What Helps Hope

The scriptures referred to are Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17,20-21 and John 17:20-26.

I watched the recent HBO documentary on George Carlin and I noticed that he was the kind of atheist C.S. Lewis had been before his conversion. Lewis said he didn't believe that God existed and he was angry with God about that! Carlin, raised an Irish Catholic, seems to have been the same—not just an atheist but an anti-theist. He was not indifferent to the God he didn't think existed but hostile to him. And I noticed that his final, really dark comedy phase came after his first wife died of cancer and his own health was worsening due to heart disease. That's when he started saying not merely that humanity was doomed (he actually used a word you can't say on television) but he said that he loved hearing about deadly disasters. He said, “For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying the wetlands and aquifers...so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him...I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.” He also said, “Somehow I enjoy watching people suffer.” Some of his fellow comics said that was just a comedy bit but he said the same stuff in supposedly serious interviews. Though he had married again, it really does seem he lost hope, at least for the human race.

And maybe that's why Carlin, though he died in 2008, still seems relevant when things are so bad. His observations on humanity's stupidity, on the abuse of power by everyone in power, and on our ability to get outraged by trivial stuff but not what is truly outrageous still resonate. Carlin said, when problems arise in our country we ignore them and when they are overseas, we bomb them. We do seem to be reluctant to tackle big problems, like climate change, mass shootings, income inequality, racism, drug abuse and overdose deaths, at least with the same fervor and massive effort we are willing to put into war. And in many cases it's not that a solution to these problems, or at least effective ways to reduce them, don't exist. We just lack the will to do what needs to be done. Let's face it, if Carlin was right that there is no God, there is no hope.

In Jesus' day it was popularly believed that when the Messiah came, he would end the present evil age and start the Messianic age, setting up a physical kingdom of God on earth. That's one reason why some doubted Jesus was the Messiah. He didn't come as a holy warrior or claim the throne of his ancestor David or drive the Romans out of the land God had given his people. And we can understand their feelings. We Christians do believe Jesus is God's anointed prophet, priest and king who came to earth—and still the world is full of evil. Why didn't Jesus set it right?

Operation Mincemeat was a British intelligence operation that was to set up the Allies invasion of Europe from the south. The problem was that the Nazis rightly anticipated that Sicily was the most logical place for the Allies to land. So a special group of intelligence officers, including Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, came up with a scheme to get the Nazis to move their troops. They selected the corpse of a recently dead man, dressed him up as a major, gave him a common English name, put personal items in his uniform and secret papers in an attache case handcuffed to his wrist and dropped him in the water off Spain, making it look as if the plane carrying him had crashed into the ocean. Though neutral, Spain was crawling with spies. And sure enough, the Nazis got hold of and made copies of the papers, sent them to Berlin, and moved their troops to Greece, where the fake documents said the Allies were to invade. Originally the British expected that 10,000 of their men would be killed or wounded taking Sicily; the actual casualties were a seventh of that. They expected to lose 300 ships: only 12 were lost. They expected to take Sicily in 90 days; it took 38. Thus a dead man saved the lives of thousands and this operation, which took place a year before D-Day and the Normandy landings, is considered a vital first step in the war against the Nazis.

But the war wasn't over, of course. They still had to push the Nazis out of every part of Europe they occupied. Even when it was obvious the Axis troops could not win, they still fought the Allies. Operation Mincemeat was not the end of the war in Europe but the beginning of the end.

And Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection was the beginning of the end of the present evil age. In a sense, the present evil age and the Messianic age overlap somewhat. Just as the Allied troops had to finish up what was started in Sicily, so too the church is expected to take up and continue what Jesus started. But instead of killing and wounding the enemy, Jesus sent us out to teach and show the love of God.

On the night he was betrayed Jesus prayed for the church. As we read in our passage from John, he said, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them, even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

A lot of people, including some Christians, think our primary duty is to make others into Christians by spreading the gospel verbally. But as we see here, the word is to be backed up by a unity that mirrors the unity of the Father and the Son. It is a unity of being in complete harmony with not only each other but with God. And it is a unity that comes primarily from sharing the love of God. As Paul said, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophesy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:1-2) God's word is not like a magical incantation. If we speak God's word but do not back it up with love, it will have zero effect. Or it can have the opposite effect of what is intended. George Carlin went to church and Catholic school as a child. Atheist comedians Bill Maher and Ricky Gervais were both raised as Christians. They all claim to have abandoned their faith as kids for intellectual reasons but if you listen carefully, you'll learn that their real beef is with not so much with Christ as with Christians.

And the sad thing is just as Jesus was originally betrayed by someone who was supposed to be his follower, we have seen so-called Christians sell out Jesus, not for 30 pieces of silver, but for millions of dollars and for power and for sex. We see evangelists who have sold out the one who had “no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20) so they can live like kings with huge mansions. We see church leaders who have sold out the one who said his “kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36) so they can have political power regardless of whom they have to get into bed with. Speaking of which, we see pastors who have sold out the one who condemned adultery and said the person who harms a little one would be better off at the bottom of the sea “with a millstone around his neck” (Matthew 18:6) so they can abuse members of their flock including children. The sex scandals that started with revelations about the Catholic church have now come to the megachurches, like Hillsong and others, and to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and now to the Southern Baptists. A report just released reveals that for 15 years the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention kept silent about a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, moving them quietly from church to church rather than protecting the people under them. They kept mum about this, listening to their lawyers rather than to Jesus who said, “Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing is secret that will not be made known. So then, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops.” (Luke 12:2-3) But they were not quiet when it came to the abused, whom they maligned to keep the blame from falling on fallen preachers. Where is the Christlike love in that?

