The Best Explanation

 The scriptures referred to are Philippians 2:1-13 and Matthew 21:23-32.

Everyday Facebook offers up “memories,” stuff you posted 1, 2, 5, and more years ago. Some are heartwarming like videos of my granddaughter. Some are informative. Some are funny, or were at the time. This week one popped up that showed a picture from the second Star Wars film of Luke Skywalker with Yoda on his back. Above it was the caption: “Talking frog convinces son to kill his dad.” This falls into the internet category of “Film plots explained badly.” You can find loads of them. Don't you love that film about a girl who kills a woman and then gets 3 friends to help murder her sister? That is after all the plot of The Wizard of Oz, explained badly. How about “group spends 9 hours returning jewelry?” That's the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy in a very inadequate nutshell. Or what about that exciting film where a guy tries to stop a fat man from making a bank withdrawal? You know, Goldfinger. What makes these funny is that they sound like something a teenager would say about a film they were barely watching because they were on their phone scrolling through Instagram and texting friends the whole time. They do pick up some details but they lack context, they grossly oversimplify things and basically they miss the whole point of the story.

It seems like Christianity has been suffering from being badly explained for quite a long time. It's often described as something like this: “God is mad at people for having a good time and wants to send them to hell. He takes out his anger on his son, who is much nicer. All you have to do is believe Jesus is his son to receive a 'Get out of hell free' card.” And there are some churchgoers who believe that is a good summary of the faith.

Of course there are those who call themselves Christian who never get past the 'God is mad and wants to send certain people to hell' part. Their version of the faith lacks any hint of God's compassion. And what's really weird is the stuff they think God is most upset over. Some elevate to the highest priority issues that are either never mentioned in the Bible or mentioned only a handful of times. And they really focus on sexual sins, despite the fact that they only amount to 9% of the commandments in scripture. They miss crucial things like how the Bible admonishes us literally hundreds of times to take care of the poor, the sick, and the immigrant. Love appears in scripture 518 times, 2.8 times more often than hate. Peace comes up 429 times, mercy 360, forgiving 223 and healing 139, while punishing appears only 78 times. In the whole Bible hell is only mentioned 54 times whereas heaven comes up a whopping 739 times. People who think the Bible is overwhelmingly about hate, hell and punishment are just plain wrong. It's like saying that Snow White is about a guy in the woods kissing a dead body while 7 other guys watch. You're focusing on the wrong things and missing the real story.

What our faith is actually about is our being made in the image of the God who is love and, when we act unlovingly towards him and each other, God's attempts to bring us back to being the people we were created to be. He not only tries to warn us of the consequences of trying to run the world as a “winner take all” competition rather than an exercise in compassion and cooperation, he finally decides to show us himself. He becomes one of us and reveals what he is really like and how we should emulate him through his words and his works of healing. Yet his creatures find this threatening and arrest and beat him and condemn him to death. And instead of taking out his wrath on such violence, he prays for his executioners and lets them kill him. He is no Rambo using might to make right. He doesn't deal out death but overcomes death with the life that is in him and which he gives to all who put their trust in him and follow him on the same path of self-sacrificial love.

Nor does Jesus want us to be holy warriors, punishing those we judge to be sinners. He undid the one violent act a follower did in trying to protect him by healing a severed ear. He forgives a condemned murderer on the cross next to his. Though he speaks out in the strongest terms against divorce or adultery, he protects a woman about to suffer the ultimate penalty for adultery. He also doesn't make an issue of it when speaking to the Samaritan woman who had been married 5 times. So I don't get it when people feel they need to be more strict than Jesus when it comes to others' sins.

In today's reading from Philippians Paul says, “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” Paul is saying it is important to have the same mindset, one of encouragement, consolation, love, sharing, compassion and sympathy. He goes on to define it further: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” An arrogant or self-promoting Christian is an oxymoron. We are to be humble and put others before ourselves. And to really make his point he says, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...” Share his mindset. Look at people and act towards them as he would. And in case they weren't paying attention when they were hearing the gospel, he spells out exactly the qualities that Jesus displayed.

“”...who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard regard equality with God as something to cling to...” You will notice that I changed the translation slightly. Various translations render the last word “exploited,” “grasped,” “use to his advantage,” or even, bizarrely “robbery.” It's an odd word choice on Paul's part but I think in the context the New Living Translation gets it right: “cling to.” The point is that though divine, the Son did not desperately hang onto his equality with the Father. Why? Because of the nature of what he had to do.

“...but emptied himself...” Theologians have a field day with this but basically what this means is that Christ gave up those rights and privileges he had as the divine Son. He not only refused to cling to them, he voluntarily gave them up. Why?

“...taking on the form of a slave...” So he could go from being the One who must be obeyed to one who must obey. How?

“...being born in human likeness.” By being born a human being.

