Choices and Changes

The scriptures referred to are Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32, Philippians 2:1-13 and Matthew 21:23-32.

In his book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, Cory Doctorow explains why AI is being pushed on us and why the companies creating it overhype what it can actually do. It's because investors pour much more money into companies that appear to be growing than boring mature companies with steady but unexciting returns. So the claim that AI is inevitable and will replace most jobs is just a sales pitch. Still Doctorow admits that AI can do some tasks faster or more efficiently than humans. It can do some things as well as humans. For instance, he says, it could easily predict his wife's reaction to just about anything as well as he could. Because people repeat themselves. It could analyze all her reactions, notice patterns and be able to use probability to make predictions. Unless she said something like “I want a divorce.” Because AI can't predict what has never happened before. It's trained on the accumulated data that presently exists. What AI offers is basically a compilation or a summary or a mashup of what is already out there. Doctorow says it's basically a glorified search engine, the embodiment of all the comment sections on the internet. Even the scary things it does, like hack other companies, lie and make up things when it doesn't know, are simply AI imitating what it's learned that humans do. Because machines can't generate original thoughts.

It is true that in general if you know what people have consistently done in the past, you can reasonably predict what they will do in the future. Reasonably but not reliably. Think political polls. If you could know what people would do with absolute certainty, psychology would be a hard science like physics. Nothing people did would ever surprise us. But they can. Because people can change their minds. If they couldn't, advertising would be useless. No one would ever change their brand of car or toothpaste or their political party. People would never change their religion. Social scientists know that even when they can predict what large groups of people will do, they can't predict what any one individual within a group will do. And that person might come up with an original idea that will persuade others to change their minds and change society.

For decades people have debated whether our personalities and behaviors are determined by nature or nurture. Studies show that the personalities of identical twins differ by as much as 30 to 60%. A major DNA study by the UK Biobank shows that specific genetic markers only account for between 13 and 16% of differences. Other differences come from a person's environment and life events, including things like friendships. The point is that we are not machines who do everything because we are programmed by our DNA or even by our upbringing. We can change.

Which is the reason, I hope, that we are all here. If people can't change then a key idea in Christianity is nonsense. Jesus' message, according to Mark, was “The time has come...The kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) The Greek word translated “repent” literally means “to think differently afterwards.” And Jesus got people to rethink what a Messiah was like. Jesus was not a king, at least not the kind they were used to. He was not a warrior, though some probably thought he would eventually become one. He was not a priest, another of the popular ideas of what the Messiah would be. What he turned out to be was a healer, a preacher and a teacher. Jesus changed people's sick bodies into healthy ones and he also changed their minds by changing the way they saw God and our relationship with him.

It was popularly thought that there were two kinds of people: the righteous and the sinners. Jews like the Pharisees, who scrupulously observed the Jewish laws, both the ones written in the Torah and the oral laws rabbis derived from them, were considered righteous. Jews who weren't observant, or those who collected taxes for the Romans, or who were prostitutes or criminals, and sometimes even those who were disabled, like the man born blind, were considered sinners. Yet there were zealous Pharisees who thought that if they could get all Jews to obey the Torah perfectly for just one day, the Messiah would come. But that requires repentance. And it's hard to persuade people to repent if you avoid interacting with those you see as sinners in order to preserve your ritual purity, as religious leaders of that time did. Eating and sharing table fellowship with sinners, as Jesus did, implied friendship and was seen as endorsing their lifestyle.

Repentance is a theme we find over and over in the prophets. God tells Ezekiel, “...when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die.” (Ezekiel 18:27-28) God says people can change. And by the way, the Hebrew word for “turn away” or “turn back” can also be translated “repent.” Because turning your life around, turning away from sin and turning to God is at the heart of repentance.

The fact that we can change our minds and turn from what is morally and spiritually harmful to what is morally and spiritually healthy is a big reason for hope. While it is difficult to change your bad habits, it is not impossible. Not even when it comes to something like addiction. 31 million people, 9.1% of American adults, have had various addictions and yet have managed to beat them. The odds do differ with each particular substance. About 35 to 36% of people treated for alcoholism manage to remain sober. Smoking is harder with 8 to 9% managing to quit for good. Still that means people do manage to kick these habits. First, you have to decide that you are going to be one of those people who beats the odds. And then you need to seek help. Because overall 40 to 60% of people treated for a substance abuse disorder achieve long-term sobriety. And after 5 years, the likelihood of a relapse falls to 15% or less. For those who seek treatment, recovery looks more like the rule rather than the exception.

But nobody simply drifts into changing long established ways of doing things. You have to make a decision. And then you have to act on it. In Jesus' parable, the two brothers say different things when their father asks them to work in their vineyard. One refuses but later changes his mind and does what his father asked him to do. The other says he will but doesn't actually do it. Jesus is addressing his critics, the chief priests and elders of the people. They talk the talk but do not walk the walk. They proclaim their love for God and for their neighbor with their lips but they don't show it with their lives. As Jesus says elsewhere, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.” (Matthew 23:23) In the parallel passage in Luke, he also mentions “the love of God.” (Luke 11:42) These are the things Jesus says are more important. And yet even today we have so-called Christians who elevate certain religious practices, like saying “Merry Christmas” and wearing crosses, while they simultaneously ignore matters of justice or showing mercy or demonstrating faithfulness to Christian principles or reflecting the love of God towards others. It astounds me that people can quote John 3:16 which says that “God so loved the world” while showing no love for a large percentage of the people of the world.

In our passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians, he also advocates a change of mind. He tells Christians to “do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interest of others.” If all of us were to do that, everybody's interests would be taken care of. However, this means everyone needs to “be of the same mind.” And that mind is the one “that was in Christ Jesus.” Paul then quotes what we think was an early Christian hymn about Jesus, “who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on the cross.” I like J.B. Phillips translation which says that Jesus, “who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his privileges as God's equal, but stripped himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born a man. And, plainly seen as a human being, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, to the point of death, and the death he died was that of a common criminal.”

Paul's point is that our change of mind is not merely from doing wrong to doing right but to being like Jesus, who gave up everything he had going for him as God in order to become one of us, acting as a humble slave, not to his own interests, but to what was in our best interest: our salvation. As Jesus himself said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

Unfortunately, the church has often changed its mindset to that of the world, using its metrics to decide what successfully carrying out its mission should look like. We determine how well a church is doing by measuring its budget and its membership and its average attendance. When megachurch pastors write books on how to grow a church, they become bestsellers in the Christian market. I'm not saying those things are unimportant but more important is a church's impact on its community and on individuals. After all, Jesus never preached in a megachurch or a stadium. The biggest city he ever visited was Jerusalem, which had an estimated population of 20,000 to 50,000 people, or somewhere around the population of Key West, or at its upper limits, with the populations of Marathon and Key Largo thrown in. Paul says that the risen Jesus appeared to over 500 followers. (1 Corinthians 15:6) They would fill a mid-sized church today. But Jesus' impact on the world was huge. There are Christians in nearly every country on earth, including ones where they have to meet secretly. More books have been written about Jesus than any other individual in human history. And as historian Tom Holland has shown, Christianity has changed the values we think society should hold, like the inherent worth of every individual and the moral obligation of the powerful to help those who are vulnerable, sick or poor. It's even influenced secular movements which seek to spread and realize those values in the world.

