Addiction and Grace
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 -- Week of 4 Lent, Year One
Pandita Mary Ramabai, Prophetic Witness and Evangelist, 1922
To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 954)
Psalms 97, 99, [100] (morning) 94, 95 (evening)
Jeremiah 17:19-27
Romans 7:13-25
John 6:16-27
Paul offers a helpful exclamation of a dilemma that will sound familiar to most of us.
"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ...I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ...So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Most people find that they cannot always live up to their own ideals and principles. We fail. We fail others. We fail ourselves.
Can we, like Paul, move so instantly from "Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" -- to "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" In a swift and stunning example, Paul gives us the core of his gospel, the core of his experience of salvation in Christ. In the vision on the Damascus Road, Paul knew himself to be stunningly wrong even while he thought he was trying to be right. He simultaneously knew himself to be completely accepted and forgiven by God in Christ. This was his liberation. He didn't have to become perfect, he only had to accept the loving invitation of acceptance from God.
Life in Christ is to renew that relationship of acceptance over and over. Whenever we recognize ourselves to be wretched failures again, we turn and meet the light of unqualified love. We are forgiven, healed, restored. Instantly. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" That's grace.
There are certain destructive behaviors that become habitual in us. We become attached to so many things. Some are attached to approval and success. Others become attached to a low self-image and the expectation of failure or rejection. Some of us get attached to other people and become dependent upon them, while others get attached to making people dependent upon them. Every pleasure has an addictive potential.
Gerald May has written an extremely helpful book titled "Addiction and Grace." For him, addiction is a synonym for sin. He alleges that addiction represents our attempts to assert complete control over our life and environment. We feel bad; we drown the bad feeling in some pleasure. We feel insecure; we seek acceptance through performance. (That was Paul's addiction.) “To be alive is to be addicted, and to be alive and addicted is to stand in need of grace,” Gerald May writes. (p. 11)
May defines addiction as “a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that enslaves a person’s will and desire” (p. 14). Addiction is the flip-side of repression: “While repression stifles desire, addiction attaches desire, bonds and enslaves the energy of desire to certain specific behaviors, things, or people. These objects of attachment then become preoccupations and obsessions; they come to rule our lives” (3).
While addictions to alcohol and drugs are obvious and tragic, everything – ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, etc. – holds the potential to become an object of addiction. For this reason, May argues that “No addiction is good; no attachment is beneficial. To be sure, some are more destructive than others… [but they all have this in common, they] impede human freedom and diminish the human spirit” (39). Unable to think rightly about our addictions (because of "mind tricks") or to will our way out of addictions (because of a divided will), the first step to healing is to admit one’s addictions, and even more, to see our addictions as “doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives.” (31) (thanks to Rich Vincent's blog TheoCenTric for this summary)
Freedom comes with surrender to grace. Grace is freedom, freely given by God. Liberation from addiction/sin comes through surrender, trusting God to give us life as a gift. Most people find that it helps to be experience grace in community. That is the power of 12-step groups.
Paul models this life in grace. In one moment he recognizes his miserable state of being unable to will what he most deeply intends. In the next moment he accepts his freedom and acceptance as a gift.
"Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Pandita Mary Ramabai, Prophetic Witness and Evangelist, 1922
To read about our daily commemorations, go to our Holy Women, Holy Men blog:
http://liturgyandmusic.wordpress.com/category/holy-women-holy-men/
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 954)
Psalms 97, 99, [100] (morning) 94, 95 (evening)
Jeremiah 17:19-27
Romans 7:13-25
John 6:16-27
Paul offers a helpful exclamation of a dilemma that will sound familiar to most of us.
"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ...I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ...So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Most people find that they cannot always live up to their own ideals and principles. We fail. We fail others. We fail ourselves.
Can we, like Paul, move so instantly from "Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" -- to "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" In a swift and stunning example, Paul gives us the core of his gospel, the core of his experience of salvation in Christ. In the vision on the Damascus Road, Paul knew himself to be stunningly wrong even while he thought he was trying to be right. He simultaneously knew himself to be completely accepted and forgiven by God in Christ. This was his liberation. He didn't have to become perfect, he only had to accept the loving invitation of acceptance from God.
Life in Christ is to renew that relationship of acceptance over and over. Whenever we recognize ourselves to be wretched failures again, we turn and meet the light of unqualified love. We are forgiven, healed, restored. Instantly. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" That's grace.
There are certain destructive behaviors that become habitual in us. We become attached to so many things. Some are attached to approval and success. Others become attached to a low self-image and the expectation of failure or rejection. Some of us get attached to other people and become dependent upon them, while others get attached to making people dependent upon them. Every pleasure has an addictive potential.
Gerald May has written an extremely helpful book titled "Addiction and Grace." For him, addiction is a synonym for sin. He alleges that addiction represents our attempts to assert complete control over our life and environment. We feel bad; we drown the bad feeling in some pleasure. We feel insecure; we seek acceptance through performance. (That was Paul's addiction.) “To be alive is to be addicted, and to be alive and addicted is to stand in need of grace,” Gerald May writes. (p. 11)
May defines addiction as “a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that enslaves a person’s will and desire” (p. 14). Addiction is the flip-side of repression: “While repression stifles desire, addiction attaches desire, bonds and enslaves the energy of desire to certain specific behaviors, things, or people. These objects of attachment then become preoccupations and obsessions; they come to rule our lives” (3).
While addictions to alcohol and drugs are obvious and tragic, everything – ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, etc. – holds the potential to become an object of addiction. For this reason, May argues that “No addiction is good; no attachment is beneficial. To be sure, some are more destructive than others… [but they all have this in common, they] impede human freedom and diminish the human spirit” (39). Unable to think rightly about our addictions (because of "mind tricks") or to will our way out of addictions (because of a divided will), the first step to healing is to admit one’s addictions, and even more, to see our addictions as “doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives.” (31) (thanks to Rich Vincent's blog TheoCenTric for this summary)
Freedom comes with surrender to grace. Grace is freedom, freely given by God. Liberation from addiction/sin comes through surrender, trusting God to give us life as a gift. Most people find that it helps to be experience grace in community. That is the power of 12-step groups.
Paul models this life in grace. In one moment he recognizes his miserable state of being unable to will what he most deeply intends. In the next moment he accepts his freedom and acceptance as a gift.
"Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Lowell
__________________
| Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: -- Morning Reflection Podcasts About Morning Reflections "Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church. Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer. Evening Prayer begins on p. 117 An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at missionstclare.com -- Click for online Daily Office Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html -- Click for Divine Hours Discussion Blog: To comment on today's reflection or readings, go to http://lowellsblog.blogspot.com, or click here for Lowell's blog find today's reading, click "comment" at the bottom of the reading, and post your thoughts. |
| The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love. See our Web site at www.stpaulsfay.org Our Rule of Life: We aspire to... worship weekly pray daily learn constantly serve joyfully live generously. Lowell Grisham, Rector St. Paul's Episcopal Church Fayetteville, Arkansas |
posted by Lowell @ 8:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Thank you so much for your Morning Reflections. I love sharing them with incarcerated women that I work with.
The reflection today is especially meaningful
Lent twenty-four
Rough sea - wind blowing
Behold nearness of Jesus
Fears abate - calm sea
Peace,
Janet
Lent twenty-five (John 6:27-40)
Jesus gives his life
So that no one will be lost
True bread from heaven
Peace,
Janet
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