Category: Forgiveness and Grace

The God Who Stays

‘If I were you, I would have labeled me a lost cause.’ – Matthew West, from his song, ‘The God Who Stays’

I’ve been thinking about Abraham lately.  Reading through his story in Genesis, I am struck, not only by his great faith, but by his more than occasional lack thereof.[1]  I am struck by how the great father of nations, the one through whom God began salvation history in earnest, was at times capable of behaving like a first-class jerk. 

That may sound shocking to Christian ears trained to handle Abraham with almost God-like reverence.  But if so, it’s because we tend to forget the downsides in his story, or, if we remember them at all, come up with excuses for his despicable behavior.  There’s the time when Abraham (then Abram) told his wife Sarah (then Sarai) to pose as his sister while sojourning in Egypt.  Well, we say, Abram was afraid that Pharaoh would find her beautiful and kill him to take Sarah as his wife, so what choice did he have?  Besides, she was in fact his half-sister (I know, yuck; things were different back then), so he wasn’t really lying.  Never mind that Abraham should have trusted God to take care of both himself and wife, or that the plan he undertook resulted in her captivity for a time in the household of Pharoah, during which all sorts of terrible things might have happened.  Sugar coat it as you will, the bottom line is that Abraham failed to trust God and threw his wife under the bus to save his own skin.  And he didn’t just do it once; a bit later in his story he threw Sarah under the bus a second time in an encounter with King Abimelech of Gerar. 

And that’s not even the worst of Abraham’s offenses.  Although God promised that he would have children as numerous as the grains of dust on the earth, his doubt grew to the point of unfaithfulness.  As the years ticked by, and his patience wore thin, he jumped at the chance offered by his wife to take matters into his own hands.  ‘Honey,’ Sarah suggested, ‘why don’t you sleep with my servant Hagar and have a child with her?’  We can rationalize that this sort of surrogacy was common in Abraham’s day, but it was still wrong.  For starters, it was wrong because he failed to wait on God.  Then there’s his eagerness to sleep with a younger woman not his wife (Sarah didn’t have to ask twice).  And finally, and this is downright horrific, there is the fact that Hagar may not have had much choice in the matter.  She was a slave for crying out loud; she had no choice but to obey her master.  Some today might consider what happened between them nothing less than rape.  I don’t personally believe it was that bad; the relationship between Hagar and Abraham seems to have been at least somewhat consensual, but the power inequities in the situation should nonetheless trouble us deeply.

And then there is the fact that when trouble arose between Hagar and Sarah (and who didn’t see that coming?) Abraham sent Hagar and his son Ishmael away into the wilderness, where, but for the grace of God, they both would have died.  And yeah, I know the Bible says God told him to do it.  Still.  If a man behaved in this fashion today, throwing his wife under the bus, impregnating his servant, then sending her along with his child into the wilderness, he would be labeled a monster, not an exalted father.  In today’s culture, there is little doubt that Abraham would be ‘canceled.’ 

And yet, God didn’t cancel Abraham.  He continued to work with him.  He proceeded, in spite of it all, to weave the beginnings of the story of salvation through the broken pieces of his life. 

Just what kind of story is this?  What kind of God sticks by a guy as bad as Abraham?

In considering such questions, my mind wandered to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  I know, just bear with me.  If I asked you what that story is about, you might tell me it’s a horror tale, or a fable about scientific hubris.  You would be right, of course, but the primary theme of that classic novel is parental irresponsibility.  Dr. Frankenstein creates life, but when it doesn’t match his expectations for it, he abandons his creation utterly.  Shelley was first and foremost writing a morality tale about parents who failed to stick by and love their children when they failed to meet parental expectations and dreams.

God is the opposite of Dr. Frankenstein.  When God created the universe, making human beings, male and female, his crowning achievement, he had great plans for us.  We were to serve as the stewards of creation, co-regents under his rule, serving, protecting, and reigning over the earth.  We didn’t exactly live up to our calling.  This was not, on the one hand, surprising; God, who exists in what C.S. Lewis termed ‘an eternal now,’ knew we would disappoint.  But on the other, it seems to have shaken him, nonetheless.  It grieved God’s heart to see his children fall short of the glory he intended for them.  It grieved his heart even more as he witnessed the wickedness of humankind spiraling out of control, spreading over the face of the earth, contaminating every aspect of creation.  Had God been like Dr. Frankenstein, dare I say, if he had been like any one of us, he would have abandoned his creation there and then.  He would have thrown us on the rubbish heap and started over. 

