Scandalous Grace (Sermon)

 “Scandalous Grace”

Psalm 105:1-2, 37-45 and Matthew 20:1-16

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/24/23

 

 Give thanks to the Lord;

    call upon his name;
    make his deeds known to all people!
² Sing to God;
    sing praises to the Lord;
    dwell on all his wondrous works!

Then God brought Israel out, filled with silver and gold;
    not one of its tribes stumbled.
³⁸ Egypt celebrated when they left,
    because the dread of Israel had come upon them.

³⁹ God spread out clouds as a covering;
    gave lightning to provide light at night.
⁴⁰ The people asked, and God brought quail;
    God filled them full with food from heaven.
⁴¹ God opened the rock and out gushed water—
    flowing like a river through the desert!
⁴² Because God remembered his holy promise
    to Abraham his servant,
⁴³     God brought his people out with rejoicing,
    his chosen ones with songs of joy.
⁴⁴ God gave them the lands of other nations;
    they inherited the wealth of many peoples—
⁴⁵         all so that they would keep his laws
        and observe his instructions.

(Psalm 105:1-2, 37-45 – CEB)

 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ² After he agreed with the workers to pay them a denarion, he sent them into his vineyard.

³ “Then he went out around nine in the morning and saw others standing around the marketplace doing nothing.⁴ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I’ll pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵ And they went.

“Again around noon and then at three in the afternoon, he did the same thing. ⁶ Around five in the afternoon he went and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you just standing around here doing nothing all day long?’

⁷ “‘Because nobody has hired us,’ they replied.

“He responded, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

⁸ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and moving on finally to the first.’ ⁹ When those who were hired at five in the afternoon came, each one received a denarion.¹⁰ Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarion. ¹¹ When they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹² ‘These who were hired last worked one hour, and they received the same pay as we did even though we had to work the whole day in the hot sun.’

¹³ “But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I did you no wrong. Didn’t I agree to pay you a denarion? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go. I want to give to this one who was hired last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵ Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you resentful because I’m generous?’

¹⁶ So those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last.”                 (Matthew 20:1-16 – CEB)

 

         In Genesis, God tells Abram, “I will make of you a great nation and will bless you…[and] all the families of the earth will be blessed because of you.” (Genesis 12:2a, 3b)

Unlike other nations, though, this new, blessed to be a blessing nation will linger through the ages not because of glorious cities and powerful armies. This nation-within-the-nations identifies itself by doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. (Micah 6:8) Israel’s defining characteristics derive from her signature innovation—monotheism. The people proclaim Yahweh, the Holy Onewho creates, sustains, and redeems, all things, everywhere.

         In the experience of the Exodus, and in the giving of the law, we see only the preliminary markings of Israel’s foundation. While under construction, the Hebrews learn to trust and follow God—no matter where they are, no matter their joys or sufferings. And when the people do suffer, God sends prophets to call them back to the ways of hesed—the ways of steadfast love. To be restored, say the prophets, care for those who cannot care for themselves. Work for and demand justice from the powerful and the privileged. Embody humility, hospitality, gratitude, and generosity.

Faithfulness to God becomes complicated, though. And many generations into Israel’s existence, when she is still barely a toddler, God, through Isaiah, says, I understand how difficult this is for you, so remember, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my” thoughts and ways higher than yours. (Isaiah 55:9)

When Jesus shows up, he reminds us that God’s creation of the new community continues to be a work in progress. With one disruptive teaching after another, Jesus pushes the spiritual, social, economic, and political ethics of hesed to a whole new level. And he reveals that God is, frankly, not entirely fair. And yet it’s God’s lack of fairness that reveals God’s unfathomable grace.

In the parable of the workers in the vineyard, those who worked only the last hour receive the same pay as those who worked all day. And like the Hebrews grumbling in the wilderness, those who worked all day grumble at the vineyard owner’s scandalous generosity. When confronted with pure grace, a heart driven by ego and narrow dualism will protest saying, That’s not fair!