As I said, the ability of humans to change their minds, values and actions gives us hope. We are not merely computers made of meat or robots made of muscles and bones. We can transcend our heritable personality traits. We can break away from the environments in which we were raised. We are more than just clever animals who must prioritize our personal survival over larger, fiercer predators. Instead, we can use our God-given gifts to make the world better for all, serving others as Christ does.

But change can work both ways. There are those who wish the world would change back into one where might makes right, where the rich and powerful get more and more and where sympathy and resources are not to be wasted on the less fortunate. They wish to restore the type of empire that had people like Jesus crucified. They want a world where kings and emperors are worshiped as gods. And they are hard at work making that happen.

N.T. Wright has said that churches should act as small working models of the kingdom of God. We should demonstrate that humility is better than delusions of grandeur, that serving others is better than demanding to be served, and that love is better than either hatred or indifference. We should show in our lives that all people have inherent worth because they were created in God's image and because Jesus died to save them. And we can only do this if we don't merely say we will do these things but actually go out into the vineyard and put them into practice. And we must do so even when the odds seem to be against us. Because as Paul said, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) After all, we are followers of one who was killed in the most horrible way by the most powerful empire in the world at that time. Yet not even death could stop him. That empire is gone; his message, the good news of God acting in Christ and in us, endures. Will we let the empty promises and hype of those with temporary earthly powers cause us to turn away from following Jesus? Or will we use our God-given ability to change lead us to choose and implement what is better for us, for the world and for the glory of the God who is love?

Being Like God

The scriptures referred to are Jonah 3:10-4:11, Psalm 145:1-8, and Matthew 20:1-16.

In case you are not clear on whether a character in a movie or TV show is a good guy or a bad guy, the big clue is whether he declares he is a god or that when his plan is accomplished he will be like a god. That's the villain. And he doesn't mean godlike in a moral sense but that he will have power over nature or reality, and especially over other people. He rarely means he wants the power to heal others, unless, like in the HBO series Lanterns, it's to obligate others to do what he wants. He never means he wants to be like the God of the Bible, who is described in the Psalms as "gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." (Psalm 145:8) Humans want to control other things and other people, not their own thoughts, words and actions.

The very first temptation in the Bible is to attain godlike power. The first humans violate the only rule in paradise because they want to "be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5) Because knowledge is power. And aside from the fact that this temptation reveals doubts about God's goodness and trustworthiness, it also shows humans to be susceptible to egotism. Because in the first chapter of Genesis, we are told that human beings, both male and female, are made in God's image. (Genesis 1:27) So to want to be even more godlike is greedy. And impatient. God pronounced everything he created as very good, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The existence of a way to gain such knowledge without firsthand experience of evil must be there for a good purpose. I think God was acting as a wise parent does when telling small children not to touch the stove. The stove is not evil but they are not ready to use it safely and responsibly. The first humans were not ready to learn that God's good gifts could also be used to destroy creation and harm each other. And based on the history of the world ever since, we still aren't.

The purpose of the Bible is to bring us closer to God, both spiritually and morally. It also gives us examples of people doing good and doing evil. And often they are the same people. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Peter, Paul and everyone else in the Bible, except Jesus, are morally flawed. God nevertheless works through them, though their misdeeds do have consequences. Jacob's sons mimic his deceitfulness when they make it look as if his favorite son Joseph is dead. Moses is not permitted to enter the promised land. David's adultery causes problems in his family and dynasty, and he is forbidden to build God's temple because he is a man of war. The Bible does not whitewash history or give us idealized portraits of the heroes of the faith.

Not only do we see that God is more righteous than human beings, but he is more forgiving. In the book of Jonah, it is the prophet, not God, who wants to see the capital of the ruthless Assyrian empire destroyed. When the people there repent, Jonah is bitter. Then God withers a bush that was giving Jonah shade to make a point. Jonah did not make the bush and yet he got attached to it. But God created the people in question. He says to the prophet, "And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?" God is concerned with all his creatures, including people of other nations and species other than ours.

In our Gospel, Jesus reveals another side of God's goodness. Often religious people are interested in God giving everyone what they deserve. But they don't like it if they feel that others are getting what they don't deserve. And I wish this meant that they are only upset when certain people get more trouble than they seem to deserve. But some people are outraged if they see others get more good fortune than they feel those folks merit. It reminds me of the experiment in which Capuchin monkeys were rewarded for doing certain tasks. They would get a rock which they could turn in for food. At first they all got cucumber slices. But when the researchers gave one monkey a juicy grape, the monkey in the next cage was no longer happy with his cucumber slice. He would not eat it. He would throw it back at the researcher. He would screech and bang against the cage. He might even go on strike and refuse to do the task for which he got rewarded. But he didn't get less than usual; he was incensed that the other monkey got more.

In Jesus' parable, the people hired at the end of the day do not get more than those who worked longer. They simply get the same pay, a denarius, the standard daily wage in those days. And though the people hired earlier had agreed to that, they now felt they should be paid more. The landowner is not cheating them; he is merely being generous by paying everyone the same.

My wife and I recently rewatched the movie 9 to 5, Dolly Parton's movie debut. 46 years later, it's still funny and more importantly, it's still relevant. Sorry to spoil a film nearly half a century old, but the plot involves 3 women who need to sideline their terrible boss for about 6 weeks. In the process, they realize that almost no one wants to meet with him anyway and that they can run the department just fine without him. In fact, they make improvements to the workplace. As the boss's secretary, Dolly can write memos and forge his signature. So first they let everyone keep personal items on their desk. Then they introduce flex time, job sharing, daycare for the workers' children, a rehabilitation program for workers with alcohol problems and equal pay for men and women. When their boss returns swearing vengeance, he is surprised to find that the CEO is happy with the changes because worker productivity has greatly increased. The CEO has just one problem: they need to get rid of the equal pay for women. As with the day laborers in Jesus' parable, he thinks that paying everyone the same is simply going too far.

Some people think Paul invented the idea of salvation by grace. But while Jesus doesn't use that phrase, we see it in his teachings. What is grace? As someone put it, justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting all you deserve when you do wrong. Grace is getting what you could never deserve. It is God's undeserved, unreserved goodness towards us. It is seen in this parable where people get, not what they have earned, but what they need to live. It is seen in Jesus' response to his disciples' flabbergasted reaction to him saying the rich have no advantage in entering the kingdom of God. He compares them to a camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a sewing needle. When his disciples ask, "Then who can be saved?" he says, "What is impossible for mere humans is possible for God." (Luke 18:25-27) We all, rich or poor, need God's grace to enter his kingdom. Nobody can earn it.

