Author Archives: Christopher J Wiles

Unknown's avatar

About Christopher J Wiles

Hey there. My name's Chris. I'm a teaching pastor at Tri-State Fellowship, and a research writer for Docent Research Group. Thanks for stopping by; be sure to stay connected by subscribing to blog updates and more.

The After-Party (Revelation 19:6-9)

Posted on by
Reply

Every good party has an after-party, am I right?  When we attend a wedding, we typically attend a second celebration—the reception—right after.  Following a graduation ceremony, the party can really begin.

Even some holidays follow a similar pattern.  After Thanksgiving, you ramp up for Christmas.  And about a week later, you ring in the New Year.  But it always occurred to me that Easter’s not really like this—at least, there really aren’t that many major holidays that follow Easter.  You have to wait until the fourth of July.  And that always seemed kinda lame, because we go from celebrating the resurrection of Jesus to sitting on mountains of stale marshmallow peeps.  And something called “Easter grass,” which is just annoying.

There’s good news.  If we flip the pages of our Bible to the very end, we find that there really is the greatest after-party of them all:

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.  7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;  8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”– for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Revelation 19:6-9)

It’s not clear when this party takes place exactly.  But at some point, as a way of celebrating God making all things new again, Christ’s followers are gathered to celebrate the “marriage” of heaven and earth at a feast called the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”

So if we put our pieces together from the past week, we see that God’s kingdom had been described as a gracious feast (Isaiah 55:1), one where grace trumps our usual standards of self-righteous moralism (Luke 14).  Now we see that we are promised a greater feast to come, where we are finally gathered to celebrate the fulfillment of God’s great story.

When we consider that we are granted a place at the table, what does this tell us about the character of the Host of the party?

Any party that honors the broken and the outcasts says more about the character of the host than the character of the guests.

You might be aware that J.R.R. Tolkien—the mind that brought us the famous Lord of the Rings series—was a follower of Jesus.  In a letter to one of his sons, Tolkien beautifully reflected on how coming to the table of communion—and rubbing shoulders with the outcasts—is an unparalleled way of understanding the magnificent grace of God:

“The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion.… Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved…open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.”

If the marriage supper of the Lamb is the feast we anticipate, then communion is the feast we celebrate as sort of the “rehearsal dinner” before the main event.  And at that table we’ll find people we don’t like, people who don’t like us, people who don’t resemble us in their speech, their thoughts, their actions.  But at that table we’ll recognize that in Christ we are all one and the same—blessed beyond measure by the grace shown to each of us.

And take heart: the after-party’s on its way.

Functional Saviors and the Need for an Invite (Luke 14:21-24)

Posted on by
Reply

Some people ruin everything.   In high school, it was common to have division between the “cool” kids and the chess club.  If we’re guilty by association, then no one wants to be tried and convicted of being socially awkward.  Thing is, as much as we shake our heads at the immaturity of high schoolers, this attitude never really goes away.  There will always be those above us on the social ladder, and if we want to be like them we have to put some distance between ourselves and the folks below us.

In Jesus’ day, many of the religious leaders thought that their righteousness and social reputations were one and the same.  Surely they could sneer down on those beneath them.  That’s why Jesus’ parable is so unsettling.  The “cool” crowd—the ones who had all the blessings—were too busy to attend the party.  So, in Jesus’ parable, the party host has another plan entirely:

21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” (Luke 14:21-24)

Why would Jesus place special emphasis on the social outcasts?  Would the less fortunate be better able to enjoy the party?

In the ancient world, there was no ACLU.  A physical disability was little more than a death sentence without the assistance of others.  Worse yet, as we mentioned earlier many would see your suffering as God’s punishment.  Clearly you were worthy of being avoided.  But no; these were the sorts of people that the party host draws near.  When there’s room to spare, the host insists that the servants go to Wal-Mart, the DMV—the kinds of places we like to avoid—and bring in the people we tend to distance ourselves from.

