomy (being a self where God is sovereign is much better than autonomy –  being a law to/unto oneself!) and thus, to the authentic personhood/selfhood that is the gift of God and the result of their own responsiveness in Christ/the Spirit. That could never have happened had Jesus not known their own suffering in its depths and emptiness and still remained open (obedient) to God and from that, empowered them to do the same. In my work, I can see their shame and the destruction it occasioned, but also the new possibility in that cross and (its transfigured) victimhood. I am very clear that this theology doesn’t "work" unless the paradox is seen, held, and radicalized as much as possible! Maybe naming the paradox is helpful: Jesus is not a victim; He is the image of transfigured victimhood --- another way to say God-With-Us.

From Humiliation to Humility: Resting in the Gaze of God

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I was intrigued by something you said in your post on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, namely, that our senses of worthiness and unworthiness are not even present until after shame enters the picture. If that is so then what are we to make of all the writing in spirituality that stresses our unworthiness of God's love or the extensive literature on humility that associates it with the sense of being "nothing" or with practices of humiliation? A lot of this was written by saints and spiritually gifted people. Is your observation about worthiness and unworthiness based on the readings from Genesis alone or does it comes from other places too?]]

Several really great questions! Let me give them a shot and then perhaps you can help me follow up on them or clarify what I say with further questions, comments, and so forth. Because shame is such a central experience it truly stands at the center of sinful existence (the life of the false self) and is critical to understanding redeemed existence (the life of the true self). It colors the way we see all of reality and that means our spirituality as well. In fact, this way of seeing and relating to God lies at the heart of all religious thinking and behavior.

But the texts from Genesis tell us that this is not the way we are meant to see ourselves or reality. It is not the way we are meant to relate to God or to others. Instead, we are reminded that "originally" there was a kind of innocence where we knew ourselves ONLY as God himself sees us. We acted naturally in gratitude to and friendship with God. After the Fall human beings came to see themselves differently. It is the vision of estrangement and shame. This new way of seeing is the real blindness we hear of in the New Testament --- the blindness that causes us to lead one another into the pit without ever being aware we are doing so. Especially then, it is the blindness that allows religious leaders whose lives are often dominated by and lived in terms of categories like worthiness and unworthiness to do this.

Religious Language as Shame Based and Problematical

The language of worthiness and unworthiness has been enshrined in our religious language and praxis. This only makes sense, especially in cultures that find it difficult to deal with paradox. We are each of us sinners who have rejected God's gratuitous love. Doesn't this make us unworthy of it? In human terms which sees everything as either/or, yes, it does. This is also one of the significant ways we stress the fact that God's love is given as unmerited gift. But at the same time this language is theologically incoherent. It falls short when used to speak of our relationship with God precisely because it is the language associated with the state of sin. It causes us to ask the wrong questions (self-centered questions!) and, even worse, to answer them in terms of our own shame. We think, "surely a just God cannot simply disregard our sinfulness" and the conclusion we come to ordinarily plays Divine justice off against Divine mercy. We just can't easily think or speak of a justice which is done in mercy, a mercy which does justice. The same thing happens with God's love. Aware that we are sinners we think we must be unworthy of God's love --- forgetting that it is by loving that God does justice and sets all things right. At the same time we know God's love (or any authentic love!) is not something we are worthy of. Love is not earned or merited. It is a free gift, the very essence of grace.

Our usual ways of thinking and speaking are singularly inadequate here and cause us to believe, "If not worthy then unworthy; if not unworthy then worthy". These ways of thinking and speaking work for many things but not for God or our relationship with God. God is incommensurate with our non-paradoxical categories of thought and speech. He is especially incommensurate with the categories of a fallen humanity pervaded by guilt and shame and yet, these are the categories with and within which we mainly perceive, reflect on, and speak about reality. In some ways, then, it is our religious language which is most especially problematical. And this is truest when we try to accept the complete gratuitousness and justice-creating nature of God's love.

The Cross and the Revelation of the Paradox that Redeems

It is this entire way of seeing and speaking of reality, this life of the false self, that the cross of Christ first confuses with its paradoxes, then disallows with its judgment, and finally frees us from by the remaking of our minds and hearts. The cross opens the way of faith to us and frees us from our tendencies to religiosity; it proclaims we can trust God's unconditional love and know ourselves once again ONLY in light of his love and delight in us. It is entirely antithetical to the language of worthiness and unworthiness. In fact, it reveals these to be absurd when dealing with the love of God. Instead we must come to rest in paradox, the paradox which left Paul speechless with its apparent consequences: "Am I saying we should sin all the more so that grace may abound all the more? Heaven forbid!" But Paul could not and never did answer the question in the either/or terms given. That only led to absurdity. The only alternative for Paul or for us is the paradoxical reality revealed on the cross.

