A Remedy for the Post-Christmas Blues

 
Did you get all the presents you wished for on Christmas Day? Perhaps you did, and you’re feeling great. More likely, either: you did, but you’re still feeling like you’re missing something; or you didn’t, and you’re feeling deprived. Today’s video “Corner”, by Rob Bell, may be just what you need to hear.

Deuteronomy 24:19-22

Commentary

v19,20,21  the alien, the fatherless, and the widow. In biblical times, foreigners, orphans, and widows were hard-pressed to fend for themselves. In order to eke out a living, young widows might become prostitutes, while older widows might be reduced to begging. Orphans might be reduced to slavery, prostitution, or crime. Foreigners—having no ownership of the land in Israel—had no choice but to work for, and at the mercy of, others.

Much of the OT law pertains to protecting the rights of these disadvantaged groups! Inheritance laws and marriage laws were intended to provide for the orphans and widows, while other passages like today’s were intended to provide a safety net for all the disadvantaged.

v22  Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. There was a time when the Israelites were oppressed. The bane of prosperity is that one forgets the time of oppression before the prosperity; one begins to feel entitled and deserving of all the prosperity. God says one must not forget!

Application

What was the last thing you were really grateful for? If it was a long time ago, how do you feel about it now? If it is recent—say, something you got for Christmas this year—how will you feel about it in, say, 5-10 years?

Success—prosperity—can be dangerous, can’t it? How is success dangerous? What does it mean to say success went to one’s head? Is all success dangerous?

The attitude of many reading today’s verses will be, “That’s not fair! Why should others be able to come onto property that is not theirs and take something they had no hand in producing?” Exactly! But being rescued from slavery in Egypt wasn’t fair. Liberation isn’t fair. Redemption isn’t fair. Grace isn’t fair. God isn’t fair.

In “Amazing Grace” we sing, “How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.” How and when has God’s grace been given to you? Where has the grace of God gone to your head—that is, where have you taken it for granted, or been reluctant to pass it on to others?  Who needs some grace from you? Do you need to give yourself some grace?

Rob Bell says, “We leave a corner [of the field] because in helping save someone else from suffering we may in the process find ourselves being saved. From indifference. From the inertia of inaction. From taking what we have for granted.” What is your field—i.e. where is God blessing you? What is your corner? Whom do you need to give it to?

We leave a corner because our world is either shrinking or it’s expanding. It’s either contracting in on itself, or it’s opening up. Our lives are either more and more about us—more stuff, more unsatisfying consumption—or we’re on a different path.   —   Rob Bell

How is your world shrinking? How is your world expanding?

Points to Ponder

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (Matthew 15:22-28)

The Light Has Come: The Gospel of Hezekiah

4th Sunday of Advent


In the first sermon of this Advent season ("The Light Has Come: Glory!") I said,

During Advent, our usual temptation is to take all of the usual Advent verses and prophecies and see Jesus as the answer in all of them. However, prophecy (like the hymn says) is supposed to be “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.”

Today let us look at how today’s prophecy was understood at the time it was uttered; therein lies strength for today. Thursday night we will look at what the verse—bright hope for tomorrow—mean to us now.


Isaiah 9:6-7


Commentary


v6  onto us a child is born. The term “evangel” (or “gospel” in English) means “good news.” Originally it referred to two specific kinds of news—neither of which was theological. It could refer to the news of victory in battle, or the news of the birth of a royal son. This is a gospel account in the original sense!

As parents, we have high hopes for every child granted to us. As a nation, how much more would the people have high hopes for the birth of a royal son? The terms that follow reflect the highest hopes for this royal son. Semitic people groups tend towards hyperbole (i.e. exaggeration). If it would seem blasphemous to use some of these terms to refer to a mortal male (king-to-be, or not) that is still just the Semitic way of speaking. [1]


v7  of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. Historians note that—after the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem failed—Judah experienced a long period of prosperity as refugees from the northern kingdom of Israel flocked into Judah and all of Judah’s neighbors were preoccupied with troubles of their own.


The book of Isaiah begins, “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah;” however, most of Isaiah focuses on events during the reign of Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18:5 says of Hezekiah, “Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.” High praise indeed! As originally understood by the Jews at that time, these verses were the gospel of the birth of Hezekiah.


Application


In Isaiah 7:1-17, God sent Isaiah out to meet Hezekiah’s father, King Ahaz. At this time, Judah was being attacked by Aram and the rebel tribes of the northern kingdom Israel. Isaiah counseled Ahaz not to worry, to stand firm in his faith (v9). Isaiah went further, telling Ahaz to ask God for a sign—a confirmation—that Isaiah’s prophecy was true. When Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, Isaiah said a sign would be given anyway:

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. (Isaiah 7:14-16)

The verb tenses in the passage indicate a near-term event, not an event way in the future. This child, most likely, was Hezekiah, son of Ahaz—who stood firm against the Assyrians and was not like any of the kings of Judah before or after him.


We are always looking for a human leader to rally to. During the recent presidential campaign, a woman named Peggy Joseph made the news for several days when she was interviewed after an Obama rally and said:

It was the most memorable time of my life. It was a touching moment, because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know, if I help him, he is going to help me.

On the heels of George W. Bush’s presidency, Obama ran a campaign promising hope and change; Peggy Joseph and millions more were ready to put their faith in a new face. Ahaz had been a poor excuse for a king. When threatened by Aram and Israel, he had sought aid from the king of Egypt instead of from God. He had neglected worship at the temple, offering sacrifices to idols instead. He had even sacrificed on of his own sons! (2 Kings 16:2-4) No wonder that the people were effusive in their hopes for a new king!


After one year of the Obama presidency, however, an NBC/WSJ poll reported on December 16 that Obama’s approval rating had fallen to 47%, reflecting a faster drop in approval in his first year in office than for his predecessors. We are always looking for a human leader to rally to; however, human leaders are ultimately fallible. Even though Hezekiah restored worship at the temple, even though he repaired the temple after Ahaz’s neglect, eventually he failed the people. Isaiah 39 records how Hezekiah showed all of the palace treasures to envoys from Babylon, whereupon Isaiah scolded the king, saying that after Hezekiah’s reign was over that Babylon would return and take every bit of treasure.


We need God. We need a leader who will not let us down through his own human failings. The incarnation of Jesus is God’s creation of that human leader—100% God and 100% humanity—that will never let us down.


