Doug McMahon

Forgiveness and the Real World

Whenever I speak about forgiveness in a sermon, people always look up.  For years I have noticed that people want to hear about forgiveness.  I think the mention of the possibility of forgiveness offers people hope.   People want to be forgiven and want to be able to forgive others.  Most people know the pain of being estranged from a friend or family member.

In the Lord's Prayer (or the "Our Father"), Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "forgive us our debts (or sins) as we forgive our debtors."  When I first began to really think about this portion of the Lord's Prayer, I thought it sounded like our forgiveness from God was conditioned upon our willingness to forgive others.  It seemed like Jesus was saying, "God will forgive you, if you forgive others."  What it really means, it seems to me, is that forgiveness is a way of life for Jesus.  

As we learn to forgive others, we begin to better understand that God has really forgiven us.  As we experience forgiveness ourselves we are better able to forgive others.  It is a way of life for Jesus.  Jesus even went so far as to say, "love your enemies."

In his wonderful book, God Has a Dream, Desmond Tutu, writes:   

True reconciliation is based on forgiveness, and forgiveness is based on true confession, and confession is based on penitence, on contrition, on sorrow for what you have done.  We know that when a husband and wife have quarreled, one of them must be ready to say the most difficult words in any language, "Im sorry," and the other must be ready to forgive for there to be a future for their relationship.  This is true between parents and children, between siblings, between neighbors, and between friends.  Equally, confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation in the lives of nations are not just airy-fairy religious and spiritual things, nebulous and unrealistic.  They are the stuff of practical politics.

Resolve to Love

While attending my 30th Reunion at Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky, I saw this quote from E. Stanley Jones: "Here we enter a fellowship, sometimes we will agree to differ, always we will resolve to love and unite to serve."

The New Monasticism

Earlier this month I wrote about The Monk Within Us and discussed the recent movement in the church sometimes referred to as the new monasticism, a way of being more intentional about our journey of faith.  I quoted Peter Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, who writes about this new monasticism.  "We may not be called to be monks but we can learn many things from them as we seek to follow Christ in the twenty-first century."  He continues, "Emotional health and contemplative spirituality enable the contemplative circle of our lives to grow larger and to balance off the amount of activity in which we are engaged.  This adjustment has the capacity to lead us to an incredible transformation with the love of God in each day."  (Page 56)

This past weekend, I attended my 30th Reunion at Asbury College in Wilmore, KY.  As I walked the basement of Hughes Auditorium on the campus, I looked at thousands of pictures of graduates who, like me, attended chapel three times a week in Hughes Auditorium.  We also attended worship services at least once or more each Sunday in the congregations of our choice, participated in many campus ministries, worked in mission off campus, and attended academic classes that often began with prayer.  Campus life at Asbury College (1975-1979) was a kind of new monasticism.

I find Pete Scazzero's discussion of the active life being in balance with the contemplative practices very helpful.  It occurs to me now, that my time at Asbury College has prepared me for my present call to a new monasticism.   God has a way of weaving together our life experiences, old and new.  This is God's way of bringing together the many threads of our lives into a new creation.  

The reformation of the church that we are currently experiencing in the twenty-first century is not the end of the church as we know it, but it does involve dramatic changes.  God has a way of bringing together our life experiences, old and new, in order to bring renewal and hope not just for the church but for the world we live in.  God is about the business of bringing faith, hope and love to people who hunger and thirst for justice, peace, and right-relatedness to God and one another.  Jesus said, "seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you."  

God loves people not church structures.  The church exists in order that people might know the love of God.  In every generation, God calls the church to be about the business of compassion, hope, forgiveness, transformation and abundant life.  Church structures may change, but the mission of the church is the same:   proclaiming God's love for the world and inviting people into missional communities of faith that are centered on Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

What is Evangelism?

My current definition of evangelism is inviting people into community.   I like the simplicity of the definition because it helps me to make a point.  There are many more things that I can say about evangelism. But, today, I want to claim that evangelism is always grounded in community.  It is not a one-person-to-one-person transaction.  It is not even a one-person-to-God transaction.  The Good News of Jesus Christ is always an invitation into community.  It is many other things too, but I have come to believe that it is primarily an invitation into communion with Jesus Christ and a community of faith.

Jesus invited people to follow him.  They were invited to be a part of a new community of faith.  He invited Peter, James, John, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to be a part of this new community.  Over time many more people participated in significant ways in the community that Jesus was building, and, on one occasions over five thousand households gathered outdoors to be taught and fed by Jesus. From the beginning, the Good News of Jesus was experienced in community.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together, even our times "alone with God" are in the context of our participation in a community of faith.

Jesus invited fishermen, tax collectors, men, women, young, old, poor and wealthy people to follow him.  He invited them to be a part of his community, a gathering of people learning his way of being in the world.  They learned from him, ate meals with him, walked from village to village with him, witnessed him heal the sick and watched him confront the religious leaders of his day.  They were his disciples.  He was a teacher and they were students. He didn't approach them and ask, "If you died tonight do you know where you would spend eternity?"  Rather, he invited them into community.  He said, "follow me."