But so committed is God to his creation, to us, that he did not.  He stuck by us.  Even as we did terrible things.  He was willing to get his hands dirty, to carry the shame of his creation’s sin, as he worked alongside of us, meeting us where we were, down in the muck and mire of our wickedness and selfishness.  We would have run from ourselves.  God, being God, stuck by us, even as we failed to meet his parental expectations and dreams. 

So God worked with a man like Abraham, a man who would throw his wife under the bus, sleep with his slave, and send her away with his own son.  God worked with him until he was transformed into something more akin to the image he was meant to bear.  Then, when Abraham’s time passed, God continued to work with his descendants, who frankly did worse than Abraham, sinning in ways that would have caused Dr. Frankenstein to walk away a thousand times.  God stuck by them too, shaping them into an instrument he could use, biding his time until, in the fullness thereof, he himself entered the world in the person of his Son, to bear our sin and show us how to live, hoping to transform us, each and every one of us, into something more akin to the image we are meant to bear.

And so it has remained even to this very day.  When we fail to get things right, when we fall and fail and struggle like Abraham, God continues to stand by us.  For he is Emmanuel.  God with us.  That is who he is, was, and always will be.  He is, as Matthew West sings in the song noted in this post’s title and epigraph, ‘The God who stays.  The God who runs in our direction when the whole world walks away.’[2] 

Talk about a committed God. 

There is a line in the Gospels that used to confuse me.  Jesus, who obviously loves us unconditionally, cries out, ‘Oh unbelieving and perverse generation!  How long must I stay with you!  How long must I put up with you!’ (Matthew 17:17).  It sounds so un-Jesus like.  But it’s actually a cry from the very heart of God.  God grieves our sin.  It rends his heart.  Today, no less than when God wept over Abraham’s conduct.  But God, in the course of his work with Abraham, in the course of his work throughout salvation history, in the course of the Incarnation, and in the course of our lives, repeatedly answers his own question, ‘How long must I stay with you?  How long must I put up with you?’

His answer is: forever.  He really doesn’t have a choice.  Because, you see, he is by his very nature the God who stays. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] Abraham’s full story can be found in Genesis 12-25.

[2] If you get a chance, listen to West’s song.  It captures wonderfully what I am trying to say here about the constancy and commitment of God.  Click here for a link to the official video. 

The Greatest Wake Up Call Ever – a Word for Holy Week

‘Pilate replied, ‘You are a king then?’  ‘You say that I am a King, and you are right,’ Jesus said.  ‘I was born for that purpose.  And I came to bring truth into the world.  All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.  ‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked (John 19:37-38(a) NLT). 

Pilate was a cruel and brutal man.  History records that he routinely executed men without benefit of trial.  He was the kind of guy who would as soon crucify you as look at you, and not lose a wink of sleep.  His delighted in provoking the Jewish people at every conceivable opportunity.  This style of governance resulted in many savage outbreaks of violence, followed by just as many bloody crackdowns, and the historical evidence suggests that he had been warned by Rome that no further mistakes on his part would be tolerated. 

One might therefore have expected that when asked to deal with Jesus, a man who had purportedly defied Caesar by claiming to be ‘King of the Jews,’ Pilate would have ordered a summary execution.  Instead, he equivocated.  Not to his credit, unfortunately.  His equivocations were most likely due to concern for his own skin.  Jerusalem was a tinder box.  The city had swelled to the point of bursting with Passover pilgrims.  Of all the times for a riot to start, this was not it.  And so, it seems that Pilate’s hesitation in deciding Jesus’ case was simply to ascertain the direction of the political wind.  Would a riot be more likely if he killed Jesus, or if he set him free?  By morning’s end, it was clear his safest course of action was the former.  Jesus was a man of peace, neither he nor his followers would riot if he were killed.  On the other hand, as the religious leaders had not so subtly threatened, if Pilate released Jesus, word would surely reach Caesar that he had failed to execute a man who challenged Roman authority (see, John 19:12).  And so, Pilate’s decision was made.  He sentenced Jesus, as he had sentenced many others, to death on a cross.   He might have at least had the decency to spare him the flogging.  But remember, Pilate was a cruel and brutal man.