“And being found in human likeness, he humbled himself...” This was not done to him. He did it himself. Christ was not stripped of aspects of his divinity; he stripped himself of his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. He limited himself in order to be one of us.

“...and became obedient to the point of death...” God cannot die. We can. This is how profoundly Jesus gave up his prerogatives as God's son: not simply to live as one of us, but to die as one of us.

“...even death on a cross.” Not comfortably dying in bed but a painful, humiliating death, akin to a lynching. A horrible death.

Paul is forcing us to think about just what it was Christ did. This was not just God playing the “Prince and the Pauper,” going about as a human just to see what it was like. It would be like a king going on an undercover mission, a suicide mission, to save his people at the cost of his own life.

Jesus wasn't a victim of God's misplaced anger. He entered into this world, created with not only physical but moral laws that we put completely out of whack with our behavior. He sacrificed himself to set things right. He wasn't just nice; he was courageous and showed the ultimate in self-sacrificial love. That's what God in Christ did. And that is the mindset we should have.

Yet everyday we see people who are supposedly Christian who refuse to part with even a small portion of their privileges to help others. Worse, we have people insisting they have a right to ignore common sense precautions to protect themselves and others from a disease that has infected more than 32 million people worldwide, killed nearly a million, including more than 200,000 people who have died in this country alone. What if Christ had said, “I'm not giving up my rights as God to save those people?” At this rate, any doctor, nurse and nurse's aide, regardless of their faith, who risk their life to take care of those with Covid-19 is acting in a more Christlike manner than some who spout off about how Christian they are, but can't be bothered to give up their rights and privileges.

Which brings us to the second part of our badly explained version of Christianity: “All you have to do is believe Jesus is God's son to receive a 'Get out of hell free' card.” First of all, that does not really encompass what the word for “believe” means to a Christian. Yes, it means to believe that something is true. I believe that the earth revolves around the sun, but as Sherlock Holmes pointed out, it doesn't make much difference in one's life if one doesn't. Or as James put it, “You believe that God is one; well and good. Even demons believe that—and tremble with fear.” (James 2:19)

As in James' day, we have lots of people who believe that there is a God, yet it makes no difference in the way they live their lives. What's vital is not what you believe but who you put your faith in. Just as merely listening to a doctor won't make you healthy, simply listening to talk about God won't save you. It will only help you if your belief in God is so strong that you do what he says. I've had many patients who saw their doctors regularly but didn't have enough faith in them to change their lifestyles as they were told to. Believing that Jesus is the son of God or that he died for you, if it just remains a fact you file away in your brain, and not what you rely on when faced with moral decisions, does you no good. I believed that the surgeons put my shattered legs back together correctly but if I didn't put my faith in that and then stand and walk when the physical therapist told me to, I would not be walking today. And I have seen patients with new hips and new knees who won't follow the doctor's orders and don't believe that they can walk again if they just do as the therapists say. They let pain and fear have the final say.

In today's gospel Jesus talks of a man with two sons. He tells both to go to work in the vineyard. The first says, “No,” but later changes his mind and goes. The second one says, “Yes” to his father but never actually goes to the vineyard. Jesus asks his critics which son did his father's will and they say the first son, of course. “Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.'” And the word translated “change your minds” also can be translated “repent.” So genuine belief leads to repentance, which is a change of mind that leads to a change in one's life.

Real belief does not hide in your head or hunker down in your heart but moves your hands and your feet to do what God calls you to do. And he calls us to love. And that's something missed when people badly explain Christianity. If we focus only on faith, we miss half of the message. As it says in 1 John, “Now this is his commandment: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he gave us the commandment.” (1 John 3:23) Faith in someone, trusting them, underlies all relationships, even business relationships. But God wants us to go beyond merely trusting him. Jesus did what he did out of love for us. And he wants us to reciprocate his love. And he wants us to love everyone else he loves and died for. Again as it says in 1 John, “We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our life for the brothers and sisters.” (1 John 3:16) And as I never tire of saying, everyone you meet is either your brother or sister in Christ or your potential brother or sister in Christ.

One of the best explanations of Christianity is this, which also comes from 1 John: “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:8b-11)

Everything starts from love and everything ends in love. And I cannot think of a better way to explain our faith to someone than simply to love them, as Jesus does.

Gracious to the End

 The scriptures referred to are Matthew 20:1-16.

In 1991 serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested and charged with 15 murders. Beginning the next day he confessed to detectives his history of homicide, cannibalism and necrophilia. Shortly after his 60 hour confession he asked a detective for a Bible. Eventually he embraced Christianity and was baptized in May 1994 in the prison whirlpool. The Church of Christ minister who performed the baptism and visited Dahmer weekly believed that the conversion was real. In November 1994 another prisoner beat Dahmer to death.

So...is Jeffrey Dahmer in heaven? With Jesus?