Think about it this great reversal for a minute.  The wealthy, the well-off—these people avoided the party because they’d already found their saviors.  That is, if unhappiness is my greatest problem, then my salvation lies in securing happiness through prosperity or relationships.  Who needs Jesus?  But the broken, the lame, the outcasts—these folks had no idols to turn to.  They had a fuller understanding of their need for a Savior.

Jesus’ point isn’t that one group becomes socially superior—it’s actually far deeper than that.  Jesus is saying that those who seek self-sufficiency are “out,” while those who recognize their own weakness are “in.”  If my greatest need is happiness, then I need to look no farther than my TV remote.  But if my greatest need is acceptance, then I need the mercy extended from the cross of Christ.  What about you—what are your needs?  May we count ourselves not among the self-sufficient, but instead count ourselves among those who limp their way to Jesus’ party, and through the gates of the undying.

Declining the Offer (Luke 14:15-20)

Posted on by
Reply

If you’re a stranger to the world of social media, then consider yourself lucky not to have to endure one of its less pleasant aspects.  I’m talking about event invites.  Or, for that matter, requests to play online games.  Mind you, some folks are legitimately discriminating with their requests.  Others, not so much.  I’ve personally been invited to multiple parties wherein I’d be expected to purchase some sort of elaborate cookware or homemade scented candles or something.  It had occurred to me that hey, maybe going to these things would be a good way to meet women, but I suspect that all the hotties at the apron party are already spoken for.  But I digress.

See, thanks to technology we get bombarded with so many invitations to “like” things, “join” things, attend things—eventually the wall of information grows so large we learn to tune it out.  Ignore it.  Because frankly, we all have better things to do.  Trouble is, if we make this a habit we run the risk of missing good opportunities because we’re so preoccupied with our own lives.

This is what Jesus cautions his religious tablemates about at the party.  Yesterday we looked at two quick parables that speak of the great reversal of values in the kingdom.  When they heard this, Luke tells us:

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (Luke 14:15)

The more I read this the more I wonder if he’s being a bit defensive.  Jesus had just told them that their assumptions of status and “belonging” were faulty, and that they should extend love by elevating those from the lower rungs of the social ladder.  But, this man seems to be insisting, what difference does it make?  Surely everyone who joins the party has a good time, right?  Jesus responds by telling a longer story about a great banquet:

16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’  (Luke 14:15-20)

What are some of the reasons people might have for ignoring or dismissing the opportunity to invest in God’s kingdom?

Each of the invitees of this parable had an excuse for not being there.  To be clear, none of their excuses were sinful.  In fact, they were really good things.  Yet the story would have shocked the guests at the table Jesus was sitting at.  Why?  Because hospitality was such a great value, that they would have been unable to believe that anyone would reject such an invitation.

If Christianity is a means to an end, then we may easily find ourselves in a similar position.  If Christianity is a way to happiness, or a way of coping with grief, then we can easily find a variety of other things to serve those needs.  And, if we share the mentality of the Pharisees, we can easily fall into the trap of confusing our prosperity with God’s approval.  Jesus is essentially saying: Don’t assume that because you’ve found success in your work or your marriage that God is pleased with you. No; there’s something greater at stake, a heavenly joy we miss when we settle for earthly happiness.  We’ve placed self-satisfaction as our highest priority, rather than self-surrender and self-sacrifice.  The gospel romances us away from self into the joy of life in God’s kingdom.  Are we willing to accept the invitation?

Gated Communities (Luke 14:1-14)

Posted on by
Reply

It was Dallas, Texas where I first encountered “gated communities.”  Large iron gates and fences served to protect housing developments and apartment complexes.  Getting in and out meant you had to “belong” to the community—or at least have an “in” with the residents.

While there’s surely times when such boundaries are appropriate—and necessary—we do Christ’s Church a great disservice when we apply this type of thinking to our church communities—or to society in general.  Because really, we’ve only become increasingly polarized within our world.  Where once we may have found common ground or at least the space for respectful disagreement, now we gravitate toward the extreme positions of either conservative or progressive values, content to clench our fists and raise our voices in an ongoing clash of cultures.

