Marriage and Original Intent ...

What do you know about Ebola?  Chances are you know it is dangerous, contagious, and left untreated, highly lethal.  It is a virus.  You don’t see it coming.  You get exposed and before you know it, symptoms like the flu, and from there it gets worse fast.  What has this to do with marriage?  Nothing.  What does it have to do with sin, on the other hand, a great deal.  Sin and Ebola have a lot in common.  Where Ebola focuses on your internal organs; sin takes particular aim at your heart.  Where Ebola begins to block the normal functions of your organs turning them into soup; sin blocks your heart’s ability to love turning it into stone, well at least to love anyone other than yourself.  Sin, and it does not matter what type you consider, is extremely effective at turning loving hearts, into rock-hard useless hearts, that no longer care about others, nearly at all.  Sin is a disease.  It is difficult to treat, and is dangerous, mostly because we take our own medical advice, instead of the One Physician who is capable to fixing us.

But why talk about sin, when the topic of this study has to do with Marriage?  Because so much of our thinking about Marriage is steeped in sin, and we are unaware of it.  Our modern day versions of Marriage are nearly as far from the original intent as possible.  We treat Marriage like the legal contract it has become in our country; enforceable by the courts, with terms and conditions like a “pre-nuptial” becoming commonplace for anyone with means.  The very idea of a pre-nup is to protect yourself against the inevitability of “failing” at marriage.  But then, if Marriage has become nothing more than a particular version of a contract, requiring the “permission” of the state to be legal, then protections like a “pre-nup” would seem to make a lot of sense.  This is especially true when the failure rate persists at close to 50% in and out of the church.  But succumbing to this definition of marriage, is injecting so much sin into our thinking, we can hardly see past it.  How about instead of these modern ideas, we try a reset.

To truly understand Marriage, we need to go back to where it was invented.  At Creation, the animals were all created male and female, and the concept of families across every specie was born.  That is every specie but ours.  Adam was created alone.  It did not take him long, to realize he was alone.  Adam began to see and sense his need.  As perfect as the garden was, as perfect as he was, as indeed all of creation was, it was still missing something.  What it was missing could not even be replaced by God in the Trinity.  Companionship with Jesus was still not enough for Adam as a singular entity.  Perhaps because Adam was created in the image of God, he felt a sense of incompleteness that only another human could suffice.  Adam needed to be able to pour out his love on someone else.  Adam needed someone he could cherish above all other forms of creation.  Someone who could give his perfect heart, a target to serve, to love, to make happy, and as God made possible, to become One with.

God allowed Adam to see this need even before Eve was created.  Once he realized it, the need was met, not using some other foreign dust, but literally using some of Adam own’s flesh, his ribs and some tissue to be precise.  At the outset, the personage of Eve was already One with Adam in that she came directly from him, through the process of God’s creation.  The creation of both people, allowed both people to pour out their love on each other, without limits, without worry, with total trust and respect.  Two caring hearts totally invested in each other.  Then to top it off, future pro-creations would occur, ONLY, by two people becoming One flesh.  The act of reuniting bodies (and souls), so that two bodies became one, of unified purpose, would result in the process of procreation.  Neither could just will it to happen, or do something alone to see it done.  It took two.  It still does.  This ultimate act of intimacy between husband and wife, brought about family, even more targets to cherish, and pour out our love upon.

And here is something to consider.  Had Adam and Eve never disobeyed God, never broke trust with God, their Marriage would have lasted eternally – no expiration date, ever.  God did not create Marriage, to be some summer thing, that ends when the world fills up with babies.  The need for marriage had nothing to do with making a quotient of babies, it had to do with meeting the need of two people to become One in heart – pouring their love out on each other, first, foremost, and forever.  Babies, and the generations that would follow, would be icing on the cake, never replace the cake itself.  The intimacy God created, He had NO intention of ever undoing.  It is a need, hard woven, into the DNA of His creation.  A need that can only be met in one way.  To ignore that, is to ignore who we are, and who made us.

So as Marriage was created prior to sin, there is no reason to think, it will not survive sin, live past the destruction of sin, and be an institution that survives eternity.  The original intent of it, was something that was to live forever.  Perfect hearts, understand the need to pour out their love, not on themselves, like Lucifer did, but on each other like God does, and like Adam and Eve did.  It is only ever the Ebola of sin that can mess that up.  Sin brings pain, and eventually death.  Neither of those things were ever supposed to be here.  Life and happiness were supposed to be our daily routine, not pain and death.  There was never supposed to be such a thing as a “widow”.  You cannot by definition have a “widow” if neither spouse ever dies.  Original intent did not account for widows.  Sin gave us that term, and the sadness of its meaning.

Divorce.  That is, the elective choice to refuse to pour out your love any longer, for whatever the reason, between two people, was NEVER supposed to happen.  Why would it?  In perfection, with people who have perfect hearts, who have never tasted sin, Divorce would be crazy talk.  It is purely coo-coo-lu-lu.  Nonsense.  Do you seriously think Adam and Eve, if they never tasted sin, would spontaneous decide to stop loving?  Do you think they would have preferred loneliness to companionship, without the ebola-like virus of sin targeting their hearts?  Nope.  Once again, original intent did not account for divorce.  It took the embrace of sin, to create that term, and the sadness of its meaning.  And you can bet, once heaven is all that is left, and sin has gone the way of extinction.  Divorce will leave with it.  Leaving behind only married couples, and families, who pour out their love on each other without limits, with total trust, respect, and unrivaled care.  The interest of husband in wife, and of wife in husband, will be so great our feeble minds, can barely comprehend it.  But in perfection, we will understand it perfectly, and prefer nothing else.  Like Adam did, as soon as he saw his need, prior to even Eve’s existence.

