Defeated?

Think about what is really guaranteed in life. What is one hundred percent certain? The answer is a pretty short list. The joke used to be dying and paying taxes. I’m not so sure about the paying taxes part, but dying, that’s certain. Not one of us will escape this guarantee. What else comes to mind?

Not fame and fortune, no matter how much we would like to believe it otherwise. There is no certainty that even if we do everything right, the result will be wealth or recognition. Everyone knows this although we would much rather entertain the delusion that somehow it will turn out differently. After all, the delusion fosters hope. This times things might be different. (In the end, of course, we all really know that “you can’t take it with you”).

What about happiness? Again, we prefer the delusion to the reality. The number of personal and global sorrows surely speaks the truth. Not happiness, health, joy, peace or any other long list of sought after consolations.

Life does seem to guarantee some of those things that we would rather avoid. I know no one who has avoided sorrow or pain, heartache or disappointment. If we are brutally honest about things, it might seem that the only real guarantees are on the negative side of the ledger. We can be assured that things will not always work out, that we will have our share of discouragement and defeat. The human condition seems to be what the Greeks noted centuries ago – a brief spark rising in the eternal night.

But just a minute. Maybe things aren’t quite so bleak. Maybe the focus of our deliberate delusions is misplaced. There are some pretty powerful guarantees; they just don’t seem to be the sorts of things that we normal seek.

Twelve step people know about one of these guarantees. The Twelfth Step begins with the words, “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps”. Now that is a guarantee. It says that if I follow the steps, a spiritual awakening will happen. Not that it might happen, not that it could happen, but that it absolutely, positively will happen. In other words, if I do the work, the result is certain. The problem is not the guarantee but rather the fact that this particular reward doesn’t have much luster in the modern world. Not many of us really seek a spiritual awakening. We would rather have gold. It’s interesting that Jesus commented on this mis-direction. He said that we should lay up treasures in heaven. Why? Because treasures in heaven are guaranteed. They are not subject to moth and corruption. Another way of saying that in this world, everything can (and often does) go wrong, fall apart, get lost, fail. But not in heaven. Treasures in heaven are certain. Our problem seems to be not that there are no guarantees of positive things, but that there are no guarantees of positive things right now. After all, heaven is someplace else. I can’t pay today’s bills with a heavenly credit card.

So, is that what I am left with? Nothing guaranteed in this life except the negative stuff – pain, suffering, failure, loss – and positive guarantees only in the next life. At this point a local minister may interject, “Well, if Jesus himself could not avoid pain, suffering and mistreatment at the hands of others, what would ever make you expect that you could or should? After all, he was the least deserving of any human being, and yet these things happened to him too. What more evidence do you need to prove that it is just part of the human condition?”

A good point, but not very comforting. Buddhist masters may have recognized this latent truth about living when they proclaimed that the only way to peace in this world is to be disconnected from this world – to live life deliberately shunning all attachments that might bring about sorrows. Good advice, but pretty hard to accomplish. Most of us just are connected, whether we like it or not, and trying to disconnect seems to bring just another round of troubles. Just try to unhook from the constant hassle of bills, notices, documents and phone calls and you’ll see what I mean.

There must be some other way. I am not Jesus. And I am not Buddha. But I don’t want to be Job either.

With a little reflection, we may find the Jesus’ life gives us another clue about what is certain. Jesus was a remarkable Zen master in his own right. He was disconnected from the distractions of living. Remember what he said about not having a place to lay his head. And what he said about the Father’s care of the sparrows. But the clue that we really get from Jesus is not about de-tachment but about the proper place for real attachment. It is found in the theology of the word charis, which we see translated as “grace”. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, this word carries a very special meaning. It calls forth a word picture and the picture is this – a powerful monarch, a ruler beyond question, absolute, unapproachable decides, for no reason except his own, to bestow upon the poor, unworthy, and undeserving, a wonderful gift – a gift majestic in proportions, far beyond the hopeful imagination of the recipient. And the amazing fact about this gift is that it is the king who guarantees it. The gift does not depend in the slightest on the worthiness or unworthiness of the recipient. It cannot be bought, earned, begged for, bartered, or negotiated. Gee! It’s free!

Now that we see that this gift is guaranteed, maybe things aren’t so heavy on the negative side. What Jesus showed us is that God’s love toward us in guaranteed, not by what we do but by who He is. So, no matter what happens to us in the realm of being human (all of those things on the negative side), none of that can alter God’s love toward us. And now we can see where Jesus placed his attachment and why. Jesus, the Zen master, knew perfectly well that this human realm comes with sorrow and suffering. So he hooked himself to the one unshakable, unbreakable gift that is guaranteed no mater what happens in this life – God’s unfailing love.

Does that mean things will be peachy? Nope. Does it mean my life will somehow all make sense in the end? Not necessarily. Does it mean that I will escape the toils and tribulations that fall on the “just and the unjust”. Certainly not. What it means is that grace can become the touchstone of my life. That I can experience God’s gift, and share that gift, precisely because I live in a very imperfect world. Grace is the bondage breaker, the exception to the rule, the counter-evidence. Grace proves life is no cruel joke.

The best part about grace is that it is not a one party verb. It cannot occur in the singular. Grace is found only in community. As it is between God and me, so it is between you and me. If I am to experience grace, I must partake of the relationship where it is found. If I am to be graceful, I must pass on what I find to someone else. Grace carries a hidden guarantee – it guarantees that the more I experience grace, the more I will be related to others. Grace entails love.

And with eyes of grace, I just might find something else that is guaranteed. Hidden away behind this dark screen.

Joy.