When I was little, I took comfort in an early theological certainty: that Judas, Pontius Pilate, and Hitler were all in hell. I think this must have been, among other things, assurance in an unpredictable and uncontrollable world that righteousness and order would reign in the end.

Now I am older and, as often happens, past assurances have ceased to be comforting. At the very least I know better than to make any guesses as to who is in hell and who isn’t. One of the complicating factors is that terrible old expression, “There but for the grace of God go I.” It’s supposed to be a humbling remark, enjoining us not to assume we are immune to the dreadful faults that plague others. Theologically it suggests that the grace of God has abandoned the other person. And if it can happen to her, why not me? An effort at humility turns into an exercise in terror.

A better way to get at the humility without the theological trainwreck is the much-used, often abused, Lutheran adage simul justus et peccator (which, I’ve been told on good authority, was not much part of Lutheran consciousness till about a hundred years ago; this gives one pause; but we’ll have to save that puzzle for another time). At its worst, it’s generous to others because it excuses our own bad behavior, so it is not purely unproblematic. Rightly used, it puts the accent on our trust in Christ and not in ourselves. It’s not meant to sidestep sanctification, only to keep it in the right order. More to the point here, it prevents us from assuming that we are incapable of any given sin, which in turn prevents us from gloating over the damnation of others. I suspect this also leads to an implicit conviction of universal salvation—a rather nicer form of generosity, certainly beyond what the Scriptures will let us proclaim but not, I think, beyond what the Scriptures will let us hope.

This rubric for understanding ourselves and our spiritual struggles plays out in how we read the struggles of the people in the Bible. I have never actually seen it written down anywhere, but I think it’s safe to say that one Lutheran hermeneutic is to assume that any sin portrayed in the Scriptures could be ours as well, literally or figuratively. We are not simply to denounce David or the Pharisees in their failures; we are to imagine ourselves into their place and assess to what extent we, too, in our own way, share in their sins. Done rightly, this method combines humility, generosity, repentance, and renewal all in one.

So over the course of Lent I’m going to try this out with the “bad guys” of the passion story. I’ll start next week with Peter.