forgiveness and rest

My father-in-law led the workshop at Bethany Bible School over the weekend on the topic of vengeance and forgiveness.  The workshop yielded many personal stories and fascinating insights into scripture from the participants.

Among the scriptural allusions was one man's application of the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-60) to the theme of forgiveness.  The man's particular contribution was to link the resting of Stephen's spirit to his act of forgiving his murderers.  Thus we read that, during his stoning, Stephen first prays, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit (7:59)."  Not having yet died, however, Stephen further cries out, "Lord do not hold this sin against them (7:60a)."  Only then, after having given up the desire for vengeance in pronouncing forgiveness for his enemies, does Stephen die (7:60b).  In other words, it is only in Stephen's forgiving of his enemies that his own spirit is received or returns to its origin in God.  His first prayer--a plea for his own ultimate salvation--is answered in his second prayer--a word of forgiveness to others.

Whether or not the man's reading of the death of Stephen was the author's intended meaning, I regarded it when I heard it as an interesting and powerful testament to forgiveness.  Upon further study, however, I regard his comments as likely indicative of the author's intended meaning as well.  Indeed, the stoning of Stephen in Acts bears striking resemblance to the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, both the telling of a single author (Luke).  Just as Jesus forgave his enemies with "Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing (Lk 23:34)," so Stephen said, "Do not hold this sin against them."  Likewise, each man, first Jesus and then Stephen, prays that his spirit might be received.  Such comparisons of Acts with the gospel narratives of Matthew, Mark, and John are not available; it is only in Luke that the crucifixion of Jesus includes the words of explicit forgiveness and the personal plea for rest.  Jesus' first and last word from the cross in Matthew and Mark is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", whereas in John his last word is "It is finished (Mk 15:34//Mt 27:46; Jn 19:30)."  If the reader should thus view the account of Stephen's stoning and the crucifixion of Jesus in Luke together, the point at which the respective narratives diverge then becomes significant in terms of meaning.  What was Luke trying to say about the deaths of Jesus and Stephen?

For Luke, Jesus as Israel's Messiah sets the standard for the church which lives by his Spirit.  The spirit of Jesus' suffering is paradigmatic for his followers.  It is interesting to note, then, that the order of Jesus' twofold plea of forgiveness and rest is reversed in Stephen's twofold prayer of the same.  Whereas Jesus first pronounces forgiveness and then finds rest, Stephen first pronounces rest but only later finds forgiveness.  It is only in coming to forgiveness--as had Jesus before him--that Stephen finds rest.  It is only when Stephen forgives his enemies that his spirit returns to God.  It is only when Stephen's "order" of suffering truly follows that of Jesus that his spirit becomes one with his Lord.  Just as Jesus' progression from the pronouncement of forgiveness to the request for rest ended in his death, so Stephen's request for rest was finally granted in his pronouncement of forgiveness.  "When he had said this," that is, when Stephen had forgiven his enemies, "he died" (Luke 7:60).

Finally, a couple of caveats:

1. Though the above interpretation is an affirmation of the Christian necessity to forgive, also the very heart of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray, it should be taken as an affirmation of the graciousness of the forgiving spirit rather than as a condemnation of the spirit that cannot yet forgive.  It should be taken as a clear affirmation of the goal to which the Christian aspires rather than as a compulsion to forgive before the time is right.  In fact, the story of Stephen itself implies this process, albeit in a short space of time.  Stephen himself did not find the rest that comes with forgiveness without a struggle.  If Jesus' graciousness in suffering is paradigmatic for the believer, Stephen's is perhaps more representative.  Victims of violence should expect, and be afforded time by others, to go through a process toward ultimate rest.

2.  Jesus' suffering is a model for Christians at the point of showing love for (forgiving) others, not for suffering's sake alone.  The stories of the crucifixion of Jesus and the stoning of Stephen have to do with suffering in order to redeem others ("do not hold this sin against them").

