Pay Me What You Owe Me

Ezekiel the prophet lived during the time of Israel’s exile to Babylon, an exile God brought about to purify and restore Israel to a faithful relationship.  Chapter 20 tells us that the history of Isarel is the story of Israel’s unfaithfulness, idolatry, and disobedience.  It is also the story of God’s faithfulness, outrage, and patience.  God says to Israel through Ezekiel: I will not allow you to ask me anything.  You have made up your minds to be like the heathens around you who worship nature.  But I will not allow it.  Angry as I am, I will rule you with a strong hand.  I will gather you and speak your doom to your face.  I will make you obey my covenant and I will send away those who continue to rebel and sin.  I will act with honor despite your wicked, evil actions, so I will not deal with you as you deserve. 

There is a true mystery in the relationship of our free will and God’s free will.  How is it that God makes space for us to choose against God’s will?  Just from looking around us we see that God does make this space, and the consequences ensue.  At the same time, the freedom to choose against is the freedom to choose for, and I want to encourage each of us today to choose for God and do what we know is right to do that lies immediately before us today and each day.  When you choose to ask God into your life, God takes you very seriously and will do all God can to make you resemble your elder Brother Jesus.  But, of course, you are still choosing whether or not to cooperate with God. 

In this post, I am going to focus on what the Bible tells us is the will of God for each of us with regard to our opponents, our enemies, our adversaries.  

Matthew 5

I haven’t come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.  Anyone who breaks the least of the commands and teaches others to do so will be least in the kingdom of heaven, but anyone who practices and teaches these commands will be great in the kingdom of heaven.  You have to be more righteous than the professionally righteous people around in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Not only can you not murder someone, you also must not hold another person in contempt because of being angry with that person.  You can’t offer a gift acceptable to God with contempt for another person in your heart.  God will be sure your heart is right, so cooperate as quickly as you can.

Not only must you limit revenge to the harm done you, but you must be generous with those who harm you or want something from you.

Not only must you love your neighbor, but you must love your enemy and pray for those who make your life unpleasant.

Try being more like God, your Father, who sends sunshine and rain to both evil and good people.  Extend your love to all.

Matthew 5:25 (Luke 12:59)

Be well disposed, of a peaceable spirit, wish well toward your opponent, your enemy, your adversary without delay while you are still traveling together on the same road so that your opponent will at no time deliver you into the hands of the judge and the judge turn you over to his officer who will throw you into prison, into confinement, where your every move is watched. Amen.  This is the truth. I tell you, you will never by any means go freely from that jail until you have restored what you owe that opponent to the very last penny. 

I owe a lot of how I understand this passage to George MacDonald, a 19^th century preacher who often focused on holiness.

First:  do today what you know you will have to someday.

George MacDonald, “The Last Farthing,” Unspoken Sermons.  “I think I do know what is meant by 'agree on the way,' and 'the uttermost farthing.' The parable is an appeal to the common sense of those that hear it, in regard to every affair of righteousness. Arrange what claim lies against you; compulsion waits behind it. Do at once what you must do one day. As there is no escape from payment, escape at least the prison that will enforce it. Do not drive Justice to extremities. Duty is imperative; it must be done. It is useless to think to escape the eternal law of things; yield of yourself, nor compel God to compel you.

Second: this parable does not threaten punishment so much as it explains the natural consequences of God’s nature and of human nature.  Our response to it reveals our own hearts.

“To the honest [person] the word is… sweet as most loving promise. He who is of God's mind in things, rejoices to hear the word of the changeless Truth; the voice of the Right fills the heavens and the earth, and makes his soul glad; it is his salvation.

Third: God will judge between us if we will not come to agreement by our own choice.  This satisfies our love of justice even though we ourselves will be judged as we judge others.

"If God were not inexorably just, there would be no stay for the soul of the feeblest lover of right: 'thou art true, O Lord: one day I also shall be true!' 'Thou shalt render the right, cost you what it may,' is a dread sound in the ears of those whose life is a falsehood: what but the last farthing would those who love righteousness more than life pay? It is a joy profound as peace to know that God is determined upon such payment, is determined to have his children clean, clear, pure as very snow; is determined that not only shall they with his help make up for whatever wrong they have done, but at length be incapable, by eternal choice of good, under any temptation, of doing the thing that is not divine, the thing God would not do.”

…

Fourth: therefore, choose to do the right thing now.  And you know what it is.

“I read, then, in this parable, that a man had better make up his mind to be righteous, to be fair, to do what he can to pay what he owes, in any and all the relations of life--all the matters, in a word, wherein one man may demand of another, or complain that he has not received fair play. Arrange your matters with those who have anything against you, while you are yet together and things have not gone too far to be arranged; you will have to do it, and that under less easy circumstances than now. Putting off is of no use. You must. The thing has to be done; there are means of compelling you."

MacDonald includes the following dialogue.  I've put the words of God in bold italics to clarify the parts.

'In this affair, however, I am in the right.'

