Category Archives: Long Story Short

From the Front Porch to the Back Yard (Mark 10:25-37)

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The question that will be asked by the lawyer in Mark 10 with the story of the Good Samaritan is a timeless one: Who is my neighbor?

And as we ask that question of ourselves, there are answers that today may be very different than they were just a few decades ago. A number of factors of the modern, technological age have changed the way we do and maintain relationships. We are able to have ongoing connectedness with people who are far from us – to do so in ways very different than the past.

I remember when I was in college and seminary – before the advent of the cell phone or computer – how different it was to communicate with my parents, as compared to how it has been for my children in those stages of life. A long distance phone call costed a good bit of money, and it was not something you flippantly did. In college, it was a Thursday night ritual that I would call home “collect” from a pay phone in the hallway of my dorm to give them a weekly update. And then, after marriage and moving to Texas for seminary, again, it was a weekly Sunday afternoon event to receive a call from them. With my children there is regular calls, texts, emails … you know the routine – very regularly, almost daily.

That is nice, but it comes also at the cost of less-connected relationships with those who are more physically our neighbors and daily associates. Technology can make us more independent, while at the same time making us more dependent. What brings us closer to people who are even halfway around the world also makes strangers of those next door.

What are some of the reasons why culture changes and how relational distance from physical neighbors happened? Social researchers point to several factors, including …

Transportation – The automobile—that is, the affordable models such as the Tin Lizzie and the Model T—caused the “Sabbath” to evolve to “Sunday.”  In yesteryear, a family would attend church, then visit the grandparents for a front porch meal and time spent with family.  The lack of transportation made regular travel prohibitive, so families would gather together and spend time with one another.

But after the automobile attained popularity, the family was untethered from the front porch.  Now, it was no longer about a “Sabbath rest” but a “Sunday drive.”  Increased mobility gave way to greater consumer choice, and the availability of transportation is taken for granted. Now we can go on extended vacations rather than spend time among our neighbors.

Communication – It was an incredible change in American life when the telephone made it possible for anyone to connect with anyone else without the need to leave their homes. The real-time nature of this technology quickly distinguished itself from prior forms such as the postal service or telegram.  Now, people were available by sheer convenience.

When our office is in our pocket, we can never truly, fully be off the clock—something that has had a profound effect on our psychological view of time, but these interruptions often come at the expense of family dinners.

Occupation – Not long ago, most people essentially lived by a common workday. Go in at 8:00, hour lunch, punch out at 5:00. While this is a generalization, it is only recently that we’ve seen the ascendancy of 24-hour convenience for everything, along with the people it takes to make it happen … or the shifts required to keep production machinery running 24/7.

This has had a profound impact on our psychological view of time. In a former era, we understood the distinction between “workday” and evening. But now there is no distinction—people have individual workdays.

Architecture – In another era, people tended to sit on the porches of their homes where they would have direct—albeit chance—encounters with neighbors and passersby. But since the 1950s, home architecture has shifted from the front porch to homes with a sheer, porch-less facade and backyard patio or deck—perfect for private barbecues or family get-togethers; but one man’s intimacy becomes another man’s isolation.

Privacy soon became an American value, and even privacy fences and hedges are not at all unusual, and for many seem to be the normal thing. I remember being so struck by this when, as a young adult, I moved away from the rural life where I grew up, and the inner-city life I knew in college in downtown Philly, to the suburbs of the more modern city of Dallas – where EVERYBODY had a fenced-in backyard, mostly wooden.

There is no doubt from a myriad of Scriptures that the Lord would have us to be his witnesses to those who don’t know him. The great commission commanding us to do this starts local and goes global – Jerusalem >> Judea >> Samaria >> to the world.

So, for us to do the work we’ve been called to, we need to understand who are our neighbors in this modern age. We will look at the passage itself the next two days, and then on Thursday land with some thoughts about who is our neighbor and how do we be neighborly as Christ’s ambassadors.

Questions for Thought or Discussion:

For those of you who are older, do you agree that there have been huge categorical changes in American culture about neighbors and neighborhoods? Do you have memories that are different than the way things are now?