Put a bit differently, we like to think of ourselves as the “in” crowd.  We’re right; the facts are on our side, by golly—so why bother with our neighbors?  And if we’re foolish enough to spiritualize this, then we tend to think that our religious behavior uniquely earns us God’s approval.

Such was the case of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  In Luke 24, we find Jesus as a guest of one of the “Pharisees”—a group of religious separatists deeply committed to God’s Law:

One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they could not reply to these things. (Luke 14:1-6)

“Dropsy” was a medical condition known for fluid retention and swelling—meaning it would have been caused by either the heart or the kidneys.  Religious leaders of Jesus’ day would have associated such conditions as God’s punishment.  Surely the man must have done something to deserve his misfortune.  Notice how Jesus is the only one speaking in the above verses?  Yet even amid the awkward silences, God is at work.  Jesus brings the point home with two short parables before he gets to his third, longer parable:

7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:7-14)

In the ancient world, a disability was essentially a death sentence—unless, of course, you could depend on the care of family or the generosity of strangers.  Jesus appeals to these folks because they could not possibly fulfill any of the usual social contracts.

Jesus’ whole point is this: we can very easily reduce relationships to a series of transactions.  We love people who serve us well, who enable us to climb the social ladder.  Likewise, we tend to distance ourselves from those we view as beneath us, socially speaking.  After all, we have a relationship to uphold.

If, like the Pharisees, you see religion as only a set of moral codes, then this attitude makes perfect sense.  Your “gated community” can be protected and free from the contamination of outsiders.  My right behaviors earn me a place of moral superiority over those I think less of.

Jesus will have none of this.  Sickness and suffering (like the man with dropsy) upset the equilibrium of our safely held beliefs.  What everyone assumed would have been a cause for moral superiority, Jesus turned into a chance for compassion and healing.  In the absence of grace, religion eventually falls apart.  Moral superiority will only carry you so far.  The gospel takes our usual categories and turn them completely upside down.  If I’m accepted by God based on Christ’s performance and not my own, then I can never feel superior.  Why?  Because I am saved by work done for me, not by me.  And I can never feel inferior, because the cross reveals God’s great love for me.

The gospel therefore becomes the key to unlocking the “gates” of my community—starting with my own heart.  The cross provokes me to see life not as a series of social contracts, but as an opportunity for love, for service, and for grace upon grace.

Why celebrate anything? (Isaiah 55:1)

Posted on by
1

Ya know, sometimes we’re just desperate for an excuse to eat cake.  If you visit timeanddate.com, you’ll quickly learn that there’s basically a holiday for almost every day of the calendar year.  Some are celebrated by select religions; others are observed only within certain states.  But nationally, we have a variety of holidays that, well…kinda make you want to lie down for a while.  We can name just a few:

  • Talk like a pirate day (September 19)
  • National hairball awareness day (April 29)
  • Don’t cry over spilled milk day (February 11)
  • Bad poetry day (August 18)
  • National corn dog day (March 22)
  • Festival of sleep day (January 3)
  • Peculiar people day (January 10)
  • Take your plants for a walk day (July 27)

There’s apparently also an “eat what you want day” on May 11, though I think we can all agree that this day is basically every major holiday.

We celebrate, we relish the transformation from mere homo sapiens to homo ludens—humans at play.  We gather to celebrate holidays, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, retirement—even funerals can be at least something of a bittersweet celebration.

We could say it in reverse: how many people celebrate privately?  Isn’t there something to the old saying: “The more the merrier?”  There’s an energy, a liveliness that we experience when a group of people gather to share joy.  And that’s just it, isn’t it?  Try to capture joy all for yourself, and it sinks to the floor like a Mylar balloon.  Joy finds levity when it is shared, when it is nurtured in the presence of others.