God's grace is seen in Jesus' life. He didn't ask if the people who came to him deserved to be healed. All they needed to do was trust in his power and goodness and he healed them. He didn't weed out the undeserving from the thousands who were hungry. He fed them all. He didn't debate whether this world of greedy, rage-filled, envious, lustful, lazy, gluttonous, and arrogant people deserved to be saved. Instead, he went to the cross for them. As Paul says, "God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

It says something about us that when we talk about somebody "playing God" we always mean that they are abusing their authority to decide the fate of others. We mean they are deciding who gets treated well and who gets treated badly. Often, we mean that the person is deciding who lives and who dies. But we never say that someone who forgives or is gracious is "playing God." We never mean that someone who is playing God is acting like Jesus. Yet Jesus is God Incarnate. If you want to know what God is really like, look at Jesus.

And people should be able to look at Christians and see what folks following in Jesus' footsteps are like. To the extent that they don't see Jesus in our words and actions shows how much we have failed to be the body of Christ, the ongoing embodiment of the Spirit of God who filled Jesus. If people want to see the condemnation of sinful folk, there are plenty of other religious groups who will oblige. There are also lots of nonreligious people who will be glad to pass verdicts on the lifestyles, social and political positions of others. When Jesus said not to pass judgment on others, he was addressing a common problem. We love to hold other people up to high standards which we do not always live up to. We usually judge ourselves on what we intended to do, letting ourselves off the hook when the results of our actions make things worse. But we judge others on what they actually did or didn't accomplish. Their intentions don't come into our verdict on them. Part of loving our neighbor as we do ourselves is cutting them the same slack we give ourselves when what we do falls short of God's standards. Jesus warns us that God will hold us to the standards we use for others, so we need to err on the side of mercy. (Matthew 7:1-5)

We live in a world where the powerful say you should move fast and break things. They see the status quo as something that should always be broken. But they also end up breaking things that may just have needed to be reformed. And they break the lives of people who depend on those things to live. Right now we are seeing how even imperfect systems were helping the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the resident alien, people the treatment of whom Jesus said would be the basis on which nations would be judged. (Matthew 25:31-46) Instead a chainsaw was taken to them by insanely rich people who valued saving money more than saving people. And a chainsaw is not gracious or merciful or forgiving. Christians, however, should be. God is.

Genesis 3 tells us how humans decided to ignore God's rule because they thought they knew how the world should be run better than he. And we can see how that worked out. But right from the beginning God was merciful. He initially said that on the day they broke that rule they would die. And while the spiritual sickness did indeed set in and their relationship with God and nature began to decline, God didn't let them die that day. He was merciful. He was gracious. He made them better protection against the elements than they could cobble together themselves. And God started the long process of bringing good things out of the bad stuff we did and have continued to do. And he did this knowing that one day he would have to take upon himself the brunt of what we have done to ourselves and each other. In Jesus, he took on the consequences of our arrogance and violence and disregard for the suffering of others. The God of life made himself vulnerable to death. Then he underwent death. And after three days, he defeated it.

Why did he do this? Because God is love. (1 John 4:8) And when facing that which threatened the object of his love, God offered himself instead. Love makes sacrifices for those it loves. Jesus put himself between us and the death and destruction we have unleashed on his creation. He gave his life that we might live. As Paul put it, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

And that's another way in which those who want to be like God don't really mean that. They do not desire to display self-sacrificial love for others. During my years as a psychiatric nurse and as a chaplain, I have met people who claimed to be God or Jesus. They wished to be acknowledged as such and to get special treatment. They wanted people to listen to their pronouncements. None of them ever expressed a willingness to live a self-sacrificial life. That is not the godlike quality that people wish to emulate or demonstrate.

It's hardly breaking news that the world is full of people who are egotistical and selfish, who would never sacrifice the slightest thing in their life to make life better for other people. Instead they want others to sacrifice their happiness or well-being or life to make things better for them. And they use whatever power they have to make that a reality. The world needs a counterbalance. It needs Jesus. And it needs people who are willing to follow him, to be merciful and forgiving, “gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” That is what it truly means to be godly, to be Christlike. That is what we see in the sacrifice Jesus made when he went to the cross for us. And that is the cross we are to pick up and carry daily: our self-sacrificial love for the world of people whom God created in his image and whom Jesus died to save.

Not Optional

The scriptures referred to are Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:8-12 and Matthew 18:21-35.

One of my duties as chaplain at the jail is to approve religious diets. Some jails don't bother. One chaplain said, “We just don't serve pork.” Neither do we, but the problem is that religious diets are more complicated than that. Orthodox Jews also do not eat shellfish, nor can they have meat and dairy at the same meal. During Passover they cannot have anything with yeast in it. The Islamic halal diet overlaps so much with the Jewish kosher diet that most Muslims have no problem with it. Strict Hindus don't eat beef, which we also don't serve. Some Buddhists and some Seventh Day Adventists are vegetarians, but unlike in Judaism or Islam, that diet is not required, but a personal choice. And no major traditional religion requires a vegan diet excluding all animal products like dairy. The closest is Jainism, the only religion whose restrictions not only forbid all animal proteins but also specific plants, like root vegetables.

The jail has rules to keep this situation manageable. They state that you must have been an adherent of the religion before your incarceration and you must inform the jail of that at Intake. You must request the religious diet within 10 business days. Which means that while in jail you may change your religion at any time but you can't change your diet. Furthermore, you must provide the name of a clergy person who knows you and can confirm that you are in fact a part of that religious group. And it can't be a friend or relative. If, as one inmate told me, you have not been out of jail or prison long enough to join a religious community, you can give us the name of that institution and I can contact the chaplain there to see if you were on a religious diet. But if you have a medical condition that requires a certain diet, that supersedes any religious diet.

The problem is that no one can look into a person's heart and see if their faith is sincere. So, as in the legal system, we look for evidence. Following a strict religious diet is a spiritual discipline and it means giving up foods others can eat. It's a sacrifice of sorts. Not only do we look for evidence that you have in fact been on it before, we keep looking. If you buy food forbidden by your diet from the commissary, you lose that diet.

I am bemused, however, by how vociferously some people argue that they should be put on certain diets regardless of the evidence, especially when other commandments of their religion, like not stealing, not lying, not committing murder, etc, don't seem to hold as much weight with them. Because there is a hierarchy of values in most religions. Muslims who are children or elderly or have health problems are exempt from fasting during the month of Ramadan. Rabbis have ruled that to save a life it is permissible to break any of the laws of Torah except idolatry, forbidden sexual relations and murder. That is why an expert in Jewish law asked Jesus what was the greatest of the 613 commandments in the Torah. They knew that they can't all be of equal importance, just as we recognize that parking violations are not as serious as violent offenses.

Anyway, the inordinate amount of time I spend trying to verify religious diets makes me sympathetic to Paul's working with the dietary questions in today's passage from Romans. The problem was that in the Gentile world, the meat markets were usually attached to pagan temples. They sold the excess meat left over from sacrifices made to Greek and Roman gods. Because it had previously been offered to idols, some new Christians felt that they couldn't eat that meat. Now we know from his first letter to the Corinthians that Paul did not think the idols were real gods and so the meat was not inherently defiled. (1 Corinthians 8; 10:23-33) However, various guilds met at pagan temples, the way a business or a club might schedule a lunch at a restaurant. In that case, Paul said that Christians should not eat at a pagan temple feast. (1 Corinthians 1:19-22) Also the council in Jerusalem had told Gentile Christians not to eat meat sacrificed to idols, which was something difficult to do for those living outside of Judea. (Acts 15:29)

Paul is saying that everyone should follow their conscience. Christians who don't have a problem with meat sold at a pagan market should not look down on those who can't bring themselves to buy or eat it. Those with stricter personal rules should not pass judgment on those who don't share their particular scruples. There is a hierarchy of values and as Jesus said, the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor, which is anyone we encounter including enemies.

