Introspection: Looking Back

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Looking Back

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him, bless his name.

For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 100:4-5 (NRSV)

I forgot that I might see

So many beautiful things

I forgot that I might need

To find out what life could bring

From "Beautiful Things" by Andain

Since another calendar year is coming to an end, I spent some time over the past week looking back on 2017.  As I skimmed over my journal entries from the past year, I noticed some recurring themes - or perhaps I should say, recurring feelings.  One feeling is that of loss.  I don't think I've quite gotten over the losses I experienced a couple of years ago, and I suffered even more loss when the church I attended for most of my life closed it's doors in July.  Another recurring theme is anger.  I have a tendency to lose my cool when things go wrong, and it seems that things go wrong all the time.  A third is anxiety.  The things that have worried me over the last few years have not changed, and I feel like I'm always finding new sources of worry.

Probably the theme or feeling that came up in my journal the most during the past year is tiredness.  I lost count of how many times I wrote in my journal, "I'm tired."  I must have spent the entire year exhausted.  I suspect that my tiredness is somehow related to the other feelings I felt last year.

At the beginning of the year, I wrote that, after a prolonged season of pain, frustration, and stagnation in my life, I was trying to reconnect with a certain feeling I felt circa 2010, a stirring I felt in my soul amid a time of movement and positive change in my life.  Years ago, I felt that my life was actually heading somewhere, and I wanted to experience that feeling again after spending far too much time feeling that I've been spinning my wheels.

Looking back over the past year has also given me a chance to evaluate whether or not there has been any change, movement, or growth in my life, despite my feelings to the contrary.

By the middle of the year, I realized that I had unwittingly entered into another season of growth, particularly when it comes to preaching.  I delivered my very first sermon around Christmas of 2008, because I wanted to know if I had it in me to preach.  Since then, I've preached a few times every year, mostly at my home church.  When I left my home church in late 2015, I figured that my preaching "career" was pretty much over.  Ironically, the one thing I was certain I would lose was one thing that actually flourished.  From July of 2016 through June of 2017, I preached more than I had ever preached in any twelve-month span.

In March, a friend of mine who is a pastor asked me to "prayerfully consider" preaching at his church in August.  To be honest, I didn't pray about it: I just said yes.  Often I feel somewhat annoyed when people want something from me; however, when I am asked to preach, I enthusiastically jump at the opportunity, even though I know I will have to give up more of my free time so that I can prepare or revise a sermon.

I delivered my last sermon in August, and I probably will not preach again until February of the new year.  My opportunities to preach have been few lately, mostly because I did a majority of my preaching at my home church, which, as I noted earlier, has closed its doors.  This slow season has given me the opportunity to figure out where I belong in my new church, which I officially joined in September, having attended regularly for more than a year and a half.  I've started taking turns leading Sunday school once again, and I will also start leading my small group when we start meeting again in the new year.  What I like about attending a larger church is that I can focus my energies on doing the things I feel led to do without having to juggle a bunch of hats I have no business wearing.

A few other significant events happened in my life this year.  In March, I taught a class on Wesleyan heritage and doctrine for Lay Servant Ministries.  In April, I was finally certified as a Lay Speaker in the United Methodist Church, meaning that I am now officially certified to do what I've been doing for years.  During the last quarter of the year, I participated in a somewhat intensive study of the Old Testament at my new church.

There was indeed movement and change in my life last year, though my vision was frequently clouded by things like anxiety, frustration, and tiredness.  I have also regained some of what I've lost.  If I have learned anything by looking back on the past year, it is that our feelings, particularly those that weigh us down, might not be the best gauge for our lives.  I am not saying that we should ignore our feelings completely, for, like the warning lights on the dashboard of a car, they might be telling us that we have problems that need to be addressed.  What I am saying is that sometimes we actually need to take an inventory of our lives if we want to see what is really going on, in spite of what our feelings might be telling us.

As you can probably tell, I have a tendency to lose sight of the good things I have in life because I'm so focused on the good things I've lost and the good things I fear I'll never have.  I suppose it's easy to lose sight of the good in life because things like loss and disappointment are painful and, as a result, are difficult to ignore.

So how can I prevent myself from losing sight of the good things in my life?  This is one of those situations in which I already know the solution to my problem but have failed to put it into practice.  I think a good way for us to keep our eyes on the good things in our lives is to practice gratitude.  Practicing gratitude will not negate the painful things of life, but it can serve as a reminder that there is more to life than the painful things by forcing us to take stock of what is good.  Gratitude might also be a good focus for a new year.

It is a common practice to make a resolution at the beginning of a new calendar year, but our New Year's resolutions are utterly useless if we do not take actual steps to meet our goals.  What steps can we take if we want to become more grateful in the new year?  As for me, I think I will start by making it a practice to look back at the end of each day and find at least one thing from the day for which I can be thankful.

As you look back on 2017 and look ahead to 2018, dear reader, may you give thanks for the good things of the past year and bid the bad things a not-so-fond adieu.  May you have a happy - and grateful - new year!


The photograph of the car mirror was taken by Joe Mabel and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Christmas Perspective: No Crying He Makes?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

No Crying He Makes?

The Word became flesh and blood,

and moved into the neighborhood.

We saw the glory with our own eyes,

the one-of-a-kind glory,

like Father, like Son,

Generous inside and out,

true from start to finish.

John 1:14 (MSG)

---

Jesus wept.

John 11:35 (KJV)

Jesus is our childhood's pattern

Day by day like us he grew

He was little, weak, and helpless

Tears and smiles like us he knew

And he feels for all our sadness

And he shares in all our gladness

From "Once in Royal David's City" by Cecil Frances Alexander

Mary had not expected to have her baby in Bethlehem, but, when the empire-wide census was announced, she had no choice but to accompany her fiancé Joseph to his family's hometown to register.  It mattered not that she was more than eight months pregnant.  By the time the couple reached Bethlehem, Mary had gone into labor.  Because they could find no one who would give them shelter in a guest room, they ended taking refuge in a stable.  Mary gave birth to her baby, a Son, and, without a proper crib, she placed Him in a feeding trough.¹

It is this scene in the stable that an anonymous poet sought to capture in the beloved Christmas carol "Away in a Manger."²  This song describes the newborn infant Jesus sweetly sleeping on a bed of hay, with the stars of the nighttime sky looking down upon him.  This song, which many of us learned as children, paints an idyllic picture of the Christmas story, not unlike the typical nativity scene which features a radiant infant, two prayerful parents, some well-groomed shepherds, and some well-behaved animals.

In my opinion, the song "Away in a Manger" does not pay proper respect to the complexity and messiness of the Christmas story.  I suppose that, when we teach little children about the Christmas story through such songs, we don't want to overwhelm them.  That said, the first half of the second verse is, I think, problematic.  The animals in the stable make noise, as barnyard animals often do, waking the Christ child from His slumber.  "But little Lord Jesus," the lyricist contends, "no crying He makes."  Why did the writer make it a point to state that the newborn Christ child did not cry?  Don't all babies cry?