A preaching professor in seminary began a sermon one time by saying he had some bad news and some good news. The bad news was that God isn’t fair. The good news was that God isn’t fair.

         It seems to me that the grumbling of the workers sums up human sin. Human beings have always been obsessed with measuring the value of others over against the value we place on ourselves or our groups. And while it is harmful to under-value ourselves, God compels us to accept as equals even those people, whoever they are. And this can perplex the dual mind with its black-white, us-them mentality. Indeed, it can become as offensive as the Hebrews’ suggestion that one God, their God, created and watches over the whole world.

All around that world today, people cry out in anguish, desperate to be recognized as fully human. And their cries are often met with the grumblings of those who don’t understand, and who feel threatened by calls for equality and action for justice.

I feel the anger and grief of those whose humanity has been ignored and attacked. And as a follower of Jesus, I try to stand in solidarity with them because they are children of God who bear God’s image. I am no more valuable than someone languishing in the slums of Baltimore or Bangladesh, or locked up in prison. And when I act as if my life matters more than theirs, I’m a worker grumbling at the end of the day because I don’t want to imagine them as equals before God. And when I’m honest, I have to admit that because of the skin, family, and culture into which I was born, I received more than a day’s wage before I even showed up! So, when I grumble, my own condemnation lies in my grumbling. When I grumble, I reject the grace of God who does not need my permission to love and to value all that God has created. That’s when God says to me, Allen, “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you resentful because I’m generous?”

Now—I also feel angry and grieved when cries for equality and justice turn violent. Violence redeems nothing. That’s the very point of the cross in the Christian faith. The Church has too-often claimed that God was so perplexed and offended by human sin that if there were to be heaven at all, there had to be hell to pay. Someone had to die. So, God sacrificed Jesus to satisfy God’s fury and to restore God’s ability to love.

As I’ve said many times: Any god who requires violence to be restored to wholeness is a golden calf, an idol made in our image. The cross does not reveal God’s wrath in the face of human sin. The cross reveals human frailty when it meets the height, and depth, and breadth of God’s grace. God did not demand Jesus’ death. We did. We killed Jesus because he was just too good to be true.

Jesus loves beyond the boundaries set by tradition. He offers a full day’s wage to last-hour hires. And yet, because God’s grace has no end, even our brutal violence against God Incarnate, does not condemn us forever. Friday is not the last word. Sunday is. Sunday is also the first word of new beginnings. Sunday lays new foundations. New promises. New hope.

 “If I were to name the Christian religion,” says Richard Rohr, “I would probably call it ‘The Way of the Wound.’ Jesus agrees to be the Wounded One, and…we…come to God not through our strength but through our weakness.”¹

The parable of the workers in the vineyard proclaims God’s incomprehensible grace. And in doing so, it exposes human weakness. It exposes our self-consuming appetite to see ourselves as superior to others. And even that is grace because before grace saves us, it scandalizes us into wakefulness.

Before grace can make a difference in our lives, we have to admit our aversion to grace. We confess our religious devotion to things like materialism, individualism, and retribution. And we must acknowledge the various Christ-denying supremacies of race, status, and culture to which that religion leads. When we surrender to the scandal of grace, we begin to recognize and celebrate God’s Sunday love for all people and all Creation.

I love all of you, says Jesus. There is no black or white, rich or poor, male or female. So, receive my love. Receive it for the sake of others as well as for your own sake. It comes to you by grace alone.

And when latecomers receive what you have received, celebrate with them. For you, as a nation-within-the-nations, are a sign of God’s household of grace.

And when you just can’t comprehend God’s grace, says Jesus, share it. The best way to understand that there is enough for everyone is by giving something away—especially to those who don’t seem to deserve it­.

