As I’ve mentioned before in different messages, and if we’ve chatted along the way you know this, but I am a bit of a sports fan. The first thing I do with the morning paper is turn to the sports section, peruse what’s on the front page, take a look at the box scores, then go through whatever else fills the section. I have favorite teams, have a favorite NASCAR driver. I like to watch sports on TV, and when I watch the local news telecasts I’m watching because I want to see the sports highlights. We don’t have cable, but I have at times entertained the notion that the expense would be worth it just for the sake of being able to watch Baseball Tonight on ESPN.

And sometimes, in the morning, I listen to a local sports talk-show on the radio, "Sportsphone with Big Al." Al has trivia contests on his show, and I’m proud to say that I’ve won three times in three months, about as often as one can legally win. You can only win once every thirty days. That’s what comes from having your mind filled with meaningless trivia such as the total number of wins in Greg Maddux’s four Cy Young winning years, or the only two American League teams to never retire a number, or the only player to ever win the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards in the same season. Incidentally, "seventy-five," "Seattle and Toronto," and "Fred Lynn." And I’ve won tickets to hockey games, and sports card shows, and gosh, even won tickets to take my wife to the World Wrestling Federation extravaganza here in Richmond on Mother’s Day. I have become almost a regular caller. I have my own handle. If you ever hear that it’s Reverend Paul on the line, that’s me.

Well, I was listening to Al a few weeks back, and heard, if you can believe it, an intriguing religious discussion. There’s a golf pro who advertises on the show, and for $19.00 you can get a lesson from him that will solve all your golfing problems, and he’ll give you a new five iron, to boot. It was right before the Special Olympics here in Richmond, and this pro said that if you bought a lesson from him, he would give the $19.00 to the Special Olympics program. Special Olympics is one of those things that are nothing but good, and it was a good thing this guy did to make this gift. And Al told him so, right there on the radio.

And off-handedly, the golf pro said something like this: "Well, you don’t get into heaven by doing good works."

And Al, taken aback, got off the subject of sports and said, "What do you mean you don’t get into heaven by doing good works!"

"Of course not!" said the golf pro. And for the next little bit, these two guys went back and forth not on golf or sports, but on whether we get to heaven, whether we are saved, whether one is made right with God, through good works. They both articulated quite well one of the central conflicts in the history of the church. "If I’m a Christian, how good do I have to be." Or to paraphrase the question more generally, "What’s the relationship between salvation, which I define as being made right with God, and behavior?" On one side there was Al, saying that the Kingdom of God for each of us is dependent on behavior, on doing good works. On the other side was this golf pro named Bobby Lopez, saying quite boldly "You don’t get the Kingdom of God through good works at all." It was "Alist" theology and "Bobbyist" theology.

And the conflict, the disagreement, wasn’t invented by Al and Bobby. It is ancient, as ancient as the Church.

You see, when the Church was born, it was born in Jerusalem. And it was born among an almost exclusively Jewish population. The first believers had almost all been Jewish. All the disciples were Jewish, steeped in the sacrificial worship of the Temple and the Hebrew Law. Now what they knew was that Jesus was the Messiah that Israel had been waiting for, and that through the Holy Spirit this new community of believers had been born. But after receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, this first group of believers did not go and toss out the window their Jewishness, their Hebrew past and culture and belief. Read the beginning of the Book of Acts and it’s pretty clear, for example, that they still worshiped at the Temple, with all the other Jewish people who didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah. And read the Book of Acts, and it’s pretty clear that they held onto the Law. If you wanted to be a Christian, believe in Jesus, and obey the Law, the 613 proscriptions of the Law.....observing the Sabbath, observing the food laws, doing this and doing that. That was part of being a Christian. Jesus plus the Law made one a Christian.

Well, a few years after the church was born Saul of Tarsus had his famous experience on the Road to Damascus. The Lord appeared to him in a blinding light, spoke to him, and Saul became a believer, and took the name Paul. And eventually Paul became a missionary and started spreading the Gospel beyond Palestine, all the way to Greece. And that was a big deal, because Greece wasn’t Jewish.

And there were two things that had great impact on what Paul preached in these Greek cities that he visited. The first thing was his experience. Jesus has appeared to him, and called him, and it had nothing to do with Paul. It was completely Christ’s initiative. It was pure grace, pure gift, he hadn’t earned it. "Here, Paul," it was as if Jesus said. It had nothing to do with his goodness. And Paul believed that if this is the way God came to him, through gift, this is the way God comes to everybody. That’s the way it works. The relationship isn’t something earned, it’s something given. And that, he believed, was Good News for everybody. That was his experience.

