Chaos, Hope, and Meaningful Action

 Preached at Silverton Friends Church

Jan. 11, 2026

I’ve been saddened and dismayed by current events, and the chaos unleashed on the world, disruptions to long-held friendships between individuals and nations, violations of norms, and disregard for human dignity. Given the disorder of our external social and political world, the disruptions to family and friend relationships, the sense of powerlessness for the individual, it is no wonder that we have often internalized the mess, adding it to whatever there is of disorder in our inner selves. Our emotions rise up and can manifest as fear, anger, or sorrow, even as we continue to live in this beautiful world. Our systems and order are crumbling out of our control, and we fear the unknown. This chaos makes our worlds completely unpredictable.

Often we attempt to control chaos by finding someone or something to blame for it. We like to know cause and effect, so that we can, we believe, erase negative effects by removing known causes. And for religious people, disorder is more than distasteful; it undermines the structures by which we understand the world.

Power that works beyond our control and violates our expectations introduces chaos. Even our inner worlds are “like the ocean, mysterious and dark,” to quote a song by Bob Dylan. And the inner worlds of other people are not available to us to know directly; we mostly observe their actions and feel our feelings. Though we can inch toward some kind of understanding of another person, what they will do next is not entirely predictable, even if we’ve been married 50 years.

The “Chaos Theory” article in Wikipedia had this surprisingly profound comment: “What is clear is that the world is chaotic and outside of our control, beyond a certain threshold, and that our place in the world hinges in some ways upon our readiness to accept this.” God give us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

You’ve probably heard of the butterfly effect, a popular way to refer to the ideas in chaos theory.  To oversimplify to what I can understand and express, many natural systems show sensitive dependence on initial conditions. So, for instance, the weather is notoriously unpredictable over any length of time longer than a week because weather events are sensitive to initial conditions, and we can’t keep track of those.  So we use statistics and almanacs and watch how thick the squirrels’ fur is. 

 

My daughter gave me Mavis Staples’s new album, Sad and Beautiful World.  This whole album has been speaking to my heart, beginning with the title.  Both sadness and joy, as well as the perception of beauty, are rooted in the individual’s perception, rather than being essential attributes of some thing or event outside us. 

I want to encourage us to approach chaos with curiosity and interest, rather than fear and anger. God is not afraid of chaos, having shown that it has a place from the beginning of creation.

In human mythologies, darkness, the ocean, and the eternal feminine are often associated with chaos, and this is certainly the case with the creation narrative of Genesis 1.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, And darkness was on the face of the deep. All of these are ways of saying, the beginning of God’s creating was chaos.

And then, the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, like a hen brooding over an egg. ( A feminine image, to be sure.) And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness, calling the light Day and the darkness Night.

It is crucial to notice that God doesn’t call the night evil, even though the darkness (from a human perspective) is prone to chaos.

Next, God separates the air from the watery expanse, calling it the sky or heaven. Then, God gathers the waters together and allows the dry land to emerge, calling the waters Seas and the land Earth, and God saw both as good.

It is crucial to notice that God doesn’t consider the mysterious dark ocean evil, though its power and unpredictability make humans consider it chaotic.

Indeed, the Voice from the Whirlwind in Job asserts, “I shut in the sea, clothed it in clouds, and swaddled it in darkness….Tell me if you know where light dwells, and where darkness has a place…everything under heaven is mine.” Job responds: “I’ve been speaking about things I don’t understand. I have heard of you, but now I see you and I melt away and find comfort in being only dust and ashes.” (For reference see Genesis 18:27, where Abraham says, “I have taken upon me to speak with the Lord, I which am but dust and ashes.”)

As Christopher Linkiewicz writes in The Philosophy of Chaos: From Chaos Theory to Existentialism (medium.com), “It is in the nature of thinking that we never have all the information…we rarely even approach a complete picture of anything…Errors can, will be, and must be made in our calculations.” The lovely Wikipedia article on chaos theory continues, “Small changes in initial conditions can lead to unpredictable outcomes challenging traditional views of causality and order.” 

We know so little and actually control even less. How then shall we go about our daily lives? 

I think that recognizing the limits of our knowledge, our understanding, and our ability to control anything can be paralyzing or it can be freeing.  I want to speak in favor of freedom.  Indeed, every positive action we take is energized by hope and faith, and can be grounded in love.

Surprisingly, this chaotic mystery makes openings we did not expect for our small daily actions to have an effect we could not have expected. Each positive action may be the initial condition for untold and unforeseeable positive events.

Forty years ago, I heard Bill Vaswig preach, and I actually remember something he said.  Bill was the founder of a ministry dedicated to emotional and physical healing, a Lutheran evangelist, and a founding member of Renovaré. What he said was this: when you pray and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance, take some time to listen, and then do what comes to you, simple as it may be.  Essentially, why ask if we’re not going to listen for an answer and do what comes to us?