In a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal, Alain de Botton notes that an increasing number of non-religious people are making a beeline for the doors of traditional churches.  Why?  Because they recognize that something happens in a spiritual community that can’t happen anywhere else.  He notes that this makes religious communities vastly different from, say, a restaurant:

“The large number of people who patronize restaurants suggests that they are refuges from anonymity and coldness, but in fact they have no systematic mechanism for introducing patrons to one another…Patrons tend to leave restaurants much as they entered them, the experience having merely reaffirmed existing tribal divisions. Like so many institutions in the modern city (libraries, nightclubs, coffee shops), restaurants know full well how to bring people into the same space, but they lack any means of encouraging them to make meaningful contact with one another once they are there.” (Alain de Botton, “Religion for Everyone,” The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 2012)

His point comes down to this: we may share an experience with others, but these experiences fail to nourish the soul-level cravings in the same way as traditional religion.

A celebration, it seems, is only as powerful as what it celebrates.  Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, God’s coming kingdom is described as (among other symbols) something of a banquet—a party, if you will. One of my favorite passages on this subject comes from the lips of Isaiah, one of God’s messengers some seven centuries before the birth of Jesus:

“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1)

In a very real sense, the gospel is the greatest party invitation of all.  And unlike the various (and occasionally bizarre!) celebrations of this present world, God’s kingdom offers a way of satisfying our greatest desires in ways no other experience can duplicate.

If I forgive, do I have to forget? (1 Corinthians 13:5)

Posted on by
1

“I will forgive, but I will never forget.”  It’s tempting to think of “forgiveness” as somehow equivalent to a legal acquittal.  It’s why it’s often so difficult to overcome past hurt.  Yesterday, we discussed the way that the forgiveness makes reconciliation ideal, though there may be circumstances in which reconciliation is simply not possible.

We looked at David Brooks’ fourfold process of reconciliation:

  • Pre-emptive mercy
  • Judgment
  • Confession and repentance
  • Reconciliation and re-trust

Again, when true repentance does not happen, then forgiveness cannot lead to true reconciliation.

“Ok,” you might be thinking, “but how do I know if my offender has truly repented?   And how do I react if my offender repeats the same offense?”

These are great questions, and ultimately are tied to our central question: does forgiving mean forgetting?  That is, if my offender wrongs me again, should I not see this as part of a larger pattern of sin or abuse?

Let’s look at what the Bible says about God’s forgiving of human sin:

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25)

Does this mean that God “forgets” human sin?

Assume for a moment that the answer to this question is “yes.”  If God forgets sin, and I don’t, then don’t I now know more than God?  But that’s simply not possible—nor is it necessary.  No; God says that he “will not remember.”  God doesn’t forget human sin; he chooses not to remember sin. 

So how might we apply this to the famous passage from Corinthians?

“Love…is not irritable or resentful…” (1 Corinthians 13:5)

Some older translations actually deal with the Greek just a bit better, saying that love “does not keep record of wrongs.”

We’re talking, of course, about the “judgment” phase of Brooks’ process.  There are two extremes we must avoid here:

  • Minimizing the offense: Brushing it aside as “no big deal,” “it won’t happen again,” or “that’s just the way men/women are.”
  • Maximizing the offense: Seeing the offense as part of a larger pattern of misbehavior: “You never listen to me” or “You always do this.”

Neither extreme deals realistically with the actual offense, therefore neither extreme is a straight road toward repentance.  One of the great tragedies of domestic abuse is that women often too quickly enter into re-trust without a genuine change on the part of their abuser.  This is—at least partially—why Rowan Williams, a former church official from South Africa, reminds us that “forgetting” an offense can actually be quite damaging:

“The monument at Auschwitz to the Jews killed there has the inscription, ‘O earth, cover not their blood.’  There are things that should never, never be forgotten…real forgiveness is something that changes things and so gives hope….If someone says to me, ‘Yes, you have hurt me, but that doesn’t mean it’s all over.  I forgive you.  I still love you,’ then that is a moment of enormous liberation.   It recognizes the reality of the past, the irreversibility of things, the seriousness of damage done, but then it is all the more joyful and hopeful because of that.”

As Christians, forgiveness should push us toward reconciliation, but only if the offense has been dealt with.  The problem, of course, is that our offenders will often repeat their trespasses.  What then?