Have the advances in technology (particularly phones and computers that give us instant access everywhere) served to make life better or worse?  How has it made ministry and outreach better or worse?

Who is my Neighbor? (Luke 10:25-37)

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If I asked you to take a quiz and list all of your immediate neighbors by name, could you do it? I have to admit that I could not. I just thought it through and will say that, of the five properties that have someone “on the other side of the fence,” I can only name two of them. Two others I can tell you a few things about their lives; and the final neighbors just moved in a few weeks ago and I have not met them yet.

That probably doesn’t speak well of me, though I’ll say that our situation is a bit different due to the size of the properties around us. Three of the five get to their houses by using different roads than do I. So I don’t even see them. And the two that I do see, it is usually related to exchanging lost pets or livestock!

This is very different than it used to be in America. And we’ll be talking about that difference a bit on Sunday as we turn to the sixth parable in our series – that of The Good Samaritan.

You may recall that the story Jesus tells is set up by a question given him by “an expert in the law.” Here is the setting from Luke 10 …

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

One bane of the pastoral and ministry profession is this thing called “the ordination counsel.” To be ordained into the ministry, one must go through a thorough examination wherein you present a detailed doctrinal statement and paper, and then a group of already ordained fellows get to ask you anything they want to.

The only reasonable one of these I’ve ever seen was my own – in 1982 at the church where I was minister of music in Dallas; there were two other fellow seminary grads and myself seeking official ministry credentialing. The church knew all three of us very, very well; and they figured that if you survived Dallas Theological Seminary, you were pretty much theologically okay.

But over the years I have been asked to sit in and participate in a few of these, including for our former staff pastors Tom Savage and Bill Nelson. At every one of these I’ve ever been at, there is some wise guy who asks a ridiculously remote question about which there either is no firm answer, or, the answer is only known by someone who has meticulously studied some detail of theological minutia. Of course, the candidate mumbles through a futile attempt at an answer, while everyone else quietly thinks to themselves, “Good night, I have no idea what that is about.” And finally, the moderator asks the questioner, “Could you explain that to the candidate more clearly?”  And this is the very moment the questioner desired from the beginning – an opportunity to look good in front of everyone … to look smarter than the others.

If you can picture that, you can picture the setting that led to the parable.

But the question is a timeless one to ask in terms of application. Who is our neighbor? It is a somewhat clear and easy thing to love these beautiful people over here, but to love THOSE dirty people over there? That’s a different story. We have categories, just as the Pharisees had categories of people. But Jesus messes with their categories, and he may mess with our own as we enter into this study and think about what it means for life in the Tri-State area in 2015.

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

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“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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.

 

 

 

 

The Challenge of Going “All In” (Matthew 13:44-46)

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It is one of my most vivid high school memories. I was with a group of guy friends from my school and we were at a local fair in the summer. There frankly was not a lot to do at it but hang out, but then some of them got the idea that what we should do is randomly pick up a bunch of girls and go drinking somewhere else. They proceeded, with some success, to begin to do this. I was certainly not going to be a part of that and told them I was just going to walk home. One of them said to me that I was a fool to not be a part of their fun and that I did not understand what I was missing. Though I did not doubt the appropriate nature of my choice, I so very clearly remember the lonely walk home and the feeling that I was just terribly out of step with the values and culture around me.

I’ve continued to be out of step most of my life.

This is our final day on the theme of being “all in” with our faith commitment, and hence our final day with the two parables we’ve been considering from Matthew 13:44-46 …

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Since I’ve bludgeoned you with the main idea on Sunday and over the last three days of writings, you know that the main idea is this: The Kingdom of God – and your connection with it – is of such inestimable value, that it is actually worth you giving up everything for it.

But there is a challenge when you make that commitment to jump fully in that direction, and we could state the problem this way: Most of the people around you in the world are going to think you are nuts to make God’s Kingdom your “all in” priority.

