Tag: love your enemies

Not With Swords, Matthew 26:52

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values, Lectionary Texts

Tuesday of Holy Week 2016 and we awake again to news of unspeakable violence – this time in Brussels. My heart breaks for the victims, of course, but it also aches for all of us who now suffer from a new wave of fear, anger and despair. The death toll will be much higher than whatever the final gruesome body count is in Belgium because fear and anger will spawn new and very natural responses of revenge. Violence begets violence. We know, but we seem powerless to respond in any other way. I get that, but I also know that if we continue down that wide well-traveled road the only destination is more destruction.

If we demand an eye for an eye, blood for blood, it will not make us safer. We have the power as some have suggested to bomb the enemy into oblivion and in doing so we would lose our soul. Terrorism would win and it would be reborn somewhere else while we waste our resources on more instruments of death instead of spending our time and money and energy on education and humanitarian efforts that make for peace and understanding.
I would suggest we use this latest attack as a motivation to take the passion of Holy Week more seriously. Let’s ask the hard questions about what Jesus’ death and resurrection really mean in a world gone mad in 2016. Is it more than an ancient story we re-enact in bad bathrobe dramas? Is it more than jumping easily from Palm Sunday to Easter morning because the middle part of the story is too hard to swallow?

I believe that the popular substitutionary atonement theology of the cross is largely to blame for our failure to apply the hard parts of the Gospel to our lives. The abridged version of that theology says that Christ died in our place as a substitute for our sins in order to offer eternal salvation to everyone who accepts Christ as his or her Savior. There are several problems with that theology, but the basic one is that it lets us off the hook too easily so we don’t have to take the hard truths of Jesus’ teaching seriously. It makes the cross something Jesus did once and for all, but that Gospel ignores the fact that the Scriptures tell us multiple times that Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me” (Matt. 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). Luke even adds we have to do it “daily.”

Jesus doesn’t need or want worshippers or Sunday only Christians, he wants followers; and that means just what it says—imitating how he lived and practicing what he taught. And here’s the intersection between Brussels and Gethsemane that we don’t want to hear. Matthew (26: 47-56) tells us that when they came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on Thursday night “one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. ‘Put your sword back in its place,’ Jesus said to him, ‘for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.’” He doesn’t invoke the second amendment or argue for peace through strength. He says, “My way is not the way of the world. The way of the sword has never brought peace and it never will because one cannot bring life through the instruments of death.”

We don’t want to hear it because we’re afraid, but we must grow some ears that can hear Christ’s truth before it is too late and the way of the sword continues to fester and spread like a plague. Doing the right thing is easy for most of us when there is little to lose by doing so. Jesus followers do it when it’s seemingly impossible and impractical according to the ways of the world. Real Jesus followers make hard choices when everyone around them and their own instincts insist on the way of the sword.

It comes down to practicing what Jesus preached even when it’s unbelievably difficult. For example, in both the Sermon on the Mount and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain Jesus says we are not to resist evil but to turn the other cheek when someone strikes us (Matt. 5:39; Luke 6:29). It’s very easy to say that in a safe sermon by the seashore or from a comfortable pulpit. I’ve preached and taught those words hundreds of times, but how often have I lived them when the going got really rough? Jesus does. As he is about to be arrested and most certainly executed, he lives what he taught. With his earthly life on the line he is true to the eternal truth he came to show us and says, “Put away your sword.”

That’s the Gospel, the good news, during this Holy Week when the sword seems to be winning. Is cheek turning and pacifism practical? Will it work against a hurricane of hate? We don’t know because it has never really been tried on any global scale. A few martyrs have followed Jesus’ example, and they inspire us from afar. But Brussels is real life here and now, and if we let the way of the sword prevail again, if we let fear and anger triumph over peace and love, even for our enemies, then terror wins and Jesus loses.

I don’t pretend to have the faith I need to lay down my life for my faith. But I wrestle with these hard truths from Holy Week because I still believe deep in my soul that it is the way and the truth and the life. The way of the sword has been tried forever in human history, and it has failed to bring about a lasting peace. Jesus followers are called to wrestle with both the words and example of Christ who is still saying to us during this Holy Week “Put away your sword.”