-Joe

praying forgiveness

Within the span of a week I've had two opportunities to share some insights on the Lord's Prayer (Mt 6:9-13). Here's what I've found:

The prayer defines its addressee in the first line, "Our Father, the one who is in the heavens".  While it may seem obvious to some Christians that we would address God in prayer, the fact that Jesus specifies only God as the recipient of our prayers cuts against the grain of some traditions in which other spiritual authorities are also invoked.  Within the Lord's Prayer there is no mention of the saints or ancestors of human religion/culture.

The prayer features seven verbs.  The first three verbs are pleas for the Father to do something for the Father's own sake.  These accompany nouns with possessive pronouns in the second person singular.  I call this "a pattern of possession or belonging to the second person" who is, in this case, God.    The three verb-noun combinations then are:

May it be kept holy/sanctified--your name
May it come--your kingdom
May it be done--your will

All are pleas pertaining to God.  Disciples pray, as Jesus taught us, for God to guard/protect/keep God's own prerogatives as the creator of the world.  While human beings can participate in the glorifying of God's name, the coming of God's kingdom, and the doing of God's will, all are ultimately the work of the Father himself.  Only the Father can protect his name, kingdom, and will from the humans who inevitably fail to honor God.  Our shortcomings simply expose the need to pray to the Creator, and reveal why we should begin in prayer with pleas that pertain to God for God's sake.  It is upon God's heavenly name, kingdom, and will that the same might be established on earth, and so we address the only One who can bring about these realities.  We plea to God not to give up on the establishment of God's name, kingdom, and will upon the earth in the face of our sin.

After we have put first things first, the things upon which everything else is founded, then we begin to pray to God about the things that belong uniquely to us as frail human beings.  Here come the next four verb-noun combinations.

Give us today--our daily bread
Forgive us--our debts
Do not bring--us into temptation
Deliver--us from the evil one

If in the "pattern of possession or belonging to the second person", that is, "to God", the pronoun was "your", the final four verbs pertain to "our" or "us".  In other words, the second set of verb-noun combinations forms a "pattern of possession or belonging to the first person plural", "to us".  After we have asked God to do some things for God's own sake, upon which our own survival also depends, now we begin to plea for God to do some things for us.  Give us daily bread.  Forgive us our debts.  Do not bring us into temptation.  Deliver us from the evil one.  All four pleas refer to situations unique to the human condition.  We are the ones in need of bread--not God.  We are the ones who have debts (or sins or trespasses)--God has none.  We are tempted--God is not.  We must be delivered--Satan poses no threat to God.  All of these predicaments are truly ours.  And thus, as before, we speak to the only One who can help us.

Now, regardless of whether the pattern is "your" (to God) or "our" (to us), each verb is a plea for God to do something.  God is the subject of doing, whether it be for God's own sake or for ours.  That is the case--with one exception.  Only one verb of the seven appears twice--to "forgive."  If we have prayed for God to forgive us our sins, we must also pray that "we forgive those who sin against us".  If we have prayed for God to forgive our debts, we also pray that "we forgive our debtors".  The two, in fact, are dependent one upon the other.  It is in the act of forgiveness alone that our agency and God's overlap.  God forgives us as we forgive one another.  We express our "godliness", our "god-likeness", through forgiveness.  We "are perfect as our heavenly father is perfect" (Mt 5:48) in no other way but as we extend love without condition to our fellow human beings.  We "complete" the love of an already "complete" God as "we love one another" (1 Jn 4:12).

If therefore we do, as Jesus commanded, "pray then in this way", forgiveness will be the spirituality of our lives; reconciliation its fruit; and peace the kingdom come--"on earth as it is in heaven".

-Joe

“Let his blood be on us”: Violence and the Passion of Christ

Though it was Palm Sunday, I went to church yesterday prepared to preach on the passion. This was so because it has been my observation over time that our small, Pentecostal church does not necessarily utilize the passion-Easter narrative on Easter, let alone any other stories specific to the times of the church year. And, because we would not be with them for Easter, I wanted to ensure that the people would hear something from the passion this Holy Week.

