Thursday Theology: On being a Recovering Good Person

Co-missioners,  

This week’s contribution is a testimonial by one of the pillars of our community, Cathy Lessmann. That alone makes it precious!  

When I was new to this community, I was a total outsider. I wasn’t raised in a Lutheran (or any) church, I had no ties to Seminex, and I had never been to St Louis. Ordinarily, I should have felt very much out of place at Crossings. Cathy’s welcoming spirit and generous hospitality is one of the biggest reasons I did not remain an outsider for long. 

Cathy has usually chosen to operate behind the scenes of our conferences and publications, serving in a myriad of capacities over the years, logistical, financial, administrative, et al. Not all of you know just how much she does to keep things running smoothly even now. We cannot express our gratitude to her (and to God for her) enough. It is no exaggeration at all to say that without Cathy there would be no Crossings Community.  

But at our last conference in January, this intrepid behind-the-scenes worker took a rare step onto the stage to share how the Gospel had changed her life, hers being that of a “recovering good person”. I had heard Cathy relate a version of this story before and was moved by it then. This time, at the conference, it was even better! In the sort of vivid, humanizing prose that AI will never be able to replicate, replete with evocative images and fragments of daily life, Cathy meticulously weaves her testimony through the six steps of the Crossings matrix, diagnosing herself all the way down, deep into the hell of works-righteousness – and all the way back up by the buoyancy of Christ’s grace, treating her malady with the balm of the Gospel.  

If you have heard Cathy speak of the freedom, relief, and joy that the Gospel has given her, this piece will sound familiar. Her exuberance is contagious and leaps off the page. But even if you have never had the pleasure to meet this amazing person, this read is worthwhile, since I believe there is a “recovering good person” in all of us. 

Thank you, Cathy! And thank you, Jesus! 

Peace & joy, 
Co-editor Robin Lütjohann 
for the Crossings Community 

 

On being a Recovering Good Person 

by Cathy Lessmann 

 

Hello, my name is Cathy Lessmann and I am a recovering good person.  Another way you could put that is, I am a recovering Pharisee. I am hopelessly addicted to being good! Note I don’t consider myself “recovered” but “recovering.” That’s very important, and I’ll get back to that later.  

Just a bit of background….I grew up in the Philippines; my dad was a missionary. I always knew – and trusted – that “Jesus died for my sins.” I went to Valparaiso University where I met my husband, Gary. After we married, we lived in Florida for 6 years, then moved back to STL. Soon after we moved here, Ed Schroeder led an adult Bible class at our church and after the class, as we chatted, he invited me to a Crossings workshop. I accepted, and loved it, and continued to take many more Crossings courses, which naturally included the 6-step method, so I became pretty good at it, although, I have to say, it took me a LONG time to really GET it. Step 2 especially, and its corresponding step 5 took a REALLY long time to sink in, and Step 3 seemed awfully harsh, but then step 6 seemed just so FREEING! So here is how I diagnosed & prognosed myself.   

D1 External Diagnosis. (Outside Behavior): I am a very good person and I am always RIGHT!  

I was a very good wife, mother, friend, and frankly, was extremely proud of it. I did lots of “good” things, like play the organ at church, lead children’s music, teach Sunday School, chauffeur my mother-in-law around, volunteer at school, and so on. I was, and still am, very competent. “See how GOOD I am?” – I’d say both to God and myself. God, you’ve gotta be glad that You’ve got me in your court! A second outstanding characteristic of mine was/is that I am always RIGHT! Once a son said, “Mom, you always insist that you are right!” To which I replied, “That’s because I AM always right!” So yes, I was/AM, extremely self-righteous as well. I love to justify myself. “See how BUSY I am? See how much I DO for you, God?”  

Yet, there were tell-tale signs that all was not well. You see, I wasn’t just GOOD, I was DRIVEN to be good! I HAD to be good! My self-esteem depended on it. I believed that somehow, I could justify myself by all my business, by all my accomplishments. A tell-tale sign is that I would get anxious If other people didn’t send feedback as to how GOOD I was. In fact, I’d get depressed, I’d worry, and think, “maybe I’m not good enough.  Well finally, during a Crossings class, it hit me like a lead balloon. I AM A PHARISEE! A genuine, unadulterated Pharisee! Worst of all, just like the Pharisees, I’m willing to sacrifice other people in order to glorify myself!  

D2 Internal Diagnosis (what is the heart trusting?): I trust myself 

Remember that the Pharisees were God’s interpreters, God’s representatives. They taught and “did” all the “right” things – or so they thought. Yet, Jesus saw right through them. He knew they were putting their trust in themselves in THEIR own right-ness, their righteousness. They arrogantly assumed that God would PROVE their superiority by showering them with blessings. (The old Law mantra, “if you’re good, you get rewarded.”) Well, I assumed that I had deserved all my blessings as well – after all, I’d been soooo good! But Bob [Bertram] and Ed [Schroeder] made it clear this was 1st commandment territory. The Pharisees – and I – were putting our trust in ourSELVES, not in GOD! The seriousness of Law/Gospel theology started to sink in and really hit me! I was trusting an “other” god – namely, me, myself, and I! I grasped that my self-righteousness isn’t just a FLAW (which some good preaching could take care of). It’s ME through and through. It’s the way I am. I LIKE playing King of the Mountain because I come out looking GOOD! I realized that I am obsessed, I’m controlled by the Law. I OOZE the Law. It controls me 100% and I can’t help it.  