I don’t have the answers, but we who call ourselves Christians must wrestle with the questions. We desperately need meaningful dialogue on this topic. Please share any thoughts or suggestions or questions you have about what peacemaking looks like on a personal or global scale for you.

What Are We Full Of?, Jonah 3:1-5, 10

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values, Lectionary Texts

This sermon was written for a Sunday emphasis on what it means to live a missional lifestyle, and our case study from Scripture is one of those negative examples of how not to do that. I asked my son once how it was that he is a better golfer, skier and basketball player than I am when I introduced him to all those sports. He smiled and replied, “Oh, I just watched you, Dad, and saw how not to do it.” I think he learned a lot of life lessons that way from me. And we can all benefit in the same way from the story of Jonah.

Before we get to Jonah, I want to tell you about a pastor who decided one day it would be good for his parishioners and his son to take the 5 year-old with him to visit a local retirement community. The little fellow was fascinated by all the new things he saw – walkers and canes and especially the power wheel chair when one of the residents took him for a ride down the hall. But he was most interested when he went into one room with his dad. Pointing in amazement at a set of dentures in a glass on the bedside table he said, “Dad, the tooth fairy is never gonna believe that!” Some things are hard to believe – and the story of Jonah is one such tale.

Ask most people what they know about Jonah, and you will get “Jonah and the whale” as their response. It’s a familiar story kids learn about in Sunday school, but it is much more than a big fish story (which is what the Hebrew says, not a “whale” per se) if we ask some basic questions, like what was Jonah doing in the water and why was he swallowed by the big fish? And please don’t get hung up on the feasibility of a grown man being swallowed by a fish. This is about theology, not biology.

Jonah is a very short story, only 3 pages, and it makes more sense if read in its entirety. So here’s the abridged version of the whole story to put it in context:
1. God calls Jonah and tells him to go on a mission to Nineveh.
2. Jonah doesn’t want to go and jumps on a ship headed for Tarshish (in the exact opposite direction) instead.
3. God is not pleased and causes a storm at sea, and when the sailors learn that Jonah is the reason for God’s displeasure, they throw Jonah overboard to save themselves.
4. God appoints a big fish to swallow Jonah. (Not to punish him, by the way, but to save him and give him time to reconsider God’s offer.)
5. After 3 days God has the fish spit Jonah out; and Jonah decides this time he’d better listen to God, heads for Nineveh and delivers God’s message that they should repent or else bad things are going to happen.
6. The people of Nineveh heed Jonah’s warning, repent of their sins, are forgiven and saved from God’s judgment on them. You’d think any preacher would be thrilled if thousands of people changed their lives based on one short sermon, right? Not Jonah.
7. Jonah pouts because he really wanted God to destroy the Ninevites, not save them.

So there’s a lot more going on here than Jonah and the fish. It’s a story about a refusal to say yes when God’s mission is very clear. The message from God to Jonah couldn’t be more straightforward and direct: The 2nd verse of chapter 1 says, “Go at once to Nineveh,” and those orders are repeated verbatim in our lesson for today. There is no failure to communicate here – just reluctance to obey. Frederick Buechner says, “Lying to God is like sawing the branch you’re sitting on. The better you do it, the harder you fall.” Saying “no” to God is pretty much the same thing; so why would Jonah even try? And why do we?

We all have different reasons and excuses for failing to live missional lives. To consider Jonah’s rationale for disobeying God requires a little history lesson. Nineveh was the capital of Babylon, a hated enemy of the Hebrew people that had overthrown Israel years before and carried many of their people off to Exile. So what Jonah was being asked to do was take a warning to the people of Nineveh so they could be forgiven and spared from God’s wrath. It may help us to identify with Jonah to know that Nineveh sat about where the modern city of Baghdad is today.

Put yourself in Jonah’s place. Fill in your own favorite enemies: Democrats, Tea Partiers, Islamic extremists, the religious right or left, your bitter athletic rivals, unethical business competitors, lawyers, former spouses – whoever it is that you would like to be the very last people God would forgive. That’s exactly who Jonah is being asked to save and why he dares to defy a direct order from God.