And yet.  When we look at the Gospel narratives concerning the encounter between Pilate and Jesus, we see two things happening simultaneously.  First, Jesus reached out to Pilate.  He explained to Pilate the nature of his Kingdom.  He practically begged him to listen to his voice and hear the truth.  When Pilate asked his famous question, ‘Que Veritas?’ or ‘What is truth?’ Jesus just stood there.  Get it.  He just stood there, as if to say, ‘Here I am Pilate.  I am the truth.’  You must remember, of course, that Jesus gave his life for Pilate as much as for anyone else.  Remember John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever [Pilate, Caiaphas, Judas…] might not perish, but have everlasting life?’    Yes, in the encounter between Jesus and Pilate, Jesus reached out.  He wasn’t going to force himself on Pilate, but if Pilate wanted him, well, he was right there. 

Secondly, as Jesus reached out, Pilate’s world was seriously disturbed.  True, his ultimate decision was cold hearted, practical and selfish.  But it is impossible to read the accounts of the encounter between Pilate and Jesus and not sense that Jesus had called into question everything Pilate had ever believed, and Pilate felt it.  So much so that even a cruel and brutal man like Pilate was given pause. 

A few years back a woman named Susan Boyle auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent.  She was 47 and in no danger of being asked to pose for the cover of Glamour Magazine.  As she took the stage, the audience snickered.  They were, like Pilate, proud, hard-hearted, cynical, and cruel.  Nonetheless, the judges (feeling rather smug themselves) let Susan sing.  Her song choice was I Dreamed a Dream from Les Misérables, and the audience laughed out loud when she announced it (who was she to have dreams?).  

But then the music started, and she began to sing. 

Susan Boyle sang with the voice of an angel.  Five notes in, and the once cruel and cynical audience was cheering wildly.  The judges were stunned.  Mean old Simon Cowell looked like a schoolgirl who had just caught her first glimpse of the High School Football Captain.  Ms. Boyle literally took his breath away.  By the time she had finished, everyone was on their feet.  Every member of her audience, the proud, the glamorous, the hard-hearted, the cynical, and the cruel, had been won over by the beautiful, yes, beautiful, Susan Boyle.  Susan’s performance was, as one of the judges said so well, the biggest wake-up call ever. 

As soon as she finished, she put the mike down and began to walk off the stage, as if she had done what she had come to do, and that was that.  But of course, that wasn’t that.  The judges and audience begged her to come back.  And of course she did – she wouldn’t force herself on them, but if they asked, well, she was more than willing to come back into their lives. 

Keats said that beauty is truth, and truth beauty.  And if that’s true, and it is, I wonder if perhaps behind Pilate’s question, ‘what is truth?’ may have been his desire to discover the true and beautiful.  I wonder if perhaps, as he stood in the presence of Jesus equivocating, deep down there a part was reacting like that audience when they first heard Susan Boyle sing.  True, it wasn’t a large part of him that day.  He didn’t have his breath taken away by Jesus, as Simon Cowell did by Susan Boyle.  Clearly, he did the wrong thing.  But I have always wondered if, at some point, the memory of Jesus might have eventually taken his breath away – and brought him to his knees.  If perhaps Pilate, thinking back on the song that Jesus had sung on that dark day of Calvary, thinking back on both the truth and beauty that Jesus was and is, perhaps experienced his biggest wake-up call ever.  If perhaps Pilate, realizing that everything he had ever believed had in fact been wrong, finally got it, and embraced the truth and beauty of Jesus. 

We have no way of knowing, of course.  At least not until we touch eternity, or perhaps I should say, until eternity touches us.    It may well be that Pilate’s heart was too hard.  Not everyone appreciates the beauty of Susan Boyle.  And not everyone appreciates the beauty of Jesus.  But make no mistake people.  Jesus is beautiful.  Jesus is truth.  And in the final analysis, I believe that most people – if given the chance to see Jesus in all his beauty and truth, as someday all will – will have their breath taken away.  Most will fall to their knees.  Yes, in the final analysis, there is hope for everyone, Pilate included.  And if there is hope for a brutal, cruel man like Pontius Pilate, surely there is hope for you.