 

¹https://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/49CA59C9E571AF9C2540EF23F30FEDED/A2AE94689C106E613D3F7F9A22A6E02E

To Forgive as We Are Forgiven (Sermon)

 “To Forgive as We Are Forgiven”

Psalm 103:1-14 and Matthew 18:21-35

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/17/23

 

Let my whole being bless the Lord!
    Let everything inside me bless his holy name!
² Let my whole being bless the Lord
    and never forget all his good deeds:
³     how God forgives all your sins,
    heals all your sickness,
⁴     saves your life from the pit,
    crowns you with faithful love and compassion,
⁵     and satisfies you with plenty of good things
        so that your youth is made fresh like an eagle’s.

⁶ The Lord works righteousness;
    does justice for all who are oppressed.
⁷ God made his ways known to Moses;
    made his deeds known to the Israelites.
⁸ The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
    very patient, and full of faithful love.
⁹ God won’t always play the judge;
    he won’t be angry forever.
¹⁰ He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin
    or repay us according to our wrongdoing,
¹¹     because as high as heaven is above the earth,
    that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.
¹² As far as east is from west—
    that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.
¹³ Like a parent feels compassion for their children—
    that’s how the Lord feels compassion for those who honor him.
¹⁴ Because God knows how we’re made,
    God remembers we’re just dust.

(Psalm 103:1-14 – CEB)

 

²¹ 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?”

²² Jesus said, “Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times. ²³ Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ When he began to settle accounts, they brought to him a servant who owed him ten thousand bags of gold. ²⁵ Because the servant didn’t have enough to pay it back, the master ordered that he should be sold, along with his wife and children and everything he had, and that the proceeds should be used as payment. ²⁶ But the servant fell down, kneeled before him, and said, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ ²⁷ The master had compassion on that servant, released him, and forgave the loan.

²⁸ “When that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred coins. He grabbed him around the throat and said, ‘Pay me back what you owe me.’

²⁹ “Then his fellow servant fell down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ ³⁰ But he refused. Instead, he threw him into prison until he paid back his debt.

³¹ “When his fellow servants saw what happened, they were deeply offended. They came and told their master all that happened. ³² His master called the first servant and said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you appealed to me. ³³ Shouldn’t you also have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ His master was furious and handed him over to the guard responsible for punishing prisoners, until he had paid the whole debt.

³⁵ “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if you don’t forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

(Matthew 18:21-35 – CEB)

 

 

         Peter is always pushing boundaries, always trying to wedge his will into Jesus’ teachings. In today’s passage, he wants some clarification on this whole business of forgiveness. How often should we forgive? he asks. As many as seven times?

         No, says Jesus, not seven times, but seventy-seven times, or—according to some translations—seventy times seven. Even with my fourth-grade aptitude in math, I know that equals 490.

One has to imagine Peter standing there in disbelief saying, What?! Forgive that lying, cheating, good-for-nothing four-hundred-ninety times?!

Forgiving the same person nearly five hundred times seems like too much to ask, doesn’t it? Besides, when does extending that much grace make you a doormat or even an enabler?

Into that moment of mystified resentment Jesus launches into the distressing parable of the unforgiving servant. It’s distressing because Jesus uses hyperbole to jar his listeners into re-imagining the role of faith in the world.

God’s household, says Jesus, is like a servant who owes his master 10,000 bags of gold. Where the Common English Bible uses “bags of gold,” the NRSV uses “talents.” And while there’s no consensus on what that figure equals in contemporary terms, a conservative appraisal suggests that 10,000 talents represent more than a hundred thousand years of a laborer’s wages. So, when Jesus tells his story and asks his hearers to imagine a servant asking for a little more time to come up with the money, he’s not being playful. He’s being preposterous. It’s impossible for a servant to pay off a debt of more than 3 billion dollars. This is Jesus’ way of saying that this story is about more than money.

Jesus is also gently chiding Peter for trying to keep accounts. To keep track of how many times who forgives whom is to avoid forgiveness, or to use it as some kind of leverage over other people. It’s like saying: Don’t forget, I forgave you when you were unkind to me, or failed to have my back, or to thank me. So, you owe me!

If that’s how Peter understands forgiveness, then neither seven times, nor seventy-seven times, nor four-hundred-ninety times will ever be enough, because he is keeping score. He will always be the servant who begs for mercy but refuses to grant it.