I have been blessed by hearing good preaching this month. Pastor Tom Slack started the New Year off right for me with a sermon on the prologue to John’s Gospel. What struck me that day was the verse that says “The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” And just 2 verses later, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” I’ve been journaling and praying ever since about what it looks like for us, for me, to be full of grace and truth. Our other fine preacher, Mebane McMahon, added to the dialogue with her sermon the next week on the baptism of Christ and how we are all beloved children of God. She added another piece to the puzzle the next week’s sermon on the story of Eli and Samuel and how being beloved children means listening when God speaks.

In Jonah we have someone who doesn’t just fail to listen to God, he rebels and does the exact opposite of what God tells him to do. Why do we do that? It never turns out well. Reflecting on those January sermons my take on why Jonah and I and many of you fail to live a missional lifestyle is because of what we’re full of – or NOT full of. The Scriptures don’t tell us for sure why Jonah ran away. Chapter 1 says he tried to flee from the presence of the Lord. He needed to read Psalm 139 which asks the very question, “Where can I flee from God’s presence?” The answer is nowhere, because there is nowhere in all creation that God isn’t.

We aren’t told but we can imagine why Jonah does what he does. Maybe fear – he was being asked to go into enemy territory. Are there places or people God is asking us to be in mission that we are uncomfortable with or afraid to go? Maybe Anger – Jonah admits in the end of the story that he’s mad at God for forgiving his enemies. He says, “I knew you were a God of mercy who would repent and forgive these slime balls. They don’t deserve it.” (That’s a loose translation, by the way.) Are there people we don’t think deserve God’s grace and mercy? Do we hoard the good news of the Gospel – thinking if we share it there might not be enough for us?

It seems pretty clear to me that Jonah is full of anger or fear or vengeance or judgment, or some combination of those poisons. And that’s why he can’t obey God’s call. When we are full or even partially full of guilt, jealousy, doubt, insecurity, bitterness, pain, there’s no room for us to be full of grace and truth. Those negative feelings are like an anchor that keeps us stuck where we are and unable to go where God wants to send us.

It’s like this story about a blacksmith with a seemingly insurmountable problem. He just didn’t fit the macho stereotype of a blacksmith. He was strong and very good at his craft, but he was very, very short of stature. As a result, he was very unsuccessful in the dating game and was quite lonely. Until one day a beautiful young woman appeared in his blacksmith shop with a horse who had thrown a shoe. It was love at first sight for the smithy, and he could tell the feelings were mutual. So he took all the time he could and did the finest job he had ever done on shoeing a horse. As it was drawing time for his new love to leave, he desperately wanted to kiss her and could tell she would welcome that. But there was a big problem. She was a full head taller than he.

Just as he was about to give up yet again on romance, the blacksmith had a brilliant idea. He led the young woman by the hand to the corner of his shop and jumped up on the anvil where he had just hammered her horse’s shoe into perfect shape. Standing on the anvil, he was able to look into her beautiful brown eyes and kiss her.

The two of them fell madly in love and were inseparable for weeks and then months. Everyone in the village assumed they would soon announce their engagement to be married, and the young woman was waiting expectantly for her little beau to pop the big question. Instead, without warning, he announced to her one fine spring afternoon that he was going to have to end their courtship. She was devastated and confused. She asked him why? Didn’t he love her? Was it something she had done or said, or not done or not said? To each question he just shook his head until she was begging him to explain his sudden change of heart. Finally he said, “My dear, I do love you very much, but you see, dragging that darn anvil around everywhere we go is killing me!”

Like that anvil worry, fear, guilt, anger – whatever you are full of is an unnecessary burden that no longer needs to drag you down. And we don’t have to break up with God. Just get rid of the burden. We can give those things to God. That’s the truth that sets us free to say yes to God’s mission and purpose for our lives! No matter what our excuses have been none of us are beyond God’s redeeming love. If God can forgive the enemies of his chosen people who destroyed Jerusalem and carried God’s people off into Exile, then God can certainly forgive our reluctance to share our faith with the least and lost. And your Nineveh may not be as far away as you think. The person sitting next to you may need your support. Your mission may to someone in your own family or neighborhood or it may be somewhere further away.

Be open to surprises about where God leads you to discover your mission. In 1997 Bill Gates thought he was on a mission to bring computers to people in developing countries until he visited Africa and saw firsthand the abject poverty and the ravages of malaria and tuberculosis. He realized there were far more critical needs there than internet connectivity. He found a new mission and he and his wife Melinda started their foundation which has for 17 years donated millions of dollars to build hospitals and schools for impoverished people all over the world.