I’ve tried this, and, to be honest, it introduces an unpredictability into my life that isn’t very comfortable and can be embarrassing.  I’ve prayed out loud for a stranger on the street, prayed out loud for healing among strangers and for lost causes. Since no one rose from a sick bed or from the dead, these prayers were humbling to me, though I don’t regret them. I do not know, in a universe where chaos theory pertains, what these tiny acts of attempted obedience may have set in motion somewhere in time.  But I can see that these little efforts to listen and obey have changed me in ways I can hardly know and cannot describe.

I also know that my inner self is not by itself a reliable guide, since I barely know my inner ocean and can often act out of self-interest or herd mentality.  Thus it is useful to have external advice as well.  Jesus and the Jewish law said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This requires some imagination to live by.  What am I doing to my neighbor? Would I do this to myself? And what am I doing to myself? Would I do this to my neighbor? In Romans 12, St. Paul beseeches us to give our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, embracing transformation rather than conformity.  This is what transformation looks like.

Think realistically of ourselves

Recognize our connection to others, what Paul calls being members of each other, as part of Christ’s Body

Use the gifts we have, make space for the gifts others have

Love others without hypocrisy

Be kindly affectionate to each other

Give to those in need and be hospitable

Rejoice with those who rejoice

Weep with those who weep

Give preference and honor to each other

Associate with the humble

Don’t puff ourselves up

Be diligent, fervent, hopeful, patient

Continue steadfastly in prayer

As much as is up to us, live peaceably with all

Give our hungry enemies food

Give our thirsty enemies water

Bless those who persecute us

Don’t repay evil for evil

Don’t avenge ourselves

Abhor what is evil

Show our respect for good things

Cling to what is good

These are externals by which we can measure our internal promptings.  As retired psychotherapist James Finley (Center for Action and Contemplation contributor) says, “What is the most loving thing for me to do in this moment?” Or as George MacDonald says, “It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to concern ourselves about—what to do next. No one can do the second thing, one can do only the first thing.” (David Elginbrod) And as he encourages us, “God sits in that chamber of our being in which the candle of our consciousness goes out in darkness, and sends forth from thence wonderful gifts into the light of that understanding which is His candle. Our hope lies …in the wisdom wherein we live and move and have our being.” (“The Imagination: Its Function and Its Culture,” A Dish of Orts, 1867). 

Thanks be to God who is not afraid of the dark and has provided for both order and disorder. May our prayers and small daily actions move the world’s systems toward love.

Let’s end by celebrating our finiteness and our freedom to choose love. Listen to this excerpt from Psalm 104 (NKJV):

O Lord, how manifold are your works!

In wisdom you have made them all.

The earth is full of Your possessions—

This great and wide sea,

In which are innumerable teeming things,

Living things both small and great.

There the ships sail about;

There is that Leviathan

Which you have made to play there.

These all wait for You,

That You may give them their food in due season.

What You give them they gather in;

You open Your hand and they are filled with good.

You hide Your face, they are troubled;

You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.

You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;

And You renew the face of the earth.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever;

May the Lord rejoice in His works.

He looks on the earth, and it trembles;

He touches the hills, and they smoke.

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;

I will sing praise to  my God while I have my being.

May my meditation be sweet to Him; 

I will be glad in the Lord.

Calling and Commitment

Mark 3

Preached at Newberg Emerging Friends Church

March 17, 2019

When I first began thinking about the part of Jesus’s story that is in Mark 3, I did what I’ve done with the Bible for most or all of my life. I compared myself to Jesus, and I found myself failing again.

I don’t measure up. The main way I can identify with Jesus is that he was angry with those who were so stubborn and wrong. But no one has plotted to kill me because my commitment to healing and setting people free is so disruptive. I’ve barely been maligned at all; to my knowledge no one has said I was inhabited by the devil. No one has thought I was crazy, in need of protection against myself, because I give my whole life entirely to healing and setting people free.

So since I don’t measure up to being Jesus, I will instead ask what this part of the story reveals about God through Jesus, who is visible God. And to do that, I may need to see how I identify with others in this section of Jesus’s story as told by Mark.

Jesus saw a man with a paralyzed hand in synagogue one Sabbath. Jesus asked the people: “What does our Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To help or to harm? To save a life or to destroy it?” No one answered him.

When We Are Paralyzed

Have I ever been paralyzed by grief or guilt or trauma or fear? Well, yes. I recall a time when I was up to my neck in recovery from childhood sexual abuse and I could not bear to sit in church. I felt moved (I hoped by God’s Spirit) to drive to Champoeg Park. I found that the road I was on was all torn up with “no through traffic” signs. As I idled there, wondering what was next, a big dark green American sedan drove through in the opposite direction, and the driver leaned out and said, “Don’t worry, you can make it through.” I heard the voice of Jesus in that, and I turned around and went back to church. 

It’s obvious that Jesus could have said that to me during open worship in church, but it wouldn’t have had the long-lasting impact of the acted parable of my drive to Champoeg. Jesus often says to those of us who need healing, “Stretch out your hand.” 

Jesus was angry as he looked around at the congregation, who didn’t affirm the healing, saving nature of God (and of God’s Law), but at the same time he felt sorry for them, because they were so stubborn and so wrong. So he healed the man.…The Pharisees went out, met with their political enemies, and together they made plans to kill Jesus.

