Becoming Our True Selves: Purgatory

Convergence. Today provides and interesting convergence. The biblical texts that are being read today all over the world are about the declaration of Jesus as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world – and then called his disciples to come help him do it. The Old Testament passage refers to a passage where Isaiah feels discouraged in his work as a prophet of God. Psalm 40 is a song of deliverance and hope. We are in part three of a four-part series journeying through Dante’s Divine Comedy with the help of Martha Beck’s wisdom from her book The Way of Integrity, which is about becoming our True Selves. And all this lands on the weekend here in the United States when we remember, celebrate and recommit to the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. What fun!

Snake Oil? My doctoral work had me take a deep dive into the Gospel of John as I plumbed the depths of Soteriology – the study of salvation. I was at my wits end as a pastor, feeling like a snake oil salesman pitching a potion promising heaven. My Doctor of Ministry degree program gave me the opportunity to discover the incredible depths and beauty of what God was trying to do in the world and for the world God created, loves, and believes to be very good. Part of my struggle was that the classic understanding of Jesus’ life and death boiled down to his death on the cross as a sacrifice for sins, appeasing God’s wrath so that we are assured heaven. That’s the snake oil potion – drink that Kool-aide and go to heaven. Taking a comprehensive look at Jesus’ life, ministry, and teachings, however, made it obvious to me that while God’s grace was certainly central for him, penal substitutionary atonement was not. Richard Rohr has noted multiple times that John’s declaration of Jesus as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world is singular, not plural. Jesus came to address the sin of the world, not to atone for the billions of daily sins by becoming a final sacrifice (that idea developed much later). So, we’re talking about the sin of the world. The error of the world, the off-the-mark condition of the world, the something-is-off of the world. The world, apparently, had adopted a storyline that wasn’t right which was leading to a lot of pain and suffering. The world was believing a story that was a lie, which led it into darkness – a collective Dark Wood of Error. That lie needed to be seen for what it was – a trip through the Inferno was necessary, which is what Jesus was doing as a beacon of Light in the world. Purgatory ensued as well, even as he continued to help those in the Dark Wood make their way in and through their respective Infernos.

Lamb of God. This week a scholar pointed out something completely obvious that had escaped my attention – something that never struck me before. Lambs were never a symbol for sacrifice. Goats, sheep, bulls, and birds, yes. But not lambs. More specifically, considering the overall context of Jesus as a Jewish man living in the first century CE, and because of multiple related references, we can view Jesus as a Passover Lamb. Not a lamb that was killed to forgive sin, but a lamb whose death paved the way for exodus – a people living in bondage freed to new life. A people stuck in the Dark Wood of Error, recognizing their suffering, now being liberated to a new chapter. Jesus was the agent who guided people from the Dark Wood, through the Inferno, up through Purgatory, enroute to Paradise. He invited and taught his disciples to do the same. The Spirit of God is still inviting and teaching followers to carry out the same mission.

Climbing Up Purgatory. Dante’s Purgatory is a mirror image of the Inferno. Whereas the Inferno began with minor, innocent mistakes and descended to the most grievous errors of righteousness (liars), Purgatory begins with the steepest grades, the hardest climb at the beginning, with the ascent getting easier as it gains elevation. What is purgatory? This part of the human journey is when we begin to purge ourselves of the lie-based stories we’ve been living with. We purge-a-story that needs to be replaced by truth. Purging such stories is not easy – we face internal struggle and external pressures to keep the lie alive and in place. Purgatory is where we learn to live in truth, which can be very difficult at first, because we’ve grown used to living the lie.

Integrity and True Selves. The point of Purgatory is to help climbers become their True Selves, to live in the Way of Integrity: to know what you really know, feel what you really feel, say what you really mean, and do what you really want. The salvation offered by God expressed through Jesus is not merely one of declaring that you are saved from the Inferno, but that you are meant to be a new creation. Different than you once were. To be Christian is to be forever becoming, forever learning to walk in the Way of the Spirit, which yields the richest, deepest, and most meaningful life possible. This is no self-centered, hedonistic life – that kind of paradigm is not born of the Spirit. Just the opposite. When we are in lock step with the Spirit, we look more and more like Jesus, one decision at a time. Each decision comes with pushback.