Do me a favor, will you?  Just for a moment, close your eyes.  Imagine the cross of Jesus Christ.  Do you see him?  Do you see his love?  Do you see his beauty?  Do you see his truth?  Do you?  It surely takes your breath away doesn’t it?  It surely is the biggest wake-up call ever.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Sympathy for Qaddafi

‘God doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed.  He wants everyone to come to repentance’ – Peter, aka The Rock, in 2 Peter 3:9

I remember the day I saw the video.  Muammar Qaddafi, the man responsible for countless acts of terrorism, had been found hiding in a culvert by revolutionaries seeking to end his reign in Libya.  The video depicted an old man in the hands of his enemies, being led through the streets and pelted by rocks.  The crowd mocked him as he was led away to his death.  He appeared bewildered and begged for mercy.  The rocks continued to fly.  So did the fists.  The crowd was having a good time watching their enemy suffer.  Thankfully the network cut the video before the most brutal part.  In the end, Qaddafi was shot several times while pleading for his life. 

The video affected me in an unexpected way.  I had been trained from my High School days to see this man as the enemy – a brutal thug who needed to be brought to his knees.  Here he was, being brought to his knees.  Justice was being served.  Qaddafi was getting what he so richly deserved. 

But I didn’t feel any of that.  Instead, as I watched Qaddafi beg for his life and saw the profound sadness in his eyes, the bewilderment he felt as he realized his life had come to this, I found myself feeling sorry for him.  I even found myself praying for him.  Specifically, I found myself praying that God had used those final moments to draw Qaddafi to Himself, that he might realize the futility of his former ways, repent of all he had done, and fall into the arms of Jesus. 

I could hardly believe it.  Why was I feeling sorry for a guy like Qaddafi?  What in the world was wrong with me?  So much of the world was rejoicing.  Celebrating the notion that he would rot in hell.  And there I was, yes, this is true, with tears in my eyes, praying for his salvation. 

Seriously, what was wrong with me?

But then I remembered Good Times. 

For those of you too young to remember, Good Times was a 1970s comedy loosely based on the play, A Raisin in the Sun.  It chronicled the lives of the Evans family – an African American family living in the projects on the south side of Chicago.  The most famous character was the eldest son, J.J. Evans, whose signature, ‘Dy-no-mite!’ was all the rage for a time.  Other characters included J.J.’s siblings, Thelma and Michael, their parents, James and Florida, and of course, their nosy next-door neighbor Wilona. 

One episode had a profound impact upon me. It revolved around J.J. falling in with the wrong crowd.  He had taken up with a street gang, whose leader was a dude called ‘Mad Dog.’  I remember his first introduction to the family.  After meeting Thelma, he laughed and said, ‘Thelma?  What kind of mother would give birth to a daughter and name her Thelma?’  Thelma shot back, ‘the same kind of mother who would give birth to a boy and name him ‘Mad Dog!’  The long and the short of the story is that the Evans family tries to keep J.J. from further involvement with Mad Dog’s gang, and when J.J. attempts to break away, Mad Dog shoots him.  Fortunately, J.J. pulls through. Mad Dog, however, is left to pay the piper in a court of law.

J.J.’s father, James, Sr., goes to the courthouse for Mad Dog’s sentencing hearing to make sure the punishment is as severe as it should be.  He tells his wife Florida that if the judge doesn’t do his job, he will take care of the matter himself.  As the hearing unfolds, it looks like it just might come to that.  The judge is told there is no room in the jail, so Mad Dog escapes with probation.  James Evans Sr. is livid.  The man who shot his own son is getting away scot-free.  Mad Dog walks out of the courtroom, cocky as ever, followed by his mother, and then James, loaded for bear.  Just as he is about to turn the corner and confront the man who shot his son, he hears Mad Dog arguing with his mother, and in the course of listening to the argument, he learns a thing or two about Mad Dog’s past. 

Mad Dog had a pretty rough life.  Among other things, he had been abandoned by his father.  He and his mom argue some more, and the mother walks away.  She informs her son that she is washing her hands of him forever. Mad Dog shouts, ‘Fine!  Leave me just like everyone else!  See if I care!’  That’s when Mad Dog notices that James is standing around the corner.  He runs over to him and says, with tears in his eyes, ‘You want to hit me, go ahead and hit me!’  James suddenly can’t do it; ‘I don’t want to hit you son,’ is all he can say.  Mad Dog gets angrier, ‘Go on man, hit me, everyone else does!’  James again refuses, ‘No son, I won’t hit you.’  Mad Dog shouts, ‘Stop it!  Why are you calling me son?  Don’t call me Son!  What’s the matter with you!  What’s the matter with all of you!’  And then, tearfully, Mad Dog walks away. 