  • In some cases, an offender repeats his crimes because his repentance is This person may be in process, but stumble along the way.  This is especially true if that offender is consumed with some addicting behavior such as alcohol or pornography.
  • In other cases, an offender repeats his crimes because his repentance is entirely absent. An abuser may do an excellent job at manipulating others into seeing his/her greatness, but ultimately they’ve only gotten better at hiding their offense.

What might this mean?

  • First, even if your offender is seeking help, there may be times when repentance needs to be total before trust is re-offered. This is especially true in cases of domestic/child abuse, when the presence of an offender can actually do further damage if his/her healing is less than total.
  • Second, this also presents the essential value of community. For instance, if your spouse is caught with pornography, and vows not to repeat his/her offense, the surest sign of that commitment is personal accountability with another person.
  • Third, this also means that we might have to deal with the pain of repeat offenses as we lovingly walk with another person along the path of repentance. Each time will be a new occasion for confrontation and healing.
  • Finally, there may be times when we realize that our offender’s repentance has been haphazard—or absent. In those times we have to step back and reconsider whether a true relationship will be possible until true repentance takes place.  This is at least partially why the Bible labels divorce as permissible in the context of marital infidelity.

We cannot possibly cover every circumstance in a series of devotionals.  I only hope that this has been at least a good starting point to thinking about what life looks like in community.  For some of you, this means that reconciliation is possible; for others of you your journey can only go as far as forgiveness.  But if you experience a rift between yourself and another Christian, then remember that even if you can’t be friends/spouses now, you will be spiritual siblings forever.  There will be a day when all repentance is made complete when we become perfect in the presence of the Savior.

 

 

Is reconciliation always possible? (Ephesians 2:12-16)

Posted on by
1

What comes after forgiveness?  Depending on the nature of the offense, there may be a prolonged struggle.  After all, forgiveness might not come all at once; it may be a daily struggle to forgive that other person.  A number of years ago the nation of Rwanda was torn apart by tribal conflict and genocide—you may remember this from the film Hotel Rwanda.  After it was all over, the healing had to begin.  I say had to, because the nature of the conflict meant that individuals would return home, and literally move back in next to neighbors that had taken the lives of their family members.   In her excellent book As We Forgive, Catherine Claire Lawson shares the real-life stories of many who came to understand forgiveness only through the workshops offered through Christian relief workers.  One such story comes from “Monique:”

At the workshops, they read stories of forgiveness from the Bible.  Monique remembered the stories from childhood, but the words came alive to her again as she heard how Jesus Christ had taken our sins and our sorrows to the cross.  [The group leader] explained how this meant that Christ had taken both the sins of the genocidaires and the sorrows of the victims carried those with him to the cross.  As an innocent victim, Christ identified with those like Monique who suffered wrongfully.  But by laying upon him the sins of the world, Christ also took away the reproach of sinners who would look to him in faith.  He forgives.  ….Little by little, Monique felt she too could extend forgiveness to the people who had wronged her.  (Catherine Claire Lawson, As We Forgive, p. 152-3)

In the ancient city of Ephesus, Paul likewise uses the sacrifice of Christ to describe how Jews and non-Jews could be united despite past cultural differences.

Read Ephesians 2:12-16:

“…remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:12-16)

The New Testament describes reconciliation—a restored relationship—as the ideal.  Why might this be so difficult to achieve?

In recent months, a nation expressed outrage over the deception of Brian Williams.  But in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, David Brooks raises the possibility of forgiveness.  He asks:

“…the larger question is how we build community in the face of scandal. Do we exile the offender or heal the relationship? Would you rather become the sort of person who excludes, or one who offers tough but healing love?” (David Brooks, “The Art of Rigorous Forgiveness,” in The New York Times, February 10, 2015)

Brooks goes on to describe a four-stage process of reconciliation:

  • Pre-emptive mercy: the act of extending forgiveness before the offender does a single thing.
  • Judgment: being willing to label the offense as wrong, and seeing it without exaggerating or minimizing the offense.
  • Confession and repentance: when the offender recognizes and changes their attitude toward their wrongdoing.
  • Reconciliation and re-trust: a restored relationship between myself and my offender.

