"People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway."
A couple weeks ago, I posted Mother Teresa's adapted "do it anyway" mantra. The sentence above is the first part of it. Those words are some of the most difficult words I have ever read. The all-time most difficult are their inspiration:
"Then Peter came up and said to him, 'Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven times.'"
Matthew 18: 21-22. It is followed by the parable of the servant who would not forgive his fellow's debt although he was forgiven his own debt by his master. It ends as such:
"'Then the master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.'" (Matthew 18: 32-35)
My greatest fault is my unwillingness - or perhaps I should call it inability, at least without God - to forgive others. Grudges are - literally - sacrilege to God, and yet we hold them. I hold them. I'm not sure why forgiveness is so difficult for me. I can sooner love my neighbor, or refuse to lie, or keep myself from swearing, but forgiveness is my crutch.
Peter very well may have been pleased with himself that he thought to forgive someone seven times. That's a great deal of forgiveness, considering how difficult it can be to forgive someone once. Jesus, of course, turned Peter's self-satisfaction on its head (as He was wont to do): not seven times, but seventy times seven times. In other words, infinitely, because that's how much God forgives us. Infinitely. Every second, every nanosecond, every one-millionth of a nano-second, because we are always sinning. And we aren't just sinning, we're sinning against the perfect, almighty God. We are not entitled to forgiveness. We don't deserve it, and we never have. And yet, we receive it. We ask for it. We are given it willingly by the Father.
In the parable, the master delivers the servant unto the jailers until he can pay his debt. The thing about debtor's prison was that you couldn't earn money because you couldn't work because you were in prison, so you could not possibly pay your debt. Thus, the servant would forever be imprisoned and separated from the master. This is Hell - eternal separation from God. It's terrifying. The parable sounds awful. We are bound to be unforgiving of others; how can we hope to escape prison? Well, here's the other thing about debtor's prison: you could get out if someone else - generally a family member, but sometimes a friend - paid your debts for you.
Isn't that precisely what Jesus did? He saw all of humanity imprisoned in sin and death and completely unable to escape. So He paid our way out. He gave his life so that our chains would be broken.
Of course, this doesn't mean that we can go around refusing to forgive others just because we have God's grace. In fact, it's the Holy Spirit within our new selves that urges us to forgive. Christians know that grudges are bad. Even if someone has wronged you terribly and you want to say, "But you don't know what they did," you know that you should forgive them. The idea may be completely unpalatable, but we aren't given a choice. God is in us, and His Spirit speaks to us. Even when we don't want to hear. Even when we want to make excuses. Seventy times seven times, He says. People are unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. It doesn't matter.
Forgive them anyway.
Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
"Because I Do Not Hope to Turn"
I'm not very well-acquainted with the prophets, so I've been reading Jeremiah lately. The going is slow, but that's a good thing: I am constantly re-reading passages. I have been thinking a great deal about repentance and forgiveness lately, probably because of Lent, and I'm starting to better understand what true penitence looks like. Jeremiah is, thus far, all about returning to God. At first glance, it seems that God spoke through Jeremiah in order to make Israel and Judah realize just how angry He was:
"'Therefore I bring charges against you again,' declares the Lord. 'And I will bring charges against your children's children.'" (2:9).
God's wrath is incredible. So much so that we can never really know it. He is terrifying, and His power is fearful. His anger, too, is righteous; we have no excuse for what we've done. When I was younger, I was frightened of our angry God; that, I think, is why I always shied away from books like Jeremiah. As I've gotten to know God more intimately, though, I've realized something. His anger is not only righteous; it is spurred by concern for our well-being. At the beginning of Jeremiah, God tells how the Israelites have turned from Him and begun to make their own gods out of rocks and wood or have adopted the false gods of other peoples. He is not angry just for the sake of being angry; He is angry because His people are shooting themselves in the feet, if you will. It's as though God's saying, "Please, just let me save you. I love you. You absolutely cannot do this alone. It is killing you":
"They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’
and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs to me
and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble, they say,
‘Come and save us!’
Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?
Let them come if they can save you
when you are in trouble!
For you, Judah, have as many gods
as you have towns." (2:27-28)
As always, God's words are very poignant. The verse that struck me the most, however, was this:
"They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water." (2:13)
God is great with metaphors; He is always trying to make Himself understood to His people (as far as humans are capable of understanding God, that is). I read this verse and realized how many cisterns I have dug and continue to dig. I'm always looking for ways to fill myself, be it with school, hobbies, other people, or what have you. It works for a time, but then the water leaks out and I have to refill with something else. Sometimes, I try to fill it with God. But that's the problem: I'm trying to put God into this little well that I've dug for myself. A little well that fits my way of doing things, runs on my time, and doesn't impede other activities. I take some Living Water, but not too much - I don't want it to get in the way of my secular life.
God doesn't really give us that option, though. He does not offer just enough of Himself to sate our appetites for a time. He offers ALL of Himself. If we want a relationship with Him - a real, meaningful, transformative relationship - we cannot do it on our own terms. We have to abandon the broken cistern and immerse ourselves in the "spring of living water." God doesn't do lukewarm. We can't dip our toes in to test the spring out. It's all or nothing. And He allows us, unholy and sinful as we are, to wash ourselves in His spring.