The second thing was his drive, his call, to spread this Good News, to travel and tell people about how good Jesus is, and how he calls all of us. So he traveled to places that weren’t Jewish, like Greece. He traveled to people who didn’t know the Jewish Law, or who believed that some of its practices, such as circumcision, were barbaric. Obedience to the Jewish Law, he knew, was a barrier to non-Jews accepting the Good News of Jesus Christ. Not only did he believe that Christ plus the Law was a mistaken understanding of the way God works, he knew that if he preached that message in pagan Greek cities, he’d never get a hearing. And as a missionary, that was his predicament.

So based upon his experience, and upon his predicament, what Paul preached in all these new, Greek places was that it wasn’t Christ plus obedience to the Law makes one a Christian, but that it is Christ, alone, that makes one a Christian. The Law is no longer in affect. We are free from it. We are saved, made right with God, not through obedience, but through God’s grace. It is ours not through following the rules, but through faith. So that when it comes to being good, our being made right with God is completely separate from our behavior. It doesn’t depend on our behavior. You don’t earn it, it’s given to you. Good behavior follows, does not precede, salvation. It is a response to the Kingdom, not the means by which we get the Kingdom.

And as you can imagine, there were two radical reactions to what Paul taught. The first came from the Christians, the mostly Jewish Christians, who said Paul was wrong. This reaction is somewhat articulated in the letter of James. Now, we don’t read the letter of James very much. It isn’t a very long letter. It has never been a favorite New Testament book among Protestants because it makes little mention of Jesus Christ and because it doesn’t sound at all like the teaching of Paul. The Letter of James said that faith without works, is dead. If you don’t do it, you don’t have it. And if you don’t do it and have it, you’re in trouble. Our being made right with God is as dependent on how we act as it is upon our faith. How we act, how we are, how we behave, makes all the difference. There are things we better do, and if we don’t, we’re done for.

The second was the reaction of the people who when they heard what Paul had to say thought he was right, and said, "Hallelujah! There are no rules! I can do whatever I want! I am saved by grace, alone, what I do doesn’t make a difference, so I might as well do anything I want!" These people took Paul’s teaching, and instead of recognizing that it gave them freedom, assumed that it gave them liberality. "I can sleep with whomever I want, I can eat whatever I want, I can work whenever I want, I can do pretty much whatever I darn well please, and it doesn’t make one bit of difference to God because you know what? I have faith. And I am saved, through God’s grace, by faith alone!"

So that on one side there were those who said, "Be good. Do this, do that, or else." And on the other side, there were those who said "I’ll do whatever I please, thank you very much." It doesn’t make a difference. Don’t worry about how good you have to be, go ahead and be as bad as you want to be.

Now, granted, these two pictures are drawn pretty distinctly and simply. It’s always a bit more complicated than can be communicated in only a couple minutes. But basically on one side you had people who said that you better be real good because it makes all the difference. And on the other side you had people saying do whatever you want because how good one is makes no difference.

And you still find people on these two sides. There are traditions that maintain that there are rules to be followed upon which rest one’s relationship with God and place in the Church. There are traditions that teach that one better not smoke, or drink, or dance, or play cards. Don’t associate with people of other Christian traditions. You better be at worship every Sunday. You better not work on the Sabbath. People and traditions that believe if you don’t do certain things, or unless you do do certain things, you give up your relationship with God. Or more accurately, God cuts you off. And if you don’t think this happens, I want to tell you that I know of churches where if you get divorced, for example, you get kicked out. Not just kicked out, but excommunicated. They will tell you that you have sacrificed your salvation because you have violated the acceptable code of behavior.

And the unintended consequence of some of this teaching--at least, some of the time it is unintended--is often the creation of an incredible sense of guilt and shame. Guilt is when we feel bad for something we have done, and there are times when guilt is good. When I do something that hurts someone, and I feel guilty because of that action, that guilt is good because it can inspire me to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Guilt is bad, though, when we feel guilty over things for which we are not responsible. Shame, though, is when we feel bad for who we are, and that is rarely good. Shame usually comes from someplace deep in our past, from parents, or parent figures, or teachers, who have beat into our souls that we have not, do not, and never will measure up to these impossible standards. And way too often throughout our history, the church has done a pretty good job of inspiring this shame, as well. How the church has loved to tell us how bad we are, what horrible sinners we are! "Sinners in the hands of an angry God," said the Puritan preacher, we are like bugs to be smashed because we are so degenerate. We become the incredible, shrinking human beings, feeling worthless because we never measure up to standards we can’t measure up to anyway. And I see this shame lived out in people who believe that God could never possible love them because they are so bad, people who are pretty much like you and me on the outside, as "good" as us, but filled with shame on the inside.