On the cross the worst shame imaginable is revealed to be the greatest dignity, the most apparent godlessness is revealed to be the human face and glory of Divinity. These are made to be the place God's love is most fully revealed. In light of all this the categories of worthiness or unworthiness must be relinquished for the categories of paradox and especially for the language of gratitude or ingratitude --- ways of thinking and speaking which not only reflect the inadequacy of the language they replace, but which can assess guilt without so easily leading to shame. Gratitude, what Bro David Steindl-Rast identifies as the heart of prayer, can be cultivated as we learn to respond to God's grace, as, that is, we learn to trust an entirely new way of seeing ourselves and all others and else in light of a Divine gaze that does nothing but delight in us.

This means that, while the tendency to speak in terms of us as nothing and God as ALL is motivated by an admirable need to do justice to God's majesty and love, it is, tragically, also tainted by the sin, guilt, and shame we also know so intimately.  It is ironic but true that in spite of our sin we do not do justice to God's greatness by diminishing ourselves even or especially in self-judgment. That is the way of the false self and we do not magnify God by speaking in this way. Saying we are nothing merely reaffirms an untruth --- the untruth which is a reflection of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is the same "truth" that leads to shame and all the consequences of a shame-based life and is less about humility than it is about humiliation. God is ineffably great and he has created us with an equally inconceivable dignity. We may and do act against that dignity and betray the love of our Creator, but the truth remains that we are the image of God, the ones he loves with an everlasting love, the ones he delights in nonetheless. God's love includes us; God takes us up in his own life and invites us to stand in (his) love in a way which transcends either worthiness or unworthiness. Humility means knowing ourselves in this way, not as "nothing" or in comparison with God or with anyone else.

Contemplative prayer and the Gaze of God:

My own sense of all this comes from several places. The first is the texts from Genesis, especially the importance given in those to the gaze of God or to being looked on by God vs being ashamed and hiding from God's gaze. That helps me understand the difference between the true and false selves. The focus on shame and the symptoms of shame (or the defensive attempts to avoid or mitigate these) helps me understand the development of the false self --- the self we are asked to die to in last Friday's Gospel lection. The second and more theologically fundamental source is the theology of the cross. The cross is clear that what we see and judge as shameful is not, that what we call humility means being lifted up by God even in the midst of degradation, and moreover, that even in the midst of the worst we do to one another God loves and forgives us. I'll need to fill this out in future posts. The third and most personal source is my own experience of contemplative prayer where, in spite of my sinfulness (my alienation from self and God), I rest in the gaze of God and know myself to be loved and entirely delighted in. While not every prayer period involves an explicit experience of God gazing at and delighting in me (most do not), the most seminal of these do or have involved such an experience. I have written about one of these here in the past and continue to find it an amazing source of revelation.

In that prayer I experienced God looking at me in great delight as I "heard" how glad he was that I was "finally" here. I had absolutely no sense of worthiness or unworthiness, simply that of being a delight to God and loved in an exhaustive way. The entire focus of that prayer was on God and the kind of experience prayer (time with me in this case) was for him. At another point, I experienced Christ gazing at me with delight and love as we danced. I was aware at the same time that every person was loved in the same way; I have noted this here before but without reflecting specifically on the place of the Divine gaze in raising me to humility. In more usual prayer periods I simply rest in God's presence and sight. I allow him, as best I am able,  access to my heart, including those places of darkness and distortion caused by my own sin, guilt, woundedness, and shame. Ordinarily I think in terms of letting God touch and heal those places, but because of that seminal prayer experience I also use the image of being gazed at by God and being seen for who I truly am. That "seeing", like God's speech is an effective, real-making, creative act. As I entrust myself to God I become more and more the one God knows me truly to be.