Regardless of your theology, I'll bet that question bothers you on an emotional level. We are uneasy with the idea that people who do real evil, deliberate harm to others, can nevertheless repent and be forgiven. It seems that our list of unforgivable sins is a lot longer than God's. And it is particularly upsetting when the person accepts Jesus shortly before dying.

At least David Berkowitz, the infamous Son of Sam, who killed 6 people and wounded 7, has been doing prison ministry since 1987. He has written a book about his changed life as well as numerous essays on faith and repentance for which he receives no royalties. He wrote the preface to one of the Bibles I distribute in our jail. He refuses to ask for release at his parole hearings, saying, “In all honesty, I believe that I deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life. I have, with God's help, long ago come to terms with my situation and I have accepted my punishment.” It may be unsettling to think of him going to heaven when he dies, but at least he put in the time working for God.

In today's parable, Jesus describes a situation that, at first, would be familiar to his audience. When it was harvest time, a vineyard owner needed lots of workers. He had no labor saving devises to pick the grapes and he had to get them in at just the right time. So starting early in the day the landowner keeps going to the marketplace and hiring day laborers to get the harvest in. And he agrees to pay them the standard daily wage. He even hires a group of people at 5 in the afternoon, when there was only a hour in which to work. That's a bit unusual but maybe the landowner was desperate to get the harvest in.

Where things gets weird in Jesus' story is when the owner pays the laborers. The last minute hires get the standard daily wage. That's surprising but that gives the guys hired at dawn expectations of getting proportionately more pay than they had agreed to. But no! They get the same pay. And so they grumble.

But the landowner points out they got the standard daily wage, as both parties agreed. He wasn't cheating them by paying the latecomers the same thing. He was just being generous.

When psychologist Jonathan Haidt was studying the foundations of morality, he didn't have any problems formulating 4 of the values and their antitheses: care and its opposite harm, authority or respect and its opposite subversion, loyalty and its opposite betrayal, and sanctity or purity and its opposite degradation. He also had an pair he called fairness and its opposite cheating. But he found out that fairness meant different things to some people than it did to others. When we are talking about fairness are we saying that everyone gets the same things or that some get more or less in proportion to the effort they put in? To some, not recognizing the different contributions that different people made was seen as unfair in the sense of it being a disproportionate distribution of assets. Some even saw this as a restriction on their freedom to do as well as they could and enjoy the benefits. Haidt came up with a new category called liberty with its opposite being oppression.

The issue is called the free-rider problem, the idea that some people use resources that they didn't earn or pay for, especially public goods or services. It can apply to everything from hopping the turnstile to avoid paying subway fare or using a song you didn't buy the rights to as the background of a video you made. Of course, those things are against the law. But what about things that by their very nature you can't exclude people from using? Like a lighthouse, built by a coastal community, but used by ships from all over the world as an aid to navigation. Or a road which can be used by those who didn't pay the taxes that built and maintain it. Or when a union negotiates a fair wage, hours and benefits for its members but then can't require dues from workers who aren't union members but who enjoy the same benefits.

That sounds a bit like the issue the workers have in the parable, except there was no formal group negotiating the terms for just their people, nor dues required. These are all independent contractors. And Jesus' point wasn't about anyone getting cheated. The landowner is being unfair in a sense but on the side of generosity. He is not giving people less than a fair daily wage; he is just giving it to everyone who worked for him, regardless of how long. It is his right to be free with his money.

Of course the parable is not about human economics but about God's grace. God has the right to forgive whomever turns to him, whenever they do so, and reward them with eternal life. It's not like lifelong Christians are being cheated; it's that God is more gracious than we can imagine and often more than we'd like him to be.

After all, Paul persecuted the church before he became an apostle of Jesus. But afterwards he worked hard for Christ and got beaten and stoned and imprisoned and martyred for serving him. So we don't hold it against him that Christians were arrested and executed during the years he opposed the church. (Acts 26:9-10) He paid for what he did.

Dahmer was attacked and killed but so was another inmate, who just happened to be cleaning the restrooms with Dahmer. Dahmer didn't suffer or die for his faith. He died because another inmate, also serving a life sentence for murder, decided to execute him for his crimes. Yet if his faith was genuine, Dahmer is just as saved as Paul.

If so, how can God be a God of justice? The problem with absolute justice is that if it were imposed no one would survive. Never mind murder; have you ever cheated on anything? Have you ever taken something that wasn't yours? Have you ever said something you knew wasn't true? Have you ever broken any laws, like speeding, or said defamatory things about someone (that's slander) or hit someone in anger (that's battery.) Did you get caught or punished in each instance? If not, you haven't faced true justice.

