God's Scandalously Bad Economics

God’s going to go out of business if He keeps this up!

I mean, look at this ridiculous behavior:

1"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a day’s wage for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 About 9am he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' 5 So they went. "He went out again about noon and 3pm and did the same thing. 6 About 5pm he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' 7 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered. "He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'

8"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' 9 The workers who were hired about 5 came and each received a full day’s wage. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a day’s wage. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'

13 "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a day’s wage? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last." – Matthew 20:1-16

This is no way to run a business! You can’t just throw your money to the wind that way, and you certainly don’t want to alienate your most faithful workers.

And make no mistake. The landowner is intended to be God. How you take this parable probably depends on whether you feel like a worker who’s been bearing the burden of the work and the heat of the day, or whether you identify more with the 5pm crowd (in Greek “the eleventh hour”). It's not a huge revelation to think of God as merciful, but Jesus here puts it into such concrete terms that it makes us scratch our heads, and start thinking of exceptions to a pretty exceptional picture of God.

Let me add a little more fuel to this fire. Why were the 5pm people unable to get hired to work before?

Two possibilities spring to mind (and there are likely more – the beauty of a parable):
1. There was something wrong with them. Potential employers came and went and passed this group by, mentally moving their resumes to the bottom of the pile. Whether physical infirmity or just an unsavory look about them, nobody was hiring – at least not them. If this is the case, then God in this parable is the one who accepts the otherwise unacceptable – and treats them as equals with the fittest and the finest. The last shall be first.

But there’s another possibility.

2. The 5pm crowd is lying. When asked, they tell the landowner they were ‘standing around all day’ because no one hired them. What if that’s because they weren’t trying very hard to get hired? Are they trustworthy narrators? What if they slept till noon, had a leisurely lunch, watched ‘Days of Our Lives,’ ‘Jeopardy,’ and ‘Oprah’ and THEN decided to try to find some work? And they get hired and paid a full day’s wage! If this is the case, then God is …what? Beyond merciful? Ridiculously redemptive? Rewarding bad behavior? In a more famous, but similar parable, that was the older son’s take on the situation when his wasteful, wanton brother got a celebration feast for dragging his butt back to the home he never should have left. It’s scandalous!

Is it unfair to the early morning crowd? I asked the youth “If the early morning crowd sued the landowner for unfair labor practices, and you were the judge, how would you decide the case?” They all said for the landowner. One astutely said “There was a verbal contract!” Yet there is something about this that makes us shift in our seats.

And verse 15 is the crux of the matter. That last sentence, “Are you envious because I am generous?” says in literal Greek “Is your eye evil because I am good?”

Brothers and sisters, I am afraid we have not yet realized the depth of the mercy of God. We create systems and schemes and detailed criteria to determine who’s in and who’s out. If we were running the vineyard we’d have flow charts and sliding pay scales, and we probably would decide it wasn’t worth the effort to hire anyone at the eleventh hour!

But God doesn’t think like we do. Apparently God wakes up in the morning, stretches His Almighty arm and His Righteous right hand, and asks Himself “What undeserving wretch can I shower my blessings on today?”

God, may our preaching and teaching and lives and ministry do justice to Your scandalous grace. Help our eyes not to become evil because You are good

Beatitude Week - Day 7: Praying the Beatitudes

For the close of Beatitude week, and for this day of worship, a prayer guide:

“Blessed are the poor in the spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Help me Lord, come to you humbly, without pride, arrogance, or a sense of entitlement. Help me to receive gratefully every good gift from your hand, and so live as a faithful follower and good citizen of your kingdom. Help me to live in a way that your will is done in every place I go.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Help me Lord, not to rest on my laurels, or sit in despair because of all the things that are wrong. Help me to expect your Spirit to come and enliven, energize, and redeem me, and enliven, energize, and redeem the people of your church, and the world.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Lord, help me to wield your Spirit-given power with self-control, and to trust you to care for what is yours. I trust my reputation to you – and pray that your estimation of me would be the only one that guides and comforts me. Lord, help me receive graciously all that you allow me to have.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Help me Lord, humbly, empathically, meekly, seek to do right and give you praise when I do, for you are the source of all righteousness.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Lord, help me to be merciful, as you have been merciful to me. Help me to forgive the faults against me, and to love even my enemies.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Be my one thing Lord. And as I gaze upon you, bring the lives and needs of others into focus – help me see your image in myself, in those around me, and in the world.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Let the vision of you animate me to work for your purposes. Help me to bring healing to the broken, hope to the hopeless, love to the loveless, and reconciliation to the warring.