What continues to be most important about that prayer experience is the focus on God and what God "experiences", sees, communicates. In all of that there was simply no room for my own feelings of worthiness or unworthiness. These were simply irrelevant to the relationship and intimacy we shared. Similarly important was the sense that God loved every person in the very same way. There was no room for elitism or arrogance nor for the shame in which these and so many other things are rooted. I could not think of my own sinfulness or brokenness; I did not come with armfuls of academic achievements, published articles, or professional successes nor was this a concern. I came with myself alone and my entire awareness was filled with a sense of God's love for me and every other person existing; there was simply no room for anything else.

Over time a commitment to contemplative prayer allows God's gaze to conform me to the truth I am most deeply, most really. Especially it is God's loving gaze which heals me of any shame or sense of inadequacy that might hold me in bondage and allows my true self to emerge. Over time I relinquish the vision of reality of the false self and embrace that of the true self. I let go of my tendency to judge "good and evil". Over time God heals my blindness and, in contrast to what happened after the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, my eyes are truly opened! This means not only being raised from humiliation to humility but being converted from self-consciousness to genuine self-awareness. In the remaking of my mind and heart these changes are a portrait of what it means to move from guilt and shame to grace.

So, again, the sources of my conviction about the calculus of worthiness and unworthiness and the transformative and healing power of God's' gaze comes from several places including: 1) Scripture (OT and NT), Theology (especially Jesus' own teaching and the theologies of the cross of Paul and Mark as well as the paradoxical theology of glorification in shame of John's gospel), 2) the work of sociologists and psychologists on shame as the "master emotion", and 3) contemplative prayer. I suspect that another source is my Franciscanism (especially St Clare's reflections on the mirror of the self God's gaze represents) but this is something I will have to look at further.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Poison of Shame

As we look forward to Lent the daily readings have led us through the Genesis story of the Fall. Last week we heard the entire story as the movement from a certain kind of innocence to the disastrous consequences of "eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil". Several days running portions of this narrative were repeated and teamed with NT readings in ways which underscored various aspects of the wisdom it embodied. I came away from the week understanding several things more fully and clearly than I have ever understood before. Especially, I came to understand the distinction between guilt and shame and the costly price healing shame required of our God. But also I came to understand the innocence spoken of in the stories and the terrible fall from that to the sense of either worthiness or unworthiness which distorts our ways of seeing ourselves, others, and all of creation. (see also, Their Eyes Were Opened. . .NOT!)

In the story of the Fall Adam and Eve are part of a creation which God sees as (and which therefore IS) good. Humanity (symbolized in Adam and Eve) know themselves and everything else in this light and ONLY in this light. They exist in a state of innocence, a state of essential freedom and humility. They have vocations and live those out in Divine friendship and intimacy with one another; they know themselves as God knows them, as loved and a source of delight to God. It is an incredibly responsible life untouched by thoughts of worthiness or unworthiness. (Remember, Genesis 2:25 summarizes all this by saying, Adam and Eve "were naked yet they felt no shame.") It is a life which is open to transcendence --- an openness which takes the form of obedience (an attentive responsiveness) to God and the truth he reveals. But for this reason, because an openness to transcendence stands at the heart of this life, it is also a state in which temptation is already present.

And so the narrative moves from innocence through Eve's "theologizing" as she reflects on what God has said, who he is, who she is and is meant to be --- to her complete seduction and sin. From being a person who walks humbly with God, who knows herself and all of reality only as God knows them, she distances herself from such union and begins to think about God rather than conversing with God. (It is Walter Brueggemann who points out this primordial act of theologizing in his Interpretation commentary on Genesis. It is this universal tendency to theologize (and the challenge of preparing to do theology professionally) that led to my own prayer, "God forgive us our theology, our theology perhaps most of all!")  From theologizing and temptation Eve moves to the decision to outright disobedience. She is dazzled by her new way of seeing reality and embraces it by "eating of the fruit of the tree" which is forbidden her. She trusts herself rather than God, she listens to her own "wisdom" rather than to that of God and she makes a new knowledge, a new "truth" her very own. It is a disastrous act of betrayal of God, self, and others, whose consequences will color the rest of her life and that of all of her descendents for the whole of human history.