Leaving aside men's laws, how are you on God's laws? Have you ever insulted anyone? (Matthew 5:22) Have you ever looked at someone with lust? (Matthew 5:28) Have you ever done wrong to someone who did wrong to you? (Romans 12:19) Have you ever refused to forgive someone? (Matthew 6:15) Have you ever passed up the opportunity to help the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned or the immigrant? (Matthew 25:44-46) Have you always treated others the way you wish to be treated? (Matthew 7:12) Have you given to everyone who asks you for something? (Matthew 5:42) If God were strict in his justice with us, who would survive?

God is just but also merciful. As the psalm says, “He does not deal with us as our sins deserve; he does not repay us as our misdeeds deserve.” (Psalm 103:10) Otherwise anyone breaking his laws would be immediately punished. There would be no second chances, no appeals and no pardons. We'd be timid creatures, afraid to do anything lest we mess up. But that isn't the world he created or that we live in. Some of the consequences of our failures to live morally do come swiftly and some of the consequences injure or kill us but not the majority of them. And thank God for that! It gives us the chance to repent and to change our lives.

But God is not merely just and he is more than merciful; our God is gracious. Justice is getting what we deserve. Mercy is not getting all that we deserve. Grace is getting what we cannot possibly deserve. God does not just let us off easy when we deserve to have the book thrown at us. God doesn't just offer us a second chance but a new life, eternal life, his life. As Paul puts it, “So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The word “grace” appears 133 times in the New Testament but only 4 times in the gospels and 3 of those are in John. Jesus never uses the word himself. Some think that therefore a doctrine that was of such importance to Paul that he mentions 85 times in his epistles was not of importance to Jesus. But in this parable we see an illustration of God's grace. The landowner gives more than they deserve even to those who come late to him. It is his gift to them. And that is what grace is: God's gift, his undeserved, unreserved goodness to us.

Why do we, like the people who worked all day in the parable, resent God being generous to others? I think it is the mistaken idea that we have some say in what God does for others or through others. But we don't. As Paul says, “Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.” (Romans 14:4)

Jesus says it is envy. The workers in the parable were jealous of the generous deal the other workers got. And at times we get jealous, feeling that our heavenly Father is paying more attention to someone else and showing them favor. When the disciples said to Jesus that they saw a guy healing in his name and told him to stop, Jesus says, “Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:49-50) Obviously to do this the man had to believe in Jesus and was given the gift to heal, though he did not get it in the same way the disciples had. But he was an ally, a brother in the Lord. Again Paul says, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” (Romans 14:10) Again this falls within God's domain, not ours.

And by the way, Jeffrey Dahmer was not the first really bad person to turn to God at the last moment and receive assurance of salvation. On the cross, Jesus was flanked by two criminals. Mark calls them robbers, but the Romans didn't consider robbery a capital crime. Mark does say of the man pardoned in Jesus' place: “A man named Barabbas was imprisoned with rebels who had committed murder during an insurrection.” (Mark 15:7) So Barabbas was released but what about the murderous rebels he was imprisoned with? They were likely the men crucified with Jesus, because insurrection was a capital offense as was murder. That means Jesus was executed alongside two murderers. And while at first they taunt him as do the crowds, one changes his mind. And Luke tells us, “But the other rebuked him, saying, 'Don't you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.' Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' And Jesus said to him, 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.'” And that murderer is the only person in the Bible to be given that assurance from Jesus' very lips.

God calls us and we respond. We are none of us worthy of his grace. We do not know if the time remaining in this life is long or short. We do not know the state of someone else's soul or where they are in their relationship with God. It is not our business. It is between God and that person. We can encourage them and help them but we must not condemn them. Jesus said, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” (Matthew 7:1) And as we've seen, we really do not want to be judged strictly by God.

As we saw last week, God is more forgiving than we can imagine. And he is more giving and gracious than we can imagine. It is not up to us to second-guess his grace. That would be judging God's judgment and that is arrogance. Our response to God's grace, whether to us or to someone else, must always be humility and gratitude. And rejoicing. After all Jesus said, “...there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7) Thanks be to God who is gracious to the end!

The Necessity of Forgiveness

 The scriptures referred to are Matthew 18:21-35.

You can't write in any real depth about androids or artificial intelligence without acknowledging Isaac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics. The science fiction writer hated Frankenstein stories where robots revolted against their creators. Because they would be programmed not to, he said. In 1940, with editor John Campbell, he came up an ethical system that would be part of the basic operating system of any artificial being. The first law says, “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” The second law adds, “A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except when such orders would conflict with the First Law.” And, because an artificial being would be a very expensive piece of technology, the third law states, “A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.” Later Asimov, apparently loathe to change the number of his now iconic 3 Laws, came up with a “Zeroth” Law: “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. This law requires the robot to compute the consequences of his actions as they affect the Greater Good for the Greater Number for the Long Term, as most actions affecting many people will harm someone or some group in benefit to another.” Of course, since most stories need conflict, Asimov had to figure out ways to get to get around his laws or exploit the gray areas they created. But all in all it's not a bad ethical system.

