"Deserves" Got Nothin' to do with it
Clint Eastwood and Jesus agree. At least on one thing.
This morning I find myself trying to hide my tears in the Yacht Club aboard our Windstar Cruise ship. These are not sad tears; they are tears of gratitude and wonder. But I don’t really want to be crying here. The Yacht Club is a lounge area on the top deck of the front of the ship, a place of lovely couches overlooking the majestic waters. It is the cool, executive place on board. And I can almost hear the exasperated voice of Tom Hanks from A League of their Own: “There’s no crying in the Yacht Club!” So, I look away and wipe my eyes and pretend it is only allergies or a cold.
But I can’t help it. I came here to read scripture and think. I opened the book to Psalm 103:
1 Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
As I thought about these words while gazing on the endless sea, I became overwhelmed at all the good things God has blessed us with this last week and a half, and got a little teary.
Okay, a lot teary.
I never thought we would be able to spend time in Istanbul, that fascinating old city. Or to visit the Island of Patmos, or walk along the ancient ruins of Ephesus. Not to mention the wonderful day on the beach in a Turkish coastal town, or hiking up the center of the Santorini caldera.
But here I am, enjoying time aboard a lovely ship and thinking about the bounty of blessings showered upon us this last 10 days. And, to be honest, I am having a hard time taking it all in.
There is a line from a Clint Eastwood flick that keeps coming to mind this morning. It is from the movie Unforgiven, which is a western and an anti-western at the same time. What I mean by that is that it is indeed set in the old west, sometime in the late 1800’s in the town of Big Whiskey. But it subverts the standard motif of western movies. There is no real hero in the movie. The protagonist, William Munny, is a flawed man with a murderous past. The “bad guys” are not worse people than Munny, just less lucky or skilled, perhaps.
The climax comes when Munny walks into a saloon and kills the Sheriff, played by Gene Hackman. Hackman, like Munny, is a flawed man. He keeps order in town, but overlooks injustice. He is more concerned about building his house and his own reputation than doing what is right, but he is not an especially evil protagonist. Especially compared to Munny’s past.
As the sheriff lays bleeding and dying on the floor of the saloon he looks up to Munny in disbelief that this is happening to him. His last words: “I don’t deserve this…to die like this! I was building a house!”.
And William Munny replies with words that both undermine the standard western motif, and also the normal way that so many of us view life:
“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it”.
And that is really the whole point of the movie. Which is why it is both a western and an anti-western, for in almost all western movies the “good guys” get good things (revenge, fortune, the girl) in the end while the bad guys get, well bad things (death, dishonor, disgrace). That is the formula.
This is hardly limited to westerns, of course. The specifics of the formula change, but the formula itself remains. Most chick flicks, for example, see the honest and genuine protagonist get her reward (the hunk, the job, the friendship) while the shallow or sneaky antagonist gets the opposite.
The movies and books we consume usually have some variation of this same theme. And really, why wouldn’t they? A movie or book where the bad guys triumph doesn’t sell.
“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
I think the reason that line stuck with me is that it encapsulates in seven words a fundamental shift in the way I interpret life. I am increasingly understanding that when it comes to the most important things, the idea of deserving is fundamentally and fatally flawed. And this increasing understanding is bringing increasing freedom and joy, at least for me.
The movie did not convince me of this shift, of course. Life convinced me. The movie simply illustrated it and gave it, for me, a memorable tag line.
I find freedom in this view, because for most of my life I have been partly shackled by the idea that I needed to measure up in order to receive good things in my life. As I said, the ever-present media reinforces this idea, but, more concerningly, my church background also contributed greatly to it. My formative years were in an independent Baptist Church, and I also went to a university of that same persuasion. And while I am grateful for much of what I received from that church and that school, at the same time I increasingly feel they contributed to a mentality focused on spiritual performance. Yes, they taught rightly that a person is saved by grace alone, by faith alone, through Christ alone. But after that salvation you better work hard to keep God’s blessing on you. Unconfessed sin means your prayer will not be heard. Partaking of worldly entertainment will ensure your spiritual poverty. Not having devotions every morning and not attending church 3 times a week (four if you count Thursday-night “soul-winning”) will mark you as a spiritual slacker deserving only of God’s rebuke and discipline.