Change Back Attacks. Beck calls the external pressure Change Back Attacks. What she is talking about is a core tenet of systems theory, which contends that systems work very hard to remain intact, so that when a part of the system steps out of line, the rest of the system works to get it back in place to keep the status quo. Martha Beck experienced this quite fully when she committed to going a full year without lying. No lying to herself as much as she was aware. No lying to others. No matter the consequence. Note: she did manage ways around social situations. When someone would ask her how she was doing, instead of offering the culturally appropriate “I’m doing great!”, she instead replied, “I’m a hot mess!”, which would generally be met with a laugh, not any follow up questions. So, she was being truthful. Or she would change the subject and not answer the question. Her truth-telling meant that she could no longer defend positions at BYU she knew to be false – be it doctrinal issues or lies about the Mormon culture that was oppressive toward women and was hiding moral atrocities as is seen in the rest of the global church. Speaking such truth made the headlines – at least in Utah. Her “Way of Integrity” crusade garnered a lot of attention as people found in her wisdom great hope and liberated lives. She was, if I may be so bold (if not just obvious), doing the work of Jesus. And, like Jesus, she experienced similar backlash. The Mormon machine rose against her. Her abusive father denied her accusations and her family denounced her. People appealed to the good work her father had done, and that she should just keep quiet. But to be silent is to lie when silence ultimately perpetuates the deceit. This is purgatory – learning to live in the light of truth. At the beginning of our journey to such new ways of being, the climb is very, very difficult.

Pete’s Purgatory. I can relate a bit to that on a professional level. As I discovered more and more what I believed to be true based on my academic pursuits, I shared more and more, albeit very carefully, yet organically. It has not been easy knowing that what I shared over the years has barbequed one holy cow after another – precious pets of faith – making it painful to stay if you were happy where you were. Many of you who are newer never knew those who once sat in your seats – who paid for your seats. Purgatory is necessary. But Purgatory also really sucks at times. Yet now, 23 years into my role, I can say that while we have new challenges along different lines, the bulk of the theological heavy lifting is likely behind us and affirms something Dante discovered as he made the ascent: it gets easier. I would even go further, echoing from the saints gone before us but also my personal experience: even if persecution returns, it will be easier, too, even if it is severe, because of where I’ve trod to get here.

Stories of Liberation. In her book, Beck offers story after story of people who were in the Dark Wood, went through the Inferno to learn the lies they’d been embracing, and started their way up Purgatory. A man miserable in his military career who stopped believing the lie that he had no choice retired and began new work that gave him joy. A woman who was given a year to live who chose to use her remaining time checking off bucket list items even though she was in great pain. Sharee was ready to take her own life out of great despair. When she took one last moment to reflect, she realized how many lies she had been living with. She marched back into her life and chose to live in truth instead. While it was incredibly difficult, she emerged on the other side healthier, stronger, and happier. Another woman put her life on hold to raise her kids, and felt she could never go after her dreams related to art. That was a lie she believed. Once she saw it, she started the climb up Purge-a-Story and found ways to make her life happen according to the truth.