At Christmas, we celebrate the Incarnation.  One early Christian hymn, which is quoted by St. John in his Gospel, teaches us that Christ, the Word of God who is one with God and was present in the creation of the universe, "became flesh and lived among us."³  Another early Christian hymn, which is quoted by St. Paul in one of his letters, describes the Incarnation as a downward journey.

[Christ], though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.⁴

Christ left behind the glory and power of godhood to take on the frail flesh and blood of humanity.  Theologians sometimes refer to this self-emptying descent of Christ from the glory of heaven to the messiness of earth as Kenosis.⁵

It is important that, amid our Christmas celebration, we do not lose sight of what it means that Christ came to dwell among us as a human.  If Christ was truly born into this world as a human baby, then He must have done all of the adorable, annoying, and disgusting things that human babies do.  He talked in gibberish; He got more food on his clothes than He did in His mouth at feeding times; He cried when Mary and Joseph wanted to sleep; He became gassy and needed to be burped; He spat up; and He even needed to have His diapers changed multiple times a day.

Try to wrap your mind around the idea that the Son of God, almighty and eternal like His Father, at one time needed someone to feed Him and change His diapers.  That, dear reader, is what Kenosis looks like.

So why is it so important that the baby Jesus cried?

Regarding the song "Away in a Manger," professor of theology Cynthia L. Rigby writes,
No crying?  Why do we say he doesn't cry?  Perhaps because we know he is God, and God can't cry.  On some level, we tend to reason to ourselves that, if Jesus is God, the whole baby thing must be kind of a disguise.  He must have been not just an ordinary baby... he must have been a "superbaby."⁶

If Jesus didn't cry human tears, then He did not fully enter into the human experience, and, if He did not fully enter into the human experience, then He does not truly understand us.  Rigby continues,
We don't need a hero, we don't need a God who puts on a disguise and infiltrates our reality only to rescue us.  We need a God who is one of us, a God who understands us, a God who is with us, a God who has entered into relationship with us and who saves us because God is with us and for us.  And this is who God in Jesus Christ is.⁷

The sixteenth century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross tells the story of the Incarnation through a series of poems.  John imagines a conversation between Christ and God the Father.  The Father tells the Son that a groom and his bride must be alike, meaning that the Son must be born as a human.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, the relationship between God and God's people is sometimes compared to a marriage, and early Christians appropriated this metaphor, describing the Church as the Bride of Christ.  Christ agrees with His Father, and the Father sends the archangel Gabriel to ask the Virgin Mary to give birth to the Son of God, thereby allowing Him to become human.⁸

When the time comes for Christ to leave His chamber and embrace His Bride, He is placed in a manger by His mother.  There the Bride and the Groom exchange wedding gifts.  Humanity receives the joy of heaven, and Christ receives the tears of humanity.⁹  Unlike the author of "Away in a Manger," St. John of the Cross envisions a Christ child who actually cries in the manger, having truly become like the humans He came to embrace.

Man gave forth a song of gladness,

God Himself a plaintive moan;

Both possessing that which never

Had been hitherto their own.¹⁰

At Christmas, we remember the story of the Incarnation.  We remember that Christ came into the world to save humanity, becoming like the very humans He came to save and immersing Himself fully into the messiness of the human experience.  We want our Christmas celebrations to be free of tears, but we would do well not to edit the tears out of the Christmas story, lest we forget that Christ, our Savior, actually understands us and empathizes with us.


Notes:

1. Luke 2:1-7
2. Wikipedia: "Away in a Manger"
3. John 1:1-3, 14 (NRSV)
4. Philippians 2:6-7 (NRSV)
5. Wikipedia: "Kenosis"
6. Cynthia L. Rigby.  "More Than a Hero: The Practical Implications of the Incarnation in Ministry with Youth."  The 1999 Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church, and Culture.
7. ibid.
8. See the poem "The Incarnation" and the following poem "The Same Subject" by St. John of the Cross.
9. See the poem "The Nativity" by St. John of the Cross.
10. Stanza VI of "The Nativity"

Adoration of the Shepherds was painted by Gerard van Honthorst in the early 1600s.

Introspection: Moments of Grace

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Moments of Grace

Won't you look away long enough

for me to swallow my spit?

Are you harmed by my sin, you jailer?

Why use me for your target practice?

Am I so great a burden to you?

Job 7:19-20 (GNT)

---

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,

"therefore I will hope in him."

Lamentations 3:21-24 (NRSV)

That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight

Losing my religion

From "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.

Have you ever noticed how much blame God catches?  Not too long ago, a friend of mine noted in Sunday school that the phrase act of God is never used to describe anything good.  A case in point is that in legal jargon an "act of God" is a natural disaster for which nobody can be held liable.¹  On one episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza remarks to his therapist that God would never allow him to be happy or successful.  The therapist says to him, "I thought you didn't believe in God."  George replies, "I do for the bad things."²

I like to think that my theology is better than that of insurance companies and unbalanced sitcom characters, but sometimes, I'm sad to say, my perception of God is just as bad.

I've recently started taking turns teaching Sunday school once again, having officially joined my new church a few months ago.  Actually, I should probably say that I've started taking turns leading Sunday school, since my class is a lot more discussion-based than the class I taught previously.  Last Sunday, I tried to print the article we would be discussing in class, planning to make copies in the church office after I went to breakfast.  When the paper came out of the printer, I noticed that it was blank.  For some reason, no ink was coming out of the black ink cartridge, even though wasn't empty.  I even switched the ink cartridge to be certain.  I spent at least forty minutes trying to print the article, to no avail.

I tried to keep my cool, but inevitably I lost my temper.  Finally, I put the article on a thumb drive, so that I could skip breakfast, print the article at church, and then hungrily sit through church and Sunday school.  I should note that I've waited until after church to eat breakfast many times without starving to death, but I don't particularly like to change my plans at the last minute, especially when obstinate machinery is involved.

I was looking forward to leading Sunday school that morning.  I thought that the class was going to have a very interesting discussion.  Like so many times when I've found myself subject to "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," I began to think that the projectiles were coming from Above.  For some reason, it seems that, whenever I start feeling good about myself, something comes along to take the proverbial wind out of my sails.  I know that excessive pride is not a good thing, but sometimes I wonder if God doesn't want me to have any pride whatsoever.  Like the biblical character Job, I've wished that God would leave me alone and start taking potshots at someone else for a while, perhaps someone a little more deserving of the abuse.

Before I continue, I would like to admit that I have a tendency to be a bit melodramatic when things go wrong.  What I laughably call suffering, which is really just but a bunch of "first world problems," is nothing like the suffering Job faced.  I did not lose my wealth, my health, and my children in a very short span of time like Job did.³  If I'm honest, I have to admit that all of my "Why have You forsaken me?" moments are really just "Why can't I get my crap together?" moments.

When I arrived at church, I found that the doors were still locked, so I went to get breakfast as I had originally planned.  I was the first customer through the door of the restaurant, so I had plenty of time to enjoy my breakfast and drink some coffee.  I went on to church, and, when I was unable to print the article from my thumb drive, Christine, one of my pastors, found the article on the Internet and made the copies for me.

