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2007-06-19 issue:

Waves of guilt

From the Grace and Truth column

by Anne Stuckey

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Sitting on the seashore, I watch the waves struggle time and again to reach an unseen goal. It is as if they gather their strength and plunge toward the shore only to fall short. Then needing to retreat, they run back into the ocean and prepare to try again. There are times when the next attempt carries even less energy than the previous one and the water does not even come close to the mark that it set before. Other times some unseen force from farther out at sea adds mass and impetus to the wave, pushing it to new lengths. Succeeding beyond any previous mark, waders are shocked by their wet feet and now wet pant legs as well.



Lest you think my understanding of physics is lacking, I admit that my observation does not come anywhere close to the real explanation behind the motion of waves. However, I find myself identifying with the constant effort of the waves to reach their goal. For even when a wave reaches that high-water mark, it still retreats to try again. The water doesn’t seem to be able to relax and just coast along. And I see that same pattern within myself.

I remember being attracted to the Mennonite church because it felt different from the Baptist community of faith I had known. Growing up, I listened to the sermon and experienced new guilt every Sunday when confronted by the fact that once again I had sinned that week and was in need of repentance. As regular as the waves rushing to the shore was the weekly rush to my knees Sunday after Sunday, asking for God’s forgiveness. Sometimes the sins I named were not so great, but on other Sundays I knew I had gone astray that week and needed to try harder the next week to be good.

The Mennonites didn’t seem to doubt their salvation nearly so much as I did. I liked that. When you are sure of your salvation, you can move on to discipleship. It was such a welcome relief for me to move out of the weekly wave of guilt and embrace a new call. However, some 30 years later, I now understand that the waves of guilt still crash on the shore for us Mennonites as well. Instead of doubting that God could love us enough to save us, we doubt we are doing enough for God to save us. We don’t give enough to the church or volunteer for the right causes. We fear we will fail when carrying those who are struggling or will fail to protest injustice in this world loudly enough. Somehow we still miss God’s high-water mark and fall short of that unseen goal.

So if guilt is not denominationally specific, how do we as God’s children handle the waves of guilt that keep returning to our shores? Is guilt a motivator for good or something that forces us to act simply out of our duty to Christ? Usually I believe it is both. But I have to listen to God’s Spirit within me to hear a voice truer than my sense of guilt. If I act repeatedly out of duty, that is a signal to me that I have lost my connection to God. There is no joy in my salvation when I put my head down and simply push forward doing what I have to do.

Instead of willfully working onward, I have to retreat to God’s ocean of quiet to find those reserves waiting for me in the depths. I have found that when I retreat I become reacquainted with what God wants me to be. And I make new connections with who God has made me to be. As Paul teaches the Ephesians, “for we are what he has made us,” which follows right after a plea to recognize that our salvation is not of our own doing but is the gift of God and not the result of all that we do (Ephesians 2:8-10). It is a lesson to be learned over and over again.

Anne Stuckey was associate pastor at Zion Mennonite Church in Archbold, Ohio, when she died in a car accident on May 31 (see story).

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