So as Matthew begins to write of the topic of divorce, we must remember the context, in which we have this discussion.  We must remember what was originally intended, and how far we have come from that, and why.  And we must remember, where we are heading back to, and what future lives will be like, once the Ebola of sin is gone from us forever.  It is in that vein Matthew begins his counsel to the Hebrews in chapter nineteen of his gospel, picking up in verse one saying … “And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan; [verse 2] And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.”  It begins with a change of venue from the events and teachings of chapter 18, moving to a new place, but picking right up with the healing and restoration ministry Jesus was so famous for.

Matthew continues in verse 3 saying … “The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?”  The Pharisees could not allow so many to be healed, without once again trying to challenge the authority of Jesus.  You will note the word “tempting” as they come to Jesus, with what they think is an impossible question.  This is intended as a trap, it is not good Biblical theological discussion.  For that they would have referred themselves back to original intent, and what it takes our hearts to be, to preserve marriage in a world of sin, pain, and death.  Nonetheless, Jesus has an answer picking up in verse 4 saying … “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,”  Jesus refers us all back to Creation.  He calls their attention (and ours) to the fact that He made us all (every specie) male and female.

Jesus continues in verse 5 saying … “And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?”  This is actually a reference all the way back to texts in Genesis that Moses wrote when considering the beginning of our specie.  Moses wrote the words many millenia after creation, but his perspective was right on, and here Jesus affirms the cause and effect, and reasoning of what happens now, when boy meets girl, and their love drives them to be together.  Even the draw of family must be secondary to the draw of the love between them.  This is what was intended, and what still happens at the outset.

Jesus continues in verse 6 saying … “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”  What God has joined.  This is not just a momentary joining of genitals, it is a permanent joining of hearts, of minds, of souls.  Two becoming One, means that neither is complete without the other, we do not speak as one person anymore, but as two people joined as one.  We share the unity model that the Trinity provides us example of.  Distinct individual parts of a Godhead that choose to act as One, in One accord with each other.  This is the level of intimacy intended to exist in our marriage.  To inflict pain upon each other is to inflict pain upon ourselves.  Pain was never intended to exist.  It took the Ebola of sin, to give us that.  And it takes our continued stupidity of trying to fix that version of Ebola on our own, with no medical understanding of how this version works, instead of surrendering to the Master Physician, who alone can bring us peace, and restore our hearts to each other once again.  The third member of our marital unit was always going to be the Creator who gifted us with it.  Our own trinities would always have that foundation, but only if we choose it.

But the Pharisees just cannot leave well enough alone.  They have to push it.  So Matthew records the escalation in verse 7 saying … “They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?”  The cite the counsel of Moses, out of context by the way, and attempt to put Jesus at odds with Moses, even though Jesus has just affirmed one of Moses’ earlier scriptures in Genesis.  But Jesus has another answer for them, they are likely not going to like, and frankly none of us Ebola infected sinners are too fond of either.  Jesus responds in verse 8 saying … “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”  The dissolution of marriage stems only from one key reason, the hardness of our hearts.  We love ourselves, more than we love another, even the one we pledged ourselves to, and who at the outset of our relationship, could not imagine living without.

Once again Jesus reaffirms, even the idea of divorce, was not something that existed at creation, the idea was ludicrous prior to the introduction of the Ebola of sin.  We have gotten so used to the idea of divorce, and so comfortable with it, we forget that.  We forget, it was never intended, or needed, at creation.  If sin had never found its way into this world, divorce would have been a non-sense word, nobody could comprehend the meaning of.  As useless as poo, which is another concept we would have never experienced.  Then Jesus continues his response saying in verse 9 … “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.”  This is the text that get us all twisted up, in our ideas of interpretation.

But there is a difference in perspective.  Jesus puts on a lens of original intent, and then looks at the behaviors our hard hearts are willing to embrace.  We are so casual with our eternal commitments.  We jump from one “intimate” relationship to another.  But heaven sees only the first commitment we ever made, not understanding how we would ever choose to let that one go.  If we bound ourselves to what we said, that is, to live by the vows of eternity – then anything else we do with others down the line, by definition can only be adultery (no matter what the state says is legal or not), and no matter how many papers we obtain from the church that have the word divorce printed on them.  When God says forever, He actually means forever.  He does not change His mind about loving us, just because the going gets tough.  He died to prove that point.  Even His own life was not more important to Him, than eternal companionship with you.

His disciples heard all of this, and decided better to just avoid marriage altogether.  Matthew continues in verse 10 saying … “His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.”  Imagine that.  Better loneliness, better to deny our nature, than to misuse the institutions of our creator, or find strength in the unity He advocated all the way back in the garden, when Jesus asked Eve and Adam to never leave each other’s side.  Jesus responds in verse 11 saying … “But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. [verse 12] For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

Jesus then offers a very profound observation on the condition of man, still impacted by the Ebola of sin.  We must decide, how far are will willing to trust Jesus, with who we are.  Are we willing to trust Him so far, we are willing to turn over even our sexuality to Him?  Eunichs (men unable to have sex); some were born this way, others forced into this by the evil of men, still others who would prefer it, rather than lose the Kingdom of heaven.  Not everyone was intended to be one way, or another.  The message is personal.  And it is for each of us.  The only commonality between us, is the level to which we trust our God with who we are.  Are we willing to do what Adam would not?  Are we willing to turn over our spouse to God, and trust in His wisdom.  You can bet there is going to need to be a lot of heart healing in heaven because of the messes we have made with marriages here on earth.  “Till death do you part” is NOT how God sees it.  Keep in mind, death was never supposed to be part of the equation.  But the human condition of marrying again after the separation of death seems understandable.  Yet still on resurrection day, someone will be trusting God with their heart, enough to let go, and let God decide where to look again, and when, and to who.  Do you trust God that much?  Adam did not.