Think of this hierarchy in ethics like the practice of triage in an emergency room. The highest priority is given to patients whose immediate care could mean the difference between life or death. The next highest priority is patients who probably won't die but whose quality of life could be severely affected if not treated as soon as possible. Only then does the ER staff turn to people with sniffles or splinters in their fingers. So if there's a car accident, they first treat those who otherwise might not make it, and then those who have broken limbs, and finally those with scrapes and superficial lacerations.

Of first importance in our faith are the essentials of our beliefs, summarized in the creeds, and the essentials of our behavior, which are summarized in the two greatest commandments. Jesus said that all the law and the prophets are derived from these and that no other commandment is greater than these. (Matthew 22:40; Mark 12:31) And you can divide the Ten Commandments into the first four, which concern our relationship with God, and the last 6, which concern how we should act towards our fellow human beings. (Exodus 20:1-17) All the commandments in the Bible are about maintaining or improving those relationships, including maintaining our own selves.

But what happens when we do things that violate those commandments or fail to do the things that fulfill them? You cannot go back in time and undo the damage. You cannot unsay the word or make it so you never did the harmful act in the first place. The past is gone. The consequences can persist into the present. You must act now so that hopefully the ripples do not warp the future. What you can do is repent. You can turn from what you did or said and turn to the person and to God. You can apologize and mitigate the damage as best you can and repair what you've done to the relationship.

And if you are wronged, you can accept that change of heart and forgive the person. That's the hardest part. And sadly, it falls to the victim to do it. It feels unfair. What's more, staying angry at the person might actually feel good. But it is not healthy, either physically, psychologically or spiritually. As the Buddhist saying goes, “Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” On NPR, I heard the story of a woman whose daughter was murdered. They caught the guy and he was convicted. But she was still filled with a white hot rage at him. And then one day, she realized that her hatred of this stranger had so consumed her life that she was neglecting her other kids and her husband. So she decided to go to the prison to see the man who killed her daughter. And talking with him, she realized he had a very different childhood than her daughter. He was abused and neglected. Growing up without love and support damaged his ability to interact with other people. It didn't excuse what he did but it made his terrible actions a little more understandable. The woman continued to visit him. Eventually she was able to forgive him. And he found a person who cared about him, something his life had been missing.

Once an inmate said to me, “I know that we are to forgive everyone. But there is this one guy I can't forgive.” And he told me of how his sister was the victim of a serial killer, now in prison. At first I didn't know how to respond. And then I remembered something a Lutheran lady pointed out to me: while on the cross Jesus doesn't say to his executioners, “I forgive you”; instead he says, “Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.” So I told him to ask God to forgive the killer and ask God to help him, her brother, get to the point where someday he can also forgive that man. I knew he wasn't ready yet. But if he never forgave his sister's murderer then he would be that man's last victim, suffering psychological torture. He would be eaten up by hatred. If he did pray for the ability to forgive, eventually his thoughts would not be dominated by the man who took her life. Instead, his thoughts could be not of his sister's worst day but of memories of the good moments they shared and of gratitude for her and for her love.

By the way, Jesus nowhere says that if you are continually harmed by someone you shouldn't take practical steps to avoid that. One inmate was repeatedly arrested for fighting with his father. I told him that, as a chaplain, I would like them to be reconciled but since the inmate had a wife and child who needed him, he should just stay away from his father. He could forgive him but since they did not seem to be able to get along, it was better for both if they just didn't get together. I say the same to any female inmate in an abusive relationship. Get away from him. Not only are we not to harm others, we are not to needlessly put ourselves in harm's way. And witnessing abuse harms children.

That forgiveness is a high priority is illustrated in today's parable in our Gospel reading. Jesus tells the story of a slave who somehow owes his master a ridiculous sum of money. Ten thousand talents would be the equivalent of millions of dollars. But when the man pleads for patience in repaying the debt, his master forgives him the debt. That slave then demands a fellow slave repay him a few dollars and when that slave makes the very same plea, the first slave has him thrown into prison. Word gets back to the master and he summons the first slave back and tells him that he should have been as merciful to his fellow slave as the master was to him. Then we are told “And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point. Forgiveness is not optional. It is an essential part of living in God's kingdom. We will screw up and so will the people in our life. If we want forgiveness from God, we must be willing to do the same to others. After all, every time we say the Lord's Prayer, we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Matthew 6:12) The actual Greek word in Matthew's version is better translated “debts.” Jesus is talking about what we owe God and what we owe each other: loving thoughts, words and actions. Luke's version renders this petition “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” (Luke 11:4)

Nobody is perfect. That's why when the occasion arises, we need to be able to repent of the unkind things we do and we need to forgive the unkind things people do to us. That's why countries in which grave and systematic abuses have been committed by one group of people to another group have found it helpful to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It investigates, records and publicizes human rights abuses and wrongdoing that occurred during a conflict or a dictatorship. Victims share what was done to them. Perpetrators make full disclosure of what they have done and are allowed to apply for amnesty. The record of these wrongs become part of their history. It has been done in more than 50 countries. In the US, it has been done twice for regional conflicts and abuses. But it has never been done for nationwide abuses in this country. Maybe it should.

Someone once said, “It ain't the parts of the Bible I don't understand that bother me, it's the parts I do understand.” One of the things that most troubles people is God's clear command to forgive others. How can anyone do that? Well, Joseph did. His brothers sold him into slavery. Eventually however Joseph ended up second in command of Egypt and used his organizational skills to feed people during seven years of famine. So he told his brothers, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” (Genesis 50:20) Joseph saw firsthand how God could bring good things out of a bad situation. That's what God does. He took the worst thing we could do—crucify his son—and turned it into the way of saving us from ourselves and from our sins. Jesus forgave his enemies, his mocking brothers, his cowardly disciples, and even a zealous religious fanatic named Saul, who later took the name Paul, the Latin word for small or humble. Yet it takes a big person to forgive wrongs done to them. Like Jesus. He forgives all who ask, including the criminal on the cross next to him. And part of the cross we are to bear daily is to do the same, with the help of his Spirit who lives within us and among us.

Is God Good?

The scriptures referred to are Ezekiel 33:7-11, Romans 13:8-14 and Matthew 18:15-20.