“Blessed are those who have persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.”

Lord, help me to proclaim your gospel and to seek first your kingdom, fearless of what any power on earth may do to me, trusting that the power of the Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is also working in me.

Beatitude Week - Day 6: The Peacemakers and the Persecuted

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
“Blessed are those who have persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Today, a quiz, with visual aids!

This is a peacemaker:



A Colt Peacemaker, specifically.

And this is a peacemaker:



Can you guess which one is closer to what Jesus had in mind with the saying about peacemakers?

The difference is worth exploring. First of all, note that Jesus says “peacemaker” and not “peacekeeper.” The role he has in mind is not one merely of maintaining a peaceful situation already in existence, or merely preventing fighting, but of a proactive making of peace in situations where there is not peace.

One method of doing this is exemplified by peacemaker number 1, up there. Make peace by having a bigger gun that the other person. The first century Roman historian Tacitus had this to say about the Roman Empire, the original setting of Jesus’ saying: “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”

There is also the approach taken by the second peacemaker above, a making peace that turns away from violent or coercive methods of achieving its goals. This approach also has a broader, more positive definition of peace: “Peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice,” said Martin Luther King, Jr.

The peacemakers will be called sons and daughters of God. Take up the profession of your Father and bring peace where there is war, justice where there is injustice, reconciliation where there is brokenness.

But don’t be deceived. People aren’t as fond of peacemakers as you would think. People are much more fond of peacemakers after they are dead than when they were alive. And peacemakers have this habit of being killed in most un-peaceful ways.

We hate it when people are oppressed, unless of course we directly benefit from the oppression. We love helping people, unless of course it requires us to give up our “rights.”

And when you start talking about that kind of peacemaking, and following that kind of Messiah, people are bound to get upset. They didn’t crucify Jesus because He was so nice. It was because they were terrified of the consequences of people really following him.

The great modern theologian Jurgen Moltmann said:
“Jesus’ sufferings and humiliation came from his actions, from his preaching of the imminence of the kingdom as a kingdom of unconditional grace, from his freedom towards the law, and from his table-fellowship with ‘sinners and tax-collectors.’ Jesus did not suffer passively from the world in which he lived, but incited it against himself by his message and the life he lived.”

So, who wants to be a Christian?

Well, I’ve got good news, and bad news. The good news is that, as Jesus said, when you are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, you are standing in line with a great tradition! Those persecuted for the sake of this kind of righteous peace-making stand shoulder to shoulder with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, Micah, and more. And did you catch the subtle thing there, where Jesus seems to be saying that the prophets of old were following him, instead of him following them? So that's the good news.

The bad news is that, according to Jewish tradition at least, all the prophets died as martyrs.

But there’s more Good News. It ain’t permanent. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” – the ones who have lived and died as ambassadors for the kingdom of God will feel right at home when the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ. (Rev. 12:15)

Beatitude Week - Day 5: The Hungry, The Merciful, and the Pure in Heart

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Whew! Finally we’re in familiar blessing territory! Jesus has been talking this WHOLE TIME about being divinely blessed, and he hasn’t once mentioned being blessed for having faith, praying for blessings, or giving money. He has these odd notions that blessings come from humility, mourning, and meekness. So odd.

But now, here we are! Blessed are the righteous! Get on God’s side and get blessed!

Except…that’s not exactly what it says, is it? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are those who desire to be right with God the way a starving person desires food, the way a person in the desert wants water. And they shall be satisfied – not, “and they shall satisfy themselves,” but shall be satisfied. The object and the source of righteousness is God.

And there’s a reason this is 4th down the list. Before we try to determine if we are on God’s side, or vice versa, it would do us good to achieve humility, a proper gravity toward the suffering in the world, and a proper perspective on spiritual and earthly power. And it might help us to remember Who is really righteous.

It would also be good for us to remember that the Righteous One is also the Merciful One. Everybody likes to receive mercy. We really like it when the traffic officer lets us off with a warning. But it certainly is difficult to give mercy. We want people who have hurt our feelings to make it up to us in extravagant ways. We want people who have harmed us prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Except ourselves, of course. We clearly deserve a second chance. Possibly a third, or fiftieth.

Blessed are the pure in heart. We often take this to mean innocent, or unsullied. I tend to think it’s the other definition of pure – made up of one thing. Pure gold is only gold. Pure honey is only honey. And the pure in heart have hearts made up of one love – the love of God. And the promise is that their love will be rewarded with the sight of the Beloved.