'If so, very well--for this affair. But I have reason to doubt whether you are capable of judging righteously in your own cause:--do you hate the man?'

'No, I don't hate him.'

'Do you dislike him?'

'I can't say I like him.'

'Do you love him as yourself?'

'Oh, come! come! no one does that!'

'Then no one is to be trusted when he thinks, however firmly, that he is all right, and his neighbour all wrong, in any matter between them.'

'But I don't say I am all right, and he is all wrong; there may be something to urge on his side: what I say is, that I am more in the right than he.'

'This is not fundamentally a question of things: it is a question of condition, of spiritual relation and action, towards your neighbour. If in yourself you were all right towards him, you could do him no wrong. Let it be with the individual dispute as it may, you owe him something that you do not pay him, as certainly as you think he owes you something he will not pay you.'

'He would take immediate advantage of me if I owned that.'

'So much the worse for him. Until you are fair to him, it does not matter to you whether he is unfair to you or not.'

'I beg your pardon--it is just what does matter! I want nothing but my rights. What can matter to me more than my rights?'

'Your duties--your debts. You are all wrong about the thing. It is a very small matter to you whether the man give you your rights or not; it is life or death to you whether or not you give him his. Whether he pay you what you count his debt or no, you will be compelled to pay him all you owe him. If you owe him a pound and he you a million, you must pay him the pound whether he pay you the million or not; there is no business-parallel here. If, owing you love, he gives you hate, you, owing him love, have yet to pay it. A love unpaid you, a justice undone you, a praise withheld from you, a judgment passed on you without judgment, will not absolve you of the debt of a love unpaid, a justice not done, a praise withheld, a false judgment passed: these uttermost farthings--not to speak of such debts as the world itself counts grievous wrongs--you must pay him, whether he pay you or not. We have a good while given us to pay, but a crisis will come--come soon after all--comes always sooner than those expect it who are not ready for it--a crisis when the demand unyielded will be followed by prison.'

Fifth: God can use the consequences of our bad choices to move us toward redemption.

“The same holds with every demand of God: by refusing to pay, the man makes an adversary who will compel him--and that for the man's own sake. If you or your life say, 'I will not,' then [God] will see to it. …

“If the man acknowledge, and would pay if he could but cannot, the universe will be taxed to help him rather than he should continue unable. If the man accepts the will of God, he is the child of the Father, the whole power and wealth of the Father is for him, and the uttermost farthing will easily be paid. If the man denies the debt, or acknowledging does nothing towards paying it, then--at last--the prison! God in the dark can make a man thirst for the light, who never in the light sought but the dark.”

My Experience

I share this with you because my own experience makes clear to me how true this is.  When I identify someone as my enemy, essentially I am saying, “You are not giving me what you owe me.” Often this is true. However, if I do not choose every day to align my will with God’s will as much as I can that day, I am choosing to be imprisoned by my own sense of having been wronged.  I can’t ever get out of that prison by focusing on how right I am.  A friend of mine described this as putting a barrier across the neck of an hourglass.  My state of mind freezes time at the point where my sense of being treated unfairly or unjustly occurs.  Every day my mind rehearses how badly my enemy has treated me.  It comes into all my significant conversations and colors all my relationships with others.  I had a high school friend who cut herself to remind herself of how other people had betrayed her.  She did it on purpose to prevent herself from accidentally forgetting the wrong.  This is a picture of how we treat our souls when we refuse to obey God's will to reconcile with our opponent.

I usually have to start by asking God for justice.  Essentially, I am turning my opponent over to God to judge.  I also, against my own inclination but with my will, start praying for God to bless my enemy.  I hate this part but I do it.  I try and fail to let the person off the hook.  But I’m trying.  I am by sheer act of will removing the barrier in the hourglass so that time can move on from the moment of injury.  So that the cut can heal from the inside out and then scab over.  God honors my efforts, feeble and incomplete though they are.  God loves me in them and lets me know it.  Often I end up blaming God for how things have gone so wrong: "You could have stopped this, you could have done something, I hope you know what you’re doing."

My experience, and I am not lying to you, is that God shows up when I express honest anger toward him.  It is a lot like the book of Job—Job insists that he did not deserve the suffering he received, he blames God for it, and God shows up and is friendly.  I will tell you two stories.  I was complaining out loud to God and added, “And on top of that, you have let me have a hemorrhoid. Don’t you think that’s piling on.” And God said, almost aloud, “Piling on—that’s funny.”  You see, the plural of hemorrhoid is piles. I laughed out loud for about 10 minutes, and something deep inside me eased up the pressure.  Because God showed up when I got really honest about what I was feeling.

The second story came after a huge disappointment, when it looked like I wasn’t ever going to achieve what I dreamed of.  I was in church, with my head bent down on the pew in front of me, crying with rage, really, and asking God why God favored my enemy over me.  God said to me, very clearly, “Look up at me.” I kept my head down.  And I felt as if God placed a finger under my chin, lifted my head, and made me look into God’s eyes.  “What do you see?” God asked.  “Love, nothing but love,” I replied. I cannot get over that experience.  I hope everyone reading this knows what is in God’s eyes for you. 