My moment of frustration was followed by a moment of grace.

So where was God in all this?  Did God cause my printer to malfunction just knock me down a peg?  Or did God orchestrate the moment of grace I experienced afterward?  In my anger, I assumed the former, but, when I calmed down, I started to believe the latter.  To be honest, I don't really know what God did or did not do, but I know that I cannot blame God for one thing without thanking God for the other.  I doubt that God caused my printer to malfunction, but, if God did cause the problem, I can assume it was for my benefit, because God is loving and not spiteful.  Perhaps I needed to learn that I should be better prepared.  Perhaps I needed to learn that I do not have to be as self-sufficient as I want to be and that people will help me in times of need.

This is not the first time in my life a moment of frustration gave way to a moment of grace.  Nearly two years ago, on the evening before Christmas Eve, all of my Christmas shopping was completed, and all of the presents I had bought were wrapped and under the tree.  I felt pretty proud of myself - for a moment.  I visited my grandmother so that I could vacuum her living room floor, as she had asked me to do.  Because I ran the vacuum cleaner while my mom was using the microwave, we tripped a circuit breaker.  We had trouble restoring power in certain rooms, and, as I am wont to do in such situations, I became angry with myself and acted like a complete jackass.  Eventually my mom found the correct circuit breaker.

I left my grandmother's house and went to a coffee shop, no longer feeling proud of myself.  It was late, but the baristas had not yet turned off the oven, so I was still able to order something to eat.  I took a sip of my coffee, and it scalded my mouth.  I then remembered the biblical story in which the prophet Isaiah finds himself in the presence of God and assumes that he is a goner, as he is "a man of unclean lips," not unlike myself.  A heavenly creature hears his lament, takes a live coal from the altar, and touches his mouth with it, cleansing him of his guilt.⁴  Perhaps my unclean lips had been cleansed as well.

I wonder if the reason I so often assume God is angry with me is that I'm actually angry with myself.  In other words, perhaps I project my anger with myself onto God.  Perhaps I realized deep down that waiting until Sunday morning to print something I needed for Sunday school was a rather stupid thing to do.

On the same Sunday I had problems with my printer, Jonathan, my other pastor, encouraged the congregation to have a "merciful Christmas," by showing mercy to others and also to ourselves.  We want our Christmas celebrations to be perfect, but we need to cut ourselves some slack when something inevitably goes wrong.⁵  It was a timely message for me.  To show oneself mercy when things go wrong is a difficult lesson for perfectionistic types like me to learn, but it is a lesson we must learn nonetheless.

When I pray, I often address God as "Most gracious and loving God," perhaps to remind myself that God is indeed gracious and loving.  I encourage you, dear reader, to remember that God is compassionate, even when life is cruel.  I also encourage you to cut yourself some slack when you mess up.  If God is merciful to us, then we can afford to be merciful to ourselves.  Even when we've "lost our religion," so to speak, we need not lose our faith.


Notes:

1. Wikipedia: "Act of God"
2. "The Pilot."  Seinfeld.  NBC.  05/20/1993.  Television.
3. Job 1-2
4. Isaiah 6:1-7 (NRSV)
5. Jonathan Tompkins.  "The Merciful One."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church podcast, 12/10/2017.

The photograph of the cup of coffee was taken by Benjamin Balázs and is public domain.

Advent Perspective: An Advent Prayer

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

An Advent Prayer

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness -

on them light has shined.

Isaiah 9:2 (NRSV)

O come, O Bright and Morning Star

And bring us comfort from afar

Dispel the shadows of the night

And turn our darkness into light

From "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"

as translated by John Mason Neale

For many, the Christmas season began nine days ago, on the day after Thanksgiving Day.  That day is commonly known as Black Friday, for retailers hope to get back "in the black," so to speak, as people begin shopping for Christmas presents.

The Church, on the other hand, has not rushed straight into the Christmas season, for both of the high holy days on the Church calendar are preceded by more somber seasons of preparation.  Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the season that precedes Christmas.  During this season, churches light candles for hope, peace, joy, and love, and we who are Christians remember that, like the ancient Jewish people who awaited a Messiah and the age of peace He would bring, we wait for the One we believe to be this Messiah to come back into the world to set all things right.

As I've noted previously, I've come to view Advent as a season of longing.  We light candles for hope, peace, joy, and love, not because we are experiencing these things, but because we long for them.  We long for our Savior to return and set things right in the world, because we know that not all is right with the world.

A few years ago, as my understanding of Advent was evolving, I wrote an Advent prayer for an assignment for a class on leading prayer.  I've dusted off this prayer and made some revisions, and I offer it to you today, hoping that, as we light candles for hope, peace, joy, and love this season, we will remember those who desperately need them.

Most loving and gracious God,

we live in a world oppressed by darkness.

Help us to be ever mindful

of those who are desperate to see the light of Christ.

Lord, in Your mercy,

hear our prayer.

Encourage those who are trapped in despair,

and lift them out of their desperate situations,

that they may experience the hope You bring.

Lord, in Your mercy,

hear our prayer.

Bring tranquility to those who live in places of fear -

war zones on the other side of the globe

and violent households down the street -

that they may know Your peace, which passes all understanding.

Lord, in Your mercy,

hear our prayer.

Comfort those who are trudging through a time of sorrow,

that they may feel the joy of being in Your presence.

Lord, in Your mercy,

hear our prayer.

Heal the hearts of those who are afflicted by hate -

those who have received the hatred of others

and those who harbor hatred for others -

that they may know You, the One who is love itself.

Lord, in Your mercy,

hear our prayer.

Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us,

that we may reflect the light of Christ

into the places of darkness around us.

Lord, in Your mercy,

hear our prayer.

These things we ask in the name of Christ,

who came into the world as a Light to humanity,

the Word of God made flesh,

Light from Light,

true God from true God.

Amen.

Advent is the darkness before the dawn.  It is a season of longing for salvation from things like despair, fear, sorrow, and hate.  It is a season for those of us who look at the darkness in the world around us and, like the ancient prophet, desperately wish that God would rip open the heavens, come down to earth, and do something about it.¹  It is a season when we remember that it was a dark world into which the Light of the World came and that the darkness does not overcome the Light.²


Notes:

1. Isaiah 64:1-2
2. John 1:5

The photograph of the Advent candles was taken by me in December 2014 at Bethel United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina.

Perspective: Who Are the Wise?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Who Are the Wise?

Happy are those servants whom the master finds fulfilling their responsibilities when he comes.

