Embracing Paradox: Good News for Leslie

• Introduction
  The last time I spoke to, you at the beginning of the semester, I talked to you about a kind of paradox, "To See But Not to See." I confess you will likely hear me say much about this theme over the months and years because I believe that learning to grapple with complexity and ambiguity and apparent paradox is perhaps the single most essential element of a liberal arts education. So today I would like to talk about paradox again. This time it is about the absolutely mysterious, often scandalous, but wonderfully life-giving paradox of grace. I had originally intended to talk to you about my philosophy of education; to talk about the role of stretching ourselves intellectually, morally, and spiritually in order to grow. But then I met Leslie.


• Leslie's Story
  It was a very long day for me last Friday. It started early - at 6:30 in the mountain valley of Kelowna British Columbia. I ate breakfast with friends, behind broad picture windows looking out at what could have been a scene from a fantasy movie. The snow capped Canadian Rockies plunged down to the mirror surface of Lake Okanaga. The sky was overcast and lower clouds hung secretly in mountain passes, occasionally laying fingers on the lake. The geese drew V-shapes on the surface as they paddled silently within our view. But twelve hours later, the serenity and majesty had given way to exhaustion as I boarded the third flight of the day, this one from Detroit to St. Louis. I knew that even the hour long flight would still leave me another hours drive before I laid my head down in Joy House just a block from where I stand. When a fellow passenger noted that she was tired - having traveled already for 12 hours from Amsterdam - I marveled at just how far way British Columbia is from Greenville.

I first noticed Leslie as the flight attendants prepared to close the door and I heard a loud raspy female voice demanding that the pilot give us an update on the MSU/Oklahoma basketball score. She was a trim, blond dressed in jeans and turtleneck, sporting a big green SPARTAN button. She was missing the game, and obviously not happy about it all since apparently her sole purpose in making the trip was to cheer for her team. But apparently during her delay, she'd ended up in an airport bar with a wrestling team also coming to St. Louis, and it didn't take anyone on the plane long to figure out she was now very drunk and very loud. The flight attendant had threatened to throw her off the plane if she didn't behave. She had apparently agreed, but it obviously wasn't going to be easy.

As luck - or providence - would have it, she sat in the aisle seat across from my aisle seat, but just one row back. The wrestler behind me, and across from her, noted that once she settled into her seat she immediately began to read a Bible and he inquired if she were religious. Wrong question! "No, I am not religious! No, I am not Christian! No, I am not Catholic, nor Protestant or anything else. I'm just a godly woman!" When Jason pressed her - you see we got to know one another quite well - alluding to her drunken state and foul mouth, she made things much clearer - AND much louder. "This Bible is the Word of God - yes the very Word of God - yes He wrote it - I believe this [slapping the Bible]…only this - and I base my life on it. Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins and boy [she actually used significantly stronger language during the whole flight in fact] boy do I ever have a lot of them in my life. Religious people are always telling me I should get down on my knees and thank God for all the suffering in my life. But my God isn't like that. He was sad about all my suffering."

For the next hour's flight, her story emerged ... for everyone to hear whether they listened or not. Leslie was 36 years old, apparently a kindergarten teacher in a Michigan inner city school. Apparently the daughter of missionaries in the Far East, she is headed this coming Saturday to Russia to assist in translation for the pickup of adoptive children coming to families in the U.S. She knew suffering she said and didn't think a lot of blankety blank religious people did. "Have they ever been hit twice by blankety blank drunk drivers and left likely never to walk again? Have they ever had a blankety blank loaded gun stuck in their mouth? Have they ever been blankety raped? Have they ever had their school kids pulled from closets where they'd been locked for days only to be hung to death by blankety blank parents too high on cocaine to know the blankety difference?"

To these amazing stories - told I must say with the almost indubitable truth of the very drunk - she added two more. Had those blankety blank religious people ever known about these? "Have they ever traded seats so a family could sit together in the row in front of her on a flight years back then when the plane crashed watched the family die before her eyes while she just walked out of the plane into an Iowa cornfield?"

But one last story obviously hurt the most. Thirteen years before, she and her college fiance had been planning their December wedding. They had never argued before, but now were disagreeing about what flowers to use. He wanted roses, but she loved daisies. She insisted, "I've compromised enough, I want daisies." He left to drive around and cool off, saying he just might not come back. She said, "OK, so what do I care." Three hours later, police informed her he had been found dying in an auto wreck, whispering her name and address. She announced to everyone on the plane that she has regretted those 6 words every day for the last 13 years and she can never love that way again?

Leslie reported that her counselor - in her shoes who wouldn't have one? - told her she was bitter. She was also obviously angry, no doubt an outward defense against deep inner pain. But religious Christians told her suicide was a sin. She told them she didn't believe that blankety blank. Her God understood that you just wanted the hurt to stop." To be fair, Leslie admitted that perhaps the suffering of the other women in her Bible Study Fellowship might actually be more substantial than just the petty whining it appeared to be. But she just wished they wouldn't keep telling her to rejoice.