For those of my gay brothers and sisters, who are absolutely convinced God has made them this way.  I will not argue with you.  I will only ask you the same cutting question, I have to ask myself.  Am I willing to turn over even my sexuality, and the love of my life, to God?  And allow Him to do with me, and with her, as He pleases, even though that is not what I might want?  If so.  God may remake me, according to His will, which may have been different than what I thought I was to be.  God may remake my marriage, perhaps dissolve it, and move it to the proper objectives, thus healing many in the process when once we walk on golden streets.  He may however, also affirm who I am, and affirm my marriage intending it for eternal longevity.  It is not what He does that matters, it is whether or not, I am willing to let Him do it.  If I am willing, then I should have no fear, for even if I am wrong now, I will be healed, and find greater happiness in Him, than I could have on my own.  It is this level of trust in Jesus, that allows us to relearn how to love.  It makes me a completely different kind of husband.  And it resets my perceptions of marriage into something I will spend eternity trying to learn more about.  It makes me want to serve my wife, not just in the now, but with an eternal eye.

It is the Ebola of sin, that warps our thinking, dwarfs our potential, and causes us to accept modern ideas of marriage that depend on state concurrence, or support even the church’s earthly perspectives.  This instead of turning back to original intent.  And seeking Jesus to become the third part of the trinity of our relationships, to provide the foundations we need, and alter how we love.  It is Jesus that softens our hearts of stone, and turns the minds of husbands back to wives, and wives back to husbands, until the two of them appear as One, to any who pay attention.  It is Jesus alone who brings this level of unity.

And there was so much more that our Lord had to say …

The Wolves of Racism [part two] ...

So how do we rid ourselves of the wolves who would gladly destroy the flock?  The first step, is to look in the mirror, pick up the wool overcoat, and make sure “we” are not actually the wolves we are talking about.  Hatred, and its little brother - a lack of forgiveness, come in a variety of packages disguised as only “fair”; but the net result is the consumption of sheep, with only the remains of a wolf left in its place.  And the damage left behind does not only hit us, but has the ripple effects of every sin, extending outwards from us, first hitting those we love.  Then those same ripples of pain, begin to hit our church, our community, our country.  We may wonder how racism, bigotry, prejudice, or baggage could negatively impact our nation; but it can and it does.  Imagine the pain and damage done when hiring decisions are made purely from a point of prejudice of any kind.  Perhaps I don’t like bankers, or even former bankers, so I don’t offer this job to that candidate simply because he/she worked in an industry I have bad feelings about since the fall of that sector.  And because of my feelings, an otherwise fully qualified candidate is discarded because of what I feel about it. 

The same thing can happen when I let beliefs about age result in similar decisions.  In this age of technical proficiency how easy it is to decline the application of the clearly older candidate in favor of the young and up-and-coming because I believe inherently the young will adapt much faster than the old to change.  Of course this perspective usually occurs more often in the young, who have not yet experienced change the way the older folks have.  Just as hiring a former banker might give a qualified candidate a chance at something new, without the baggage of the past.  Prejudice can be subtle, it does not always have to be overt, and about black / white race relations.  Underlying it all is the fear, that at some point in the future, damage will happen to us (again) based on our past experiences, how we were raised, and what we choose to focus on in our news venues.  This fear begins to drive hate in us.  And instead of adopting a spirit of forgiveness, we adopt a spirit of what we call “justice”.  We begin to seek fairness above all things.  But fairness, justice, and equality sound objective, when in reality are anything but.  They are based on the perspectives we hold.  Ask yourself, is it “fair” for you to be rejected for a job opportunity, when another person of another race gets the job, particularly if race was the main reason they did?  Nearly ALL of us would say that it is not fair, unless “we” got it, then maybe we justify it as fair somehow (even if done for the same reasons).

Ironically, it is this spirit of justice, that makes us wolf, not sheep.  The sheep realizes they themselves are far from perfect, have done many wrongs to others, and thus crave forgiveness above all else.  And if we crave forgiveness, then we must be willing to offer it as well.  The world is unjust.  You can survive in it as wolf, or as sheep.  Case in point.  Matthew resumes the stories of Jesus in chapter eighteen of his gospel to the Hebrews.  He resumes picking up in verse 21 saying … “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?”  This was Peter attempting to blend justice with forgiveness.  Most people, whether they know it or not, tend to have a three strikes rule.  You wrong me, and ask forgiveness, and I grant it – especially the first time.  The second time, I am a little more reluctant or cautious, but I still try to grant it.  By the third time, I pretty much no longer believe you mean what you say.  At this point, it is really hard to convince me you want genuine forgiveness.  It looks more to me like you are establishing a pattern of causing me harm, and then attempting to white wash yourself, so that you can simply do it again. (Imagine how God feels).

Peter however, was trying to be more generous than this, and was going the extra mile of offering 7 full times at forgiveness (despite how hard it would be to do this following the third declining shot).  Now translate that to us and the prejudice we develop over time regarding nearly anything.  Where prejudice remains, forgiveness is by definition, pushed out.  We fear damage more than we embrace a spirit of forgiveness.  This is how prejudice is fed, off our fears.  Lose the fear, it is then possible to lose a state of constantly prejudging what others will do, and why they would do those things.  Then people become just a series of one-on-one individual encounters.  I do not tally the sins of the last person (based on some characteristic I fear), with the new person who may also commit similar wrongdoings to me.  Instead the new person starts with a clean slate, because fear does not keep me holding on to a tally, that forgiveness would have otherwise reset.