Again, the placement is important. The ones who seek to see God are also the ones called to be merciful, and following this Beatitude, called to be peacemakers. To love the Lord your God with all your heart does not mean to separate yourself from the world – it means to see God in it, and work to do God’s will in it. It means to see the image of God in our neighbors. And as G.K. Chesterton said “Jesus tells us to love our neighbors and to love our enemies, because often they are the same people.” The pure in heart shall see God – sooner, and in more places, than you might think.

Beatitude Week - Day 4: The Mourners and the Meek

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

There are two basic categories for “hard teachings of Jesus.” There are the teachings that are hard to understand, and then there are the teachings that are easy to understand and hard to do. The first Beatitude – blessed are the poor in spirit – is one of the latter. Be humble. Got it Jesus – I’ll get right on that. The next two are little harder to make out at first glance.

We are still talking about blessings, right? What could it possibly mean to be blessed by mourning? And meek people are the quiet, shy, types, right? It seems unlikely that loud, powerful types will hand over the earth to them, doesn’t it?

Let’s start with “blessed are those who mourn.” What this does NOT mean is that spiritual people must be depressed and depressing people. The life of Jesus demonstrates this. His detractors accused him of being a drunkard and a glutton. But I think the life of Jesus also demonstrates what this means – to be present in the midst of and to be aware of the suffering around us. Mourning means not pretending that everything is ok when we know it isn’t, and not ignoring the suffering around us just because it doesn’t directly affect us.

I think this guy expresses well what that would could look like:

The terms of the promise here are important – they will be comforted. The consolation looked for is from God. And I don’t think it is a coincidence that one of the names for the Holy Spirit is “the Comforter.” The Power of God is active in the world to redeem and transform those things that cause us to mourn. Mourning doesn’t mean that we have to bear the burdens of the entire world ourselves. It means that we look to the One who gives true comfort, and work alongside Him, empowered by His Spirit, to do His will.

And what about the meek? This is one of those times that the English language and the Greek don’t match up so well. The meaning of the Greek word translated “meek” means “one who has power under control.” Meek does not mean weak. Meek means discerning the difference between having the ability to do something, and knowing whether it is right or wrong to do it. As Jeff Goldblum says in that great philosophical work of our times, Jurassic Park “You were so worried about whether you could do something that you never stopped to ask whether you should do it.”

So, read it again this way: “Blessed are those with their power under control, for they shall inherit the earth.” The patient, the faithful, the self-controlled, those who consider their actions based on the will of God and on the effect on others – they will inherit the earth. And I think Jesus has in mind here the redeemed earth of God’s new creation. The transformed earth that is - in fact as well as promise – the kingdom of God.

Another way to approach the idea of meekness, and one that has particular application for our society, is to submit ourselves to letting our actions speak for us, and letting God speak on our behalf. Here the power in question is the power of our speech, and that matches up pretty well with the traditional "quiet person" definition of meekness. Just because we can spend all our time justifying ourselves to others doesn't necessarily mean that we should. Who are we trying to impress? Richard Foster says in his great book on spiritual discipline: "We are so accustomed to relying on words to manage and control others. If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him."

A.W. Tozer puts it this way: "The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightly of you. The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Such a burden as this is not necessary to bear. Jesus calls us to His rest, and meekness is His method. The meek has accepted God's estimate of his own life. In himself nothing, in God everything; that is his motto. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him."

Beatitude Week - Day 3: The Poor in Spirit and the Kingdom of Heaven

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Where is the kingdom of heaven? Where is it in space, and in time? Throughout Christian history you tend to get one of two answers:

1. The kingdom of heaven IS heaven. In space it is above and beyond this earth, and in time it is in the future beyond the present life.

2. The kingdom of heaven is here on earth. In space it is where the people of God are, and where God’s presence is supposed to be in a unique way. The Crusaders equated it with Israel and Jerusalem, like in that Orlando Bloom movie. The Pilgrims equated it with wherever they happened to land. The Mormons with Utah, of all places. In time it is present. The fun theological term for this is “realized eschatology.”

Before we weigh in on “where is kingdom of heaven,” we need to answer the question “what is the kingdom of heaven?” Remember, we are in Matthew, the Jewish-focused gospel, and in keeping with the Jewish tradition, Matthew is sensitive about throwing around the name of God willy-nilly. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of God.