Of course, robots have no free will and so they must follow their programming. But human beings do have free will. We regularly harm others or let them come to harm and break laws intended for the greater good for the greater number of people for the long-term. Which explains the state of the world. And one of the things that keeps society from descending into total chaos and keeps most relationships from falling apart is the subject of today's gospel: forgiveness.

Peter asks Jesus, “If my sibling sins against me, how often should I forgive them? Up to 7 times?” (my translation) Why is Peter asking for a specific number? Because the rabbis liked to quantify everything. They said you should forgive someone 3 times. And the basis for this was that in Amos, he gives a series of condemnations for 4 offenses. So the rabbis reasoned that God will forgive people no more than 3 times. So Peter is being very generous, taking the rabbinic number of times you forgive, doubling it and adding one. Possibly because in Biblical symbolism, the number 7 denotes perfection. But it could also be that having spent a lot of time listening to Jesus' preaching, he figures his rabbi is a lot more forgiving than most. Peter is right that Jesus is more merciful but still way off.

Jesus says the number of times to forgive a brother or sister in Christ is not 7 times but 77 times. Jesus may have chosen this number as a contrast to the arrogant Lamech who early in Genesis says, “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.” (Genesis 4:23-24) This could be the dictionary definition of overkill. Jesus says that rather we should be as merciful as this petty sociopath is cruel. However, what Jesus says can also be translated “70 times 7.” There's an internet cartoon where a disciple, overhearing this, goes, “Great! Not only do I have to forgive my brother, now I have to do math!” I think Jesus is being hyperbolic to make a point. Our default response when someone sins against us is to be ready to forgive.

To illustrate why, Jesus tells a parable about a Gentile king who is owed an impossible amount of money by a slave. Seriously, 10,000 talents is hundreds of times what Herod brought in as tax revenue. And we know the king must be Gentile because Jewish rabbis opposed selling wives and children to pay a debt. But this king is merciful. When the slave begs for more time to repay the debt, the king instead forgives the debt. A happy ending. Except it isn't. The slave runs into another slave who owes him a millionth of the other debt and he chokes him, and has him thrown in prison, though the second slave made the very same appeal that the first slave made to the king. When this gets back to the king, he rebukes the slave for not being as merciful as he, the king, was, and has him imprisoned and tortured. This last bit was another sign this is a Gentile king and would have horrified Jesus' Jewish audience just as it horrifies us.

Jesus' point is that in the kingdom of God, forgiveness is not a last resort option but a primary way of dealing with sin. God forgives us and we are expected to forgive others. In fact that's what it means in the Lord's Prayer when we say, “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) And Jesus goes on to explain, “For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

Why is that? Jesus' parable gives us one reason: it isn't fair. If God forgives you, you should do the same to others. Otherwise you are trying to restrict to yourself a huge benefit others also need. Jesus said we are to treat others as we want to be treated. We like to be forgiven when we mess up. We should offer the same to others.

But there is another big reason. The kingdom of God only works if its citizens have certain moral qualities. Just as an accounting firm won't function very long if they employ people who refuse to learn to do math correctly, God's kingdom can't function as such if the people in it are refusing to be godly. God is more forgiving than the rabbis thought, and if we live under his reign, we must be as well.

But if we are to forgive, we really ought to learn what forgiveness is and what it is not. And for some of this I am relying on a very perceptive article I found to my surprise on Wikipedia when researching forgiveness. It points out that forgiveness is not condoning the wrong someone did. You are not saying that what they did is all right. If it were it would not need forgiving.

Forgiveness is not excusing what the person did wrong, saying that they weren't responsible. If the person causing the injury is a small child or a mentally ill or developmentally disabled adult, excusing them is appropriate but not for a rational adult.

Forgiveness is not denying that the wrong happened, nor diminishing the hurt the injured party suffered.

Forgiveness is facing the wrong done and both voluntarily and intentionally changing one's feelings and attitudes towards the offense. It is overcoming negative emotions like resentment and the desire for revenge and ideally, replacing them with positive emotions, like wishing the offender well. It is not the same as reconciliation but is a step in that process.

Ideally, forgiveness is preceded by the offender admitting wrong and asking for forgiveness. And when they confess to what they did, they shouldn't be offering excuses. In domestic violence situations, the abuser will afterwards often say, “I'm sorry but if you just didn't do so-and-so I wouldn't lose my temper.” That's not a confession but an excuse.

Also if the offense is part of a pattern, the offender should make a serious promise to change their behavior. If they keep forgetting to pick up the kids after practice, setting an alarm on their phone or watch or both should help. If it is a more serious problem, they should be willing to get help in the form of medical treatment or therapy or by attending a specific support group. And seriously making the effort is a sign that they are truly sorry and want to change. That's what the true meaning of repentance is: changing.

