The multiple liberties of forgiveness

As I have noted in past, Queen Elizabeth has been giving some really good Christmas messages in recent years.  To quote her 2011 message, "Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith."  Forgiveness is undervalued - by me among others.  There is an eternal value to forgiveness.  It is reconciliation with God, who is the source of all life.  Without that reconciliation we are, as St. Paul says, "Dead in our trespasses." (Ephesians 2:1)  And that kind of dead is really long term.

So there in an eternal liberty for us in the forgiveness we find in Jesus Christ.  That's the critical one.  But there are a few temporal liberties that are worth considering.

Forgiveness, and specifically forgiveness in Jesus makes us free from mendacity, to be people of truthfulness.  The connection between forgiveness and truth may not be immediately obvious.  Let me set it up for you.  We lie about ourselves, particularly our faults and failings - sins to use the biblical term.  We don't want people to know.  Sometimes we don't even want ourselves to know - enter the myriad of excuses for the stuff we know we should not do, or should have done and didn't.

But when we have received forgiveness, the sting of our sin is removed.  Speaking the truth to Jesus and coming clean with him makes us free to do the same with others.  "Wait.", he says, "I find it easier to tell that kind of truth to God privately, but telling other people, there's the problem."  Then I wonder if I have understood, fully grasped what forgiveness really is.  It is the removal of sin - it erasure.  And here is what we must remember, again in the words of St. Paul, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)  Being justified and forgiven by God means, and really means, that there is no longer any condemnation.  Our friends and neighbors might judge us - and some do - but it just doesn't matter.  "It is God who justifies, who is to condemn?"  (Romans 8:33-34)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it this way:
Complete truthfulness is only possible where sin has been uncovered, and forgiven by Jesus.  Only those who are in a state of truthfulness through the confession of their sin to Jesus are not ashamed to tell the truth wherever it must be told.  (The Cost of Discipleship, chapter 11)

In forgiveness we have the freedom to speak the truth.  We are no longer afraid of the disgrace of our sin.  That indeed is liberty.

But wait, there's more.  Freedom from vengeance.  This has more to do with extending forgiveness than receiving it. Here we will consider Klingons as an illustration of a kind of culture.  The fictional (and friends it  fictional; there are no real Klingons.)   The fictional culture of the Klingons is based on honor - living and dying honorably.  And when one is dishonored there is shame and rejection by others.  When shamed or dishonored, Klingons seek vengeance and retribution.  The one who has shamed or dishonored me must be made to pay.

To make it more real, this is also the nature of gang culture.  To be bested, to be sinned against causes shame which demands vengeance.  To make it even more real, it is the nature of my heart.  When another shames me, I want to strike back, to get even.  I must regain my honor.  Think Eliza Doolittle and 'Enry 'Iggins - just you wait (also previously noted here).

But forgiveness is about guilt - acknowledging that guilt, and being absolved - being done with it.  And this brings liberty.  Margaret Visser, in her book The Geometry of Love, says this:

But if no one will forgive, then human beings have no recourse but to a shame/revenge mechanism.  Here, people are defined by what they have done, or by what other people have done in their name...   Christianity advocates forgiveness, which enables human beings to feel guilt rather than shame for the wrong they have done - guilt being preferable to shame precisely because guilt, unlike shame, can be forgiven.  Revenge, which is indispensable for the recuperation of honour after its loss through shame, can be renounced if guilt replaces shame.*

Vengeance and the desire for it, pervades our every experience of personal injustice, real or imagined.  Having received mercy, however, we are free to extend mercy - to give up revenge and break the cycle of sin.  Here we experience a liberty ourselves, but we also extend a liberty to others.


*Margaret Visser, The Geometry of Love, Harper Collins, Toronto, 2000  p.131

Seek ye first

Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33)

I have been thinking about this little text - a part of Jesus' sermon on the mount.  It is a familiar one and for a certain generation of Christians evokes an over-sung worship chorus.  It is really solid advice and I am down with it.  But I have a question: How?  How does one seek first the kingdom of God? 

Well, when in doubt, check what the text says - in this case what Jesus says about it in Matthew.  Sadly, in this context, Jesus' focus is not the "how-to".  The above mentioned line comes at the end of Jesus' discussion or rather illustration of God's provision for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  These illustrations, in turn, come just after his command that we not be anxious about our life, "what you will eat or what you will drink." (Matthew 6:25)  Which, in turn, comes right after this statement:

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money" (Matthew 6:24)

So here is how all the dots connect.  You can only serve one master - God or money.  You are anxious and afraid about having "enough".  Anxiety about having enough is a sign that we are serving the money master, not God.  The illustrations of God feeding the birds of the air and clothing the field in beauty are there to remind us that God is quite the provider. That there is no need to worry about having enough, he's always provding enough.  So therefore seek first his kingdom and all these other things will be added.  The "seek ye first" command is the imperative which flows from the "You cannot serve God and money" declarative.

