No Peace but a Sword

Preached at South Salem Friends Church

May 28, 2017

I previously posted a sermon about the Biblical teaching that Jesus took the Law to the cross. It was nailed there with him, and it was not resurrected. We live in grace. Paul taught that the Law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Jesus, and that once we trust Jesus’s character and work on our behalf, we are set free to live in and by the Spirit, focusing our energies on what James calls “the law of liberty,” the necessity of living out love to God and to our neighbors. But this doesn’t mean that life is easier. In fact, we lose the comfort of a network of rules that we can obey in order to remain safe, and life becomes more of an adventure, more listening and obeying in each moment.

The Born Again Life

In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Being born again means being born “of the Spirit.” And then Jesus adds, “The wind blows where it wills, and you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. The Spirit is like the wind; it breathes or blows where the Spirit wills; you cannot tell where the person who is born of the Spirit comes from or where that person is going.” These are unsettling words; notice that Jesus spoke them to a person already believing in God and interested in God’s kingdom. Jesus calls Nicodemus, and us, to a life of uncertainty about what comes next, of moment to moment listening and obeying, based on our trust in the work and character of Jesus Christ.

When the messenger of God came to Mary and promised her she would give birth to the chosen one, the Messiah, she stepped into a world of trust. And a world of trouble. Simeon prophesied to Mary over the infant Jesus: “This child will cause tumult—falling and rising again—in Israel and many will speak against him, revealing their inner selves. And a sword will pierce your own heart.” This last is usually understood to refer to her grief over Jesus’s death, but we are told that God’s word is a sword that reveals our innermost selves, and remember that Mary was put in her place by Jesus at least once (“who is my mother? Who is my brother or sister? Whoever hears and obeys God”), and that she and the rest of her family thought Jesus might be crazy. Even Mary’s inner self found it hard to trust that this man and the way he ministered and the death he endured were the salvation promised to Israel and to the world. He wasn’t what she expected. Moved by God’s Spirit, he said and did things that worried her, that caused her pain as a mother and as a human being.

And Jesus is not comforting to the rest of us. He says, “Whoever openly agrees with me and publicly aligns with me, I will openly agree with and align myself with before my Father. Whoever openly contradicts me and refuses what I offer, I will contradict and refuse before my Father. Do not get the idea that I bring peace on earth, if peace is the absence of conflict, the ever-present tranquility and harmony. I did not come to send peace on earth but a sword that divides family members from each other, making them enemies to each other. All who love family more than they love me are not worthy of me, are not comparable to me; all who refuse to take up their cross and follow me are not worthy of me. All who work to find their lives will lose them, and all who throw their lives away for my sake will find them.” (Matthew 10:32-39)

“I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”

I think we can put these passages together and understand some of what causes divisions in denominations, in congregations, in families, even when all are Christians who want to do what’s right. God does not promise that the Spirit will move all believers at the same pace and at the same time. So when some are moved differently or faster than others, conflict results.

We can see this repeatedly in the book of Acts, particularly around the new understanding of the kingdom of God that Peter and Paul brought back to the church in Jerusalem, all of whom were Jewish. Were Gentiles to be a part of the universal church? Would they need to become Jews as well? How was this going to work out?

Complicating the problem was the fact that while Jews thought of Gentiles as dogs and idolaters, Gentiles also thought of Jews as less than nothing. Gentiles were winners with rich mythologies, after all, and Jews were a conquered people whose one god had failed to protect them. Two superiority complexes.

Only Jesus brought them together, and the brew was always ready to explode. Thus all of Paul’s letters to Gentile churches that rail against Jewish Christians teaching the necessity of circumcision. Thus Paul’s advice to Gentile Christians to be gentle with Jewish Christians around the eating of meat offered in idol temples.  (In this day, we Gentile Christians can hardly understand the repulsion, the nausea Jews would have felt about eating these idol sacrifices.) Thus Peter’s witness to the Spirit falling on the Gentile Cornelius and his household as a sign of their inclusion in the kingdom of God. And thus Paul’s rebuke of Peter for being two-faced, behaving with freedom around the Gentile Christians but acting like an observant Jew around Jewish Christians.  It just is not easy.

The history of Christianity is filled with conflict. Creeds are written to contain change. Some prophets follow the Spirit and then confuse their own spirit with God’s. Some renewal movements are thrown out and become a force for spreading the Gospel in new worlds or among new peoples. Some groups are so offended by others’ views that they go to war with actual swords or guns or bombs in order to enforce their vision of God’s will.