It happened that my re-reading of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ last week coincided with a grisly murder last week in the Mandela Park community in which our congregation is located. Just before the sermon, our pastor brought the event up for prayer, as “the church in the community is compelled to pray for the community.” This, then, is what happened: the widow of a pastor had been murdered by disgruntled congregants. The church of the deceased had been in his home, and the widow no longer wanted the church around in the same place where she lived and raised her children. According to our pastor, the widow also disagreed with the orientation of the church, whose pastor practiced healing through “holy water” rather than “through Jesus.” All that aside, the murder had taken place in front of the children, now orphans. “Imagine how traumatized they must be”, our pastor said.

Matthew’s narrative, it turns out, also includes a reference to children within a story of violence. In calling for the death of Jesus, “the crowd” before Pilate says, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Mt 27:25). The verse ranks among the most controversial in the New Testament; within the history of Christian biblical interpretation, it has served as a justification for the total depravity of the Jewish people and a legitimation of violence against them. Regardless of how Christians have interpreted it, in Matthew’s story it seems to be simply the final flank in a united effort to eliminate Jesus. That is, rather than a simple condemnation of Jews, Matthew’s report serves to demonstrate that the “crowd” simply completed what both its “chief priests and elders” and the Gentile rulers (Pilate himself) had already begun—the condemnation of Jesus, “the King of the Jews” (Mt 27:11, 37). Matthew’s point, I dare to say, is not the condemnation of one people for the condemnation of Jesus, but that the whole of the human society to which he came found Jesus threatening to its way of life. The story, to pick up Girardian language, exposes the violence of human society more than the violence of a particular people (see Rene Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986.))

That “the crowd” should be seen as no more or less guilty for the death of Jesus than either its Jewish leaders or the Gentile rulers of first-century Palestine is justifiable from the evidence of the text. For example, it is sometimes assumed that Matthew is sympathetic to Pilate, that Pilate was forced against his will by the crowd to condemn Jesus. In Matthew’s narrative, however, Pilate is explicitly compared to “the chief priests and elders”—the Jewish leaders—in his role in the death of Jesus. For earlier, after “Judas the betrayer” has “repented” by bringing back “the thirty pieces of silver” which he took for handing Jesus over, the “chief priests and elders” say to him, “What is that to us? See to it yourself” (Mt 27:4). The same phrase, curiously, is used of Pilate as he prods the crowd to explain its choice to condemn Jesus instead of Barabbas. Pilate, that is, says, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves” (Mt 27:24). “See to it yourself(-selves)” unites Pilate and the chief priests and elders in a most devious injustice: transferring responsibility or guilt for the death of, in the admittance of Pilate’s own wife, an “innocent” man, Jesus, even as they themselves send him to his death. Indeed, though they both absolve themselves of responsibility, first “the chief priests and elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death” and “bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor”, then Pilate, “after flogging Jesus . . . handed him over to be crucified” (Mt 27:1-2, 26).

Moreover, continuing a prominent theme in his gospel as a whole, Matthew records both the chief priests and elders and Pilate engaging in religious rituals/formalism as a replacement for the simple doing of justice, as though each could maintain each’s righteousness before the divine by fulfilling religious law. The irony is indeed bitter: the chief priests and elders are concerned only that “it is not lawful” that the “blood money” that Judas has returned not go “into the treasury” of the temple—not that they have transgressed the righteousness of God by putting to death the righteous/lawful one; Pilate brings out a basin of water before the crowd in order to “wash his hands” of “this man’s blood” even as he spills it (Mt 27:6, 24). 

