The Sudden Stop

Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven …  For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. – Luke 6:37, 43-44

I expect to be judged.  I expect to be judged on my performance, my achievements, my failures, my strengths and my flaws.  Jesus does not forbid forming opinions nor does He expect us to refrain from making informed judgments.  He admonishes us not to jump to conclusions or to pre-judge someone on the basis of culture, religion, ethnic background, or even on past failures.  A reformed criminal should be given opportunities to live honestly.  Someone from a bad family should be judged on his or her own behavior and not on that of family members. 

That does not mean that we have to accept and tolerate bad behavior.  If a drunk tells me not to judge him that makes him no less a self-destructive drunk, and it certainly doesn’t give him the right to drive his car into mine out on the highway.  If I break my marriage vows, I am an adulterer, and it requires no judgment to call me such.  The secular world doesn’t want the words of Jesus to carry their plain and obvious meaning.  They want those words to mean that they will not be judged according to the fruit they bear – a complete contradiction to what the Lord says. 

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap (Galatians 6:7).

Too many today are mocking God by quoting Christ out of context, and God is never mocked.  God is reality, and reality cannot be escaped.  The secular world has leaped from the top of the tallest building in town, and it is a long, laughing thrill ride down.  What rushes toward us at terminal velocity is the ground.  Do not judge by the fall.  What hurts is the sudden stop.

God Loves You Freely

Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.  Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him, Take away all iniquity; accept what is good ...  I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.  -- Hosea 14:1-4

I don’t have much time again today, but the poignancy of this passage caught my attention, and I thought I would share it.  Too many of us have lived under a cloud of inadequacy.  In a way, that is to be expected.  We are not God.  We will never and can never be perfect or perfectly pure, our best efforts fall short.  

We have stumbled.  We will stumble.  All that we can do is take our words and return, but that is all that is asked of us.  My prayer today -- truly every day, is that the Lord will sift through the contents of my life and separate the wheat from the chaff, casting away the false, the useless, and the wicked and marking down and keeping what is good.  

The most amazing thing is that we can expect Him to hear and answer that prayer, not because we have done so much that is good but simply because He loves us freely.  Is that not a wonderful thought?

The Jailer

Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.  Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.  For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. – Luke 6:37-38

Fifty-seven words in this translation give us the basics of peace and prosperity and a happy, fulfilling life.  I don’t suppose a person even has to be a believer, though, if this life were all, the oatmeal would get watery at times, and it would be tougher to stay the course. 

If I want to be happy, the best thing to do is quit grabbing and snatching and, instead, make someone else happy.  Of course, being a true Scotsman, I went about learning this the other way.  Early in life I discovered that what I took from others was taken from me, that creating fear in others caused me to be afraid, that rejecting and mocking others led me to be rejected and ridiculed.  Well, I didn’t actually figure it out early.  It took many an encounter with the arrogant, the resentful, the cruel, and the ungrateful before my eyes were opened to the source of all the ugliness. 

Even when I found I was the problem, it was hard to start being the solution.  You have to sow that first crop in faith to get the seed for the next one.  I had sown so much meanness that the field was overgrown with the briars and brambles of bitterness.  I was going to have to be nice to people who were going to take advantage of my change of heart.  I was going to have to risk a lot of pain and loss before I ever started reaping kindness and understanding. 

At least that’s what I thought, and maybe it happened, but I don’t remember it.  That’s not to say that I don’t remember a few incidents with a few individuals, but there was the grace of God.  It was all around me, all the time.  Looking back, I know that I was around a lot of really bad, even dangerous people and situations for quite a while, but I remember it as being almost blissful.  Sometimes I feel a certain amount of nostalgia for those days.  There was just so much grace.  It was like getting thrown off a building and finding out you could fly. 

Still, it is a lesson I lose to some degree from time to time.  It must be practiced constantly.  The good news is that there are always plenty of opportunities to get back on track, to measure out to others the things I would want for myself.  I can listen without criticism, speak without cynicism, and advise without condescension.  I can apologize sometimes even when I know I’m not wrong.  I can take the hit I don’t have coming, turn the cheek and carry someone’s load a mile that I don’t have to. 