I had just finished Karen Hao's eye opening book, The Empire of AI, about how the race for artificial general intelligence has created a globally exploitative and extractive system that copies colonialism, and decided I needed to read something lighter. So I found the audiobook, Mythos, Stephen Fry's delightful retelling of the stories of the Greek gods, read by the author himself, acting out all the parts. And then I realized that I had switched from a book about men with godlike wealth and influence who don't care about the harm they do to fellow human beings to mythical gods who don't care about the harm they do to human beings. The Greek and Roman gods were petty, cruel, capricious, vengeful, lustful, incestuous, murderous, cannibalistic and all round terrible beings. Zeus is so incensed that Prometheus has given the gift of fire to humans that he decides not only to torture his former friend forever but to drown the human race. Not because of human sin and violence as in Genesis 6:11-13 but just out of spite. When that doesn't kill them all, Zeus gives Pandora a container as a wedding gift and when she opens it, all the miseries of life, like poverty, famine, disease and despair, escape into the world. Cadmus, the first hero, slays a water dragon who has killed 4 of his men only to find it is the favorite of the war god Ares and thus is cursed to become a snake. A priestess of Zeus is seduced by the king of the gods only to be killed by jealous Hera, Zeus' sister and wife. Small wonder that the story of Jesus, revealing that God is in fact just and loving, was received as good news in the ancient world.

Unlike the Greek gods, whom you might unknowingly offend, the Bible reveals that God has told us what is right and what is wrong. We are to love both God and our neighbor. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Leviticus 19:18) Things that violate those two laws—stealing, lying, infidelity, wanting what doesn't belong to you—are wrong. (Exodus 20:1-17) Murder is wrong because humans are created in the image of God. (Genesis 9:6) In our passage from Ezekiel, the prophet is to warn people from doing things that will lead to their deaths. Even before Jesus comes, we see that God is forgiving. He takes no pleasure in the death of sinners but wants all to turn from their sins, their destructive and self-destructive thoughts, words and actions, and turn to him, the God of life.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus gives us a practical, step by step method of dealing with someone who sins against you. The goal, you will note, is to bring about reconciliation. Paul likewise is telling Christians that we are to love one another. Love, he points out, does no wrong to a neighbor. So what do you think that Jesus and Paul would say to Christians who feel that God's top priority is to punish sinners and who have no problem with actions that are cruel, vengeful and lead to misery and death for others?

Such “Christians” remind me of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church which would send protesters to funerals of gay people, victims of AIDS, military veterans and disaster victims. Their preacher, Fred Phelps, felt that these were punishments from God for tolerating homosexuality. The church's website featured a clock counting off how many people were going to hell every minute. They said that even Ronald Reagan and Mr. Rogers were in hell for not being outspoken against the bankrupt values of the US. Weirdly, they didn't even believe that what they were doing was warning people so they would repent as Ezekiel was doing. They believed that these people were predestined for hell and that it was impossible for them to repent. So why did they spend so much time and effort making their signs and traveling to funerals and other events? To gloat?

I read a book by Lauren Drain, a woman raised in the Westboro Baptist Church and whenever she questioned the church's leaders about verses on forgiveness and love, she was discouraged from exploring such topics. She left that church, as have 4 of Phelps' own children and about 16 of his grandchildren. Ironically, Phelps himself was excommunicated by his own church when he told the people who owned the house across the street and who painted it with an LGBTQ rainbow, “You're good people.” His grandson said that the church considered that “rank blasphemy.”

There are some preachers who prefer the picture of Jesus from the 19^th chapter of Revelation over the picture of him we see in the Gospels. In Revelation 19, we are told, he is on a horse and “He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood and his name is the Word of God.” (Revelation 19:13) They think the blood on his robe is the blood of his enemies. But the majority of the times that blood is mentioned in Revelation it's either the blood of the martyrs or the blood of the Lamb of God, that is, Jesus' blood. (Revelation 1:5; 5:9; 6:10; 7:14; 12:11; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24; 19:2) (We can discount the references to the sea or the moon turning to blood as obviously not literal.)

He also has a sword but it is not on his hip; it comes out of his mouth, as it does in the earlier vision of Jesus in Revelation 1:16. This is not an actual sword but a symbol of the Word of God. The Word of God is called the “sword of the Spirit” in Ephesians 6:17. And Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is “sharper than a two-edged sword.” (Compare Isaiah 49:2) Indeed earlier in Revelation we are told that when the angels triumph over Satan, “they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony...” (Revelation 12:11) Their testimony to whom? Jesus, of course, the living Word of God. So Jesus is not pictured anywhere in scripture with a literal sword, nor is the blood on his robes that of his enemies.

Yet the default picture in many people's minds seems to be that all gods are vengeful and not very loving when it comes to human beings. Sadly, that's true of many Christians. And because they think that God's top priority is punishing sinners, they think that should be their top priority as well. As someone once said, their approach to evangelism is like saying, “Have you heard the good news?” And when someone answers, “No, what is it?” they respond, “You're going to hell.” That is not good news!

However, that attitude explains why most of our entertainment seems to be about good guys seeking out and punishing bad guys. Today, to keep our heroes from looking as if they are partaking in genocide, they mostly kill robots, monsters and aliens. But even in the movie The Matrix, which is arguably an allegory in which Neo is the Jesus of that world, he kills a lot of people. And we are told that if you die in the computer world of the Matrix, you die in real life. According to the List of Deaths Wiki, in the first film Neo kills 15 people, mostly in the lobby scene. Over the four Matrix films, he kills 86 people. Jesus' body count: 0. Or if you count the people he raised from the dead: -3.

Our bloodlust is probably part of the reason that of the 3 books of Dante's Divine Comedy the most popular is the Inferno. Dante gives us a pretty comprehensive collection of sinners, including some of his political enemies, each suffering some devilishly appropriate eternal punishment in hell. Yet none of those fiendishly clever tortures come from the Bible. They come from the human imagination.

Our Creator has given us incredible intelligence. We can use it to create things that make the world better for others. But a lot of human ingenuity has been expended in creating new ways to harm and kill each other. From rocks to spears to swords to guns to bombs to flame throwers to drones to AI weapons which decide whom to target on their own, we have as yet not exhausted the ways to wage war on each other. And from beating to impaling to crucifying to drawing and quartering to waterboarding to electrified gloves, we keep coming up with more ways to cause pain and suffering. During World War 2, the Axis powers did horrific medical experiments on prisoners. And starting in 1953, our CIA had chemist Sidney Gottlieb, whom they called their “poisoner in chief,” give people powerful drugs, like LSD, without their knowledge or consent, in order to achieve their goals of mind control and more effective interrogations. Some of those unwitting subjects lost their minds and even killed themselves.

It seems to me that in viewing gods as vengeful and cruel, people were only projecting their own terrible traits onto beings more powerful than they. Let's face it, if humans had magical powers, it would be disastrous. In 2025, there were 42,348 gun deaths in the US. Imagine what the number of deaths would be if, as in the Harry Potter world, you could kill with a word. In the real world, Superman would most likely be a murderous tyrant. No wonder the ancients thought the gods must be dangerous for us to encounter.

That's why God had to reveal himself as just but merciful, forgiving and abounding in steadfast love. And when his written word wasn't getting through to enough people, he sent his Son as the living Word of God, the last word on what God is really like.