If therefore, on the evidence of the narrative, we should see Pilate and the chief priest and elders as one in violence, so too might we see as one those others with whom they conspire against Jesus. In other words, it was “Judas” whom “the chief priests and elders” chided with “see to it yourself”, and “the crowd” whom Pilate goaded with the same. Consequently, Judas, consistently referred to as “one of the twelve”, one of Jesus’ inner circle/closest friends, is one with the generic “crowd” in the violence against Jesus—no more nor less responsible/guilty for the death of an innocent man (Mt 26:14, 47; cf. 26:20-25).

What this all adds up to, therefore, is a society, often divided against itself, strangely united in its quest to eliminate Jesus. In spite of their differences, real or perceived, that which makes all people the same—and guilty before God—is their violence, their hostility and their rebellion from the way of God. Unity in violence destroys, but the One who was destroyed—but raised beyond the violence committed against him—brings unity “in the bond of peace” to the divided ones through the blood of his forgiveness of their sins (Eph 4:3). Thus, at the Last Supper, in the very setting of betrayal, of handing over to a violent death, Jesus proclaims that the cup is “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26: 28). The blood which all people thought they were taking from Jesus so as to bring about his death was the blood that he was giving in love for their lives.

It is in that same context, also, that we should read the crowd’s response, “Let his blood be on us, and on our children” (Mt 27:25). Though the crowd meant one thing by the statement, reality was quite another. The blood shed in violence, craved by the crowd, “washed off” by Pilate, “bought” by the chief priests and elders, handed over by “one of the twelve”, is the blood—the life and the love—Jesus did not withhold from his enemies, though an army of “more than twelve legions of angels” was his to defend him from death (Mt 26:53).

“Let his blood be on us and on our children”—this is the summary statement, in the voice of “the crowd” because it constitutes the largest grouping of humanity, of the human violence shared from Judas to the chief priests to Pilate. The violence against Jesus rises from its particularity in Judas, the priests, and Pilate to its universality in “the crowd”; all have “conspired”, “taken counsel together against the LORD and his anointed” (Ps 2:1-2).

Therefore, because the violence belongs not to one but to all—because of its universality—the story belongs in 21st-century South Africa as much as first-century Palestine. Wherever violence crescendos out of control, there the passion of Jesus still “speaks a better word” (Heb 12:24). Just as the blood of Jesus was on the crowd and its children not for condemnation but for forgiveness of sins, so it can cover the violent ones in Mandela Park—and the children terrorized by their violence. But in order for that blood to speak a better, more powerful word than the blood of hostility, it will need the old, old story, and those willing to proclaim it.

-Joe

a better word

On the occasion of having to preach at a funeral for a man who was the victim of a stabbing, I found myself pondering again the first murder in the Bible, the story of the brothers Cain and Abel (Gen. 4).

That these were indeed “brothers” is not something the text will allow us to forget.

After birthing Cain, Eve “bore his brother Abel” (v. 2).

After having his offering disregarded by God, “Cain said to his brother Abel . . . (v. 8a).

“And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him” (v. 8b).

“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ (v. 9a)

“He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ (v. 9b)

“And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (vv. 10-11).

By emphasizing their familial connection, indeed their relationship of blood, the text heightens for the reader the horror of Cain’s murder of Abel. Perhaps a person might conceive of taking the life of a stranger; a brother does one scarcely conceive to kill.

Such a taking of life before God, the giver of life, is an offense of the first magnitude—an offense for which the blood that was shed “cries out to God from the ground” (v. 10).

What was the blood of Abel, the blood that Cain shed, saying?

From the surroundings of the story, it seems that the blood of Abel was crying, “Vengeance!” Indeed, it is vengeance that Cain fears when confronted for his offense. It is likewise vengeance—of a “sevenfold” variety—that God threatens for the punishment of any who would kill Cain in retribution for his brother—an ironic godly prohibition against vengeance and a provision for Cain. Moreover, it is again vengeance—this time of the “seventy-sevenfold” variety—which Lamech, Cain’s fifth-generation descendant, boasts, taking advantage of God’s mercy for Cain, will be his vindication for the murder of a “young man” (4:23-24). Shall we sin in order that grace may abound indeed! (see Rom 6:1)

Thus, as sure in the story as God’s grace for the offender is God’s justice for the victim; vengeance may be foregone for Cain, but the blood of Abel is in the mind and in the ears of God.

