No Record of Wrongs & The Blues

I went to my buddy's wedding last night. It was a wonderful ceremony. Not long, sentimental, or sappy. Short, sweet. Both Bride and Groom are straight-talkers, so the ceremony had a certain uncensored quality. And that was even before the bar opened for business!  

1 Corinthians 13, as is fairly typical, was recited. So easy to read, so hard to do. The routine of the verses obscures the challenges. Reminds me when I visited Colorado a while back. The first week, I was astounded by the Rocky Mountains. The second week I had acclimated to the scenery and it was the new normal. I remember lifting weights in a Gold's Gym in Denver with the peaks in the background.  Ho-Hum. One more rep.

Hearing 1st Corinthians is truly majestic. In our familiarity of knowing it, it is diminished. Like climbing to the apex is difficult, seeing it, observing it, looking at it, is not the hard task. Doing it is the challenge. In Colorado, I climbed Mt. James with two YMCA staffers on what was termed an "advanced hike" and it was a tough go.

And the marriage mountain is a rough climb for many in light of the standard of 1 Cor 13. When the pastor read the verses, the line "Keeps no records of wrong" stuck with me. Not sure why this seemed to be what stood out. Probably because I struggle with it.

I departed the wedding at 9:30. It had started at 5:00 and I really had no desire to dance late into the night. So, soon after smoking a cigar with the groom outside in 20 degrees, I headed back home. On my car radio during the drive to my house, I was listening to a Blues show on WXPN.

WXPN is a public radio music station affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. It is truly a national treasure of music, escaping the trap of the Top 40. The app is available in the App Store.I like Blues music, what I don't like is the "My baby had done my wrong" repetition. Every song. The same old tune. There is no surprise. Lacks suspense.

Today I imagined the "Keeps no records of wrong" along with the Blues songs on WXPN, many of them on vinyl, and I saw a box of dusty old records, where the sad lyrics and music gets slapped on the turntable and is played over and over again, getting scratchier. I suppose it is wise to hold onto our memories, good and bad. Remembrance in the right spirit doesn't always have to be sunny. We learn a lot from our dark days. We just shouldn't live there.  

Where it gets unhealthy, is a pervasive focus on the past, trying to live backwards where the world is instead is a one way street to the future. Like that record spinning forward. We let go because we really can't do a whole lot about what has happened. A slaking from the past brook of sorrow doesn't satiate.  

I was reading this week pretty intently in Acts 24. The Apostle Paul has been imprisoned by the Jewish religious leaders in cahoot with the Romans, a repetition of that unholy alliance which offed Jesus. Paul, in reasoning with Felix and the authorities, speaks of his clear conscience as well as the reality of the resurrection of the dead, both the good and the bad, in the Day of Judgment. Making the present trial of sorts look rather silly. Felix starts to freak out.    

We can trust that when we keep no records of wrongs that the wrongs do not disappear. We can trust that God will recompense so we don't have to. We don't do record-keeping of wrong well, particularly the wrong that we do. Our record keeping of others wrongs is not measured, it is self-righteous, it lacks charity, it is vengeful.

Better to think about how charitable God has been to us in our sin and blindness. That is the one record that we need to listen to, over and over again. That song never gets old.