There’s a cliché we’re all probably familiar with: Forgive-and-forget. Forgive-and-forget works for spilled milk, or for an oversight by your bridge partner, or for buying mint chocolate chip ice cream instead of the butter pecan your spouse asked for.

Forgive-and-forget does not, however, apply to matters that cause genuine harm and suffering. Even true forgiveness does not forget intentional betrayal or injury. Indeed, true forgiveness remembers what caused the suffering. True forgiveness looks the offender in the eye and says, What happened should not have happened. It caused me great suffering, and neither you nor I will forget it. Nor should we. While our relationship will be different from now on because of what happened, we have been through it together. So, I choose not allow that moment, nor its memory, to limit my joy or to control my future. I will not allow it to reduce me to something less than I am in Christ. Will you walk with me through this death-shadowed valley and into new light and new life?

Forgiveness is not fulfilled by simply declaring forgiveness any more than a marriage is fulfilled by saying “I do.” To forgive is to ask the other person to join us on a journey toward new relationship and new wholeness. That person may not come with us. They may not even acknowledge a need to be forgiven. And when that’s the case, forgiveness becomes that much harder, and that much more important. To withhold forgiveness until it is earned, or to use it as a self-aggrandizing gesture, is to keep score. And that means we’re not settling debts; we’re racking them up.

The same is true when we find ourselves needing to confess to someone else and to ask their forgiveness. In confession, we acknowledge to another that our decisions and actions have caused suffering. That person may not be ready to forgive, but just as we can begin the journey of forgiving another, we can also begin the journey of being forgiven.

Whether forgiving or being forgiven, when humbly offered, the act of forgiveness releases us from the toxic burdens of resentment and vengeance. It banishes the demons of judgment. So, whether given or received, forgiveness is nothing less than the way of resurrection.

Because forgiveness is a way of life that requires practice, and because it’s a cross to bear, maybe it’s helpful to try learn to forgive ourselves first, to confess our own selfish judgments and fears, and to offer grace to ourselves. To forgive as we are forgiven is to love as we are loved.

I think Jesus refers to self-forgiveness when he speaks of forgiving “from the heart.” Our unforgiven selves can’t be truly grateful for the grace God shows to us, nor can we share that grace with others.

It seems to me, then, that in Jesus’ parable, the so-called master doesn’t represent God—in fact, not at all. He represents forgiveness itself. When shared, forgiveness has the power to set us free from crushing imbalance. It has the power to give us new life. And when withheld, it has the power to burden us, to imprison us in the bitterness and hopelessness of score-keeping.

Having said that, forgiveness does not allow wrong-doing to continue just because we have found the strength to forgive. While Jesus forgives unilaterally and completely, he does not ignore or excuse actions that require forgiveness. The whole point of the Incarnation is that, in Jesus, God enters a world of resentment and retribution to demonstrate love and to do justice because allowing us to continue living and acting destructively is neither loving nor just.

There’s one dynamic in today’s parable that never gets attention. What happens to the relationship between the unforgiving servant and those who report his un-forgiveness? While their actions help to end one person’s injustice, they also deliver that person into a place where he will never again experience forgiveness. Can such relationships be redeemed?

         The parable may have a preposterous set-up, but that unanswered question is real and relevant. How can we address our own unresolved issues of confession, repentance, and forgiveness? Where will we find the strength and grace to forgive as we are forgiven? How will we live the parables of our own lives so that we witness faithfully to the restorative love and justice of God in Christ?

As followers of Jesus, our demonstration of love and our work for justice begins in our own hearts where we forgive ourselves. Then, it moves out to our own families and communities where we forgive each other.

And from there, we move even further, with our hands and feet, hearts and tongues, eyes and ears—all in grateful witness to God’s redeeming love and restorative justice in and for all Creation.

Here I Am! Who Am I? (Sermon)

 “Here I Am! Who Am I?”

