Got that naughty-or-nice list out? Ready to keep score? After all, Christmas is only a few weeks away.
How about doing something revolutionary this Christmas season? How about replacing that naughty-or-nice list on the refrigerator with something else? Why not place a portrait of Johann von Staupitz there instead?
Johann who?
Okay, I admit, I thought of Staupitz because he popped up in a lesson I taught in my theology class at Campbellsville University. You will be hard-pressed to find a picture of him in a Christmas store, or any retail business, for that matter. That’s because he was an Augustinian monk in the 16th century. So, what could a 16th-century monk teach us about Christmas?
Staupitz was an Augustinian Superior when he met a younger monk named Martin Luther, who was plagued by doubt and spent hours confessing every detail of his shortcomings to Staupitz. I can imagine Staupitz saying to himself as Luther beat a path to the confessional, “Oh no, not him again.”
Finally, Staupitz told Luther to go and not come back until he had some real sins to confess.
What Staupitz said was profound. And though I’m sure Christmas wasn’t on his mind when he spoke those words, they make sense during this holiday season.
He was not encouraging Luther to go and sin BIG. Instead, he was trying to bring Luther to a point of recognition. Staupitz was attempting to get Luther to see what all of us must see, if we genuinely want peace with ourselves and God.
Staupitz was telling Luther, in so many words, that he couldn’t know the grace of God, the immensity of His forgiveness, until he had come to the end of himself, that in the game of life, played with the moral code of conduct, he had lost.
It’s true for all of us. We are beyond hope if we believe our good behavior is good enough. We’re like Uriah Heep, in Charles Dickens’ novel, David Copperfield, who saw himself as “the principal object of merit in a highly meritorious museum.”
If we only know God as the rewarder of our good deeds, we don’t really know God. It is only when we have failed, truly come up short in the game of moral acceptance, and let God embrace us in his loving arms despite being the miserable wretches that we are, that we know the mercy of God.
Jesus painted the picture for his own disciples, recorded by Luke. Jesus told the story of a Pharisee and a tax collector who both went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prayed, thanking God that, unlike the ordinary sinners, the losers, he was a champion of moral performance. He was, therefore, in his mind, worthy of good things, since he had set the curve for the naughty-or-nice list.
Then Jesus described how the tax collector prayed a simple prayer: “God, have mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.”
And surprise: It was the sinner, the tax collector, whom Jesus said was justified.
By losing, the tax collector had won, shooting to the top of the list with a perfect score, by God’s grace.
It’s when we recognize that we are losers in the game of moral performance that we can find mercy.
It might be worth thinking of that as we look to Christmas. Before we immerse ourselves in gift-giving and getting, and use Santa’s list as a referee to keep our children’s behavior (and our own) in check, we might want to remember that the reason Jesus came was that we have all failed, and will continue to fail. We need a Savior, and He had to come to us before we could make our way to Him, with our measly lists of good deeds in hand.
God came to us where we are: in a manger, in the filth of a barn reeking of hay dust and cow manure. Jesus said, “Come to me, just as you are, lowly sinner.”
Christmas doesn’t come by gaining a perfect score on the naughty-or-nice list.
It comes by the grace of God.
That’s what Staupitz was trying to say.
Now, I wonder how his picture would look on my refrigerator?