Points to Ponder


We need God. Instead of casting about for a human leader to follow, are we ready to follow the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit which God has granted to every person who gives their life over to him? If you are ready to follow, how will you follow? Are your feelings reliable indicators of what God would have you do? Is the Bible the only guide you need? How about prayer, or other Christians—do they help you or hinder you in following God? Is following God a private matter—just you and God, figuring it out together—or is following God something that we are supposed to work through as a group?


End Notes


1- More notes on the names of verse 6. The name “Mighty God” uses the most generic word for god—El—that appears in the OT. El is used to refer to God, other gods, idols, and men, and some places the word is simply translated as “power.” The two subsequent names are very poetic in Hebrew—using assonance and alliteration—but since these names appear only in this verse in the entire Bible, one may reasonably conclude that poetry , not theological precision, was at work in the names. A more exact rendering of the names might be, “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty Power, Father Forever, Prince of Peace.”

The Light Has Come: Joy!

3rd Sunday of Advent

I spoke last week of a desert experience—the need to find a quiet place to isolate oneself from exterior voices and then attend to the more difficult task of silencing the interior voices that tend to make our souls dry and barren deserts. What did I leave out?

 Isaiah 35

Commentary

v5-6  Generally theologians see in these verses Jesus’ response to John’s disciples, who asked if Jesus was the one they had been waiting for (Matt. 11:2-6). Jesus’ response in part was that his actions spoke for themselves:

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. (v5)

However, the end of v6 points back to the Exodus from Egypt as well (Ex. 15:22-25) where Moses brought forth water from a rock. Once one sees these verses as a form of exodus, other analogies present themselves:

v3-4:  The feeble hands, failing knees and fearful hearts are reminiscent of the despairing Israelites who, in the face of trials in the desert and giants in the Promised Land, were ready to return to the potted meats (plus slavery) of Egypt.

v8:  The Way of Holiness is for neither the unclean nor the fools, just as the Exodus from Egypt was for neither the rebels nor the doubters. To be holy is to be in the presence of God, and God—Emmanuel, God with us—is with those who walk in that Way.

In Moses’ final speech to the Israelites, he says that even after the 40-year exodus in the desert, that God still had not given them a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear (Deut. 29:4). To be one ransomed by the Lord is not automatic; 40 years of following God through the desert cannot earn it; seeing the miracles of the Exodus cannot provoke it; duty and even blind faith cannot accomplish it.

The problem of the unclean and the fool is similar—they do not have the proper orientation towards God. We are all unclean and foolish before God; but here the unclean one is ritually unclean, one who has not prepared oneself for coming before God; likewise the fool is a stubborn cuss who persists in folly, all the while claiming he is right. Both the ritually clean person and the abstinent fool have their eyes on themselves instead of on God—they are worried about their rights, their entitlements, their sacrifices, or their troubles.

In contrast, the ransomed of the Lord have their eyes on God first. They are grateful for what the Lord has done for them. Their thankfulness creates a fertile garden from which repentance, faith, love, and joy can grow. They cannot manufacture joy in the midst of the desert experience—God gives us the joy—but they prepare the place for joy to flourish.

Points to Ponder

So where is your joy this season? If it is missing, perhaps you have your mind’s eye focused on the wrong thing. For what are you thankful? Are you thankful even for your trials? If you would have the mind to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear, begin by thanking God this week during your trials.

Consider it joy when you face trials of many kinds! (James 1:2)

The Light Has Come: A Desert Experience

I know of a man recently excommunicated from his church; his was stripped of his church membership and told not to attend the church for several months. His pastor told him that he needed a “desert experience.”

What do you think the pastor had in mind?

Isaiah 40:3-5


Commentary

v3  a voice of one calling in the desert. There are no quotation marks in Hebrew, so is this:

A voice of one calling, “In the desert prepare the way ...”

or

A voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way ...” ?

That is, are we to go to the desert to prepare, or is the voice calling from the desert?


v4  the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. A better translation is probably, the rough ground shall become as level ground, the rugged places as a plain. The second translation makes the transformation more subjective. That is, the rough places are still rough; however, our experience of the rough spots changes.


Application


This is one of the key Bible texts for justifying a desert experience. (What would be some of the others?) Some of the 3rd and 4th-Century Church Fathers, called the Desert Fathers, spent years or decades in the desert trying to flee the crush of worldly demands and pursue the still, small voice of God’s call on their lives.


Anthony Thomas of the Catholic News Agency wrote an article called The Desert Experience: Interior and Exterior Silence which begins:

Without fully realizing it, we are constantly surrounded by noise. Our homes are saturated with television, and our cars with music. Even walks outside are accompanied by the ipod. If we are not careful, what seems like an innocuous trait of society can be a significant block to our spiritual lives.
“In order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one's soul and to keep silence; not a gloomy silence but an interior silence; that is to say, recollected in God.” — St. Faustina

On one hand, the Desert Fathers desired to be like John the Baptist—literally being voices in the desert, calling the busy crowds to repentance and abandoning the ways of the world.


On the other hand, the Desert Fathers came to realize that the real desert was not the outside environment but the interior of the souls. For the Jews, and the early Christians, the desert—the wilderness—was the place where jackals prowled and demons lurked. The wilderness was a place of disorder, confusion, trial, and temptation. The desert wilderness on the outside was simply a picture of the barren, disordered, and confused portion of one’s soul. It is no small wonder that Jesus’ temptation was during his 40-day desert experience! Thus the Desert Fathers sought to prepare a way for the Lord in the deserts within their souls. Preparing a straight path for God entailed living forthrightly, tearing down the bad habits and building up the good habits, thereby preparing one’s heart for a life-changing encounter with God.


Points to Ponder


The relevance for Advent should be obvious: we are surrounded by noise; confounded by busy-ness; saturated with television, internet, and radio. But in order to hear God during this season, we need more than ever to have silence in our soul. This is what Advent devotions are intended to inculcate. Moreover, the secular Christmas season is a wilderness—chaotic, confounding voices that distract us and tempt us. How would it be this year to focus on Christ instead of the trappings of Christmas?


PS - As far as what the excommunicated man’s pastor had in mind, I believe the intent was for the man to have some breathing space in order to reorder his life without having to deal with shame, accusations, and gossip at church. The intention of the desert experience was to help him silence the voices and focus on listening to God.

The Light Has Come: Glory!

1st Sunday of Advent

A funny story related by a Sunday School teacher speaks of the mindset we sometimes have at church. The Sunday School teacher—playing a game with the kids before the lesson started—asked, “What is brown and furry, sits in a tree, and eats nuts?” One of the children frowned and said, “It sounds like a squirrel, but it has to be Jesus!”