Finally, as things turn out, God helps me get to a place where my heart is no longer at war with my enemy.  God pinned me down in the car once to tell me that simply saying “You can let that so and so into heaven if you have to, but I don’t want to sit close to him,” was no longer the best I could do, and God, unsurprisingly, was right. I said, “OK, God, please let that so and so into heaven,”

That’s a good place to end.  Dear God, please let our enemies into heaven.  If you can’t get there yet, start here: Dear God, please decide justice between me and my enemy.

Shepherds and Sheep: Ezekiel, Jesus, and Peter

When I was a child, I admired my mother for reading the Bible through every single year.  She had and has a simple method:  three chapters every weekday and five on Sunday.  Starting around third grade, I tried this.  Usually I got bogged down in the Leviticus/Numbers area and then pulled up my socks and caught up.  I was really grateful that Psalm 119 was preceded by Psalm 118.  And I learned to love the Bible for its vivid, gritty realism and the complex and coherent picture of God’s love for human beings.

One of the books I had trouble getting through, I have to say, was the book of Ezekiel.  If you want to explore why that might have been, I invite you to reread it cover to cover, imagining yourself to be around eight or even twelve years old.  It’s a doozy.  So after years of avoiding it, I felt motivated to reread it this summer, and to my surprise, found that Jesus must have loved this book.  A lot of the things Jesus has to say are echoes of the book of Ezekiel.  So today, we’re looking at this one set of echoes, the shepherds and the sheep.

You’ve already thought of the main passages we will look at from the Gospels, and I won’t disappoint you.  We’ll talk about comparisons Jesus made between himself and a shepherd, the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the commands Jesus gave to the cowardly and remorseful Peter after the resurrection.  And then we will see just a bit of how that plays out in the early church. What it means for us will show up along the way.

Ezekiel 34

You shepherds take care of yourselves, but you never tend the sheep. They are weak, sick, wounded, strayed and lost. The sheep are easy prey because there is no shepherd.  I will rescue my sheep from you. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep and I will find them a place to rest. 

You shepherds are also my sheep. You are fat and strong and healthy while the others are skinny and weak and suffering. You are, in fact, goats. You tread down the good pasture after you’ve eaten; you muddy the water after you have drunk from it; you butt the weak aside and scatter them.

I will judge between sheep and sheep, between sheep and goats.  I will rescue my sheep from you “shepherds.” I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep and I will find them a place to rest.  I will bless my sheep with water, food, safety, home, freedom, fearlessness, and satisfied minds.

John 10

Jesus says, Sheep at rest are in an enclosure with only one opening, and I am that opening.  I am the door into the sheepfold and the door into the pasture.  I am the shepherd who goes in that door and who leads the sheep in and out of the enclosure.  When I call them out of the fold, they follow me, because they are used to my voice and used to doing what I say.  Any individual sheep that goes into my sheepfold goes through me and is my sheep. Anyone who climbs over the wall is avoiding me, and thus is not my sheep and will do the sheep harm.  That interloper wants to steal the sheep away. 

Notice that in both Ezekiel and John that the analogies are not exactly drawn.  God is angry at shepherds, and those shepherds are also sheep.  Jesus is the door, and the one entering by the door for whom someone else opens it, and the true shepherd.  I don’t think we have to worry about reconciling these pictures because each aspect helps us understand something a little different about the truth being taught. 

The judgment in Ezekiel (18, 22, 33) is for disregard of the Law:

• ·      participating in worshiping anything besides God
• ·      having sex with another’s wife or with a menstruating woman
• ·      committing incest, violating family members
• ·      cheating the poor and the foreigner, exploiting the widow and the orphan
• ·      robbing people
• ·      keeping for oneself what people give as security for a loan
• ·      charging high interest when lending money
• ·      ignoring God’s prohibitions against uncleanness
• ·      violating the Sabbath
• ·      thinking that God doesn’t see them
• ·      killing the innocent
• ·      controlling others through fear and magic
• ·      lying, breaking one’s word
• ·      sacrificing children
• ·      dishonoring parents
• ·      disrespecting holy places
• ·      eating meat with the blood in it
• ·      treating those under God’s judgment with scorn

Proverbs 6:16-19 says God hates these things:  a proud (lifted up) eye, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a mind that makes devious plans, feet that hurry to give pain or cause misery, a deceitful witness, and the one who sends strife into families or the community

Positively, then, what does God expect from people in the Old Testament?

• ·      Put God first in everything
• ·      Respect God in heart and in action
• ·      Put what God has said is important first
• ·      Let God be in control rather than trying to control God
• ·      Respect what God has said is holy
• ·      Exercise self-control over sex
• ·      Be generous and fair to the foreigners, the less powerful, and the poor
• ·      Be fairminded in arguments
• ·      Tell the truth
• ·      Be content with what God has given
• 
  

The whole Bible confirms these priorities. 