Florida comes around the corner.  She’s heard everything.  She goes to James and holds him.  James breaks down.  ‘I had him Florida,’ he says, ‘he even asked me to hit him, and I couldn’t do it.  What’s wrong with me?  Tell me, what kind of a father feels sorry for the man who shot his own son?’ 

I’ll never forget Florida’s response, ‘the right kind James – the right kind.’ 

Even as a kid that brought tears to my eyes.  It does even now.  It taught me something about mercy, understanding, and forgiveness.  It taught me about the kind of love that leads us to feel sorry for our enemies.  That episode, and especially that line – ‘the right kind James – the right kind,’ has had a profound impact on the way I think and act, at least in my better moments, down to this day. 

And so, I suppose that maybe, the reason I felt sorry for Qaddafi had a lot to do with James Evans.  Blame it on Good Times. 

Or maybe, blame it on God. 

Because you see, God loves and understands people the way James Evans does.  He loves and understands all the Mad Dogs of the world.  He understands why they are the way they are.  Even Qaddafi.  In fact, from the very foundations of eternity, he saw Qaddafi, and a whole slew of others like him who might make you want to turn violent yourself and said, ‘I love these guys.  I love them so much that I have decided to die for them that they might be restored.’

And if God thinks that way, shouldn’t we?

Which is why, to this day, whenever I think of Qaddafi’s last moments, I still feel sorry for him.  And I hope that somehow, God in his infinite and matchless grace found a way to reach him.  Even if it was at the very threshold of eternity.  I hope that something happened between the two of them that led to Qaddafi’s repentance, and that someday, at the ‘universal restoration of all things’ (Acts 3:21), when everything is restored to the way God intends it to be, Qaddafi will be there, renewed by Jesus, living as the man God intended him to be. 

And if that bothers you, well, what can I say?  Take it up with James Evans. 

Or better still, take it up with the God who desires everyone to come to repentance. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Note: the image featured above is a portion of an early work of art from the catacombs. The full image imagines the scene from the Last Judgment as described in Matthew 25: 31-46. The portion shown here depicts Jesus rescuing a goat.

Dear Mr. President: A Letter of Faith, Love, and Resistance

Dear Mr. President,

I think I owe you an apology.

For the past few years, I have paid close attention to all you say and do. I have done so because so much of what you say and do scares me. I have been fearful for the safety of people I care about, both those I know and those I don’t know. I have been concerned that much of what you say and do will bring harm to them. I have not been wrong in this, nor have I been wrong to speak out against your cruel policies and hateful rhetoric. But somewhere along the way I forgot something important.

I forgot about you.

I have basically not cared for you as a person, as a human being made in the image of God. My Christian faith teaches me to do so, but I have allowed myself to become so angry over what you have been saying and doing that I have forgotten to see you as such. In this I have sinned, against God and against you. I have asked God to forgive me, and now I ask you to do the same. I doubt you will ever see this letter, but if you do I hope you will accept it as both an apology and expression of a sincere desire to, in the words of scripture, speak the truth to you in love.

I fear I am not alone in having neglected your well-being. Many of the professing Christians who support you have done the same. I think here of the ones who continuously express their support for you, the Christian leaders and pastors who stand in your innermost councils, the ones who have prayed over you and called you ‘God’s anointed.’ Mr. President, these men and women have misled you. They are court prophets and false teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothing who preach a false Gospel. The Bible tells stories of sycophantic false prophets who tell kings exactly what they want to hear, and I fear that such as these have surrounded you. Theirs is an understanding of God and the Christian faith that is completely at odds with the scriptures. Moreover, I fear that many of them are simply using you. They see you as someone who can give them what they want, e.g., conservatives on the Supreme Court, the end to legal abortion, the preservation of their brand of religious liberty, a theocratic nationalist state. In order to gain these things, they have treated you like a god. They have showered praise upon you. They have given you ‘mulligans’ for conduct they have long preached against. They have engaged in all sorts of theological gymnastics to uphold you in everything you say and do.

But in all this they have failed to do one thing: tell the truth. They have failed to tell you who God is and what God wants. They have failed to tell you the Gospel. And in this failure, they have, I am afraid, led you farther and farther away from the one you need most of all: Jesus.

And so Mr. President, I would like the opportunity to tell you the truth. Because truth matters. Not just for its own sake, but for yours.