A Vat of Blue Dye and the Inappropriate Knowledge of Good and Evil:

Consider. You are arriving early for Mass in your parish chapel looking for some quiet time with God and as you come in to sit down you find a huge vat of dark blue dye sitting in the middle of the worship space. There was a sign on the door as you entered which said you are free to do all the things you usually do to prepare for Mass, but please leave the vat of dye alone. It is good in and of itself but it is not meant for you. It will change the way you see things, set you apart, and just generally mark you as a possessor of a knowledge of good and evil which is inappropriate for you. Someone has left a small step ladder against the side of the tub; its presence is intriguing and suggestive, but its purpose is unknown. You think about the sign and examine the tub and dye. You consider what a lovely color dark blue is for you and think, "Surely this can't do so much harm as all that! Perhaps the experience would be good for me. God surely does not wish to prevent me from knowing as much as I can. After all, God made me curious! He made me to steward this world and I must experience it intimately to do that!" Slowly you climb the steps testing them for solidity, strength, and balance (are you merely pretending to legitimate curiosity and research now?). Finally, you decide to dive in and, despite the qualm in the pit of your stomach, you make the leap! At this point you have sinned and know guilt. But this is not the biggest problem by far.

When you come up out of the dye you are dismayed to find that not only is every crevice of your body stained dark blue, but that your eyeballs are too. You look around the chapel and everything looks different. Other members of the assembly arrive and two things happen: 1) they look as though they too have been stained with dye, and 2) you know they are looking at you and thinking what a sinner you are! You have begun to know shame and the influence of shame. Over the next days you get rid of the ruined clothes, scrub yourself several times and manage to remove most of the dye, but as you walk through the world you are convinced that everyone sees the remnants of blue lodged in the creases around your fingernails. You even believe that despite your clothes they can see the dye you have not managed to wash out of a few well-hidden wrinkles and crevices. You sit next to these folks at the Eucharist and you are certain they know you for the horrible sinner, the worthless person you are. Over time you come to see yourself ONLY in terms of the dye and the imagined judgments. Even more unfortunately, you come to see everyone else as less or more worthy than yourself. You imagine, in fact you are certain, that they too jumped into the vat at one time or another and have little bits of dye in hidden crevices they never let anyone see. You confess your own sin and are absolved (guilt is easily forgiven) but your shame (a much more difficult animal) remains.

You hear the Gospel story of the lepers with their bells and cries of "unclean" from today's Gospel and you think, "there I am!" When people wish you the peace of Christ or tell you how much they love you, you think, "If only they knew how stained (inadequate, unlovable, unworthy, unfixable, unforgivable, etc) I am !! But you also think, "They are as stained as I am! Who do they think they are?" You know profoundly the knowledge of good and evil which God wanted you never to know. Rather than being love-based and trusting in God's mercy, your life is shame-based. Rather than knowing the humility, the appropriate dignity of being lifted up by God's love, you know the humiliation of being cast down by what you think of yourself --- and what you believe everyone else sees and either says or would say about you if only they could see you as you "know" yourself to be. Despite the fact that the ACT of disobedience and failure to trust (the decision to leap into the vat) has long been confessed and forgiven, the shame (the touch of the blue dye) remains and the healing required is deep and extensive.

N.B.: in this section I have spoken of the vat of blue dye in terms of the consequences which occur when someone decides to jump in. The analysis of the occasioning of shame works as well when someone else has thrown us into the vat and one has no personal guilt at all. In such a case the thoughts are similar: "Everyone can see what x did to me", "Everyone will know I deserved what was done to me," "They may say they love me, but if they only knew what x did to me they'd see me for who I really am," (this is especially powerful when the one doing the injuring was a parent!) "I am sure the dye has been washed away superficially (for instance by the good life one has led in spite of their woundedness) but deep down it is still there!" "I am unworthy, unlovable, broken, unfixable," and so forth.

The Signs and Symptoms of our Need for Transformation and Healing:

I have spoken of several signs of the move to a shame-based life: 1) the shift from judging the quality of an action to judging oneself and others (the shift from guilt to shame), and 2) the shift from standing in the truth of God's love where we share the knowledge of the dignity we call humility to feeling humiliated, being cast down to this degraded state by one's judgment of self. It is significant that in the narrative of Genesis Adam and Even do not know themselves in terms of worthiness or unworthiness until AFTER they eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. That God loves them is the foundational, the defining truth of their lives until they exchange it first for guilt and then, more disastrously, for shame. (It is also significant, by the way, that psychologists see narcissism as a shame-based illness or disorder which is every bit as destructive as the horrible inferiority many know.) There is a third shift then which is central to the story of the Fall, namely, the move from self-awareness to that of self-consciousness. This shift is definitive for "eating the forbidden fruit" and is at least implicit in the other two shifts already spoken of.