One more thing about forgiveness is that you can say, and Wuest’s Expanded Translation does say:  Be setting free, and you shall be set free.  Forgiveness is freedom. 

If you’ve ever seen Rio Bravo … Angie Dickinson …  What was I talking about?  Oh, yeah, John Wayne, Dean Martin, Walter Brennan, and Ricky Nelson are holding Claude Akins in jail until the judge comes to town so Ol’ Claude can be tried for murder.  But, Claude’s rich and ruthless brother and his small army of henchmen are going to try to break Claude out.   So it happens that the good guys holding the prisoner are about as much prisoners as the criminal. 

You can’t keep a prisoner without a jailer.  If you don’t want to do that job, you have to let the prisoner go.  Unlike the case in Rio Bravo, the Judge is always in town fully aware of whatever crime or trespass has been committed, knows all the circumstances, and has all the evidence.  He will see that justice is done.  We don’t have to worry about it.  We are, by refusing to release the prisoner, keeping ourselves in bondage needlessly and preventing our own trespasses from being pardoned. 

Mostly Just Random Rambling

At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill. -- Zephaniah 1:12

It is very common to hear people say they believe in God, but ....  For such people, God is neither friend nor foe.  He is around, someone they might pray to if they get in trouble, but not one they depend upon or interact with on a regular basis.  This is true even of church-goers, many of whom act as though God were more present in the church house than in the outhouse. 

The complacent will run up against the wall they have created around their lives.  That's the problem with walling God out.  We wall ourselves in.  I have been guilty of isolating myself.  I mostly work from home any more.  I have contact with people over the phone.  I work to help the members of my team and our clients.  Still, there's something different about having conversations via email, text, and IM or even over phone lines and Lync.  Those communications are more controlled and predictable.  They are timed and bound as opposed to the more fluid and less structured interactions that take place in person.

We had the big snowstorm coupled with temperature that never got above freezing for a week.  I was out once to the post office and that was it.  When I got out again, I was running low on food for my cats and dog, so I went to one of nearest stores, which happens to be a Dollar Store.  I had a hundred dollar bill along with a five or two and a few ones.  Two bags of pet food and some jerky for the bear was going to require breaking the hundred.  I got up to the checkout and was behind a plump, nicely-dressed lady with Farah Fawcett-hair and her two pre-teen daughters.  They had a truckload of stuff.  I'm holding thirty or forty pounds, not a big deal.  I'm a patient man. 

To a point.

The chubby lady finally got all her items run across the scanner and into bags as she argued with her daughters about various choices.  Then it was time to pay.  The first run was off her EBT card, which reached its limit with over half the bill unpaid.  I was thinking that her last hair-do (do women still say that?) cost about that same amount. She then ran a debit card across, coming up $20.60 short.  "Girls, we're going to have to put some of this back," she said.

I know some people are really not gifted with simple arithmetic skills, but my analytical brain was suggesting that surely she has run this scam before.  I didn't care.  My supply of meekness, patience and understanding was nearing exhaustion, and I feared the rupture.  I dropped the hundred with two quarters and dime on the black surface of the conveyor and said, "I have to break this anyway.  I'll make up the difference."  I did not do it out of the goodness of my heart.  I didn't do it because it was what Jesus would do.  I didn't even do it because the little fat lady reminded me of my daughter or I felt sorry for her kids or remembered what it was like to be financially embarrassed.  I did it because it was worth twenty bucks to get her out of the way. 

I'm thinking that one probably won't get me much of a reward in heaven.  I was not a cheerful giver.  Nevertheless, I have to admit that I was probably where I was at that time for that reason.  I don't think she deserved the help.  I think she could have easily avoided the entire situation with a little forethought and planning.  I'm still cynical enough to think she did it hoping for just such an outcome.  She and her daughters did thank me.  One of the girls said something about people being kind and good.  The lady asked for my number so she could pay me back.  I answered with a short, emphatic, "No!"  I bit it off to keep from asking if she really thought I was that stupid. 