In John 10, when Jesus uses this language about being the shepherd, this is a clear assertion that Jesus’s authority comes directly from his Father and our Father, and Jesus is competent to judge us and to lead us.

When Jesus judges, as portrayed in the story of the Sheep and the Goats, the judgment sounds very Old Testament, but Jesus particularly zeroes in on how people treat the needy and lost:

When the Son of Man (link to Ezekiel) comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?

The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these children of my Father, you did for me.

Then he will say to those on his left, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.

They also will answer, Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?

He will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

This always calls me to serious self-examination.  Have I said no when another human being calls to me for help? Even if the call is voiceless, am I off the hook?  How can I be right with God; how can I be a good sheep? I need daily to listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, and follow Him everywhere he goes, recognizing that every human being is kin to Jesus, even the people I can hardly look at, whose need is so ugly to me I can’t see the person. What I can take to heart is that Jesus is the one I need to practice listening to and Jesus is the one I need to obey. 

Jesus says more about what God expects in Matthew 5 and 6:

You are the salt of the earth.  But if you are not flavoring the world, how can you be made more salty?  You might as well be fine sand.  You are the light of the world, like a city on a hill or a lamp.  You can’t hide a hill city and no one hides a lit lamp under a bowl.  Instead, they put it in a prominent place where it can give light to everyone in a house.  Similarly, behave well so that your light shines in your world and people will praise God for you.

I haven’t come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.  Anyone who breaks the least of the commands and teaches others to do so will be least in the kingdom of heaven, but anyone who practices and teaches these commands will be great in the kingdom of heaven.  You have to be more righteous than the professionally righteous people around in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Not only can you not murder someone, you also must not hold another person in contempt because of being angry with that person.  You can’t offer a gift acceptable to God with contempt for another person in your heart.  God will be sure your heart is right, so cooperate as quickly as you can.

Not only can you not commit adultery, you must not indulge lustful fantasies about another person.  Don’t think you can blame your body for this—if that’s what you think, you should be blinding yourselves or cutting off body parts to prevent yourselves from sinning. 

Not only must you be formal about divorce, but you cannot just casually walk in and out of marriage because it is legal to do so.  This is the same as committing adultery.

Not only must you be truthful when you invoke the Lord’s name to vouch for you, you must be truthful whether or not God is your witness.  You should simply say what is so.  Otherwise you’re covering something up.

Not only must you limit revenge to the harm done you, but you must be generous with those who harm you or want something from you.

Not only must you love your neighbor, but you must love your enemy and pray for those who make your life unpleasant.

Try being more like God, your Father, who sends sunshine and rain to both evil and good people.  Extend your love to all.

In Ezekiel, John, and Matthew , the authority to judge is clear.  God is the judge to whom shepherds are responsible, and the shepherd to whom sheep are accountable.  And in Ezek. 7, God warns the people, “I will judge you in the same way you have judged others.” This sounds a lot like Jesus in Matt. 7: “Don’t judge, so you won’t be judged, because you will be judged in the same way you judge.”   

All of us have a judge who sees into each of our hearts, and to whom each of us is accountable for our actions and our thoughts. 

When I am living each day waiting for the Good Shepherd to lead me out of the enclosure and into the pasture, listening for that familiar voice and doing what it says, I am so focused on Jesus that I do not even notice how good I’m being when I do what Jesus says.  No self-approval, no approval by others, just obedience. If I’m at peace with Jesus and peace rules my heart, I’m not likely to spend much time judging others.  I will be able to speak even hard things to them out of a loving relationship that makes it possible for them to hear me.

And finally, the remorseful Peter and what happened to him. Peter said I will die for you, Jesus, and Jesus said you think so, but you will deny me instead; Satan wants to sift you like wheat but I have prayed for your faith not to fail and that after your conversion you will strengthen the others.  So in John 21, Jesus three times commissions Peter with feeding and taking care of Jesus’s sheep, those who know his voice and follow him. 

And what happened through Peter in the early church?  Peter saw the pigs in a blanket and God told him to kill these unclean animals and eat them.  Peter said, “I have never eaten anything forbidden by the Law as unclean.” And God said, “If God has cleansed it, it’s clean; don’t call it unclean.” And thus God’s Spirit made clear that the Good News is for Gentiles, for all unclean peoples, as well as for those born or converted to Judaism.  Peter met with the Roman Cornelius, and he said these words, “I perceive it is true that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation the person who fears God and obeys what he knows is right is accepted by God.  God sent Jesus to preach peace to Israel, anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power; Jesus went around doing good, healing all oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  We saw all these things, and we saw the Jews kill him and hang him on a tree, and we saw how God raised him up and showed him openly to us.  We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commanded us to preach that he is the one God appointed and empowered to judge the living and the dead.  All the prophets point to him, saying that through his authority, character, and actions, all who entrust themselves to him shall be set free from their sins.”