When wrestling with a call to a new mission, remember that it’s natural to feel nervous and fearful whenever we try something new and different. They call it moving out of your comfort zone – because it is! Susan Jeffers has written a very helpful book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. That’s easier said than done, but very good advice. I saw some good advice on Facebook recently about working out early in the morning before your brain realizes what you’re doing. In a similar vein, I’ve also found that it helps me when tackling a new challenge to do it quickly before I have time to realize I’m afraid.

So what does Jonah do after his mission in Nineveh is over? We don’t know. At the end of the story he’s pouting, caring more about a dead gourd plant that had been shading him from the sun than 120,000 people in Nineveh. Like many Biblical stories, the ending of the story is left up to us. That’s because more important than an old fish story from long ago is your story and mine, and the next chapter of those stories is waiting to be written.

My wife and I were participants in a very intense personal growth seminar a few years ago, and something there stirred up some anger in me which I directed at one of the workshop leaders. She listened to me rant awhile, and then she said very quietly to me, “You know, Steve, you don’t have to be angry. It’s a choice.” It was one of the best Aha moments of my life – to realize for that I don’t have to be controlled by my emotions. I can choose to respond differently. Is that easy? Of course not. My wife can tell you I still have a long way to go in changing that 60 year-old habit. But old dogs can learn new tricks; it just takes us awhile. We can change and allow ourselves to be filled with grace and truth that empowers us to live the mission God has for us – whatever that is.

Let me share something that has worked for me lately. When facing a challenging situation I try to remember to pause and ask, “How would I respond to this situation if I were filled with grace and truth?” It’s a form of “faking it till you make it,” a small way of practicing a missional lifestyle; and if I keep trying, with God’s help, to live AS IF I am full of grace and truth, that lifestyle will eventually become a new habit.

What are you full of? If you don’t like the answer to that question, the good news is you don’t have to spend time in a fish’s belly to turn your life around. All you have to do is say yes every day to the one who is Grace and Truth.

[Originally preached at Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio, January 25, 2015]

Freedom to Speak the Truth in Love

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

The killings and demonstrations in Copenhagen, cyber attacks and threats in response to Sony’s movie The Interview and the recent massacre at Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris have put the issue of freedom of expression on the front burner of media coverage and public discourse. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are so critical to Western and American values that they are number one in the U.S. Bill of Rights. The international outpouring of protest and sympathy captured in the “Je Suis Charlie” movement is further evidence of how close to home this tragedy has struck.

Emotions run high when core values are threatened. As much as I believe in non-violence, even I am tempted to despair that we are on the brink of a horrible and perhaps inevitable violent confrontation between radical Islamists and the West.

In hopes of tempering emotional reaction with reason, I am reminded of two favorite quotes as I try to sort out my thinking on these complicated issues. I was introduced to the first many years ago in a book by Frederick Buechner entitled Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale. Buechner likens the task of preaching to the final lines of Shakespeare’s King Lear where Edgar says, “The weight of this sad time we must obey; speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”

As one who grew up in a family with the “unspoken” (of course) motto “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” saying what we feel is a radical notion and essential to freedom of expression. Saying only what one ought to say may be polite and tactful, but it is also a subtle form of censorship.

The question that must be addressed in this debate is where does one cross the line between freedom of expression and disregard for the feelings and values of other human beings. In the global information age where words and images circumnavigate the world in seconds what one says has far wider impact than ever before in human history.

The Sony and Charlie Hebdo cases provide excellent examples of that point. Unrestricted freedom of expression says we can make a movie about the assassination of a foreign leader or publish satirical ridicule of a figure considered to be a holy prophet by millions of people, but does the freedom to express those feelings justify the damage done to human relationships already stretched to the breaking point in our world?

Let me be perfectly clear that I am not saying that taking offense to any form of expression ever justifies violent reprisals. I am merely calling for more reflection on potential consequences of what we say and how we say it. Anger and conflict are natural human realities. (See my blog post “Prince of Peace,” April 1, 2014 for a more detailed discussion.) And because the Information Age makes interaction between different cultural values inevitable, it is imperative that we find non-violent ways to manage conflict while protecting basic human freedoms.