Matthew 24:46 (CEB)

I wanna love because You loved
I wanna give because You gave
I wanna reach my hand out to the lost
Because I know Your hand will save

From "Only You Can Save" by Chris Sligh

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a story about ten bridesmaids who wait with a bride for the arrival or her groom, who, for some reason, has been delayed.  At midnight, word comes that the groom is on his way.  Five of the bridesmaids had the foresight to bring some extra lamp oil, so they prepare their lamps and go out and meet the groom.  The other five have already run out of oil, so they have to go out and find someone to sell them some oil.  By the time they return, the groom has arrived, and the door to the venue has been locked.  They end up missing the wedding celebration.¹

I don't like this parable, because, as I've commented previously, the details don't make any sense to my modern, Western ears.  In my culture, a wedding celebration is planned out to the most minute detail, so this parable leaves me with a lot of questions that probably distract me from the main point.  Why would the groom be so late to his own wedding?  Why didn't the wedding planner set up some lanterns so that there would be plenty of light for everybody?  If the five prudent bridesmaids couldn't share their oil with the others, could they not have shared their lamplight with them?

So often we read Scripture in bitesize pieces.  When we study the Gospels, we might focus on one parable, teaching, miracle, or encounter at a time.  I've learned that sometimes it can be helpful to step back and take more of a bird's-eye view when studying Scripture.  Reading multiple consecutive passages together can reveal truths that a single passage might not reveal on its own.  For example, the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke contains three parables, the last of which is the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son.  Often we read this third parable by itself, but the first two parables establish a certain pattern, and reading the third in light of this pattern can reveal things that might go unnoticed otherwise.

The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids is only one in a series of parables that appear together in the Gospel of Matthew, the last of which might not really be a parable.  Perhaps, if we take a step back and look at the series as a whole, we might discover something important.

Jesus sets up this series of parables by describing a servant who is put in charge of his employer's entire household, including the management of the other servants, while his employer is away.  The servant then faces a choice.  He can be responsible by faithfully doing what he has been tasked to do, or he can be irresponsible by living large off his employer's estate while abusing his fellow servants.  Suppose the employer returns before this servant expects him to return.  If the servant has been acting responsibly, he'll be just fine.  On the other hand, if the servant has been acting irresponsibly, he'll be in big trouble with his employer.²

Scholar N.T. Wright suggests that the choice presented to the servant is the choice between wisdom and folly, which is a recurring theme in Scriptural wisdom literature.³  According to Wright,
Ultimately, the wise person is the one who respects and honours God, and the fool is the one who forgets him.  But their wisdom and folly work themselves out in a thousand different ways in daily life, in business, in the home and village, in making plans for the future, in how they treat other people, in their honesty or dishonesty, in their hard work or laziness, in their ability to recognize and avoid temptations to immorality.⁴

With this hypothetical situation, Jesus establishes the pattern for the entire series of parables.  In each parable, the wise and responsible are separated from the foolish and irresponsible.  The former are invited to celebrate, while the latter end up in a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

When it comes to the Parable of the Bridesmaids, we modern, Western folk simply have to accept that, in a different culture with very different wedding traditions, the details actually make sense.  The point of the story is that five of the bridesmaids are prepared, and, as a result, they are able to join in the wedding festivities.  The other five bridesmaids, by contrast, are not prepared, so they miss out on the celebration entirely.  The former are wise, but the latter are foolish.

Jesus goes on to tell a story about a wealthy person who entrusts different sums of money to three servants before going on a long trip.  Two of these servants aggressively invest the money entrusted to them, and both receive a one-hundred percent return on their investments.  The third buries the money entrusted to him.  In this parable, the first two servants are the wise, because they responsibly use what has been entrusted to them, but the third is foolish, because he doesn't use what is entrusted to him but rather hoards it.  When their employer returns, the former are invited to celebrate and are given additional responsibilities, but the latter is fired.⁵

Wright suggests that these servants might represent the religious leaders of the day and that the assets entrusted to them might represent the gifts of their religion.  Wright calls to mind what God promised to their ancestor Abraham, that "in [him] all the families of the earth shall be blessed."⁶  We use the gifts of our religion responsibly when we serve as a light that points others to God.  We misuse or hoard the gifts of our religion when we use them solely for our own good, illuminating ourselves.⁷

Jesus then tells a story in which the Son of Man returns to take His throne.  He separates the wise from the foolish "as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats."

To the wise, the King says,
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me...  Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

To the foolish, the King says,
You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me...  Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.⁸

As in the previous parables, there is celebration for the wise and "weeping and gnashing of teeth" for the foolish.  As I hinted earlier, this last parable might actually be less of a parable and more of a prophecy.

Jesus tells this series of narratives in the midst of a discourse on events yet to come.⁹  One of these events is the coming of the Son of Man, known by some as Judgment Day.  In the parables, it is represented by the arrival of the bridegroom and the return of the master of the household.  People have different ideas about what this event will be.  Maybe it represents events that occurred in Palestine nearly two thousand years ago.  Maybe it represents a time in the future, when Christ returns to set all things right.  Maybe it represents some judgment we face after we die.  Maybe it represents any number of actions God has taken or will take.

Do we really need to know exactly what Judgment Day is?  The parables teach us that, if we are faithfully doing what God has called us to do, we will be ready for it, whatever form it takes.  We're ready for the Master of the household to return if we're doing what the Master has tasked us to do.

So who are the wise?  The wise are those who are prepared for whatever action God takes, because they are faithfully doing what God has called and equipped them to do.  They are serving God by serving the children of God.


Notes:

1. Matthew 25:1-13
2. Matthew 24:45-51
3. N.T Wright.  Matthew for Everyone, Part 2.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 130
4. ibid.
5. Matthew 25:14-30
6. Genesis 12:3 (NRSV)
7. Wright, p. 138
8. Matthew 25:31-46 (NRSV)
9. See Matthew 24-25.

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins was painted by William Blake in the early 1800s.

Introspection: Sandwiches I Didn't Enjoy

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Sandwiches I Didn't Enjoy

By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread

until you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.

Genesis 3:19 (NRSV)

---

So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 (NRSV)

It happens in a blink, it happens in a flash

It happens in the time it took to look back

I try to hold on tight, but there's no stopping time

What is it I've done with my life?

From "Blink" by Revive

The eighteenth century nobleman John Montagu was an avid gambler.  Unwilling to allow his hunger to interrupt his games of cribbage, he often ordered a slice of salted beef served between two pieces of toast.  The bread covering the meat afforded him the convenience of eating while playing without getting his cards greasy.  Montagu happened to be the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, so his meal of choice, which was probably known simply as "bread and meat" previously, became known as the "sandwich."  When Montagu ordered his meal, others would order "the same as Sandwich."^{1 2}

Personally, I'm a big fan of the sandwich.  At a certain deli downtown, I've been ordering a turkey sandwich on toasted rye bread.  A bagel shop one block over serves a delicious vegan bagel sandwich made of hummus, bean sprouts, and cucumber slices.  A certain bookstore cafe downtown serves an avocado chicken salad sandwich on ciabatta bread.  At a deli near the local shopping mall, I usually eat a club sandwich served on a croissant with guacamole.  At Greek or Mediterranean restaurants, I often order a gyro, which is a sandwich made of meat, vegetables, and tzatziki sauce wrapped up in pita bread.  During my less health-conscious moments, my sandwich of choice is the ever-popular bacon cheeseburger.

