Living in the Gray

Romans 8:14-17 New International Version (NIV)

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

During the course of last week, one of my college friends posted this question on Facebook, “Is it possible to be too nice?”  I took the bait and answered the question.  However, the question quickly become more difficult to answer than I thought.  At first, I thought that the answer is absolutely no, that it is impossible to be too nice.  Scripture tells us to “turn the other cheek” and to continually give of ourselves for the sake of others.  So no, you cannot be too nice, plain and simple.  As I started to type my reply, I began to think “but what if your niceness leads to someone taking advantage of you...” So, my response had to include a warning about that.  My next thought was “but what if your niceness leads to someone in your family being hurt?”  Again, my response had to include a warning to always be aware of the situation to protect your family.  An answer that seemed  so simple to begin with quickly become nearly too difficult to tackle.  Answering that question lead me to another thought and, as you can see, it was the source for today’s message for Pentecost Sunday.

Ultimately this was the response that I came up with: so much of life is lived in the gray areas. What I mean by that is that we so badly want black and white, clear-cut answers and in most of life's situations those answers simply do not exist. Can someone be too nice to the point they are taken advantage of? Yes. Can we help others that we chose not to help for fear of being taken advantage of? Most definitely. Personally, I try to do my best to be nice but we must always be aware. I will be nice as long as my family is not put in harm's way by me doing so. Clear as mud probably. Error on the side of empathy and understanding with a watchful eye on the negative effects.  There was a phrase in my response that is still with me, “so much of life is lived in the gray areas.”  Coincidentally, I came across an online article with a heading that says, “You have to really kind of embrace the complexity, the gray areas and the nuance and make decisions not just on a basis of a party affiliation but using discernment, wisdom and really submitting every decision to the filter of the Holy Spirit.”  Wait, what?!  This is a quote from Joshua DuBois, who was the head of the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the Obama Administration.  After these two things happening in the course of a couple days, I knew I had to tackle the gray areas of life.  

 “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.”  We so badly want certain things to be absolutes.  Life would be so much easier if we could just live by a set of absolutes.  But the beauty of life is that we don’t have to.  We want things to be absolute when they benefit us but don’t want them when they would benefit someone we do not agree with.  Absolutes are great until we don’t agree with them.  I live my life according to some absolutes and truths but even those mean something different to someone else.  I know God loves me.  I know Jesus died for my sins.  I know that God loved me so much that He not only adopted me but He made me a co-heir with Christ by bringing me into sonship with him.  I believe that this sort of “legal” daughter and sonship relationship is available to all but not everyone seeks it.  These are just a few of the truths and absolutes I live by.  While you may agree with some of them, how you apply them and incorporate them into your life may be so incredible different.  Perhaps, you don’t agree with them at all.  That’s fine.  The point here is that so much of life is lived in the gray.  We probably more closely identify with one political party over the other but the leaders of either party probably do not fully represent your beliefs.

Perhaps, the Holy Spirit is one of the grayest gray areas in our faith.  Its role is so often looked at with doubt and question.  Some may even look at our interaction with the Spirit with fear and hesitancy.  We will get the question “Why do you get to hear God speak but I don’t?”  We may also hear, “Does God love you more than He does me?”  The Holy Spirit and our interaction with it is difficult for us to understand let alone describe to someone else.  The Holy Spirit, worship, the Trinity, prayer, faith, and politics all of these are polarizing and can be divisive if we allow them to be.  We not only believe that what we think is right but we feel that it has to be in the deepest depths of who we are.  For if something we believe and have lived by all our lives isn’t true then we are completely shaken and broken.  It may mean that a part of our foundation, a core belief of ours, may need repaired.  We are so scared to examine a differing thought and opinion because that may mean that a way of life may be wrong or need adjusted.  And we can’t have that.  It is fear that drives that thought.  Fear.  We let an emotion that is irrational 99% of the time rule us and help us make decisions.  Fear is paralyzing.  It destroys.  Paul makes clear that our relationship with God is not one based on fear.  God did not send the Spirit to descend upon us as something to fear.  It was given as a gift so that we can know that we are God’s children.           

Jesus operated in the gray areas.  He helped those who others did not want to help.  He helped them on days he wasn’t supposed to help them.  Was Jesus God?  Was he man?  Which one was he more of?  Definity a gray area.  Why do I feel like God has abandoned me?  Why do I feel like God has blessed me?  Gray area.  Why are some churches thriving while others are dying?  Why does it seem like the Spirit listens to you but not me?  Gray area.  Why does a family who desperately wants children cannot have them while another family easily has children?  Gray area.  Why are your children healthy while others battle for their lives?  Gray  area.  Why did my family member parish in that accident while yours lived? Gray area.  Why does life seem so simple for others and so difficult for me or my loved one?  Gray area.  Did Jesus feed the 5,000? Walk on water?  Turn water to wine?  Raise Lazarus from the dead?  Gray areas.  As Christians, these gray areas are our callings.  God pushes us into these areas to offer light and understanding.  We hate thinking about faith without the boundaries of black and white.  We have difficulty imagining blurred edges instead of clean and perfect boundaries.  

We must live and minister in the gray areas.  We have to because when we don’t, when we think our way is the only correct way and that means we are only ministering to one person.  Yourself.  What you define as black and white only defines you.  That is a party of one because no one else thinks the exact same way.  When we operate our ministries into the gray areas we open the doors to help many others.  When we operate in the gray, we let others know that they are not alone.  We do not polarize and marginalize when we live in the gray.  We unify, lift up, empathize and understand just as God has commissioned us to do.  Verse 17: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”  Part of our sufferings may indeed mean a fluid, dynamic and constant re-evaluation of faith.  Part of our sufferings may indeed mean sacrificing the comfort of black and white for the benefit of others found by living in the gray. Amen.