Is Grandma good? - BLJ Mediations ch 1&2

I just posted about thoughts on Chapters three and four of Blue Like Jazz for my long distance book club and now I'm sliding back to post on my discussion through chapters one and two. This is a slightly edited version of my response to a friend about why I think all people, regardless of appearance and outward behavior all sinful in the core of their hearts. I would certainly love to have feed back on further views of this argument.


My initial thoughts are that sometimes we hold back with all our strength what is inevitably in our hearts and it may just take a certain circumstance to pull it out. And sometimes we don’t have to hold our “sin” back with much strength because we have surrounded ourselves with our comfy versions of heaven and happiness that fulfill our “needs” and desires enough to pacify. Most people in this world do not have that priveledge, if you would even call it that, to put pillows all around our behavioral responses.

If I lived in Hawaii on vacation 24-7, withdrawn from all relationship, conflict, and strife in the world, totally withdrawn from culture…I think my “good” side would come out too. I see glimpses of this when I go on vacation, when I get alone time or when other people are treating me the way I would like to be treated. It’s the same heart. Add different circumstances, relationships, suffering, and temptation, and you’ll see what was really in my heart all along. Or at least where my heart was capable of going.

A perfect word picture. John Piper did a sermon on not wasting the recession that America found itself it not so long ago. He gave the picture of a flask of water with some sediment settled in the bottom. We would all agree that the water is not clean, though it appears to be clear and drinkable. However, if you add some turmoil and shake up the flask, the sediment permeates the entire flask instantly and what rises to the top is what was there all along. This is the word picture of our hearts. Sometimes, in ideal circumstances, we are able to settle down what is in our hearts or attempt to modify our behavior over time, but what is truly in our hearts always rises up to the surface because we are sinners and cannot respond perfectly to life.

Keep it personal. Even if I am being good, almost all the time it is because of this culture. I am performing. It is a selfish desire to be seen as admired, accepted, normal. As a Christian I can actually tell the difference between times I am insincerely behaving a certain way, without the matching heart that should go along with it verses the times I can sense the power of the Holy Spirit changing my heart to help me be kind, compassionate, sincere, etc. along with my behavior.

See how different this is?

What if we ONLY judged behavior? Sticky with me on this…Well then maybe an 78 yr old sticky sweet southern belle who makes cornbread for all of her neighbors, waves wildly at every car letting her in and becomes president of very board in her hometown – but who vehemently hates her life, performs out of obligation and cultural expectation and only pretends to enjoy her friends and family – becomes our “winner” for “Person of the Year.” She is “good”. Right? I don’t think so. Behavior does not = goodness. It absolutely must be about the heart and a behavior that flows out of that heart.

Let’s put that Congo guy (picture from the book about the rape and murder pervasive in the Congo) in the Buddist monastery (this word picture was of a peaceful, happy small mountain community). I bet his conduct record would be A+ all year long because he doesn’t find his heart in a pressure cooker anymore. But the Buddist guy smack in the middle of the Congo and you might see something different from who he was before. Maybe he’d behave how he didn’t think he would. But even if he didn’t act out, what he would do would most certainly represent interest #1= himself/survival of the fittest (opposite of selflessness, which most certainly would lead to self preservation at the expense of maybe others lives).

Also I think it’s worth mentioning that this “badness” we talk about is thought, word, action and deeds of co-mission (meaning – things you should NOT do) and deeds of omission (things you should do but you didn’t. Would you agree that all of those are good reflections of goodness/badness? (They include both heart and behavior).

Sins (or deeds) of omission are things that we avoid. I think I would say for certain that if I decided to become a recluse (not so different than the life of a monk)…perhaps my behavior would be more easily modified BUT would I even be able to practice love, whose greatest expression is when it is not returned? Would I even be able to practice serving, whose greatest expression is when the person did not expect it? Would I be able to forgive? Because I would have avoided all of my unpleasant relationships? And further, I would not have to deal with much suffering, patience, gratitude, acts of hatred against me, temptation of all kinds, or any of the like. I would have so distanced myself from CULTURE AND REALITY of the human condition that I truly would only have to deal with myself. And although I am a handful I think that would certainly change me.

But if I walked my same self back into reality, back into culture, back into relationships, back into the sins of others against me, back into lack of love, back into irritation and annoyances of all kinds…who would I be? What would rise up in my heart? Most certainly I would be battling the sin response within me.

What are we to focus on? Just behaviors/actions/deeds? Or the heart behind them? It’s an important question, I believe.

Look at Luke 6:43-45 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briars. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

First of all, this Scripture is addressing the issue in that day of the religious fanatics (the Pharisees, Saduccees, etc.) who hated Jesus because he wasn’t interested in judging “goodness” (or what we might also call “righteousness”) based on performance or behavior. Jesus was always first interested in the state of the heart and the religious men of that day were proud of their list of morals and accomplishments and standards they lived their lives to and Jesus declared that they were a “brood of vipers”. Sounds harsh but the philosophic disease that they spread was that you could be good on your own, without dealing with having a clean heart.

If you really want to be blown away by what Jesus thinks about “religious” people who do not surrender their hearts to him, then read Matthew 23. Here are some selections: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness….(he concludes all of this and more with this statement which is profound and merciful…) O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

Obviously there’s a lot there but the big picture is that without a clean heart, which is what I continue to say is the heart of the Christian message, there are not any pure thoughts, deeds or behaviors and it is meaningless because it is still utterly tainted. We must be willing to surrender our hearts and to receive a clean heart or else our behaviors end up looking like the Pharisees to some degree. And a modern-day, year 2010, proud heart relying on behavior but taking no look at the condition of its heart would look at the Pharisees and think that it looks nothing like them. Which makes that heart exactly like the heart of the Pharisee. Squeaky clean on the outside and filthy on the inside.

And this is what Jesus addresses. Jesus is not at all interested in behavior modification without a radical change of the heart. In fact, he says we need to be a new creation. And that his forgiveness gives us that new heart, with new desires and the power to make new choices and be a new person. So that as we do life in this culture and reality, we can experience things we did not think possible except on a lifetime vacation: peace, joy, love, hope, patience, endurance through suffering, compassion, kindness, REDMEPTION.