It starts with this: God loves you. He doesn’t love you for the things you have done. He doesn’t love you for being a successful businessman or for winning the presidency. He doesn’t love you because you draw big crowds at rallies. He loves you because he is love. God loves us all, limitlessly and without condition. From the foundations of eternity, before you or I or anything else existed, he looked down the corridors of time, saw all the bad things you and I would ever do (imagine the worst thing you have ever done – yes, God saw that) and loved us anyway. He saw us in all our sin, separated from him, and could not bear the thought of spending eternity without us. And so, in the councils of the Holy Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a plan of action was determined. God decided to come to us in the person of the Son, Jesus. He decided to make atonement for our sins at the Cross and restore us to relationship with Himself. I am sure you know John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life.’ You are part of the ‘world,’ Mr. President. God loved you so much that he sent Jesus to die for you. That’s how much he loves you. That’s how much you matter to him. That’s how much he longs for you to be in his arms. Mr. President, God wants to be the center of your life.

But for him to be that, you must surrender to him. Specifically, the Bible tells us that we need to repent. You have famously said that you don’t feel the need to ask God for forgiveness. Mr. President, we all need to do that. The Bible tells us that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). God is perfect and holy, and none of us measure up to his glorious standard. But he has provided a way for us to be holy, to be cleansed of the sin that separates us from him, by confessing our sins and embracing the gift of Jesus. Mr. President, I don’t know if the Christian pastors and leaders around you have told you this, but this is something you need to do. If you want a relationship with the God who loves you, both now and in eternity, you need to confess your sins. You need to ask for forgiveness. You need to turn to the cross and invite Jesus into your life to be your Savior.

I pray with all my heart that you will do this. But there is more. The Gospel is not lip service. In addition to inviting Jesus into your life to be your Savior, you also need to embrace him as your Lord. Jesus never asked anyone to be a mere believer. He called us to be disciples. A disciple is someone who seeks to be like their Master. For Christians, this means striving to live like Jesus. Not that any of us will ever do that perfectly (Lord knows I don’t). But we need to work at it. We need to do our best to imitate Jesus and care about the things he cares about. To stand up for the people and issues that matter to him.

In this, Mr. President, your Christian advisors and supporters have, at least from what I can see, deeply failed you.

There is much they have not told you. They have not told you, or at least so it would seem, that Jesus would not condone the building of walls to prevent people fleeing for their lives from finding sanctuary. They have not told you that Jesus himself was a refugee (Matthew 2:13-15). They have not told you that the way you treat those seeking asylum, the strangers and sojourners in our midst, is not only the way we treat him but also the basis on which we will one day be judged (see, Matthew 25:31-46). They have not told you that God is affronted when you separate children from their parents. They have not told you that God cannot abide racism or hatred of the other. They have not challenged your hateful words, when you have demeaned black and brown life. They have not told you that Jesus is about love and hope, not hate and fear, and that your use of the latter to advance your political career both devalues human life and runs contrary to the Gospel of Jesus. They have not told you the Parable of the Rich Fool from Luke 12, the one that teaches that our lives do not consist in an abundance of possessions, nor have they told you of Jesus’ love and affinity for the poor, of the Bible’s insistence that we care for the weak and marginalized. They have not told you that bullying and name calling is contrary to Jesus’ way, that Jesus himself said that calling someone a fool, let alone ‘human scum,’ or ‘enemy of the people,’ or ‘bad hombres’ or other racial epithets, puts one in danger of hellfire (Matthew 5:22). They have not told you that when you label others with such names, you put their lives in danger and demean the image of God within them. They have not told you that followers of Jesus are called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), not people who tear up peace treaties without giving a second thought to how to replace them. They have not told you that followers of Jesus walk in the way of nonviolence and peace; they do not encourage their supporters to beat up or otherwise harm their political enemies and critics. They have not told you that to be pro-life is not merely to oppose abortion, but to work to protect and preserve life from womb to tomb. They have not told you that Jesus called his followers to be servants, not abusive autocrats (Mark 10:42-45). And they have not told you that Jesus was a respecter of women, not someone who viciously attacks women the way that you have persistently done.

Mr. President, I know that may sound a little harsh. I hope you believe me when I say that I do not mention any of this out of anger or hatred for you. I mention it out of love for you. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest when I think about you and the things you have done. I refer here to agape love, the love Jesus commanded us to have for everyone, the love that seeks what is best for people, whether they deserve it or not. Mr. President, I write all of this to you out of that spirit of love, because it is my sincerest hope that you will repent and turn to Jesus. Repentance in the Bible means that you turn around, that you stop moving in the direction you are heading and start traveling the other way. It is my deepest hope to see you do this. To see you stop walking in the way of fear and hate, and start walking in the way of hope and love. I long to see the day when you turn and follow Jesus, the day when I can call you, not just ‘Mr. President,’ but ‘brother.’