But Jesus has a startling response picking up in verse 22 saying … “Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”  It might as well be infinity.  Imagine being slapped in the face by someone who then asks forgiveness.  You grant it.  Then they find occasion to slap you in the face once again.  For 490 times?  If you can get past the third time, you are doing better than me.  If you can get past the seventh time you are doing better than our generous Peter proposed.  And when this pattern repeats for the 146^th time, and you are still able to grant genuine forgiveness on your part.  A few things will emerge.  Your concrete ability to share the forgiveness your God has granted you (monkey see, monkey do, in a great way).  It likely means your ideas about how to love, have become fully in harmony with your God’s ideas.  And I expect that at occasion #491, your mercy will not cut off, it will probably be there forever (as your God’s is).  The infectious, liberating nature of forgiveness will have taken over completely.  The sad part of this scenario however, is on the part of the wrongdoer.  It also likely means they are doomed to a life of inflicting pain, unable to stop, unable to control themselves, unwilling to allow Jesus to transform this behavior, ending it, so that no more forgiveness from you is needed.  Their path is the one of far greater sadness, even if yours must endure the pain in your cheeks on multiple occasions.

Forgiveness is supposed to be contagious.  Jesus then continues picking up with a story in verse 23 saying … “Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. [verse 24] And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.”  The story opens with the authority of a king, something the folks in His day and age, would have appreciated.  Everyone knew if Caesar decreed it, it was going to happen, whether for mercy, or for great evil.  It moves forward with a reckoning of the king’s servants (not strangers mind you, but folks assigned to serve the king, likely in a financial capacity (perhaps tax collectors)).  And one of the servants is discovered to owe the king 10-thousand talents.  This debt might as well have been infinity.  A single talent was a thing of great wealth.  With ten thousand of them, you could fund your own kingdom.  And no servant would ever “make” that much money on their own.

Jesus continues in verse 25 saying … “But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. [verse 26] The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.”  Here is where we must read carefully.  Because the servant could not pay, his life, was the thing he would have to offer of value.  Because he was the head of his home, what he did, would also cause great impact on the life of his wife, and his children as well.  What we do is never in a vacuum, it has repercussions.  And beyond the most precious things he had (the lives of his family), everything else he may have accumulated he was going to lose.  So he begs.  But for the wrong thing.  He begs for an extension of time, in order to pay back everything that is owed.  This was an exercise in futility.  If he lost this kind of sum of money, he could never pay it back (or he already would have).  How often do we line up beside this man, and ask God for a little more time and patience with us, so that we can conquer our sin?  We will stop swearing, or stealing, or lusting – if we just have a little more time to get it done.  But we fail, because we rely upon our own strength to succeed.

Jesus continues in verse 27 saying … “Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.”  Again pay close attention.  What the servant asked for was an extension of time to pay back what was owed.  What God offers him, is simply to forgive his debt completely.  God is looking to transform the life of the servant.  To take the pressure and the fear off of him, from spending every moment looking for a penny he can add to pay back to the debt.  And instead to enjoy his life (have a real one), and impact the lives of his wife, and his children in a positive way.  To use his belongings with a sense of gratitude, for they all belonged to the king.  But the king has returned them, given them back, given them in the first place, to the man in this story.  How often do we line up beside this man, and treat our families, and our goods as if they belong to us – not as though they were ALL gifts from our King, who has erased a debt of ours we could never pay back.

This was all designed to change the heart of the servant.  To change how he lives, how he loves, and make the rest of his life so much better.  But alas, one must be willing to have a heart changed.  Jesus continues in verse 28 saying … “But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. [verse 29] And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.”  Instead of love and forgiveness, the man given so much of these, holds none of them in his heart.  He turns around and immediately seeks out a fellow servant who owes him only 100 pennies (less than one talent).  He does not mercifully ask or remind him of the small debt, but instead grabs the fellow servant by the throat.  There is violence in this.  For without love in a heart, violence has much room to grow.  What his fellow servant does, is the same thing he did only moments ago.  His fellow servant uses the same words.  And while it would have been impossible to pay back 10 thousand talents with time, paying back 100 pennies is actually plausible.  This debt was a much smaller thing.

Jesus continues in verse 30 saying … “And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. [verse 31] So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done.”  Despite the dejavu, the man forgiven everything, the man offered a new life by the king, does not have the mercy in him to show even the smallest mercy to the man who owed him so little.  Debtors prison is the fate for the one who owes only 100 pennies.  His wife and his children must now find a way to pay back this small debt, but without their primary bread winner.  This may will be a degenerating condition, that impacts the fellow servant, and his family, and his possessions in a way he never recovers from.  No mercy.  No forgiveness.  No change of heart.  Only an expression of that heart, that impacts the witnesses and breaks their hearts when they see it.  They take it to the king, so that perhaps the one in prison might be released, but there is greater justice to be outlayed if justice is the course we choose for our lives.

Jesus continues in verse 32 saying … “Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: [verse 33] Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?”  Pay close attention once again; Jesus says “O thou wicked servant”.  He speaks not in parable anymore, but in plain English to us, to you, to me.  We have been forgiven everything.  Yet we would cling to our fear, and drive out the freedom embracing forgiveness might offer us.  For the brother who has wronged us, who refused to hear us, whether in private, in the company of witnesses, or even as a matter of prayer for the church – is it not possible to forgive that man?  Why do we make it a matter of attempting to punish a wrong doer, rather than a matter of forgiveness between family under the same church umbrella?  Why would I look at groups of people who share some characteristic, and develop baggage, or prejudice, or racist hate – expelling all the forgiveness I have been offered; and instead of being changed by that gift, harbor all the hatred that dwarfed my heart and ability to love by clinging to it.  Wolves hunt for justice.  Sheep rely on the mercy of the Shepherd to keep them alive, they rely on the closeness of the flock, not on subdividing it along every line of prejudice they can imagine.