You can't serve God and money, therefore seek first the kingdom of God.  Pick one.  The right one. It is classic God.  Presenting us with options and then telling us which to choose - without coersion I parenthetically add.  We see a similar thing in Deuteronomy: 

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Therefore choose life...  (Deuteronomy 30:19)

So in the sermon on the mount, Jesus is making the options clear to us.  Be enslaved to money and worry, or seek the kingdom of God.  I'm down the latter option - seeking the kingdom of God.  But how?

There was a time when I would have confidently said this is it:  Live a morally good life, study the scritpures, and pray.  Sound simple, no?  But I find myself in the place of the rich young ruler who said, "All these I have kept.  What do I still lack?"  (Matthew 19:20) The morality of my life, and my diligence in study and prayer are open to the judgement of God, of course.  I am aware of a number of failings in those departments.  But my point is not how well I have sought the kingdom according those criteria, but rather, "What do I still lack?"  Because I do still lack something - at least it seems that way to me.

In both the sermon on the mount text and in the story of the rich young ruler cited here, God's competitor is wealth, money.  The rich guy went away because Jesus told him to sell his considerable wealth, give to the poor and then to follow him.  I cannot go further in trying to understand what it means to seek his kingdom without starting here.  Money, or preoccupation with it, is in the way.

I cannot serve God and seek his kingdom, and be first concerned with the security of wealth - by wealth I mean reasonable comfort not an island in the Carribean.  This kind of hits me between the eyes right now.  My salary has recently been reduced.  I am developing ways of making up the difference, but find myself a little anxious and fearful about what we shall eat and what we shall wear.  That underlines problem number One in my quest to seek his kingdom.  I am trying to serve two masters.

My immediate defense is that I need to concern myself with the practical realities of housing, feeding and clothing my family.  Mustn't be so heavenly minded that I am no earthly good, as they say.  But Jesus presents us with a relationship to God which actually excludes my "concern" for practical realities.  And by concern I mean worry.  The "no earthly good" critique seems rather out of place.  In Jesus, God is our Father who loves and provides for very earthly realities:

"Therefore do not be anxious saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the Gentiles (the ones who don't have this relationship with God) seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." (Matthew 6:31-32)

God knows what I need.  So leave that worry aside.  Until I do that there is no seeking of his kingdom.  That is a beginning place.

Beating a dead horse

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (Temperance) that the village I grew up in was a tourist attraction - a village restored to its 1860s glory.  Glory is perhaps a large word to describe it - I might be overselling.  In any case, one of the attractions of the village was a ride in a wagon pulled by a team of plodding draught horses.  "Plodding" and "draught horses" will help you understand that this was not a Kentucky Derby nor a Ben Hur chariot race experience.  Exciting it was not.  But it was charming and kids always loved it.  Delightful and uneventful.  Except for one day.

They say you can tell the age of a horse by checking its teeth.  I have never learned that particular interpretive skill, and have no plans to develop it.  But if I had done, and then checked the horses that day, I might have known that for one of them the "best before" date had expired.  Which is what he did on the ride.  Expired.  Sadly I did not witness this village excitement, but the tale spread like only town gossip can.

My source was our neighbor, whose family owned the local garage and the only tow truck in town.  "What's the connection?" you might ask.  How else does one remove the remains of a large (think Budwiser Clydesdale) equine?  The tow truck was called and we were later regaled with details of the said towing.  My neighbor discovered something of which I would not immediately think.   It seems that death reduces a physical body's ability for bladder control.

Why am I telling you this cheaply sensationalist story?  It was the only amusing way I could think of to introduce the idea of beating a dead horse.  I know that no beating occurred. But there was a dead horse. And that's something.*

To beat a dead horse is to waste time and energy on something that is not going to change.  And it is recommended that one does not beat a dead horse.  This bit of pithy advice is in contrast to widely distributed upteenth generation photocopies of a half-swallowed frog gripping the neck of a very hungry egret with the caption, "Never, never, never give up."  Now I admire tenacity, but not all situations call for tenacity.  There is a time, the writer Ecclesiastes tells us, for everything.  And to the point, "a time to search and a time to give up." (Ecclesiates 3:6, NIV)

So why am I so reticent to give up on things?  Because culturally, I think, to give up is to fail.  It has a  negative moral connotation.   Furthermore, if someone were to ask me, "are you going to give up?" or more likely, "are you JUST going to give up?" I would immediately feel ashamed of my failure and lack of stick-to-it-iveness.  (And if the "just" is included in the question the shame comes in the package, free of charge.)  It is just wrong to give up - I think so, as does the one who has asked me.  But, there IS a time to give up.