T.S. Eliot wrote a wonderful poem called "Ash Wednesday" in which he struggles with the grace of God and his own shallow desires. The complete poem is quite long, but it begins with this stanza:
"Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?"
He presents a very common problem that I have. I sin, and sin, and sin; and then I repent, and repent, and repent. After a while, I tire of it. My own imperfection makes me feel entirely hopeless. In other words, I "do not hope to turn again." Instead, I desire worldly things; those are easier to pursue. It's much more comfortable drinking out of my own little cistern. Yet, even as I feel these things, God calls out to me. He is always waiting for us to turn, even though he knows that we will wander away from Him again. The stream of living water never runs dry; Christ has filled it eternally. All we have to do is drink.
"'Therefore I bring charges against you again,' declares the Lord. 'And I will bring charges against your children's children.'" (2:9).
God's wrath is incredible. So much so that we can never really know it. He is terrifying, and His power is fearful. His anger, too, is righteous; we have no excuse for what we've done. When I was younger, I was frightened of our angry God; that, I think, is why I always shied away from books like Jeremiah. As I've gotten to know God more intimately, though, I've realized something. His anger is not only righteous; it is spurred by concern for our well-being. At the beginning of Jeremiah, God tells how the Israelites have turned from Him and begun to make their own gods out of rocks and wood or have adopted the false gods of other peoples. He is not angry just for the sake of being angry; He is angry because His people are shooting themselves in the feet, if you will. It's as though God's saying, "Please, just let me save you. I love you. You absolutely cannot do this alone. It is killing you":
"They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’
and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs to me
and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble, they say,
‘Come and save us!’
Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?
Let them come if they can save you
when you are in trouble!
For you, Judah, have as many gods
as you have towns." (2:27-28)
As always, God's words are very poignant. The verse that struck me the most, however, was this:
"They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water." (2:13)
God is great with metaphors; He is always trying to make Himself understood to His people (as far as humans are capable of understanding God, that is). I read this verse and realized how many cisterns I have dug and continue to dig. I'm always looking for ways to fill myself, be it with school, hobbies, other people, or what have you. It works for a time, but then the water leaks out and I have to refill with something else. Sometimes, I try to fill it with God. But that's the problem: I'm trying to put God into this little well that I've dug for myself. A little well that fits my way of doing things, runs on my time, and doesn't impede other activities. I take some Living Water, but not too much - I don't want it to get in the way of my secular life.
God doesn't really give us that option, though. He does not offer just enough of Himself to sate our appetites for a time. He offers ALL of Himself. If we want a relationship with Him - a real, meaningful, transformative relationship - we cannot do it on our own terms. We have to abandon the broken cistern and immerse ourselves in the "spring of living water." God doesn't do lukewarm. We can't dip our toes in to test the spring out. It's all or nothing. And He allows us, unholy and sinful as we are, to wash ourselves in His spring.
T.S. Eliot wrote a wonderful poem called "Ash Wednesday" in which he struggles with the grace of God and his own shallow desires. The complete poem is quite long, but it begins with this stanza:
"Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?"
He presents a very common problem that I have. I sin, and sin, and sin; and then I repent, and repent, and repent. After a while, I tire of it. My own imperfection makes me feel entirely hopeless. In other words, I "do not hope to turn again." Instead, I desire worldly things; those are easier to pursue. It's much more comfortable drinking out of my own little cistern. Yet, even as I feel these things, God calls out to me. He is always waiting for us to turn, even though he knows that we will wander away from Him again. The stream of living water never runs dry; Christ has filled it eternally. All we have to do is drink.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Remember That You Are Dust
As is my yearly ritual, I walked into a local Catholic church this morning to begin celebrating Lent. In the Catholic tradition, the palm leaves used on Palm Sunday are burnt to ash. That ash is used for Ash Wednesday of the next year. During the rite, the priest blesses the ashes and sprinkles them with holy water. The priest (or liturgist) then dips his thumb into the bowl of ashes and uses them to make a cross on the forehead of each worshiper. He may say one of two things: "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel" or "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." More often than not, I hear the former phrase. Today, however, when I stepped forward to receive my ashes in the silence of the sanctuary, the liturgist whispered the latter.
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
I have heard that phrase so frequently, and yet it has, until lately, meant so little. In fact, I wasn't even sure where those words could be found in the Bible. The source, I discovered, is the story of The Fall in Genesis. Just after Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God spoke to the serpent, then to Eve, and then to his first human creation:
"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Gen. 3:19)
Bleak; and yet necessary. Humans tend to think about death frequently, whether they consider it seriously or not, but Adam did not know what death was. He had never seen someone die. It was an abstract concept that suddenly became incredibly real. God was explaining his fate to him in terms that Adam, specifically, could understand. He had, after all, been molded from dust. God was telling him in no uncertain terms that he had been, was, and forever would be insignificant. That isn't to say that God didn't infinitely love Adam. But this, God was saying to Adam - and says to us - is what happens when humans forget themselves. When we forget who we are in the big picture: that is, creations of God meant for his joy. Our only purpose, really, is to glorify God. We may ask no questions and make no excuses. For our sins, we should have nothing to look forward to but dust. To dust we shall return.