What is the kingdom of God? I propose to you that the kingdom of God corresponds to earthly kingdoms in this way: The place where the will of the king of Denmark is done is the kingdom of Denmark. The place where the will of the king of Norway is done is the kingdom of Norway. The place where Anne Hathaway’s and Julie Andrews’ will is done is the kingdom of Genovia (thanks, youth girls). The place where the will of the king of heaven is done is the kingdom of God.

That means it can be BOTH in the present and the future. That means it can be both on and beyond the earth.

Re-examine this well-known bit of Jesus’ teaching: “Your kingdom come/Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Those are parallel statements – they say the same thing. “As Your will is done on earth, so it becomes as much Your kingdom as heaven is.” Like an embassy of heaven – a stronghold of the will of God, waiting for the future when the two (earth and heaven) become one in fact and not only in promise.

And the first requirement for citizenship? Humility.

Not place of birth. Not family of origin. Not even righteousness or right behavior (that’s fourth down the list – and it’s desiring righteousness, anyway).

That really opens up the roster, doesn’t it? Anybody, born anywhere, from any creed, no matter what they’ve done previously, is a potential citizen of heaven, and thereby has the divine blessing of God – as long as they are humble in spirit.

And that’s where most of the “heaven is a place on earth” people of the past blew it, and still blow it today. If you are doing the will of God, but being a snot about it, you’re doing it wrong. If you think your place and your people are heaven on earth, and you’re arrogant about it and exclusive in a way that Jesus never was – you’re doing it wrong.

And because humility is lot harder than it looks – it’s good to remember that as soon as I become proud of being able to spot the people who are doing it wrong – I’m in danger of doing it wrong.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Beatitude Week - Day 2: The New Moses, The New Israel

One of the fascinating things about the New Testament is how much of it is actually the Old Testament. Take a look! You can’t go a page or two in the gospels or Paul without a direct quote or thematic reference to something that happened in the Old Testament. Hebrews is about half Old Testament. James wants to be an Old Testament book. Revelation is Zechariah, Isaiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel in a blender and then smothered with Jesus.

[Tangent: You sometimes hear from detractors of Christianity that the story of Jesus is a warmed over version of other ancient dying and rising god myths – Dionysus, Horus, Mithras, Baal - take your pick. The thing that gives the lie to that is the bond between the life of Christ and the story of Israel. Ancient Roman culture was a syncretistic society – that is, they never minded a good mish-mash of religions, as long as you paid your taxes. Ancient Jewish society was the exact opposite – "No outside influences, please, we’d rather die." And all of Jesus' first disciples, and Paul, were Jews. There’s more to be said about this, but that’s it in a nutshell. End Tangent]

So the topic of the day is how the Beatitudes fit into the New Testament/Old Testament love fest.

First of all, we’re in Matthew, and that gospel writer is so concerned with the Old Testament that he starts his gospel with a genealogy. Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The Messiah – the representative Israelite, linked to the other representatives of the nation of Israel – the representative Hebrew, and the representative king. As a baby, his life parallels the story of the people of God – in danger from a wicked king, he flees to Egypt, then is called out of exile. As an adult, the echoes continue – he passes through the waters of the Jordan, and he wanders in the wilderness. With those who had ears to hear, here was one who was living anew the old, old story, an individual standing for the whole. And then he finds himself on a mountain, surrounded by a crowd of Israelites.

And he begins to teach. Remind you of anyone?

Here’s a hint:


But it is not laws he pronounces, but blessings. Later he will quote the old law, given on that first mountain, by that first prophet who came out of Egypt – and then He will say “But I say unto you…” The crowds will be amazed, and will say that this one teaches with authority. And in a few short chapters, he will choose 12 disciples. Twelve, like the tribes of Israel. That is not a coincidence.

What is going on here?

Jesus is rebooting the franchise. He is fulfilling the as-yet unfulfilled promises of God. He is telling Israel, the people of God, what it looks like to be the people of God in mind and heart and soul, and not in name only. It is as N.T. Wright states in Jesus and the Victory of God, “a challenge to Israel to be Israel.”

And he starts with blessings…

Beatitude Week - Day 1: How to be Blessed

When you preach or teach, it's always good to have an introduction that’s going to grab people’s attention. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, went with “how to be blessed.” We all want God’s blessings – what William Barclay in his little book on the Beatitudes calls "the Divine Bliss." There are many preachers today that make this their one and only sermon topic; how to receive the blessing of God. They might recommend praying for it, believing in it hard enough, or giving money to their ministry, because apparently they have some sort of investment system worked out with God, with low, low APR and a rate of return that Lending Tree would kill for. And by “the blessing of God” they have specific ideas in mind – usually assurance of eternal salvation, a clean bill of health, and cash money. Solid bodies and liquid assets. Rock hard abs and cold hard cash.

