Last night I was watching Superstore on Netflix in bed. It’s a workplace comedy about a motley crew of Cloud 9 (read: Walmart) employees. It’s good. Not great. This is not a recommendation.
Anyway, I’m watching Superstore and the store manager, Glenn, discovers that one of his employees has done something bad. Glenn is jolly, indomitably naive, frustratingly optimistic, and an evangelical Christian. He wants everyone to be good. If he closes his eyes tight enough he can usually convince himself everyone is good. In this episode, however, Glenn is forced by his assistant manager, Dina, to confront the mass brokenness of his co-workers. His response?
Standing in front of his employees gathered in the break room, visibly devastated, Glenn proclaims, “There is something wrong with the souls of the people who work here.”
This, we learn, is why Glenn has invited his pastor to say a few words to his employees (yes, he knows this is totally against the rules). Glenn says to the group, “Dina said people are monsters, and as a Christian I wanted to prove that they weren’t.”
Is Glenn right?
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Over the course of the past ten years or so we Americans have increasingly been made aware of the brokenness of our co-workers—also our neighbors, politicians, ministers, policemen, and (oh, the horror) our grandparents. These people have always been broken; it’s just that thanks to recent events, discussions, news coverage, and Facebook activity, now we know.
Turns out, this country is full of misogynist, racist, greedy, lazy, homophobic, lascivious, anxious, angry, dishonest people.
How does that make you feel?
If you, like Glenn, are feeling shaken, shocked, afraid, or angry, this post is for you.
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I’m reading this book right now, Shakespeare in a Divided America. It’s part history, part literary theory/criticism, part political commentary. It’s better than it sounds.
Anyway, in chapter 3 I read about a feud that led to waves of riots during the 1800s before the Civil War—a feud between actors about how the part of Hamlet should be played. It began with an American actor hissing during a British actor’s performance and ended with the deaths of at least 21 people. 120 were injured.
The whole book reads like this—Americans yelling and fighting and even killing each other over points of niche disagreement. I yell to my husband in the kitchen, “It’s always been like this. Nothing is new.”
There is something wrong with the souls of the people…
King David agrees with me:
God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there is anyone who understands,
Who seeks after God.
Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 53)
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Back to Superstore:
Standing in front of his employees in the break room, visibly devastated, Glenn says, “Dina said people are monsters, and as a Christian I wanted to prove that they weren’t.”
The pastor smiles, puts a hand on Glenn’s back and says these words, words of both correction and comfort:
Actually we Christians believe that all people are sinners—that’s kind of our whole thing.
This is not something Glenn knew.
Looking around today at so many Christians freaking out over the state of the world, so much finger pointing and accusation and fear and anxiety and despair, I suspect it may be something lots of Christians don’t know.
All people are sinners. It’s kind of our whole thing.
Why does it matter that Christians embrace this way of seeing humankind? Why can’t we all be Glenns, happily believing everyone everywhere is basically good?
Maybe it’s good to remember that Glenn isn’t actually happy. He’s angry and scared.
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I remember the moment when my daughter London discovered that even seemingly good people can be bad (do bad?). It was the moment in the movie Frozen when Hans (happy, song-singing, handsome, and gallant Hans) reveals his wicked plan. “Mom,” she said sobbing, “He seemed so nice.” For weeks and weeks she’d be afraid of practically everyone.
Coincidentally, at the same time London was discovering something evil inside herself. One night, tempted to harm her cat, powerfully tempted, foot in the air about to come crushing down, she’d catch herself and melt into a raging river of guilty tears. She said to me, “I’m evil. I always want to do bad things.”
She was seven.
It’s scary to discover you live with monsters—scarier still to discover your own monstrosity.
That night she’d lay in my bed and I’d comfort her with three truths, each at the very heart of the gospel.
You’re not alone.
God gives unlimited grace.
God can make you (and everyone) better.
They’re the most elementary truths of the Christian life. And we forget them (or live in complete opposition to them) all the time.
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The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:22-24
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It’s doesn’t seem comforting to say, “All people are sinners.” Not at first. It feels like doom, like maybe there’s no safe place. But if you believe all three truths together—everyone sins, grace for sinners, a universal promise of righteousness—that first one starts to feel like belonging, like you’re not odd or misshapen or other, just broken in the same way the whole world is broken. And that’s a gift when you look closely at your heart and can’t scrub out the stains.
It’s better to be on a crowded life boat than stranded alone on a raft.
One night my daughter Eve, three at the time, spilled water on her shirt and couldn’t stop crying. “My friends will laugh at me,” she said. I grabbed the water bottle from her hand and poured water on my own shirt, the water turning blue cotton to black. She smiled at my mess and ran off to play.
There’s comfort in shared spills.
That night in bed, when I told London, “I sin, too,” her eyes lit up. We’re alike!
Is that how you feel when you discover a politician’s lied? Is it how you feel when you see friends denying racism? When you find out your cousin’s moving in with her girlfriend? When your neighbor votes whatever way you never would? Do you think, “We’re alike”?
