The standard in the American Courtroom is simply … “beyond a reasonable doubt”. But doubt is a tricky thing. It is tough to shake in general. But it is nearly impossible to shake if it comes from a pre-determined position. If a juror or judge decides their opinion before they ever enter the courtroom, before any facts or context have been presented, before the first words are uttered; it is unlikely their mind will change throughout the trial, because they do not wish it to change. This is why jurors are questioned before they are permitted to serve. The ones with preconceived notions of their own must be eliminated so that a fair evaluation of the evidence can proceed. To the extent that is possible, an open mind, is the asset both sides of any legal dispute are looking for. It gives them both a chance. It gives them both a shot to tell their story, present their evidence, and hope the weight of that evidence (or lack of it) will determine the outcome.
So, if the value of an open mind is well understood in a legal context, how could it be any less so in a spiritual one? Our God did not create robots, or “yes” men. He created us all with freedom to choose. It is because love cannot be truly called love, unless it is a choice to love. Instinct and hormones may give a mother an initial push to care for her child, but it will be her unfailing choice to love that child that is demonstrated time-after-time throughout that child’s life. It will become so natural, that the expression “a mother’s love” becomes something all of us understand. Nature may prompt, but ultimately it is mom who decides to love, often without regard to how a child responds to that love. It is our choice to love our God then, that makes how we interact with him real love on our part, or the programmed response of a robot who ultimately does not know what love is. Free will allows us to love freely.
And love is a two-way street. As we have the choice to love our God, He has the choice to love us. He does not have to love us, He chooses to love us. And how do we know that He does? This is the question that Satan has been whispering in the ears of mankind since He first insinuated it in the Garden of Eden to Eve. If you eat this fruit you will become like God having the knowledge of good and of evil. Implying that God does not want you to become like Him. Implying that God does not love you enough to treat you like a peer. Implying the love of God is selfish. But the truth was that God loved us so much, He wanted to shield us from the firsthand knowledge of what evil was, how addictive it is, how unable would we be to break from its path of doom if ever we embraced it. It was the love of God for us that governed in that situation, though Satan presented it as a question of God’s love. And the whispering of this insinuation has not dimmed.
Within the church of our God, the question of God’s love arises in hardened preconceptions about things we know. Conservatives for example, do not find the love of God in musical styles that do not agree with their tastes or offend them. Messengers who dress poorly do represent God well in the mind of the conservative, instead they present a slovenly, lazy, or “dirty” image of our God. Their words are drowned out by their image in the mind of the true conservative. Likewise, the minds of our youth are not penetrated by the monotone voices of conservative preachers who drone on about the do’s and don’ts of obedience to God, and the importance of it. Messengers dressed in the three-piece suits are sinners in nothing more than a façade. Hymns and classical aria’s do nothing to inspire the youth. They consider them boring and pretentious. Youth prefer repetitive beats and simple lyrics. Thus, the elders and the next generation clash over worship style, the relevance of dress, and the music that lifts them up to God. Neither can give an inch, because both are set in their ways, age having inspired those ways, but age no barrier to them.
You may think I describe the 20th century Christian Church in America. But the condition did not arise here, it only remains here. Matthew in his gospel chapter eleven, records the words of Jesus outlining the same problems back then in the church He created with Abraham and then with Moses in the deserts of the Sinai. Matthew records the words of Jesus picking up in verse 16 saying … “But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, [verse 17] And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.” There was a group in the church Jesus tried to reach out to by identifying with them, by joining with them in celebration, looking to dance when the happy songs are played. But this group was unresponsive to the outreach. There was also a group in the church that was very formal, very sullen; a group who praised the near funeral like atmosphere that lamented sin, and longed for a return to the righteousness of the olden days. To this group as well, our God made outreach. But to no avail.
Jesus outlines their responses in verse 18 saying … “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. [verse 19] The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.” The simple fact is, that while our ideas of worship may be distorted by our age, our preferences, and our ideas of superiority over other groups – our God’s love for us remains. So our God reaches out to us in any form He hopes will work. John the Baptist was the traditionalist’s traditionalist. He was a Nazarite. He did not cut his hair. He ate super kosher. He kept the Sabbath in the traditional way. He went to Passover. He did what any good traditional Jew was supposed to do. And on top of all of that He preached of repentance, prophesied of the Messiah, and offered Baptism in the river Jordan to the people. What more could he have done. How more could he have honored the traditions of the church? And still those with preconceived notions about who was in control of the church (or should be), and what holiness is (or should be) rejected John and his piercing call to repent for the sins they knew they committed.
Jesus, was the opposite. Jesus ate the foods offered to Him. He went to wedding feasts. He celebrated. He ate and drank with the sinners He came to save, not making a distinction between holy and unholy, welcoming all men and women into His presence. Jesus proved that God loved more than the traditionalists, He loves all of us. His behavior stands as a mountain of evidence of the love of God for all of mankind, not just to those who think they have earned it by the manner and method of their particular church attendance. Yet despite the celebrations of Jesus with the common people. He found rejection there as well. Once again, the preconceived ideas of the jurors not to believe, swayed the outcome of their verdicts before the trial was far from over. The old ideas of worship shut out the Messiah, claiming they originated from the devil. And the new ideas of worship did also shut out the Messiah, equally convinced Jesus was too good to be true. Despite a mountain of evidence of the love of God, that God would ignore neither branch of His church, but try so hard to reach both of them – the jurors had already decided the fate of this question, and wrote the love of God off, discarded His outreach, as the work of the devil. And how often do we still hear that result pronounced in our churches today?