One purpose of us regularly confessing our sins to God is to keep such things from continuing and from growing to nightmare proportions. Yes, God is forgiving but God is not fooled by empty words. In Isaiah we read, “The Lord says, 'These people come near me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.'” (Isaiah 29:13) Or as the villain of Hamlet says about his insincere prayers, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

In Jesus' speech to his disciples before his arrest, he says, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” (John 14:15) And what does he command? That we love one another. He says this 3 times in this speech. 16 times in the New Testament alone, we are told to love one another in those very words. And that doesn't include all the variations such as in Galatians where Paul says, “...through love serve one another.” (Galatians 5:13) Or in Ephesians where he talks about “...bearing with one another in love...” (Ephesians 4:2) Or when he commends the Christians in Thessalonica for their “brotherly love.” (1 Thessalonians 4:9) Or in Colossians where he says, “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:14) Or where the author of Hebrews says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” (Hebrews 10:24)

That last part is important because this love is not to be a mere feeling but something that manifests itself in concrete ways in a Christian's life. Paul said, “Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) The law he is talking about is Jesus' command to love one another. If you love someone you help them. We see this in loving families, where spouses help one another with chores or problems, parents help their children with schoolwork and personal difficulties and children help their aged parents with illness and disability. And if we love our neighbor, which Jesus cited as one of the 2 greatest commandments, we help them.

We see this after sudden and devastating natural disasters: hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, floods and so on. Everyone pitches in to help those affected get back on their feet. After hurricane Irma, various groups from the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians came to help. But we don't see this quite as much when it comes to ongoing problems that don't have simple solutions involving hammers and nails and bottles of water and mosquito repellent—like racism, mental health, gun violence, and poverty. I'm not saying that there aren't ministries addressing these things—there are—but they don't seem to attract as much enthusiastic support from Christians.

Jesus said the world would know we are his disciples by our love for one another. (John 13:35) But does it? When the world thinks of Christians, is the first word that pops up “love”? Or is it “judgment”? Or “anger”? Or even “hatred”?

Even atheist George Carlin understood the gist of Jesus' message. In pointing out that the persons who say we should love one another often get assassinated, among people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Carlin listed Jesus. So why did he abandon the teachings he was raised in? Because he did not see them practiced by Christians. When atheists claim they don't see proof for the existence of God, though they say that lack is found in the intellectual arguments for God, they often reveal that where they really they don't see it is in the lives of those who supposedly believe but don't act like it.

Jesus told us to go out into all the world and make disciples and teach them to obverse all he commanded. The best way to teach is to show something in action. If we don't show Christ's love in all we think, say and do, how are we to convince anyone?

Mr. Rogers said when he was a child, watching the news of disasters upset him. And his mother told him to look for the helpers. That changed his perspective. Instead of despair at what was happening, the helpers gave him hope. He became a Presbyterian minister. And in an unique ministry, he helped children through puppets and songs and by not being afraid to discuss real problems. I think we Christians, instead of crosses, should wear name tags that say, “Hi! I'm _____, a follower of Jesus. I'm here to help!”

Jesus said as much. He said we are to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, visit the imprisoned and welcome the alien. We are to treat them as if they were Jesus because that is how he sees our actions. (Matthew 25:40) After all, how did Jesus show his love for others? By healing and feeding and helping them. We are Jesus' representatives. (2 Corinthians 5:20) If we are to get people to trust him, we have to get them to trust us. And the best way to do that is to help them. Helping builds trust. And knowing there are people who will help gives hope.

Ultimately our hope is in Jesus, who promised to return in the end and set things right. We cannot put the world completely right by ourselves. Only he can. But that doesn't excuse us from doing what we can. And we can do a lot more than we have been doing. For one thing, we can stop getting in the way of efforts to help those who are suffering. One of the things that causes despair is the fact that there are people who, in the face of undeniable problems, choose to do nothing. Some, because we don't have perfect solutions, don't want to do things that will at least make things better than they are. And some, not content with stopping solutions from being implemented, want to make matters worse. And it doesn't help when some Christians are against any solution not found in the Bible. The Bible is not a master “how-to” book, especially when it comes to problems that didn't exist 2000 years ago. It's about the ageless problems of the human heart, one of which is not helping others. Leviticus says, “You must not stand idly by when your neighbor's life is at stake.” (Leviticus 19:16) The Bible condemns not only doing wrong but not doing what's right. As Jesus said, what we do not to others in need we are not doing to him. Standing around when others are suffering is just plain wrong.

Christians are supposed to be helpers. We are supposed to be like Jesus. We are supposed to demonstrate his self-sacrificial love to the world, as did the early Christians. That's what spread the faith. Of course we cannot do that under our own power. Which is why, before ascending, Jesus said, “I am sending you what my Father promised...power from on high.” (Luke 24:49) In other words, the Holy Spirit of God in us. Whom we'll look at next week on Pentecost.

Whom Would Jesus Shoot?

The scriptures referred to are Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5.

A week ago Saturday at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, an 18-year old white supremacist shot 15 people, 11 of them black, killing 10 people. That Sunday a 68 year old Chinese immigrant drove from his home in Las Vegas to shoot 6 people, killing one, at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church picnic in Laguna Woods, California. That Monday I attended a webinar about Christian Nationalism for which I had registered long before these 2 men committed hate crimes on opposite coasts of our country. The speakers at the webinar, both sociologists of religion, mentioned the 180 page screed the Buffalo shooter had posted to rationalize his deeply irrational act. They did so because, while the shooter said he was not a Christian, in describing white culture he said its religion is Christianity. There is a huge overlap of White Nationalism and Christian Nationalism, because both are about maintaining purity. The speakers said the trinity of these “us against them” ideologies are personal freedom, order and violence. They see no contradiction in supporting both order and violence, nor in being concerned only for their freedom and not for that of others. Nor in killing people in the name of Christianity.