In late 2002, singer-songwriter Warren Zevon appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, not long after he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.  During the interview, Letterman asked him if his terminal diagnosis had given him any insights that most of us might not have.  He replied that he had come to realize "how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich."³

I love sandwiches, but, looking back on my life, I can see that there have been many sandwiches I did not enjoy.

As you might know, my previous job was in the gambling industry.  I hated that job because it was stressful and because it brought me a great deal of shame.  During one particularly stressful stretch of time, I took a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to work with me every day, and I ate it at my desk.  The PB&J is not a sandwich I like, but I ate it for lunch anyway.  On some days, I couldn't even finish it.  I probably knew that I would enjoy my day more if I would just take something different for lunch and eat in the break room, but, for some reason, I didn't even want to enjoy my day.  I hated my situation, and I didn't want to do anything to make it more tolerable.

I find it beautifully ironic that Zevon spoke of mindfully eating and enjoying a food named for someone who sought to eat less mindfully.

Ever since I've started writing regularly, I've found myself at sandwich shops several times a week, accompanied by either my laptop or whatever book I've been reading.  The fare of such restaurants allows me to eat while reading or writing, and the wireless Internet access they usually offer is an added convenience.  That said, I've eaten countless sandwiches without enjoying them because I was so engrossed in whatever I was doing while eating.  Though I benefited from the nutritional value of these sandwiches, I still feel that they somehow went to waste.

You've probably figured out that Warren Zevon's comment about sandwiches was not really about sandwiches but rather about life in general.  Basically, Zevon was saying that we should savor every blessing life has to offer, even if it is something as simple and ordinary as a sandwich.

I think that many of us suffer from a lack of mindfulness.  Life passes us by because mentally we're a million miles away from wherever we happen to be physically.  We're not fully present in what we're doing because we're multitasking or because we're thinking about what we have to do next or what we would rather be doing.  We overcommit ourselves, and we end up rushing through one activity so that we can hurry off to the next activity and rush through that one as well.  We ignore the world around us because we spend so much time looking at our phones.

As the work week draws to an end, people like to proclaim, "Thank God it's Friday!"  Many of us hate Mondays because it marks the beginning of the work week and the obligations that come with it, but we love Fridays because we will soon have time to do what we want to do as opposed to what we are expected to do.  What we fail to realize is that on Monday we have four more days of life ahead of us than we do on Friday.  We're wishing our lives away by waiting for the weekend!  We need to stop waiting for our work to be completed to start enjoying life and find ways to enjoy life in the midst of our work.

Financial guru Dave Ramsey is quoted as advising people to "tell every penny where to go."  What if we were just as intentional in regards to how we use our time?  After all, time is more precious than money: though we can trade time for money, we cannot reverse the transaction.  What if we had a purpose for each second of the day or at least tried to enjoy every second?

Lately, I've been taking a cue from Warren Zevon and trying to live my life a little more mindfully, starting with when I eat.  Sometimes I put my books and my computer away and simply enjoy my meal.  At other times, when I'm doing something else while I eat, I try to remember to pause, chew my food well, and savor the taste.  I'm hoping that practicing mindfulness while I eat will help me to become more mindful at other times.  Life is a gift, and it would be a shame not to enjoy this precious gift to the fullest.

The next time you eat a sandwich, dear reader, I hope that you remember to slow down and enjoy your meal - and your life - a little more fully.  Life is too short not to enjoy good sandwiches.


Notes:

1. "Sandwich History."  What's Cooking America.
2. Wikipedia: "Sandwich"
3. Robert Deis.  "Enjoy Every Sandwich."  This Day in Quotes, 10/30/2014.

The photograph of the BLT was taken by Steven Groves and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Perspective: The Image Is Everything

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The Image Is Everything

If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar.  If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see?  The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people.  You've got to love both.

1 John 4:20-21 (The Message)

Surely life wasn't made to regret

And the lost were not made to forget

Surely faith without action is dead

Let Your kingdom come

Lord, break this heart

From "The Power of Your Name" by Lincoln Brewster

As I noted previously, when Jesus starts shaking things up in Jerusalem, the religious leaders strike back by asking Him loaded questions in the hopes of getting Him in trouble in some way.  At one point, one of the Pharisees' religious scholars approaches Jesus and asks, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"¹

Jesus replies, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  This is the greatest and first commandment."  Jesus is referencing part of a passage from the Book of Deuteronomy commonly known as the Shema, named for the Hebrew word for "hear."

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.  Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.  Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.²

The Shema is a passage of Scripture that is very important to the Jewish people, who recite it multiple times a day.  It is said at the beginning of Jewish prayer services and is thought to be like a creed of Judaism.  The Shema is the first passage of Scripture memorized by Jewish children, who are taught to say it before they go to bed at night.^{3 4}  It is not unexpected that Jesus would quote from such an important passage when answering the scholar's question.

Jesus continues, "And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"  Jesus is quoting part of a passage from the Book of Leviticus.

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.  You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.⁵

Jesus then says, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."⁶  Basically, Jesus distills all the instructions found in the Jewish Law and all of the exhortations of the Jewish prophets into two rules that are simple but by no means easy to follow.  William Barclay suggests, "We may well say that here Jesus laid down the complete definition of religion."⁷  According to N.T. Wright, "Jesus' answer was so traditional that nobody could challenge him on it, and so deeply searching that everyone else would be challenged by it."⁸

I think it is worth noting that, though the religious scholar only asks Jesus which commandment He thinks is the greatest, Jesus offers him both the greatest and the second greatest.  Why would Jesus find it necessary to offer him both?  I wonder if maybe He simply couldn't offer him one without offering him the other.  I wonder if maybe these two commandments are inextricably linked, like two sides of the came coin.  Perhaps one cannot truly obey one of these commandments without obeying the other as well.

St. James references the Shema, the creed of the Jewish people, in his letter, perhaps with a bit of snark.  He writes, "You believe that God is one; you do well.  Even the demons believe - and shudder."⁹  In other words, evil spirits believe all the right things about God, but it's not really doing them any good since they have no intention of changing their ways.  James goes on to suggest that "just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead."¹⁰  Basically, it does not matter what you claim to believe if you are not living according to what you claim to believe.

James writes earlier in his letter, "You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"¹¹  James refers to the second greatest commandment as the royal law because it is the law emphasized by Jesus Christ, who is known to His followers as the "King of Kings and Lord of Lords."¹²  Perhaps James would agree that you cannot rightly claim that you "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" unless you truly "love your neighbor as yourself."

In my previous post, I highlighted a certain passage from the Creation poem at the beginning of the Bible.  I am starting to see that this passage has many implications for our lives.

So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.¹³

I think that maybe the truth that humans bear the Imago Dei, the Image of God, is what links Jesus' two greatest commandments.  In the words of St. John, "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen."¹⁴  We cannot see God, but we can see the image of God in our neighbors.

Barclay connects the worth of a human being to the image of God he or she bears.  He goes on to write,
Take away the love of God, and we can look at human nature and become angry at those who cannot be taught; we can become pessimistic about those who cannot make progress; we can become callous to those who are cold and calculating in their actions.  The love of humanity is firmly grounded in the love of God.¹⁵
In other words, no matter how worthless or unworthy a person might be according to worldly standards, the person is of infinite worth because he or she bears the image of God.  When we are tempted to totally dismiss someone, we would do well to remember that he or she is a child of God.