Of course, because of Jesus, we are so much more than dust. God has breathed life into us, given our meaningless lives purpose, and promised that those who love him may return to dust physically but will be spiritually eternal. How often do we praise Him for this, though? How often are we so proud as to question the Almighty God?
Last night, I began Francis Chan's Crazy Love. The second chapter of the book, aptly entitled, "You Might Not Finish This Chapter," deals with the issue of our perceived invincibility. I realized that, while I think about death quite a lot in general terms (a character in a movie dies; I drive by a funeral home; I see an ambulance speeding toward an emergency), I rarely consider my own death in any meaningful way. Each day, I work through my to-do list - classes, rehearsal, homework, grocery shopping - and schedule in time for God. Wait. What? Schedule time for God? I wonder lately how it is that I don't spend my days praising Him and, if I can, pencil in time for the things that normally clog up my to-do list. In reality, it isn't that easy, of course. Isn't it?
It should be. We have so little time to make our lives meaningful. Every fraction of every second, we are living on borrowed time - God's time, to be exact - and yet we squander it as though we're somehow more important than He.
So, while I tend to think of life as a celebration and the Kingdom of God as a giant party, sobering reminders are important. When Roman generals returned triumphant from war, they would parade around the city in a chariot among thousands of Roman citizens. It was a huge party - they usually got a marble triumphal arch carved in their honor - a celebration that Rome was victorious. But as the war heroes rode around, they always had a slave sharing the chariot with them. Throughout the entirety of the parade, the slave would whisper into the hero's ear, "Memento mori." This is most popularly translated as, "Remember you will die." In George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, the poignant equivalent is "Valar morghulis" : "All men must die."
What a perfect example for Christians. We celebrate Jesus, His goodness, and life eternal, and we are expected to share that celebration with others. Lest we begin to think that our victories are our own, however, God reminds us: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
I have heard that phrase so frequently, and yet it has, until lately, meant so little. In fact, I wasn't even sure where those words could be found in the Bible. The source, I discovered, is the story of The Fall in Genesis. Just after Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God spoke to the serpent, then to Eve, and then to his first human creation:
"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Gen. 3:19)
Bleak; and yet necessary. Humans tend to think about death frequently, whether they consider it seriously or not, but Adam did not know what death was. He had never seen someone die. It was an abstract concept that suddenly became incredibly real. God was explaining his fate to him in terms that Adam, specifically, could understand. He had, after all, been molded from dust. God was telling him in no uncertain terms that he had been, was, and forever would be insignificant. That isn't to say that God didn't infinitely love Adam. But this, God was saying to Adam - and says to us - is what happens when humans forget themselves. When we forget who we are in the big picture: that is, creations of God meant for his joy. Our only purpose, really, is to glorify God. We may ask no questions and make no excuses. For our sins, we should have nothing to look forward to but dust. To dust we shall return.
Of course, because of Jesus, we are so much more than dust. God has breathed life into us, given our meaningless lives purpose, and promised that those who love him may return to dust physically but will be spiritually eternal. How often do we praise Him for this, though? How often are we so proud as to question the Almighty God?
Last night, I began Francis Chan's Crazy Love. The second chapter of the book, aptly entitled, "You Might Not Finish This Chapter," deals with the issue of our perceived invincibility. I realized that, while I think about death quite a lot in general terms (a character in a movie dies; I drive by a funeral home; I see an ambulance speeding toward an emergency), I rarely consider my own death in any meaningful way. Each day, I work through my to-do list - classes, rehearsal, homework, grocery shopping - and schedule in time for God. Wait. What? Schedule time for God? I wonder lately how it is that I don't spend my days praising Him and, if I can, pencil in time for the things that normally clog up my to-do list. In reality, it isn't that easy, of course. Isn't it?
It should be. We have so little time to make our lives meaningful. Every fraction of every second, we are living on borrowed time - God's time, to be exact - and yet we squander it as though we're somehow more important than He.
So, while I tend to think of life as a celebration and the Kingdom of God as a giant party, sobering reminders are important. When Roman generals returned triumphant from war, they would parade around the city in a chariot among thousands of Roman citizens. It was a huge party - they usually got a marble triumphal arch carved in their honor - a celebration that Rome was victorious. But as the war heroes rode around, they always had a slave sharing the chariot with them. Throughout the entirety of the parade, the slave would whisper into the hero's ear, "Memento mori." This is most popularly translated as, "Remember you will die." In George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, the poignant equivalent is "Valar morghulis" : "All men must die."
What a perfect example for Christians. We celebrate Jesus, His goodness, and life eternal, and we are expected to share that celebration with others. Lest we begin to think that our victories are our own, however, God reminds us: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
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