Last week we said that one way to define evil is as the misuse, abuse or neglect of what is good. Another definition of evil is the intentional infliction of harm on others. The Buffalo shooter included in his long racist rant a hand-drawn map of the store he targeted as well as instructions on how to arm oneself and do the same. There is no other word for that but evil. But today I want to look at yet another definition of evil. Evil can be seen as having a narrow definition of goodness. It's easy to spot it when you encounter a person who defines goodness as what's good for him or her alone and to hell with everyone else. That is pure selfishness and one hallmark of a psychopath, displaying a lack of empathy for others. But there are less narrow definitions of good that are still evil. The Buffalo shooter restricts goodness to what is good for his race and to hell with everyone else. The California shooter confines goodness to what is good for the nation of his birth and to hell with others, in particular the breakaway nation of Taiwan. When you narrow the scope of goodness, you can easily justify evil.

In the case of Christian Nationalism, the irony is that it totally misses a key part of the very Bible which it purports to revere: the all-encompassing nature of God's love. While God chooses a specific people, he tells Abraham right at the outset that the purpose of this blessing is that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:3) The blessing is to be shared with everyone. That was God's intention from the very beginning. And so while we initially see the focus of the story of the Bible seem to narrow from Abraham to his son Isaac and to his son Jacob and from his 12 sons, to Judah, and from Judah to his descendant David, when it reaches Jesus, who brings us every spiritual blessing, the focus quickly expands to his disciples and to Jews of the Diaspora and to the Samaritans and to the Gentiles and to the world. Similarly, the Bible begins with the creation of the heavens and the earth and ends with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. What ties both together is the new Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven, as we see in our passage from Revelation. There “the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” No nation or people is barred from it for “Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.” Earlier in Revelation the elders around the throne of God sing to the Lamb, “...at the cost of your own blood you have purchased for God persons from every tribe, language, people and nation.” (Revelation 5:9) Not from some of those groups but from every one of them. Later we read “Then I saw an angel flying directly overhead, and he had an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people.” (Revelation 14:6) The gospel, the good news of what God has done and is doing in Christ, is for everyone. Christian Nationalism is a contradiction in terms—and a heresy.

When Jesus affirms that the second of the two great commandments is to love your neighbor, an expert in the law asks, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) Because if you take the word “neighbor” literally, you could restrict it to someone who lives nearby. That's what the Greek word means. The Hebrew word means “friend or companion.” In other words, someone you know or have a relationship with. This is probably what the expert in the law is going for because Luke tells us he wanted to justify himself. But in response to the question, Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan. In it, the man beaten and left for dead is not helped by a priest or a Levite, the holiest of his fellow Jews, but by a Samaritan, someone Jesus' audience would not consider to be either racially or religiously pure. To Jesus, the traditional definition of neighbor was too narrow. He expanded it to include anyone you might encounter.

And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor' and 'hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even tax collectors do the same, don't they? And if you only greet your brothers, what more do you do? Even the Gentiles do the same, don't they? So then, be prefect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48) The Greek word for “perfect” also means “complete.” Loving only those with whom you have a good relationship is spiritually incomplete. Only by loving all are you truly like God, in whose image you were created.

As is everyone else in the world. The idea that some people were not created in God's image came out of the Enlightenment! This 17^th and 18^th century intellectual movement not only gave rise to ideals such as liberty and progress and the use of reason and constitutional government but also the idea of racism. Scientists thought humans could be separated into races which had different abilities and dispositions. They classified some races as inferior, therefore “scientifically” justifying treating them differently and restricting what rights and privileges they were given. Some Christians even proposed that darker races belonged to a different act of creation by God and thus were not fully human. Others justified enslaving other races by linking it to Noah cursing his son Canaan, saying he would be a slave to his brothers. (Genesis 9:24-27)

But if all are created in the image of God, then all persons have inherent worth. Killing human beings is prohibited by God because he created us in his image. (Genesis 9:6; cf. Genesis 1:27) In Leviticus, just a few verses after God tells gives the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) he says, “When a foreigner resides with you in your land you must not oppress him. The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself...” (Leviticus 19:33-34) You are to love your neighbor as yourself; you are to love the foreigner as yourself; you are to love your enemy. Biblically there is no one you can hate.

Not only can't you hate anyone, you can't even neglect them. In his parable of the last judgment Jesus says that he considers what we do or don't do for the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned and the foreigner as being done or not done for him. (Matthew 25:31-46) First, because he is God and we are created in the image of God. But more than that, Jesus died to save the world. (John 3:17) Everyone you encounter is someone whom God created in his image and for whom the Son of God died, whether they know it or not. God knows it, however, and holds us accountable.

So these mass murderers, and those like them, do not uphold the values of Christianity, whatever they say. Quite the contrary. I entitled this sermon “Whom Would Jesus Shoot?” and I hope people will instantly see the internal contradiction there. But you know who more closely upheld the values of Jesus? Aaron Salter Jr., the security guard and retired police officer who tried to stop the gunman in Buffalo. And John Cheng, the doctor who tried to disarm the shooter in Laguna Woods. Both gave their lives to save the lives of others. As Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Aaron Salter Jr. and John Cheng showed that love.

So rather than add to the long list of people who have become famous for killing others, let us instead remember officer Aaron Salter Jr. and Dr. John Cheng, who died to save others. If more of us were willing to live and die as they did, then maybe—just maybe—we would become a Christian nation, one that follows in the footsteps of Jesus Christ who gave up his rights and privileges as God and took up his cross and sacrificed his life to give us undeserving sinners eternal life in the kingdom of the God who is love. 

Is Christianity a Cult?

The scriptures referred to are Acts 11:1-18 and John 13:31-35.

Religious scholars are reluctant to use the word “cult” these days. It's pejorative. And every current religion started as a small group that managed to survive and grow. Scholars joke that the formula for a religion is to take a cult and simply add time. So the preferred term is “new religious movement.” My problem is then how do we refer to such movements when they exhibit the destructive behavior that marks what is commonly called a cult?