Exodus 3:1-15

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/10/23

 

         In the book of Exodus, Pharaoh is more than one particular Egyptian ruler. Like Jezebel, Herod, and Caesar, he’s a metaphor for every proud autocrat obsessed with himself and with power. When feeling personally and politically threatened, Pharaoh gives an order to kill all new-born, Hebrew males.

During this holocaust, Pharaoh’s daughter goes to the river to bathe. She finds a Hebrew baby boy in a basket floating in the reeds. In an act of grace that mirrors God’s adoption of the Hebrew people in the first place, she embraces this vulnerable baby and claims him as her own. Then she finds a Hebrew nursemaid who “just happens” to be the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter doesn’t know about this relationship, but Moses’ mother, his sister, and we do. Working through three women, God’s subversive love works against Pharaoh to create a bond between the child and his true identity.

One can imagine that growing up in Pharaoh’s home, Moses feels increasing tension between who he appears to be and who he feels like. Eventually, he claims and commits himself to a particular identity. When witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, Moses picks up a brick and kills the Egyptian.

         After that, the Egyptians want Moses dead, and the Hebrews want nothing to do with him. So, Moses flees to the Midianite wilderness, and there he rescues some women from some thugs who are trying to run the women away from a watering hole. This good deed lands Moses in the good graces of the women’s father, a landowner named Jethro. And the grateful Jethro offers one of his daughters to Moses as a wife. Married, familied, and employed, Moses’ life finally has purpose and stability.

         Then, years later:

 

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ²There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. ³Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”

⁴When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

And [Moses] said, “Here I am.”

⁵Then [God] said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

⁶[God] said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

⁷Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, ⁸and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

¹¹But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

¹²[God] said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

¹³But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

¹⁴God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’’

¹⁵God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.” (NRSV)

 

In the conversation, God says, Moses, I have seen my people’s misery…I have heard their cries…I feel their sufferings…I will deliver them.

Then God says, Moses, You go to Egypt. You face Pharaoh. You deliver my people.

At first, Moses had said, “Here I am!” Now, overwhelmed, he asks, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?”

         Who am I? Whether that’s modesty or fear, I have to imagine Moses asking that question as one who has struggled all his life with identity and belonging. He was born a Hebrew slave, raised as a privileged Egyptian, escaped as a murderer. And now he’s living as an ordinary husband, father, son-in-law, and shepherd.

         “Here I am!” Who am I?

         It’s powerfully instructive that when Moses asks what he should say when the Hebrews ask who sent him, God says, Tell them, I AM WHO I AM sent you. While that may seem like an unsatisfying answer, as people of God, our understanding of the essential being of God—the is-ness of God—shapes who we are.

If we believe God is legalistic and vengeful, we will be legalistic and vengeful.

If we believe God is creative and loving, we will be creative and loving.

If we believe God is jealous and exclusive, we will be jealous and exclusive.

If we believe God advocates for the poor and the oppressed, we will advocate for the poor and the oppressed.

If we believe God requires violence and suffering to be “satisfied,” we will commit violence and inflict suffering trying to please God.

If we believe God redeems human suffering by entering it, we will enter the lives of those who suffer and help to bear their burdens.

As people of faith, our understanding of who God is has everything to do with our understanding of who we are. And God knows our essential being, as well. God knows who Moses is. God knows that Moses does not tolerate injustice, and he shows no hesitation in confronting it. God trusts Moses to act on behalf of those who are exploited. Without even having a term for it yet, Moses already sees and lives toward God’s “promised land.” And isn’t that the very nature of faith? Living into a future we cannot see, while trusting that God is already holding us within it?

“And this shall be the sign…that it is I who sent you,” says God, “when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

That declaration is as dangerous as it is hopeful. It’s dangerous because it can easily be twisted into the horrific, Machiavellian fallacy of ends justifying means. From the wider witness of scripture, we learn that means and ends are intimately intertwined. The journey is the gift, so, the means of the journey are essential to the outcome, even when it includes wandering the wilderness. To know God’s deliverance means to live each moment as if God’s promises were already fulfilled—even when fulfillment is so obviously incomplete.