So why didn't Jesus stay and set up a physical kingdom as the Jews thought the Messiah would do? For the same reason a wise parent has to let their children grow up and learn to live as an adult in the world, using the principles they taught them. You want your children to become good people in their own right. They won't learn to use their own judgment and do the right thing on their own if you are always hovering over them. God wants us to become good people, not because a king of the world is right there, watching you. He wants us to want to do right, even when it seems like no one is looking. He wants us to do what's right because we love him and we love one another. He wants us to be like Jesus. (1 John 3:2)

But he knows that is difficult. So God sent his Spirit to live in us and guide us. And because he knows it is not good for humans to be alone, he gives us the church, the community of those who follow Jesus. As Jesus said, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We are called to be the body of Christ, the ongoing embodiment of the Spirit of Christ in the world, doing the things that Jesus did. Because you know what is more effective than merely telling people about Jesus? Demonstrating his presence in our lives. Jesus healed and fed others. He told us that how we treat the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and the resident foreigner is how we treat him. In his parable of the sheep and goats, those who neglect to help the destitute, the diseased, and the despised are excluded from his kingdom. (Matthew 25:31-46)

Because no kingdom, no nation, can flourish if it is turning on its own people or neglecting them. It's not that God won't let certain people into his paradise; it's that he cannot let in those who harm others because then it wouldn't be paradise. Put Hitler in heaven and it would be hell for him. For one thing there would be too many Jews there. But more importantly nobody in heaven would be worshiping Hitler—or any other despot. Nobody would be treating him as more special than anyone else. Heaven would be hell for any narcissist or any arrogant person. And he would try to make it hell for everyone else.

Nor would God force anyone to live eternally with him. Because God is love and love requires consent. (1 John 4:7-8) As C.S. Lewis pointed out, there are people who say to God, “Your will be done,” and people to whom God will in the end have to say, “Very well; your will be done. You don't want any part of me. So be it.” As Lewis said, everyone will get what they wish for; some will not like it.

A lot of folks think the God of the Bible is no better than the Greek and Roman gods. Even ignoring the Old Testament and going back to Revelation, they fixate on the disasters and the plagues there. They read that a third of the world will be on fire and the waters will become poisonous and they see them as supernatural acts of God. But if you read the news, you can see that we are doing these things to ourselves. They count the 7 bowls of God's wrath mentioned in Revelation. (Revelation 16) They don't count the 11 times in the same book that there is a call to repent. (Revelation 2:5, 16, 21, 22, ; 3:3,19; 9:20, 21; 16:9, 11) Forgiveness is still possible. They focus on the depiction of the end of the world and ignore the creation of the new heaven and the new earth. They focus on the people excluded from the new Jerusalem, people who, if turned loose, would turn it into a hell. (Revelation 21:8) They don't pay attention to the fact that God himself will live with his people. More importantly, they miss the part where “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” (Revelation 21:4) That was God's goal for our world all along, to restore it to a place where he could once again pronounce everything good. (Genesis 1:31) Oh, and the hand that will wipe away those tears will still have the marks of the nails, the sign of the love that the true God, our incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, has for us.

Two Ways

The scriptures referred to are Romans 12:9-21 and Matthew 16:21-28.

There is a meme on the internet that says “Hollywood has spent $600 million trying to get Matt Damon home.” They are referring to his roles in Saving Private Ryan, Interstellar, The Martian and now The Odyssey. This last is the movie version of the epic poem about how it takes 10 years for the hero of the Trojan War to make his way back home. The reason given in the film is that by offering the wooden horse as a gift to the citizens of Troy and using the warriors hidden inside to open the gates and let the Greeks sack the city, Odysseus, King of Ithaca, violated Zeus' law. As his son Telemachus puts it, “Zeus' law tells us to treat strangers as we'd be treated because they might be gods in disguise.” This made-up term stands for the real principle of hospitality in the ancient world. It sounds like a mix of the Golden Rule and what it says in Hebrews 13:2: “Do not neglect hospitality, because through it some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Of course, in the film the law is given lip-service but not really practiced, much as the Golden Rule, some form of which is found in nearly every religion, is similarly “more honored in the breach than the observance.” (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4)

A principle more in evidence in the ancient world was that of seeking glory. The story of Odysseus' trick with the Trojan horse makes its way to his home long before he does. Rhapsodes, ancient reciters of poetry, perform it for the suitors who have invaded his home to seek the hand of his queen and presumed widow. Odysseus is a legend in his own time. Meanwhile the man himself is facing gods and monsters while also suffering from what we would call today moral injury. This is a form of complex PTSD we see in warriors, first responders and nurses who have to witness, live with or sometimes make decisions that go against their moral values and who they thought themselves to be. But this doesn't stop Odysseus from slaughtering his wife's suitors, who have also violated Zeus' law. This leaves him dishonored for his actions and he goes into exile. This ending wasn't in the poem but it is in the movie and it makes sense in the honor/shame culture of that time. Oh, and I apologize for spoiling the plot of a nearly 3000 year old story.

The Middle Eastern setting of the Bible was also an honor/shame culture supporting hospitality and one in which men sought glory. Winning fame and defeating your enemies was a sure way to gain glory. Which is why what Jesus has to say to his disciples in today's Gospel reading strikes them as just wrong. The popular idea of the Messiah was that of a warrior-king like David, who drove the Philistines out of Israel. The Jewish people of Jesus' day wanted someone who would drive the Romans out. The idea that the Messiah would “suffer at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed” made no sense. David died of old age, having established a secure kingdom and a dynasty. Jesus is saying that he would soon encounter opposition from the religious authorities, suffer and die. But what good was a dead Messiah?

Peter, who had just said that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God, takes him aside and tells Jesus he's wrong. He says Jesus doesn't understand his call from God. Which is why Jesus' reply is so harsh: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

I don't know why the NRSVue uses “hindrance” rather than the more literal translation of “stumbling block.” Jesus is saying that Peter, whom he nicknamed the rock, is now a stumbling block, an obstacle to his mission. Which is why he calls him “Satan.” The Hebrew word “Satan” literally means “adversary.” It's more a title than a proper name. Jesus sees in Peter's suggestion an echo of the three temptations he faced in the wilderness. The first two boiled down to using his divine power for himself and his own ends. In the last temptation Jesus is shown all the kingdoms of the world and told they will be his if he just bows down and worships God's adversary. (Matthew 4:1-11) And certainly that would be easier than getting nailed to a cross. Why give up your life? Every other conqueror gained his kingdom or spread his empire by forcing others to give up their lives: both the lives of his own soldiers and the lives of the soldiers on the other side, plus any civilians that get in the way. That is the way of the world. That is how it is done. Jesus is saying “No” to all that.

Jesus was called by God to do something new. Rather than shedding the blood of others to force people to become part of his kingdom, he will let his own blood be shed to found a kingdom where becoming a citizen is voluntary. Rather than establishing a kingdom with borders to guard, Jesus is establishing a kingdom with no borders, a kingdom of God with no limit to its extent...other than in the hearts of those who reject the all-encompassing nature of God's love.

But that bothers some Christians. Acting self-sacrificially as Jesus did seems like a less certain way to establish God's kingdom than just using power. If you use power and the fear of your power, you can more reliably get people to do what you want. But that doesn't change people's hearts. The God who is love wants people to love him and love others. (1 John 4:7-8) You can't accomplish that with fear. As it says in 1 John, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. We love because he loved us first.” (1 John 4:18-19) As it says in 1 Timothy, “For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (1 Timothy 1:7) The Spirit of Christ offers us self-control, not control over others.