Again, the New Testament ideal is to move us to stage 4.  But let’s pause for a second—is this even possible in every situation?  For some, reconciliation without confession and judgment only serves to enable my offender.  It hasn’t healed the problem, only sugared over it.  So there may be situations where the offender refuses—for whatever reason—to come to terms with their offense.  In such situations, it may actually be unloving to pursue a relationship with that person until that offense has been dealt with.

We’ll return to this question in tomorrow’s post.  For now we can simply recognize that for Christians, forgiveness is an extension of God’s love; but reconciliation is not always possible.  What forgiveness means is that I no longer hold the past as a barrier to future relationship, though always recognizing that future relationships can be made possible through ongoing behavior.

 

The initial challenge, therefore, is to practice that “pre-emptive mercy” and to lay aside the anger we feel toward our offender.  Only then can we be released from carrying a grudge and can extend a hand in love.

The “hidden fees” of emotional debt (Matthew 18:28-35)

Posted on by
Reply

Financial debt is easy to quantify.  If you damage my property, justice comes when you pay what you owe.  But what about things that can’t be monetized so easily?

We spoke yesterday of “emotional debt,” the pain that accrues from being hurt or betrayed.  For some offenses, a simple apology won’t cover it.  The legal system has tried to put a price on this by pursuing litigation (and compensation) for “pain and suffering.”  I communicated briefly on this subject with our own A.J. Serafini, who said that it’s customary to ask for 2-3 times the physical damage to cover pain and suffering.  While I don’t doubt that financial restitution can’t improve one’s quality of life, I doubt that this brings genuine release from one’s emotional debts.  Take, as an extreme example, families who seek closure in watching a family member’s murdered get executed.  Common sense tells us that yes; those family members witnessing this event will find a renewed peace in seeing justice meted out.  But contemporary research from Stanford University says that the opposite is often true.  Families may feel re-victimized by witnessing such a traumatic event.  For others, the protracted wait from sentencing to execution may seem like justice deferred—and effectively denied.  For still others, a relatively painless death seems too convenient a price for the suffering caused by a hardened killer.

Now, most of us may—thankfully—never need to endure this level of emotional debt.  But like the debtor in the parable, we may feel like someone out there owes us something.

Take a moment to re-read the fallout of the debtor:

28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (Matthew 18:28-35)

Why would God’s forgiveness depend on our willingness to forgive another?

Like the debtor, we want to see our offenders experience pain.  And pain usually travels downward.   We “distribute” the emotional debt by entertaining private thoughts of revenge, or feeling the need to “warn” others about that person’s potential actions.

In short, we’ve made forgiveness entirely conditional on our private sense of justice.  But here’s the point of exploring the whole topic of pain and suffering: it’ll never work. Even in the most extreme examples, we fail to find the closure we seek.

That’s why Jesus says that failing to forgive leads to a failure to be forgiven.  Why?  Because if I make forgiveness dependent on a moral code, it reveals that I never really understood the gospel at all.  The gospel promises salvation through God’s grace—through what Christ did.  To make forgiving others based on anything less than that only reveals hearts that seek to deal with emotional debt without God.  So Jesus isn’t saying: “Forgive or you’ll be punished.”  No; Jesus is saying: “Have it your way.”  Try and manage your emotional debt, and you’ll spend a lifetime hurting another human being while receiving no satisfaction in return.  Look to the cross for personal forgiveness and relational justice, and you’ll find a renewed capacity for love.

 

 

 

“…to forgive is divine” (Matthew 18:23-25)

Posted on by
1

If you grew up in a religious environment, then you surely were encouraged toward a spirit of forgiveness toward others.  Many religious systems emphasize forgiveness—usually as a part of a larger moral code.  Even if you’re not an overtly religious person, you’ve probably been encouraged to “be the bigger person” when confronted with the hurtful actions of another.