You were saved by grace, but kept right with God (and deserving of His blessing) by being continually “on fire” for the Lord and His work.
Even in college I was moving away from this fundamentalist mentality. But ideas and values that take root in our childhood or adolescence are not easily untangled, nor removed. Even in my 40’s and 50’s I struggled with the idea of not doing enough, or, even, not being enough. If my kids made bad choices it was, partly at least, because I had not done enough to guide them. If we had financial problems it was because I had not done enough to ensure God’s blessing. And if the church struggled or lost members it was definitely my fault: I did not pray often enough, lead well enough, or preach good enough.
Yes, I taught and preached the idea of grace. But I did not, at least in this aspect, live in it.
Strangely, it was the death of our son that yanked out the last roots of that way of thinking. I was not a perfect parent, of course. Who is? But, as much as any person can evaluate themselves, I can say this: I was a very good Father to Joe. Obviously there are things I wish I would have done differently. But I was never harsh, never hypocritical, never false with him. I showed him love and acceptance and kindness, and tried to provide a model of Christian living.
And yet, he still made some poor choices. And yet, he still developed a severe case of Schizophrenia. And yet, he still chose to end his pain by taking his own life.
He did not deserve this. Amy and I did not deserve the pain and such deep, deep grief, nor did his sisters. But it happened.
Nor did I deserve cancer, or my persistent back pain. Or many of the other problems large and small Amy and I have faced over the years.
But . . . neither did we deserve all the blessings we have received.
We do not deserve to have the wonderful marriage that God has blessed us with. We do not deserve the lovely church family we are part of. We do not deserve to be born in the United States, with all its incredible privileges. We do not deserve our wonderful daughters and their families. And we certainly do not deserve the greatest gift of all: salvation and grace through Jesus Christ. Forgiveness and salvation are gifts from a Father, not paychecks from an employer. Psalm 103 again:
8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
And, sitting on this deck, I am reminded that we do not deserve this Grace Trip. We do not deserve to be able to visit Istanbul, Ephesus, Patmos, Athens and so many other amazing places. We do not deserve to be cruising the Aegean on a lovely ship, with such amazing food and service.
I left my fundamentalist heritage for many reasons. The catalyst was seeing and understanding how deeply scripture was misapplied or abused in order to reinforce the fundamentalist viewpoint. That was relatively easy for me to figure out and name. But the mindset that went with that, the mindset of guilt, performance, deservedness and spiritual anxiety….well that mindset had settled into my heart, not just my mind, and took many decades (and a shock to the system) for me to really recognize its perverseness.
To be frank, I suppose I will always wrestle with this a bit. But sitting on the deck of this grace-ship, in the middle of this Grace-Trip, I am not fighting back tears of regret or self-reproach, but tears of gratitude. Gratitude for all the wonderful things we have seen and experienced this last week. But also gratitude for the fact that this Grace-trip is a sign and symbol of God’s gracious blessing in all of our life-journey, which is bountiful and free, and not helped or hindered by whether I deserve it or not.
Yes, bad and painful things happen on this life-journey. But I know that God is not punishing me, but grieving with me.
In all their distress he too was distressed (Isaiah 63:9).
For those in Christ, this is our new reality: we now longer live in Karma-town, but in Graceland. Our goal is not to earn God’s favor or God’s blessing, or to earn anything. It is to receive His love and grace as pure gift, and then simply to seek to pass this gift along to others in whatever form we can.
Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.
And thank God for that.
Let me close with some pictures from the last few days:
Thank you for this beautiful picture of grace. I am so glad that you two are able to have this time together and also for your own personal journey. We are so blessed to have a Pastor that is so open to share the ups and downs and the beauty of life!
Amen to this, Daniel! The fundamentalist mindset does terrible spiritual and emotional damage. It continues to tarnish the Gospel in the eyes of the world — and it's so difficult to get free from!
So glad the two of you are having such a marvelous time!