Other symptoms and signs obtain as well. Fear. Fear of ourselves, of others, of revelation and exposure and so much more. A tendency to blame others, a propensity to shut ourselves away from others, to fail to risk loving, an inability to be transparent or to see others for who they are in light of God's love, a need for secrecy and an instinct to cover our guilt (the word shame has the same root as the verb "to cover"), and the tendency to overcompensate for one's perceived (and often masked) inadequacy or unworthiness by accumulating wealth, power, status, etc. God's love is the only thing that allows us to see ourselves as the same as others --- another sign of humility . Shame dictates we view them as either less worthy or more worthy than we and to do all we can to compensate one way or another. Whether we are looking at a despairing person's suicide or the narcissist's tendency to look at the poor (uneducated, etc) and say, "Who do they think they are?" we are looking at the effects of the forbidden knowledge of good and evil and the shame it brings in its wake.

Jesus, His Miracles and his Passion, the Solution to Shame:

Every healing Jesus does points beyond itself to his desire to heal the deeper and more fatal illness we know as shame. Last year I wrote that even had Jesus healed every ill person that came to him it would not have been enough.  Jesus' mission was broader and deeper than this. Jesus was not a mere miracle worker; he was the Messiah, the redeemer. Now I will add that he could have forgiven every sin ever committed, but that would not have been sufficient either. Again, his mission was the redemption and recreation of all of reality, the bringing of reality to the kind of innocence (truth) that is untroubled by shame, that knows and is known neither in terms of worthiness nor unworthiness but only itself in the light of God's love.

It is profoundly significant that the Gospel writers and Paul do not focus on the physical pain and suffering of Jesus' passion, but instead on its terrible shamefulness. While the pain he suffers is not unimportant Jesus suffers the depths of human shame, the soul murdering reality we each and all know so well. He drinks the cup of human shame to the dregs and drains the wine of isolation and alienation which separates every shame-based life from the Divine love and truth that leads to genuine freedom and fullness. He does so while remaining open to God;  through his obedience God's love,  the only solution to shame and its calculus of worthiness and unworthiness so characteristic of the fruit of the tree we should never have known, triumphs. (cf, God humbles us by Raising us Up).

Postscript:

For now I want to note that shame seems to be the missing explanatory ground of the events of the cross in almost every theologia crucis I have read. It is spoken of extensively by exegetes to illustrate what Christ himself suffered but it is not ordinarily mentioned by theologians as the cause of his condemnation,  torture, and death, nor is it usually identified as the profound universal illness that Jesus' death and his Father's subsequent vindication and resurrection of Jesus addresses. I think this is a critical deficit in our theology of the cross which is usually framed in terms of the dynamics of sin and guilt without ever mentioning shame. Given the honor-shame society which found Jesus' countercultural kingdom ministry so profoundly offensive, it is even more imperative that we understand shame rather than guilt alone as the illness he comes to heal, the scourge he comes to destroy. Paul said the sting of death is sin; we must also say clearly that the sting of sin is shame and the soul-murder it brings. Only the cross of Christ effectively addresses this whole dynamic.

God Humbles us by Raising Us Up

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I have a friend who attributes every bad thing that happens to her to the will of God. She claims that God humbles us and that sometimes he "brings us very low indeed" through all kinds of catastrophes, persecutions, and disasters. Somehow this humiliation is supposed to move the person away from sin and even let them make reparation for sin. It helps them to deal with pride and other things, but I admit that I don't really understand it. Surely God is not One who teaches lessons in this way; surely God does not will disasters and catastrophes in our lives! What kind of God would that really be? And yet, what else might be the source of unremitting tragedies and disasters in my friend's life? Is there any way to help her let go of the theology she has embraced? She reads your blog by the way.]]

God Humbles Himself and Raises Us Up:

Thanks for the question. Let me assure and reassure you both of my prayers in this situation then. I will keep both you and your friend in prayer. I admit, I do not believe that God wills catastrophes and disasters. I don't believe God humbles us by bringing us low in pain and torment. I don't accept that evil of any sort is the work or will of God. You see, God has a much more effective way of humbling us and "bringing us low". (Note the difference in the word here; humbling and humiliation are different realities.) He does so by loving us, by reminding us how precious we are to him, how there is nothing we must or even can do to change that. God humbles us by asking us to set aside all of our own preconceptions about God, our own autonomous goals and projects, our own brief forays into the world of power and influence, of status and prestige for God's own Kingdom, God's own Lordship, God's own projects and commissions. In effect God says I love you with an inalienable, exhaustive, and unconditional love; I want the best for you; you will have that by serving me; you will serve me by letting me love you and treat you as infinitely precious. This is a humbling which raises up, not a humiliation which demeans even as it brings torment and catastrophe in its wake.