But for those of an open mind, the results would be different. Jesus begins then to teach BOTH segments of His church, what others would have done when presented with the same set of facts they had witnessed in their lifetimes. Jesus continues in verse 20 saying … “Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: [verse 21] Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” This one will stick in the craw of any good Jew. Two Samaritan cities in the north of the ten tribes, located in Lebanon today, would have repented in sackcloth and ashes; as opposed to two Jewish cities located in the heart of the nation, constantly exposed to Jesus as He travels, who continue in their living as if the Son of God had never graced their borders, taught in their synagogues, healed their entire population of sick and diseased people, and fed their residents through miraculous means. What the heathen or the gentile or the dreaded Samaritan would do with this evidence is so much more responsive than what the Jew will do with it. That stings.
And has anything changed in Christianity today some 2000 years later. Lives that are truly changed by Jesus are the ones we, the church, ridicule most fervently. The prostitute who finds Jesus and begins a ministry for other prostitutes, we condemn as being some sort of sham. The drug addict on the verge of suicide, with the needle still hanging from his arm of collapsed veins and track marks too numerous to count; when he finds Jesus, gets clean, and opens a ministry for those desperate in the streets – our only response is to give a meager offering, never to commit our time because it is dangerous down there. The music either of them prefer, though performed by Christians with their own ministry, dare not degrade our churches by entering their doors. That music is “of the devil”. And we repent not. And we echo the church of the day of Christ, right down to an echo of the exact same thing they said in His day.
And what does Jesus say to the offended Jew, or you and I, He continues in verse 22 saying … “But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.” OUCH! For those of you church members obsessed with a coming judgment by an angry God – there will be more tolerance for Tyre and Sidon than for 2 cities tucked right in to the heart of the nation. For in the heart of the church, was found unrepentant hearts, blaming everything on having devils, and doing nothing to actually repent and love. This rebuke stands today against those in our day still obsessed with judgment, instead of melted with repentance, and given to love of others (even when it offends your sense of style, or sits outside the genre of music you prefer). Ascribing everything you do not like as being of the devil, even though those who are blessed by it are clearly searching for Christ, should have been your first clue you were wrong and echoing the critique of those who rejected our Messiah some 2000 years ago.
Jesus continues and ups the ante in verse 23 saying … “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. [verse 24] But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.” Yikes! Capernaum was not just a random Jewish city, it was where Peter lived, and sort of a base of operations when Jesus was in the region. Many miracles of God’s love were performed there. The mountain of evidence was overwhelming. No stone had been left unturned. No outreach that could have been offered, remained unoffered. As for evangelism, there was no greater benefactor than Capernaum – thus exalted unto heaven itself. But all the outreach in the world cannot force the human heart to love. For if it was forced it would not be considered love at all.
And who do we compare the city who is exalted unto heaven with; Jesus compares it with Sodom. The city where anal sex established its name sake – sodomy or the sodomite. But it was for far more than its proclivity for gay sex that Sodom was judged. The city was full of rape, of murder, of robbery, of injustice. Sodom saw no Jesus in it’s walls. It saw no healings of the body or of the soul. It had become a city of evil people so steeped in the evil they embraced that only death would be a kind release. But if Sodom had borne witness to the Messiah who was speaking these words; that city would have been released from the evil that held it prisoner. That city would have repented down to every single resident. That city would have embraced the hope of the Messiah who was still speaking, and held tightly to the hope He offers us all. And that city would have stood from the days of Abraham to the days of the Lord who reveals this truth. For those obsessed with judgment the unrepentant Sodom will be shown more tolerance, than the unrepentant Jew who can see Jesus, who can talk to Him, and still rejects the Truth standing right in front of them.
The modern Christian remains not too happy with this comparison. The modern Christian who remains obsessed with judgment generally grows a hatred of all things gay, and a speech to match that hatred. They are quick to condemn a sin that afflicts only a minority of people, something they do not understand, something they are ill equipped to minister to; and then develop a sense of superiority because they do not suffer from it. All the while, their own heart remains un-repentant for the sins they do suffer from. Instead of putting all in need of Christ on a level playing field, a pecking order is setup in the sinner’s heart whereby his own sins are never as bad as his neighbor’s sins. It is relative salvation-ism. It is based on a lie whose first priority is to avoid embracing repentance for all sin. And in irony of ironies, Jesus expressly states that the judgment of the city of gay sex will be more tolerable than the judgment of those who should know, but refuse to know, the freedom that comes from repentance. The freedom that comes from embrace the Messiah, in the form of Jesus Christ. This stinging rebuke is aimed squarely at the Church of Christ in our day, not just the listeners back then.
But the question remains, how can we know that God loves us? The answer is the life of Jesus Christ. Read the stories of Jesus, recall the words of Jesus, review the deeds of Jesus. Without regard to person, or wealth, or status, or nationality, or sexual preference, or incorrect belief system; Jesus heals all, loves all, and calls all to Him to find the freedom only He can re-create within you. It is a mountain of evidence as tall as Everest or as historic as Sinai. For you to disregard it, or ignore it, or doubt it; reflects a choice you have already made to do so. But if you will open your mind and heart just a little; if you will but entertain the possibility of God’s love just a little – you will be overwhelmed with what you find. For there is no limit to the love of God, not just generically, but specifically for you. The love God carries for you is so great, that even if the entire rest of the world rejected Him, He would have come and died to save you. How do I know? The entire world rejected God in the time of the Flood, but Noah did not, and Noah was saved (and Noah was no perfect man). The entire city of Sodom rejected God in the time of Abraham, but Lot did not, and Lot was saved (and Lot was no perfect man). The Bible is full of examples of those who embraced God and were saved because of it. God loves you just as much. God wants to save you just as much. Open the mind just a little to that possibility, and that mountain of evidence will come pouring in over you in ways you cannot imagine.
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