So to take away from this: 

Jesus is our shepherd and we are the sheep. Jesus will find us a place to rest.  Jesus will bless us with water, food, safety, home, freedom, fearlessness, and satisfied minds. Jesus expects us to bless others with the same things as much as we can. Jesus expects us to listen and obey; that’s what defines us as his followers.  Jesus sends us to find those seeking for God, even among groups we try to stay away from, and Jesus expects us to recognize and affirm God’s work in the seekers’ hearts. And then we can share the good news about Jesus and how we ourselves have found him to be our daily shepherd and teacher. And when, as 1 Peter 5:4 says, the chief Shepherd appears, we will receive a crown of glory that will never fade away.  What could be better than that?

Listen to Your Children Praying

What should God’s children pray for? Obvious answer, anything and everything!

Recently at Girls Camp, I was sharing a room with my daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter.  I was tired and perhaps a little cranky, and I said to my granddaughter, “Will you pray for me to feel better?” She was quiet for a bit and then said, “Feel better yet?” I said, “Will you pray out loud for me to feel better?” She sighed, and wandered off into the coat closet.  When I followed her, she said, “Go away!”  So I left her alone and from a distance heard her voice saying something.  Then she yelled at me, “Do you feel better YET?” And I did feel better.  It was a great moment. 

There are at least two important prayers that we need to pray, even more important than the prayer to feel better.

We pray for God to forgive us.  We ask God, who has adopted us as children, for forgiveness when we miss the mark, when we stray, when we sin.  And when we do this, we accept God’s forgiveness and forgive ourselves.  No wallowing.

King David with the perfect heart

1 Kings 9:4  God says to Solomon, “if you will walk before me with integrity (perfection) of heart like your father David, and in uprightness do what I have commanded you, keeping my statutes and judgments,  I will establish your throne.” Several other times David is referred to as having a perfect or complete heart for God.  Yet he wasn’t a perfect person.  So how was someone who is undivided in loyalty to God respond when confronted with his sin?

2 Samuel 11 David commits adultery (and murder).  Nathan confronts him and calls him out; prophesies woes, including the death of the baby. David’s sin has terrible consequences.  However, his perfect heart shows in his instant contrition on being confronted, and his acceptance of the consequences of his sin when he sees they are inevitable.

David’s prayer for forgiveness:

Pity me, O Judge, in my loathsomeness

because of your steadfast love, goodness, kindness, faithfulness

According to your deeply felt compassion

destroy my rebellion

submerge me in water and stomp on me repeatedly to wash away my crime, my depravity

purify me from my uncleanness

I intimately understand and admit my rebellion

my sin is continuously present to me

I have lost myself, wandered from the way, missed the mark, offended against you, you alone

I have caused this hurt and misery right in front of you

You are just and right in how you speak to me, and you are pure in how you have evaluated me, how you have condemned my action and how you punish me

I have been twisted up, writhing in perversity from birth

It was a calamity that I was born

You delight in, you bend down towards faithfulness, firmness, under the surface, truth deep within

you cause my walled off places to know intimately what is wise, prudent, skillful

Purify me from uncleanness, and I will be clean, shined up

trample me under water to make me clean, and I shall be shinier, whiter, than snow

Cause me to pay attention to joy, to yield to gladness, that the bones, the self you have crushed and made contrite may dance with joy.

Put my sins out of your presence

Wipe out my crimes, destroy my depravity

Shape in me a pure mind, will, understanding, oh Judge.

Repair, make new a firm, stable mind and spirit in me.

Don’t throw me out of your presence, don’t send me away from your face.

Don’t snatch away the holy spirit you gave me.

Bring back, refresh, repair the joy of victory and deliverance.

Support and brace me with your generous, noble spirit.

I will train rebels to stay on your road

condemned ones will be brought back to you

Rescue me from having shed blood, snatch me out of my guilt for murder, my judge who delivers me, who saves me

I will shout loudly about your right acts, your justice

O Lord, loosen up my words and I will publish your glory, your fame

you take no pleasure in sacrifice, or I would make one

burnt offerings don’t please you

the sacrifices to the Judge are a crushed, shattered spirit, mind, disposition

a shattered and broken understanding, will, mind, inner self, O Judge, you will not consider vile, hold as contemptible, think worthless

make glad, make beautiful, do well by Zion, in your favor, goodwill

defend Jerusalem

Then you will be delighted with the sacrifices of justice, of right living, with all the other offerings

then they will offer praise to you

We learn several truths about repentance from this prayer: 

Tell God you are willing to accept the truth of God’s evaluation of your action

Allow your emotions to fully experience the shame and sorrow of having caused misery, of having done harm; admit that it was your fault; express this to God

Ask God to scrub you up inside, even though it is painful

Invite God into your hidden, secret walled-up places

Embrace joy and gladness and praise God for God’s justice and mercy

Note that David sees his sin as faithlessness to God first; he lost his true center, his real self.  Note also that he admits that he did serious harm to other people also.  Both of these are true pictures of sin.

