Category Archives: forgiving

Unless I am wrong

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I am acutely aware of expectations, even those that do not exist. I have lived much of my life as a pleaser. To avoid conflict, I have appeased, placated, avoided and feared. And I am increasingly aware of the dangers of living according to the standards and expectations and boundaries of others. “How we used to do it” and “How it’s always been done” are problems. “I’m disappointed in you” can be a deadly constraint, keeping us from doing what we are actually called to do.

Unless I am wrong.

If I am wrong, if I have broken trust with you or with God or both, if I have looked at what Jesus clearly taught and have ignored it, then I need to know. I need to be confronted. I need you to say, “When Jesus was talking about relationship, he said to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us. And last week, when you were talking about those ____ in ____, that’s about as far from loving your enemies as a person can get, as least as we look at how Jesus demonstrated love.”

Because sometimes we are wrong. Not in some “I misspoke” sense or in some “I was tired” sense or “I made a bad choice” sense, but in an “I sinned” sense. I did evil.

We often want to hit reset. We want to walk away, to ignore the past. And I’m all for do-overs and fresh starts. So is God. That’s the whole point of Jesus and Christmas and Good Friday and Easter. But the way to start over in relationship with ourselves and with God and with others isn’t to just walk away. It’s to walk through a simple, gut-wrenchingly honest process: “I was wrong. I went the wrong way. Please forgive me.”

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Related posts:

The hard work of repenting

I did it

Just do it

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Yes, Nike made that phrase popular in 1988 – long enough ago that some will not remember. Others will be so burned out on hearing it that the meaning is lost.

But James said in his letter, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” (That’s chapter 4 verse 17.)

How often to do we hear something and think, “I should do that!” With the amount of information hitting us every day, I’d guess that it might be at least five times!

Last Sunday, our pastor spoke about bridging the gap in lost relationships. One of the verses he mentioned was Romans 12:18: Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. He challenged us to think about reaching out to one person who we had lost a relationship with. I immediately thought of one old friend. By the end of the day, we had connected on Facebook.

I don’t share that little story to have you think, “Oh, Paul is so good!” Because I’m not. Following through on a prompting in my heart is more rare than I’d like. I think God gave me the thought of bridging that gap. And I’m glad my friend was receptive to being connected again.

Tomorrow you will read a blog post that will make you think, “I should do that!”

Stop.

Pick up your phone and make the call. Send that email. Like that person on Facebook.

Remember that it may not be easy, though! During that sermon, my wife thought of someone who is a can of worms for us. We have had such challenges knowing how to help that we’ve almost completely backed off. So we’re praying about how God will change us in that situation. I have no idea.

(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday.)

I did it.

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Sin.

It’s what many people think that Christians are about. Including many Christians.

Well, not so much that they are about sin, but that they make a big deal about sin, that they go around pointing out sin, that they are particularly skilled at confessing other people’s sins And at some point in the pointing out, the sins of gossip and judgmentalism are pointed out and conversation shifts.

It’s too bad. We need more conversation about sin. More accurately, we need more conversation about not ignoring the presence of sin.

As you may know, I’ve had the idea of paring on my mind this week. I’m trying to understand what paring means for those following Jesus. The other day, for another project, I was skimming through Proverbs 28 and read

He who conceals his sins does not prosper,
but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

I realized that we often spend a lot of energy on concealing sin, from ourselves, from each other, from God. Even if we aren’t sure we know what counts as sin, even if we aren’t sure what sin is, exactly. we know an ache of things not being right. And we stuff it down. And we cover it over.

I’m not, by the way, trying to talk you into an ache.

The newsflash isn’t that there is sin, that there is the pain of hiding our screwups. The newsflash is that there is forgiveness.

When Jesus said,

“The time has come … The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

he wasn’t announcing a burden. He was offering relief.

You know how when you’ve done that really stupid thing you know was wrong, and you just can’t look at the person you hurt, and then they say, “I forgive you”?

Like that.

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My friend Chris talked about paring this weekend, asking “Are there things you could (should?) pare back?” It made me think. This week, I’ll be looking at some of the trimming that Jesus talks about.

See also “You’re not the boss of me“ and “Goodbye sucker“.

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inside and outside

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The reason that outside isn’t so bad is that inside isn’t so good.

When Jesus said that people who didn’t respond to three distinct, thoughtful, caring challenges to their behavior needed to leave the church, He was intending was that the threat of having to leave the warmth of community in the church would be a deterrent that would make people rethink having to leave it.

The fact that the punishment was to treat the sinner as a pagan or a tax collector merely illustrates what Jesus wanted from the church.

Jesus loved tax collectors. He sought them out. Matthew himself was a tax collector, or had been. Matthew may have smiled as he wrote these words, remembering the party that he threw for Jesus when he first starting following.

He had his friends over to meet Jesus. The Pharisees stood outside, questioning how Jesus could be spending time in such company. Jesus said that he had come for people who needed him.

So the tax collectors were the heroes, the ones who wanted to be with Jesus. And now, in Matthew 18, Jesus says that when people don’t repent, they are to be treated like tax collectors. But Jesus isn’t assuming that the church will be like the Pharisees, capable only (as least for Matthew) of scolding. Just the opposite.

The church is to be tax collectors transformed, pharisees reborn, prostitutes renewed. It is a collection of misfit toys so in love with God and each other that to have to go outside is punishment, even if there is love.

Jesus wasn’t setting up a system of shunning. There was not to be silence. There was respect and compassion and an openness for the one being walked to the door to return when repentant. Just the way Matthew had started.

But, did Jesus?

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We’re looking at Jesus talking about how to address sin. We’re looking at a passage that is used as a guideline for what is called “church discipline.” We’re looking at the beginning of the process, where Jesus says, “If your brother sins, tell him.”

As I thought about the process, I thought, “But, did Jesus do this?”

The question comes because it is hard to help other people consider sin. The question comes because Jesus often says something and then lives it. The question comes because if we are learning from Jesus how to follow him, it would be interesting to see if/how he lived what he taught.

Do did Jesus ever look at someone who sinned and address them individually?

You mean like he did with Martha who was rushing around ignoring him? He spoke to and said, “listen to me.“

You mean like he did with a woman whose relationships were, as Facebook says, “complicated?”  He spoke to her and said, “I’d like to help you fill the hole in your heart.”

You mean like he did with Peter who had abandoned Jesus and then denied ever knowing Him? Jesus spoke to him and said, three times, “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

You mean like person after person who came for healing and he told, “your sins are forgiven.”

Jesus consistently put himself in the presence of people who had sinned and gently but specifically pointed out the problem, offered forgiveness, and continued to have  a relationship with them. There is a serious informality, a warmth. Sometimes we see a response. Sometimes we don’t. Likely, there are many such conversations we don’t see.

When Jesus says, “If your brother sins, tell him,” Jesus was merely saying, “Here’s the restoration principle you have been watching me live.”