This is what I hope for. That you will come out of the darkness and into Christ’s marvelous light. Until that day comes, I will continue to peaceably speak out against any and all hatred and cruelty you speak, do, or propose. I will continue to be a prophetic voice for truth and the Kingdom of God. I will continue to do what the false prophets around you won’t. But I hope you know that even as I do so, I will be longing for the day when you will listen to the call of Jesus and walk in his way. If and when that day comes, I will rejoice and be glad.

Mr. President, I wish you life, health, and peace. But most of all, I wish you Jesus.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent D. Miller

Forgiveness

I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter, but my will gets weak, and my thoughts seem to scatter – but I think it’s about forgiveness.

Don Henley

This past Sunday, I preached a sermon on forgiveness. The local church I serve has been studying the Apostle’s Creed and we had come to the line: ‘we believe in the forgiveness of sins.’ The timing was perfect, as the topic of forgiveness had been in the news quite a bit the previous two weeks. There had been a debate raging over whether, in certain circumstances, it is ever appropriate to forgive (I will touch on the cause of that debate near the end of this post). For me, the answer to that was easy. Forgiveness, for the follower of Jesus, is simply not an option. And so, I shared with the congregation four reasons why I believe this to be so. Even now, post-sermon, I still feel the need to share my thoughts about it. And so in this post I will. Readers who were in the service this Sunday will find nothing new here. I encourage you to read it anyway, to let it really sink in, because for Christians, forgiveness truly is, as Don Henley says, ‘the heart of the matter.’ For everyone else, well, I present my thoughts to you in the hope that they will show you the importance of forgiveness as well, even when, and maybe especially when, it is difficult to extend.


First, followers of Jesus need to forgive because God is a God of forgiveness. We see this all over the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. Some people think God is rather unforgiving in the Old Testament. I remember an episode of Dharma and Greg in which Dharma described the Bible this way: ‘Old Testament – God is wrath. New Testamant – God is love.’ But God has always been a loving, forgiving God. People were always messing up in Old Testament times, from Abraham to David to Hezekiah to the nation of Israel as a whole, and God was always willing to forgive them, to separate their sins from them ‘as far as the east is from the west,’ and to cast them to the bottom of the ocean floor (Psalm 103:12; Micah 7:19). This is who God is, a pardoning God of chesed (steadfast) love. To be fair to Dharma, this became clearer once humankind was given the full revelation of God in Jesus. Jesus told stories like the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He forgave the woman caught in adultery. And he offered forgiveness to the entire world at the cross – even those who crucified him. Remember his words: ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do.’ Don Henley sang, ‘I think it’s about forgiveness, even if you don’t love me.’ That’s the way God forgives. He forgives even those who spit upon and crucify him. That is a powerful reason to be forgiving. I mean, if God forgives like that, who do we think we are to do otherwise?


The second reason Jesus followers need to forgive is related: we have been forgiven. Jesus once told a story about a man who owed a debt he could not possibly pay (Matthew 18:21-35). He owed millions and he made minimum wage. At first, his master dealt with him as the world would: ordering that he and his family be sold into slavery. Isn’t that the way of the world? Instead of forgiving, you get even. But then, when the debtor begged for mercy, the Master relented, and decided to act like God. He not only revoked the prison sentence, he forgave the debt. But then the ungrateful little booger ran out and tossed someone else in prison for owing him a mere bag of shells. When the King found out, he called the man ‘an evil servant,’ pointed out his hypocrisy, and tossed him into jail. The story ends with one of the most ominous lines of scripture: ‘That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from the heart.’ Ouch. The lesson is clear: God has forgiven us for the things we have done. It is the height of ingratitude not to forgive others. God considers it a slap in the face. And so, followers of Jesus have no choice: we forgive others because we have been forgiven by God.

