Gentle Reader,
Mary Poppins is my favorite movie. I can’t say exactly why it captured my attention as a child, but I can say that, as an adult, there is definitely something about the combination of discipline and whimsy that is quite appealing to me. Mary demands order. Mary believes in fun. What if holiness is both order and fun? Something to think about.
Below is the second of three essays I wrote for my Doctrine of Christian Holiness class during my second year of seminary. May your day be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Or suoicodilaipxectsiligarfilacrepus, as the case may be.
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In one of the most iconic scenes from the 1965 classic Disney interpretation of the P.L. Travers stories, Mary Poppins descends from the cloudy skies above Edwardian London, the parrot-headed handle of her black umbrella clenched firmly in one hand. In the other, she holds a battered carpet bag, which the occupants of Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane will soon discover holds surprising treasures. This magical woman is on a mission: to restore the fractured Banks family, a mission specifically expressed in healing the relationship between stern father George and his children Jane and Michael. Upon meeting the children, Mary Poppins measures them with a tape that reveals their worst qualities. Michael is “extremely stubborn and suspicious;”[1] Jane is “rather inclined to giggle and doesn’t put things away.”[2] When they insist upon using their new nanny’s tape measure against her, she obliges, knowing that the end result will be: “Mary Poppins – practically perfect in every way.”[3]
The Church uses its own tape measures, ever seeking to determine who is in, who is out, and who should be shamed in order that they might become one who is in once more. These tapes are, of course, metaphorical, but they are as real as the one a magical nanny carries in her carpet bag. Crafted over centuries, these tapes rarely reveal anything truly good and right about the one being measured. There is almost always some sort of failure. This failure leads to a deep discomfort one the part of the measuree, for the use of these measurements, while ultimately damaging, is cloaked in terms of care and consideration. While avoiding cynicism regarding the crafting and usage of these measuring tapes can be difficult, it is best to assume and hope that those who wield them are operating from an honestly good place. Most people do want to please God, and they do want their friends to please God as well. But if outward behavioral conformity to certain standards is not the way to determine what and who pleases God, then what is?
Given this reality, which anyone who belongs to a Church community for very long will experience, it is not difficult to understand how a term like “Christian perfection” is so confusing. Or, perhaps, has become confused by attaching meanings to it that are alien to what is revealed in Scripture. When stripped of its connection to Western conventions, particularly that of the so-called American Dream, Christian perfection is not that difficult to understand. It is not perfectionism, which looks like never putting a foot wrong and essentially being omniscient. Instead, Christian perfection “is love locked into the True Center, Jesus Christ our Lord…all of the self – and progressively all of life – comes into harmony and wholeness and strength.”[4]
Christian perfection is bound up in experiencing the radical, transformative love of God, the God who is love[5] and loves humans long before humans know to love God.[6] This experience leads the human in the ways of love: loving God, loving others, and loving the self, all in healthy, appropriate, God-honoring ways. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,”[7] and these commandments are best expressed in two simple statements: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”[8]
This is the only measuring tape that those who call themselves Christians are allowed to apply to their own lives, first and foremost, and then to the lives of those in their community. (Although it must be said here that honest self-examination in the loving presence of God leaves little room, time, or inclination for measuring others). The question a Christian must ask is not, “Can I wear this skirt?” or, “Should I watch this Netflix show?” The question a Christian must consider and answer is not rooted in outward appearances or conformity to community norms. Rather, the question is: What does it look like to love God today? Love of God, flowing from God and out onto others, is to undergird and motivate all actions. It is not about what one wears, or watches, or eats, or drinks. Instead, “Scripture perfection is pure love filling the heart, and governing all the words and actions.”[9]
A discussion of how and why the simplicity of this message became muddled and even lost down through the centuries is beyond the scope of these brief lines. Suffice it to say that a presentation of holiness as being encapsulated in God’s love enveloping and reorienting a person’s life is as radical a proposition today as it ever has been. Humans fundamentally desire control in a world that inspires great fear, and so it is far easier to cling to extra-Scriptural measuring tapes then it is to open the hands and trust that God truly knows best and will guide God’s people in the way of love, which will lead to lives that are cleansed of sin. Instead, again and again, the Church looks for the life to be cleansed of sin without understanding the importance of love, and again and again, finds that “a scripturally perfect Christian [will not measure up]” [10]10 for they are not focused on a standard other than that of God.
What, then, is the solution? How can the Church learn to focus on love over behavior, and own its part in hurting those who do not precisely conform? Thankfully, there is no need for a magical nanny who lives in the sky to come and take the people of God on fantastical adventures. The Holy Spirit remains faithfully present today, just as the Spirit did yesterday, and will be so tomorrow, gently and kindly inviting God’s people to reorient. It is frightening indeed to release the human tape measures and allow God alone to do the measuring, but in so doing, the Church may just find the freedom, the joy, and the purpose for which it was designed.
[1] Mary Poppins. Disney+. Disney, 2020. Accessed April 6, 2021. https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/marypoppins/3P3waOoBmUdm.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, A Theology of Love: the Dynamic of Wesleyanism (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2015), 165.
[5] 1 Jn. 4:7.
[6] 1 Jn. 4:19.
[7] Jn. 14:15.
[8] Mtt. 22:37b-39.
[9] John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2015), 43, Kindle.
[10] Ibid.
GRACE AND PEACE ALONG THE WAY,
MARIE
Image Courtesy of Jennifer Burk