Christ commands us to love God with all we've got and to love our fellow humans as we love ourselves.  We love the God we cannot see by loving the children of God we see all around us.  At the same time, loving our infinite God enables us to love our fellow human beings who are of infinite worth.


Notes:

1. Much of this blog post is based on Matthew 22:34-40.  Quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.
2. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NRSV)
3. Wikipedia: "Shema Yisrael"
4. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume Two.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  p. 324
5. Leviticus 19:17-18 (NRSV)
6. Matthew 22:40 (NRSV)
7. Barclay, p. 324
8. N.T Wright.  Matthew for Everyone, Part 2.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 93
9. James 2:19 (NRSV)
10. James 2:26 (NRSV)
11. James 2:8 (NRSV)
12. Revelation 19:16
13. Genesis 1:27 (NRSV)
14. 1 John 4:20 (NRSV)
15. Barclay, pp. 324-325

The photograph of the scroll is public domain.

Introspection: Lines in the Sand

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Lines in the Sand

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28 (NRSV)

We reject the either or

They can't define us anymore

'Cause if it's us or them

It's us for them

From "Us for Them" by Gungor

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, tensions escalate between Him and the religious leaders.  First, He throws the whole city into an uproar when He rides into town on a donkey.  Next, He barges into the temple and turns over the tables of the merchants and money changers, proclaiming that the temple, which was meant to be "a house of prayer," has become instead "a den of robbers."  After that, He levels some extremely harsh criticisms against the religious leaders in the form of parables.¹

At this point, the religious leaders start striking back, asking Jesus loaded questions in the hopes of getting Him into trouble.  The Pharisees, who are normally opposed to the Roman occupation, find some unlikely allies in the supporters of King Herod, Rome's puppet ruler of Galilee.²  It is said that "politics makes strange bedfellows."  People from both groups approach Jesus, feigning respect and humility, and ask Him, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?"³

The question represents a highly contentious political issue of the day, and it was strategically chosen to force Jesus into a dilemma.  Answering either in the affirmative or in the negative will cost Him greatly.  If Jesus says that it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, He will lose the faith of those who hate the Roman occupation and look to Him as their liberator.  On the other hand, if Jesus says that it is not lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, He will be arrested as an enemy of the Empire.⁴

Basically, the Pharisees and the Herodians draw a line in the sand and try to force Jesus to pick a side.  The two groups are not unlike modern-day Christians who draw lines in the sand and then vehemently try to convince themselves and others that Christ is on their side and that to disagree with them is to set oneself up as an enemy of Christ Himself.

Jesus understands what the Pharisees and Herodians are trying to do, and He refuses to play their treacherous game.  He borrows a coin that would be used to pay the tax, holds it up, and asks, "Whose head is this, and whose title?"  Someone replies, "The emperor's."  Jesus then says, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."  Jesus doesn't give his critics an answer they can use against Him but instead gives them an answer that leaves them scratching their heads.⁵

Six years ago, I delivered a sermon about this very story at my home church.  I noted that people have a propensity to draw lines in the sand and divide themselves into diametrically opposed groups based on things like political leanings, religion, skin color, and economic status.  Christians with such divisive inclinations love to claim that God is on their side.  The truth, I proclaimed, is that God is bigger than any of the things we use to divide ourselves.  Christ calls us out of our us-versus-them mentality, uniting us around a greater purpose, as evidenced by the fact that He called one disciple who violently opposed the Roman Empire and another disciple who was employed by the Roman Empire.

My sermon focused especially on political divisions between Christians.  I must admit that, at that time, I was rather ambivalent, apathetic, and cynical regarding all things political.  What I really hated was how bitterly people are divided over politics.  I had never even voted at that time, and I would not have voted the following year, were it not for some unexpected nagging from friends.  I went to the voting booth, and, taking a cue from the 1985 comedy Brewster's Millions, I wrote in "NONE OF THE ABOVE" on every ballot that allowed a write-in vote.  It was, for me, a protest vote against a broken system, a vote against corruption, pandering, mudslinging, and partisanism.

My perspective has changed quite a bit since then.  During the 2016 election, I found one of the two major presidential candidates so utterly vile, repugnant, and dangerous that I was compelled to go to the voting booth on Election Day and cast my vote for the other major candidate, even though I wasn't a particularly huge fan of that person either.  I realize that, like me, a lot of people voted not for the candidate they liked but against the candidate they hated and that both candidates had qualities to hate.  Still, I've found myself questioning the rationality and even the spirituality of those who would vote for candidate who so obviously emerged from the very bowels of hell.

To put it bluntly, I've drunk the partisan Kool-Aid.  I've gotten caught up in the us-versus-them game I critiqued six years ago, and I've chosen a side.  That said, I'm not sure I could still deliver with any sense of integrity the same sermon I wrote years earlier.  I struggle to agree with what I said back in 2011 when I was still ambivalent toward politics, but I will admit that what I said back then, before I was corrupted by the 2016 election, was probably right.  Not all changes in perspective are necessarily for the better.

Last year, on the evening of Election Day, there was a service of Holy Communion at my church.  Normally, during Communion services at my church, there are two stations at which someone may receive the elements.  One station is to the left of the Communion table and the other is to the right of it.  The election night service was a bit different, as there was only one station, meaning that people on both the left and right sides of the sanctuary had to come together in the middle to partake of the one loaf and the one cup.⁶  One thing I think Holy Communion teaches us is that it is the broken body and spilled blood of our Savior that brings a broken humanity back together at one table.

Six years ago, I noticed that Jesus didn't really seem to answer His critics' question, for He did not explicitly say what rightfully belongs to the emperor.  I wondered if, by diverting attention from what belongs to the emperor to what belongs to God, Jesus is suggesting that His critics are asking the wrong question.  Perhaps he is saying that people should be less concerned with what they are expected to give to the government and more concerned with what they are called to give to God.

What I had not considered back then is that, if Jesus is indeed implying that a coin that bears the image of the emperor belongs to the emperor, then we could deduce that something that bears the image of God must belong to God.⁷  On what then do we see God's image?  At the beginning of the Bible, we read, "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."⁸  If you're still not quite sure what Jesus is saying you should give to God, go and take a look in the mirror.

At a time when the divide between the political Left and the political Right is more bitter than ever, we Christians who find ourselves on either side of the aisle politically must remember that our loyalty is not to an elephant or a donkey but to a Lamb, namely Christ.  To paraphrase St. Paul, there is no longer Conservative or Liberal, and there is no longer Democrat or Republican, for all of us are one in Christ Jesus.