During Advent, our usual temptation is to take all of the usual Advent verses and prophecies and see Jesus as the answer in all of them. However, prophecy (like the hymn says) is supposed to be “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” Let us not overlook the meaning the prophecies had at the time the prophecies were first uttered; therein lies strength for today.

Isaiah 60:1-3

Commentary

The NIV heading for this chapter is “The Glory of Zion,” which is slightly incorrect. Glory is the thing in which one revels and places one’s trust. The light, the glory, is God—God at work in such an utterly profound way that even pagans take note and draw near. On the other hand, the NIV heading is ironic, for it is the bane of humans to take the work of God in the world and revel in the work (and the way in which they perceive to have wrought the work by their own hands) and forget about the real glory.

Application

Glory! Frederick Buechner in The Magnificent Defeat describes it in part:

"Once upon a time." How many fantastic tales start with the words, "Once upon a time!” Maybe my story should have begun, "Once upon a time, in the town of Nazareth, an angel came to earth to speak to a virgin; and the virgin's name was Mary."

Like all stories, there is a time when the action begins, and therefore a time before the action begins, when it is coming but not yet here. There is a time of staid sameness—and after the action begins, a moment in which that sameness is about to disappear forever. For me and my story, the moment was when the Gabriel came to me. He said to me, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But I was greatly troubled at his speech, at what this greeting might portend.

It was a moment frozen in time. I stopped dead in my tracks, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath . . . But that is only part of the truth, because when angels draw near, as they do, the earth begins to shake under our feet, as it began to shake under mine. Instead of everything standing still and sure, suddenly nothing was standing still and everything was unsure. Something new and shattering was breaking through into the old. Something was trying to be born. And the old was going to have to give way to the new, and there is agony in the process as well as joy, just as there is agony in the womb as it labors and contracts to bring forth the new life.

There is a moment in our lives, a moment when we see something, something that has never existed anywhere in the world. A world where, " 'The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,' says the Lord." Those are Isaiah's words for it. Words of poetry. There is a moment in our lives, when we see the world we were created to live in standing in stark contrast to the world we do live in. Two worlds, two possibilities, side by side, two worlds that contradict each other and are always at war. One world tries to take the vision for what has never existed, and bring it to life! The price we must pay to bring it to life, is death; but even death does not seem too high a price to pay for life, new life. And yet at the same time, the other world entices us to settle for just a smidge less, where the serpent gets a little more than dust to eat, and the lion is allowed an occasional taste of blood. We fend off the perfect and settle for the imperfect, because in each of us there is that which wants to live for our self and not for our brother. We fend off the perfect, because we know in our terrible wisdom that the price we must pay for perfection is death, the death of self and all the values of self, the death that must take place before new life can come.

This is what Gabriel had come to announce, and I stood there as still as life, as still as a painting, even as the my world trembled and quaked and fell apart even as he said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" I was deathly still even as I heard him say, "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name ..."

But I already knew his name before Gabriel said it, just as we knew his name, and you know his name now, because the child who was going to be born is whom all the world's history and all of our own histories have been laboring to bring forth. And I knew it would be no ordinary birth. For this imperfect world could not give birth to him—only God. Only God could bring the other world into ours, and that is why the angel said, "The child to be born will be called the Son of God."

Here at the end, let me give you the parable for your time. It is a peculiar parable—almost too awful to tell, about a teenage boy who, in a fit of crazy rage, killed his father. When he was taken to court, they asked him why he killed his father, and he said he did it because he could not stand his father, because his father demanded too much of him, because his father was always after him, because he hated his father. Then later, when he was put in jail, the jailer heard sounds from the boy's cell late one night. In the dark, the boy was sobbing, "I want my father! I want my father!"

Our Father. We have killed him, and we will kill him again, and our world will kill him. And yet he is here. He is coming: not for revenge; not for justice; simply because we are crying out in the dark. He is coming. Our Father is the one about to be born, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Glory is best seen where God breaks into the imperfect and we realize that we cannot go back to the way life used to be. Poetry breaks into the pedestrian; the extraordinary breaks into the ordinary; the sacred breaks into the mundane.

We work on self-improvement; we try makeovers, diets, the latest fads; we say that we will do anything to get a better life. However, on our own, we settle for a new & improved model of the imperfect. Only God can bring the perfect—on our on we cannot give birth to it. However, we can make room for the perfect to appear. Will you make room for Jesus this season?

Points to Ponder

We try to manufacture a great holiday season, but as Buechner says, “in each of us there is that which wants to live for our self and not for our brother.” What baggage do we carry with us into each Advent season that we would be better off to jettison?

Faith & Politics: Running with Horses

The tension between the sacred and the profane, the saint and the pagan comes down to this:  Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

Sometimes God’s justice seems a long time coming! Sometimes evil seems to run amok—especially in a secular society where God seems to have been shunted aside. Other times—e.g. with Nebuchadnezzar—God says that the pagan is his chosen instrument. Frequently the righteous suffer, frequently the faithful have to live by faith in a better day to come—but why?

Jeremiah 12:1-5

Commentary

v1  John Calvin says of this verse: … this is the view which interpreters take of this passage; that is, that he was disturbed with the prosperous condition of the wicked, and expostulated with God … but he appears to me to have something higher in view. We have said elsewhere, that when the Prophets saw that they spent their labor in vain on the deaf and the intractable, they turned their addresses to God as in despair. I hence doubt not but that it was a sign of indignation when the Prophet addressed God, having as it were given up men, inasmuch as he saw that he spoke to the deaf without any benefit … hence he now addresses God himself, as though he had said, that he would have nothing more to do with them, as he had labored wholly in vain. This then seems to have been the object of the Prophet.

the faithless. A literal translation is “all the cloakers of cloaking.” The Septuagint says “all who prevaricate prevarications.” The faithless are the hypocrites who do what they want behind a veil of hypocrisy.

v3  sheep to be butchered. Calvin says: We may also learn from this passage—that when the ungodly accumulate wealth, they are in a manner fattened … when any one intends to prepare sheep or oxen for the slaughter, he fattens them. So then the feeding of them is nothing else than the fattening of them; and the fattening of them is a preparation for their slaughter. I have therefore said that a very useful doctrine is included in this form of speaking; for when we see that plenty of wealth and power abound with the ungodly and the despisers of God, we see that they are in a manner thus fined with good things, that they may grow fat—it is fattening or cramming. Let us then not bear it in that they are thus covered with their own fatness, for they are prepared for the day of slaughter.

v5  This is the beginning of God’s response, which continues for several chapters. The gist of the verse is, “If you are anxious when life is easy, but will you do when life gets really hard?”