One way to do that is found in Ephesians 4:14-15, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…” To “speak the truth in love” means a mature balance that is necessary between freedom of expression and consideration for other peoples’ feelings.

That does not mean failing to speak the truth, but it adds the critical dimension of thinking about how the truth is presented. Fred Craddock, another of my preaching mentors, says the preacher’s job is not to get things said, but to get them heard. That is true for all human communication and requires sensitivity and respect for one’s hearers to guide the choice of words and images we share with the world – and every tweet, whisper, Instagram, post and conversation has the potential for that kind of global sharing.

One of the lies many of us were told as children is that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Not true. Words and images have tremendous power to hurt and to heal; so use them wisely. Yes, the weight of these sad times demands that we say what we feel, but the peace and well-being of our world depends on our ability to learn to deliver that truth wrapped in love, even for those who call us enemy.

“How Can We Ever Do That?”

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

I have preached over 800 times in my ministerial career. Of all those sermons, none has stuck in my memory as much as the one I preached on September 23, 2001, 12 days after 9/11. As I was reflecting on that horrible event and the continuing scourge of violence in our world today I decided to revisit that sermon, and I found the words of Jesus that inspired that sermon as relevant and as troubling now as they were 13 years ago. So as I pray for peace for a world seemingly bent on destruction, I share these reflections again. The sermon was preached at Jerome United Methodist Church on the text from Matthew 5:38-48 on loving one’s enemies.

This week was harder for me than last week and not just because I was struggling with what to say here this morning. The suffering and agony of the whole terrorist ordeal became personalized and real for me this week. 3000 victims in the abstract last week were more than my mind could wrap itself around. But as individual stories emerged of real people with real names, victims and families and heroes and heroines, my already bruised and battered heart was broken over and over again.

But from the very first hours of the tragedy my greatest pain and fear was not for the damage and suffering that occurred on September 11, as unbelievably horrible as it was. My greatest pain and fear has been for the inevitable escalation and perpetuation of violence that I knew these horrible acts would generate in retaliation that will inflict more suffering on more innocent people.

A friend of mine told me just after the attacks that he had forgotten how easy it is to be a Christian in times of peace and prosperity. And he is very right. We turn to God and scripture for comfort and reassurance in times of distress, as well we must and should, but some of the most important words of scripture also challenge us and are hard to hear.

And that’s why I have been engaged in a lovers’ quarrel with Jesus for the last 12 days over what to say this morning. I have tried every trick I know to avoid the difficult words we just heard from the Sermon on the Mount–these words that are high on the list of those we wish Jesus hadn’t said, but they would not let me rest. They have forced themselves into my consciousness over and over again, pleading, demanding, and crying out to be proclaimed.

“You have heard it said…” O, have we ever – all the public opinion polls confirm in spades that those who want revenge are legion, and I include myself in those who are angry. Getting even is a natural human reaction, and we’ve all been there many times this month. “You have heard it said, an eye for and a tooth for a tooth.” Sounds like good advice. In fact, at the time those words were written, they were designed to limit revenge; so victims would not demand two eyes for an eye, or a whole mouthful of teeth for a tooth. But as someone has said, if we follow the eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth philosophy to its logical conclusion, we end up with a world full of blind, toothless people, and the cycle of violence and pain continues forever.

“But I say to you…” Look out whenever Jesus starts out with that phrase and brace yourself for a zinger. “But I say to you, love your enemies. If anyone strikes, you on the north tower, turn the south tower as well.” O, Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding! We can’t do that! You can’t be serious. How can we possibly love those responsible for such horrific acts of death and destruction?

But Jesus isn’t alone on this one. I’m not sure to whom this letter was written, but a copy of it was circulating on the internet this week; and it contains a very similar thought from a leader of another of the world’s great religions, the Dalai Lama. He writes, “It may seem presumptuous on my part, but I personally believe we need to think seriously whether a violent action is the right thing to do and in the greater interest of the nation and people in the long run. I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence. But how do we deal with hatred and anger, which are often the root causes of such senseless violence? This is a very difficult question, especially when it concerns a nation and we have certain fixed conceptions of how to deal with such attacks. I am sure that you will make the right decision. With my prayers and good wishes, the Dalai Lama.”

