Get Out of My Face!

As nutty as it sounds, my son has occasionally had issues with disobedience. Nothing extraordinary, but standard types of lunacy that tend to plague kids and teens (though I'm mostly positive this never affected me when I was growing up). I won't name the issues; you can use your imagination and you'll probably be close.

Sometimes he's repeated the same screw-up multiple times. No, really. On occasion he feels he was justified in what he did and is less than sorry for it, but every so often he's genuinely apologetic, asks for forgiveness, and fully intends to avoid repeating that same error again.

When he comes to me and is truly repentant, you know what my response is? I say through clenched teeth, "Get out of my face. You disgust me! You're not worthy to be a Lusk."

Okay, I don't really say that. If I were more of... I don't know... a rotten dad, I'd do that.

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Forgiveness Teaches Fear

I came across a verse in Psalm 130 this morning that popped out at me. I've read it before but it never made me stop and think like this. Here's the passage:

Lord, if You kept a record of our sins,
     who, O Lord, could ever survive?
But You offer forgiveness,
     that we might learn to fear You.
- Psalm 130:3-4 (NLT)

Verse three is one that is incredibly comforting to me: "Lord, if You kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?" God's grace and forgiveness are huge, and if it weren't for His mercy I'd have no hope at all but to be crushed.

But the verse that really hit me this morning was, "But You offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear You." Strong's Hebrew dictionary defines "fear" (יראor "yârê'") this way: "to fear; morally to revere; causatively to frighten: - affright, be (make) afraid, dread (-ful), (put in) fear (-ful, -fully, -ing). (be had in) reverence (-end), X see, terrible (act, -ness, thing)."

"...That we might learn to fear You." Without consulting a commentary to get thoughts, how does God's forgiveness teach you to fear Him?

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Proverbs 26:11

Don't you hate having to go before God and ask Him to forgive you for doing something that wasn't just dumb, but was also something you've done before (about which you've asked Him for forgiveness), and honestly repented of?

"I REALLY won't do this again, Father."

"[sigh...] I'm sure you won't. I forgive you, Dean."

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If Dogs Could Only REASON...

Two days ago, Molly the Pitiful Attention-Starved Puppy (pictured, weighing in at 11 pounds, henceforth called "Molly the Needy") walked past Jesse the Home Owner (a typical cat, though he weighs 21 pounds). As she passed him, for no reason I could see, Jesse batted Molly the Needy in the side with his paw.

Molly the Needy kept walking toward me, still wagging her tail and glancing at Jesse.

After I'd given Molly the Needy the attention she was apparently desperately lacking, she simply walked over to Jesse the Home Owner and licked him on the face. Although Jesse recoiled slightly, he didn't reciprocate with a slash or a vicious punch to the head.

And they lived happily ever after.

No, really. This kind of thing happens from time to time at my house, yet the animals live together without any of them mauling the others, and they seem to actually like one another (Molly the Needy's scrappy little brother, Buddy the Christmas Puppy, keeps Jesse in line as necessary).

If Molly the Needy were blessed with higher reasoning, as are we humans, eventually she'd get to the point at which she'd say to herself, "Darn it, I've had enough of that mean cat. If he does that again I'm going to foam at the mouth and bite him, just the way I handle people when they try to take me out of someone's lap." But sadly, she doesn't possess our elevated level of enlightenment, so the animals are doomed to live in peace and harmony.

Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!"
- Matthew 18:21-22, (NLT)

“You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. [we obviously don't believe that sentence, even though we quote it very piously!] If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow."
- Jesus, quoted in Matthew 5:38-42 (NLT)

So if someone sues me and is awarded my car, I should give them the XM Radio that's in it?! Only an idiot would do that. Wait... no... Jesus surely didn't mean that literally! He just meant "Be willing to give someone your coat." Right?

"Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets."
- Jesus, quoted in Matthew 7:12 (NLT)

And the biggest one of all...

One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
- Matthew 22:35-40 (NLT)

(Can you tell I've been reading Matthew this month?)

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Reactions

Kathy Griffin (potentially offensive speech when clicking on that link). At the 2007 Emmy Awards, she made a statement upon receiving her award that, if said to a colleague, would be extremely insulting, and she completed that statement with, "This award is now my god." This is old news to many, as it happened last year and was talked about a good deal, as far as I know, in religious circles.

Surely, if she'd said this to someone in the Screen Actors Guild (or whatever organization), she'd have been forced to offer an apology, and in the e-mails I've received (typically entitled, "Yes, I am offended"), it's been suggested that she'd have never gotten away with this statement if it'd been directed toward Muhammed. Her words have been called "hate speech."

As people who know and serve the God she maligned, how are we to react? Should we have a particular reaction? If we say, "I'm going to boycott everything she's a part of," is that really of value? My guess is that most of us didn't watch her shows, anyhow. A while back I started to watch something she starred in and had to turn it off pretty much immediately (can't recall if it was foul language or innuendo or what). But if that is our response -- not watching anything she's involved in -- what's our motivation behind it? Anger? Personal injury?