Jesus’s own words about bringing a sword are intensified by his comment that “I came to light a fire on earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.” And John the Baptist foretold that one would come who would baptize with the Spirit and with fire.

So what Jesus accomplished by his death and resurrection was not only our salvation, but the release of the Holy Spirit of God onto the world. This Spirit, the Spirit who breathed God’s word into prophets and poets, is a sword that divides joint from marrow, as the book of Hebrews says, and lays bare our innermost selves, but also divides families and congregations and denominations, and lays bare how much or little we actually love each other, lays bare how much or little we trust the character and work of Jesus in each of us and in all of us. So conflict ought not to surprise us.

Nonetheless, I think we ought to be disappointed in ourselves when we allow differences of understanding about how the Spirit is leading to cause us to take up swords against each other, whether literal or metaphorical. Remember that Jesus also said that whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword, and he told his followers at the moment of his approaching arrest and death to put away their swords. We need to approach each other in our differences without weapons or armor.

Persisting in Community

Jesus told us that we would know people by their fruit—by their words and deeds, both of which come out of their inner selves. Paul contrasted humans’ natural fruit  with that which God’s Spirit brings forth in people. For church conflicts, the most pertinent contrast is between hatred, strife, wrangling, indignation, wrath, factions, divisiveness, hardened opinions—all of which arise out of natural human fear of change, fear of God’s judgment, fear of loss, and the resulting self-protectiveness—and love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control—all of which arise out of God’s grace that draws us to trust in Jesus’s work and character.

So how can we live together in the Spirit when we are not led by the Spirit at the same pace or at the same time?

Paul spends some time on this around the issue of eating meat offered to idols. Remember first that the Council of Jerusalem had issued guidelines for all Christians everywhere, one of which was, “abstain from meats offered to idols” (Acts 15:29). Apparently, this was not taken by Gentile Christians as an absolute prohibition, because we find Paul addressing it as a source of division in Corinth (1 Cor. 8 and 10).

Paul says that all things are lawful for him. This reminds us that Paul has repeatedly taught that the law does not apply to those redeemed by Jesus. He also adds that just because he can doesn’t mean he will. He must decide if an action is helpful, if it is  profitable to his main calling of spreading the Good News. He asks himself not only if he wants to do something, but is that action good for those around him as well. This is right in line with the fruit of God’s Spirit.

So there are two issues to think about. What does my own conscience tell me I am free to do? And will my action harm the person or persons I am with?

My Freedom vs. Another’s Conscience

In 1 Cor. 8, Paul says: “The overarching principle is this: We make nothing of idols, because we have one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ; we belong to and live in our Father and our Lord.

“However, not everyone understands this fully, and thus their consciences worry them about meat offered to idols, whereas we who understand this know that eating meat earns neither approval or disapproval from God. So we are free to eat all meat.

“Nevertheless, suppose someone sees us enjoy this liberty by sitting down to eat meat in an idol’s temple. That someone’s conscience forbids them this freedom, but because they respect or admire us, they go ahead and join in the meal. Then they suffer from having ignored their own consciences, and perhaps this will lead to their destruction. We can’t have that happen.

“So be careful how you use your freedom. Do not use it to harm a weaker fellow believer who doesn’t yet understand how we are free. This is like hurting a child, and it hurts Jesus. Better to give up eating meat than let my freedom come between someone and their efforts to obey, even when those efforts are based on a lack of understanding. “

There is a difference between a person who goes against conscience to copy the one who is enjoying the freedom of living in God’s Spirit and the person who imposes his or her conscience on those who are enjoying the freedom of living in God’s Spirit. It is a question of the use of power. I am not bound by your conscience, nor are you bound by mine, and in God’s Spirit, we are gentle with each other and take care to help each other obey God.

In 1 Cor. 10, Paul says first, “Just buy meat, don’t ask where it’s from. The whole earth belongs to God.

“Second, if you’re invited to someone’s house, don’t ask where the meat is from. Just eat what is set before you with thankfulness.

“But if the host advises you that it was offered to idols, this reveals something about the host, that the host is afraid it is not acceptable for you to eat it. In that case, don’t eat it so that you will set the host’s mind at ease. Again, remember that the whole earth belongs to God.