And I also know of persons who have believed that since one is saved by faith, made right with God through grace, that it doesn’t make a difference how we behave. People who have concluded that how they are, how they act, makes no difference to God. People who have made no connection between the gift given to them by God, and the way they live their lives. I remember sitting with a friend of mine who is about as much of a life-long Christian as one can be, yet hearing such vitriolic, racist, hateful, angry muck roll from her mouth that I was left astounded that she could call herself a Christian. And I’ve had conversations with people, people in this congregation, who have had a very difficult time giving the Good News a chance because of all the people they’ve known who have said they are Christian, but not appeared to like it.

So when it comes to our goodness, there is the belief that we better be perfect because everything depends on it, and there is the belief that we can do whatever we want because nothing depends on it. Neither of which, obviously, are satisfactory answers.

So how do we get to a decent answer?

Let’s start with this. Let’s start with this basic truth. God’s love is not contingent on our behavior. Period. Are human beings sinners? Yep. That’s true, just as factual as the truth that we are also children of God, each one of us, loved by God completely, each one of us. Regardless of how good we are. Let me say something startlingly radical. God loved Adolf Hitler as much as God loved the people who walked into the gas chambers he created. God loves Pol Pot as much as God loves Mother Theresa. God loves Charles Manson as much as God loves Billy Graham. God loves Timothy McVeigh as much as God loved the people who died in the Oklahoma City bombing. God loves the boys who murdered Jamie Knight as much as God loved Jamie. In his letter to the Romans Paul says that God shows no partiality. And that’s true. God loves us all, no matter what. And frankly, the fact that God loves even these villains are the kind of words that might make some of us want to get up and walk out, but it is the radical truth of God’s radical love. God loves each of us, completely. The love does not depend on the behavior.

But if God always loves us, God does not always love the behavior. While God may have loved Hitler, and Pol Pot, and Manson, and McVeigh, and all the rest, God did not love their behavior, did not love what they did. And while God loves us, there are behaviors we engage in that God does not love. God does not love it when we are deceitful, or manipulative, or judgmental, when we are hard-hearted and unforgiving, or when we are cowardly in the presence of pain or suffering or injustice. To say the least, God does not love when we steal or do any of the other "big" kinds of sins. But though God may not love the behavior, God always loves us, and that is the simple, remarkable truth.

Secondly, God does not lower God’s standards for our sake. I often hear people say, isn’t being good what it’s all about? It’s hard to argue with that, until you get into a discussion of what it means to be good and realize that often what people mean by goodness is sometimes something very different than what God means. How often we take our moral standards and make them God’s moral standards! But God’s standards are different. God doesn’t say "Be merciful most of the time, show forgiveness most of the time, show mercy most of the time, be honest most of the time." When asked about forgiveness, Jesus tells us to forgive all the time. When asked about judgment, Jesus says "Don’t judge, or you will be judged." Jesus never says only love the people who love you back. He says that we are to love the unlovable, love even the persons we don’t like. He doesn’t say give to the persons who can pay you back, he says give to everyone who asks of you. He doesn’t say for the sake of justice get even. You deserve it. He says, turn the other cheek, even though it will hurt.

But if God never lowers God standards for our sake, neither does God expect us to be perfect. You know those bumper stickers that say "Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven?" Well, they’re right. God does not ask perfection of us, just faithfulness. If we weep and bemoan that we aren’t perfect, we have become susceptible to what is called an overly-scrupulous conscience because God doesn’t expect, or demand, that we be perfect. Paul in his letters gives all these different instructions on how the believers are supposed to act. Love, show kindness, show hospitality, suffer hurt rather than seek revenge. And he does it to paint a picture of the ideal. But there is never any expectation on God’s part that we fulfill that ideal, because Lord knows, we aren’t perfect.

So while God may not always love our behavior, God always loves us. And while God never lowers God’s moral standards, God does not expect perfection from us.

"So let’s get down to it, Paul. Give me the answer! How good do I have to be?"