Application

What will we do when life gets really hard? Consider the implications of the question:
There is a struggle going on, but it is not the one with which we consume our thoughts. In both martial arts and military tactics, a feint attack is a real, but diversionary, attack that draws the defender’s attention to one area when the real attack is coming from somewhere else. When one focuses on the feint, the real attack—camouflaged by the feint—is all the more destructive. The defender is caught off-guard and is unprepared.

life is going to get hard;

the hard life is part of God’s plan for us now and in the future;

thus our current situation—the stuff we’re whining about—is not supposed to be our real concern.

In Ephesians 6:12, Paul says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” The feint is our struggle against flesh and blood. For Jeremiah, the struggles against flesh and blood were numerous: God had commanded him not to marry and raise children (Jer. 16:1-4); God had commanded him not to go to feasts (Jer. 16:5-13); God had commanded him to warn the rulers about the impending conquering armies, which made Jeremiah an unpopular “prophet of doom;” likewise, by counseling the Jewish rulers to submit to the Babylonian captivity, Jeremiah had been branded a traitor. No wonder Jeremiah has been called the weeping prophet!

Jeremiah’s “light and momentary troubles” (2 Cor. 4:17) had the potential to divert him from the real struggle: the proclamation of the advance of God’s kingdom. Jeremiah’s real struggle was not whether he got to “sit with revelers” (Jer. 15:17) or whether those lousy kings of Judah prospered or failed. Rather, Jeremiah’s real struggle was a matter of the heart. Would he remain faithful to God? Would he persevere, or give up? Jeremiah asked:

Why is my pain unending
and my wound grievous and incurable?
Will you be to me like a deceptive brook,
like a spring that fails? (Jer. 15:18)

And God answered:

If you repent, I will restore you
that you may serve me;
if you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
you will be my spokesman.
Let this people turn to you,
but you must not turn to them.

I will make you a wall to this people,
a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you
but will not overcome you,
for I am with you
to rescue and save you. (Jer. 15:19-20)

For us, the struggles are similar. Will we be distracted by the feints—work, family, and worldly pressures—or will we remain faithful to God? God’s answer to us is the same as his answer to Jeremiah: If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me ... for I am with you to rescue you and save you.

Points to Ponder

There is no time of year when the feints are more poignant, more apparent, than in our preparations for Christmas. What is the point of the Christmas season if not to prepare to receive Jesus in our hearts? However, by what feints do we always get distracted? How does Jer. 15:18-20 suggest what we should approach the season?

Faith & Politics: A Word on Martyrdom”

G.K. Chesterton said:  Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been tried and found hard.

Do you agree or disagree?

What does Chesterton mean that “it has been tried and found hard?”

Living in the world as a Christian can be hard. The world is happy for us to be like everyone else, but we know that we have been called to something different. As I said last week, we have been called to be a blessing to the world.

Certainly Christianity cannot be sampled as one samples morsels from a big box of chocolates: “I only like milk chocolate and I don’t like nuts, so give me this one, not that one.” Rather, Christianity requires complete surrender of one’s life to God, and one cannot fully understand Christian spirituality without surrender.

Alternately, the successful Christian cannot succeed on one’s own power, the power for success comes from the Spirit of God, and God’s Spirit only comes to us after we surrender to God. The nominal Christian who tries to do what Jesus would do without surrendering first to God has no power and will find the way hard indeed.

Finally, Christianity requires a complete rework of one’s thoughts and attitudes. Basic terms like love and forgiveness take on new meanings for Christians—e.g. “You have heard love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:43-44) The fantasy is that Christianity would be great if one could live in a Christian enclave, away from the world; however, our call is to live in the world, to engage the world, and make a difference in the world.

1 Peter 2:13-25

Commentary

The context for today’s passage is the two verses immediately before
Today’s verses are an exposition of what it means to live such good lives!

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (v11-12)

v13  submit … for the Lord’s sake. Our submission is a offering we give to God.

v15  it is God’s will [to] silence the talk of foolish men. Making a difference in the world begins by winning the hearts and minds of the people.

v18  Slaves. Before the Civil War, this verse was used to justify slavery in the South, but the theme through NT is to urge people to remain in the relationships they were in—just or unjust—before becoming Christians. (Eph. 5:22-6:9; Col. 3-18-4:1; 1Tim. 6:1-2).

v19-20  unjust suffering. This is the suffering of the Christian martyr; the one who deserves punishment is no martyr!

v21  to this you were called … you should follow. We think of Christ’s martyrdom as paying a price for our sins. Could it be that there is redemptive power in our martyrdom as well? We cannot pay for the sins of another, but just as Jesus broke the power of death and sin by dying, so we break the lies that people labor under by following Jesus’ steps as a martyr.

Application

As I noted before, when I started this sermon series, urging you (like the captives in Babylon) to seek the peace of the place where you live, Priscilla asked, “I understand all that. But aren’t we sometimes to resist? Should the Germans have not hidden the Jews during the war?” Of course they should have hidden the Jews. However, instead of trying to make heroes out of the German citizens, let us consider a different class of people: the millions of martyrs who were arrested the killed (at the concentration camps, or elsewhere).

Perhaps you have been to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.—if you have not, I strongly encourage you to go. The museum is a testament to all the martyrs—Jews and Gentiles alike—who died at the hands of the Nazis. While the term Holocaust is commonly used to refer to the Nazi systematic murder of over 6 million Jews, they also tried to eliminate other ethnic, racial, and religious groups, including: gypsies, Poles, Soviet citizens, Soviet POWs, Catholics, homosexuals, the handicapped, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, bringing the total number of non-combatants killed by the Nazis as high as 17 million. The Holocaust Museum is not just a memorial to the dead Jews, but rather to all those persecuted and killed by the Nazis.

When I went to the museum, one of the most moving moments was when my children, my nieces, and nephews met a Holocaust survivor who had come to visit the museum. The woman—in her seventies, at least—showed the children the number tattooed on her arm. She described the living conditions, her brutal treatment, and the hopelessness of her situation. All of the children were in tears. The woman was so kind, so gentle—strangely she was not judgmental. Rather, the story told itself; the moral presented itself; and the children learned a powerful lesson without her telling them what they needed to learn.