In a healthy relationship, both partners are willing to admit it when they hurt the other and are willing to forgive. If they aren't or all efforts come from one person and not the other, that relationship will become toxic and usually not last.

Unfortunately, sometimes we are involved in an incident where the person who did the harm is not willing to admit wrong or ask for forgiveness. What should we do then?

When Jesus told us to love our enemies, it is understood that first we must forgive them. And, as we learned in last week's gospel passage, we, the injured, must take the first step. That's hard. But no harder than it was for Jesus, who has left us an example, as we shall see.

I once had an inmate approach me about forgiving someone. His sister had been the victim of a serial killer who was now incarcerated in California. He knew that as a Christian he should forgive her killer but he couldn't bring himself to do it. I was momentarily stunned because I have never been in any situation like that, and I'm not sure if I could find it in me to forgive such a person. Then I remembered something Jacqui Bond observed. On the cross Jesus says, regarding his executioners, “Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) Jesus is not saying, “I forgive you” but asking his Father to do so. So I told the man whose sister was murdered to try asking God to forgive her killer and ask God help him to get to the point where he could forgive the man himself. I told him that as long as he didn't forgive the man, the killer was taking up space in his head and making him another victim. He may have to forgive him for his own good. And indeed studies have shown that forgiving others is beneficial for people's mental and physical health, lowering blood pressure, cortisol levels and stress. It is literally good for your heart.

It can also be good for your relationships with others. One woman was eaten up with hatred and rage towards the man who murdered one of her sons. Until she realized that she was neglecting her other kids and her husband because of her feelings. She realized she had to forgive her son's killer to continue her life with her family. And so she started visiting him in prison. And, as I have found in my time as a jail chaplain, he didn't claim to be innocent or deny his crime. Though it didn't excuse what he did, he was a pretty messed up individual with a screwed up childhood. She found compassion for him and, repenting, he found forgiveness for the worst thing he had done.

Often in such cases the decision to forgive comes before the ability to emotionally forgive someone. Sometimes forgiveness precedes healing but sometimes a person must heal before they can bring themselves to forgive. It is part of a process which today is called post-traumatic growth.

One of the odd things I've noticed is that God is more willing to forgive us than we are to forgive ourselves. I have talked to people who were beating themselves up over something they had done, often years and years ago. I would ask if they had asked God to forgive them and they said, “Yes.” And so I would quote to them 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And I point out the word “all.” He forgives us and cleanses us from all our sins, not just some of them. I tell them that since Jesus took the punishment for their sins, they can stop punishing themselves. And they are grateful to hear this good news.

If we just obeyed the rules of living together and didn't do things that harm others, we would not need to confess and ask for and receive forgiveness. But we don't always obey the rules. We don't always think of the harm we may be doing to others. And when we are the one harmed, forgiving the person who harmed us is the last thing on our mind. We want revenge. We want them to suffer as we have. And so injustice begets more injustice and violence begets more violence. Someone needs to break the cycle.

That someone is you. And me. God gave us a good world and we have messed it up badly. Yet he has forgiven us. And he expects us to forgive others. It's a key part of cleaning up the mess we have made of his creation. It is part of the good news of what God has done for us in Christ and is doing in us through his Spirit. He never said it would be easy. But neither is it optional. Jesus called us to be peacemakers. He gave us the ministry of reconciliation. He said, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” If we do not forgive others, we may be a lot of things, but we won't be Christians.

Canceling Cancel Culture

The scriptures referred to are Romans 12:9-21.

You don't hear the word “shibboleth” much any more. In the 12^th chapter of the book of Judges, the people of Gilead under the leadership of Jephthah are at odds with the tribe of Ephraim. And we are told, “The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimate fugitive said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” then they said to him, “Say 'Shibboleth!” If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word correctly,) they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.” (Judges 12:5-6) Both groups were Israelites and distinguishable only, apparently, by regional accents. And so people lost their lives because of a lisp. And the word “shibboleth” came to mean some small difference in custom or belief that people in one group use to exclude people of another group.

And we are seeing that today. On the internet, you must now use certain buzzwords and phrases or face the wrath of those in charge of “cancel culture.” Just this week we saw the premature death of Chadwick Boseman, a talented and charismatic actor who has played Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and the Marvel superhero, the Black Panther. He died from colon cancer at age 43. And tributes to him filled social media both from fans and from his costars. And evidently some people were not so affected by grief that they weren't taking a head count of who made their sorrow public. When Elizabeth Olsen, who also plays a Marvel superhero, did not immediately post a tribute to Boseman, she was attacked by these self-appointed guardians of public speech and she had to deactivate the Instagram account she rarely used.

When my mom died, I didn't take time to make lists of who offered their condolences and who didn't. Nor would I have welcomed such an accounting from a third party. One colleague was on vacation and got to me a week later when he belatedly heard the news. It didn't bother me that he wasn't one of the people who immediately called me. I appreciated the sentiments he and other people shared and never kept a tally.