The better interaction was last night when my wife and I went out to a western store to purchase cowboy boots for the grandkids.  The boys' were easy to find and not terribly expensive.  The girls are both older and wear adult sizes, which can be ridiculous in price.  The salespeople in this particular store are annoyingly helpful, especially in the women's boot section, where the staff is composed mostly of young ladies.  I try to avoid them as much as possible.  I was doing a good job, but one girl was quite persistent.  I managed to send her off in search of the elusive boot snipe while I located my wife and suggested that we move on as the girls' boots would be out of proportion to what we were spending on the boys.  She agreed but wanted to shop some more herself, so I wandered over to look at the men's boots.  I don't need any more boots, especially dress boots, but the caimans do tempt me, and I've never had a pair of Luccheses — Noconas, Tony Lamas, and Justins, but never Luccheses or Dan Post.  It's just not right.

After a while, I wandered back in search of my wife whom I found engaged in an intense conversation with the persistent little salesgirl.  It turns out that she lives even further out that we do, in the area where I grew up, and I know her husband's family.  She and my wife were talking church.  The salesgirl won't go to the one where she's a member because the pastor is a registered sex offender, no longer allowed to live with his wife and children.  I have run into some bad pastors in my time, but this could be one of the worst.  Apparently, the man's father is some big shot in that particular denominational abomination.  He pushed for his son to be allowed back into active ministry — as a pastor.  The local church had the final say and voted to accept him.  Because we all make mistakes and deserve forgiveness. 

No. 

How does this guy even legally get inside a building with children?  How can a man who was married and had small children yet seduced and molested an underage girl (I suppose) serve as a shepherd and leader?  What kind of example is this for the members of that church who are tempted to far less heinous sins?  Consequences should be commensurate with actions.  Why is he not swinging from a post oak?  Forgive him, sure.  Then hang him. 

This is what Zephaniah means.  We don't really take God's presence or His view of things one way or the other seriously.  It's mistakes and foibles and eccentricities and who are we to judge.  I'm not anybody to judge.  They do say, however, it takes one to know one.  Perhaps that's why I know evil and wickedness when I see it.  The church is not doing this man any favors by, in effect, condoning what he has done.  Remember poor little Moe that I told you about a few weeks ago?  That's where this guy is headed, to a rendezvous with the exhaust pipe in his garage, a rope over a rafter, or a shotgun under his chin.    

As we have been saying lately, the Lord is here whether we know it or not.  Even the most reluctant and cynical among us can be His messengers, angels doing His work in unlikely corners.  At the same time, no one fools God, and nobody is going to get away with anything in the long run. 

Bold Talk For a One-eyed Fat Man

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Romans 5:20-21

October 31^st is Reformation Day.  So, if you don’t feel like celebrating Halloween, dress up as Luther and scare some Catholics.  Like Luther, Paul was accused by his opponents of saying that Christians should sin in order to increase grace.  Luther famously said to sin boldly.  This was hyperbole contrasting sin with the greater salvation and grace in the Cross.  Paul does not end on the above statement but immediately goes into what we call chapter 6 of Romans saying, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” 

Grace is not license, not a permit to permissiveness.  Grace is the answer we give when we are accused.  Yes, I am everything you say and worse, yet God loved me so much that He offered His only begotten Son to die in my place.  Jesus did not go willingly to a cruel death because I am such a wonderful, perfect person, but because I am broken and sick and hopeless and utterly wretched.  He doesn’t stick with me and try to help me now because I’m good but because I need Him. 

Bad company corrupts good character.  Anybody will tell you that.  Does the Lord corrupt Himself by hanging around with us?  No, He lifts us up.  If we are afraid of God, afraid of the Holy Spirit then who will we end up hanging around?  Don’t think about it too much.  It’s scarier than Hillary Clinton in a negligee. 

We don’t have to be afraid.  We don’t have to hide what we are.  John says if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all righteousness.  How can that be “just”?  Because the price was already paid in full.  