Jesus concludes the story picking up in verse 34 saying … “And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. [verse 35] So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”  If we are determined to be wolves, determined to reject the forgiveness of our king, determined not to let it change us, and how we love.  We are wolves, left to no other fate, than the hunger of wolves for a justice they will never believe is fully satisfied.  Instead of being made free, we hold to the bondage of what we call justice and fairness.  We are left to the tormentors, others like us, who also seek justice and fairness.  But whose ideas of that justice and fairness conflict with our own.  Their justice steps upon our justice.  Their fairness does not line up with our fairness.  So we call them wrong, as they call us the same.  And we torment each other, each believing we are right.  And the tormenting of sin will not let us go, because we will not let it go.

Forgiveness is designed to free us from the burden, and the torment, of holding on to pain.  While the “fact” that we were wronged may never be in question.  Justice and further pain do not release us from our own, they remind us of it.  But forgiveness frees us from it.  We release our pain to the wind, think of it no more, and are free to cherish the one who may have hurt us.  To seek out the love that is possible between us.  Imagine if our Father God, who has a perfect memory, were to remember our slights, and our wrongdoings, that must have hurt Him deeply.  How could He love us, holding on to that pain.  Forgiveness is a part of love we required Him to invent, if He were to choose to love us still.  Forgiveness does not need a measure of justice first, it needs only a matter of choice to love first.  Forgiveness does not set all our wrongdoings right – we still did them.  But genuine forgiveness sets the tally to zero once again, and lets our relationship continue and grow.  The goal is not to use this mechanism as a means to continue inflicting pain, but rather as a means to change how we love, and over time need it less, until through Christ we need it no more.  Transformation will see to that.

Let us then, become sheep, blissfully absorbed in the love of our shepherd, looking to hunt no more in packs for a justice that can never be, but wander in flocks behind a Shepherd whose love transforms our ideas, and our actions on that very topic …

The Wolves of Racism [part one] ...

Prejudice begins at home.  A young mind witnesses what its role-model is willing to embrace, and imperceptibly opens to the same ideas, both for good, and for evil.  And the influence of the home, is not engrained only in a moment, but over long periods of time, where infectious ideas work there way deeper and deeper into the psyche of developing minds until the acorn and the tree are hard to tell apart.  While this may be the main way it happens; it is not the only way.  What happens “to” us; can also have profound impacts “on” us, in terms of our prejudices.  We “pre-judge” the motives of others, and predict their actions based on our assumed judgment of their motives; perhaps in part, because we have seen these scenarios before.  This is not just a white / black thing; this is a rich / poor thing, a cop / criminal thing, even a doctor / patient thing.  Anywhere there are relationships between people, it is possible for us to pre-judge and predict outcomes based on the accumulated experiences of our past (or the short word for it, baggage).  We carry our emotional or mental baggage with us into new relationships, and sometimes poison them with things that never belonged there in the first place.  But hurt a person a few times in the same way, by the same type of experience, and baggage is nearly certain to develop out of fear if nothing else.

The problem with our prejudices, and even our baggage, is that if left unchecked, it becomes a hatred in us against things or people we believe will in some way cause damage to us.  We begin to categorize individuals into groups of like characteristics, no longer seeing the person, only seeing the “type” of personage they belong to.  Our judgments begin to extend not just to those we have great knowledge of personally, but to those we hardly know, then finally to those we do not know at all.  All of this because they belong to a group with a characteristic, we know to have hurt us in the past, and now we fear will hurt us in the future.  Over time, individuals lumped in to the groups we define as threats, can rarely if ever “work” their way out of these mental classifications, into a “normal” relationship with us.  They start at the deficit of their group, and must exert proof positive to exit it.  Keep in mind these negative connotations to groups can happen based merely on their occupations, or religions, having nothing to do with race. 

Take a look at your feelings about bankers for a moment; it is no longer just their cushy jobs of 9 to 5 that click in your mind.  After the big collapse, where many Americans lost everything they had, can you still “trust” these people with your money.  You may keep your money in a bank (because the mattress theory is nearly a certainty of greater loss), but do you feel good about it, or not.  Examine how you feel about Catholics for a moment.  The people now are great folks, but the church persecuted those who felt differently for nearly 1200 years.  For a long time in this country there was bigotry against Catholics or having Catholics ever sit in any governmental seats of power, because of what their church did, without apology, for centuries when they had influence in the past.  Take a look at cops.  Are they your public defenders or does that word conjure up fear of over-reaction where you might wind up dead in some mistaken exchange gone awry? 

Lastly, take a look at the “undocumented” in our country.  How they came here was a crime, no two ways about it.  That makes them criminals, at least originally.  But not all criminals are created equally.  Those who hid Jews in German controlled territories were once guilty of a “capital” offense, not just a passport infraction.  Today we would call those “criminals” of WW2 heroes for what they did.  Seeking hope, pursuing a dream, and doing something illegal to get it, either for you, or for your kids, hardly seems like the worst criminal activity one could embrace.  And does only that singular crime, truly label you a criminal forever?  But the fear does not end because the border was porous.  Now the fear extends to those who may lose jobs to those who will work for less (many abused in the process).  And the fear continues that “legal” tax payers will be paying for public services for those here illegally, in terms of education, medical help, and drivers licenses.  If your mind conjures up many negative things associated with the “undocumented”, ask yourself how deep your fear runs, or how dispassionate you truly are.

At the end of these things, the common denominator of our prejudice, our racism, even our baggage is fear of what damage may come to us.  That fear then drives us to hate.  And in that hatred, forgiveness is nearly completely lost sight of.  This is the polar opposite of how heaven works.  Take a case in point found in the gospel of Matthew to the Hebrews chapter eighteen.  Matthew records the words of Jesus as Jesus begins to address these topics from the view of heaven itself.  It picks up in verse 12 saying … “How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?”  To begin, nearly every Christian who reads this passage, in the back of their minds, believes “they” would have been part of the ninety-nine.  Oh sure at one point we were the lost sheep, but now … not us.  Though a closer examination of any one of our lives, might reveal we have still found a way to get outside the sheep fold, and right back into the danger we were saved from yesterday.