In the same way that you don’t understand why someone’s “all in” fascination in life is going to a comic book collectors convention in downtown Detroit, or to Antarctica to search for a mysterious flock of albino penguins, the world will not understand your highly-driven values system that emphasizes a spiritual reward that is not ultimately of this material world. It will make no sense to them. They only understand those things that are a part of keeping score – the measurable stuff like dollars, job titles, and McMansions.

Whereas in today’s world, on the one hand, personal spirituality is fashionable, being one of those “born again” Christians won’t win you a lot of friends or wide respect.

Many people come to the Christian faith for the “perks.”  We come to Jesus with a list of things we’d like help with:

  • Will Christianity provide me with all the personal educational and career directions I need?
  • Will I have better and deeper friends? … that one friend for life?
  • Will my faith help me avoid suffering and pain, sickness and disease?
  • Will my faith propel me toward financial stability?
  • Will Christianity provide me a way to raise a successful family?

And of course the answer to many of these questions might well be “yes.”  But the problem is, the “perks” of Christianity can’t outweigh the increasing social stigma of being a person of faith in today’s post-everything world.  Yes, Jesus might provide a means by which I feel spiritually/emotionally/relationally secure, but is it worth it when my neighbors think of me as a religious fanatic?

  • If you identify as Christian, you may become pigeonholed as homophobic or judgmental.
  • You may be increasingly labeled as transphobic for expressing concern about the gender of your bathroom at work.
  • In a world of increasing pluralism, we turn on our television to see ISIS members surrounding Christian missionaries while—at the same time—to speak disparagingly of Islam is to be labeled “Islamophobic.”
  • You might be compelled to either bake a cake for a marriage you don’t agree with—or be forced to lose your business, pay a fine, or worse.
  • You will increasingly be told that your beliefs are unwelcome in any form of public dialogue.

Surely there is now a greater cost to following Jesus.  We can no longer follow Jesus solely because it is “useful.”  Instead we follow Jesus because in him we find an inestimable treasure—one that provokes us to set aside our finances, our hopes, our dreams, everything—in order to follow him without reservation.  In a world that calls us to “diversify our portfolios”—to be men and women of broad interests but little depth—Jesus calls us to go “all in.”

Some final thoughts/discussion questions …

How may we find encouragement in such a context where our “all in” commitment positions us as such a minority in our world?  How does the church, and having a church family, factor into this?

Pearls about Pearls (Matthew 13:45-46)

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When my oldest son – an international business major in college – fell in love with a girl with a beads jewelry making hobby and decided to turn that into an importing, mega-business retail chain, I said to him, “Are you crazy? What market is there for that? Who in the world buys stuff like that? You can’t make a living selling little beads!”pearls pbc

His answer was to say that beads jewelry and the wearing of valuable gemstones and accoutrements was a timeless passion that probably went back to the beginning of mankind. For example, remember Wilma Flintstone? What did she always have around her neck but a necklace of large gemstones! Since Fred worked in a quarry, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t wearing pearls.

However, natural pearls have been valued over the millennia for their symbolism of beauty and purity. Originally from the Persian Gulf, they are not really available much anymore. What you can get at Potomac Bead Company are cultured fresh water pearls or imitation glass bead pearls. Still beautiful, but not the same as the type of rare pearl spoken of in this parable by Jesus in Matthew 13:45-46…

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

As we wrote yesterday, the single main idea to take away from the story is that God’s kingdom is of such value, that it is worth giving up everything to have and possess it … just like the merchant was willing to risk everything on the one pearl of incredible value.

There is nothing new about this calling from God to such a depth of commitment. In fact, it is what God has always honored, and it is what He rewards as true greatness of faith. It is timeless.

This is also the big idea of Hebrews 11, that great chapter that talks about those whom God, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, included in His Word about those who were commended for being “all it” in terms of their faith and obedience.

Consider a couple of these all-stars …

Noah – He is described as both as “righteous” and “pleasing to God.”  Noah responded to an unseen calamity, acting out of faith in God.  BUT, He was surely mocked for this belief, year after year while exchanging a normal life for building a boat in a place where it had never flooded and possibly had never even rained to make a flood! The ark may have taken 120 years to build.