“In this you are deferring to another’s conscience. But why should your liberty be infringed on by another’s conscience? Why should your enjoying of grace by eating freely and thankfully be judged as evil?

Ultimately, when you eat and drink, and in all you do, bring glory to God.”  

Enhancing God’s Reputation

So our concern is “How can we enhance God’s reputation in order to draw people to relationship with God?”

Paul says, “Make a smooth road for the Jews, who avoid idol meat, and for the Gentiles, who eat it without scruple, and for the gathered congregation as well as the far-flung universal church,” just as Paul works hard to accommodate himself to all others rather than seeking to please himself or do what is good for himself. He does this so that others may be rescued and healed, saved from danger and destruction.

The long game here is what is ultimately good for others who are presently in danger and are being destroyed. This is why Paul rails against the Judaizing legalists—legalism itself is a danger because it destroys the relationship of trust. Paul wants them not to turn their back on the free gift of God. Paul obviously did not work too hard to please those who promoted the Law from within the church. Nor did he go out of his way to make their lives miserable. He used good judgment and followed the leading of the Spirit.

(Aside about the limits of conscience: It is possible for human beings to have a diseased conscience, one which plagues us with guilt and shame for many things in a day. We live in fear of judgment and cannot enjoy the freedom Jesus died to bring us. Even in the example from Paul, the conscience that forbids eating meat offered to idols is a sign of weakness, not strength.

We can look at the facts of our lives when our conscience torments us. John tells us in 1 John 3:18-23, “Let us not talk about love, but let us live out love in our actions and in our efforts for others’ well-being. This lived-out love assures us that we are acting out of truth, confident that God sees us. If our hearts accuse and condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows everything. Though our hearts accuse us, our confidence is in God, and whatever we ask, God gives because we do what God tells us to, those things that we know please God.” It takes courage to live into God’s freedom.)

So how do we move through these tangled times, times when it seems our enemies are those we love, members of our own faith community, perhaps even members of our own household.

1) Keep our eyes on the long game—bringing those heading for destruction to understand the work and character of Jesus in which they can trust.

2) Be unsurprised by conflict: a religion characterized by obedience to a living Spirit of God that moves where the Spirit wills, not where we expect, will unavoidably lead to disagreement.

3) Be tender toward those who have not yet understood the grace of God and the freedom to live out love; don’t put them in positions where they feel they must disobey their consciences.

4) Be careful not to impose your own conscience, which may accuse out of weak faith rather than strong, on someone who is trying to obey the Spirit and live out love.

5) For evidence of belonging to and living in God, evidence that can stand against the accusations of an overactive and fearful conscience, look to your motives and actions in order to live out love yourself.

And don’t be afraid. God is greater than we are, and when we miss the mark, God promises to forgive and clean us up to try again.  Look to the example of Jesus, who gave himself in life and death to rescue those who are perishing.

The Syro-Phoenician Woman Meets the Living Word of God

I preface this with the words of Hebrews 4:12: “For the word, the logos, the Word of God is alive, powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing right through to where soul divides from spirit or breath, to where joint divides from marrow, discriminating and discerning the thoughts and intents in the inmost self.” And I remind us that John’s gospel identifies the word, the logos, the Word of God like this: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…In him was life, and the life was the light of human beings….And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth” (John 1: 1, 4, 14).  Jesus walked among us, making God visible, and speaking as the embodied Word of God to the other human beings he encountered each day.  As we listen to what he says to these others, we can hear as well what he is saying to us, since Jesus has come today to teach us Himself through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Given this foundation, what do we make of the encounter between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman, told in Mark 7 (and Matthew 15)? Do we see a Jesus who does not understand that he is God-sent to the whole world? Do we see a Jesus who is given to testing the faith of a desperate mother before granting her wish? Do we see a Jesus who is modeling their prejudice in an acted parable for his disciples, teaching them thereby that God heals Gentiles also, that Gentiles also can have faith in the one God sends?

I’ve heard it all three ways, and now I want to add a fourth way that to me solves some of the vexing problems of the above interpretations.

