The Revolution Begins

 

Mark 2:13-17 - Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.  As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

 

“The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” 

This is a quote that I’ve heard all my life, and often, it is invoked when one speaks of the above passage.  An updated version of the pithy saying replaces “museum” with “harbor.”  Either way, the saying is intended to remind those within the church that the church has a mission that mirrors Jesus’s own mission to reach out to those who are not already inside the fold of the Christian community.   `Though I am generally not a fan of reducing scriptural truth to pithy sayings, I do have to admit the effectiveness of this saying making the intended point. Further, it is a point that has continually needed to be made for as long as I have been a part of it. 

 If you have ever had the misfortune of being present with a crowd of people who you mostly didn’t know, who talked about things you don’t readily understand, and who make very little effort to help you understand and feel included, then you know what’s it’s like to attend far too many Christian churches.  As uncomfortable as that situation may be today, it was even worse in Jesus’s time.  We see this in the religious leaders’ reaction to Jesus.  They are objecting on the basis of Jewish law that looked down upon Jews dining with those who don’t follow Jewish traditions and laws. 

To be fair, there is a kernel of truth in the teachers’ concern.  There should be a difference between the way Christians live and the way those who haven’t made such commitments do.  Jesus Himself called people to live differently.  The revolution in Jesus’s teaching here is that living that way should not isolate you from those who live differently.  In fact, Jesus’s assertion here is that there is no way we can help people see the value of living differently if they never see someone living that way themselves. 

But there is something even more revolutionary going on here.  Jesus is not just changing the way God’s people interact with those outside the community.  He is recruiting people from outside the community to become leaders of the community.  This would have been unthinkable in Jewish circles.  And worse yet, it’s not just run of the mill “sinners” Jesus is recruiting; it is the “worst of the worst” – tax collectors.  We will talk about this issue later in Mark, but we have to point it out now.

All of this begs the following questions that deserves honest answers.

 

Question:  Who is genuinely welcome (meaning who would you actively invite to your dinner table?  Are there people that you would not accept an invitation to go eat with if you were asked? How do you feel about being led by someone considered the “worst of sinners?”

 

Prayer:  Jesus, show us our attitudes towards those who live differently from us that we may see the ways our attitudes are not like Yours.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to bless people you know who don’t ever attend church.

 

Song:  Jesus, Friend of Sinners – Casting Crowns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXIugwiN7Q

The Forgiveness Community

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

Bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. (Colossians 3:13, NASB)

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. (Mark 11:25, NASB)

Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” (Luke 17:3-4, NASB)

 

                As we finish our series on forgiveness today, I ask your forgiveness for missing yesterday.  I have no excuse except that the day just got away from me.  I am seeking to make amends by writing on Saturday 😊

                One the reasons I chose to write this series on forgiveness is a bit selfish.  I have felt a calling to write a book on forgiveness for more many years and have worked on that book off and on since then.  For whatever reasons, it has been really hard to get it done.  Beginning to write these devotions every weekday at the beginning of the pandemic established the discipline of regular writing for me.  So I chose to use that established discipline to work toward the goal of getting the book done.  Thank you for indulging me in hearing about forgiveness longer than anyone except myself wants to hear. 

                The working title of the book is Forgiveness Revolution.  I remember vividly when I put those two words together for the first time.  I was preparing to preach for the first time the sermon series that would come to be named the same as my intended book title.  After reading all the scripture I could find on forgiveness and several books as well, I was asking myself a question that I was taught by my preaching professors to always ask when preparing to preach; “what do I want to happen as a result of people hearing this?” 

                The answer that hit me like a flood is “I want a revolution.”  We live in a world where so many feel like their mistakes have damned them.  I’ve listened to countless people talk about the crippling shame they feel.  Further, I’ve watched my entire life as it seems we become more and more divided.  Divorces outnumber lasting marriages.  Family feuds begun because of relational mistakes escalate into complete community upheaval, which has escalated into a whole culture of “us vs. them.”  The world seems to be more and more fractured and by what I see as a lack of ability to forgive and working towards reconciling our relationships.  People are becoming more and more isolated.  We struggle with experiencing the forgiveness of God and so we struggle with forgiving each other.  Sometimes, we even struggle with forgiving God.  We need a revolution.

                A revolution can start with one person but it is impossible to sustain without a community.  Jesus, the Son of God incarnate knew that.  The movement He started would never have the legs to continue if He didn’t build a community.  So He gathered disciples and spent three years immersing and training them in the ways of God’s kingdom, which, by the way, are intrinsically communal. He also taught them to do the same community building after he ascended.  One of those ways of the kingdom was forgiveness.  The needed revolution I talked about earlier was started over two thousand years ago by Jesus.