People not squeamish about the term define a cult as group following a charismatic leader who speaks with absolute authority and who exercises extreme control over its members' lives and who exploits them. Which means even non-religious groups like NEXIVM and many multi-level marketing companies can be cults. A secular cult's leader portrays himself as a genius who has worked out the secrets of success. In religious cults, the leader has absolute authority because he speaks for God or says he is God. And that gives him the right to exert control over everything in his followers' lives.

Steve Hassan, an ex-cult member who became a clinical psychologist and is an expert on cults, says what makes some cults destructive are the mind control techniques they use. He articulated the BITE model to describe this. The leader and those under him control members' Behavior, and their access to Information, and teach them to control their own Thoughts and Emotions. The behavioral control will be seen in the amount of sleep members are allowed, the amount and types of food they can eat, whether they can marry or have sex and with whom. They may have to work long hours for the cult for little or no pay. The members' access to information about or from the outside world is controlled not only by cutting them off from the media but also from their family and friends if those are outside the group. Only information from the leader or the cult is allowed to be consumed. When members have doubts or troubling questions or negative emotions about the leader or the cult, they are trained to suppress them. Eventually this self-censorship becomes second nature. It helps the members deal with the cognitive dissonance that naturally arises when they perceive that reality is at odds with what they are taught or when they detect hypocrisy in their leader.

Some feel this describes all religions, especially Christianity. So is Christianity a cult?

First off, let's acknowledge that cults have arisen from Christian movements. But let's not confuse them with denominations. These come about when some Christians feel the predominant church is corrupt and/or in error on a matter they feel is crucial to faith or practice. Luther, Calvin and other reformers broke away from the Roman Catholic church over such issues. But though they started new church movements and were considered great theologians, they were never regarded as being on the same level as Moses or Jesus. Nor did they see themselves that way. They were simply preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the early church when factions attached themselves to certain preachers, Paul condemned it: “...each of you is saying, 'I am with Paul,' or 'I am with Apollos,' or 'I am with Cephas,' or 'I am with Christ.' Is Christ divided? Paul wasn't crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?'” (1 Corinthians 1:12-13) As we said last week, what's essential is Jesus. Accept no substitutes.

A group that splits off from the church becomes a cult when the leader claims authority to depart from the teachings and morals of Jesus. In fact cult leaders invariably introduce novel and unbiblical doctrines and unethical rules of behavior. They often do so because they say they are on the same level with Jesus or God, although they usually begin by just saying they speak for God. The revelation of the leader's divine status is usually not disclosed until members are fully incorporated into the group. The leader's special status allows him to break rules that apply to mere mortals.

Well, Jesus did claim to be God. In last week's reading from John, Jesus says, “The Father and I are one.” This does give him absolute authority. And he does make changes in some of the laws of the Old Testament, like those about the Sabbath, and touching lepers, menstruating women and the dead. (Exodus 23:12; Leviticus 13:45-46 and 15:19-27; Numbers 19:14, 16) But he doesn't do this for selfish reasons; he does it so that people can be healed. Cult leaders tend to change moral laws to benefit themselves. Jesus did not use his authority for his own privilege. He did not enrich himself or exploit his followers.

One prerequisite for being a cult leader seems to be having sex with any member you fancy, as was the case with David Koresh, Jim Jones, Keith Raniere, Yogi Bhajan, Serge Benhayon and so on: the list is endless. But there was never a hint of this with Jesus, not even from his detractors. In fact Jesus was apparently celibate. The so-called “Gospel of Jesus' Wife” that made news in 2012 has been shown to be a modern forgery. And then there's that odd saying of Jesus that “there are eunuchs who were that way from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:12) This may have something to do with the fact that, unlike the typical rabbi, Jesus was unmarried, as well as the fact that nowhere in the Bible is there a word for bachelor. Also when Paul, who was celibate, says he could have a wife if he chose, he cites Peter and Jesus' brothers who were married. If Jesus were married, why not point to him as the perfect example? (1 Corinthians 9:5)

And yet neither Jesus nor Paul demand celibacy of Christians, as do some cult leaders. Regarding that saying about eunuchs, Jesus says, “Not everyone can accept this statement, except those to whom it has been given.” (Matthew 19:11) Paul says, “I wish that everyone was as I am. But each has his own gift from God, one this way, another that.” (1 Corinthians 7:7) Unlike a cult, in Christianity people have a choice when it comes to whom they marry or whether they marry.

Cults don't let people have choices because (A) choices go against the absolute control a cult leader demands and (B) choices can lead to unforeseen situations, which again can be hard to control. But in the early church we see that its unity in Christ did not mean uniformity in all things. As we see in today's reading from Acts, they realized not all Christians had to be Jews or circumcised. Paul said, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries any weight—the only thing that matters is faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:6) Christians also had the freedom to choose to eat meat that could only be purchased from shops attached to pagan temples and which had previously been offered to idols or they could refuse on the grounds of their conscience. Paul said, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food or drink, or in the matter of a feast, new moon or Sabbath days—these are only the shadow of things to come, but the reality is Christ!” (Colossians 2:16-17) In other words, don't let these other things distract you from the central reality of the faith: Jesus.

Paul says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourself be subject again to the yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1) No cult allows people any latitude or freedom in how they do things. Small infractions are usually severely punished, often physically, and no one is free to just leave. People leaving Scientology get harassed. That's a written policy coming from founder L. Ron Hubbard himself. People who left the Nation of Yahweh in Miami were murdered. In fact their leader, who tellingly called himself Yahweh ben Yahweh, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in connection to the deaths of 14 people as well as 2 attempted murders.

In contrast Jesus said, “...love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:44-45) Sun and rain are both good things in an agricultural society. Most cult leaders think being like God means having the power of life and death over others. Jesus says being like God is showing love and mercy to all.

As we've said, cult leaders are intolerant of those who are not part of their group. But when some of his disciples went to Jesus and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not a disciple along with us,” Jesus replied, “Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:49-50) Unlike cult leaders, Jesus wasn't jealous of others helping people in his name and he didn't promote rivalry with similar or split-off groups.