In the immediate context, the redemption God prepares for Abel comes in the form of Seth, another son for the bereaved mother Eve: “God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him” (v. 25).

In the broader biblical, canonical context, the redemption of Abel and Cain—indeed for every victim and offender throughout time—comes in the form of Christ, the one whose “blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb 12:24). For the blood of Jesus, like Abel’s, also had a voice crying to God—not vengeance but “Father, forgive them" (Lk 23:34).

-Joe

worse than the first

We have now completed six weeks of a discipleship class with our church, Harvest Time Ministries in Mandela Park, Mthatha. Last week, we studied Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus’ parable of “a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves” (v. 23). As with the twin illustrations which we studied several weeks ago (Mt. 13:44-46), the parable of the king and his slaves is an illustration of what “the kingdom of heaven is like” (v. 23). And like the parable of the Good Samaritan which we also studied in recent weeks, so Jesus told the parable of the king and his slaves in response to a question; in the former, a lawyer, wishing “to justify himself”, had asked, “Who is my neighbor?” (Lk. 10:29); in the latter, Peter, one of the twelve, seeks to place limits on forgiveness: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” (v. 21). As the lawyer sought to limit the scope of love for neighbor—“to love those only who love you” (Mt. 5:46)—Peter here seemingly seeks a limit for the number of times a person may be forgiven. That this is Peter’s intention seems obvious from Jesus’ answer: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven”—a number so large, however one interprets it, so as to make forgiveness a perpetual state of mind throughout a person’s life, while rendering Peter’s “seven” paltry in comparison.

The story Jesus tells, then, to illustrate the forgiving spirit, or mercy (v. 33), hinges on the comparison between the action of the king who had a “will” to “settle accounts with his slaves” and one of his slaves who did not have a “will” (translated, NRSV, “But he refused”) to forgive his fellow slave (v. 30). Whereas the king forgave the debt of “the one who owed him ten thousand talents”, that very debtor will not forgive the debt of one who “owed him a hundred denarii”; forgiven much, he does not forgive, in reverse of the woman who showed Jesus hospitality in the home of Simon the Pharisee (Lk. 7:36-50). That the one forgiven much will not forgive is all the more scandalous in light of the identical pleas of both debtors in the story. The first debtor, the very slave forgiven who does not forgive, “falls on his knees before [the king]”, pleads for his lord’s “patience”, and promises to “pay” the debt. This very one forgiven, however, does not recognize himself in another, his fellow slave who owes him “five hundred denarii”. Indeed, though the forgiven’s debtor, like the forgiven, “falls down”, pleads for “patience” and promises to “pay”, he is not met with a “will” to forgive. The first debtor does not have the “compassion” (“pity”, NRSV) of his king (v. 27).

We, the readers/hearers of this story are rightly scandalized, for the king’s mercy has prepared us to expect a merciful response from the first debtor when he hears his own plea from one of his fellow slaves. Twice someone has “fallen down”, begged for “patience”, and pledged to “pay”; only once has someone received compassion. Something is wrong with this picture.

The other slaves in the story, the fellow slaves of both the first and second debtors, are, like us, unable to withhold their protest. When they see mercy not extended, they report to the king (v. 31). The king—perhaps like us, perhaps not—is unable to withhold action of his own. He summons the first slave, reminds him of the forgiveness that was his, and outlines what the debtor should have done in his own capacity as a lord (vv. 32-33). Yet until that one once forgiven much will live by the mercy he received, he will be “handed over” and “tortured”—“until he would pay his entire debt” (v. 34). Even here there is mercy. Not even now, as the first debtor did to his debtor, does the king “grab” the slave and “choke” him while demanding payment. The king even leaves open the possibility that the debt might somehow be paid and the unmerciful slave released from prison. But until that time—which also may never come—the slave must live with the prison he has built for himself. Once a debtor of “ten thousand talents”, the first slave, on account of his plea, “was released” and “forgiven”; his freedom was unconditional, on the basis of the king’s mercy, compassion in the face of human need—not on the basis of the debtor having to pay the original debt. Having been given the world, having moved from bad to good, the slave need now but walk in the mercy of his lord toward others—that is the only “payment” now required of him. If, however, he “refuses so great a salvation”, his latter condition will be worse than his first (Heb. 2:3; Mt. 12:43-45). Rejecting the life of mercy, he will have gone from bad through good to worse.

