Somewhere Between Black and White

I know we are told there is a price for sin. There is a cost. But the exchange rate feels a bit like the restaurant Chuck E. Cheese where on this game you pay out one golden token and get two tickets in return, but on this other game you pay out one golden token and the tickets roll out of the machine so fast they fold over themselves into a paper circle on the floor.

I don’t know what to make of sin and how quickly we link it to the words describing God, like wrath and judgement. And we especially link these words if the sinner, as we call them, has put in their golden token (which I suppose is a metaphor for life choices) and racked up an unending stream of tickets that pour out so quickly they wrap around ankles and wrists like some sort of man-eating vine in a moist jungle.

This is quite the opposite of what appeared to happen to her though. Her with her soft skin, delicate features, blond hair and warm coral smile. Her with her quiet confidence. She got pregnant young, young and unmarried and her daddy was a pastor of a church, and in our Christian world it is hard to lead a church if you can’t lead your own offspring in the way they should go. At least this is what people whispered, as they tried to make sense of it.

I wasn’t up close in their lives. I did not know the rhythms and the history. I watched from a distance, albeit a closer distance than some, since my husband was a church staff member. But I watched with intensity and I felt my own sin more heavily than usual, because it’s always easier to cast stones, and I wanted to be sure my palms were empty and my fingers unclenched.

Where is the manual on how one goes about breaking such news to a body that believes they stand on rules that should not be broken? And where is the manual that shows a daughter and her boyfriend how to confess to this Daddy-Pastor in the face of all the what-ifs? We stumble through pieces of life, such as these. But this family, they seemed to carry it out all in stride, as if they had time to rehearse beforehand.

I listened to the questions those around me were asking as the news leaked out. Should we throw a baby shower for her, or is that condoning her behavior? Should she have to confess before the church body? Should there have been stricter rules enforced in her dating life? Should her father have to step down from his leadership position? She should be ashamed of what she has put her family through. Shouldn’t there be some sort of punishment? Isn’t the road she is going to have to walk as a young mom punishment enough?

I took my own questions to a little green stenography pad, and wondered why this was affecting me so much. And still, to this day, I can remember the torment it caused me as I pushed pen to paper. The baby beginnings of questioning the blackness and whiteness of my beliefs. The baby beginnings of discovering the messy middle between black and white, which my friend calls “gray(ce).”

I wrote down my questions as I watched the details all play out. Why are some sins more scandalous than others? How do we know if someone has repented? How do we know if someone is truly sorry? Does it matter? Do we treat people differently after they have sinned? What if they don’t have remorse for what they’ve done? Do we withhold friendship as a punishment? And if so, for how long? When is it okay to smile and say we love you again? When is doing so saying I approve of what you’ve done? Is there some magical amount of time that must pass before life can go on and we can stop holding our breaths and wondering if they are going to get what they deserve? What do they deserve? What do I deserve?

I remember we spent a couple hours with them one day, this couple that had decided, with the Pastor-Daddy’s consent, to get married right away. I remember how I felt as if I should have some profound piece of wisdom for them. I should say something to acknowledge their sin and extend my forgiveness. Instead, I remember walking around the park that day and thinking, “They are going to be fine. Just fine. They don’t need me.”

Somehow they managed to put their golden token into the sex before marriage slot, and they emerged on the other side with a mere one ticket to show for it. No man-eating vine emerged to devour them. They were in love. They were committed to each other. They had the support of family. They were owning their choice and it made the rest of us with a black and white religion scratch our heads and wonder, should we somehow make it harder for them? Shouldn’t there be some rougher consequence?

They were so young, and so beautiful, and I can’t help but wonder if over half of us weren’t just flat out jealous of the picturesque life they were creating. If they didn’t somehow in all their out loud living make us feel a bit cob-webbed and crippled beneath our legalism. How could light exude so warmly from their fingertips, as if everything they touched turned golden? They, the ones with the red-letter on their chests.

And how could I spend so much time considering what to do with their sin, and so little time setting myself free from my own?