Jesus has something different in mind. Both more demanding conditions for blessing, and better rewards. Barclay calls this list “the essence of the essence of the Christian way of life.”

“Blessed are the poor in the spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
“Blessed are those who have persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

We will return to the above later this week, but for now, dear reader, ruminate on these two ideas:
1. The order of the conditions for blessing is not accidental.
2. All of the descriptions of the rewards are parallel ideas. Gaining the kingdom of heaven, receving comfort, inheriting the earth, receiving satisfaction, receiving mercy, seeing God, being children of God, and having great reward in heaven are all different ways of speaking about the same thing.

A word on the topic from A.W. Tozer:
"A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished to one unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out, and saying, "Here is your human race." In the world we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride; instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness, arrogance; instead of hunger and thirst after righteousness we hear men saying, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing;" instead of mercy we find cruelty; instead of purity of heart, corrupt imaginings; instead of peacemakers we find them fighting back with every weapon at their command. Culture and education refine these things slightly, but leave them basically untouched."

Now, Tozer is hyperbolizing - you can't say all of this about everyone, but there does seem to be a lot of that going around doesn't there? And Jesus offers an alternative, a place to stand that is more like a rock than shifting sand, a way to live that will sustain us through rain, and flood, and crashing wind.

Bible Verses That Freak Me Out # 27 – You SURE you want to pray that? – Matthew 6:12

Lurking within the most well known prayer in scripture is a soul-wrenching challenge.

“Our Father, who art in heaven,” we say, and proceed smoothly along, asking for his kingdom to come, will be done, daily bread, and then, apparently we all have a moment of insanity, or we haven’t been listening closely.

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Wait, back up. Asking God for forgiveness – right, got it. Totally normal. But there’s a condition in there that we normally just skip over. In the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking God to forgive us in the same way and to the same degree that we have already forgiven the people around us. That's what the "as" is for. And behold! As we have already forgiven our debtors - past tense!

Are you sure you want to pray that? In case we missed it, Jesus helpfully adds after the prayer; “For if you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” Matt. 6:14-15

Great. Very clear – in a "makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck" kind of way. I like F.F. Bruce's comment in Hard Sayings of Jesus: "The meaning is unambiguous, and it is unwise to try to avoid its uncomfortable challenge."

So, how are you doing at forgiveness? Well enough to ask God to follow your lead in the way He forgives you?

This theme runs all through the New Testament. Our relationship to others is the true yardstick by which we can judge our relationship with God.

“If someone says , ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” – 1 John 4:20

Tangent: When praying this in a communal setting, I can never anticipate whether we are going to say “debts,” “trespasses,” or “sins”, with the corresponding “debtors,” “those who have trespassed against us,” or “those who have sinned against us.” I always wait and let the first one go by before joining in for the last part. If you ever get to lead a Lord’s Prayer, you can freak everyone out by mixing and matching – start with a trespasses and switch to debtors for the closing! They’ll never see it coming!

Tangent off the tangent: In Greek, the word is literally “debt.” You know, the money kind. It can of course have the meaning of an offense, as verses 14 and 15 show, obviously expanding on "debts." In Aramaic (what Jesus was likely speaking) the word for “debt” and “sin” is the same. What a fun difference that makes in the prayer! “And forgive us what we owe you, as we have forgiven the people who owe us money.”
Ahem.

So – forgiveness. Hard to do. One reason I think we have trouble with the idea of forgiveness is that we have mistaken expectations of what forgiveness entails. We imagine it as a “once for all” deal. “I’ll forgive you, and then I’ll never think about it again.” Well, that doesn’t work even for minor offenses, much less major trauma. Similarly, we imagine that forgiveness is the same as saying, “No harm, no foul.” We think it is saying that we “pretend it never happened.” We think forgiveness is denial or willful ignorance of sin. We think it means there are no consequences.

God can forgive and forget. We his creations can approximate only the forgiveness part. Like grief, forgiveness is a process. Like grief, it may have to be dealt with on a regular basis as it continues to lessen in intensity over time. Especially when who and what we must forgive is something and someone who has caused us grief. And it does not mean that there are no consequences for sin or wrongdoing. So, what does it mean?