D3 Eternal Problem: God’s Judgement of My Unbelief 

Well, I also knew God’s verdict on unbelief: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” I just thought I wasn’t that soul, I was a “GOOD” soul. This is how Bob and Ed explained the fallout: God says, “Fine Cathy, I’ll give you your way! If you choose to trust yourself, to be your own god, then I, God, declare (first) that your goodness does not measure up to my standards (which is perfection!), and second, you have forced me, God, to leave you to your god(s), and I, God, will exit your life. But, to have God exit life is to be dead. As in, Dead, Period. So what do you know, instead of saving me, the Law had damned me – and I had chosen that!!    

I’ll always remember when this hit me like a ton of bricks. I was out on a run, going through the [Crossings] matrix in my head (we didn’t have cell phones back then), and when I reached this point in my thinking, where I grasped the finality, the END result of the Law, I stopped short and thought to myself, “Well then, I’m damned. I’m Doomed!” I looked down at the cracks on the sidewalk and wished fervently that I could jump into them and disappear. I was terrified.  

P4 Eternal Solution: Jesus absorbs my judgment into God’s Self 

As soon as I said that, I came to a screeching halt, hit myself on the head, and said, “But Cathy, that’s why God sent Jesus! To rescue me – and every other sinner as well!!” Then all the theology I’d been studying made sense. Jesus isn’t just about handling a few embarrassing sins or teaching me how to be a better “good person”. Jesus came to release me from my captivity to that system and give me a whole new way of living. Jesus came to set me FREE! Bob and Ed used the imagery of the sweet swap [der fröhliche Wechsel], and it all made sense. Jesus took – absorbed into himself – MY captivity, my sin, MY death, as His own and suffered them out of existence. In exchange for all that enslavement – my sins, my death – Jesus gives me HIS right-ness, HIS life, HIS victory over death. Wow, that means I don’t have to justify myself anymore, because JESUS has already justified me! I pictured Jesus disappearing into the cracks along with me, grabbing hold of me and taking me with him, first through death, and then into resurrection! I literally started shouting out loud, “I’m free, I’m free! I have a Savior, I’m free!” – and I took off, leaping, dancing, bounding down the road, throwing my arms in the air, shouting, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.” I was full of joy, and that joy has never left me.   

P5 Internal Solution: A Changed Heart 

But why would God do all this? It finally sunk in. God didn’t send Jesus because I deserved it, or earned it, but for one reason only: God is MERCIFUL! God LOVES me! For God to be BOTH just and merciful, God had to absorb God’s own judgment into God’s-self. That kind of mercy is life-changing, heart changing, and switches me from being a Cathy-truster into a Jesus-truster. Instead of justifying myself, I get to bask in the fact that I am already justified. I can put my trust in Jesus – the one who “earned” my freedom! In addition to freedom, God’s incredible mercy triggers something else in me: repentance – the ability to turn around, to let go of my old ways, and start living a new way – by FAITH in Jesus. 

P6 External Solution: I GET to be good!  

So now I’m FREE! But freed for what? Guess what??? To do exactly what I used to do: Be a good person! But this time around, it’s not because I HAVE to be good; now I GET to be good. I get to do the same things I did before – take care of kids, play the organ, teach Sunday School, and so on, but this time, I’m FREE to do them, not because I HAVE TO, but because I GET to. It’s like dancing to a different drummer – the dance is the same, but the tune is different.  

Soon after my roadside experience, I read Martin Luther’s book, “Freedom of A Christian,” which stresses how absolutely FREE Christians are from the Law’s demands. And here’s the ace in the hole, my guarantee, Luther explained: I’ve been given Jesus’s Spirit, the Holy – holying – Spirit.  Hence I no longer need to fret and worry about whether or not I’m doing “the right thing” because I can trust that the Holy Spirit will lead/guide me.  

About that same time, I happened to read a quote by Henri Nouwen that impacted me so much that I copied it down and pasted it on my refrigerator (for 30 years at least). It goes: “I used to resent the interruptions to my work, but now I realize the interruptions ARE my work!” Catch that? I used to think that my work was to keep a perfect house and raise perfect children and DO oh so many wonderful good things for God! Instead of saying, when kids would interrupt me, “Don’t bother me. Can’t you SEE that I’m busy?” Nouwen taught me that those interruptions are my work. I realized that I am called to LOVE!” So I GOT to say to an interrupting kid: “Come here and tell me what’s going on.”   

Finally… Remember I said I was a recovering good person, not a recovered good person! Sigh. As we all know, I will not be 100% cured until the Resurrection. In the meantime, it seems as though I keep falling into one version of Pharisaism after another. (Like a fugue on a common theme.) When I finally catch on, I have to go through the whole 6-step process all over again. It’s like going in a circle, around and around. Recovering, not recovered. In fact, sometimes we at Crossings picture the 6 steps as being a circular process.  

Thank you.