Have you ever been disqualified? Perhaps it was a spelling bee, a cross country race, or maybe even your search to serve in the military, enroll in a school, or engage in ministry. The feeling of being left out can be debilitating, yes? Kinda like Eeyore of Winnie the Pooh’s clan.
Have you ever felt somehow flawed, disqualified even in your search for God and good? I think of all the times when God calls someone and they respond with sheer terror because they feel they don’t measure up. Remember the story of Peter’s call to follow Jesus? I can just picture him after fishing all night to no avail—sputtering, sweaty, swearing Peter—when Jesus suggests the guys let the net down on the other side of the boat. When they see the gathering of fish from all over Galilee Peter exclaims, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Lk 5:8). And not only then. I am sure Peter felt disqualified when, again sputtering and swearing, he vehemently denied even knowing Jesus as he warmed himself by a fire the night before Jesus’ crucifixion.
The list of the disqualified goes on throughout the Bible: Abraham tried to force a fulfillment of God’s promise by having a child with Hagar, his wife’s servant; David was disqualified by his devious sexual acquisition of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband; Moses murdered an Egyptian; Saul of Tarsus, the terrorist, sought to destroy the church; Jeremiah became suicidal; Timothy had an anxiety disorder. And it has been that way for me also in my feeble attempts to follow Christ; I have had to accept again and again my powerlessness in the face of disqualifying divorce, alcoholism, grandiose selfishness, cancer, and stubborn stupidity.
There seem to be so many voices of accusation, even if they are only internal voices, that weigh us in the balances and pronounce that dreaded word, “Disqualified!”
But if I read the Bible correctly we are all disqualified in the presence of a holy God. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans includes a scalding rebuke of our presumption that we are, any of us, qualified as righteous judges. Paul quotes from several Psalms and Isaiah in Romans 3 to form a scathing diatribe against any of us who would presume to claim qualifying righteousness as our possession. He says, simply, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).
Paul also says that God’s grace and our trust can unite to raise us out of the deadly disqualifications of which we are a part, to give us newness of life. He says, “It isn’t that we ourselves are qualified to claim that anything came from us. No, our qualification is from God” (2 Cor 3:5, CEB).
God’s love in Jesus Christ is our sole but also our sufficient qualification to be servants of God. Oh to be sure we need education and qualifying procedures to do things like drive a car or offer the sacraments or perform open heart surgery or run for office or teach a class. But the root of our qualification to serve the most high God lies in the unconditional grace of God. And the same grace that loves us unconditionally will teach us, shape us, qualify us to do the life we’re called to live and to do. Yes we are disqualified; and yes God “… forgives all your iniquity, … heals all your diseases, redeems your life from the pit, … crowns you with steadfast love and mercy …” (Ps 103:3,4).
The stories of the faithful are a litany of God’s creating the qualifications to serve and love God and life and our neighbors: Abraham became the father of Isaac; Moses led Israel out of Egypt; Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles; Timothy became Paul’s son in the faith; Peter, when he had repented of his denial, became a source of strength to the early church; and Jesus Himself was born to bear the name “Son of David,” raised and taught the ways of God by Joseph—Joseph who descended from Solomon, the child of David and Bathsheba.
God delights, you see, in loving the disqualified among us, through repentant healing and faith, into abundant life, overflowing love, and peace beyond understanding.
So, do you ever feel disqualified? Do I? Are we ever in fact disqualified by our sin and dysfunction?
Then look! Listen to that faint but unmistakable knock. It is God Himself reaching out arms of welcome to heal our diseases, put away our sin, and to restore in us the joy of God’s salvation.