Jesus likewise encourages limitless forgiveness.  But what’s interesting is that in the context of Matthew’s biography of Jesus, we’re not explicitly told how to forgive.  Sure, Jesus describes a process of restoration and discipline.  But when it comes to forgiveness, Jesus is less concerned with the “how” and much more concerned with the “why.”  Why forgive?  Jesus’ parable illustrates how the gospel shapes the reason and the way we forgive:

23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. (Matthew 18:23-25)

We might pause here just to chew through some cultural background.  The system of servitude most likely was patterned after social laws and order established in Egyptian culture under the Ptolemies—or at least Rome likely borrowed from their practices and this became a cultural standard.  Under this system, if a servant could not pay, the king had only one option to recoup a loss: sell the debtor into slavery.  But all our source material tells us that even the most expensive slave sold for only one talent—and the king could not possibly sell the man 10,000 times.

How much was a talent, you ask?  Good question.  In his recent commentary on Matthew, Craig Keener helps us understand the math:

  • 10,000 talents would have been equivalent to 60-100 million denarii, which would have been the equivalent of 30-100 million days’ wages.
  • This means that 10,000 talents would have been worth roughly 1.5—5 billion S. dollars
  • For the king to sell the servant, he would still have been at a loss of several billion dollars.
  • Keener estimates that the combined resources of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea was around 600 talents. Therefore the man owed the king more money than what was in circulation in the entire country.

However, as Keener also points out, in an agrarian society, there would have been little—if any—need for large numbers.  10,000 was the largest number they had back then, so it’s equally possible that Jesus was exaggerating.  He may have even been trying to be a bit humorous in showing the contrast between the debtor and the man we’ll meet in the next few verses.

26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.  (Matthew 18:26-27)

The king must by this point seem equally crazy to forgive such a massive debt.  But it’s also why the forgiven debtor’s next actions seem so appalling:

28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. (Matthew 18:28-30)

Let’s do the math again.  The debtor had been forgiven several billion dollars.  Now, in the system of the Ptolemies, if you were forgiven your debts by a superior, anyone beneath you was required to be released from their debts as well.  The debtor probably knew this, but still tried to get some money from his fellow servant.  How much was 100 denarii?  A lot less than 10,000 talents, that’s for sure.  Keener puts it at 0.2 talents, or about 30,000 U.S. dollars.  That’s still a lot, but let’s remember that it’s 500,000 times the amount he was forgiven!  And while the king had tried to sell the debtor, the debtor now inflicts physical harm on his fellow servant.  Maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t really about the money.  Maybe it was about feeling in control.

31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (Matthew 18:31-35)

Can we “monetize” hurt?  We may try; we can even sue for “pain and suffering.”  But it’s impossible to truly deal with the kinds of hurts we endure.  We can cover them over, but the hurt bleeds through every time.

In recent years psychology has taken to calling this “emotional debt.”  When someone hurts us, we feel a sense of internal burden.  What do we do with that burden?  Like the unforgiving debtor, we shift our pain downward—or at least outward.  We try and spread it around.   But, says traditional religion, we shouldn’t feel as bad as all that. We should forgive; it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?

In the absence of grace, in the absence of the cross, such forgiveness is impossible, because no one is equipped to deal with this emotional debt.  We can forgive, but now we’re forced to pay the debt ourselves.  How?  When we choose to forgive rather than run someone down, it hurts.  When we choose to wish that person success and not failure, it hurts.  When we choose to not hold a grudge, it hurts.

On the cross, Jesus absorbed all our debt—spiritual and emotional.  This means two things.  First, it means that like the unforgiving debtor, I am forgiven the enormous magnitude of debt in the eyes of God.  But second, I may look to the cross as a source of justice.  If I have been wronged in some way, I may rightly recognize that my offender deserves to pay for what he or she did.  The gospel says that instead of God taking the blood from my offender, he offers his own through Jesus.  So if I crave justice, if I crave satisfaction, I may look to the cross to find it.  But that also means that I no longer look to my offender to make absolute payment for his offense.  We’ll talk in the coming days about the role of earthly justice and repentance, but for now we rightly stand before the cross in awe of the mercy extended to both ourselves and others, a mercy that flows down to mingle with our tears and wash clean our pasts so as to clear a way for our futures.   Religion makes forgiveness necessary, but it is only the cross that makes forgiveness possible.