First, I have an a priori objection to thinking that Jesus participated in the ethnocentrism of his countrymen. This may be a flaw in my rational self because I do object to the heresy that Jesus carried all of God’s knowledge around in his human brain and was just pretending to share in the human condition. So if Jesus was limited at all, there is no logical necessity that his limitations weren’t also ethnocentrically Jewish. The preacher I heard positing this interpretation was making the point that Jesus himself grew in understanding his mission, moving from the Jewish messiah to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  But since this is what John the Baptist said at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, it is hard for me to believe that John knew more about what Jesus was called to than Jesus did. Even in Mark’s telling, Jesus had already healed the Gerasene (Syrian) demoniac, who became the first non-Jewish bearer of the good news (Mark 5).

Jesus had the following things to say about his ministry, and only God knows how they fit chronologically with his encounter with this Gentile woman, but Mark puts them prior.

“Prophets are not without honor except in their hometown, among their own kin, and in their own house” (Mark 6:4). This makes clear his understanding that those closest to him were least likely to see his calling and gifts.  “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave shake the dust off of your feet as a testimony against them,” Jesus told his disciples (Mark 6:11). This makes clear his awareness that his own people might well reject the good news of God’s kingdom. Then he said to the most conscientious religious Jews of his day, “You have a way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition” and told his disciples, “It isn’t what a person eats that makes the person unclean, but the evil that comes from within” (Mark 7: 9, 17, 21).  This sets aside the dietary laws that were a key way to tell Jews from Gentiles.  So when Jesus comes to Tyre to talk with the Gentile woman, he has already said a number of things that confront the Jews.  He has notified his disciples of the need for “new wineskins” for the fresh “wine” of the good news. He has announced that his true family are all those who do what God wills.  For these reasons and more, it seems to me unlikely that Jesus was expressing his own racism in this moment.

I also have a visceral objection to the “test of faith” interpretation of this encounter.  Jesus did not ask the Gerasene demoniac if he believed or require him to ask in just the right way. Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic and then healed him with no question at all to the man about his faith (Mark 2). He did not require the man with the withered hand to express faith, and the man did not even ask for healing (Mark 3). He stopped the storm on the lake in spite of the disciples’ lack of faith (Mark 4). The two miracles recorded in Mark 5 do include Jesus commending the woman’s faith that moved her through the crowd to touch Jesus’s clothes, and encouraging Jairus to believe rather than fear. These two people and the Gentile woman share the characteristic that all three are desperate and turn to Jesus with hope. So why would Jesus test the one with the least background in Jewish faith more than he does the synagogue leader? It seems unlikely that the one of whom it is prophesied that “a smoking flax he will not quench” would pour cold water on a mother’s desperate hope while encouraging a father’s. Thus I can’t see this as Jesus testing the Gentile woman’s faith.

There is some precedent for seeing that the Gospel writers recorded Jesus’s actions that they found to be rich in metaphoric meaning—and these acted parables are available to us on many levels. However, I cannot think of any other of Jesus’s actions that depends on acting out for the disciples their own prejudices or limitations in a way that treats another human being negatively. He didn’t sucker people into agreeing with something he pretended to believe and then punch them with the opposite truth. Look at his interaction with the Samaritan woman (John 4). Jesus is already talking with her when the disciples return, even though they may well be scandalized by it. He doesn’t pretend first to share their distaste for Samaritans and then try to engage the woman. Additionally, it seems unlikely that Jesus would waste the opportunity to speak into an individual’s heart in order to make a point at that individual’s expense. So if this is an acted parable, its interpretation needs to be something different.

I remember finding out that a short story called “The Overcoat” by the Russian author Gogol is primarily seen by Russian readers as humorous and playful (see for example The Enigma of Gogol by Richard Peace, p. 148: “the author also laughs at his hero…”). As an American, however, I see it as grotesque and tragic. I miss all the puns and verbal hijinks of the Russian text, and my reading experience is linguistically and culturally distant from the reader Gogol wrote for. I read the translated text like an American.

In reading the Bible, I read like an American heir to the Judeo-Christian mindset. I have typically adopted the interpretive stance that sees God’s chosen people as the center of the story and all other peoples as “inferior.”  In fact, I read as if I myself were one of the chosen people, despite not being Jewish. I am, in fact, in the same boat as the disciples. So to them (and to me, ironically) this Gentile woman is by Jewish definition inferior and thus “a dog.”