But a second look at that same story’s beginning, might offer a different point of view.  Looking at this story through the lens of heaven, earth itself may have been the “one” sheep who “went astray” while all the other created worlds and beings in the kingdom of God’s universe did not.  Satan tempted all of them, tried to get all of them to fall, but none did.  All chose to keep trust with God.  All that is, except our world.  From this point of view, each and every one of us is the sheep who “went astray”.  And while our current condition is lost.  We did not get there by accident.  There was some “going” involved in why we are now where we are.  We are, to be exact, “gone astray”.  It was our choice to go.  It was our feet that carried us away.  And as a result, we are now lost, with no idea how to get home.

Jesus continues in verse 13 saying … “And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.”  Pay close attention to the wording at the start of this verse.  Jesus begins with “and if so be that he find it”.  This represents risk.  There is a risk that the shepherd may not find the sheep.  After all, there are wolves in the world.  Wolves that consume a sheep before he even knows he has been hunted and eaten.  There is a risk that the sheep does not want to be found.  Our heavenly Shepherd recognizes the risk involved with the pursuit of the lost.  It is perhaps the overcoming of this risk, that is the reason why there is so much joy.  For the sheep must lose his fear of the Shepherd for this to work.  The sheep, namely us, must allow the Shepherd to do with us what He wills.  We may think we want nice long wool, a coat of wool we have spent what seems like a lifetime growing and nurturing.  Then along comes our Shepherd with a set of shears and trims us down to nearly naked.  That looks daunting at first, but feels absolutely liberating once we let Him do it to us.  And it is much better than allowing our fears, to become the wolves, that consume us, and keep us long, woolly, and lost.

Jesus continues in verse 14 saying … “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”  Jesus reminds us of many things in this story.  Even though it is we who have chosen to go astray, it is our Shepherd (Him), who chases after us to find us.  And this is not just the “Jesus Act”, this is the will of the Father who is in heaven.  We were created with freedom of choice, in order that we might love freely, and choose to love freely.  We chose badly, but were created even with God knowing we would make an initial bad choice.  That choice need not label us criminals forever, as our Shepherd would do what it takes to bring us home.  We could simply not accomplish that, sheep are great at getting lost, or going astray, worthless at finding home.  Jesus refers back to the 2-year-old He has put in front of Him to teach the disciples an object lesson about greatness, and heaven.  And He reminds them, that the Father is not willing to lose even one of these little ones.

We are that little one.  Our heavenly Father, and in His home, is no embrace of fear, or hatred – but instead a fervent embrace of forgiveness that will forget what we did to Him, and allow Him to love us in spite of what we did to Him.  We ask, He forgives.  No more holding it against us.  No more putting it in our faces.  Jesus continues this theme in verse 15 saying … “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.”  Jesus here provides a way for us to address the injustices that happen in our world.  He begins with calling our attention to the fact that one who has done us harm, is no stranger in the Kingdom of heaven.  He is our brother.  He is family.  Before you pursue enumerating the long list of slights you believe have been done to you, consider “who” you are talking to, is family, your family.  You should be loving them that way, like Jesus loves you.  Once you love that way, then perhaps you will be ready to speak to your brother.  And your goal, is not the destruction of your brother, but the reclamation of your brother.  All you are looking for here, is for your brother to hear you.  The Holy Spirit will do whatever conviction of wrongdoing is needed, both on the side of your brother, or on yours. 

If you are not there to reclaim your brother, don’t go.  If your words of confrontation will not have the effect of reclaiming your brother, don’t say them.  You will ultimately hold yourself more accountable in this interchange than will the brother who may have offended you.  Jesus continues in verse 16 saying … “But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.”  The goal remains to have your brother “hear” you, nothing more.  The witnesses you bring, are only there to “establish” what is said – that is, they listen to you, and record what it is you said, and how you said it.  The goal remains to have your brother hear you.  If you are there to teach your brother a lesson, don’t go, don’t bring anybody.  Lessons in pain, are very rarely the lessons you or anyone else will learn from.  The idea that you still care about your brother, to try to reach him, and now you are bringing help to do so, is supposed to be the motive behind why you bring others to his doorstep once again.  You are doing the pursuing in this scenario, not like the wolf, but like the Shepherd.  To destroy the sheep and make him your prey, is clearly not the goal.

Jesus continues in verse 17 saying … “And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. [verse 18] Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Here is where an even closer second look is warranted.  The next step in trying to reach a family member (your brother) who may have wronged you, is to take the matter to the church.  Why?  So you can light up torches, gather pitchforks, and go burn down his house?  No!!  So that as a matter of prayer, and awareness, the entire church can attempt to bring your brother before the Lord, to have the Lord find a way to reclaim him.  Keep in mind the earlier text right above us, it is the Father’s will that not one of these little ones should be lost.  Jesus came here to save that which was lost.  Those texts did not go away in this context.  They are amplified here.  What you bind or loose on earth or have it echoed in heaven, is not the giving up on your brother, it is the continuation of working for your brother.

What your brother may have done to wrong you, may give you the occasion to talk to him.  But the reclamation of him continually remains your goal.  Jesus says if he refuses to hear even the entire church, then to treat him like a heathen or a publican.  HOW DID JESUS TREAT THEM?  He dined in the home of publicans and sinners and drove church leadership crazy over it.  He turned none of them away.  Cast none of them out based on any kind of judgment, for while the second coming has not yet happened, there is still time enough for reclamation, and even more time to love.  For the need of our love is greatest now, while so much pain exists.  We are not to fear our brother, even if he has slid all the way down to equality with heathens and publicans.  We are to love our brother still.  That is not a statement about our brother, it is a definition of how we love, and a witness to why we love.  Then comes the home run.

