I read a blog recently which had an in-depth post on integrity.
The brunt of the post centered on the predictable and understandable premise that Christians should have integrity, that as part of being God's ambassadors Followers should honor their committments and obligations, etc.
And I don't disagree with that, yet as I read the post and chewed on integrity, there was more than word-bonding and promise-honoring that came to mind. Here's some notes jotted down about it:
I think the Body in general does a pretty lousy job distinguishing between integrity and flexibility.
God is true. He has integrity. Yet at the same time He is flexible. Or, for those who still recall the high school chemistry term, He is malleable.
There's a large portrayal of God as this unmovable, static Creator whose Way is the law or else. A Creator who has one "right" way, one preferred view of...pretty much everything.
You know what I'm talking about. The t-shirts and bumper stickers that say "God says it. I believe it. That settles it!"
Along this line, the Followers who will take a puffed-chest "stand for God" when saying things like "we believe in the unquestionable authority of the inerrant, infallible Word of God!"
Now, Jesus says "I am the Way...no one comes to Father except through Me" and 2 Timothy mentions the "all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, correcting...", etc.
I'm not making light of these passages. I'm saying the Body seems to interpret this as a blank slate to take a harsh, rigid stance that is unattractive, unrelatable and, quite frankly, doesn't seem to be the way Jesus relates to doubters and questioners.
This rigidity is shrouded and excused behind the phrase(s) of "scriptural integrity" and "Christian integrity". The Follower walks away, beaming over their "stand", while those on the outside remain distant or even more calcified.
(This eerily reminds of a story Jesus tells about a religious man who proudly thanks God he is not like others (evildoers) in Luke 18. Ouch.)
Talk about winning the battle and losing the war...
I question whether the rigidity of this common "take a bold stand for God and His Word" approach is the Way.
This seems to indicate that God is set in His ways, static and inflexible. Period.
And yet we clearly see in the Bible time and time again how God changes His approach, changes the way He deals with things.
There was a time God had decided He was going to deliver punishment X for sin Y to a group of people. David prayed and said "Lord, that's too harsh. Don't go so strong with that punishment on Your people." And God relented and said "You're right", and softened His stance on those whom He was going to smack harder.
Haven't we also seen God change His whole approach to this human race thing? The fall by Adam/Eve messed up an awesome Plan A, and eventually became so bad God wiped earth clean and literally started over after the Flood with Plan B.
He issued the Commandments and Law. Well, that didn't work out so well either, scrap Plan B and let's send them Prophets to teach, instruct and warn folks.
Well, that was hit/miss, so scrap the Prophets, Plan C, and let mankind's relationship with God consummate with Jesus.
This is a simple paraphrase, but doesn't this show God is flexible? That even though He is just that He is influenced by prayer? And He also bends to what goes on when we, mankind, alter the good things He's done and given to mankind?
That even when He does something, and it's good what He does, that when mankind skews what He intended that He's bendable to go with something else?
Seeing God so malleable over time, I really do question the unbendable, stalwart idea of God.
And that is why the teaching of God as a father is so huge. He is a Father.
He has emotions, He has thoughts. He can change His mind. Sometimes yes He is stern, but He is also soft like a teddy bear when His kids call Him "Daddy" and come to Him for protection.
His heart is moved when His children cry out, as our hearts are moved when our children cry out. Even if they've done wrong when they cry out, we are still moved because they are our children. We correct and we teach, but even amidst whatever we're feeling over their mistakes, purposed or not, they are our children.
When kids mess up, we move to correct them, not disown, scald or abuse them.
The parallel of fatherhood that Jesus tells us is so on the mark. And yet, some portray God as a perpetual drill instructor to whom we should acquiesce or else.
My experience walking with God is dynamic and often unpredictable.
It's not exclusively positive, it's not perpetually dainty.
It is a real relationship, filled with love, tension, compassion, doubts, teaching, questions, sternness, laughter, anger, jokes, guidance, tears, etc.
Just like a human relationship with a father, only this one is with the Creator.
I remember growing up how serious and rigid God was taught to be, and how mundane church was.
And likewise remember how liberating it was upon actually getting to know Him.
Sure, He is holy and just, and sin wounds His heart. And there's nothing jovial about that. But that is not all of God.