For Christians, every Sunday is an Easter celebration. We declare that God creates new life out of death, new hope out of despair, a new future out of a past riddled with pain and bitterness. And every journey from death to resurrection involves some kind of Exodus which begins with a call to which we often say, Here I am, and then, Wait, who am I to do that? Saying Yes to God’s call means saying Yes to some kind of death on the way to new life.

Think again about Moses: To lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, it takes someone who is familiar with the house of Israel and the house of Pharaoh, and who is sufficiently distant from both.

It takes someone who has already journeyed through all manner of adversity.

It takes someone who’s had a transforming experience of God.

It takes someone who has died to his ego enough to say, I am going to need help. And it takes that kind of death to learn to trust a challenging call from I AM WHO I AM.

So, at God’s call, Moses dies a revitalizing death so that he, and his brother, Aaron, might lead a protracted, two-person protest march against the systemic evils of Pharaoh’s Egypt. And as is always—eventually—the case in human societies, when Pharaoh refuses to humble himself, to listen, and to do justice, his own people suffer the most.

One of the liturgical terms for the Lord’s Supper is The Feast of Victory; and the elements of this feast are symbols associated with Friday, the day of apparent defeat. The bread and the cup remind us that God is not satisfied by Jesus’ death. Only human-imaged idols demand revenge. Friday is what we give God to work with. And God, being I AM WHO I AM from beginning to end, redeems Friday. On Friday, the immutable energy of love and restorative justice we call God transforms Jesus into another bush that burns without being consumed.

On Sunday, God declares that a new deliverance has begun.

On Sunday God announces, and calls us to share, that Pharaoh-defying, Creation-transforming promise called Resurrection.

A New Point of View (Sermon)

 “A New Point of View”

Micah 6:6-8 and 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

9/3/23

 

With what should I approach the Lord
        and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
        with year-old calves?
⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
        with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
        the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
⁸ He has told you, human one, what is good and
        what the Lord requires from you:
            to do justice, embrace faithful love,

and walk humbly with your God.

(Micah 6:6-8 – CEB)

 

¹⁴ The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: one died for the sake of all; therefore, all died. ¹⁵ He died for the sake of all so that those who are alive should live not for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised.

¹⁶ So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now. ¹⁷ So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!

¹⁸ All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ¹⁹ In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.

²⁰ So we are ambassadors who represent Christ. God is negotiating with you through us. We beg you as Christ’s representatives, “Be reconciled to God!” ²¹ God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:14-21 - CEB)

 

 

         The young Corinthian church is up to its neck in conflict. When Paul isn’t there, who has authority to teach faithful Christian understanding? In that bustling, multicultural seaport, what constitutes faithful Christian practice and witness?

In his letters, Paul reminds the Corinthians that, through Christ, God is reconciling an alienated world to God’s own Self. Indeed, the Incarnation of Christ bears dramatic witness to God’s intent to restore humankind to the grateful and generous living that makes a person truly human.

Paul defines truly human as having “the mind of Christ,” that is, living in continual awareness of the presence of the Divine. When we reconnect with our true humanity, with our true selves, the Spirit awakens us and restores our sight. And then, Paul says, we no longer regard anyone according to false or selfish “human standards.” As new creations, we become expressions of God’s reconciling grace.

         As cozy as that sounds, transformation is difficult business. Holiness and reconciling grace flash and rumble in our lives when the warm front of God’s love meets the cold air of our false selves. And in this perfect storm, the imperfect world tends to crucify those who choose reconciliation over pride, compassion over power, and love over fear.

Even when it’s between just two individuals, reconciliation helps to restore balance to all creation. Over the centuries, though, the Church has usually tried to restore balance the way nations do—through force and the imposition of absolutes. Just make everyone look alike and think alike, and we’ll all get along. And in Jesus’ name, the Church has endorsed and even participated in unspeakable inhumanity against human beings and the earth in order to make people, communities, and even geographies fit into the dogmas of those holding dominance.

