Micah Tillman

Nothing is or ever has been the way it should be. There’s no way to “get back” to “how things were supposed to be.” Our only hope is redemption, not return.

That’s what Fr. Michael Pfleger, Barack Obama’s (reported) other pastor-confidant (h/t Geraghty) doesn’t get. Here’s what he said, as quoted by Jim Geraghty:

I must now to address the one who says, ‘don’t hold me responsible for what my ancestors did.’ But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did! And unless you are ready to give up the benefits — Throw away your 401 fund! [sic] Throw away your trust fund! Throw away all the money that been put away in the company you walked into ’cause your daddy and your granddaddy and your great grandaddy —

(screaming at the top of his lungs)

Unless you are willing to give up the benefits, then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation! ‘Cause you are the beneficiary of this insurance policy!

Other than preparing the soil of racism, what Fr. Pfleger is missing is the difference between “should not be” and “should not-be.” And he should know better, because Tillman has devoted two articles to the subject.

The first was called, “Primetime is Back: The Shows that Should Not Be.” There Tillman wrote:

Recently I’ve been watching old episodes of the Buffy spinoff, Angel. Like most of the shows I watch, Angel is the product of evil. He’s a vampire. There’s no way he should still be alive after 200-plus years. Normal people would have been long dead.

But even though he shouldn’t exist, he shouldn’t be killed either. He’s on a mission to redeem himself, and that’s a good thing. He helps the helpless, or however the line goes.

So just because Angel should not exist doesn’t mean he should not exist. He lives as a result of a bad decision, and that is not how things should be. But the way he uses his existence is a good thing. To make him not be, to kill him, would itself be bad.

And the same goes for the other characters I’ll be watching this fall. House shouldn’t be a doctor, because there shouldn’t be any sickness. But that doesn’t mean he should not be a doctor, that he should quit. He’s doing what he should be doing, given the kind of world in which we live.

And Booth and Brennan shouldn’t be solving murders, because there shouldn’t be any murders. But that doesn’t mean they should not solve murders. Given the way our world is, they are doing something worth watching.

And this makes me think of our own lives. How many issues should we not have to deal with, how many episodes should we not have to go through? Yet how many of those would it be wrong to not deal with, to not go through? And how many roles do we have to play that shouldn’t need to be played? Nurse, counselor, police officer, baby sitter, social worker, discipliner? And yet one or more of these roles may be exactly what we should be playing.

Given the world we’ve got, we may not be able to achieve perfection. But God is in the business of redemption. And to redeem is to do what shouldn’t have to be done—to take things that aren’t the way they should be and create something good.

The second was called “Regifting Grace: Should I Give Up What I Don’t Deserve?” There Tillman wrote:

Back in ‘94 there was this song:

When we don’t get what we deserve
It’s a real good thing
When we get what we don’t deserve
It’s a real good thing

I’ve never found a better description of either mercy (line 1) or grace (line 3). What I have found, however, is that I occasionally (and disturbingly) participate in a growing movement to eliminate both. As crazy as such a movement sounds, there are reasons for it. We must all beware.

Justice
The motivation, you see, is justice. Injustice shouldn’t be done, of course, and very often it’s unjust for a person to have something he doesn’t deserve. Imagine a bank robber, running down the street with a $-sign bag.

But now imagine yourself in line at a store. The guy in front of you has twenty items; you’ve got one. He notices and lets you go first. You now have something you don’t deserve - a better place in line. Is this injustice?

No. It’s a gift.

. . .

Deserts
Other people won’t make requests even of friends, because they think they don’t deserve the help. Or perhaps they even think they deserve not to be helped. These are some of those who would do away with grace and mercy.

Then there are the Paris Hilton Haters. “Ms. Hilton clearly has not earned what she has,” they say. “She’s only famous because she’s rich, and only rich because of her parents. She doesn’t deserve it.” These are some of those who would do away with grace and mercy.

. . .

Worlds
But what if our world was such that we all got only what we deserved? Every time you deserved something good, you’d be rewarded. Every time you deserved something bad, you’d be punished. The world would be perfectly just.

But there’d be no gifts. There’d be no mercy, no grace. And there’d be no redemption. In fact these would all be impossible.

But most of all there’d be no gratitude. You wouldn’t have to thank anyone, because you’d only get what you deserved. And there’d be no forgiveness. Instead, all debts would be repaid, all wrongs punished.

I don’t mean that our world - where grace, mercy, gifts, redemption, gratitude, and forgiveness are all possible - is better than a world where everyone only gets what they deserve (whether good or bad). But I do mean that people should be careful what they wish for, and be even more careful of what they demand.

Needs
You can respond in two ways to getting something you don’t deserve: by feeling guilty or being grateful. The former is becoming more and more popular.

. . .

It could be that everyone in need deserves help; but we follow a God who helps us even when we don’t deserve it (Romans 5:8). We follow a God who not only rewards but redeems (1 Samuel 26:23, Galatians 4:4-5). And in being redeemed, we become more like the God we follow.

Not only is there no way to get back to the way things should be — not only is there no point in history to which you can point and say, “Now there is where things started to go wrong; if only we could get back to how things were right before that moment,” — but no one would want a world in which no one benefited from things that shouldn’t have happened.

Redemption shouldn’t happen — because fallenness should not be around to need redeeming. Healing shouldn’t happen — because sickness shouldn’t be around to need it. Charity shouldn’t happen — because “being in need” is not something that should ever have happened in the first place.

The question is not how we return things to how they should be, it’s how we redeem things so they are better than they were. We’ve got a messed up wold to work with; we have no untainted materials with which to work. So the question is what we’re going to make of the mess, not how are we going to whittle away the evil and get down to the pristine core of “how things would have been.”

It’s not the past that matters. It’s the future. You’d think someone associated with Obama would get that.

Tags: Fr. Michael Pfleger