What is World War II without the Holocaust? Hitler is still a crazy megalomaniac who needs to be taken down; millions will still die taking him down. However, at the end of the war, does everyone speak with one voice, saying, “We must make sure this never happens again!”? World War I was originally called The Great War, and the War to End All Wars; but everyone was wrong, for the Second World War began barely twenty years later. The slaughter of the innocents was so dastardly that Jews and non-Jews alike agreed that such power and such genocide should never be allowed to happen again. In the 60+ years since, the world has seen plenty of wars, but the wars have been regional conflicts; moreover, genocide—the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, the Second Sudanese Civil War, the persecution of ethnic minorities in Iraq or the former Yugoslavia—has not been allowed to continue. In a world without the Holocaust, perhaps some of these conflicts mushroom into world-consuming wars; however, in a world with the Holocaust, evil still persists—it always will—but it is constrained at a price paid by the millions of Holocaust victims.

This is what martyrdom does. Martyrdom, by definition, never sees justice in its own time. Jesus dies on a cross; 17 million die at the hands of the Nazis; 240 years of slaves in America die in slavery; later generations of black Americans are forced to live as 2nd-class citizens under the lie of “separate, but equal.” Martyrs, by their suffering, expose the injustice in oppressive systems in such stark terms that others—sometimes even the oppressors—say, “Stop! This cannot be allowed to continue.” The centurion at the cross—the commander of execution squad—says, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39). The Allies’ Nuremberg Trials and subsequent courts judge the Nazis for their war crimes. 6% of all males in the Northern States, aged 13-43, die during the Civil War to free the slaves. During the American Civil Rights Movement, Jews and other minorities demonstrate for the rights “coloreds,” and National Guard troops ensure that court orders desegregating schools are followed. However, none of this happens without the martyrs who pay the price to make others take notice.

You too are called to be a martyr. It may be as innocuous as being held up to ridicule; it may cost you financially; it may cost you your family; it may cost you your life. Our society gives us the message daily, “Do what is in your own best interest, and stand up for your rights,” but Jesus says, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Through these actions, and by God’s Spirit, you will change the world.

Points to Ponder

Martyrdom may start with something as simple as forgiving somebody whom has hurt you badly, but to the one who can suffer injustice in small things Jesus says, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things!” (Matt. 25:21).

Faith & Politics: True Separation of Church & State

Last week (“Faith and Politics: Seek the Peace of Where You Are”) I said that Jeremiah’s advice to those contemplating rebellion against the Babylonian king was to submit to the yoke of subjugation to the king, because the pagan king was God’s chosen instrument for that time. Jeremiah encouraged them—even in captivity in Babylon—to seek the peace of that place, for if Babylon prospered, they would prosper.


Towards the end of the sermon, Priscilla asked, “But what about something like Nazi Germany? Surely it was right to hide the Jews! Surely we should not have collaborated with the Nazis!” Today’s sermon is a step towards addressing Priscilla’s concern.


Matthew 22:15-22


Commentary


v15-16  Politics makes strange bedfellows. Here the Herodians (supporters of the half-breed King Herod, the puppet-king installed by the Romans) and the Pharisees (pious legalists) conspire together to trap Jesus. If Jesus advocates sedition by refusing to pay the tax, the Herodians will be offended. If Jesus advocates capitulation by paying the tax, the Pharisees will be scandalized.


v20  Whose portrait ... whose inscription? Tiberius was Caesar when this event occurred, so most likely the coin bore the image of Tiberius and the words "Caesar Augustus Tiberius, the son of the divine Augustus." In addition to despising the Roman occupation of Judah, the Pharisees considered the coin (the required coin for paying the tribute) blasphemous.


v21  Jesus' words have posed a riddle for Christians through the ages. Some have read into Jesus' words a separation of church and state; others see it as commanding respect for worldly authority; others claim it demands rendering everything over to God. (Wikipedia has a great overview of the range of opinions at "Render Unto_Caesar".)


Application


Consider the context of the words. Jesus will shortly be arrested, tortured, put on trial, and killed by the minions of Caesar. Jesus will submit to Caesar without a word in his defense. He will do nothing to prevent the government from forcibly imposing its will. Certainly in his arrest, trial, and death, Jesus is obedient to his Father—rendering unto God what is God's—but that includes submitting to government reprisal when his actions run afoul of what the government desires. This is the heart of civil disobedience. Jesus' counsel in the face of what is about to happen to him is profound. Jesus pays taxes to a government that turns around and executes him—talk about seeing your tax dollars at work! It suggests that we do not go far enough in submission to the authorities that (as we learned last week) are God's chosen instruments.


Priscilla's question was, "What about the Nazis?" Nazis and fascists have been so demonized by historians that we have forgotten that—prior to World War II—the Roosevelt New Deal administration held up fascist Italy and Nazi Germany as progressive models that America should follow. A famous, and telling, defense of Mussolini was that, "He made the trains run on time," while early Nazi Germany was hailed for its advances in universal health care, senior care, organic foods, and cancer research (all this for pure-blood Aryans, at least). No government is so corrupt as to not care for at least a portion of its citizens, and no government is so benevolent as to care for all its citizens as it should. [1]


However, the problem comes when government oversteps its boundaries and claims the place of God. We see this in Caesar's claim to be divine, or Nazi Germany's mix of radical nationalism & racism. We cannot give our trust, our souls, to anything but God—that is idolatry. Therefore submitting to an immoral law is indefensible; Germans must hide the Jews. However, when we refuse to give to the government that which it cannot have and the government punishes us, we must submit. As Jesus said:

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).

Points to Ponder


We can see the boundaries overstepped by Caesar or the Nazis. What boundaries have been overstepped by our own national, state, and municipal governments?


On the other hand, even if we disagree with the laws of the government, can we submit to giving the government what it is due?


If you think abortion is wrong, but it is allowed by the government, would Jesus say it is OK to bomb abortion clinics?


If you think war is wrong, would Jesus say it is OK to protest the war? Would Jesus say it is OK to riot?


If Mainers vote to allow gay marriage next week, would Jesus say that is sufficient reason to disengage with society and hold up in church?


Many Christians believe that the mark of the beast in Revelation has something to do with money or the ability to conduct commerce (Revelation 13:17-18). If a world government came along and ordered a world currency, would Jesus say it is OK not to give to the government what it is due?


Read The Declaration of Independence. Would its authors agree or disagree with Jesus?