What bothered me about the attacks on Olsen was that these self-righteous folks have gone from shunning those who have done bad things, like Harvey Weinstein, to people who say the wrong thing, like J.K. Rowling, to people who say or do nothing, like Elizabeth Olsen. And it's not like she kept silent about something like Nazis. She simply didn't immediately get on her phone and add her tweet to the thousands of others expressing sorrow. Yet different people mourn in different ways. Not everyone keens and wails as did my older relatives in Tennessee when the family matriarch was buried, though she had almost reached a century in age. Nobody either commended or rebuked them for the way they expressed their grief. It was their mother and their right to react however they did.

In any community people are going rub each other the wrong way. And sometimes people react in a manner all of of proportion to the offense. In one aunt's family, we had people who hadn't talked to each other in decades and no one could remember precisely what had set things off. And the church isn't immune to this. I've seen members leave the church over a poster on the bulletin board and over reimbursement for postage stamps. I've had people walk out because I uttered the heresy that devout Christians could take different stands on a particular issue and make a valid case for each. Sometimes people get over it and come back. Sometimes they don't. Which may explain why there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the US.

In Jesus' day there were many schools within Judaism: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. Each had issues with the other branches of the Hebrew religion. All of them held to the essential statement of the Jewish faith, the Shema: “Listen, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deuteronomy 6:4) Where they differed was in other areas, like whether or not the oral law was as inspired as the written law, or whether there was an afterlife or not, or the extent to which one should separate from society to stay pure or whether or not to violently oppose the Roman occupation.

Their lack of unity must have pained Jesus. So in today's passage from Matthew, he gives us a way to deal with rifts between believers.

He starts out saying, “If another member of the church sins against you...” And I want to stop right there for a moment. Notice that Jesus doesn't say, “If another member of the church annoys you or doesn't agree with you in every particular...” Jesus is talking about sin, an actual transgression, presumably one that causes some injury to you, not just to your sensibilities. Someone appearing to be rude or insensitive is not necessarily a sin. It could be a matter of momentarily not thinking, such as when you express a thought that you should have kept to yourself. Or it could be true ignorance which results in someone doing or saying something that offends. Like someone reflexively making a joke about Covid-19 in the presence of a person they didn't know had lost a loved one to it. There was no malice intended. Still if you did something like that, the right thing is to apologize when informed of the other person's situation. And the right response is to forgive someone who truly didn't mean to hurt you, as you would someone who accidentally treads on your toes. That's just basic politeness.

So I don't think Jesus is talking about a faux pas but an act in which the person meant it. How do we resolve that? He says, “...go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” Notice that Jesus is telling the person sinned against to go, to take the initiative. Don't brood about it. Go to the person responsible and talk to them, alone.

You can, I hope, instantly see what is wrong with the way people usually deal with such things. They tell others. They make it into gossip. Today they put it on the internet and let everyone in the world know, rather than discuss the matter with the other person privately. For all you know, the person who sinned against you didn't know how badly they injured you. Or they may feel bad about it now and are willing to admit it and apologize and make things right. But you will never know if you don't go to them first and handle the matter in private, person to person.

And don't forget the purpose of this meeting is to reconcile with them. Jesus says, “If they listen to you, you have gained a sibling.” (my translation) The idea is to regain the person who is your brother or sister in Christ, not to score points or win an argument. You are not talking to them to humiliate that person but to win them back.

And that remains true even if the sin is not directed at you. In some ancient Greek manuscripts the words “against you” do not appear, making the saying simply about a person sinning. Which means it might be a sin against another person or against themselves or against God. That makes it trickier. If the sin is against someone other than yourself, you had better have witnessed it yourself and not just have heard it on the grapevine. Gossip and slander are also sins, so you should not go after someone merely on the say so of someone else. If the source was an eyewitness or the injured party, encourage them to go to the person who sinned and talk it out privately.

In some ways it's easier to spot someone sinning against themselves, especially if the behavior is self-destructive. And even so, this can get sticky. If the self-destructive behavior is an addiction, you have to remember that addiction is an illness. So the first part of your interaction may be to help the person acknowledge that the behavior is beyond their control. Then help them get help. And that's where the ethical dimension comes in. It's not your fault if you are susceptible to addiction. But once you realize that, if you do not get help, like go to a doctor or therapist or support group, then that lack of action is your fault. It's kinda like criminal negligence, where the person didn't cause the problem but knew about it and did nothing to fix it or protect others. Or it's like being a type 1 diabetic, what used to be called juvenile diabetes. That is not something that you asked for or did anything to cause. But once you have your diagnosis, if you don't modify your diet and don't take your medication, then, yes, you are at least partially to blame for the consequences. In nursing we often have to deal with non-compliant patients, people who won't help themselves or let you help them. Again the reason you would go to the person is not to condemn them but discuss the problem and help them come back.