Abraham – He was originally a pagan in his homeland of Haran, when he was called to leave behind everything he knew and was comfortable with and go to a land that he did not yet know about.  Sarah, also, was given the miraculous ability to conceive despite her age.  For Abraham and Sarah, unexpected fertility (and the sheer number of their progeny) was the sign that God had the power to do what He promised He would do.  BUT, there were obstacles all along the way – from his own family, the offering of Isaac, to that of those who attempted to thwart God’s plans for him. But he pressed on without seeing all of it come true in his own lifetime.

Joseph – He saw in God-given dreams a future that involved blessing for himself and the entire family of Jacob. But, he was unjustly sent from a place of comfort to a place of despair, slavery and prison.

Gideon – When God comes to him and calls him a great and mighty warrior, he essentially says “You talkin’ to me?”  … “I ain’t seeing any blessing around here.” But God calls him to deliver Israel and gives him awesome signs and assurances. BUT, Gideon trades relative comfort for being a religious whacko.  Later, he is forced to exchange trust in the size of his army for an army of only 300 men—that is, to trust in God’s strength and not his weapons.

The writer to the Hebrews says it this way in his summary about these heroes of faith … these followers of God who saw the value of God’s kingdom as greater than anything this world had to offer …

11:39-40    These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

And then, turning the page to the next chapter (which the writer did not divide as chapters, that was done later)…

12:1-2    Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Really, it is pretty crazy to not go “all in” for God and value his kingdom and follow him. Yet we often find it hard to do. Why? What keeps you (or other Christians that you know) from being “all in” in terms of valuing Christ’s kingdom?

And finally too, what specifically does it look like practically to value God’s kingdom as something of inestimable worth?

Hidden Treasure – It Can Happen to You! (Matthew 13:44)

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I often think that I live in a place where there has to be something valuable hidden in the ground. My house sits on the high ground that overlooks a crossroads intersection that has been there for centuries, one road of which goes to the #4 dam on the Potomac River and C&O Canal. Certainly the Union Army camped here during the Civil War. Someday I’m going to dig up a treasure!

Today we read a parable that Jesus told about a fellow who did just that …

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

So what would you do in ancient times if you possessed a lot of gold or currency or items of great value? Where would you put it – that is, if you’re not royalty with a palace and royal guards?

There is no local bank to take it to deposit in a vault and safe deposit box. You can’t buy an iron safe with a combination lock. No, you have to be creative in hiding things.

The next problem is who do you trust to tell about your secret place? A spouse, a child? Maybe you don’t get around to doing that, and BOOM – you’re dead! The treasure is lost in the ground where you buried it, and it may be generations later, if ever, that someone stumbles upon it.

So that is the set-up assumed in the parable. Presumably the treasure is not that of the current landowner, or else that person would remove the treasure before selling and turning over the deed to the property. The guy who stumbles across the treasure knows that to fully possess it, he must buy the land. And buying the land is going to take everything he currently owns. The only way it works is if he goes “all in” when buying. Holding back at all will cost him the greatest treasure he could ever imagine.

As I mentioned on Sunday, when interpreting parables, we should not try to make every last detail work out and have a one-to-one meaning with some teaching. The purpose of a parable was to rather communicate one or more big ideas by the illustration.

Here is the big idea: The Kingdom of God – and your connection with it – is of such inestimable value, that it is actually worth you giving up everything for it.

Few of us will be called upon to give up everything for the kingdom – though around the world even today, there will be some who will be killed for their Christian faith – but all of us can likely give up more and move more into the “all in” category.

In fact, some of us need to take several big steps – because we’re frankly too much on the edges of properly valuing our faith. God is good to have when special critical needs arise or when there is nothing more interesting to take us away from giving attention the God and the church community. But is the Lord really EVERYTHING to you? Is he your greatest possession and treasure? Would you be willing to give up everything you own?

You can dig up the greatest treasure ever. In fact, if you have come to know and trust in Christ, that is exactly what has happened in your life. And for many of you, you sort of stumbled upon it. It only looks like you found it, when in fact, it found you.

So value it for what it is, and let the value of it guide all the priorities and decisions of your life.