I couldn’t agree more with this analysis, and I have been pleased to hear more of these sentiments this week than I expected, but practically it’s not all that helpful. Of course violence begets more violence. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. We know that and want to believe peace is an achievable ideal. We’ve seen the failure of wars to end all wars and we want to be faithful Christians and follow the ways of the Prince of Peace. That’s all well and good in the abstract, but the question I want Jesus or the Dalai Lama or somebody smarter than I to answer is, HOW do we love our enemies? How do we love someone who can do to our nation what these terrorists have done?

Jesus says a bit earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” By whom? Not by their enemies or by most of their peers. Peacemakers, cheek turners, are more often called “yellow” and “coward” or “chicken,” but seldom even “children of God.” We would much rather go with Moses on this one wouldn’t we, but are we followers of Moses or Jesus?

It is hard to find silver linings in some clouds, but even in tragedy there are some benefits. We see it in extended families that rally around each other when there is a death of illness. And in a similar fashion, the outpouring of patriotic spirit and resolve in the last two weeks has been amazing. One could certainly argue that this tragedy has created a sense of community that has been sorely lacking in our nation for many years. But Jesus asks us to take that sense of community one giant step further–to include even our enemies in the circle of God’s family.

I had a flashback to Jr. Hi youth fellowship this morning. One of those awkward moments when we were circling up to say the benediction at the end of a meeting, and I found myself next to a girl and was afraid I’d get her cooties if I had to hold her hand. And some wonderful adult counselor saw the problem and stepped in between us to close the circle. That’s just what Jesus does when he asks us to love our enemies. When we can’t bring ourselves to take that hand, Jesus steps in and completes the circle.

This doesn’t mean that justice and order are not necessary for us to be able to live peaceful, secure lives once more. It simply means that our attitudes and methods of seeking justice and peace need to be just and peaceful and loving; so that we do not fall into the trap of perpetuating the very kind of behavior we deplore. The Christian way to the goal of peace and security must be prayer and dialogue, not bombs and bullets. We follow the way of compassion and love and forgiveness. It is not an easy way, but it is necessary. And the best news is that success is guaranteed–guaranteed by the one who walked the talk of that love all the way to the cross to show us once and for all that love is stronger than death, that nothing in all creation, not terrorism or fear or death itself, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus did it. He practiced what he preached. But how can we love our enemies, even while we deplore their horrible deeds?

I certainly don’t have all the answers–not even all the questions; but it seems to me there are two or three things that are necessary for us to have any hope of following Jesus down this path of loving our enemies.

1) We need to understand who are enemies are and who they aren’t so we don’t over-react in fear against all Muslims or all Arabs, or against everyone who looks different and therefore suspicious.

2) We need to study and learn and discuss so we understand better the complicated political and religious realities we are caught up in. We don’t dare oversimplify or stereotype. Afghanistan is not our enemy – it is a nation in ruins from previous wars and conflicts. Neither Bin Laden and the terrorists nor the Taliban are representative of the Afghan people, and they cannot be equated.

Tamim Ansary, a writer and columnist in San Francisco, who is a native of Afghanistan, writes this interesting and chilling portrayal of his homeland:
“The Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators….Some say, why don’t the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is they’re starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan–a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines; the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. We now come to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age. Trouble is, that’s been done. The Soviets took care of it already. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today’s Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They’d slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don’t move too fast; they don’t even have wheelchairs. Bombing Kabul would only make common cause with the Taliban –by raping once again the people they’ve already been raping all this time.”

3) Perhaps most important, we must practice forgiveness. Someone has written that forgiveness is the key to happiness. The pursuit of happiness is one of our most cherished American ideals, and forgiveness is what it takes to be free of the burdens of anger and hostility that make happiness very illusive.

One of the young widows of this tragedy was interviewed on ABC this week. Her husband was one of the passengers who apparently resisted the hijackers on the Pennsylvania flight and helped keep the tragedy from being even worse than it was. When Diane Sawyer asked this young widow with two small children and a third on the way if she wanted revenge, without batting an eye she said, “No, I don’t want any Arab women to have to go through what I’m going through.” And then to support her position she quoted the Sunday school song we sang this morning, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight…” If she can forgive when her life has been altered forever, can we do any less?