Nothing is between us and the Father.  Christ has broken down all the barriers and given us direct access to the very presence of God.  None but the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year on the Day of Atonement, and only bearing the blood of the demanded sacrifice.  It was terrifying.  It is still to be recognized with respect and humility and awe, but the veil was torn in two from top to bottom.  We are the sanctuary. 

Yes, I am going to mess up.  Yes, things are going to cross my mind that I would be better off without.  Yes, when I smash my finger on the John Deere, I am probably going to say some things I should not.  Yes, I am a sinner.  No, I will not accept the condemnations and denunciations of the Accuser.  I won’t sin boldly, but I will boldly tell it to the Lord when I fail, and I will boldly cry to the Cross as my Savior cried from it, “It is all paid up.” 

The Gates of Hell

So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’  He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. -- Matthew 18:29-30

Last night as I was cutting grass, I started thinking about an event that I may attend this weekend.  If I do there is a possibility that I will run into some people with whom I had a negative encounter several years ago.  These people literally got me thrown in jail.  I was in a holding cell for all of twenty minutes, but it was still a humiliating experience, and the way it was done wounded me.  These were, I should mention, ordained ministers in a solidly Reformed denomination.  I think their justification was that I was something of a bully.  That is, I am not easily manipulated and am rather resentful of any attempt to manipulate me.  I consider manipulation a form of witchcraft. 

So, this man of God and his “submissive” wife, along with a couple of other people, accosted me in my yard one evening with a number of accusations.  The wife, in particular, was shrill and abusive.  I took it for a little while, but when they refused to leave, instead of going in the house and locking the door as I should have, I questioned their ancestry, sexual habits, and the legitimacy of their parents’ marriage rites.   I was still off the leash when a patrol car rolled up to the curb.  One of their other confederates had called in a disturbance.  The woman who had been confronting me so viciously suddenly broke into tears – this is a preacher’s wife, remember – and swore that I had threated her.  Her Greek chorus backed her claim, and I was handcuffed and shoved in the back of the cruiser.  It cost me a lot of time and trouble and good money to get it resolved without too much damage. 

As I was mowing, I was recalling all this and thinking what I might say if I ran into this fine, upstanding Christian couple and their family.  They are such self-satisfied, self-righteous prigs that I would not be surprised – if they remember and recognize me – for them to tell me they forgive me for all I did to them.  In my mind, I ran through a scenario like that, and I considered how I might react, what I might say.  After a bit, the words that came to mind were pretty disturbing:  I would volunteer to burn in hell if it was my job to grind your filthy face into the coals. 

You would think, after all these years, my hatred would be not so white-hot.  The unforgiving servant was so determined to “get his own” that he forgot about his own master’s mercy.  He was willing to forgo forgiveness in order to get revenge.   Same as me. 

I had to wonder if my refusal to forgive and my craving for retribution for more than a decade have not contributed to my touchiness and bouts of depression.  I would like to say I had completely forgotten those who offended me, but I had merely pushed them out of sight.  I blamed myself – and I was certainly wrong to explode the way I did.  Predictably explode, I might add.  It caused me to question the reality of my Christianity.  Only now -- looking back, am I able to more easily agree with the assessment my late, dear mother-in-law voiced as I was being shackled – that they had set me up.  Assuming that it was my fault entirely, I preferred not to think about it at all.  Probably, if I went through the details and a little of the background, I could make an even stronger case justifying my response.  One exchange in particular was extremely provocative.  That serves no purpose and does me no good.  It doesn’t solve my problem. 

In the end there is, to paraphrase Yoda, only forgive or not forgive.  There is only a burning resentment so intense that the fires of hell hold little terror, or release.  I have sought another option.  It does not exist.  Therefore I forgive.   

If I did happen, on some odd chance, run into this nemesis, and, if they were to offer me forgiveness, I will humbly accept it.  If they did not offer, I would ask.  As far as I am concerned, they are forgiven.  I prayed several times last night and several times already today that they would be blessed and their lives filled with happiness.  It's bless or burn.  I'll keep doing it until it is easy.

When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city.  It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him (Acts 12:10).