If you want to continue to think about this biblically, and include another barnyard animal in the bargain, I would direct your attention to Jesus' words, "Do not cast your pearls before swine." (Matthew 7:6)  Or his advice to the disciples as they went out two by two, "and if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town." (Matthew 10:14)  Both of these sound kind of givey-uppy to me.  But in both, Jesus himself tells us that there ARE things that are not a good use of our time and effort. And sometimes those things are particular people - not to put too fine a point on it.  There is a time to call it quits and to spare the poor sad horse.  And not to feel ashamed of it.

The difficulty is, as always, in discerning when is the time to be the half-swallowed frog and when is the time to let the horse alone.  It is beyond the scope of this modest text or my equally modest abilities to suggest a method of discernment.  But the discernment problem does not change the fact that, whatever "people" might say, there really is no point in beating a dead horse.



*My motivating philosophy in life is, "If you can't be good at it, at least be funny."

Afraid. And proud of it

I have a few guilty pleasures.  One example: I hide and hoard milk chocolate when I get it.  The guilty part is that it is MILK chocolate.  In the circles I run with, dark chocolate is the preference of the highbrow, cultivated palate.  I would rather eat nothing than dark chocolate.  It holds zero temptation for me.  But the lowbrow milk chocolate - that’s a horse of a different color.  I have two 100 gram bars of it hidden in my desk this very moment (and will now need to hide it somewhere else in case my children read this).

But I have been thinking about a guilty displeasure recently.  Fear.  You can call it fear or call it anxiety but it is what we feel whenever we find ourselves up against something bigger than ourselves.  Which, if you think about it, is quite a lot of the time.  It’s not pleasurable as a feeling itself. On top of that you aren’t supposed to be afraid.  Or that’s what I hear.

Faith is about trusting in God.  And if I trust in God, well then, I have nothing to feel anxious about.  God is bigger than anything.  In spite of this solid theological assertion I find myself feeling afraid from time to time. Viola, the guilty displeasure.  Clearly I haven’t enough faith because if I did, I wouldn’t feel afraid.  Not only am I anxious I am an anxious infidel. Fail.

I think this way of thinking utterly wrong-headed. Here’s the problem.  Someone, perhaps me, has assumed that having “negative” emotions as somehow morally or spiritually wrong.  I feel sad.  I shouldn’t because God loves me.  I feel afraid.  I shouldn’t because God is bigger than my problem.  My feelings then are evidence of my faithlessness.  That’s the wrong-headed bit.

Here’s a tip for life: Never use “should” or its negation in a sentence containing an emotive state.  Examples: I should feel happy.  I shouldn’t feel angry.  Nonsensical.  And unhelpful because the should statement doesn’t change the feeling - it just seasons it with shame.

Fear, or sadness or anger for that matter, is a fact of life.  There are things that are scary, that seem to be or actually are bigger than me.  There are things that could actually bring me hurt or harm.  Not feeling fear would be a sign that I do not have a firm grasp on the reality of the situation.

I feel all sorts of things that are negative and that does NOT mean I have a defect of faith.  Emotions exist for a reason.  They are part of God’s design in us.  Gifts, actually.  They tell us something.  In the case of fear, that something is looming large and, in some way, threatening.  I then need to ask, “What is that something?”

I am not here advocating a state of cowardly living.  The fear tells me something threatens.  Once I know what the something is I have to decide what to do about that threat. And I do need to face it in some way. Here’s where the faith comes in - trusting to God what I have to do to face that fear.  Trusting in God when I need to step out and take action in faith.  Or trusting by doing nothing, having faith that God will deliver me.    

In that exercise of faith I must be truthful and realistic. I have experienced God’s intervention or empowerment a hundred times in the past I know he will come through.  He does not fail.  But I still tremble a little.  To take away that fear, or a sadness is to make me less human.

I think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  Threatened with the fate of the fiery furnace they stuck to their guns and refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar. (Daniel 3)  Courageous men they were.  Faithful men.  That does not mean they were not afraid.  They say to Nebuchadnezzar:

“O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. BUT IF NOT, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18, ESV, emphasis mine.