Cult leaders separate people from family members outside the group. And cult leaders will use the threat of cutting off those who leave from family members who stay in the group. Some justify the practice by referring to the passage where Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have come not to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be the members of his household. Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:34-37) Taken out of context it seems to justify splitting up families in the name of religion. But the context is Jesus sending out the disciples into Galilee and warning them how people will react to their kin becoming his followers. The part of about division is descriptive, not prescriptive. He is saying this will just happen naturally; he is not telling his disciples to make this happen intentionally. Jesus lived in a society in which his fellow Jews were divided into rival groups like the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Essenes and the Zealots. Jesus is not naive. He knew that, people being what they are, they would not tolerate another Jewish movement, unlike the way Jesus tolerated the man outside his group doing healings in his name.

As for the second part of this passage, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, Jesus is not saying we should love our family members less. He is saying we should love Jesus more. It's a matter of priorities. But surely nothing is more important than family? In our Revolutionary War and in our Civil War, families were divided on the issues of independence and slavery. Were those issues not as important as keeping the peace in the family? Ben Franklin's son, the royal governor of New Jersey, after being removed from office, worked with a group that tracked down and killed patriots during the Revolutionary War. Father and son never reconciled after that. The same thing no doubt happened in Germany in World War 2. If your brother was a Nazi, would that be less important than having argument-free Sunday dinners? Ma Barker loved her sons more than the lives of those they killed. David Kaczynski loved his brother Ted but when he realized he was the Unibomber he turned him in. At times, loyalty to what is right is more important than loyalty to family.

Cult leaders usually try to isolate their followers from the rest of the world, supposedly to keep them pure, but really to keep control of them and of the information they receive. But Jesus when praying for the church said, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one.” (John 17:15) And of course, in the Great Commission, he sends us out into the world to teach and make disciples and baptize others. So should we separate ourselves from the world or not?

The safest place for a boat is on one of those racks on land in a boat yard. But that's not what a boat is for. It's made to go out into the water. The trick is to get the boat into the water but not get the water into the boat. For instance, Corinth was the Sin City of the ancient world, even in the eyes of pagans. On the hilltop above this port city was a temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. And every day the temple prostitutes would come down the hillside looking for “worshipers.” Being a follower of Jesus was hard in that environment. Paul said to the church there, “I wrote in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. In no way did I mean the immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers and idolaters, since you would then have to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone calling himself a Christian who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler.” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11) Imagine how many scandals the church would have avoided if it had followed his advice when it came to predatory priests or greedy pastors or con artist evangelists or bullying leaders? We should not be covering up for the same kind of people bringing notoriety to Hollywood and corporations and governments. Again, we are to be in the world but not of the world.

Christianity, as exemplified by Jesus and practiced by Paul, is not a cult. The fact that such groups exist in the church reveals a deficiency in following our ideals. But that doesn't mean we should throw out Biblical Christianity any more than abuses in our government would mean throwing out our Constitution. One way to define evil is as a misuse, abuse or neglect of what is good. Cults arise when charismatic leaders alternately distort and discard the good things found in Christianity for their own selfish ends. They claim to be all about purifying, or restoring the church. They use the urgency of apocalyptic revelations to justify their extremism. They love talking about the imminent end of the world, ignoring Jesus' words that wars and disasters are no reason to panic. He said, “All these things are the beginning of birth pains.” (Matthew 24:8)

Another thing Jesus said is, “Watch out that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ.'...Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There he is!' do not believe him. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Remember, I have told you ahead of time.” (Matthew 24:4-5, 23-25) Cults do not just happen. They are deliberately started by would-be messiahs, usually narcissistic psychopaths. And cults reflect the personality of their leader. They are manipulative, duplicitous, self-serving, and hypocritical.

Real Christianity reflects Jesus Christ, who lived a self-sacrificial life, healing and helping and forgiving and welcoming others. He didn't ask anything of his disciples he was not willing to do himself. He didn't exploit them sexually or financially. When his enemies came for him, he did not throw his followers under the bus. (John 18:8) He didn't tell them to fight for him nor to kill themselves. (Matthew 26:51-52) Instead he told them to love each other as he loved them. And he said the world would know that they really were his disciples by their Christlike love.

Greater Than All Else

The scriptures referred to are John 10:22-30.

I have to admit that I was a bit dismayed when I realized it was Good Shepherd Sunday again. Not because I dislike shepherds or the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd but because I have preached on it for the last 20 years and I have nothing new to say about shepherds.

But that is not the same as the Bible having nothing new to say to me. So I read our passage from John and got down to verses 28 and 29, where Jesus says this about his sheep, “No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of my Father's hand.” Did you catch the startling part of that? Jesus is saying that what his Father has given him is greater than all else. And what did he give him? His sheep—that is, us. Jesus is saying that nothing is greater than us!

I immediately went to other translations and commentaries to see what they said about this. And I was surprised to see that some other translations say instead, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.” If the phrase “is greater than all” refers to God, that changes the import of the passage. I did however notice a footnote in some of the translations which said, “Many early manuscripts [have] What my Father has given me is greater than all.” So I wanted to know which manuscripts supported this translation and I reached for A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger. Metzger, a great Greek scholar, was the editor of the United Bible Societies standard Greek New Testament. He also chaired the Committee of Translators for the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which we use in our lectionary.

It's important to know that we do not have any of the books in the Bible fresh from the hands of the original authors. We have copies. The same, however, is true of any ancient document: the works of Homer, Aristotle, Tacitus, Caesar's Gaelic Wars, etc. When it comes to the Bible what is unique is that we have many more copies and much older ones than any of the other classical works. While the earliest copies of the other authors' books only go back to the Middle Ages, we have literally thousands of copies of the New Testament, some partial copies going back to the 100s AD. Plus we have ancient translations and quotations of the text in the writings of the early Church Fathers. In fact, you could reconstruct the text of the New Testament, with the exception of just 11 verses, from those quotations alone. As for the Old Testament, the significance of the Dead Sea scrolls is that they give us a text of the Hebrew Bible that is 1000 years older than the early medieval Masoretic text. So by studying literally thousands of copies as well as papyrus fragments, and having access to the older manuscripts which archeology has unearthed in the last 200 years, scholars are more certain of the texts underlying the Bible than those of any of the other ancient works on which we base history.