The conversation was not one sided. First Leslie asked her seatmate - who turned out to be Katie, eagerly waiting to meet her boyfriend at the airport in St. Louis - what Katie thought about the Bible. Katie answered that it was God's Word - that she'd learned that in her Catholic confirmation classes. But finally, when pressed, in a quiet voice, Katie shared that she trusted Christ as her savior. Intermixed with all her stories, and periodic whoops when the pilot reported the MSU score - Leslie interrogated the wrestler Jason behind me too. "What do you believe?" He said he was a Christian, to which she replied in a tone of voice with the controlled surgical precision of a theology professor or a very smart atheist ... "and what does that mean?" Big wrestler Jason replied, "Jesus is God and died for my sins." Leslie was impressed! And so was I!

Inevitably, Leslie noticed me. I had been writing cards - listening over my shoulder. She commented on my handwriting; "You write beautifully. I've taught school for 12 years and there's no way I could ever write that beautifully. Would you write me a note?" I said I would - later. But she went on; "I noticed you were interested in our conversation back here. What do you believe?" Leslie is not only drunk; she is very smart and very perceptive. I told her that trusting and following Jesus was the most important thing in my life and that there is nothing we can do to deserve His love. Leslie agreed; "God accepts me where I am and takes me from there." Christ died on the cross because people make mistakes. And He is sad at suffering. All those blankety blank religious people who try to act good and tell me to rejoice in my suffering will just burn in blankety blank hell."

• Scripture
  Listening to Leslie, I was overwhelmed by the incredible mystery and paradox of Gods grace. Leslie was deeply troubled. Leslie's life seemed seriously fouled up ... although she used a different word for it. Leslie was from a different world from my own, and perhaps from your own; perhaps a different "tribe," perhaps almost a different "race." But Leslie threw herself entirely on God's mercy and grace - in desperation and pain. I could picture the Samaritan woman encountering Jesus, that man from another tribe, at the well in John chapter 4. I could picture the adulteress, brought to Jesus by the legalists in John chapter 8. Jesus did not accuse or point his finger at either woman. His response was Good News to them! But his response was a stumbling block to the religious people (I Cor. 1:23). Grace is just not fair.

Now of course we do not sin that grace may abound. But the Bible says, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5). The Bible says, "For by grace are ye saved, through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast." (Eph. 2). And in case anybody dares to respond that while salvation is by grace, continued growth and holiness is by works, Paul retorts calling the Galatians "idiots" for supposing that "we begin in the spirit but end in the flesh" (Gal 3:1) angrily concluding that anyone who insists on the way of doing good works, should be emasculated! (Gal 5:11). Wouldn't you love to hear Paul and Leslie have a chat? They might just get along!

What paradoxically Good News this message must have been to sinners. What an affront and scandal it must have been to the religious. Grace, especially extended to others, is just not fair. How does it make YOU feel?

• Parks
  A friend of mine, Sharon Parks, formerly at the John F. Kennedy School of government at Harvard, says, "true religion is paradoxical." It captures tragedy and hope in one swoop ... maybe a little like the dissonance of blues music or the novels of black women such as Mildred Taylor.

First, faith embraces and sorts out dissonance, using imagination to stand in another's shoes - even a prostitute's shoes, or Leslie's shoes. At the close of a week on racial reconciliation do you exercise imagination to stand in another's shoes? In a place like Greenville, where disagreement is the fuel of discovery, do you push for closure or patiently imagine new approaches?

Second, faith also expands our boundaries, using courage to include those outside our tribe, outside our race, gentiles, Samaritans, even drunken fellow airplane passengers. At the close of a week on racial reconciliation do you exercise courage to expand your boundaries of friendship and acceptance? When you encounter religious and cultural diversity, even here on campus, do you exercise courage to consider alternative ways of thinking or do you hide defensively behind lines drawn in the sand and behind your own way of doing things? Grappling with the paradox of grace requires profound imagination and courage.

• Liberal Arts
  So now that I think of it, I suppose in the end this is a talk about my philosophy of education. I suppose it is about liberal arts as liberating arts. Because it is about Good News that releases captives, gives sight to the blind, and liberty to those who suffer ... even to Leslie. The paradox is that liberation can be a stumbling block today even as it was so many years ago.


• My Note
  As our plane dropped into St. Louis last Friday night, I handed Leslie the note I had promised her and asked her not to read it until she was at home ... and sober I hoped. It said,

  Dear Leslie,
  You wanted me to write you a note. Here it is. (Smiley face). I'm so glad you believe the Bible is God's Word and I hope you keep reading it and reading it and reading it. I'm sorry your life has been so full of suffering and that so many of us who say we follow Jesus are such legalists & hypocrites. But I can't agree with you more that Jesus accepts us just where we are and wants us to draw nearer to Him. Leslie, there is nothing you can do to make Him love you any more OR any less than He already does. I stake my life on that. I hope you will see Him more clearly every day. Jim

  I don't know what will happen to Leslie. She is struggling like the rest of us to embrace the paradox of God's grace.

Dr. V. James Mannoia, Jr.