Then it occurred to me: this encounter takes place on her turf, in Tyre. She is the one with Roman citizenship. She’s the one from a city with paved roads. She is the one who would be so unlikely to turn to an itinerant Jewish carpenter, even one with a reputation for working wonders. She is likely to be carrying in her heart a sense of social superiority, even pride. And if this is the case, I need to rethink her approach to Jesus.  Matthew records that she followed Jesus, shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” What can she possibly be meaning by these titles?  Does she think that they must be flattering, since she has heard that Jesus responds to them? Does she even know who David was? And does she continue shouting because she demands that they listen to her?

I think it is possible that she views herself as a social superior, bending because of her desperate need to ask for help from someone she would be unlikely to speak to under other circumstances.  In fact, she is more like me—a privileged American citizen—and Jesus is more like a recent immigrant, perhaps even a migrant worker with or without a green card. She uses a title of respect that she has heard but that means little to her to get Jesus’s attention so he will grant her desperate request.  To her, Jesus is a means to an end. 

His responses are recorded in different form in Matthew and Mark.  In Matthew, he replies, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Perhaps he even shouts this back to her. He confronts the ethnic and class issues directly. Jesus has a pattern of confronting issues directly. Why do you call me good, he asked a good Jewish man. You know only God is good.  Why do you call me “son of David,” why do you call me “Lord”? These titles mean nothing to you. They are signs to the house of Israel.

But he does stop walking, and she embodies her desperation by bowing before him. The Greek word used for this contains in it the idea of a dog licking the master’s hand.  Perhaps she has caught his hand and is kissing it, perhaps she is crouched over his feet. I dare say she has not often bowed before a Jew before. She is a Roman citizen, in a prosperous and vital center of trade and manufacturing, and he is a provincial manual laborer, not even a citizen.  “Help me,” she says.

The words Jesus says next still confront her. Jesus says this: God sent me first to Israel, a people you feel yourself to be superior to, but a people God has called God’s children. You understand that it is inappropriate, it is not a beautiful thing to take what these children need (whom you care nothing for) and give it to the little dogs under the table, leaving the children hungry.

She finds a loophole in this parable; she’s a smart woman. She tells it again, from the dogs’ point of view. Her willingness to be counted among the little dogs shows that she is willing to accept a humble place in God’s economy. “Yes, Lord, but we both know that children drop food, and the little dogs are welcome to scavenge.  There is enough goodness, enough mercy, to feed my child, my dear dear daughter, to free her from being tormented by evil. Even the little dogs eat the crumbs.”

Why is this speech counted a sign of great faith? Here is a woman driven by desperation to accost a socially insignificant itinerant laborer in public, despite her prejudices and assurance of superiority.  As Jesus often, and perhaps always, does, he pierces to her heart and requires her to come clean. And when they get to the heart, they discover that she does have faith that there is enough goodness, enough mercy, for the arrogant, self-satisfied outsider, that the dogs have a place in God’s economy as well, and that an honest conversation with Jesus is good for everyone. This is true for us today as well. Bring your desperation and hope to Jesus and then hear what He says to you.  When it pierces to your most inner self, you will recognize that you have heard the Word of God.  Listen, accept, and respond to that Word, and then do what Jesus tells you to do.

Peace, Richard. The Enigma of Gogol: An Examination of the Writings of N.V. Gogol and Their Place in the Russian Literary Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981. Google Books.

The last century of Seleucid rule was marked by disorder and dynastic struggles. These ended in 64 B.C., when the Roman general Pompey added Syria and Lebanon to the Roman Empire. Economic and intellectual activities flourished in Lebanon during the Pax Romana. The inhabitants of the principal Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre were granted Roman citizenship. These cities were centers of the pottery, glass, and purple dye industries; their harbors also served as warehouses for products imported from Syria, Persia, and India. They exported cedar, perfume, jewelry, wine, and fruit to Rome. Economic prosperity led to a revival in construction and urban development; temples and palaces were built throughout the country, as well as paved roads that linked the cities. (http://www.ghazi.de/romegree.html)

Praying for Mercy

I’ve been thinking for months about St. Paul’s comments in Romans about his feelings for his people of origin, the Jewish nation.  In Romans 9, Paul says, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience through the Holy Spirit bears witness that I mean what I am about to say.”  What was such a big deal and so unexpected that Paul had to say three times that he means what he says?  He goes on to say, “I have great sorrow and unceasing, consuming grief” because many of his people of origin, the Jews, have hardened their hearts against accepting that Jesus is their Messiah.