Now, I understand that if you aren’t a follower of Jesus, those first two reasons may not mean much to you. I would love for you to accept that there is a God who loves and forgives, and that you should forgive others out of gratitude for grace. But even if you aren’t sold on that, I really hope you will consider this: we need to forgive because to do otherwise is disastrous. Two parts here. First, when we fail to forgive, we bring disaster upon ourselves. Let me ask, when you refuse to forgive someone, who gets hurt most? That’s right. You do. Don Henley sang, ‘there are people in your life, who’ve come and gone. They’ve let you down. You know they’ve hurt your pride. You better put it all behind you baby, ’cause life moves on. If you keep carrying that anger, it will eat you up inside.’ Nelson Mandela famously said that harboring resentment is like drinking poison and expecting your enemies to die. You really don’t want to be one of those people who go through life nursing grudges, carrying bitterness and anger around in your heart. When you do that, you just allow the people who hurt you to go on hurting you. Lewis Smedes said that when you forgive, you set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was you.

It is equally true that when we fail to forgive, we spread disaster all around us. Gandhi said, ‘an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.’ In his sermon, Loving your Enemies, Martin Luther King spoke of driving with his brother A.D. in Chatanooga. The oncoming drivers were refusing to dim their high beams. A.D. got fed up and said, ‘The next car that refuses to dim their lights, I’m going to fail to dim mine!’ Dr. King said, ‘Oh no! Don’t do that…it will end up in mutual destruction for all!’ He went on to explain that this was the trouble with history, that as people moved up the ‘highway of history,’ so many have looked at others who refused to dim the lights, and decided to refuse to dim theirs. He said that if somebody didn’t have enough sense to turn on the ‘dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in the world,’ everyone would be destroyed. He ached for someone to have ‘sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate.’ This is another powerful reason to forgive: we need to forgive because forgiveness is the only thing that can break the chain of hate and replace it with the freedom to love.


Which takes me to the final reason why I believe we must forgive: because forgiveness is beautiful. It is here that we turn to the uproar that has recently taken place over the issue of forgiveness. By now, I am sure you have seen, or at least heard, of what happened at the sentencing of Amber Guyger, the white Dallas police officer who entered the wrong apartment and shot Botham Jean, an unarmed black man in his own home. It was a senseless tragedy that exacerbated racial tensions and fueled legitimate concerns about how dangerous it is to be black in America. As I pointed out to my congregation this past Sunday, if you don’t understand those concerns, it’s likely because you have been privileged enough not to have to think about them. No person of color, and no person of any color who loves a person of color, enjoys such a privilege.

At the sentencing, there were two important voices. The first was the voice of Allison Jean, Botham’s mother, who spoke of racial injustice, in both the case and the culture, and of the need to fight against such injustice. She is 100% right. There is great racial injustice in this country (and there was in that case) and we must find ways to deal with and overcome it. The second voice was Brandt Jean’s, Botham’s brother, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know what he did. He dimmed the lights. Tearfully, he forgave his brother’s killer. He told her that he loved her and that he wanted what was best for her. That he hoped she’d give her life to Christ. And then, he asked if he could give her a hug. The judge said yes, and as he stepped down and moved toward her, her brother’s killer ran into his arms.

Some people didn’t like that. They said Brandt didn’t have the right to do it. That forgiveness was being exalted over justice. Now let me be clear: justice matters, and the way the story broke did suggest that for some, it didn’t (it took several days for anyone to pay serious attention to the words of Allison Jean). And sadly, there are some whites who will use Brandt’s willingness to forgive as an excuse to ignore racial injustice entirely. They should be ashamed of themselves. That anyone did and will react that way to the embrace in that courtroom only proves that the fight for justice is far from over, and that we all have work to do.

But as followers of Jesus, how can we not rejoice at the sight of grace? Of course we need to work for justice. But we are still people of forgiveness. Because forgiveness is beautiful.

And you know what? It is also powerful. An eye for an eye will make the world blind. But forgiveness and enemy love, well, listen to Frederick Buechner: ‘the love for equals is a human thing – of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing – the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing – to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy – love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.’

The world will continue to debate the embrace between Amber Guyger and Brandt Jean. Many will never understand it. But when I think about so much of what plagues our world today, and struggle to get down to the heart of the matter, of what will really make a difference, I think it’s about forgiveness. And I say that not just because Don Henley thinks so. I say it because Jesus thinks so. Followers of Jesus believe in a lot of things, justice included. But we can never forget that we also believe in the forgiveness of sins.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Don Henley quotes are taken from his song, The Heart of the Matter.

Martin Luther King quotes taken from his sermon, Loving Your Enemies.

Frederick Buchner quote is from his book, The Magnificent Defeat.