Sunday, November 29, 2015
Just Christ and Him Crucified
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Fears and Faceplants
Friday, August 21, 2015
When It's Not Safe to Pray
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Red Light, Green Light...Blue Light?
Sunday, April 26, 2015
We Can Never Fulfill The Law of Forgiveness
For me, the key to understanding this passage is looking at the context in which Jesus told the story, which includes the question he was answering, the person to whom he was speaking and the point in history during which he spoke.
In the preceding verses, (Matthew 18:15-20) Jesus had given the steps which should be followed when a brother sins against you. Jesus’ discourse prompted Peter to go up to him afterward and ask the question in verse 21, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” At the heart of it, Peter was asking Jesus to quantify, or actually codify, forgiveness. In other words, he wanted Jesus to give him The Law of Forgiveness, so that he could follow it.
Those of us who are living after Christ’s death and resurrection, and after the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and began to illuminate, apply and interpret for us who Jesus was, what he did and why he did it, want to read this parable as if it was being told to us, with all of our knowledge of those things; but, it was being told to Peter during a time before Jesus died, while he knew only the Law, and was still laboring under the belief that he must obey and was capable of obeying it in order to please God.
Because Peter was asking Jesus to give him The Law of Forgiveness, thinking he could then obey it, Jesus did exactly what he did in the Sermon on the Mount, he broadened and deepened the concept of forgiveness to show Peter the impossibility of what he was thinking.
He began by telling Peter that his estimate of how many times he should be expected to forgive, which I’m sure Peter thought was generous, was actually pitiful. Jesus told him the number wasn’t seven times, it was seventy-seven times, which didn’t really mean that at seventy-eight Peter could cut his brother off, it represented the idea of infinite forgiveness; forgiveness without limit.
Then he illustrated what he said by telling the parable to Peter; prior to his death and resurrection, prior to the illumination of the Holy Spirit regarding that death and resurrection. He told the parable to Peter, who was trying to learn the rules so that he could keep them. He told the story to Peter so that after Jesus’ death and resurrection, after Peter’s denial of Jesus, after the Holy Spirit interpreted the parable to him, he would remember and understand.
Because our minds are, by nature, as saturated by Law as Peter’s, when we read this parable we will always initially see it from that perspective. The King forgave this man an unimaginably vast debt. It was obvious to everyone listening that the servant’s response to that amazing gift of mercy and forgiveness should have been to go out and do likewise; but, instead, against everything the listener knew to be right, the man went out and hunted down someone who owed him a few bucks, strangled him and threw him in prison until he could pay the debt. The ungrateful servant is clearly a villain, and everyone listening to the parable then, and reading it now, understands the justice of what the King did in the end, when he withdrew his mercy and handed the servant over to the jailers, or, in the original Greek, the torturers, until his debt could be paid. Then, after the parable, when Jesus says that God will do the same to all of us if we don’t forgive our brother from the heart, we are terrified, but there is nothing any of us can say.
We who know the story of salvation have nothing to say because anyone with a shred of self-awareness recognizes themselves as the unworthy servant. We see that the story simply describes us. We are all capable of being grateful for the tremendous miracle of forgiveness which we have been given and being simultaneously unforgiving toward others; and we are so dim-witted we often don’t even recognize the incongruity of it at the time. Through this parable we recognize our guilt and know that we deserve the same fate as the servant. We see that, standing before the God who sent his Son to pay our monumental debt, we are without excuse.
That is what the law does, it diagnoses us; it strips us bare and exposes our sin so that our mouths are silenced.
That is what Jesus is intentionally doing to Peter and his desire to know the parameters of what was expected from him as far as forgiveness, because he thought he could do it. Did Peter recognize himself in the story at that point? Probably not; because he did not know the Gospel yet. But, after his denial of Jesus; after Jesus’ death and resurrection; after He was forgiven his own monumental debt; after Jesus’ ascension into heaven and after the Holy Spirit explained all that Jesus said and did, I’m sure that Peter finally understood.
This parable of Law did not end with the relief of the Gospel because Jesus himself had not yet fulfilled the Law and become the Good News. But we who know the Good News can now see that the point of this parable is that no matter how well we are treated by anyone up to and including God, we will never be able to parlay that into a motivation strong enough to enable us to perfectly forgive our brother from the heart. Despite all of the grace given to us, we will still dim-wittedly hunt down our debtors and hound them, even while we are yet within the shadow of the palace in which we received our forgiveness, because that is who we are. If we are counting on ourselves to finally get it right and fulfill the Law of Forgiveness, we will fail and receive the only fate our efforts have earned and deserve.
Our only hope is to recognize our utter helplessness and total dependency on the forgiveness which God has given us because Christ was handed over to the torturers until our debt was paid in full. Should we offer others the same mercy and forgiveness we have been given? Of course! Will we? Sometimes; hopefully increasingly. But, regardless, we can rest securely in the knowledge that God will not revoke his mercy and forgiveness to us in the face of our unfaithfulness because it is forever based solely on the faithfulness of his Son on our behalf.
Don’t be afraid, my dear friend, take comfort in this: Because we are in Christ, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13.
Love Always,
Bonnie
Friday, April 24, 2015
Color Imbalance
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Grace for Clown Hair
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Let's Talk About Being Good
Dear Old Friend,
I've just spent the past nine glorious days primarily playing with my three year old grandson. What a joy! He has such a delightful imagination. He invented games like Mama Tiger and Baby Tiger and Ghost Chasing Lion (and then the reverse). We built many towers with blocks, but the blocks all had to be carried into the closet because we had to hide in there while we constructed our masterpieces.
One of his favorite games of all was Being Bad. The rules of that game varied, but the idea was that at least one of us (usually both) had to "be bad", which consisted mainly of our being generally disagreeable. One of us would (usually loudly) tell the other to do something and the other would refuse to do it and then would tell the first person to do something. The more pouty and obstinate we were, the more he loved it!
After a few minutes of trying to "out bad" each other, I would suggest that, perhaps, now we should be good; but, his typical response was, "No, be bad, Grammie!" So, I would briefly comply and then bring up the idea again. He would always vigorously shake his head and say, "No. Just bad."
It occurred to me that, no matter the age, there is just something so tantalizing about being bad. We want to dabble in the forbidden, which seems to sparkle in comparison to the boring "good". The fact of the matter is that Romans 3:12 tells us no one is good, not even one. Our fatal attraction to evil is a part of our very natures.
Verse 11 tells us that no one seeks for God. There is nothing innate which will prompt a desire within us to turn to God. That desire must come from outside; and is prompted solely by the Spirit of God, calling us to turn from all of the dazzling emptiness and shiny broken promises of this world's order, to the only One who loved the Good and unwaveringly chose it every time, because we could not.
Jesus took all of our badness as his own, and credits us with his goodness; and, as that glorious truth sinks deeply into our souls it becomes the most attractive thing we have encountered in our lives! Its dazzling beauty fills us with continuous wonder, and we can't seem to get our fill. It never grows old or boring. It never ceases to amaze us and to cause us to bow in humble, grateful adoration.
No amount of encouragements to Be Good, or warnings about Being Bad can do that! Only the Holy Spirit telling us, day after day, the good news of what God has done for us through his son has the ability to help us see badness for what it really is, remove the allure, and turn us to the only One who has ever been Good.
I still need to hear that every day!
Love Always,
Bonnie