So it will be for us “if we do not forgive our brothers and sisters from our hearts” (v. 35).

-Joe

the curse of ignorance

While promoting Bethany Bible School last week, the vice-chairperson offered the following interpretation of Luke 23:34, one of Jesus' oft-quoted words from the cross, "Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

"The first sin that Jesus cursed from the cross was the sin of not knowing," he said.

His point? Not knowing, or ignorance, is an offense to God, a sin which carries a curse for those guilty of it. The reverse is equally true: knowledge of God is God's will for his creatures, a relationship which carries a blessing for those who remain within it.

The interpretation was novel to me for its shifting the accent of Jesus' words to the sin rather than that which overcomes the sin, the declaration of forgiveness. In my understanding, the accent of Jesus' words fell always upon the forgiveness, on his letting us off the hook, as though our not-knowing was sufficient grounds for our innocence before God.

Perhaps, then, the vice-chairperson's interpretation has exposed the extent to which the "cheap grace" narrative has infected my interpretation of well-known texts. Indeed, in his interpretation, Jesus' words are not so much a declaration as they are a lament, a plea for knowledge for those who have none. In Pauline terms, they are not words "declaring" one just/righteous in spite of one's sin; they are words "making" just/righteous from sin. Jesus does indeed give us love while we are sinners, powerless, ignorant (Rom. 5:6-8); yet he leaves it to us to integrate his gift into our lives.

Our ignorance, therefore, is not a source of blessing, the cause by which God decides to save us. Rather, our not-knowing is the cause of Jesus' reminder to our Father that all is not right with the creation--yet could again be if only we "knew the things that make for peace" (Lk. 19:42).

-Joe

"peace be with you"

In the course of preaching the story of the risen Jesus' appearance to his disciples from John 20:19-31, I found what was for me a new interpretation.

The text begins with the disciples' fear. They have locked themselves inside the house "for fear of the Jews."

Suddenly, however, Jesus--not one of the Jewish authorities whom they fear--comes and stands among them. At this same point in Luke's gospel, we read that it was indeed the sight of Jesus that caused them to fear, thinking that they were seeing a ghost (Lk 24:37). John, however, while not including this editorial note, implies the same with the use of Jesus' greeting to the disciples, "Peace be with you."

Until he comes, the disciples are at enmity with their teacher. One, now dead, had betrayed him. Another, Peter, had denied him--three times. All had deserted him.

Now he comes to them, a ghost perhaps, bent on vengeance.

"Peace be with you," he says.

They thought they were seeing a ghost; they touched a flesh and blood human being (Lk 24:39).

They were expecting an enemy; they received a friend.

They feared wrath; they got peace.

As if the words of Jesus were too good to be true, he proceeds to show them his hands and his side, the marks of his crucifixion--and the bitter reminder of their having abandoned him to his enemies. If this is not cause for fear for the disciples--and in truth now they "rejoiced when they saw the Lord"--might it be a rallying cry to vengeance against the enemies of Israel?

Yet again they hear, a second time, "Peace be with you."

Having received his "peace" in his word, they now receive his Spirit through his breath, by which the disciples in turn become agents of peace to all the world: "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Having been forgiven much, they forgive. Their sin having been canceled, will they hold on to the sins of others?

"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" the gospel of peace.

-Joe