But, of course, with so many copies there are variations in the texts. Most are easily recognized as common errors we all make in copying: misspellings, a word skipped, a word repeated, etc. They do not change the message of the Bible. And they are easily discovered when we compare copies. In addition scholars have come up with logical rules for figuring out what the original reading of a sentence probably is. Older manuscripts are more likely to be closer to the original texts, of course. Because humans like to “clean up” hard sayings, more difficult readings are more likely to be original than ones where the difficulty is smoothed out. Again because explanatory phrases are longer, shorter versions of sayings are more likely to be original. Textual criticism is a recognized science.

Anyway, without getting too technical, there are a lot of older manuscripts supporting the translation in our lectionary, though Metzger says it is “impossible Greek.” He sounds like my old Greek teacher who could not bring himself to say that Greek was highly irregular but just that it was “eccentric.” This of a language where word order means nothing and endings tell you whether a word is the subject or the direct object or how it relates to the other words in a sentence. Unfortunately there are lots of endings and they combine and elide so that they are not readily decoded. Which is why, though we were told not to by our Greek exegesis teacher, we all bought analytical Greek lexicons to help us untangle the non-obvious forms of the words we encountered. To me at least, labeling a sentence in Greek as impossible makes as much sense as saying that a portrait can't possibly be by Picasso because he could draw people better than that.

While I am not a Greek scholar and therefore unable to challenge Metzger's expertise, I will point out that our reading is supported by the older manuscripts. As well as by the principle that the more difficult a reading is, the more likely it is the original, rather than one in which the grammar was fixed. Speaking of which, John's Greek is rudimentary at best. (Luke, the only Gentile writer in the Bible, has the best Greek.) And finally, though Metzger oversaw the NRSV translation, this variant appears in it. Perhaps the other translators outvoted him in this case.

This means we can at least consider the implications of the idea that “What the Father has given me is greater than all else.” Whereas the other reading emphasizes the fact that no one can snatch us from God's hand because he is greater than anything else, this reading emphasizes the reason he holds onto us so strongly. We are more precious to him than anything else. But does that actually fit in with what the Bible says elsewhere?

Well, it says, “Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.” (Psalm 36:5) The psalmist is talking about his love and faithfulness to us, his people. Which makes sense since the Bible also tells us that God is love. (1 John 4:8) But the size of God's love is not the issue. Love always has an object. Of course, the natural object of the Father's love is the Son. And indeed John's gospel says, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands.” (John 3:35) So what makes us think God loves us as much as this verse seems to say?

Real love is revealed in how one acts. God created us in his image and blessed us. (Genesis 1:27-28) Even after we messed up, God doesn't stop trying to win us back. That's what the whole story of the Bible is about. He chooses the children of Abraham as his people, through whom the rest of the world is to be blessed. (Genesis 12:1-3) Even when his people turn from him, indulging in idolatry and injustice, God does not give up on them. In Lamentations, which is about the judgment and fall of Jerusalem, it says, “Though he brings grief, he will show compassion. So great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.” (Lamentations 3:32-33) Zephaniah, whose theme is the Day of the Lord, in other words, the day of judgment, nevertheless says, “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17) We hear all the time about singing to the Lord but here God is so delighted in us that he will sing and rejoice over us!

How great is God's love for us? As the famous verse says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his unique son so that whoever trusts in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) But God did not send Jesus merely to teach us. He had previously sent lots of prophets to do that. We still didn't obey his commandments not to lie, steal, kill or harm one another. (Exodus 20:1-17) It's not that we lacked the knowledge to obey him; we lacked the love to do it. If you love someone and they ask you to do something, you do it. If they ask you to stop doing something, you stop. (John 14:21) People are motivated by what they love more than anything else. Unfortunately, we love other things, and especially ourselves, more than we love God.

God should have written us off. He doesn't because he loves us. So he sends his son into hostile territory on what amounts to a suicide mission in order to save us. And not because we deserve it. As Paul says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) It wasn't because we were particularly lovable either. As 1 John says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

It does no good, however, if this love is one-sided. We are meant to love God back. But we need help with that—which God provides. As it says in Romans, “...the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5) But this love is not just some warm fuzzy feelings for God or for other people. Jesus prayed to his Father that “the love with which You loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26) And what kind of love is that? Jesus says, “This is why the Father loves me—because I lay down my life... (John 10:17) And for whom does he do this? “...I lay down my life for the sheep.” (John 10:15)

Jesus loves us with a self-sacrificial love. Which means that is the kind of love God has for us. A parent will lay down her life to save her child. Even if the child is ungrateful. Because the child is more dear to the parent than anything else.

And so the rest of scripture does support this translation of the verse in question. But if it is translated the other way, the verses read, “No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all and no one can snatch them out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one.” In this translation, the emphasis is on the strength with which Jesus hold onto us. It is the very same strength as that of the Father, who is greater than anything or anybody, because Jesus and the Father are one.

That means that when we are dealing with Jesus, we are not dealing with some lesser created being to whom God has delegated things like our redemption; we are dealing with God himself. John puts this fact at the very start of his gospel when he says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) How do you come to know a person? Through their word and deeds. God expresses who he is through Jesus, by what he says and what he does. Which means God himself—not some secondary creature—is willing to die for us. That's how much he loves us.

And again, we are to love him back. And because he loves others, we are to love them too. Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) He loved us enough to die for us, and so we are to love each other enough to die for one another. Such a love is so unusual, so remarkable that the world will sit up and take notice.