                We don’t need to “reinvent the wheel.”  We just need to re-establish the patterns of forgiveness that Jesus taught so long ago.  Jesus chose and called the Church to do exactly that.  Bask in the lavish forgiveness of God.  Adopt the discipline of forgiving each other as God as forgiven us.  Practice grace and forgiveness every day.  When we have something against God, we keep talking and relating to God until we work it out.  My friends who call themselves the church, this is who we are.  We are a forgiveness community!  Let’s start acting like it.

 

Question:  How can the church model forgiveness in a way that helps the world become a more forgiving place?

 

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, thank you for giving us the experience of forgiveness.  Help us share and celebrate that experience of forgiveness with each other and, at the same time, show the world what it is missing.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for your church today.

 

Song: Reconciliation Song - Buddy Owens, Claire Cloninger, Morris Chapman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D4wXOGNKrk

Matthew 15:1-20 - The "Why" Versus the "What"

 

The "Why" versus the "What" - November 17, 2021

Matthew 15:1-20, CEB - Then Pharisees and legal experts came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,  “Why are your disciples breaking the elders’ rules handed down to us? They don’t ritually purify their hands by washing before they eat.”

Jesus replied, “Why do you break the command of God by keeping the rules handed down to you?  For God said, Honor your father and your mother, and The person who speaks against father or mother will certainly be put to death. But you say, ‘If you tell your father or mother, “Everything I’m expected to contribute to you I’m giving to God as a gift,”then you don’t have to honor your father.’  So you do away with God’s Law for the sake of the rules that have been handed down to you.  Hypocrites! Isaiah really knew what he was talking about when he prophesied about you,  This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me.  Their worship of me is empty since they teach instructions that are human rules.”

Jesus called the crowd near and said to them, “Listen and understand.  It’s not what goes into the mouth that contaminates a person in God’s sight. It’s what comes out of the mouth that contaminates the person.”

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you just said?”

Jesus replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father didn’t plant will be pulled up.  Leave the Pharisees alone. They are blind people who are guides to blind people. But if a blind person leads another blind person, they will both fall into a ditch.”

Then Peter spoke up, “Explain this riddle to us.”

Jesus said, “Don’t you understand yet?  Don’t you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer?  But what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart. And that’s what contaminates a person in God’s sight.  Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults.  These contaminate a person in God’s sight. But eating without washing hands doesn’t contaminate in God’s sight.”

 

Did you know, that in Little Rock, Arkansas, it’s against the law to honk your horn near a sandwich shop after 9pm?  Did you know that in Rehobeth, Delaware, it’s illegal to whisper in church?  In Gainesville, Georgia, it’s illegal to eat fried chicken with a knife and a folk.  In Rockville, Maryland, you can be fined $100 for swearing in public?  I could on and on, but you already read a long scripture, so I’ll get to the point.  Humans are notoriously silly sometimes when it comes to making rules. . . probably a bit more than sometimes if I’m honest.

                The Pharisees were trying to call out Jesus and his disciples for not washing their hands properly (Pharisee-created rules) before a meal, but I’m guessing they regretted doing that because of what happened next.  Jesus calls them out not for breaking Pharisaical law, but God’s command to honor your Father and Mother.  They had created their own exceptions to this commandment (one of the big Ten Commandments I might add) that actually used God as the workaround.  They stipulated that you could forgo giving the expected contributions to parents if you gave it to God instead.  By “God,” the Pharisees meant the Temple, an institution they controlled.  Jesus rightly expresses outrage for using God to disrespect parents. 

                Most rules, laws, and traditions were implemented for a good purpose.  Even the humorous laws above were made to try and solve a problem.  But so many times, the original purpose is lost and the rule/law/tradition is co-opted by authorities to exert their own control and/or serve their own purposes.  The people of God are not immune to this tendency.  In fact, it is a huge problem even today among church institutions and congregations.  Churches split over the color of the carpet.  Our Bishop tells the story of how, as a kid, he and his mom were shunned by their congreation because his mom got a divorce.  Decisions by denominational boards and agencies are all too often made, not with the benefit of local congregations in mind, but to preserve the institution at all cost.  I sincerely believe that Jesus’s criticism of what is happening now would be even harsher than the words he leveled at the Pharisees above. 

                None of us are immune to this.  We follow rules and/or traditions simply because they are rules and/or traditions.  My encouragement here is not to be a rebel and start breaking all the rules/tradtions, but to start thinking about why the rules/traditions exist.  The “why” we do things matter to God more than following the letter of the law keeping a purposeless tradition.   Loving God and people should guide all that we do, whether the laws/rules/traditions require it or not.   If we all loved God and people properly, no other rules would be necessary. 

 

Questions:  Have you ever used a rule to gain an advantage over someone?  Have you ever used a tradition as an excuse to not do what you know God wanted you to do?

 

Prayer:  God, in the life and teachings of Jesus, You have shown us your heart.  Help us to follow Your Heart above all else.  Point out any hypocrisies in our behavior towards You and others. Help us to do better. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Talk to God today about the condition of your heart.  

 

Song: Let’s Work Together – Canned Heat 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=143A1aUG-9I