End Notes


1- This is why the founding fathers believed in checks and balances to mitigate or rectify the “train of abuses” that are bound to occur when government oversteps its bounds. Nevertheless, our fathers said, we should suffer the evils which are sufferable:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. (The Declaration of Independence)

Faith & Politics: Seek the Peace of Where You Are

Some of the most familiar verses in the book of Jeremiah are:

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord ... (Jer. 29:11-14a)

You might be surprised to learn the real context of the verses!
 In 597 BC, the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, laid seige to Jerusalem and took King Jehoiachin and the royal court into captivity back to Babylon (2 Kings 24:8-20). In all, 10,000 people were taken, and the Bible says, “Only the poorest in the land were left.” Nebuchadnezzar also looted the temple and the royal palace, taking all of the valuable articles back with him. Although Judah had effectively ceased to be a viable country, Nebuchadnezzar installed Jehoaiachin’s uncle—Zedekiah—as the king. 2 Kings 24 concludes:

It was because of the Lord's anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence. Now Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

We pick up the story in Jeremiah 27. God told Jeremiah to make and wear a yoke as a symbol of Judah’s subjugation to Babylon. Jeremiah was to wear the yolk willingly as a prophetic word to the Zedekiah and the people in Judah:

With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. Now I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him. If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the Lord, until I destroy it by his hand. So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, 'You will not serve the king of Babylon.' They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish. But if any nation will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the Lord. (Jer. 27:5-11)

However, another prophet, Hananiah, gave other counsel. He told the king that within two years that God would break the yoke of the Babylon—i.e. free Judah from subjugation—and bring back to Jerusalem all of the valuables looted from the palace and the temple, and the 10,000 exiles as well. Then Hananiah took the yoke from Jeremiah’s neck and broke it as a symbol of God breaking the yoke of Babylon. However, then God told Jeremiah:

Go and tell Hananiah, 'This is what the Lord says: You have broken a wooden yoke, but in its place you will get a yoke of iron. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I will put an iron yoke on the necks of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I will even give him control over the wild animals. (Jer. 28:13-14)

Despite Jeremiah’s warnings—including Jeremiahs’s prophecy of Hanaiah’s death, which was fulfilled just months later—Zedekiah listened to Hananiah’s counsel. Nebuchadnezzar returned and laid seige to Jerusalem (again!) Zedekiah fled, but was captured by the Babylonian army:

They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. (2 Kings 25:7)

However, before Zedekiah was deposed, Jeremiah wrote to the first wave of exiles to Babylon:


Jeremiah 29:4-19
 
Commentary
 
This prophecy has three main parts:

v4-9 Even in exile, seek the peace of the place where you live; prosper; do not listen to prophets who tempt you with words that satisfy your longing for something else.

v10-15 At just the right time, God will act. The exiles will be in Babylon until Babylon’s turn for justice comes (Jer. 27:7).

v16-19 Another warning about false prophets! The rest of chapter 29 is a warning for the false prophet Shemaiah, who was living with the exiles and giving the exiles false hopes.
The entire storyline of the Babylonian captivity is a lesson in theodicy, i.e. the justification of God. Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder challenges the idea of asking God to justify himself, asking:

 Where do you get the criteria by which you judge God?

 Why do you think you are qualified to judge God?

 If you think you are qualified, how does the trial proceed?

Religious persons have difficulty dealing with secular society & secular government. However, God makes it clear that he is in control, he is the force at work, and the government—any government—is simply a tool in his hand. God can use these tools to build or to destroy in order to re-build on the ruins of what was.


Points to Ponder

There are several referenda on the ballot in Maine next month— taxes, gay marriage, school consolidation, medical marijuana, etc. Religious voices on both sides are saying, “This is what God wants.” Is it possible ...

... that God will use the election to bring justice? (What needs to be destroyed?)

... that God would first have you seek the peace of the place where you are?

... that we are to remain engaged in the community even when the it is going in a direction we think is wrong?

God of the Gaps: Marathon Running

(Note: This is actually the communion homily from last week. The service ran so long, I didn't get to the sermon, and we just used the communion homily as the message for the week.)

A few weeks ago, I ran in the Maine State Marathon--actually, I ran the half-marathon, which ran simultaneously with the marathon and the marathon relay. We all ran the same course, but at the halfway point, the half-marathoners turned around, while the hard-core types ran another 6+ miles before turning around and running back.

I'm not the fastest guy by far, but in my training for running the half-marathon, I discovered that I'm more of a long-haul trucker than a sports car. My top speed isn't much, but I can run pretty far at that speed. In fact, I found that running for me really wasn't ever very much fun until I had run at least 2 miles. (This perhaps explains why I've made it to 54 without discovering this fact--I mean, who'd ever believe that running a 3rd mile is more fun than running the 1st two?)

I'm the assistant cross-country coach at the local high school, and I convinced some of the XC runners to run the marathon relay--four runners running a combined 26.2 miles. We entered a boys' team and a girls' team, and I skipped church to go with them and run the half-marathon, and then we all went out for a buffet feast.

Running the half-marathon was the most fun I've had in years! It's hard to explain, but after 2-3 miles, the 3,000 runners in the race had sort of spread out, and I found myself running with pretty much the same people for several miles at a stretch. I could chat with runners next to me, cheer for people I knew, and listen in on other conversations. In particular, there was one girl I followed for 3-4 miles who had the phrase "Isaiah 40:3" taped to the back of her shirt. About 5 miles into the race, I was feeling really good, and picked up my pace a little bit as we hit some hills. (Most people slow down a little bit as they go up hills. I pride myself on maintaining my speed--such as it is--all the way up most hills. I train myself to do it as a discpline of perseverance. During races, I pass more people on hills than on any other part of the race.) Halfway up a long hill, I passed Isaiah-girl and said, "Isaiah 40:3--right on!" She looked at me--confused for a minute--and said, "Oh, yeah, thanks!" and then I was off, and I never saw her again.

A voice of one calling:
In the desert prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)

I thought afterwards, some day I'll run with a T-shirt with the last few verses of Isaiah 40; let someone following me read this for a mile or two:

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

Here's an interesting trivia fact: all track and field events have to do with training ancient soldiers for various aspects of warfare. The throwers--javelin, shot put, and discus--are easy; hey, take this spear, throw it and kill somebody. (At the high school, the track team has a T-shirt for the top ten reasons to be a thrower, and one of the reasons is, "Use weapons with school without getting into trouble!") Sprinters and jumpers--the true neurotics of any track team--are the infantry which charges across the field under a lethal rain of arrows; the faster you can cover the ground, the less likely you are to die before killing your opponent. But the really interesting ones are the long distance runners.