Christians and Sin

The apostle John in his first letter says these things:  Those born of God do not sin.  But if we sin, Jesus prays for us to God the Father.  Let’s confess our sins, and God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  There is no point in denying our sin or covering it up. This just shows that Jesus doesn’t live in us.  Let’s walk in the light, as Jesus is in the light and IS the light, so that we can fellowship with one another. Let’s not just say we love others but show its truth by our actions.  This convinces even us that we are in the truth. Sometimes our hearts wrongly condemn us, so our loving actions can reassure us because God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything. And when our hearts are clear, we have boldness before God, and God gives whatever we ask because obey God, and that makes God happy.

Second, we ask God to forgive others through us.

Jesus emphasizes forgiving right from the start.  Matthew 6:12—“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (KJV). It’s one of the key ideas of the Good News that calls me to account all the time.

“Forgive” has in its Greek heart the idea of send it away, disregard it, give it up. “Debts” has in its Greek heart the idea of “should,” obligation, duty, including the duty of making amends for injury.

So a reasonable paraphrase might be “Set aside our ‘shoulds’ as we set aside ‘shoulds’ for other people.” Or “cancel out our unpaid obligations to You, God, as we cancel out others’ unpaid obligations to us.”  Or “let us off the hook as we let others off the hook.”  (See Strong’s Concordance.)

Then Jesus goes on to say, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

“Trespass” has in its Greek heart the idea of missing the mark, or, figuratively, lapsing from truth or uprightness, going astray. How astonishing that we are told without wiggle room that we are to forgive other human beings for not getting it right, and even for getting it wrong. Jesus doesn’t limit forgiveness to “if they are sorry.” 

I need help to do this.  It is so hard for me to forgive my betrayers and my enemies. I have experience with spending nearly a decade asking God for vindication and at the end having God ask me to forgive. The great opera singers Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle help us understand feeling betrayed in their rendition of “Scandalize My Name”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6EOXT6_inw&feature=related

Jesus understands what it means to be betrayed.  Once again, we remember that our high priest has been through our experience. Jesus is not surprised by betrayal.  He warned Peter that he would be a coward and deny knowing Jesus.  He warned Judas by referencing Psalm 41 when Judas was leaving their last meal together.  Jesus also knows that God will not let his enemies triumph over him and that he will be in God’s presence forever.

In Mark 11, Jesus says, right after one of the great prayer promises, “When you stand praying, let go, send away, give up whatever you are holding tightly against someone else.  Then your Father in heaven lets go, sends away, gives up holding against you your straying from the right way, your lapses from the truth.”

See also Luke 6:36-37: do not judge, do not condemn.  Instead, forgive, and give.

Psalm 41 moves from blessing those who care for the poor, to a prayer for God’s healing, to the statement that “My enemies wonder in malice when I will die, and my name perish. And when they come to see me, they utter empty words, while their hearts gather mischief; when they go out, they tell it abroad. All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.

“They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me, that I will not rise again from where I lie. Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me. But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.  By this I know that you are pleased with me; because my enemy has not triumphed over me. But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever. “ (Psalm 41:5-12)

The word “repay” here almost everywhere means make things right so one can be at peace. 

This psalm shows us what many of the psalms do, that we can take our pain from being betrayed to God. We can pray for justice.  And then we need to leave it there. “Vengeance is mine,” says God, “I will repay.”

Forgive them for they know not what they do. This is what Jesus prayed for those who denied that he was God in the flesh.

Jesus makes a way back for betrayers and makes peace to his enemies. We know the story at the end of John’s Gospel where Jesus asks Peter if Peter loves him.  And we have this promise as well from the prophet Zechariah: “And I God will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that when they look on the one they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn…On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” (Zech. 12:10, 13:1).

St Paul in Romans 12:17-21 gives us good advice with regard to those who have betrayed us or who we think have betrayed Jesus. 

Don’t repay anyone injury for injury. Take care to present to others what is useful, good, genuine, beautiful, honorable among all people. Be strong in yourself to make peace and live in peace with everyone. You are dearly loved.  Don’t insist on being vindicated, don’t punish others for how they’ve hurt you, but get out of God’s way and give God space to judge. For God says, Vindication, vengeance, punishment belong to me. I will take care of setting things right.

Therefore, if your opponents, the ones who do what you hate, the ones who hate you, are hungry, feed them. If they thirst, give them drink. For in so doing, you will call up in them the painful memory of how they have harmed you and give them motivation to repent. Don’t let meanness and wickedness win over you, but instead you win over them with goodness, honor, uprightness, and joy.

So how do children pray?  About everything and anything, of course. We ask our Father to forgive us for our missteps, our strayings, our errors, our harms to others, and we ask our Father to forgive others as well through us.

As we close, if you want God to forgive you for something or to help you forgive someone else, you are free to come down to the front to pray, or to pray where you are.  We’ll sing our thanksgiving for the great love Jesus shows us, and then you are free to go.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

What should leaders pray for?