C.S. Lewis describes forgiveness in Mere Christianity in a way that is helpful to me, in a meditation on the parallel idea of “loving your enemies” (Matt. 5:43):

“We might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbor as yourself means. Well, how exactly do I love myself?

Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently “love your neighbor” does not mean “feel fond of him” or “find him attractive.” I ought to have seen that before, because of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact, it is the other way round; my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are…

In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of things my enemies do. Or, as Christian teachers long ago would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life – namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself…In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man.

Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.”

And that, my friends, is precisely the way God forgives us.

“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:32

Bible Verses That Freak Me Out #22 - "Every careless word" - Matthew 12:36

“I say to you that people will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” – Matthew 12:36

Well, yikes. This is one of those times that I hope that Jesus is kidding, or exaggerating for emphasis. Every careless word? That could take awhile…

I ran across this verse in of those “coincidental” occurrences that sometimes happen in life. I had been stewing over some words that were spoken to me recently. Have you ever had the experience of doing something you were proud of, and receiving a dozen or so compliments concerning that thing, and one negative or snarky comment? And which one sounds out over and over in your mind? Exactly – the negative one.

But running across this verse also reminded of the times I have said something I wished later that I could take back. And that’s just the careless words that I remember. It disturbs me sometimes to think that my careless words may have haunted people in the way others’ careless words have haunted me – causing doubt, anger, shame, or frustration.

The context in which Jesus speaks these words is also disturbing. He is condemning the Pharisees, those experts in external righteousness. He says two verses earlier, “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Richard Foster, in his introduction to the classic “Celebration of Discipline,” comments on this verse:

“It is not that we plan to be this way. We have no intention of exploding with anger or parading a sticky arrogance, but when we are with people, what we are comes out. Though we may try with all our might to hide these things, we are betrayed by our eyes, our tongue, our chin, our hands, our whole body language. Willpower has no defense against the careless word, the unguarded moment. The will has the same deficiency as the law – it can only deal with externals. It is incapable of bringing about the necessary transformation of the inner spirit.”

Foster is suggesting that the only way to eliminate the careless word is to make sure that your heart is overflowing with the fruits of the Spirit. And the only way to do that is present ourselves regularly – with discipline – before God and ask that he transform us from the inside out.

In other words, the only way to keep from being haunted by careless words, or haunting others with our words, is to be haunted by the Holy Ghost.

Bible Verses That Freak Me Out #10 - Mo' Money, Mo' Problems - "When you give to the poor" - Matthew 6:1-4

"Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." - Matthew 6:1-4

I have trouble with this verse. Not so much because I like people to know when I give to the poor (although I do), but for another reason. I have been the beneficiary of the generosity of strangers. I have received significant help in my education from people I have never met. I have met for class and worship in buildings, have rested comfortably on benches, have studied in libraries, all sponsored by people I do not know. But I know their names. I know them because they are on shiny plaques, or doorways, or large gilt letters on the front of the building.

I am very, very grateful that these people gave, either from their abundance, or out of their need, to further the education, and particularly the religious education, of whippersnappers such as myself.

But...I wonder sometimes if the gilt letters are the pinnacle of the honor they will receive for their gifts, because of the verses above.

Perhaps they did not have a choice. Perhaps they gave their gift, and the trustees of the library, or the chapel, or the bench said with a loud decree (and a trumpet), "Henceforth, this bench shall be the Desmond R. G. Underwood bench!" I don't know what I'd do in such a situation - would I have the chutzpah to say, "That's alright guys, let's just leave it anonymous" - ?

Like I say - the verse freaks me out.

Bible Verses That Freak Me Out #9 - Mo' Money, Mo Problems - "Camel through the eye of a needle" - Matthew 19:23-24

You know something Jesus talks about A LOT? Money.

There are a lot of preacher types these days who talk about money, they aren't hard to find. But they don't talk about money like Jesus did.

"Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." - Matthew 19:23-24

We had a "Jerusalem Marketplace" themed Vacation Bible School at our church about a month back, and on the last day we had two camels, named Richard and Ibrahim, hanging out at the soccer field. Camels are big. Up to nine feet tall at the hump. See, Jesus is saying here that it's really hard for rich people to line up their desires with God's. Darn near impossible.
Saturday Night Live had a very funny skit a few years back with Bill Pullman as a billionaire whose "life is changed" by the above verse. He reads Matthew 19:24 and devotes his fortune to making it easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle by genetically engineering tiny camels and building very large needles. Classic line: "We pureed a camel and poured it through the needle, but we think that might be cheating. We have lawyers looking into it."