I want you to pay attention to the BUT IF NOT.  There was a question. And there is always a question in matters of real faith and trust.  And where there is a question, an unknown, there is fear or anxiety.  They were undaunted in their resolve not because of an eradication of fear, but in refusing to let fear be the last word.

So I cling to my guilty pleasures and displeasures.  Afraid and proud of it.

Temperance

Sherbrooke Village is a tourist attraction which is part of the village in which I was raised.  It is a part of town that has been restored to the 1860s - an open-air museum they call it.  One of the features of the Village (as locals call it) is the Temperance Hall, a building which is testament to the movement beginning in the late 18th century and continuing into the 20th century where its most famous fruit was Prohibition.  The Temperance movement encouraged and lobbied for the regulation and, ultimately, the banning of the sale of alcohol.

The funny thing about the Temperance Hall in Sherbrooke Village is that the Royal Canadian Legion met in the basement.  For those unfamiliar with "the Legion" as we call it in Canada, it is famously a watering hole for armed forces veterans.  For those unfamiliar with the term "watering hole" because, perhaps you are part of the 21st century Temperance Movement, it is a bar - a place to buy the very thing to which the builders of the Temperance Hall were opposed.

All this to say that "temperance" in current usage is almost always taken to mean abstinence from alcohol.  And we lose the broader and more helpful understanding of the word.

Temperance is one of the cardinal virtues - cardinal not because they are associated with Roman clerics in red, nor less the similarly colored bird, but because they are of chief or central importance.  This is the original use of the word cardinal.  Temperance's cardinal siblings are justice, prudence and fortitude or courage.

Temperance as a virtue is the practiced capacity - and it does rather need practice - to curb one's own desires and appetites.  Curb is the operative word here.  We do not say eradicate.  The interesting thing about Christian moral theology is that it, unlike other approaches to the problems of excess, affirms the good of things, like drink or food or sex, and believes virtue is not in total denial of these good things, but in their enjoyment in good order, in temperance.

Temperance is particularly important because without restraining our own desires and passions we are not able to act rightly in all circumstances (prudence) or give each person what is due him or her (justice) or stand firm in the face of opposition and trial (fortitude).  Intemperate love of our own good and comfort clearly gets in the way of these other virtues.

Temperance, like much moral virtue, has the reputation of being a killjoy.  Temperate people are rather dull.  No excitement or drama.  But that is to misunderstand temperance as that which tells us always to say "no".  The truly temperate are those who have the self-command to say both "no" and "yes".  The intemperate always say one or the other.  The spendthrift is always saying "yes" and the miser, "no".  Both are intemperate, even if only the former appears that way.

There is no good thing absolutely prohibited by the Christian Scriptures - unless you consider the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to be a good. (Genesis 2 & 3)  But neither is there a good thing whose use or enjoyment is permitted without limit or boundary, God Himself excepted.  The Goods given are for our enjoyment and benefit - as are the limits.

When we love things intemperately, use them intemperately we lose their good and often become bound or addicted to them.  And at that point, if we are ever to be free, we then need to always say no.  In this we see the wisdom of temperance.  It gives us the capacity to continue to enjoy all the good things God has given.  No excitement or drama, but a lifelong enjoyment and satisfaction.

Wait, why am I doing this?

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that New Year's resolutions have gone a bit out of fashion.  My perception may be due to the fact that I haven't made one in years,* and not because there is no room for improvement in my life or character.  Going barreling along from one calendar year to another, one hardly takes a breath to consider what, if anything, might benefit some adjustment.

But that is the great value of a New Year or a new season of anything.  It can provide us an opportunity to stop and rethink what we are doing and why we are doing it.  Just such a rethinking came my way a few days ago, and not because I was looking for it.  It was something I read in Isaiah 12 that got me thinking.

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  And you will say in that day:
Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name
make known his deeds among the peoples
proclaim that his name is exalted.
(Isaiah 12:3-4)

The prophet Isaiah speaks a word of promise to a people facing challenge and exile, people living in a time bereft of joy.  And he promises that God will save and that they will draw on that salvation with joy.  And that they will respond with thankfulness, turning afresh to him (calling on his name), making his deeds known among the peoples and proclaiming his name as exalted.  Now it is these last two that got me thinking and reconsidering.

"Make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted."  That is to say, when you experience the saving power of God, make it known, honor his name.  Judaism is not a faith that seeks converts, like Christians or Muslims, but nonetheless the Jews of Isaiah's day are encouraged to let the peoples know, to proclaim the name of the Lord.

