Boudreaux Goes Fishing

Well -- there’s that word that along with “so” is a plebeianizing non-starter -- upon my walking outside for Linda’s PCNH a few minutes ago, the back porch thermometer read 62F. Humidity 92%. A perfect morning for the first-of-spring sit-down on one of the screen porches to scan the news, read email, and blog. But I’ll do it here in my chair. It’s a lift-chair. We bought it for mama for her 98th birthday and she never could learn how to use it. It’s my chair now. The name of the color is “admiral blue” and my best bet for admiral anymore is sit-on-it.   

Lent is at hand for self-examination and repentance. That’s the theme of Lent. Repent doesn’t mean you’re sorry, it means turn and go the opposite way. From the way of sin and death to the way of righteousness and life. Repent is like love and forgiveness, repent is not a feeling, it doesn’t matter a dandelion how you feel, it’s what you do.

Thirty years ago when we arrived in Apalachicola I found in the window of the acolytes’ vesting room some old mite boxes. For sacrifice, we Episcopalians used to use a mite box every year during Lent: drop a coin in the box every day, then Easter morning in church “fill a cross” with mite boxes. The money went to whatever project the church named that year, here for example is a blue United Thank Offering mite box,

 and there were some of those in that window. But the mite boxes in the window that caught my eye were red and white, and proclaiming the message, “Love is not a feeling. Love is how you treat other people.” Seems to me the “cause” was our Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief. “Love is not a feeling. Love is how you treat other people.”

That’s also true about repentance. And about forgiveness, which is also a theme for Lent. Forgiveness is not a feeling. Forgiveness is what you do regardless of how you feel. 

To illustrate, let’s set up a scenario, and let’s be extreme about it this morning so anyone who reads this gets the picture about forgiveness. Not unspeakably extreme, but moderately so, and realistic for illustration. So (!) here goes. In the more than thirty years I’ve been a priest, half the marriages, half the weddings I’ve officiated, have ended in divorce. That’s par for American life. Let’s say Boudreaux finds out that his wife is having an affair. He is humiliated and enraged. A Southerner, he goes out to his pickup and gets the rifle off the gunrack. Loads it, lays it there on the seat beside him and sets out for the other man’s house. Driving down the highway, he has second thoughts, decides on divorce instead, turns his truck around, goes back home, parks his truck and goes fishing. That’s both repentance (of the evil he thought to do and turned away from, see KJV Exodus 32:14 and Jonah 3:10) and forgiveness (divorce instead of murder). 

It makes no difference to me that some imbecile theologian says, “no, Bubba, that ain’t it.” Besides, I’m not finished with my scenario. Boudreaux goes fishing, still in a rage, angry at his soon to be ex-wife who doesn't yet realize she's been caught, and filled with hatred for the other man who was his best friend. He stays angry and hating, never gets over it. But it’s OK, you see, because forgiveness is not a feeling, it’s something you do. Or decide not to do and do something else instead.

Remember Moses that morning on the mountain with God? Moses gets up early, has his coffee, and goes to his meeting with God. Arriving in the conference room, he finds God stewing in a rage of fury, because the people Moses is leading have, in his absence, melted their jewelry into a golden calf and are worshiping it instead of The Lord. Yahweh is steaming hot and tells Moses, “I’m gonna kill ‘em all, I’m gonna swell up burning hot and incinerate ‘em.” Moses chastises God, shames God into changing his mind. The Bible says “The Lord repented of the evil that he thought to do to his people.” That God changed his mind is the repentance. That He went on as their God and with them as His people is the forgiveness. But it would have been “forgiveness” even if God had angrily told them to go ahead with the golden calf and never speak to Him again.

Here's a catch for argument in Sunday School. It's not forgiveness if Boudreaux decides not to kill the OM simply to keep himself out of prison.  

As with love, forgiveness is not a feeling. It’s what you do. 

Boudreaux comes home, throws the string of catfish down on the front porch, calls his wife out, and says, "Clean 'em, woman, and fry 'em for my supper."

W+