He promised them a new way of being in the world that could be described as "abundant life."  He taught them to forgive people, and to forgive them over and over again.  He insisted that they love not only their family and friends, but also their enemies.  He valued being transparent and authentic, rather than being a hypocrite.  He told them to stop worrying about tomorrow and to make the most of today.  Furthermore, he didn't expect them to know how to do this on their own, instead he invited them into a community of practice.  He allowed them to make mistakes.  Yet, he also provided for them opportunities to discuss what they were learning about generosity, forgiveness, and love.  Often his disciples would pull Jesus aside and ask for clarification about his teaching.  Learning the way of Jesus takes time and it takes being in community.

Evangelism is a part of the process of building community by inviting others to be a friend of Jesus including the poor and suffering.  Maybe we should say especially those who are hurting and in need.  In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, we read, "The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ)."  He invited his brother to meet Jesus and become a part of this new community.  When I think of evangelism as invitation into community, I have nothing but positive feelings about the word.  

Walking the Walk

I want to invite you to consider walking with me on a Peace Pilgrimage on March 27-29, Friday night to Sunday afternoon, called Walking the Walk, Peace and Justice, 2009.  Those of us who are organizing the event describe it this way:  The concept of a pilgrimage is rooted in both scripture and ancient Christian tradition.  Christian pilgrimages mark both the outward journey toward a physical place and an inward spiritual journey into one's own heart.  Through meaningful moments of meditation, contemplative prayer, fellowship, communal worship and silent reflection, the pilgrim journeys inwardly reflecting deeply upon what it means to live a life of love, justice and peace in our world today.  If you would like more information about Walking the Walk, you can find my email address on the About page of this blog.  Or, just comment below, by clicking "comments" and asking your questions there.

Where Will Floridians See Jesus Next Time?

The St. Pete Times reports that a man at a car dealership in Dade City sees Jesus in the grain of a wooden door in the used car sales office.  You can read the story here.  The same article also reported that Floridians in recent years have seen Jesus and/or his Mother Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, a sea shell, a pancake, a 7x7 foot slab of granite, a potato chip, and, back in December of 1996, Floridians saw what looked like the Virgin Mary on a glass building then being leased by a car rental company.

Seeing this roll call of appearances all together in one long list causes me to wonder what Jesus would say.  I am certain that Jesus doesn't want us to look for him in a potato chip, a pancake or the wooden door at a car dealership.  He told us to look for him in people who are merciful, trusting, and humble.  When people forgive one another, turn the other cheek, love their enemies or share a cup of cold water, we see Jesus.

It's a lot easier to think that  we might see Jesus in a potato chip than forgive someone who has done us wrong.  It's easier to see Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich than to serve a hot meal at the local mission.  It's probably easier to see Jesus on the wooden door of a used car dealership than to drive over to the cold night shelter and help provide a safe and warm place for others to sleep. 

At least our neighbor in Dade City was looking for God.  When we are fearful, anxious or lonely, it is good to look for the Source of love.  In Jesus Christ, we find faith, hope and love.  In these uncertain times, it is good to listen to Jesus' words, found in his Sermon on the Mount, "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes."

 Read more of the Sermon on the Mount here.

Part Two: This Really is My Favorite Parable

I like the Parable of the Laborers because it teaches us about the incredible generosity of God.  (Read Part One here.)  What is interesting--although not surprising-- is that the other workers resent the generosity of the boss, because they got only what they were promised but nothing more.  The last guy got this incredible paycheck for only one hour of work.

The story of the laborers is a lot like the story of Jesus, when he was dying on the cross with two criminals, one on each side of him.  He tells one of them (the one who simply asks to be welcomed), "Today, you will be with me in paradise."  In some respects this is offensive.  How can this guy get "Paradise" at the last minute?  Thinking of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, we might ask, "Is it fair for a Scrooge, laying on his death bed, to be forgiven?" Is it fair to get a whole day's pay for one hour of work?

The Kingdom of God, or the Realm of God, is something like this:  You don't get what you deserve, rather, you get what you need.  The realm of God is something like being a criminal, who is dying on a cross, and then, Jesus promises that you are not only forgiven but welcomed into the realm of God.  This is beautiful, if we focus on the abundance and generosity of God, rather than on what we think we deserve or have earned ourselves.

Some people resent God the same way that some of the laborers in Jesus' parable get angry with the generous boss.  Why is it hard to celebrate someone else's blessing?  Why do we, often, focus on what we didn't get instead of celebrating the event of someone else receiving a free gift?

Recalling Jesus' story, we can assume that the guy, who only worked one hour, had been standing there until almost quitting time looking for work.  He was unemployed, and, maybe he also had a family that he could not provide for.  And then, the boss puts him to work.  Why is it easier for us to identify with the disgruntled employees, or even the boss, than the guy who gets a full day's pay--just what he needs?  But Jesus wants us to see the joy of the poor guy who gets the large paycheck for one hour of work.  What's that all about?

Jesus is teaching us a spiritual lesson.  In the kingdom of God, we get what we need.  Salvation is not something we earn.

The Apostle Paul writes about this in the New Testament, Romans 9:16, saying that salvation does not depend on our effort, "but on God's mercy."  

In Romans, chapter 10, Paul writes:  "The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest.  It's the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—Jesus is my Master—embracing, body and soul, God's work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That's it. You're not doing anything; you're simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: God has set everything right between him and me!" 

Next Time: "Part Three: the events just before and after the telling of the story of the laborers."