In yesterday's first reading from Paul's letter to the Philippians we listened to the great Pauline kenotic hymn: God empties himself to create the world; God empties himself even further by taking on sin-stained and broken human existence (flesh) out of love for us and commitment to the coming of the Kingdom. He empties himself by accepting death even death on a cross (that is, sinful, godless death) and he does all of this so that one day all might be redeemed, reconciled, and God might be all in all. In none of this is there a sense that God's work is inadequate or that reparation for sin is something you or I must or even can make. God reveals his very nature in all of these ways, but especially in Christ via the Incarnation, passion, and resurrection. These events are not contrary to God's nature. They are the paradoxical way he exercises his divinity --- not as something to be grasped at but as something lived for and freely given to others so that they might share God's life and he theirs.


Now, it is true that God's victory over sin and death is not complete. We experience relative godlessness in many ways for God is not yet all in all. I wrote about this just recently. Sin and death, chaos and catastrophe are still present and effective in our world but not in the same way they were before or apart from the Christ Event. They have been defeated in an ultimate way and no longer have ultimate power. They will never be the bottom line (or the final word or final silence) in our world or our lives and because they cannot be these things, they have lost much of the power they had to frighten, control, and destroy. God's love has proven more powerful. That is the new bottom line, the new and definitive last word we so needed to hear. God's love has penetrated the deepest darkness imaginable and has raised Jesus to new life; it has subsequently taken humanity into itself in the Ascension. It has entered into the unexpected and even the unacceptable (the literally godless) place and established the truth of the hope that one day the victory of God over sin and death will be complete and God will be all in all.

God's Justice is Neither Distributive nor Retributive

But what we must also hear in all of this is that God's justice is NOT retributive. He does not overcome sin by punishment but by love. He does not demand we pay the price for sin, whether that which besets us or that which we commit as a symptom of the sin that besets us. The price paid for sin is God's own price, the price God himself pays; God gives himself so that things may be set right, so that justice may be accomplished. He quite literally loves death and sin out of existence just as he does with nothingness and chaos in creating all that is. Not least, he does so by taking death within his own life without being destroyed by it, but (when the Christ Event is seen from another perspective) he also does so by transforming godless reality into a sacrament of his presence among us. He does this in the world at large, he does this in our own hearts, he does it in his own heart of hearts. God's love is a love that does justice; it destroys sin and death and the demeaning violence associated with these and replaces them with God's own love and life in abundance. Wherever this happens, and to whatever extent it occurs, the Kingdom of God has arrived and we have a new heaven and a new earth which one day will be a single seamless reality.

Of course, we must allow ourselves to be loved in this way, sinners though we are. We cannot instead make ourselves judge, jury and executioner in this matter. Human beings mainly think of justice in retributive and distributive senses. We think in terms of giving others what they deserve or of exacting (retributive) punishment in the name of "rehabilitation" for instance. We even project such notions of justice onto God so that God becomes the one who punishes us for our sin, demands reparation for it (impossible though that would be -- in this Anselm was surely correct!), gives us only what we truly deserve, etc. The God of Jesus Christ, however, does not think or act in these terms, and for this reason one of the things we must let go of, one of the bits of "dying to self" we must accomplish (so to speak) involves our renunciation of the idea of a God who exacts retribution or reparation from us for sin. Again, it is humbling to think that there is nothing we can do to "make things up" to God. It is humbling to be faced with a love which is eternal,  inalienable, and unconditional. But this is the humility Christianity calls for and it is the foundation for everything else in Christian life.

This is the source of real contrition. When we realize that the only good we do is the result of a grace we can never earn while the evil we do is the result of needing to justify ourselves (which includes the need to punish ourselves or refuse God's free gift of love), we are empowered to repent, to let God be God, to accept God's love even more fully and to hand it on to others who are as helpless to help themselves as we are. The turn from self to God in this matter is the essence of conversion. We let go of the various idols we have created for ourselves (or been given by others): the God of vengeance, of course, but also the God of a justice different than one rooted in unconditional love. We allow our minds and hearts to be remade in the name of THIS merciful God, the God who empties himself and suffers for us so that sin might be healed rather than asking us to suffer in reparation for sin.