Notes:

1. Matthew 21:1-22:14
2. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume Two.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  p. 318
3. Matthew 22:15-17 (NRSV)
4. Barclay, p. 317
5. Matthew 22:18-22 (NRSV)
6. Jonathan Tompkins.  "How Can I Practice Politics and Keep the Faith?"  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church podcast, 04/03/2017.
7. Amy Piatt.  "Paying What Is Due."  First Christian Church of Portland, Oregon podcast, 10/19/2014.
8. Genesis 1:27 (NRSV)

The photographs of the denarius are used courtesy of CNG Coins under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Perspective: The Hard Work of Forgiveness

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The Hard Work of Forgiveness

Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?  Should I forgive as many as seven times?"

Jesus said, "Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times."

Matthew 18:21-22 (CEB)

Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them

'Cause I feel like the one losin'

From "Losing" by Tenth Avenue North

When one of the Disciples asked Jesus a question about forgiveness, Jesus responded with a parable.¹  One day, a king wanted to collect some debts.  One of the king's servants had racked up a debt of ten thousand talents, an amount he could never hope to repay.  The king ordered that the servant, his wife, his children, and all his property be sold as payment for the debt.  The servant then fell to his knees and begged the king for an extension.  Out of compassion for the servant, the king had a change of heart and decided to forgive the debt.

The servant then went out, found a fellow servant who owed him a mere one hundred denarii, grabbed him by the throat, and demanded repayment.  The debtor begged his creditor to be patient with him, but the servant who had just been forgiven of his own debt had him thrown into debtor's prison.

Word reached the king that the servant he had just forgiven refused to forgive his colleague of his debt.  Angered by his servant's pettiness and unwillingness to treat others as he had been treated, he decided to reverse his decision, and he had the servant tortured until he could repay everything he originally owed.

It is generally accepted that the king who forgave the servant's debt represents God and that the servant who was expected to forgive his fellow servant's debt represents each of us.  That said, the parable offers us a rather straightforward lesson.  If God has forgiven us for our wrongdoings, then who are we not to forgive others for their wrongdoings against us?  If we refuse to forgive others, we should not expect God to forgive us.

What more is there to say?

The amounts mentioned in the parable are worth noting.  Since the words denarii and talents, when used as monetary units, don't mean very much to us nowadays, it might be helpful to translate them into modern dollar amounts.

The servant was owed 100 denarii.  A denarius was the typical amount a laborer was paid for a day.  If a worker was paid the current minimum wage in the United States and worked a typical eight-hour day, he would have been paid fifty-eight dollars per day.  If the servant was owed one hundred days' wages in our day, he would have been owed $5800.00.²

The servant owed the king ten thousand talents.  A talent was the amount of money a laborer would have made in fifteen years.  If a laborer worked five days per week and fifty weeks per year for the daily wage established above, he would make $217,500 over the course of fifteen years.  If the servant owed the king ten thousand times this amount, he would have been over two billion dollars in debt!³

The amount the servant refused to forgive wasn't exactly chump change, but it was nothing compared to the ridiculous amount the amount the king forgave.  From the king's perspective, the servant's unwillingness to forgive what was owed to him probably seemed rather petty.

I wonder if maybe this parable is meant to give us a God's-eye view on the topic of forgiveness.  Any good parent would agree that a crime committed against a child is a crime committed against the parent.  Since we are all beloved children of God, a sin against any of us is also a sin against God.  That said, the number of sins committed against God is no less than the sum total of all sins committed against all human beings throughout history.  At this time, there are approximately 7.6 billion people on the planet,⁴ but the Population Reference Bureau has estimated that more than 107 billion people have walked the earth since Homo sapiens first appeared on the planet.⁵

Every one of us has suffered wrongdoings at the hands of other people, but God has uncountably many more sins to forgive than any one of us will ever have to forgive individually.  If God is indeed willing to forgive all of these sins, then any unwillingness to forgive on our part must seem petty from a divine point of view.

I've recently noticed that, whenever Jesus taught the Disciples about prayer, He would often broach the subject of forgiveness.  When He taught them how to pray, He gave them a prayer that includes the following: "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."⁶  Perhaps He was teaching them to make a commitment to forgive others whenever they asked God for forgiveness, or maybe He was teaching them to pray that God would forgive them to the extent that they have forgiven others.  Jesus went on to teach the Disciples what He would later teach them in the parable, that God will only forgive the sins of those who forgive other people.⁷

On another occasion, Jesus taught the Disciples about the power of praying without doubt.⁸  He also said, "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses."⁹

God is more than willing to forgive us for all our wrongdoings, but we must also be willing to forgive others for their wrongdoings against us.  Though I speculate that our unwillingness to forgive might seem petty from a divine perspective, I would not say that forgiveness is easy from a human perspective.  I would never want to make light of the great suffering people have endured at the hands of others.  Forgiving a wrongdoing can be quite difficult if the nature of the wrongdoing is especially heinous.

I think that sometimes we confuse forgiveness with repressing our anger.  Some wounds require treatment beyond the normal healing process, and simply putting bandages on them and forgetting about them will only cause them to become infected.  Likewise, bottling up our anger will only cause us problems later on.

St. Paul writes in one of his letters, "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil."¹⁰  Before you zero in on his instructions not to sin and not to "let the sun go down" on our anger, realize that he says that we have permission to be angry.  We must acknowledge our anger and allow ourselves to experience it so that we can work through it in healthy, constructive ways, or else our anger will fester and work itself out in us destructively.  We must work through our anger so that we can forgive, or else we will "make room for the devil," so to speak.

The hard work of forgiveness might involve seeking professional help from a therapist or a counselor.  It might mean setting boundaries between oneself and a repeat offender, for it is very difficult, if not impossible, for a person to forgive someone who refuses to stop hurting her.  The hard work might involve working to prevent oneself and others from being wronged in the same way again.

Forgiveness can be difficult, but it is necessary if we are to live the lives of love, peace, freedom, and wholeness God wants for us.  May God help us to do the hard work of forgiveness.


Notes:

1. Matthew 18:21-35
2. $7.25/hour x 8 hours/day x 100 days = $5800.00
3. $7.25/hour x 8 hours/day x 5 days/week x 50 weeks/year x 15 years x 10,000 = $2,175,000,000.00
4. Wikipedia: "World Population" (retrieved October 2017)
5. Wesley Stephenson.  "Do the Dead Outnumber the Living?"  BBC News, 02/04/2012.
6. Matthew 6:12 (NRSV)
7. Matthew 6:14-15
8. Mark 11:20-24
9. Mark 11:25 (NRSV)
10. Ephesians 4:26-27 (NRSV)

Parable of the Wicked Servant was painted by Domenico Fetti in the early 1600s.

Perspective: Be Careful Whom You Call "Lost"

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Be Careful Whom You Call "Lost"

For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.

Luke 19:10 (NRSV)

Hello, it's Me

I couldn't sleep

I was just counting sheep

And I'm missing you

From "Bring You Back" by Paul Alan

If I had to choose a favorite kind of Bible passage, I would have to choose the parables of Jesus.  The parables, I believe, are not meant to teach us a singular lesson, but are rather meant to engage our imaginations with the goals of disrupting our normal ways of thinking, liberating us of our assumptions about reality, and revealing to us important truths about ourselves.  In other words, they mess with our heads.  It seems that, no matter how deeply I've dug into a parable, there are always more riches to be mined if I just keep digging.