Jesus continues in verse 19 saying … “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. [verse 20] For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  Church is now something totally different than it has been up to now.  Church happens when two of us agree on earth as touching any thing – say perhaps the reclamation of our stubborn brother who refuses to hear us on a matter we hoped would reclaim him.  There need not be a formal building we enter, even on the special day He set aside to hang out with us on.  We need not call ONLY that church.  Church is made up of us coming together, even in small flocks, flocks as small as two, to unite in the reclamation of our brother who we sincerely love.  We love our brother like Jesus does, and because Jesus does.  And while our efforts are far from what is needed, our Father God will do what we have asked of Him, for the salvation of another.  That my friends is a powerful prayer.  It superseded prayers for wealth, or power, or even health, or spiritual understanding.  Prayers for the salvation of another are the greatest of all prayers.  They are stronger still when asked not in isolation, but asked as the flock of Jesus, where at least a few sheep are present.

But the lesson was not over yet, there was still the pesky matter of what to do with wolves …

 

Achieving Greatness ...

How do you measure greatness?  Is it in the singularity of doing something few, if any other, has ever done?  Does it take the field of sport to accomplish it?  Imagine the greatest athletes that come to mind; Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Jack Nicholson, perhaps Michael Phelps.  They did things few others appear as good at.  They set records.  And while all records are meant to be broken, the style and finesse and shear accomplishment is hard to dispute.  And every sport has them.  Or do you measure greatness in financial terms?  Would then Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg come to mind.  They are worth billions of dollars, and Warren and Bill have tremendous records of philanthropy they continue to improve.  Does that much money equate to greatness, and giving it away, even more?  Or perhaps do you lean to discovery and look at those who pioneered in the field of medicine as those who found what it means to be great.  Names like Louis Pasteur, Jonas Salk, Walter Reed, or Karl Landsteiner; people whose passion for discover was aimed at finding medical improvements to benefit the whole of us.

When you stack yourself against names like this, against accomplishments like this, or records like this; do you even begin to enter their league?  It is easy to accept the premise that it takes being unique in some fashion to be great.  It is hard to imagine being common, and still being considered great.  But Jesus may have the hardest of all premises for us to accept.  To lose all uniqueness, abandon all ideas of accomplishment, and measure our greatness in equal parts of humility and childlike trust.  The more humble; the more great.  The more childlike; the more great.  This is something ALL of us are capable of, it only requires a choice on our part to seek it.  We submit ourselves to Jesus, and He works this work within us.  There is nothing unique about it, in that everyone can/should be an equal participant.  There is no exclusive offer, just a common one, made to everyone.  If there is any exclusivity, it is that so many refuse the offer, and so few accept it.

This is hard for us to wrap our brains around.  But it might have even been harder for the Hebrews in the time of Christ to wrap their brains around, and Matthew was going to attempt to present this truth to them regardless.  Their system of caste was far more developed, and strict than anything we see today.  They had centuries of tradition, even the scripture seemed to support their premises, yet Jesus was about to turn their world, and ours, on its head.  The story begins in chapter eighteen of Matthew’s gospel.  It does not start out from a question of discovery, but more likely, from a question of ambition or greed.  Matthew picks up in verse 1 saying … “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  This was not about generic interest, this was purely about which one of them was to be greater than the others.  After all, you only need one governor, or one chief of the military, etc.  Not all 12 would likely get the same level of cushy job in the new Jesus administration.  And His transition to becoming King could not be too far away.

The answer would astound them all.  Mathew continues in verse 2 saying … “And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, [verse 3] And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”  There was something far more insidious in the question the disciples posed than ambition from one over the other.  In that question lurked the ideas of self-reliance.  Each thought himself better than his contemporaries based on his innate abilities, perhaps drive, or passion, or steadfastness, or energy.  Each disciple assumed a position of greatness would come to them, based on what they had done to earn it, or would do to earn it.  And this disease of thinking infected their ideas of salvation – just as it has our own.  While we may not aspire to greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven, we still view it in our own world as being tied to the uniqueness of self.  And we foster those same ideas right into our salvation, that we can conquer our sin on our own, by our choice to simply sin no more.  We look to Christ as merely a partner in helping us do what we were meant to do.  We ask for Jesus to only “make up the difference between our best efforts and what is required of us”.  But that difference is more vast than our arrogance will allow us to believe.

The disciples shared our current line of thinking.  And so to begin Jesus counsels that we must ALL be “converted”.  Now keep in mind He was talking directly to His own disciples who were believers in Him, and had been following Him for several years now.  They had cast out demons, healed the sick, and learned from the mouth of God directly, along the way witnessing first hand the miracles of that transformative love in both body and soul.  But so far, refused to taste it.  They, like us, still clung to the notion of self-reliance as it relates to entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.  So Jesus begins by stripping them of the idea that “they had made it”, or, that they were ever going to make it on the path they were on.  We must ALL begin with conversion.  Letting go the notions of self-reliance, and begin to accept a role of complete dependence upon Jesus just as a 2 year old accepts the notion of complete dependence on his/her parents to survive.  Children do not do the work, they trust, and simply reap the benefits.  This was a concept those seeking greatness never saw coming.  If this was the standard, none of them would be great based on how they were thinking.  None of us will either.

Jesus continues in verse 4 saying … “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  To become great begins with humility.  It begins with the recognition, that we have extreme need, and CANNOT fill this need ourselves.  We will never beat Satan at the sin game, he is much better than us, smarter than us, and knows how to play and win.  But Jesus beats him in a New-York-minute.  We must humble ourselves and admit we cannot win; and allow Jesus to win on our behalf.  We must stop fighting our sin, and let Jesus do the fighting on our behalf – allow Jesus to change what we like, which leads to changing what we do, which leads to changing how we love, how we think, and puts us back into harmony with the laws and precepts of our God.  ONLY then is obedience possible.  Everything else is distraction, and deception.  We kid ourselves, fool ourselves, and hold ourselves outside of the Kingdom because we refuse to accept this simple premise.  What Jesus lays out with respect to our conversion, is NOT an excuse to keep sinning, it is the only escape from sinning in the here and now.