In ancient times, you would take your army out of the city and meet your opponent in the field. Specifically, you would try to prevent your opponent from surrounding you while you were in your walled city, laying seige, and starving you out. Women, children, and old men would remain in the city, wearing cackcloth and ashes and praying from your safe return. If you lost, they knew not only would you be killed, but those behind the walls would be taken off as the spoils of war: slaves and concubines. Even if you won, they knew that some would not come home, but at least life would go on, after a fashion. In either event, they would wait behind the walls, praying and waiting for good new from the front. The distance runners were the ones who would bring the good news.

Marathon running dates back from the Battle of Marathon at which Pheidippides ran back to Athens to announce the defeat of the Persian army. The runners would be given a reward for bringing the good news, and runners would vie against each other to be the first back to the city with the good news. These runners were called evangelists.

No joke.

There is a battle going on between good and evil. The battle is still going on, but the victor is clear. Jesus is Lord above all, and through him all can be saved. You no longer need to live in fear of bondage, in fear of what the future holds, in fear of what you have done. Jesus has broken the power of sin and death in your life. It doesn't mean that there won't be troubles and trials along the way, but you are free to live. Now get up and live! We are the heirs of those ancient marathon runners and our charge is to bring that good news.

How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
"Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7)

God of the Gaps: A Brave New World

Consider the following:

A man was looking for a good church to attend and he happened to enter one in which the congregation and the preacher were reading from their prayer book. They were saying, “We have left undone things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.”

The man dropped into a seat and sigh with relief as he said to himself, “Thank goodness, I’ve found my crowd at last.” (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 234)

What truths are taught in this story?

Luke 12:22-34

Commentary

Jesus’ reasoning has five parts:

v22-23 more than food ... more than clothes. Here “more” is a comparative adjective, which means it defines the nouns--food and body. There is more to life, there is more to us, than the food, clothes, etc. we are looking at.” We have a tendency to define ourselves down, to reduce our lives and our problems to things of relative unimportance.

v24-26 much more valuable than birds! In this section, Jesus addresses worrying about food. Here and in the next section, “more” is an adverb, meaning it modifies the action. That is, God will do a better job feeding us than he does feeding the birds.

v27-28 much more will he clothe you! In this section, Jesus addresses worrying about clothes: “God will do a better job clothing you than he does clothing the lilies.” The implication is that God’s actions on our behalf are more certain, more thorough, and more effective.

v29-31 your Father knows that you need them (v30). In these last two sections, Jesus steps back to look at the big picture. First, there is God the Father—v30 is the first place in this passage where God is mentioned in this personal way. The pagan—the one estranged from God—runs after the petty things in life because he does not know the generosity of the Father. We who know the Father should not be driven by worry and despair!

v32-34 do not be afraid (v32). The big picture expands to not just include the Father, but others inside and outside of the kingdom of God. We worry about petty things due to anxiety—fear of what the future holds. Jesus’ counsel is not just “Don’t worry,” but to live in the kingdom with the expectation of sufficiency. Once our focus expands beyond ourselves, we are free to enter into a brave new world of kingdom living.

What is the context for these verses? v13-21 are the parable of the rich fool, who tore down his barns to build bigger barns only to die that night; v35-40 are a charge to be ready—to be caught doing what is right. v32-34 are not just good advice, but the way we are called to live each day.

Application

What more is there to life than the petty things we worry about? Jesus gives us two answers: God, and neighbor. The petty things we worry about all pertain to our own needs—or at best our immediate family’s needs. We have been designed to live in community—with God, certainly, but with each other as well. Our obsession with our own needs shrinks our world down to a universe of self—a world that can never satisfy, because we were created for a brave new world: a community where we mirror the love of our Father in heaven as we love each other, a community where we return the Father’s generosity by sharing his material gifts with each other.

This brave new world is based on our knowledge of our relationship to our spiritual Father. We are no longer alone. Not only are we not alone, it turns out that the ruler of this brave new world is working for us. Despite today’s troubles, despite our petty concerns about food, clothes, and the like, our Father will make sure we get exactly what we need. As any parent with a young child knows, what the child wants and what the child needs is rarely the same thing. We may not get the food we want, we may not get the clothes we want, we may not get the health, or happiness, or prosperity we want.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ... Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-32, 35, 38-39)

That love is what we have been missing; that love is what we see when we back up to look at the whole picture.

When we really get that we are loved—that God is for us—we can begin to live with an expectation of sufficiency. [1] That expectation of sufficiency changes us from hoarders (the thieves and moths cannot take what we are using, but rather only what we are hoarding) into givers. Only once we are free to give without reservation are we free to love and care for our neighbor.

The Discipline of Koinonia:
Community through Intimate Participation

Koinonia means a partnership. Partners, in a business, in a marriage, in a club, or a church have a shared common interest. They are bonded together by that interest.

However, koinonia goes further, as partners enter into the life of one another, sharing treasures & trials, pleasures & pains, life & death together.

Koinonia creates an openness where we no longer have to try to be somebody we are not; we no longer have to live solely for ourselves; we no longer have to feel different and alone.

In one of our Wednesday night contemplative services, we learned about the relationship between one of the Hebrew words for “love” and the word for “obligation”. If you truly want to love another person, take on an obligation to care for that person. We have come to view obligations as burdens and hardships, but the Bible teaches that there is no love that does not bring with it an obligation to another. An ancient spiritual truth states: There is no koinonia without kenosis (i.e. there is no community without the emptying out of self). From this change in our orientation comes the humility that nurtures the gratitude that allows the generosity that transforms how we live.

As we fulfill our obligations to another, we discover that the other person is more like ourselves than we thought. Koinonia, in the words of theologian Mary Daly is, “The deepest possible community ... that is discovered rather than ‘formed,’ when we meet others who are on the same voyage.

Points to Ponder

Would you say that you are predisposed to hoarde what you have, or give it away freely?

Food and clothing—the two items Jesus focuses on in this passage—might not be your foibles. What material things do you tend to worry about?

What immaterial things do you tend to worry about?

Where have you not trusted God your Father to give you what you need? Would you like to trust in him today?

End Notes
1 - Not an expectation of prosperity—I think that sets us up to believe in a false gospel where we begin to pray for all sorts of ridiculous worldly things!

God of the Gaps: Praying for the S.O.B.