We have gotten very good at spreading the words of the gospel. We have put them in books and on billboards and on radio and on TV and in movies and on the internet. But only a few Christians have evangelized in the way Jesus commanded us—through self-sacrificial love. But we see it in the early Christians who did not flee the cities during the plague but nursed the sick at the risk of their own lives and so caught the attention of pagans. We see it in the English town of Eyam, which, at the urging of its clergy, quarantined itself from its neighbors to stop from spreading the Black Death in 1600s. 267 of the 334 people in the town—80%—died We see it in Father Damian who was a missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 1800s and ministered to the people in a leper colony, eventually contracting the disease himself. We see it in Corrie ten Boom and her family who hid Jews from the Nazis and who were sent to a concentration camp. The Jews they hid stayed safe but only Corrie survived the camp. These Christians did not merely communicate the gospel with their lips but with their lives.

They did this to express the true heart of the gospel, the good news, which is the love of God demonstrated in Jesus' sacrifice for us. And they did it assured of the fact that no one could snatch them from the hand of God. As Paul wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39) Nothing, not even death, can take us away from the God we see in Jesus, who loves us more than we can ever know or imagine.

Facing the Facts

The scriptures referred to are Acts 9:1-20 and John 21:1-19.

The leader of the A-Team repeatedly said, “I love it when a plan comes together.” As a preacher I love it when ideas and observations from what I have just been reading, watching and listening to during the week come together with the lectionary. It's like God has been dropping bread crumbs along the path leading me to some useful insight.

This week I have been reading a book by historian and religious studies scholar Jeffrey Burton Russell called Exposing Myths about Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends. In his introduction he says, “Myths often arise from bias, which is different from point of view. A point of view is open to discussion on the basis of evidence. Bias, on the other hand, is a prejudice that filters out everything that doesn't fit a preformed conception.” Or as he summarizes the distinction later in the book: “point of view develops according to evidence; bias refuses to adjust to evidence.”

The other idea I got this week was from Phillip Cary's series of lectures on Luther from the Great Courses. In discussing the controversies between Luther and his enemies, Dr. Cary distinguishes between the desire for truth and the desire for certainty in being right. He points out that it is not destructive to think one's beliefs are true. That is the nature of believing something. The problem enters in when the desire to be right with absolute certainty is stronger than the desire for the truth. If you sincerely desire to know the truth, he says, you are glad when you discover that you are wrong about something so you can correct it. If you cannot tolerate uncertainty that you're right, you will reject anything that might force you to reconsider your position.

For instance, for millennia the biggest problem with surgery was keeping patients from getting infections afterwards. Imagine then, in the late 1800s, a doctor learns of the new germ theory and the importance of a surgeon washing his hands. He tries it and his patients' infection rates plummet. He is happy to learn he was wrong but that now he knows the truth. But another doctor, who is certain that he is right in what he learned as a medical student 4 decades ago, is more likely to become defensive and refuse to listen to these weird new ideas about invisible entities that cause infection. Both doctors want to be right. One is willing to change when he sees he isn't. His point of view has developed. The other is absolutely certain he is already right and will not change even when there is evidence that he is wrong. His bias prevents him from taking in or making good use of newly discovered facts. And that's bad for him and for his patients.

As the title character in Doctor Who once said, “The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views...which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”

So how does all of this come together with our lectionary? In our passage from the book of Acts we read of Saul who not only thinks that the disciples of Jesus are wrong but that their ideas are so dangerous that they must be wiped out— not just the ideas but the disciples as well. Saul was one of those zealous Pharisees who thought that if every Jew obeyed the Torah perfectly for just one day, the Messiah would come, end the current evil age and usher in the Messianic age and the kingdom of God. So the followers of Jesus, by preaching that their dead rabbi was the Messiah and that he was alive again and that all one had to do was repent and put one's trust in him, were spreading a terrible and destructive heresy. Saul was certain he was right. The fact that hundreds said they had seen the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:6) and that thousands believed them, even as far away as the Jewish community in Damascus, was not enough evidence for him that there may be something to this. Saul didn't want to investigate their claims. He wanted to eradicate them.

We all know what happens next: on the way to Damascus, Saul experiences a bright light, falls to the ground and is confronted by the risen Jesus. He is blind for 3 days, during which he fasts and prays. A disciple named Ananias is told in a vision to go to Saul, lay hands on him and heal him. When he does so, Saul regains his physical sight and more importantly, he sees Jesus in a new way. At the end of our passage we are told that Saul “began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, 'He is the Son of God.'”

His conversion to this new point of view sounds instantaneous. And, let's face it, if you thought a guy was dead but then met and talked to him, you'd change your mind. But Saul had 3 days where he was blind and occupied his time fasting and praying. The fasting could have been a sign of his repenting his former position. But I bet the praying was not one-sided. In his account of his conversion in his letter to the Galatians he says, “Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. For I did not receive it or learn it from any human source; instead I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:11-12) It seems that during those 3 days of fasting and praying, he was undergoing a change of not only his heart but also of his mind. Everything he thought he knew about the Messiah and what he should be like and what he should do was being challenged by his encounter with Jesus. Saul knew the Hebrew Bible backwards and forwards. We are told that when the risen Jesus was with 2 disciples on the way to Emmaus, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things written about himself in all the scriptures.” (Luke 24:27) And it looks like he did the same thing with Saul over those 3 days.

So Saul, who sent by the high priest to arrest followers of Jesus, had now become a follower of Jesus. How was this news received by others? We are told “All who heard him were amazed.” (Acts 9:21) This certainly applied to the disciples in Damascus. Like Ananias, they were probably initially afraid of Saul. Was this some kind of trick? But we are told that Saul became “all the more empowered.” Which must mean he was making a greater and greater impact, ie, he was making more and more converts. The Jewish residents of Damascus were...well, the Greek word can mean “stirred up, confounded, bewildered, thrown into confusion.” They did not know how to react at first. Wasn't this guy supposed to be on our side? What's happening here?