I would be very cautious about going to someone that I perceived committed a sin against God. It can't be merely that they take a controversial stand on a belief or practice that other good Christians disagree about, or on a political issue that doesn't in fact cause harm to others. No, you can't be a Christian and a Nazi. But however you feel about the electoral college, it is not an offense against God to be for it or against it. Such issues may be important but they are not essential to the faith. Besides you can always to talk to someone about such things and see if you can change their minds. You just can't invoke God on your side. In fact, doing so might constitute using God's name in vain.

What would definitely be a sin is using God's name to justify harming or killing people. That's what the people participating in the crusades and the Spanish inquisition and the witch trials did. Yet in the very first covenant God makes, the one he makes with Noah, he says that shedding human blood is forbidden because “in God's image God made humankind.” (Genesis 9:6) Killing a person is symbolically killing God. And that goes for every form of harm short of murder. Torturing a person is torturing God. Starving a person is starving God. Letting a person with a treatable disease go untreated is mistreating God. Jesus said whatever we do or neglect to do to the hungry, the thirsty, the threadbare, the sick, the imprisoned and the immigrant we do or neglect to do to him. (Matthew 25:34-46) In fact, Jesus said this principle extends to verbal abuse. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to an older generation, 'Do not murder,' and 'whoever murders will be subject to justice.' But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a sibling will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a sibling will be brought before the council, and whoever says 'Emptyheaded fool' will be sent to fiery hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22, my translation) There's a reason why, when asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus gave two: to love God and to love our neighbor, which to him meant anyone we encounter. (Matthew 22:36-40) The two are inextricably linked.

But to get back to today's gospel, Jesus continues, “But if you are not listened to, take one or two witnesses along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” Again if your private discussion doesn't resolve things, don't broadcast your complaint to everyone. Get one or two trustworthy people to approach the person with you for a second try. Jesus' stipulating there must be 2 or 3 witnesses is a reference to the fact that in the Torah the testimony of a single witness is not enough to establish guilt. (Deuteronomy 19:15) There was no such thing as forensic science back then and Moses was quite aware that innocent people can be accused out of spite. It's not clear in our gospel passage, however, that these people be witnesses to the original offense or not. The problem with that is anything done to someone when no one else is around could be dismissed. So these additional folks may just be there to witness your good faith attempt to resolve the matter with the person.

Only if this attempt to deal with the sin using 2 or 3 people fails are you supposed to bring it before the larger community. The idea is not to let the word of what the person did be spread around unless attempts to deal with it privately do not work. “...and if the offender refuses to listen to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile or tax collector.” In other words, excommunication is not done at the whim of any one person. The church as a whole should hear the matter and deal with it. Usually the way most denominations deal with really egregious sins is through a process set up by church law.

And notice that at each step there is the possibility for the offender to repent and be forgiven. There was a problem in the church at Corinth that was so scandalous that even the pagans were disgusted. A man was living in sin with his stepmother. In one letter Paul tells the church at Corinth to expel the unrepentant church member. (1 Corinthians 5:1-5) And apparently that was enough to make the man change his ways. So in another letter Paul tells them to readmit the repentant man to church. (2 Corinthians 2:5-11)

Of course, what you should do in the case of a crime is different. You must follow the law. And our denomination has a clear set of rules and procedures to follow if you witness or come across evidence of child abuse or sexual abuse or sexual harassment or the like. The Jehovah's Witnesses are being sued for trying to handle child sexual abuse in-house and requiring a second witness to an act which, of course, the abuser commits where he can't be seen. Our denomination's rules to protect children and report abuse to the authorities fall under the next verse where Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven...” In Jesus' day, reporting these things to the legal authorities would do no good because such things were not illegal. But given that Jesus said of anyone harming a child “it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea,” (Matthew 18:6) I think he would be happy we finally have made laws against this.

So if someone does something wrong, first discern whether it is a crime or a sin. Not all sins are crimes and vice versa. Then figure out if it was a sin or a faux pas. Let's not jump all over people who makes non-injurious very human mistakes. Not wishing you a happy birthday maybe be thoughtlessness or it may be a snub. It isn't a sin. And with the rapid evolution of the language today, someone using a term that didn't used to be offensive but has just become so because it's out of date is not a sin. A feminist once admittted that trying to makes a statement that is politically correct for everyone and not offensive to anyone is like mapping out a battle strategy. Don't be shocked if someone steps on a hidden verbal land mine.

But if someone does sin against you, talk to them privately. See if you can get them to apologize and make things right. Only involve others if necessary and then as few as possible. And remember the idea is to get people back. Just before this passage Jesus tells the parable of the shepherd who goes out of his way to bring one lost sheep back into the fold. Our job is not to look for excuses to kick people out of the church but to bring them in and to bring them back into harmony not only with you but with Jesus.