Are we justified in becoming indignant, or isn't that kind of talk something we should expect of a comedienne who doesn't believe that Jesus is, indeed, God, and has built a career upon sarcasm and irreverence? Should we have expected her to conform to some higher standard? If so, why?

This leads to the important question: is it correct for the Christ-follower to expect people around him to meet his moral standards of living as prescribed by the Word of God? When we get upset about something like this and are vocal about it, does it damage our visual, active statement of faith and adherence to Jesus' teaching to turn the other cheek, offer our proverbial tunic, and love those who don't love us (Matthew 5:38-48)? Or does it show that we will take a stand for what we believe in?

The first area of Scripture that comes to my mind as a literal example of how to react to insult or injury is this:

"When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.' And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice." (Luke 23:33-34, NLT)

Oddly, though Jesus was God, one never gets the impression that He was being condescending when He spoke to anyone (except the religious leaders, and that was more anger than condescension). When Jesus saw the crowds during His ministry, He had compassion on them (Matthew 9:36, Mark 6:34), and He displayed the same compassion while He was on the cross.

Before reacting to situations, and definitely before forwarding an e-mail expressing personal disgust or offense, it is our responsibility as Christ-followers to make certain that our reaction is the same one that Jesus Christ would have, were He in our situation.

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Wanna Fight, Huh? Fight ME!

Know what? People who don’t give a whit about Jesus give to the poor. They can have great personalities. They love other people. What makes the Christ-follower different? If people outside of our faith demonstrate all these good traits, it takes the wind out of our sails when we say, “People know that I’m a Christian because I tithe/am nice to people/love people.”

Last night at our service a visiting Gideon told the story of a Christian who was in prison in Indonesia. A radical Muslim man was later incarcerated in the same cell. It was said that the Muslim man beat the Christian daily; often multiple times. The story ended with the Muslim man’s conversion to Christianity (and his becoming a Gideon), but I got stuck on the fact that the Christian man simply let the other fellow beat him.

Not only would that physically hurt, but it would be humiliating! I played the scenario out in my mind, imagining how the Christ-follower had to swallow his pride and daily do what apparently showed that he was the weaker person – take a beating for no reason. I don’t like admitting any weakness, so I can imagine that, even if I wound up losing, I’d want to be fighting back.

Chances are not too good that you and I will have the opportunity to take Jesus’ words literally – “If someone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other one, also.” In other areas of the world, though, the chances for Christ-followers to practice this may be numerous.

However, we still have plenty of opportunities to obey this instruction of Jesus right where we are. Having someone question our motives or slander us without reason can be maddening or personally insulting. More simply, making plans with someone only to have them cancel (and finding out later that they went and hung out with someone else) can hurt.

“Turning the other cheek” goes against the grain of human nature. We justify our angry and indignant reprisals by telling ourselves things like this:

“That’s not what Jesus meant.”
“I’ve got to stand up for myself.”
“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“It will make me look weak.”

“People will think I’m stupid!”

When we make excuses for our actions like this, our religious-sounding “turn the other cheek” becomes more of a platitude than a personal directive of Jesus that we will obey. The kicker is, this kind of thinking is so ingrained in us that we may not even think to question our reactions and responses unless we begin to become very deliberate in analyzing why we do what we do.

The next time you hear that Bobbie Sue said something bad about you, do good stuff for her! Better yet, don’t wait for her to say something bad about you – do the good stuff now. As I’ve mentioned about other situations, this is an area where we need to remember our childhood Sunday School lessons and stop thinking that we were allowed to grow out of them to some next level.

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Perfect Love and the Boogeyman

I remember lying in bed at night as a small boy, the covers pulled over my head, scared to death of whatever it was that I was scared of when the lights went out. On those nights I sometimes wondered how "perfect love" could cast out "all fear," because in the pitch-blackness 1 John 4:18 never really seemed to work for me.

I didn't know that fear of the dark was not really what John was talking about.

One aspect of grace is our ability or willingness to overlook what we consider to be another's faults. I believe that one of the reasons we don't do this as a matter of course is that we're afraid that carte blanche forgiveness will come back to haunt us. This is one "feature" of growing older that is a helpful defense mechanism at times, but applying it across the board will have us acting in opposition to the Word.

If my friend Fred does something that I believe is a bad thing, it is my job to forgive him if he's personally offended me and asks me for forgiveness, even if I prefer to assume he's being disingenuous about his repentance. The biggest factor in my hesitation to forgive people, or to overlook their faults, is that I often assume that their motives are less than pure, and underneath that lies the fact that I'm afraid they'll just do the same thing all over again.

This is one of the types of fear that I've seen diminish in the face of love. As Christ-followers, we are not allowed the liberty to hold onto frustration, anger, or hate.

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