I’ve fallen asleep while driving.
It’s a frightening feeling to lose consciousness even for a scarce few seconds and then to suddenly awake knowing you’re hurtling 70 miles an hour down an interstate.
What woke me was the rough groves placed in the asphalt at the edge of the interstate. They were intentionally created to alert the driver that he’s off course. It was that grating sound that woke me one night as I drove between Nashville and Memphis. What I heard, and then what I saw–my car drifting right to the road’s edge, led to immediate action. I carefully pulled my foot off the accelerator. I slowly turned the steering wheel to the left. And I got back on course.
In a nutshell, that’s purgation.
In the earliest centuries of Christianity, the Christian mystics believed that our journey should lead to what they called “union”–deep intimacy with God and with his human creations. Jesus would call this love of God and love of neighbor. Union is what this blog series began with–especially the horizontal aspect of union. Following Jesus is about the pursuit of oneness with humans and the demolition of all the discrimination that causes us to treat some people and some groups as inferior to ourselves and our groups.
But how do we get there? The mystics believed there were three steps. It begins with awakening. We stop sleeping and arise to see who God truly is, who we truly are, and what’s really happening in our world today. We wake up and notice the car’s headed off a cliff.
But being awake is not enough. Being “woke” isn’t sufficient. We have to act on what we see when we awake. We have to make any course corrections now needed. It’s no good to wake up and just let the car continue drifting off the road. And that’s what the second step is: purgation.
Robert Mulholland (Invitation to a Journey) writes that purgation is the renunciation of two types of sins.
- First, we renounce sins that are blatantly inconsistent with God’s goal for our lives. It’s repenting of those actions or inactions that grossly contribute to the opposite of union.
- Second, purgation is the renunciation of those sins that are often “acceptable” in our faith communities but which are also pulling us off course. These are often much more difficult for some to identify and much more sinister in their impact. These are the “isms” which are often not just tolerated, but even nurtured in faith communities: sexism, ageism, racism, etc.
Purgation seems especially difficult for religious people. We, as Jesus indicates in his parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector at the temple, are far more likely to point out the sins of others than to confess our own (Lk. 18:9-11). We’re more likely to notice what’s wrong with others than what’s wrong with ourselves–which just leads to more exclusion of others.
In fact, we’re far more likely to focus on doing religious things rather than being spiritual people:
“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God.” (Lk. 11:42 ESV)
Here, Jesus points to the horizontal and vertical expressions of union. Justice is the dogged determination to ensure all humans are treated fairly and none are unjustly taken advantage of or treated as inferior. Love of God is the living out and leaning into intimacy with the One who created us. Jesus’ audience has attended to even smallest religious behaviors–tithing mint, rue and herbs. But they’ve neglected these weightier spiritual matters of the pursuit of justice on behalf of others and the development of authenticity with God. Purgation is the courage to look inward and to acknowledge all the things that have stood in the way of the pursuit of union for which we were created–and to do something about them.
When it comes to living the inclusive love of Jesus, purgation is often exceedingly difficult. Those of us with power and privilege often experience defensiveness when exploring how our actions or inactions are excluding others who don’t share our power and privilege. Our egos and identities are so fragile, that when racism, sexism, ageism or any other virus of vice is identified as keeping us from loving all-in, we make excuses, blame those we’re excluding, or simply fall back asleep.
Peter found he needed external help with purgation:
11 When Peter came to Antioch, he did something that was not right. I stood against him, because he was wrong. 12 This is what happened: When Peter first came to Antioch, he ate and associated with the non-Jewish people. But when some Jewish men came from James, Peter separated himself from the non-Jews. He stopped eating with them, because he was afraid of the Jews who believe that all non-Jewish people must be circumcised. 13 So Peter was a hypocrite. The other Jewish believers joined with him, so they were hypocrites too. Even Barnabas was influenced by what these Jewish believers did. 14 They were not following the truth of the Good News. (Gal. 2:11-14 ERV)
Despite all he’d learned and experienced in Jesus, there were still times when Peter drifted of course. Here, he gave in to a sin “acceptable” among his peers–shutting out Gentile Christians and considering them to be inferior because of biases he had against them. God sent Paul to wake Peter up (again) and to initiate a process (again) of purgation.The truth of the Good News is that all are invited in, and it was time for Peter to purge beliefs and behaviors from his life that kept this truth from happening.
Purgation is never finished. John Ortberg (Eternity Is Now in Session) writes this:
“Purgation is the process–never finished as long as we’re on this side of the ground–by which God helps us get sin out of our system.”
Purgation is the bold and painful willingness to seek out books that address your own biases and prejudices. Purgation is the costly step of asking people who differ from you in sexual orientation, race, gender, class, religion, or mental or physical capabilities to share their experiences of exclusion–and believing in the reality and truth of their experience. Purgation is the hard work of examining each day in retrospect to notice how your steps or your silence contributed to keeping others out rather than inviting others in.
Last year, while studying Scripture and reading other literature, God convicted me about how I’d treated a brother in Christ in racist ways seven years earlier. God woke me up to see how I’d veered violently off course–and how those same racist beliefs still had a comfortable home in my heart. I prayed. I spoke with some who knew me best. And I began what will be a lifelong process of purgation–beginning with a lunch with that brother in which I named and confessed my sin against him.
David Benner (Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls) writes that purgation is the prodigal son thinking things through, coming to his senses, and finally leaving the pigs to journey home. Union is our home. It’s the space we were created for. We are most ourselves when we live in the place of open-handed and inclusive love.
Will you come home? Will you help others to come home as well?