MLK, Bender. Martin Luther King, Jr., caught the vision and accepted the call to live in truth and help others do the same, which eventually called the entire nation to consider whether it had been living a lie, and whether it would choose to live in truth. What happened when he began shining a light on the acts of racial prejudice with nonviolent protest? Violent Change-Back attacks from law enforcement. What happened when he nonviolently focused that light on the systemic framework that allowed that racial prejudice to perpetuate – the right to vote, the right to ride on any seat in the bus, the right to drink from any water fountain, the right to live in any neighborhood, the right to a good education, the right to military benefits promised to all vets but only given fully to white ones, etc.? Vehement, concerted Change-Back attacks from politicians, police, and the public in the south. Only when the nonviolent protestors were severely beaten crossing the George Pettus Bridge did the hearts of most Americans soften and warm toward the cause. Legislation was passed, and many moves toward true equity have taken place, yet it is a climb that is still wrought with Change-Back attacks. On January 6, a panel of three federal judges ruled that South Carolina’s First Congressional District is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Following the 2020 census, the Republican-dominated legislature moved 62% of the Black voters previously in that district into the Sixth District, turning what had recently been a swing district into a staunchly Republican one that Republican Nancy Mace won in November by 14 percentage points. District Judge Richard M. Gergel said: “If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know someone put it there…. This is not a coincidence.” MLK once quoted another pastor from a century before him that said “the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice”. But it should be noted that it only bends toward justice when those who care about justice do the work of bending, which I believe is born from the heart of God and supported by the Spirit’s power. Jesus was a bender. His followers were benders. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a bender. Martha Beck is a bender. All who strive to follow in Jesus’ footsteps are called to be benders – we cannot help it because we are Light bearers who, when seeing a lie, cannot any longer let it remain so. Beck notes that the most dangerous places for creating change are also the ones where it’s most desperately needed. A friend of mine reflected on it this way:

Martin Luther King Jr. from his speech on February 6, 1968, where he spoke out against the injustice of the Vietnam War:

“On some positions cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it Right? And There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”

This resonates with me on a deep level. Being part of a minority that recently achieved its full natural rights of existence in this country in the last 8 years, I know what it is like to survive by playing it safe, to survive in the politic and to conform to what is popular. To survive meant being in the closet. But it is not enough to just survive. It is not right.

It is through people like Martin Luther King Jr. and those who were drawn to him who stood up for what they believed, to say it is not enough to just survive, but to live fully and respected for who they were as human beings. That was not safe, that was not politic, and that was not popular. But it was right. It is not enough to survive, but to stand up against oppression of not only our neighbors here at home, but of our neighbors across the sea. That was not safe, politic, nor was it popular. But it was right.

It is through people who stood up and asked “is it right?” that darkness has been beaten back to illuminate the humanity of those who were banished from society just for being a different color, a different gender, or a different orientation.

And it is through people like you, who have all gathered here today in remembrance and respect of Martin Luther King Jr. that the torch is once again held high to continue the fight against the dark. And that is Right.

Come and See and Bend. The disciples who accepted Jesus’ invitation were all ordinary, everyday people. They came with varying levels of readiness to embrace what Jesus was doing. His simply invitation was, “Come and see.” Some had more time than others when they heard the invitation. Some were skeptical. Some were deflated. All were invited to come and see. The same is true for us. The Spirit of God meets us in our Dark Wood of Error, guides us down through the revealing Inferno, and leads us to climb toward the heights of purgatory, where we learn to live more and more our True Selves as we purge story after story that is not based in truth. None of the journey is easy. Beck notes that the effort, accordingly to psychologists who study happiness, “puts us into a state called ‘flow.’ As we master it, our brains secrete hormones like dopamine and serotonin, which put us in bliss. It’s human life at its most delicious” (169). Climbing Purge-a-Story is hard, yet so rewarding. So worth it, so liberating, so genuine, so powerful, so life-giving, so impactful, so meaningful, so eternal. This is what living the Way of Integrity offers. This is what we increasingly experience in Becoming Our True Selves.

A man went forth with gifts.

He was a prose poem.
He was a tragic grace.
He was a warm music.

He tried to heal the vivid volcanoes.
His ashes are
reading the world.

His Dream still wishes to anoint
the barricades of faith and of control.

His word still burns the center of the sun
above the thousands and the
hundred thousands.

The word was Justice. It was spoken.

So, it shall be spoken.
So, it shall be done.

+ Gwendolyn Brooks