“When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” Matthew 10:19-20
I worry a lot about what the right thing to do or to say in any given situation is. This comes from a few different places; I have an anxiety disorder, and if I worry too much about that, it pops up; I’m a class jumper, first to attend college, let alone have a master’s degree in my family; I am also a religion swapper, no longer a Baptist but an Episcopalian; and I’m the Democratic ‘step-child’ in a family of Republicans and Libertarians. Talk about the American Dream that says, you can be anything you want.
What this means, in real life, is that I spend a lot of time in the borderlands, not completely comfortable in any of these situations. I spend a lot of time checking, where am I? what do we believe here? how do I fit in?
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I always say, an apology is worth a thousand mistakes. Or I would, if I could be as clever on the fly as I am in writing. This doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. In Christianity we get thousands upon thousands of opportunities to apologize. It also means that we get thousands upon thousands of opportunities to get it wrong. And there are thousands upon thousands of opportunities to share forgiveness.
This is the obvious secret of Christianity, and the sticking point, because it’s hard. It’s hard to be wrong, it’s hard to apologize, and it’s hard to forgive. And the message, yeah, so, get over it and get on with it, is the great message of Paul’s ministry. When we get wrapped up in the particulars of what his flock were wrong about, we lose the impossible simplicity of his message.
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