“I kept on wishing (and even praying) that I myself would be a sacrifice, even set apart from Christ, for the sake of my kinfolk according to the flesh.”

As a child of missionaries, I totally understand people wishing to make sacrifices and even be a sacrifice for the sake of another people who do not know the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus Christ.  My parents and many other missionaries sacrificed relationships with their families of origin, the life they were familiar with, and most creature comforts in order to spread the Good News.  Many missionaries gave their lives in this cause.

But I have never heard a missionary say that their calling was so strong, they would give up their own salvation, give up their place in Jesus’s atonement, for the sake of the people they care about. This illustrates the depth of Paul’s love for his Jewish kinfolk and his willingness to risk separation from Jesus for their sake. 

Paul goes on to discuss the theology of “the chosen people”; the evidence he examines leads him to conclude that the promise of God is sure and for all time and that Jesus’s sacrifice is the only necessary atonement for both Jews and Gentiles.

The following summarizes Paul’s discussion (Romans 9 and following):

God adopted Israel, made a covenant with them, gave them the Law and the temple service, made promises to them, and sent Jesus the Messiah through them.  However, (as Jesus also said) not all who are Israel by birth are the real Israel.  The real Israel are those who trust in God’s promise. 

God chooses who will receive mercy and compassion, and thus birth origin does not determine whether a person is included or excluded from God’s love.  God decides.  Paul anticipates the objection that this doesn’t sound very fair, and he replies that the created can’t hope to understand or overrule the Creator.  Further, he adds that it is possible that God, though God intends to demonstrate his wrath and power, has chosen instead to be patient and to carry the burden of those who invite such wrath and destruction. God’s patience demonstrates instead God’s abundant glory on those who invite mercy, both Jews and Gentiles.

Gentiles, who did not run after God’s approval, attained God’s approval through faith. Jews, in contrast, tried to earn God’s approval by works and rejected God’s Messiah and the message Jesus brought. They do not understand God’s good character and do not submit to God. 

Anyone who agrees with God that Jesus is Lord and thinks it true that God raised Jesus from the dead will be kept from destruction, and in this there is no distinction made between Jew and Gentile. Indeed, God uses the inclusion of Gentiles to express to the Jews that God has not rejected them.  And God uses the error made by the Jews to make space for the inclusion of Gentiles in God’s deliverance.  God sent Paul to the Gentiles; Paul hopes that his work among the Gentiles will catch his Jewish kinfolk as well. Indeed, he says that the hardness of the hearts of the Jews is partial and temporary, just to make openings for the Gentiles to come in.  God will save all of Israel because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 

Both Jews and Gentiles begin in disobedience and God chooses to show mercy to both.  Therefore, by that very mercy, Paul beseeches Jews and Gentiles to turn over their whole selves, soul and body, to God as a living and holy sacrifice; to think of themselves realistically; and to exercise the faith God has given them. He asks them to recognize that each one who belongs to God is not just like anyone else and does not serve God in exactly the same way as another.

Mercy is what Jesus asked for when he was dying and prayed, “Father, forgive them; they have no idea what they are doing.” 

I find myself often in the place of not knowing what I’m doing.  I don’t know the harm I cause others on a daily basis, and I don’t often want to think about it.  I find thinking about it ties me up in knots of inaction, which also does harm.

Paul and Jesus challenge me by their confidence in the character and power of God.  God chooses to have mercy, God chooses to be patient so those who appear destined for destruction can instead be filled with mercy, God chooses when to reveal God’s passion for justice and integrity and obedience.  I want to join Paul in his willingness to go to all lengths to bring deliverance to the people he loves, the people he comes from.  I want to join Paul as well in his confidence that the calling and gifts of God are irrevocable.  I believe God called and calls Quakers, my own people, and God has given and is giving Quakers the gifts of living in and by the present teaching of Jesus Christ.

In our disagreements, I can often see that both sides believe that God is both just and merciful. I acknowledge that my own system of belief may cause others harm, either in this life or the next. I feel that we are caught in an impossible situation. I pray for myself, “Father, forgive me; I have no idea what I am doing.”

I don’t think this is the most important prayer, however.  I think the most important prayer is “Father, forgive those who are doing it wrong. Please have mercy on them and be patient.  Please give them faith in the resurrection of Jesus. Please save them.” Please join me in praying this prayer for all who are “getting it wrong.” May God in mercy include them and us in the Kingdom.