In his book Is Human Forgiveness Possible? John Patton examines the familiar story:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22)

Patton says:

Peter’s question seems to say, “Please give me a rule so I don’t have to keep dealing with this. How can I know when enough is enough? I want to know what to do instead of having to come to terms with the whole history of our relationship.” Jesus’ response to the question says in effect, “I am unwilling to give you a way out of a continuing relationship to your brother.” (Is Human Forgiveness Possible?)

Jesus is unwilling to give us an out; refusing to forgive is not an option. Yet many of us as Christians struggle to forgive: the offense is grievous; the offender is unrepentant; the offense is repeated; we cannot simply “forgive and forget.” How then are we to live?

Colossians 3:12-14

Commentary

The context for these verses is Colossians 3:1-17, which in the NIV has the heading “Rules for Holy Living.” In v1-4, Paul reminds us that God raises us up to a new way of life. We die—cut ourselves off—from our old way of life and wait for the new God-powered way of life to take over. In v5-11, Paul exhorts us to dispense with the trappings of our old way of living—taking it off as we would take of filthy work clothes—and adopt a new way of living. (Compare this with Romans 6:5-14 & Ephesians 4:22-23.)

v12-14 lists some of the individual traits of this new way of life, while v15-17 gives a hint of what this new way of living might look like as a unified community.

Application

A Sufi proverb says, “If a man removes his bitterness, he becomes human; otherwise he becomes an animal.” The barrier to forgiveness is resentment. Resentment means, literally, “feeling again.” When we harbor grudges (big or small) in our resentment we are nursing the pain and giving it new life. Where we struggle with our faith, where we do not see (or feel!) the kind of spiritual growth that we so very much crave, perhaps we have not learned the best way to forgive. Perhaps we have tried to forgive, but are still holding on to resentment. Resentment has the power to cancel our feeble attempts at forgiveness.

For many of us, forgiveness is still a forced act. When we were children (and later when we are parents!) we played out the following script:

“Now tell your brother that you’re sorry for hitting him. Say it!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Now, tell your sister that you forgive her. Say it!”

“That’s OK.”

“OK, now go and play nicely.”

Did genuine forgiveness take place? Of course not! Inside each of those children—inside of us when we were children—there was a voice saying, “I will say the words, but I will not submit!”

We can argue about what is needed for real forgiveness—remorse, repentance, penitence, restitution, punishment, etc.—however, many of us do not forgive any more effectively than we used to as children following that script. For many of us as Christians, we know that God would have us forgive; we still hear that script, “Tell your sister that you forgive her.” We will say the words, but our hearts have trouble submitting! Is there any wonder why we feel like failures when our hearts do not back up our words?

Perhaps there is a different path to forgiveness. Perhaps we have been following the wrong script.

Preliminary research findings echo ancient understandings of forgiveness and shed intriguing light on the ongoing story of a spirituality of imperfection. Forgiveness, the investigators rediscovered, does not come easily, but it does, apparently, come suddenly. “Serene” persons—those who had suffered victimization but who now harbored no resentments—described not a specific act of forgiving, but rather a discovery of themselves as having forgiven. These individuals reported the failure of their direct efforts to forgive—they couldn’t force the experience. “The harder I tried to forgive, the more I seemed to resent,” was a frequent description. Realizing this, they stopped “trying to forgive” and instead “just sort of let go”; and then, after varying intervals of time, came the astonishing discovery that the resentment had disappeared, that they somehow already had forgiven.

... [Forgiveness] is one of those realities that cannot be “willed,” that becomes more impossible the harder one tries to will it. Forgiveness, in fact, becomes possible only when will is replaced by willingness; it results less from effort than from openness. (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 216)

Forgiveness is a reality that cannot be willed, and we have been beating ourselves up by trying to will it and then punishing ourselves for not being able to will it.

Paul gave us the metaphor of taking off our old practices, our old self (v9), and putting on new practices, a new self (v12), and thereby becoming a new creation. Our old script for forgiveness, which allowed resentment to fester, was like putting new clothes on without taking the old, filthy clothes off first. Is it any wonder that we were not happy with the result? We stank!
In order to rid ourselves of resentment, we must first let go of our vision of ourselves as the victim. Playing the victim is an abdication of responsibility, it is remaining the child and mouthing the words dictated to us by one in authority. As long as we are victims, we will never feel free.

To move beyond victimhood, we must take responsibility for our selves and take a measure of responsibility for our future relationship with the one who offended us. (Remember, Jesus has refused to give us an automatic out!)

One option is to consider ourselves dead to revenge or justice. Simply assume that justice is something that we will never see (at least not on our time frame). Grieve the loss of justice and move on.

The other option is: Pray for the S.O.B.! (The prayer tends to work as long as one does not presume to tell God what the S.O.B. deserves.)

In either case, we take several positive steps: we refuse to be the victim; we take responsibility for our feelings; we take off our old way of living; and we allow God to act, either by bringing justice or by changing us as we pray for the S.O.B. Perhaps the S.O.B. that is changed is us!

The Discipline of Forgiveness:
Taking Responsibility for the Relationship

Forgiveness has a several nuanced meanings. The offended party should take
an active role in determining what steps towards forgiveness the offender is
ready to pursue:

1 – Admission of responsibility. If there are extenuating circumstances, then the offender may wish exoneration. Otherwise, if the offender is open to taking responsibility, then future reconciliation is possible. If the offender refuses to take responsibility, then at some point the offended party must take responsibility for forging what the ongoing relationship, if any, will look like.

2 – Freedom from punishment. It may be that the offender simply wants remission of punishment; this does not mean that the offended party should “forgive & forget.” If the offender is ready to stand in condemnation of what happened, then a return to the community in some form may be feasible.

3 – Return. It may be that the relationship is irreparable, but a place for the offender in a moral community is possible (e.g. a divorced couple remaining on speaking terms). It may be that the relationship is reparable, but then the ultimate question is what will the form of that relationship be.

4 – Restore or re-create? If a relationship can be repaired, one option is to attempt to “go back to the way it used to be.” Personally, I think this is generally foolhardy, and one is better off using the knowledge of what happened to forge a new, stronger, more resilient relationship.

(Steps adapted from Helping People Forgive, by David Augsburger)

The offended party has the power to make these determinations even if the offender is incapable. In almost all case, all parties are best served by not forgetting the past. As Arthur Schopenhauer said, “To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experience.”

Points to Ponder

Where are you living with resentment? Can you grieve the loss or justice? Can you pray for the S.O.B.?

What if you resent what God has done? Can you still pray?