But the question is, why?  As a Christian I would immediately think of evangelism, or the great commission given by Jesus to make disciples of all nations.  As a pastor and church planter I would immediately think of strategies for church growth and bringing more people into the fold.  But again, why?

Going barreling on from one calendar year to another, I hardly take a breath to consider why evangelism is important or why I want the church to grow.  And barreling along, I am afraid my reasons may not be the best ones, nor yet the one that is alluded to in Isaiah 12.  Our efforts of outreach, evangelism and church growth are often staged to serve ourselves.  If there are more people in church we will feel better and it will be more comfortable and "successful".

We may not be quite so self-serving in our evangelism in that we may have a real concern for others who are lost and estranged from God.  This is good.  But it still isn't what drives the proclamation in Isaiah 12.

In Isaiah all these actions - the thanksgiving, the calling upon his name, the making his deeds know, the exalting of his name - are driven by a desire that God and his name, his reputation, his work and salvation is lifted up and known.  Those who experience his salvation want Him to be known and honored because of it.

That is what made me stop and say, "Wait, why am I doing this?"  (and by "this" I mean all the works of the church). It needs not to be for the purposes of "church growth" or swelling the ranks, but rather driven out of a desire that the deeds and the name of the God of Love be made known and exalted.  Jesus taught us this when he taught us to pray.  The first petition of the Lord's Prayer is "Hallowed be thy Name".  Its placement at the outset of the prayer underlines the point.  Why am I doing this?  Because He is indescribable and honor is due his name.


*I did think a few weeks ago that I'd like to train for a triathlon this year, and not one of the "TinfoilMan" sprint ones, but at least an Olympic distance.  But I can assure you that it is not a resolution because I am far from resolved to do it.

Sentimental Machiavellians

I was listening to a story on the BBC World Service this morning about the recycling of used pacemakers for use in the developing world.  There are laws and regulations in most developing countries that prevent the re-use of these devices.  There is a charitable organization in the U.K. which is working to facilitate this recylcing.  It involves working with families of people who have died and asking them to donate this small device.  It is a great idea making this life-extending technology available in places where the cost would make it prohibitive.  The human interest in this story was a older man in Mumbai, India who would likely have died some years ago had it not been for this effort.  At the end of the story it is noted that this man is now playing with his 8-month old granddaughter.  It is wonderful.

But then the reporter makes a statement that sounds lovely and heartwarming but disturbed me deeply.  Something like this: From the perspecitve of this man who had the joy and privilege of enjoying his granddaughter, the reporter said, "the complex logistics of ethics are unimportant."  Loved the story until this point.  Then I was disturbed.

First it is disturbing because I'm not sure it is true.  I am not convinced that her research into his history and convictions was enough to allow her to draw the conclusion that he felt the "complex logistics of ethics" unimportant.  What was clear, however, was that the reporter certainly held this view.  It would have been more truthful and journalistically transparent for her to say that, upon seeing this lovely family scene, to HER the "complex logistics of ethics are unimortant."  So first, own your own convictions and don't project them onto someone else.

Second, it is distrubing because, for many, I am sure it IS true. It is the cry "Don't confuse me with notions of right and wrong when something makes me feel warm and comforted inside."  As a grandfather myself I am delighted that this man had the joy of knowing his granddaughter.    However good and desirable a thing might be, it does not give us license to avoid the hard work of considering the moral and ethical implications of how we get to that good.  We have become, I am afraid, Machiavellians. But with a twist.  No one would accuse the author of "The Prince" of being sentimental.  The end justifies the means he said, however brutal or costly those means are.

We are Sentimental Machiavellians. The end (feeling a cheering and warm sentiment about something) justifies the means.  The "complex logistics" of right and wrong don't matter.  But they do. 

The pacemaker story is perhaps a bad example.  There is nothing in the practice of respectfully asking families if they are willing to donate a device that their loved one needs no longer to help prolong lives in developing countries.  And that's why the "complex logistics" comment is even more disturbing.  Slipped into a very good an reasonable story of people finding ways to help others in need is a bald and dangerous philosophical statement that encourages us to turn our attention from the consideration of what is right and wrong to the experience of having our heart warmed.

It is immaterial what altar we sacrifice the very real need for ethical consideration, be it political expediency or sentimental heart-warming or something else.  Ethics - right and wrong - matter and should not be so lightly dismissed.  Machiavellians, whether hard-hearted or sentimental, have it wrong.