The Source of the Catastrophes and Disasters:


I don't know the immediate source of the catastrophes in your friend's life except to point in a general (and less immediate) way to sin and death, which, because of the many ways human beings choose that which is not of God, are powers still at work in our world. As Bonhoeffer pointed out during his struggle with Nazism, and as I have posted here before, [[ Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably nothing that happens does so outside the will of God.]] It becomes crucial that your friend not blame God for things which are destructive or personally harmful. She must understand that there are powers and principalities still at work in this world in which God is not yet all in all. Similarly, she must understand that attributing evil to God, suggesting that God demands retribution or reparation for sin from us, substitutes an idol for the real God revealed in the Christ Event. That way would produce a terribly dark and deadly spiral in a person's life --- a spiral in which the Holy Spirit is actually rendered powerless to redeem the situation. Not only would such a position make of God a kind of Golem, (or, as one friend suggested, a Mafia Godfather kind of figure), but it would make the person who saw God in these terms far less open to the message of the Gospel of unconditional love and mercy. It would also cause the person to be open to attitudes and acts of self-sabotage and other forms of capitulation to or collaboration with the powers of sin and death in the name of a false piety.

I hope your friend trusts and listens to you, especially to your own knowledge of God because to be honest I  don't believe you will be able to get through to her otherwise. I also expect this to take time and real patience on your part. You are asking her to let go of an entire "theological" vision and to embrace a very different one --- one where she is not a victim and where the meaning in her life does not come from victimhood. Let me be clear, you (or I, in any case) use the name God in a vastly different way than your friend apparently does. You say the same sounds (God, love, justice, dying to self, conversion, humility, etc) but signify antithetically different things by them. Moreover, the God your friend believes in allows her to blame God for things which may truly be her own fault or at least the result of choices she has made which collude with death and chaos.

The degree of humility and self-emptying required of her for letting go of all of this is immense. The grace of God is present seeking to empower and heal her in this, but she seems caught (trapped or bound) in a way which reminds me of what Scripture calls the sin against the Holy Spirit. In that sin the person cannot be forgiven, not because God withholds it (he does not), but because they can no longer hear (or they otherwise refuse to ask for) the graced word of forgiveness God makes present there. When the word justice, for instance, speaks to us of retribution and the demand for personal reparation rather than of a Divine love that is entirely sufficient and sets everything to rights (thus bringing heaven to earth) then the Holy Spirit has been rendered mute and powerless by our own deafness.

Choosing Life, not death: The choice of humility rather than humiliation, victory instead of victimhood:

Unfortunately it is possible to find older theologies of reparation and retribution that support your friend in her victim stance. These tend to be psychologically and theologically discredited today. Today when we read the Scripture about "making up what is lacking in Christ's sufferings/cross" we understand that Paul is referring to allowing God's love and the new life of resurrection and ascension to fill and transform us. That work still needs to be done and if we don't allow it through the grace of God, it will not happen. The Christ Event changed reality; God can now be found in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place --- but knock, call, invite, attempt to seduce us, etc, as God might, if we are really saying yes to a different God, if we are embracing the Golem that accompanies and grounds our ultimate victimhood, then we are rendering God's Word void and making Christ's Cross of no account. It must always be remembered that Christianity is built on a singular victimhood embraced by God so that NONE OF US would EVER have to be victims again!!! Especially, we would never need to be the victims of a vindictive God whose idea of justice is that of human retribution-writ-large!!

The choices before your friend are those of humility versus humiliation or victory instead of victimhood. We are humbled and made victors (raised up to new life) in Christ by a God who loves us without condition or limit as Jesus' Abba does; we are humiliated and made victims (cast down into the depths) by a "God" (Golem) who demands retribution and reparation for our sin and thus sends catastrophes our way regularly. Here is another version of the choice put before us during Lent: Choose life not death!!! Today,  it must be said clearly, victimhood is truly the way of the world, the way of "worldliness" in all its tragedy and distortion; those who reject that which is worldly, and choose instead the Kingdom where God is sovereign, reject victimhood and any false theology that tends to make them victims rather than victors. It is my sincerest prayer that your friend can find the courage to reject the ways of the world and embrace those of the Kingdom and that you might have some small place in helping this occur!

I wish you both God's own peace, hesychia (stillness), quies, shalom!