 

“To err is human…” (Matthew 18:15-22)

Posted on by
Reply

Pop quiz: What emotion tends to “go viral” most frequently?  If you remember from a few weeks ago, things “go viral” when they get shared through social media and email.  We might share news stories, videos, short pieces of writing, etc.  So if we survey all that, what emotion has the best chance of spreading throughout the internet?  Is it happiness?  Sadness?  Humor?  It’s anger, at least according to recent reports from the Smithsonian Magazine.  In 2014, Matthew Shaer reports:

“Jonah Berger, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, reached a similar conclusion after conducting a study in the United States. “Anger is a high-arousal emotion, which drives people to take action,” he says. “It makes you feel fired up, which makes you more likely to pass things on.” (Matthew Shaer, “What Emotion Goes Viral the Fastest?” Smithsonian Magazine, April 2014)

Anger—particularly reactions to perceived injustice—seems to thrive when shared.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with anger, necessarily; it would be troubling if we responded to injustice or offense with indifference.

Jesus understood that as the church increased, so too would the opportunities for hurt and betrayal.  So Jesus outlined for his disciples a general method for dealing with pain within the church:

15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:15-20)

Today we call this “church discipline.”  Now I know what you might be thinking, but “discipline” in this context isn’t about punishment but about restoration and keeping the community intact.  Still, the idea of having to bear with one another must have seemed a bit troubling to Jesus’ followers.

21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him,“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22)

In some ancient cultures, the number seven was conceived of as bearing special significance.  So Jesus wasn’t telling his disciples to keep a journal; he was telling them that their forgiveness should be limitless.

That’s hard.  After all, there are some things that can be forgiven through an apology and some sort of restitution.  If I wreck your car, then I owe you the cost of the damage.  But not everything can be so neatly measured in dollars.  What about things that can’t be fixed through a simple apology?  Relational betrayal, lies, manipulation—these leave us with what pop psychologists have started calling “emotional debt.”  We feel better when we can distribute this debt around: we might run down that person in front of other people, we might vent our frustration to close friends, we might fantasize or wish for their unhappiness—or worse.  In 2009, you might recall the scandal surrounding the South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.  His affairs were quite public, as was the emotional toll on his wife, Jenny.  In September of that year, Vogue magazine ran a feature story on Jenny Sanford, though you’d have to skim to the end to really see the fruits of Jenny’s faith start to emerge.  Regarding the affair, she said:

“If you don’t forgive…you become angry and bitter. I don’t want to become that. I am not in charge of revenge. That’s not up to me. That’s for the Lord to decide, and it’s important for me to teach that to my boys. All I can do is forgive. Reconciliation is something else, and that is going to be a harder road. I have put my heart and soul into being a good mother and wife. Now I think it’s up to my husband to do the soul-searching to see if he wants to stay married. The ball is in his court.” (Rebecca Johnson, “Notes on a Scandal,” September 17, 2009, Vogue)

Jenny’s courage and character are equally admirable, as his her admission that forgiveness is part of a larger, lengthier process.

As Christians, we are called to forgive one another.  The natural question is: “How?”  But that’s what makes the parable Jesus tells—that is, the parable we’ll be looking at this Sunday—so unusual.  Jesus doesn’t go on to explain a method for forgiving others; he goes on to explain the basis for forgiving others.  See, it’s easy to say: “Forgive others because the Bible says so,” or to insist on forgiveness as part of a larger moral code.  Many religions have exactly that.  If that’s true, what becomes of our “emotional debt?”

Come along with us on Sunday as we explore the answer—though for now let’s pause and ask God’s Spirit to search our hearts for any unconfessed or unaddressed anger, that we might pursue healing first of all for ourselves, and second to step toward healing in our relationships.