This changes the nature of greatness from something only the few can do, to something anyone can do.  You are not limited by the muscles of your body, the size of your wallet, or the intellectual power of your mind.  You only need to be converted (change your thinking), and become like a 2-year-old who trusts his Parent (the heavenly One) completely, for everything.  God is NOT our partner, in our salvation.  He is the Author of it, and the Finisher of it.  We are the beneficiary of it.  We do nothing, but accept it, and allow Him to do all the work of it in us.  Jesus continues in verse 5 saying … “And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.”  There is no such thing as “too young”, or too immature, to too dumb to follow Jesus.  Anyone, at any age, regardless of what we perceive as spiritual maturity or understanding is fully accepted by Jesus as a follower the second they choose to become one.  This idea turned on its head, the contemporary thinking that you had to study first, and upon gaining an understanding of scripture, only then could you join the ranks of the religious institution.  Jesus says no.  All you need is to trust Him and begin to love, and you are ready.  What children do best is to trust and love.  They love naturally; and are only taught to hate.

When we receive a child in the name of Jesus, we are receiving Jesus Himself.  This is no small promise.  This is the foundation of a church built upon love, transformative love, the love of Jesus Christ.  Jesus says to the sinner (and the saint), I love you, let me take your pain and the trail of death you have chosen from you.  When the sinner (or the saint) agrees to this, they need nothing more, to officially join the ranks of the church of Jesus.  No matter their age.  No matter their level of doctrinal understanding.  The rest of education can wait, the acceptance into the family of Jesus begins immediately.  The sinner (and us saints) begin every day forward with making this same choice – to love, and to allow His love to do the work it needs to do within us, to bring us into harmony with our God.  We should take joy in this.  We should have our arms ever outstretched to love sinners (even while still in their sin) and saints (even when they make repeated mistakes).  The love of our God is unconditional, and has the power to transform, all of us who still do not yet live rightly.  We need only focus on letting it do its work in us.  Submission based in a humility that recognizes its own need.

And what does the alternative look like?  Jesus continues in verse 6 saying … “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”  We, that is you or me, are NOT to “offend” one of the 2-year-old’s who belong to Jesus.  Better for us to keep our mouths shut.  Better for us to love in silence, than offer words of good intent, that have negative impact.  Better to be liberal with our love towards those who sin, than to restrict it, thinking we do them a service, we do not.  The loss, of causing a child of God to stumble or look away from God’s love is so profound it will one day break our perfected hearts.  Whether in this world, or the next, to look back and realize you had a key role in causing a precious child of God to turn away from God – because of what you said, or did – will cause a grief in you so deep you will wish you had been strapped to a millstone and throne into the sea before you caused that kind of damage to one who is now lost, at least in part, because of your role in their lives.  You may still be saved, this is not about “your” salvation.  But to know you caused the loss of another, will devastate you in a way NOTHING else ever will.  There is no greater grief.  I would expect weeping and gnashing of teeth over this one even from inside the walls of heaven.

Jesus continues in his warnings of what happens when we give ourselves not to Him, but to our own ideas of self-reliance and the evil it brings.  He continues in verse 7 saying … “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!”  This was a warning to Judas over his upcoming betrayal.  The betrayal of Judas was foretold by the prophets and it had to take place in order for scripture to be fulfilled, but the devastation to Judas would be crushing.  Jesus knew it, and this warning was to try to warn Judas about what it would do him.  But these same words were also meant for Peter.  The betrayal of Peter, by denying Christ, was not needed, it was chosen.  Peter too would be crushed by what he chose to do.  And these same words echo through the ages to you and I, for the constant failures we choose to embrace, and the stubborn refusals we hold to give up our ideas of self-reliance in our salvation.

Then Jesus speaks to us in an allegory we do not yet fully comprehend.  He continues in verse 8 saying … “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. [verse 9] And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”  Where it comes to offending a little child of God, how often do we find our feet or our hands engaged in activity that drives a child away from God.  While God is not our partner in salvation for He does it all; very often we have partners in our sins, real human partners.  We encourage each other in our sin, rationalizing our actions, and saying we can always ask for forgiveness later.  Better to lose hands and feet, than to be a partner in the demise of another child of God.  And our eyes.  How often do we train our eyes to find and see evil, most often because it appeals to us.  We look at other children of God, not as family, but as potential victims of our lust or our greed, or our avarice.  Better to pull out our own eyes, than to see other children of God in this way.  To embrace evil, is to embrace the pain of hell fire a long time before the flames ever touch our skin.  This is what Jesus is so desperate to help us avoid.  Protecting His little children from others even within the church is Him protecting you and me as well.

Finally Jesus brings it back to a more positive note as this encounter concludes in verse 10 saying … “ Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. [verse 11] For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.”  Little children, of a very young age, in fact since they were born, already have guardian angels assigned to them.  Those angels behold the face of His Father which is in heaven.  When you despise the beloved of our God, you despise yourself, and face a grief in yourself you cannot now imagine.  We must all remember the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost.  Jesus is not talking about loving that which is easy to love, but that which is steeped in poo and very hard to love.  2-year-old’s very often make a mess in their diapers which no one, is too eager to have to clean up.  It smells.  It can make you nauseous.  When they have spread it all over their face and hands and clothing, that is how we look when covered in our sins.  But even in this condition, our Father loves us, enough to embrace us even then, clean us up meticulously until we shine like a new born day.  To avoid offending a sinner, even when they are still steeped in their sin, is the message from a Savior who came to save us ALL from those same sins, namely to save that which was lost.

And our Savior had much more to say …