I’ve always assumed that forgiveness was for those who have wronged me, but I realized in reflecting on this tragedy that forgiveness is a two-way street. Forgiveness needs to be given, but before it can be given it has to be received; and to receive it, we have to confess our own sin and examine our own contributions to misunderstanding, prejudice, and injustice. To assume we are good and they are bad is far too simple and counterproductive and leads us in the direction of a blind toothless world once more.

To understand why anyone has so much hatred toward our nation, we need to get to know these enemies–to understand what we may have done that we need to be forgiven for. And that dialogue can’t take place over the barrel of a gun or under the shadow of a cruise missile.

How can we love these enemies, or anyone who has done us great harm?

My favorite story about that kind of love comes from another period of unspeakable terror and suffering in human society, the Holocaust. After the war, a young Christian woman traveled around Europe proclaiming the good news of God’s grace and love for everyone who would repent and give their life to Christ. Corrie Ten Boom was a death camp survivor. Her entire family had died in the Nazi death gas chambers, and yet she was filled with God’s love and anxious to tell her story. Until one night when she was giving her testimony and looked out into the congregation where she saw a face that made her blood run cold. Sitting there staring at her from the pew was one of the former Nazi concentration camp guards who had helped to execute her family. She could barely finish her talk and hurried toward the side door of the church as soon as she was finished, hoping to avoid any further contact with this awful man.

But he was anxious to talk to her and met her at the door. He extended his hand as he told her that he had repented and become a Christian, but, he added, it was so good to hear someone like her proclaim the unbelievable good news that God’s love was available even to such a terrible sinner as he had been. His hand was there, waiting for Corrie to take it in Christian fellowship. But her hand was paralyzed, frozen at her side for what seemed like an eternity. The silence was awkward, and even though she knew she should shake his hand, she could not. Finally, she said a prayer. She said, “Lord, if you want me to forgive this man, you’re going to have to do it, because I can’t.”

And just then, Corrie said her hand moved of its own accord. She took the former Nazi’s hand and says she felt the most amazing surge of warmth and power pass between them that she had ever felt in her life.

How can we love our enemies? On our own, we can’t. But with God’s help as followers of Jesus Christ, relying on and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit, we can, we must, and we will.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory!

Fish Tale and Forgiveness, Jonah 3:1-10

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

Last week’s text from I Samuel raised a tough question: are some sins beyond forgiveness?  I hadn’t looked ahead in the lectionary then but was pleased to find that the Hebrew text from Jonah for this week offers a great response to that question.

Ask most people what they know about Jonah, and you will get “Jonah and the whale” as their response.  It’s a familiar story kids learn about and sing about in Sunday School, but it is more than a big fish story (which is what the Hebrew says, not a “whale” per se).  I’m not a fisherman, but I’ve always been attracted to Jonah and even chose it as the text for the first sermon I ever preached, way back in 1969.  At the time my wife asked me why that text.  She said, “What does that story mean for us today?”  My response, “Don’t go swimming with big fish.”

Of course, it means much more than that if we take time to ask some basic questions, like what was Jonah doing in the water and why was he swallowed by the big fish?  It’s a very short story, only 3 pages, and it makes much more sense if read in its entirety. But here’s the abridged version:

  1.  God calls Jonah and tells him to go on a mission to Nineveh.
  2. Jonah doesn’t want to go and jumps on a ship headed for Tarshish (in the exact opposite direction) instead.
  3. God is not pleased and causes a storm at sea, and when the sailors learn that Jonah is the reason for God’s displeasure, they throw Jonah overboard.
  4. God appoints a big fish to swallow Jonah. (Not to punish him, by the way, but to save him and give him time to reconsider God’s offer.)
  5. After 3 days God has the fish spit Jonah out; and Jonah decides this time he’d better listen to God, heads for Nineveh and delivers God’s message.
  6. The people of Nineveh heed Jonah’s warning, repent of their sins, and are forgiven and saved from God’s judgment on them.
  7. Jonah pouts because he really wanted God to give the Ninevites hell, not mercy.