And Jesus' way definitely calls for self-control. He says, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” He didn't mean that symbolically either. He knew that doing things his way, the way of disowning yourself, making painful sacrifices and loving and serving others, would put you in direct conflict with those who insist on their own rights, are unwilling to give up anything and do not love others but wish to make others serve them. Some people, including some Christians, see Jesus' way as suicidal. And, in a way, they are right.

Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Most of the apostles will die for spreading the good news of Jesus. Emperors will have them beheaded or crucified. They will be killed by the sword (Acts 12:2). They will be stoned to death. Early Christians were interrogated, tortured and executed if they didn't renounce Jesus. Nero had Christians set on fire as torches to light his garden. Decius targeted bishops and clergy for arrest, torture and execution. Diocletian also had Bibles burned and churches destroyed. But instead of wiping out Christianity, the good news of Jesus spread.

Why? Because of the part of Jesus' statement that the disciples were ignoring here. They were so shocked by his statement that he would suffer and die that they didn't hear or couldn't wrap their heads around what else he said: that he would “on the third day be raised.” Without that part, his statement of how they must deny themselves and take up their cross makes no sense. Martyrs may be admired for their moral stand but few will emulate them. Because dead is dead.

But not with Jesus. Every Gospel tells us Jesus raised the dead. There was Jairus' daughter, there was the son of the widow of Nain, there was Lazarus. (Matthew 9:18-25; Mark 5:22-42; Luke 7:11-15; 8:41-56; John 11:1-44) And when Jesus rose again, all of a sudden his teachings made sense. Turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, giving to any who ask without expecting repayment, and not worrying about food, drink or clothing make no sense if this is the only life you get. (Matthew 5:39; 6:25; Luke 6: 35-36) In that case, you should grab for all the gusto you can get. And grab someone else's gusto because if there's no afterlife, there are no eternal consequences to what you do. Jesus' ethics only make sense if there is an afterlife and a just but merciful God who “will repay everyone for what has been done.”

There are consequences in this life as well. As Jesus says, “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” Many a person has worked all their life for the rewards of this world and then found at the end that they squandered their time and shortchanged their families and friends for stuff that is ultimately hollow, for titles and plaques and monuments to themselves that no one else will care about. How does he who dies with the most toys win anything other than the same hole in the dirt as everyone else? And if there is a life beyond this one, that person will have lost more than their earthly toys. They will have lost the life that truly is life—eternal life with God. (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

There will be rewards in this life as well, but their value will not show up on a balance sheet. One will be peace. As Paul puts it, “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) In times of turmoil, such peace of mind is invaluable. Being in Christ means there is peace between us and God, between us and others and peace with ourselves. The struggle to be what we are not, to fill the hole in our life with things whose shiny newness will fade, and to try to find a meaning to our existence will be resolved.

Peace, “shalom” in Hebrew, means not merely the absence of conflict but also fullness of health and well-being. Having a sense of purpose in life is a vital part of mental and spiritual health. Serving God and your fellow human beings with the gifts, talents and skills you have brings a well-being which empty and aimless pursuits do not bestow.

Having a supportive community of fellow Christians who “love one another with mutual affection” is a blessing many are missing in today's epidemic of loneliness. People are slowly realizing that humans were not meant to interact with one another primarily through screens. We are embodied creatures with different lived experiences and we need to be in contact with others so we can share our joys, our sorrows, our perspectives, our wisdom and our uniqueness. We need to find others to whom we can say, “You, too? I thought I was the only one who felt like that.” We also need to encounter folks whose experiences are so different from ours that it widens our view of the world and expands our understanding and compassion for other people. The neighborhood church is fast becoming the only place where folks can get to know people from different races, cultures, social strata and points of view.

That's what we see in our passage from Romans. One major difference between Jesus and Paul is that Jesus was the innovator and author of our faith and Paul was the person setting up, managing and helping satellite communities of Christians live as the collective body of Christ. Jesus set out the principles and Paul was working out how to implement them practically in the wider world. And we can see how Paul is spelling out how Christ's self-sacrificial love is expressed in different circumstances. “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, live peaceably with all.” Paul knew firsthand that Christians would run into opposition but they were not to go looking for it. If they suffered they were not to seek revenge but leave it to God. “Instead, 'if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.'” He is quoting Proverbs 25:21-22. It's a tough saying to interpret but in view of Paul's saying not to repay evil with evil, and other ancient texts of the time, I take the coals to be a symbol of the burning shame that will come upon a person for acting so badly towards someone who only does them good.

In the end of the film, even if Odysseus does feel bad about how he treated the Trojans, he does not change how he acts. He slays a room full of his enemies. He is still a man of war. And yet he sees that this will lead to the decline and fall of Greek civilization. We love to tell his tale but the wise do not emulate him. Wise people do emulate Jesus. Though Jesus' way defies worldly wisdom, people know deep down that healing is better than harming, mercy is better than vengeance, forgiveness is better than feuding and loving is better than hate. 

Rock Solid

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 16:13-20.

In Flannery O'Connor's book Wise Blood, among the eccentric characters is a conman who is promoting what he calls “The Church of Christ Without Christ.” There have been a number of con artists who have stepped into the pulpit, preaching bizarre versions of the gospel, but few are brave enough to say outright that they are trying to establish a Christianity without Christ. Yet that is what happens when Jesus Christ is moved out of the center of the faith and someone or something else is substituted. We have seen versions where the main focus is a political agenda, or the worshiper's personal prosperity, or an idea of personal empowerment taken from new age or new thought, or the con artists themselves. The problem is, when you remove Jesus, you get either a watered down or distorted version of God's good news or you get a cult.

That's the issue in today's gospel reading. Jesus has taken his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, well north of Galilee. It is the source of the Jordan river, at the foot of Mount Hermon, the probable site of the Transfiguration. Rebuilt by Herod's son Philip and named after the emperor and himself, it was a very pagan region. It had been named Paneas after the Greek god Pan, who had a shrine in a cave there. There were niches that held statues of the Nymphs, minor nature deities. Jews avoided the place. The only reason I can think that Jesus took the disciples there was to get them away from other Jews while he asked them a crucial but controversial question.

He eases into it by asking them “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “Son of Man” is Jesus' preferred designation for himself. He uses it more than 80 times in the Gospels, far more often than he uses the term “Son of God.” It's interesting that today we have gotten the meaning of the two titles reversed. “Son of God” was a royal title used of David and his line of kings. (Psalm 89:20, 26-27; 2 Samuel 7:8-18) “Son of Man,” while it could just mean a human, recalled the figure in Daniel 7, where it says, “I was watching in the night visions, and with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man was approaching. He went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. To him was given ruling authority, honor, and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14) “Son of man” was a Messianic title and yet, because of the ambiguity, Jesus was able to use it without getting immediately arrested.

So when asking who people thought the Son of Man was, Jesus could have just been asking who people in general thought was going to be the Messiah. Some thought it would be John the Baptist brought back to life, or Elijah, who had gone to heaven in a chariot of fire, or any one of the prophets of old. So Jesus gets to the essential question: “But who do you say that I am?” Peter immediately replies, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Which is to say that Jesus is the promised prophet, priest and king anointed by God to restore and rule the people of God.