If not, perhaps it’s because you’ve forgotten your own monstrosity.
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London liked learning she wasn’t alone, but that wasn’t near enough to stop the crying. For that, we’d need grace. Buckets of it. Fortunately, grace is free and abundant.
Dallas Willard once said, “Saints burn grace like a 747 burns jet fuel on takeoff.” I tell this to London—that she’ll always need grace and that God will always give it. I read her I John 1:7, “If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” I say, “When you’re walking with God, it’s like you’re always walking under a waterfall.” She draws a picture of herself under a cascade. Smiling.
When I say the thing about abundant and free grace I believe it for myself and for her (she’s such a good child when she’s not being bad). I’m not sure I believe it for everyone. Surely, at some point the grace runs out.
Perhaps this is why I struggle to muster the grace for others that God musters for me—because I think I need less grace than others. My sins are different, smaller, quieter. I am an exception. London is an exception. Some people are exceptions.
I don’t know if there’s grace for the Planned Parenthood doctor or the man who raided the capitol. Is there enough grace for Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump?
But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more… (Romans 5:20)
As grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God… (2 Corinthians 4:15)
He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For you are saved by grace… (Ephesians 2:6-8)
Multiplied, more and more, immeasurable—grace.
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Finally I tell London God will make her better. Eventually He’ll even make her perfect. I say, “God will save you and shape you. He’ll make you like Him—loving, wise, strong, good.” She’s not sure. She feels so broken, so unlike God. But I tell her He’s saved and shaped me, and she thinks this is good proof. She decides I am not at all as bad as she is, and maybe it’s because Jesus helped me. I tell her that’s exactly why.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll let him make me better.” Later that week she’s baptized in a lake.
Six years later she looks more and more like Jesus.
I have seen God change me. I’ve seen grace grow righteousness. I’ve seen changes in my daughter. My friends. Strangers who walked into a church building looking for hope and came out hands full. You’d think I’d trust the promise by now: God can make everyone better.
But I don’t think I do—not in practice.
There are people to whom I don’t preach, people from whom I withhold the good news. There are people I’ve written off as unchangeable, irredeemable, immune to God’s spell.
There’s this line at the start of the movie, The Last of the Mohicans; Daniel Day Lewis’ character (raised by native Americans) says to the polished Englishwoman he’ll eventually fall in love with, “[My father] warned me about people like you… He said ‘Do not try to understand them.’"
The line hit me hard tonight. Over the last few years I’ve watched more and more people give up on trying to understand the people around them. They drop them into boxes and slap on a label, a sin written in Sharpie. That’s who we all are now—defined by our most obvious sins, put away where we can’t harm anybody, put away where we can’t be loved, put away in the dark where nothing really grows.
I don’t want to do that with people. I want to believe they can change. I want to believe God can change them. I want to give the gospel a shot.
I want to try to understand people (a task I suspect won’t be so hard)—because we’re all sinners and we all need grace and we’re all eligible for transformation.
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In that scene in Superstore, the one with Glenn and his pastor standing in front of a crowded room, Glenn is clearly shaken. His voice is high. He’s sweating and yelling. He’s unnerved. He doesn’t smile once. He is all accusation and disappointment.
His pastor though, Pastor Craig, he’s smiling. He stands still and straight. Eventually he’ll walk around the room and talk to people about their sins. He doesn’t seem shocked when a woman says she’s thinking of killing her co-worker. He puts a hand on another person’s shoulder when they share their “bad thing.” He says, “We all have lust in our hearts,” and everyone in the room nods. When he’s done, Pastor Craig is so calm and collected he asks Glenn where he can buy a tire gauge.
Screen glow illuminating my face, I think, “I want to be like Pastor Craig.”
You can put your hope in people. If you do, you’ll find yourself tossed about, blown up and down, thrown by the winds of their chronic misbehavior (your own besetting misbehavior, too).
Or you can put your hope in God alone, the One Who never disappoints, and free yourself to love others like He does, exactly as they are—with unfailing grace and indomitable hope.
-JL
Hey friends!
This week my family leaves Weymouth, England after five long months. We’ll stop off in London and then fly across the ocean to Tampa, Florida (where all four of us will get our COVID jab).
This summer we’ll be traveling to see friends and family and to lead parenting workshops in cities all across the US. You can find out more and grab tickets HERE.
If you’re thinking of coming but haven’t bought your tickets yet, DO IT! I have one workshop location that’s almost full and one I may need to cancel if I can’t get a few more folks. You committing ASAP helps me make wise plans. :)
ALSO—if the cost is what’s keeping you from signing up, remember, this workshop (like all my workshops) is pay what you can. If you can’t afford the ticket price, you can pay what you can afford. Just scroll down the ticket options until you find “pay what you can.”
See you SOON!
This is just what I needed to read today. Thank you for your words. 💗
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