 How should leaders pray when they look out their windows and all they see are enemies to take them down?

How should leaders pray when they know their people have missed the mark--have refused to follow where God is leading?

How should leaders pray when their people are exiled from their home in God; how should leaders pray who long for the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth?

Jehoshaphat

2 Chronicles 20

The descendants of Lot, the Moabites and Ammonites and a few other tribes banded together against the kingdom of Judah while Jehoshaphat was king. Jehoshaphat was a good king, but when he looked out the window and saw the hostile armies he became afraid.  And here’s how he becomes an example for leaders whose people are surrounded by enemies.

He set himself to seek the Lord; he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah and gathered people together from all the towns into Jerusalem to pray and seek the Lord together. This is what he said to God:

O Lord, God of our ancestors. Are you not the supreme God in heaven? Do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? In your hand are power and might, so that no one is able to withstand you.  Did you not give this land to us, the descendants of Abraham.  We have lived here and built you a sanctuary, and promised that when disaster, the sword, judgment, pestilence, famine come upon us, we will stand before your house and cry to you in our distress and you will hear and save.  See now, people you protected from us as we left Egypt, kinfolk from ancient days, they reward us by attacking us and driving us out of the land you yourself gave us.  O our God, will you not execute judgment upon them? For we are powerless against this great multitude that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

King Jehoshaphat took the lead and spoke to God on his people’s behalf.  He began by celebrating the grandness of God, by reminding himself and his people of God’s omnipotence.  Then he rehearsed their history, which included the promise of the land to Abraham but also all kinds of hardships, some of them judgment for sin, and reminded all of them of the shared commitment to stand together before God, cry to God together, and invite God to hear and save them.  Then they asked God to intervene with justice between them and their enemies, ancient relatives, really, to set things straight.  They admitted their own powerlessness against the enormous threat, their ignorance of what to do next.  They affirmed at the end their faith that God would act.

If you know this story, you know that God responded through a prophet: “Do not be afraid or dismayed before this great threat. The battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow, go down to meet them, take your position, and stand still.  You will see that God wins this battle on your behalf.  Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow stand still before them and the Lord will be with you.”

And then Jehoshaphat led the people in a hymn of praise.  The next day, they did what God said, encouraged by Jehoshaphat, who said, “Believe in the Lord your God and you will be established. Believe the word of God through the prophet. “ They marched toward their enemies singing a song, and when they arrived, they found their enemies had destroyed each other. 

Leaders—and Quaker churches are full of leaders—when things arise that alarm your people and cause them to fear, remember Jehoshaphat.  

Gather together, rehearse the Lord’s faithfulness, make your request and listen to what God tells you. Then sing praise and do what you are told.

But what about when the threat is not external but internal? The people God has called you to lead will not go where God says to go. 

Moses

Numbers 14

When the Israelites had journeyed across the wilderness to the promised land, they sent in spies to see what they were up against.  The spies brought back word that the land was lovely and productive, but the inhabitants were giants.  Ten of twelve said there was no hope, and only two counseled going on into the land.  The congregation howled and wept and complained against Moses and Aaron.  “We wish we had died in the wilderness? Why has God brought us here to die by the sword, leaving behind our wives and children?  Let us go back to Egypt.  Better to be a live dog than a dead lion.” The few who wanted to follow God into the promised land were horrified and dismayed.  They pled with the congregation, “Do not rebel against the Lord; do not fear the people of the land. The Lord is with us, do not fear them.” But the congregation threatened to stone Moses and the few with him.

Then the Lord showed up in front of all Israel and said to Moses, “I have had it with this people.  They despise me, they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have done to preserve them.  I will strike them with pestilence and start over with you. You will father a great nation.”

Interesting spot for Moses.  What would you do?  As a leader, what would you do if your followers all wanted to stone you and God said, “I’ll level them and make a fresh start with you.”

Well, here’s what Moses did.  He prayed: Oh Lord, if you destroy this people, the Egyptians will hear of it, and the Canaanites will hear of it.  You have been in the midst of this people, and the surrounding nations know this.  This people has seen you in person, and you led them by day and by night with a miraculous pillar of cloud or fire.  Now if you kill them all, the nations will say it is a failure for you, that you were unable to bring them into the land you promised them.  You will look bad.  So show your power instead by being slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression even though the sin of these people will have effects upon their children for generations. Forgive this people for their faithlessness according to your faithful love, just as you have done all along, from Egypt until now.”

And the Lord replied to Moses, “I do forgive, just as you have asked, but their faithlessness has this consequence.  They themselves will in fact die in the wilderness as they preferred.  They have tested me again and again, they have disobeyed me repeatedly, and they will not enter this land.  Only the few faithful will endure and enter the land I promised these people.

So leaders, when your people cannot believe in God’s ability to bring them through difficulty into the promised rest, what should you do?  Even when you know that God’s will is to move one direction and the people want to go another direction?  Even when they are prepared to get rid of you so that you won’t make them do what they fear to do?