         Brian McLaren says that one of Christianity’s great failures has been to reduce faith to systematic theologies. So, what began as a holy path, a way to live God’s new point of view, has been locked inside gated communities of rigid ideology. And why? Why do we respond more readily to wall-building fear than to bridge-building grace? 

         It seems to me that we all harbor both obvious and hidden wounds. When those wounds are not acknowledged honestly and dealt with graciously, they emerge as bitterness, as judgment, as scapegoating violence against people we don’t like.

Grounded in the old points of view of suspicion and competition, we say things like: Look out for Number One! God helps those who help themselves! And doesn’t that point of view destroy any desire for reconciliation?

         Paradoxically, when we find the strength and the will to face our own sinfulness and woundedness, we begin to find the strength and the will to follow paths of holiness and reconciliation. So, making peace with others begins by making peace with ourselves, and peacemaking requires the hard spiritual work of honest self-examination. Through reflection, we rummage around in those dark corners where we hide all the things that frighten and embarrass us. We acknowledge them, confess them, and offer them to God. Such work paves the way for self-forgiveness. And to forgive ourselves is to receive God’s grace.

We “accept being accepted—for no reason…whatsoever!” says Richard Rohr. “This is the key that unlocks everything in me, for others, and toward God. So much so that we call it ‘salvation’!”¹ This transformation is not required for becoming disciples. It’s the goal of discipleship. And the deeper we go within ourselves, the more we encounter God’s grace calling us out of ourselves and into the world with this new, and re-newing point of view. Isn’t this what Jesus means when he calls us to take up the cross and follow him?

Over the last 15-20 years, there’s been a well-documented rise in hate groups in our nation—new assemblies, new members, new visibility, and all for very old and very malicious points of view. In the midst of those rising numbers, however, a few stories leak out around the edges, stories of people who are leaving those groups, leaving the violent ways, and the purity codes of the dangerously misguided religion and nationalism of the far right.

There’s a consistent feature in the accounts of people leaving communities which are committed to white supremacy. Even while thriving on their hate, these folks encountered other people—and often the very people at whom they aimed their fear, their fists, and their weapons—people who, transcending their own trepidation and any desire for vengeance, chose to show compassion to those whose lives were consumed by ignorance and hatred.

That is grace. And it embodies God’s new point of view. Gracious love is fierce enough to see through the scars of broken homes and abuse, to see through the bald heads, swastika tattoos, Confederate battle flags, even to see past the mini arsenals individuals carry around on their shoulders and hips. For many who leave the hate groups, there would be no healing without someone showing them grace because grace was exactly what was missing in their lives in the first place.

God’s grace attends to those who suffer and to those who cause suffering. And for those who call themselves Christian, and who know that evil isn’t easily overcome, our work of reconciliation means claiming our prophetic voice and calling out the evils behind the suffering. And that begins with confessing our own prejudice, our own intolerance, our own pride. Only when we see brokenness in ourselves can we call it out in others with compassion. And if we’re the Church, we must follow Jesus in doing this, lest we—like Pharaoh, Jezebel, and Caesar—become so self-obsessed that we not only tolerate evil, we try to spin it as virtue.

Christ’s new point of view is one of gracious invitation, justice, and reconciliation. And we’re not always faithful stewards of that point of view. That’s why we confess our individual and systemic sinfulness each Sunday morning. And through confession, forgiveness, and forgiving-ness, we are the body of Christ. We’re “new creations.” The old is passing away because the new has begun. And “the love of Christ” inspires and guides us on our journey.

         Christ’s table is set with his reconciling feast. As you participate in this meal, look within yourself at the new person and the new point of view God is creating. And look at those around you with the new eyes of that new creation. Taste and see that God is good, and present in all people, races, and lands.

         And may this bread and this cup nourish the image of Christ within all of us, so that we may, as Paul says, “become the righteousness of God.”

 

¹Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. The Crossroad Publishing Company, NY, 2009. p. 141.