As we said, Saul's change took everyone by surprise. Some looked at what happened to him and what he was now proclaiming and they switched their point of view. The Christians said, “He is truly one of us!” And some of the Jews in the synagogues said, “He must be right about Jesus being the Messiah and the Son of God!”

But remember how we said if people are biased, they get defensive rather than change their point of view in the light of new evidence? Some of his fellow Jews were not saying to themselves, “Is there something to what he says? Does it make sense? Does it fit with what the scriptures say?” No, rather than reconsider their stance, they decided on the age-old strategy of killing the messenger. And so Saul has to escape by having his fellow Christians lower him in a basket through a hole in the city walls at night.

When he came to Jerusalem the disciples there were also afraid of Saul, unsure that he really was a follower of Jesus. A disciple named Barnabas stepped up and vouched for Saul, telling what happened in Damascus. Thereafter we are told that Saul “moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.” (Acts 9:28)

Changing your mind is a key part of being a Christian. It is literally what the Greek word for “repent” means. Yes, we are to hold fast to the faith but to think that you know everything about God is arrogant. The essentials of the faith are straightforward: it is Jesus—who he is, what he has done for us and what he is doing in us, and what our response should be. Of him and his promises we can be certain. There are other important but not absolutely essential things that we believe and do that are not likely to change. But over 2000 years some beliefs and practices arose in the churches in response to historical events. And they may have been seen as necessary at the time. Some may still be helpful; others are not. But we must not let them stand in the way of bringing people to Jesus, because he is essential.

One such traditional barrier we will hear about in a few weeks, which was the question of whether Jesus was the savior of the Jews alone or of the Gentiles as well. As it turns out, Jesus makes Saul, this tradition-bound zealous Jewish rabbi, an apostle to the Gentiles. And eventually he writes, “You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26-28) But to accept this, the apostles and the earliest Christians, all Jews, had to change their point of view on something considered essential to Judaism: circumcision. They also had to decide that it was not essential that Gentile Christians keep kosher.

Among Gentile Christians, there were other controversies, like whether they had to become vegetarians because the only butcher shops in town were attached to pagan temples and sold meat that was previously offered to idols. Some Christians had no problem eating such meat because there is only one God and the idols weren't real gods. Others could not in good conscience go along with this. Saul said to follow your conscience but be willing to forgo what bothers your sibling in Christ if it threatens to destroy their faith in Jesus. (1 Corinthians 8) The self-sacrificial love we see in Jesus is our model for behaving toward others.

And in Jesus we see a way that we should be willing to change our point of view. Peter denied Jesus right when Christ was on trial for his life. Luke even tells us that Jesus turned and looked at Peter after his third denial. (Luke 22:61) Judas betrayed Jesus but Peter was there at his trial and didn't stand up for Jesus. He actually disowned him—3 times. How would most leaders have regarded someone who did that to them?

In our passage from John, we read that after eating breakfast together on the shores of Galilee, the risen Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Notice Jesus doesn't use the nickname he gave him: Petros in Greek, Cephas in Aramaic, both of which means Rock. Because the fisherman had shifted like sand when he should have stood firm. That says to me that Jesus' question is not rhetorical. He is saying, “Do you really love me above everyone and everything else?”

Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus doesn't come back with, “Well, it sure didn't look like that when you denied even knowing who I was when my life was in the balance!” Instead he just says, “Feed my lambs.”

Again Jesus asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And again Peter says, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” What's interesting is that the first two times he asks, Jesus is using the Greek verb agapao, meaning the kind of love with which God loves us. Peter replies using the verb phileo, meaning the love of a good friend. It may be that, having rashly promised he would be willing to go to prison and death rather than deny Jesus, Peter is being more humble about himself. (Luke 22:33) He's saying, “I love you, Lord, but I now know my weakness.” Jesus simply says, “Tend my sheep.”

The third time Jesus switches to Peter's preferred verb. “Simon, son of John, do you love me like a friend?” And Peter feels hurt by being asked a third time. I don't think he realized just then that Jesus was in essence allowing him to take back those 3 denials. Peter says, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.” Peter is reinstated as a friend and disciple and apostle of Jesus.

So here we see Jesus showing us how to change our point of view on someone we would likely be biased against: a person who had let us down. Had we been Jesus, we would have written Peter off. We would most likely say,“You let me down when I could have really used your support. You are outta here!” We would not have let the evidence of Peter's remorse and renewed loyalty sway us. But the real Jesus forgives and restores Peter, the penitent sinner. The real Jesus gives him, and us, another chance.

Jesus also tells Peter that he would one day have to make good on his promise to go to prison and to death for Jesus. But this time Peter would not chicken out. As we saw in last week's passage from Acts, when the very same high priest who condemned Jesus at his trial rebukes Peter for not shutting up about it, Peter says, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” (Acts 5:29) He proclaims the risen Jesus as savior and pretty much dares the high priest to do something about it. Jesus was right about Peter.

We all believe we are right. But if we want to actually be right, we have to be willing to admit we may be wrong about certain things and about certain people. We cannot let our biases get in the way of considering new data and maybe updating our point of view. We are not to be gullible, nor should we abandon the essentials, but neither are we to double down on our preformed opinions because we don't like what the facts are revealing to us. After all, that same high priest knew that Jesus was no longer in the tomb, and that the same men who had been cowering behind doors were now proclaiming Jesus' resurrection to his face. Later on he'd know that Saul, whom he had sent to arrest Christians in Damascus, was now saying he too had seen the risen Jesus and that he was in fact the Messiah and Son of God. But the high priest wasn't going to change his mind. He was certain he was right, regardless of what the facts said.

On the other hand, the once equally certain Saul, who shared his name with the first king of Israel, eventually changed it to Paul, which means “little.” I think it was his personal reminder not to be too puffed up or too big to face the facts or to change his mind about what our gracious and loving God is willing to do to save sinners like him.