And Jesus congratulates Peter for getting this right, though it was not the realization of his own unaided brain but a revelation from God. Then, playing on the nickname he gave Simon, he says you are a rock and on this rock I will build my church. Some think Jesus meant the church was built on Peter, making him the first pope. This is unlikely. Peter would deny Jesus 3 times. (Matthew 26:69-75) He would waffle on whether Gentile Christians had to obey the Jewish dietary laws. (Galatians 2:11-14) As good as Peter was, does it make sense to make one fallible mortal the foundation of the church?

So what is the rock on which Jesus will build his church? Earlier in Matthew's Gospel, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24) Here it is Jesus' words which are the rock. In 1 Corinthians 10:4, it says “the rock is Christ.” And in the Old Testament, God is called “the rock of Israel.” (Genesis 49:24) and “my rock, in whom I will take refuge.” (Psalms 18:2) It is more likely that Jesus is saying that what Peter stated--that Jesus is the Messiah and God's Son--is the rock on which the church is built.

People keep trying to replace Jesus with other things as the foundation on which the church should stand. They try to substitute positions on certain political or economic or social or moral issues as the real basis for Christianity. They forget that without Jesus these issues have no divine basis. Issues come and issues go. In the Middle Ages, the important issues were iconoclasm, the “filioque” clause and the authority of the pope over princes. In asserting that last issue, popes placed whole countries under an interdict or mass excommunication. In the 1300s, there were 3 men claiming to be pope who were excommunicating each other and the followers of each. Yet scripture says “...there is one God, and one mediator between God and humans, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5) Ultimately Christ is the person through whom we are reconciled to God.

Some people make the Bible the foundation of Christianity rather than Jesus. How is that bad? Because they fail to realize that the Bible is not God or Jesus but a witness to God and Jesus. Besides, the Bible has 66 books and 31,000 verses. People can and do pull verses out of context to justify thoughts, words and actions that go against what Jesus taught. For example, like the history of mankind, the Old Testament is full of wars. If a leader wants to justify his war, he can find some verse that seems to work. He just has to overlook the verses about God wanting to end war or David being unable to build the temple because he is a man of war. (Psalm 46:9; 1 Chronicles 22:8) Some people quote verses that apparently justify killing those who offend or oppose God. But they have to turn a blind eye to Jesus telling Peter to put away his sword when he was trying to keep Jesus from being arrested by his enemies or Paul praying for followers who had left him and the faith. (Matthew 26:52; 2 Timothy 4:16) People have also used the fact that many of the patriarchs had multiple wives to justify polygamous arrangements while conveniently ignoring the disharmony and jealousy we see in all of those plural marriages. (Genesis 29; 2 Samuel 13 and 16) There is no idea so awful or so weird that someone has not found a way to back it up with a verse they have manipulated.

Some folks get clever and try instead to change Jesus to fit their pet interpretation. So Jesus becomes a political rebel or an Eastern mystic or a capitalist or a socialist or a motivational speaker for human potential. Thomas Jefferson believed Jesus was merely a moral teacher and so he took two Bibles and a pair of scissors to create his own Bible by cutting out the parts he liked and pasting them in a notebook. He left out the miracles and anything saying Jesus is divine. And he's just one of the many people who have been editing Jesus for the last 2000 years.

Like the search for the historical Jesus. Bible scholar Luke Timothy Johnson pointed out that none of the results of these searches have come up with a unanimously accepted version of the man. Besides, he says, it is the Jesus of the Gospels who has impacted history and people's lives, not the ones people construct out of pieces of him and pieces of whatever is novel or currently popular. The Jesus we read in the Bible may not be the Jesus everyone thinks they want but he is the one we need.

Jesus then said that his church, built on the bedrock of him and his mission, will be able to endure against the gates of Hades. And that cavern in Caesarea Philippi which was dedicated to Pan, the god from whom we get the word “panic,” was thought to be a gate to Hades, the abode of the dead. Jesus is saying that his church will stand against the powers of death and decay.

But Jesus knows he will not always be with the disciples physically. He would die, rise again and ascend to his Father in heaven. He would pass the torch to these disciples and their successors. So he says, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” What does that mean?

Let's look at some parallels in Jesus' teachings. In Matthew 18, Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” Jesus goes on to say if he won't listen, bring one or two other people as witnesses, so it's not just your say-so. If he refuses to listen to them, take the matter to the church. If he still refuses to listen, “treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” After that Jesus repeats that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:15-18)

A few things to note here. First, Jesus is not saying this is what you do if your brother annoys you or offends you. This is about sinning against you. Using the list of sins Jesus gave us last week, this would mean things like “murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matthew 15:19) Jesus is saying this is what to do if your brother does something wrong that harms you. Or, I think it's safe to say, if he harms someone else, especially someone who cannot stand up for themselves like a child. (Matthew 18:5-6)

Secondly, you should try to resolve the matter privately if you can. Only if that doesn't work, should you bring in others and then as few as possible. If that doesn't work, only then does it rise to the level of bringing in the church as a whole. And if the person still doesn't repent, they are to be not punished but simply shunned. As you see, such a serious decision doesn't rest on one person's feelings.

Thirdly, the purpose, Jesus says, is to win back your brother. You are trying to bring him back into a good relationship with you, not trying to get him cast out. You are not looking for revenge but reconciliation.

Finally, when the risen Jesus first appears to the disciples he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:22-23) So this binding and loosing is not about changing rules but about forgiving people.

Which makes sense. Jesus is not telling his disciples that they can change the commandments he gave them on earth and expect that those commandments will subsequently be changed in heaven. He is not granting them the authority to change the moral laws of the universe. He is saying that what they forgive on earth will stand up in heaven and what they do not forgive will hold up in heaven. Remember in the Lord's prayer, we ask God that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are not praying that our will on earth should override God's will in heaven.

Jesus knows that the disciples and those who come to him through them will screw up. He is saying that they have his permission and authority to resolve these matters themselves. They are to use their discernment and listen to his Holy Spirit in deciding how to act in matters where someone sins against someone else. Repentance leads to forgiveness; refusing to acknowledge that you harmed someone will not.

That reflects the Jesus who is the rock-solid foundation on which the church is built. He is just but merciful; he is loving and forgiving. He seeks to reconcile us to each other and to God. He is the one whom God anointed to be our prophet, priest and king. We are to listen to his word, go to him as our mediator with God, and obey his commands. The greatest of those commands are to love God with all we are and all we have and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Which means loving anyone we encounter, including our enemy. (Matthew 22:34-40; Luke 10:29-37; Matthew 5:44) Jesus not only taught that, he lived it. He did not fight his enemies. (Luke 22:49-51, 63-65) He even forgave them from the cross. (Luke 23:33-34)

People tend to confuse Jesus with a political partisan or a philosopher or an economist or, God help us, with John Wayne. Then they try to build movements on that shifting and unstable sand. In times of trouble we need someone who is timeless, a polestar to guide us through the raging storms. We need the Jesus found in God's word, the Jesus who is the living Word of God, who shows us what God is really like and what we, through him, can become.