Well, finally I want to suggest that this entire question is a red herring. That maybe the question, "If we are Christians, how good do we have to be?" is wrong from the start.

Let me tell you what I mean.

You see, when Jesus came, he brought the Kingdom of God. Remember last week? "Repent, Turn, for the Kingdom of God is right here," he said. And he didn’t so much say "be good," as instead he said "Follow me." And that when he calls us to follow, he isn’t calling us to some exalted level of goodness. Sure, we will be different, better, but I’m not sure that what he asks of us is "goodness." I’m not sure that what Jesus says most boldly is that if you are my disciple you will be a better person. I think, instead, what he says is "If you are my disciple, you will be more human."

You see, here’s what we say about Jesus. In Jesus, God dwelled fully. God was there in Jesus, the person. But we also say that in Jesus, humanity dwelled fully. And in classical theology, what we’ve said is that Jesus was fully God and fully human, truly God and truly human. Sitting at a dinner table one night someone once asked me why Jesus was important. I responded by saying that Jesus shows me what God is like. I would also say, though, that Jesus shows me what real humanity is like. Maybe instead of discipleship looking like us becoming better people, it looks like us becoming more real people, more human people. Jesus shows me the real God, and Jesus shows me the real human.

If Jesus is truly human, then here’s the picture of true humanity that is painted. We always treat others as people, not as things. Jesus was never too busy to love someone who needed to be loved, nor did he ever treat a human being as something to be manipulated and used. We treat others as we would like to be treated. It’s called the Golden Rule. Since we want mercy when we screw up, we show mercy when others screw up. Since we need forgiveness to have whole relationships, we offer forgiveness to have whole relationships. Since we want others to love us even when we aren’t very loveable, we love others when they aren’t very loveable. We do these things not because we want a reward, but because what Jesus shows us is that this is what it truly means to be a human being. As real human beings, we have no patience for deceit of any kind....deceit of ourselves or deceit of another.....for deceit is lies, is untruths, is dishonesty, and all those things aren’t real. If I am real, there is no room for pretense. As a real human being I know that there are times I will suffer, because there are things I can’t control. If I am real, I feel joy at things that are joyful, and pain at things that are painful, not vice versa. And believe me, there are people who find joy in others’ pain, and pain in others’ joy. I will weep at injustice and violence, and stop both when I can. But recognize that I am limited. After all, there were still some people blind and deaf people left in Palestine when Jesus hung on the cross. He didn’t heal everybody. If I am real, I accept responsibility for myself, and refuse to blame others for my shortcomings. If I am real, I live with an honest assessment of myself, a godly assessment of myself, of what I can and can’t do, can and can’t be, aware that God loves me when I follow God’s will, and even when I don’t. If I am real, I love God because God is good, and I love myself because God made me, and God don’t make junk, and I love others because if God loves them, then how can I not love them. If I am a real human being, I comprehend that everything I accomplish or acquire will mean nothing when I die, and that all that people will remember is how much I loved. If I am to be a real human being, I don’t worry about judging, because Jesus, the most human human being ever, did not say "Judge one another as I have judged you." He said, "Love one another as I have loved you." If I am truly human I trust God, for there has never been a greater demonstration of trust in God than Jesus’ decision to go to the cross. If am truly human I can be afraid, I can be angry, I can be sad, I can even question...."My God, my God, why have you forsaken me".....But my fear, my anger, my sadness, or my questioning need never claim my life. More than being good, I am to be truly human. And if I am truly human, I will be good, or at least better, or at least more real and alive.....living more richly, giving more richly, loving more richly.

So can we do whatever we want? Only at the risk of losing our human soul.

"But Paul, haven’t you just laid out a bunch of rules that we better follow?" Well, maybe I have painted an inadequate picture of what goodness looks like, the kind of goodness expected of us if we claim to be Christians. But the goodness to which we are called is not a laundry list of to dos, it isn’t 613 proscriptions. It isn’t something we attach to our souls like a sidecar, it isn’t something we put on our resume. Instead, it is a derivative goodness, the goodness that derives from being as present, as real, as human, as Jesus, the one who is truly human, who blessed our humanness and showed us what we could be. I’m not sure that God’s will for us is first that we be good. Instead, I think God’s will is first that we be human, and from being human, being truly human, the goodness flows. And all those times that we fail at it? When our hurt, or anger, or sadness get the best of us? That’s part of being human, and God knows that, too.

So if we are Christians, how good do we need to be?

How about "as good as humanly possible."

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