When We Are Righteous

One of the sporting events in the Christian world is badmouthing the Pharisees and identifying whoever opposes our ideas with them. But have I ever been angry at other believers because they are so wrong and so stubborn? Well, yes. (In fact, this sounds a bit like marriage …) So I need to make the effort to identify with the Pharisees.

Sabbath was hugely important to the Jewish people. And among them, the Pharisees were carefully observant because they believed that if Sabbath were properly kept just once, Messiah—king, healer, and liberator—would come. Three major prophets—Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah—singled out Sabbath-breaking as the reason for the Jewish nation’s collapse and exile, and called Jews back to keeping Sabbath.

So it is no wonder the Pharisees are so angry when Jesus breaks Sabbath as he does in this chapter. They believe he has just made it impossible for Messiah to show up on that particular day. Ironically, and perhaps this is why Jesus is compassionate towards them, their King, Healer, and Liberator is right there among them. They can’t see him because of their anxiety and fear.

I wonder what I carry around that is like the Law about Sabbath. What moral obligations occupy me and prevent me from seeing what God is doing by unexpected people and means? What moral obligation fills me with fear and anxiety so that I do not help, heal, save life? What am I so stubborn and so wrong about? Is there anyone that I object to God pouring out grace and healing on?

It is clear that healing and setting people free disrupts the systems of religious and political power, and that these principalities take it ill. But it is also important to know that Jesus does what he does because he is God, not because he’s a rebel just for kicks. In point of fact, what Jesus does is exactly what Sabbath is about—healing and freedom. He fulfills the Law and the Chosen One of God has come.

A large crowd followed Jesus—descendants of Jacob from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, descendants of Esau from Idumea, Gentiles from Tyre and Sidon. They were drawn by the stories of what Jesus was doing—healings and exorcisms—and the crowd was so great it nearly crushed him. It is clear from what happened to Jesus that healing and setting people free was hugely attractive to masses of people, so attractive that it drew ancient enemies into a single crowd pressing ever closer to Jesus—so many that it was a danger to Jesus and those close to him.

Jesus ordered the evil spirits to be quiet about who he was. As evil spirits, their shouting was meant to derail God’s messenger and his message of healing and freedom, perhaps to bury him in notoriety, to disrupt his ability to teach who God is and how God loves.

So, rather than embracing the enthusiasm of crowds, Jesus went up a hill, called the Twelve to him, and commissioned them to be with him, to preach, and to drive out evil. Then Jesus went home. The crowd there was so pushy neither Jesus nor the Twelve had time to eat. And teachers of the Law from Jerusalem were saying, “He has the spirit of evil in him, and that’s why he can command demons.”

So Jesus told them a parable, the punch line of which is this: “No one can break into a strong man’s house and take away his belongings unless he first ties up the strong man.” Meaning, I have obviously tied up the strong man. You have seen that I am stronger than the devil, than evil, in any fight, which is why I can set free the people evil is trying to destroy.

Then Jesus warned them: When you see God’s Spirit at work healing people and setting people free from oppression by evil, and you say that work is done by the devil, you have just stepped outside the possibility that God’s Spirit can work in you. And you will never be able to recognize or understand how God loves and forgives.

Do I look at the healing work done by others and suspect them of being motivated by selfishness or evil? Do I look at others working for freedom for others from oppression and question their priorities?

His family heard that Jesus had gone mad, so they went to take charge of him. It is clear that devoting one’s life to healing and setting people free worries the family—it looks crazy.

Someone in the crowd said to him: “Your family is here and they want you.” Jesus said, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? … Whoever does what God wants is my brother, my sister, my mother.”

Since I can’t be Jesus, I want to be Jesus’ sister. So it is important to see what it is that God wants me to do. Jesus insists everywhere that God wants me to help, not to harm; to save life, not to destroy it; to set free, not to leave imprisoned. And Jesus illustrates by example that standing by and doing nothing when I can do something helpful is in fact doing harm.

And God wants me never ever to use the Law—the Bible or some other code of moral behavior—as an excuse to ignore those being harmed, destroyed, held prisoner by evil.

And who does God want me to be? Someone humble enough to bring my paralysis into public view, someone obedient enough to stretch my hand out when Jesus tells me to, someone open enough to God’s Spirit to see God at work in all healing, liberating actions, someone aware enough to recognize that God has compassion on my opponents and is eager to forgive.

Jesus insists everywhere that God wants us to help, not to harm; to save life, not to destroy it. Our globe is full of problems that seem so complex that we are paralyzed, but our daily lives have in them ways we can be on God’s side, doing what we can to help, to heal, to save lives, disrupting those who do harm, who inflict pain, who treat other lives with cavalier carelessness. We can live into our absolute dependence on listening to God’s Spirit each day and doing what God’s Spirit tells us to each day. Remember that Jesus has tied up the strong man and now we are free to liberate those he oppressed and imprisoned. God’s Spirit helps us recognize where God is at work healing and setting people free so that we can join in.

Queries for Open Worship

How have I experienced the healing, freeing Spirit of God?

How have we as a congregation experienced the healing, freeing Spirit of God”

What opportunity is in front of me to join in with God’s healing, freeing mission in the world?

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.