So there’s a lot more going on here than Jonah and the fish.  It’s a story about a refusal to say yes when God’s wishes are very plain.  Jonah’s call is not ambiguous as is sometimes the case. The message from God to Jonah couldn’t be more clear and direct: “Go at once to Nineveh” (1:1).    There is no failure to communicate here – just reluctance to obey.  And we all know how smart it is to say “no” to God; so why would Jonah even try?  To answer that question requires a little history lesson.  Nineveh was the capital of Babylon, a hated enemy of the Hebrew people.  Ironically, for our contemporary context, Nineveh sat about where modern day Baghdad is located today.  Given that context, we know what Jonah was being asked to do was take a warning to the people of Nineveh so they could be forgiven and spared from God’s wrath.

Jonah knew, as he says in 4:2, that Yahweh was a God of mercy and would forgive those hated enemies of his people.  Put yourself in Jonah’s place.  Fill in your own favorite enemies: liberals, conservatives, 9/11 terrorists, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, Muslims, Evangelicals, bitter athletic rivals, business competitors, lawyers, former spouses – whoever it is that you would like to be the very last people God would forgive.  That’s who Johan is being asked to save and why he is a reluctant prophet who dares to defy a direct order from God.  As the story unfolds we see it is one of repentance – Jonah repents of his obedience after God gives him a three-day time out in the smelly innards of a fish.  The people of Nineveh repent after they hear Jonah’s message from God.  And even God gets in on the act and repents of his judgment against the people of Nineveh.

Which brings us, finally, back to last week’s question about unforgiveable sin.  And the answer is “no.”  If God can forgive the enemies of his chosen people who destroyed Jerusalem and carried God’s people off into exile, what could be unforgiveable?

Jonah is a foreshadowing of the grace-filled Gospel of Jesus, which turns on its head the vengeful, don’t get mad, get even theology we often prefer in our Jonah-like assessment of who deserves forgiveness.  Jesus states that Gospel as clearly as God calls of Jonah.  “You have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”  And, ‘You’ve heard it said, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:38-44).

That doesn’t sound like a God who would hold anything unforgiveable, does it?   That’s the Amazing Grace we sing about that “saves a wretch like me.”  So, then why does it say in last week’s text (I Sam. 3:14) that the sins of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for forever?  David Stackpole, one of the best students I ever had in preaching class, interpreted that I Samuel text in a way many years ago that made a lot of sense to me then and still does.  David pointed out a couple of key words in I Samuel 3:14 that are easy to read over when our attention is captured by the harshness of the other words in the verse.  He pointed out that the verse doesn’t say their sins cannot be atoned for; it says they cannot be atoned for “by sacrifice or offering.”

We sometimes fall into the trap of imposing our human limitations on God.  Someone once said, “God created us in God’s image, and we return the favor.”  In this case those limitations involve too narrow concepts of not only who and what God can forgive, but how.  The Hebrew theology of Samuel’s day saw sacrificial offerings as the default means of seeking God’s forgiveness.  Ironically, it was Eli’s son’s misuse of sacrificial offerings that got them in hot water.  (See last week’s post for details.)  Eli’s sons corrupted sacrifice as a means of grace with their own selfishness and deceit; so how could something they had no respect for and had broken trust with be a vehicle for finding their way back to God.

But because humans spoil one gift from God doesn’t mean God can’t come up with others.  To put those kind of limits on God would limit God’s power and render God unworthy of our trust.  Jonah tried putting parameters on God’s forgiveness, and we see how well that worked for him.

God’s forgiveness cannot be bought with sacrifice or offering.  But it can be accepted as a freely given gift by those who are humble enough to know we need it.  The Ninevites were forgiven because they repented and admitted their sin (Jonah 4:6-9).  There are multiple scriptures that attest to God’s merciful nature.  The prophet Isaiah (1:18) says, “Though your sins be as scarlet I will make them white as snow.”   Jesus says to his executioners from the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24).  I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Yes, I know, there are many counter texts that argue for the vengeful God Jonah wished upon his enemies (like we do).  Those texts were written by angry men who wanted their enemies to suffer, but be very careful of that two-edged sword.  Those who live by that unforgivable doctrine will stand under the same judgment.  See living in glass houses and throwing stones?

God’s grace is free.  It can’t be earned by bigger checks in the offering plate or making greater sacrifices of our time and effort.  It is simply poured out in an overflowing cup for those who repent and truly seek it.  What are you waiting for?  There is no need to carry that heavy burden of guilt and anger another day.  God who can show mercy on reluctant, disobedient Jonah and on his dreaded enemies in Nineveh can certainly forgive us too.