There are times He is serious, and times He cuts up. I believe the first part of Ecclesiastes 3 provides a more realistic portrayal of life and journey with God than the oft-quoted thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians.
God is as described in the Corinthians chapter, yet He's more than that. He loves and He hates. He tears down and He builds. He mourns and He laughs. He plants and He uproots.
And, as this post goes, He has integrity and He is flexible.
•••••
Thinking of God in terms of rigidity makes me think of the rigidity associated with the Bible.
I hear folks who talk about the Bible being filled with contradictions.
They're right. It is.
So why some Followers get stammered when hearing this and blurt "No it's not! How dare you!" is a mystery to me.
Jesus says "turn the other cheek", yet He also says "I give you power to trample on snakes and scorpions".
Jesus says "My Peace I give you, not peace as the world knows or gives, but a different Peace I give to you".
Jesus elsewhere says "Do not suppose I came to bring peace to the earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword."
We read in the New Testament of love being gentle and kind, and the lovey-dovey chapter of 1st Corinthians 13.
And yet Jesus also says "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"
Elsewhere Jesus says “I will come to you and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth”.
There was one time when Jesus sent His disciples out and said "don't take anything with you. Don't take a bag, a purse, sandals or anything."
Then later Jesus said "I told you that before, but now I tell you if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag, and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one."
Again, here we have the living Word, Jesus, showing flexibility and saying "you've heard X, but now I tell you Y", and "I told you A before, but now I tell you B".
So people who aren't Followers are making legitimate statements about the variance and contradictions within the Bible, and some Followers are screaming "No there's not! No there's not!"
How foolish are these representatives of the Way among us?
Some Followers get offended and defensive, bristling against and arguing with people about this or that point, then expect to "win" these people to Jesus (after being "offended" and/or by employing some car lot or infomercial-esque "witnessing" techniques)?
Yeah.....
This bullshit reminds me of something Jesus says:
"You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."
And we're so blinded with making sure we say "Don't talk bad about God, don't blaspheme Him or anything about Him" that we aren't thinking "man, this person doesn't follow Jesus, yet they've taken the time to look in the book they don't believe in and the person they're skeptical of to find these points they're pointing out".
Are we largely missing the forest for the trees?
It seems we're more concerned with being "right" than being compassionate.
We're more concerned with "defending the faith" than fishing for men.
Don't we know Jesus faced scorn and ridicule and jeers and lies when He introduced this new, unthinkable, seemingly contradictory paradigm to mankind?
And what did He do? Spend the overwhelming majority of His time defending everything He did or said?
No. He spent the majority of His time hanging out with people who had been shunned and snubbed by the religious, and He healed those who had the guts to believe in the supernatural.
When He was drilled with questions by the supposedly religious, Jesus sometimes responded with even deeper questions.
(This is not a battlecry that Followers should come up with cutesy, unanswerable questions to sling when the faith is questioned. That's missing the point in more ways than one. Perhaps one of the more important being that Jesus never scalds or embattles the unreligious. He embraces them, simply, sincerely and warmly, as friends.)
••••••••
I used to be of the "my word is my bond" camp, and "if I don't do what I'm telling you I'm going to do that means I'm either dead or laid up in a hospital".
Honoring our word does show integrity, and does foster goodwill with others. I just don't go over the top anymore with awe-inspiring words of commitment. My yes can simply be yes, not some Declaration of Integrity that makes people swoon.
And, it seems, just as God is flexible, maybe we should be too.
Not so much in terms of paying our rent or things like that. (There's an admonition in the bible that Followers should not use freedom in Jesus as a cover up for doing uncool things. Along with mention Followers are light and salt.)
Rather there is a bad message going out to people by transposing integrity-based rigidity into other areas of the Way, where rigidity has no place.
This is a huge turnoff. Stuff like this leads to people saying "I can't hear what you're saying for what you're doing".
And it can also malign the Way, which is about freedom, not bondage.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of portraying of the Way as following certain views, prescribed shoulds/shouldn'ts and acceptable principles. (And portraying a [one] proper, correct, "right" way to view God, bible verses, etc.)
We're missing the mark if we make the Way about "proper" Christianity and/or "acceptable" beliefs and principles to follow instead of a dynamic fathering relationship with many, many facets to it.