Jesus had a reputation for associating with the types of people who were generally ostracized by the "good, upstanding religious folk" of the day - tax collectors, prostitutes, and the like.  One day, while teaching a crowd, He overhears some of His critics expressing their disapproval for His hanging out and eating with so-called "sinners," so He begins telling a series of parables.¹

First, Jesus tells a story about a shepherd who has one hundred sheep in his charge.  One day, the shepherd notices that one of the sheep is missing, so he leaves the ninety-nine where they are and heads out to look for the missing one.  When he finally finds the missing sheep, he picks it up, places it on his shoulders, and carries it back home.  Overjoyed, he calls on his friends and neighbors to join him in celebrating the recovery of the lost sheep.

Next, Jesus tells a story about a woman who has saved up ten drachmas - silver coins each of which is worth a day's wages.  One day, the woman notices that she is missing one of her coins, so she starts cleaning and searching her house.  When she finally finds her missing coin, she calls on her friends and neighbors to join her in celebrating the recovery of her lost coin.

These two parables establish a certain pattern:

1. Somebody realizes that something important to him or her is missing.
2. He or she searches for it until it is found.
3. Full of joy, the searcher celebrates because he or she has recovered what was lost.

In the first parable, a shepherd realizes that he is missing one of his sheep, so he searches for the sheep until he finds it and then invites his friends and neighbors to celebrate with him.  In the second parable, a woman realizes that she is missing a coin, so she searches her house until she finds it and then invites her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her.

Jesus then goes on to tell what is probably His most famous parable, a story about a rich man who has two sons.

One day, the younger of the two sons approaches his father and requests his share of the family fortune.  The father gives his son his inheritance, and, a few days later, the son moves far from home and begins living a life of wine, women, and song.  Eventually, his money dries up, and, to make matters worse, a famine strikes the land.  Desperate, the young man starts working for a pig farmer.  As he turns a lustful eye toward the junk he's feeding the pigs, he remembers how well his father treats his servants.  He decides to return home, apologize to his father, and beg his father to hire him as a servant.

When the son arrives at home, his father sees him from a distance and runs out to embrace him.  Before the son can even make his spiel, the father has him dressed in fine clothes and throws him a welcome home party.

Jesus' third parable seems to break with the pattern established by the first two.  A son leaves his home with his inheritance and squanders all of it by living a debauched lifestyle.  When he returns home, his father celebrates by throwing him a welcome home party.  It could be said that the father "loses" a son and celebrates when this son is "found," but, unlike the shepherd who searches for his lost sheep and the woman who searches for her lost coin, the father does not search for his "lost" son.  The shepherd is concerned enough about his lost sheep to leave his other sheep and search for it, and the woman is concerned enough about her lost coin to turn her house upside down looking for it, but the father doesn't seem very concerned about his "lost" son.

I wonder if maybe the father doesn't go out and look for his younger son because he knows that his son isn't really "lost" in the first place.  All the time, sons and daughters forsake their upbringing, spend some time living their lives on their own terms, come to realize how foolish they have been, and then get their lives back on track.  Are these sons and daughters ever really "lost," or is straying from one's upbringing only to eventually return to it just a part of growing up?  Perhaps the father realizes that his younger son is just going through a rebellious phase and that he will come to his senses eventually.

The Amish, who are known for their separation from modern society, their simplistic lifestyle, and their strict religiosity, have a practice called Rumspringa.  The enforcement of the Amish communities' rules are relaxed for teenagers, and a certain amount of misbehavior is expected and even overlooked.  Some youths even leave their homes for a while to see what the world is like outside their communities.  Ultimately, Amish youths will have to choose for themselves whether they will join their church and take on the expectations of their communities or leave the communities entirely.  A majority choose to remain within their communities, and even some of those who initially choose to leave eventually return.²

There is a second part to Jesus' third parable.

While the younger son was out living life on his own terms, the older son has been at home, working hard for his father.  While working in the field, the older son hears music and dancing, so he asks one of the servants what is going on.  The servant tells him that his brother has returned and that his father has thrown him a welcome home party.  The older son is livid.  His worthless brother leaves home, squanders their father's money doing God knows what, and then has the damn nerve to show his face at home, and then the old man throws him a party.  The older son has worked hard for his father and has never given him any grief whatsoever.  Where was his party?

The father notices that his older son is absent from the party, so he goes out to look for him.  When he finds his son, he pleads with him to join the celebration.  The son tells his father off, comparing himself to a slave and criticizing his father for his apparent lack of appreciation of him and for his favoritism toward his brother.  The father replies, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found."

It is the latter part of this third parable that more closely follows the pattern established by the first two.  While throwing a welcome home party for the younger son, the father realizes that the older son is missing, so he goes out and searches for him.³  There is indeed a "lost" son in this parable, but perhaps the lost son is not the rebellious younger son who leaves home to live life on his own terms for a while, but rather the well-behaved older son who stays at home, does everything that is expected of him, and silently grows resentful.  In the words of Kent Dobson, "Maybe the one you've lost is sleeping in your own house."⁴

Unfortunately, we do not know if the father gets to celebrate the recovery of his lost son.

With the first two parables, Jesus teaches His critics that He came to seek the lost.  With the third parable, He subtly suggests that they, and not the "sinners" who are drawn to Him, are the ones who are really lost.  "Sinners," represented by the younger son, are drawn to Jesus because He offers them the grace they need, grace denied to them by the typical religious folk, represented by the older son.

We need to be careful whom we label "lost."  People who screw up and make big messes of their lives are not necessarily lost.  Many of them would happily return home, spiritually speaking, and turn their lives around, but they need to know that they will be welcomed and accepted, in the same way that Jesus embraced the tax collectors, prostitutes, and other so-called "sinners."  The people who are truly lost are the ones who sit in churches every Sunday and look down their noses at the rest of the world.  They honor Christ with their lips, but their hearts are actually far from Him.⁵  What is truly tragic is that they don't even realize how lost they are.

The hazard of being religious is the temptation to forget how messed up we are.  We think that, for some reason, we have a special relationship with God, and we set ourselves apart as insiders among outsiders.  We focus on the wrongdoings of others, while developing a giant blind spot around ourselves.

Like so many of Jesus' parables, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is, I think, meant to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.  It is a comfort to those of us who are far from home, spiritually speaking, for it reminds us that we are always welcome to come home.  It is an affliction to those of us who have become complacent and self-righteous, for it warns us that we might be further from home than we think.  We're truly lost when we don't realize how lost we are.  May we be self-aware, and may we put aside our judgment as we seek to become like the One who welcomed the outcasts.


Notes:

1. A majority of this blog post is based on Luke 15.  Quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version
2. Wikipedia: "Rumspringa"
3. Kent Dobson.  "Parables: Prodigal Son."  Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 06/21/2015.
4. ibid.
5. Adapted from Isaiah 29:13

The Return of the Prodigal Son was painted by Pompeo Batoni in 1773.