Pray for them.  Intercede with God for them.  Remind God that whether or not people are faithful, God is faithful.  Remind God that underachievers are still his people, that if God abandons them, it will hurt God’s reputation with the onlookers.  Even though you know that their sin may cripple their children for several generations, pray for God to have mercy on them.  

Hard words, aren’t they.  Counter-intuitive.  As Jesus said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, How often I have longed to gather you under my wings, but you would not.  And now, you will die in the ruts you preferred to me.

Finally, what if there is not so much a threat, as a sense of being trapped in an alien culture, a sense of exile and homelessness?

Daniel

Daniel 9

The royal prince, Daniel, was taken into captivity in Babylon.  As was the custom with captured royalty, it is likely he was made a eunuch with no hope for children, and certainly we have no record of him having any family.  Daniel served the Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and then the Persian king Darius as advisor and seer.  He was a loyal and faithful minister who rose to the top in both Nebuchadnezzar’s and Darius’s administrations, despite the attempts of others to trap him because of his faithfulness to God. 

The Jews were taken into captivity, and Jeremiah wrote them there and told them to pray for the welfare of Babylon because they would be there 70 years, long enough to have children and grandchildren.  As Daniel got closer to 90 years old, he recognized that the 70 years was winding to an end, and he began to pray and ask God for an answer.  He fasted and wore burlap, and he began his prayer like this.

Ah, Lord, great and awesome God, you keep your covenant and love steadfastly those who love you and keep your commandments.  But we have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, and turned aside from your commandments and ordinances. We have not listened to your prophets to our ancestors, our princes, our kings, and all our people.

The most interesting thing about this, besides the comprehensive list of synonyms for sin, is the use of “we”—we have done this.  Daniel has, in fact, led a faithful and authentic life of dedication to God.  Yet, as a leader, he includes himself in the list of those who have done wrong. 

Righteousness is on your side, O Lord, but open shame falls on us, the people of Judah, Jerusalem, Israel, near and far away, dispersed to all the lands where you have driven us because of our treachery against you.  Open shame, O Lord, falls on us, our kings, our officials, our ancestors, because we have sinned against you.  We have rebelled against you, we have not obeyed your voice by following the laws you sent us through your prophets.  To you, to the Lord God belong mercy and forgiveness.

All of us have refused to obey you, and the consequences spelled out in the law of Moses, God’s servant, have fallen on us because of our sin against you.  The calamity of removal from our homeland, the city of Jerusalem has come upon us.  The Lord God is right in all he has done, for we disobeyed his voice.  We did not entreat the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and reflecting on his fidelity.

And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and great fame even to this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly.  O Lord, remember your righteous acts and let your anger and wrath, we pray turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain.  Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have disgraced us and our city Jerusalem among all our neighbors.

Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleading and for your own sake, Lord, let your face shine upon your desolated sanctuary.  Incline your year, O my God, and hear.  Open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that bears your name. 

We do not plead before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies.  O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people bear your name. 

And God answered Daniel and sent Gabriel to explain things to him.  And later, under King Cyrus, another messenger came from God.  Do not fear, Daniel greatly beloved.  For from the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 

The message they brought Daniel said that God has a plan in history, that God is sovereign, and that Daniel himself will rise for his reward at the end of the days. 

The lesson for leaders is this:

Do we see that our people have been taken captive by a culture that is hostile to the Kingdom of God?  Do we hope for a return to our spiritual homeland?  For Quakers, has our American middle-class culture captured us and taken us into captivity?  Have we moved from praying for the welfare of our nation to participating in its sins and the structures of evil?  Quakers were called Friends because they obeyed Jesus, who said “You are my Friends if you do whatever I tell you to do.” Jesus gave us a unique vision of Christianity that reaches Seekers otherwise unreached.  How have we systematically ignored or violated what Jesus taught and is teaching us?

Let the leaders of the Quakers pray with Daniel.  O, our God, we have missed the mark and strayed from Truth.  We have turned our back on what it means to be Friends of Jesus while we have kept the title.  We have not lived up to the light that is in us.  We have put limits on the Spirit of God. We have become prosperous at the expense of the good news that Christ is present among us.

We share the prejudices of our nation and we let politics divide us and distract us from what is true and right, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save the world, that the will of God is that none should perish but that all should live eternally, that we are to share this good news with our neighbors and introduce them to the Son of God who can explain everything to them. 

We do not plead before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies.  O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your people bear your name. 

Please pray for how NWYM Quakers and Quakers as a movement have missed the mark.

There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner, and more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior; there is healing in his blood.

Human souls! why will ye scatter like a crowd of frightened sheep? Foolish hearts! why will ye wander from a love so true and deep?

It is God: His love looks mighty, but is mightier than it seems;

'Tis our Father: and His fondness goes far out beyond our dreams.

For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful, we should take him at his word;
And our life would be thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord.