“Doomed for all Time” A World with No Forgiveness?

This blog is in response to an interesting post by Paul Louis Metzger entitled Imagine A World Without Forgiveness where he discusses Amida Buddhist teachings and the meaning of John Lennon’s song “Imagine” with a Buddhist scholar in Japan.
 

It is a terrible thing to offend another and very hard to fix the damage wreaked from the outside. Proverbs 18:19 poetically describes the offended as almost impervious to reconciliation from the outside.

A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, 

 and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.

The reconciliation with an offended brother does not come by force from the outside, but from a heart change on the inside. My son is in a place to care for wounded soldiers, which I told him sounded like a great place for him to show compassion and kindness towards them. I was reading yesterday in Proverbs 25 about how we should treat our enemies,

If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat,
    and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,
for you will heap burning coals on his head,
    and the Lord will reward you. (25:21-22)

One commentary (EBC) on this passage says, “People who treat their enemies with kindness will bring remorse to them and blessing from God... The imagery of the "burning coals" represents pangs of conscience, more readily affected by kindness than by violence. These burning coals produce the sharp pain of contrition through regret.” By blessing those who don't deserve it, the thatched roof of their prejudiced world-view starts to burn away opening them to the light of God's love. 

Romans 12:20 quotes this verse and in v. 21 the Apostle Paul adds the admonition, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This is a really hard thing for people to do when they are being mistreated! Our kindness towards the offender is not a guarantee that they will change, but rather a witness that we have changed as a result of the presence of Christ in our hearts. Such a counter-intuitive testimony can start the coals of reconciliation glowing, fanned by the breath of God, on the inside of the offender’s heart.

Have we come to that place of honesty where we cry out for forgiveness as David did in Psalm 25:11 & 18?

For your name's sake, O Lord,
    pardon my guilt, for it is great…
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
    bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
    and forgive all my sins.

The key for me in forgiving others is my realizing within my heart how much I am in need of the forgiveness of God—how dependent I am on the gift of God’s grace—that awareness demands that I show mercy to others. I am personally quick to ask for forgiveness from God and people I have offended and thus I must be equally quick to forgive. Jesus makes forgiving others a justice issue in the Lord’s Prayer,

"…forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors…
For if you forgive others their trespasses,

your heavenly Father will also forgive you,

but if you do not forgive others their trespasses,

neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:12, 14-15)

Metzger rightly rejects the laws of karma as described in his article,

The law of karma states that every action performed in life creates another reaction which in turn produces a new counter action. Thus an endless chain of actions and reactions is produced which binds the living entity to his good and bad deeds. This is the way how karma works. It creates an action and another reaction simultaneously and this increases the chain of material activities, keeping the performer in material bondage.

So are we "doomed for all time"? The Bible teaches that we are not trapped in such a cycle of action and reaction where we are forever tied to our offenses. The good news is that we are not “doomed for all time” to wear “a chain forged by our misdeeds”—no matter what Marley & Marley appear to say—if we receive the help God has offered in the atonement. Even Marley comes to the point...at .48 they sing,

"As freedom comes from giving love
So, prison comes with hate"

God has given us his love—in Jesus Christ—to escape the chains of our own making and those that come from hating the misdeeds of others. He provides a way of escape!

In the Old Testament, there were easily accessible cities of refuge (see Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19) on both “banks” of the Jordan River where offenders could run and seek a fair judgment instead of getting caught up in a cycle of vengeance. In the New Testament we see that we (and those who have offended us) can find refuge in the sacrificial death of Christ (Heb. 6:18). It is in such a refuge where we can not only be free, but set others at liberty as well. Coincidentally, Glenn Burris, the president of our denomination, posted the following testimony of freedom in forgiveness yesterday on his Facebook page.

Eric Lomax was a British officer in WWII. He was captured and severely tortured at a POW camp in Burma. Forced to build a railroad and subjected to intense daily humiliation, he became deeply scarred by the experience. Even after being rescued, he suffered for decades with nightmares and roller coaster emotions. One of his friends discovered that his primary torturer (Takashi Nagasi) was still alive, handed him a knife, suggested he go kill him and end his suffering.  made the decision to go and confront his nemesis. Once there, he had a change of heart. His torturer profusely apologized and asked for forgiveness. It was a life changing event for both of them. They became good friends and the story is retold in the book and recently released movie "The Railway Man". Forgiveness sets a prisoner free, and you discover that the prisoner was you. Matthew 6:14He made the decision to go and confront his nemesis. Once there, he had a change of heart. His torturer profusely apologized and asked for forgiveness. It was a life changing event for both of them. They became good friends and the story is retold in the book and recently released movie, "The Railway Man". Forgiveness sets a prisoner free, and you discover that the prisoner was you.

The story of Eric Lomax ends with the words "Sometime the hating has to stop." So who has offended me? Who has offended you? It is time for us to stop bringing up the past and forgive them, not because they deserve it (they probably don’t) but because Jesus took their punishment on himself (whether they realize it and appropriate it or not) and because we have been forgiven so much it would be wrong not to offer them a share (see Matthew 18:15-35; Ephesians 4:31-32).

I fully agree with Dr. Metzger when he writes,

Only as we receive God’s forgiveness for our sins for which we can in no way atone can we break out of the perpetual cycle of hostility and extend forgiveness to others. Only by a life of faith in God’s sacrificial love can we live in a way that produces actions of love rather than those of indifference and hate. Only then is reconciliation truly possible in our homes, churches, and towns. It is not something we can produce on our own.

I will finish this post by including a poem I wrote over 30 years ago about our common need for forgiveness and our pervasive efforts to hide that fact by blaming others.

The Strangely Elastic Rug

Days oozing by.

Grains of sand

Standing, now falling.

A finite future,

Through a brief

Crowded, bruising,

Now;

Into Increasing

Past.

We strain

Struggle,

To squeeze through

Present;

That infinitely narrow isthmus,

Connecting

What-might-be,

With

What-has-been.

In the crush,

Today,

We scatter each other's

What-might-be(s)

—as they inhibit ours—

On to the floor, of

What-might-have-been;

Broken dishes.

Bringing into our collective

Past;

Things, more often than not,

Twisted, misshapen, perverted

To second best,

Or,

Never best,

By our struggle, greed,

Panic at passing through.

Today,

We lose much of

Our best

Future,

Which might have become

Our noblest

Past.

We push, pull through

Now, our desires, plans, dreams.

Whatever seems best

At the time.

An instant later,

We see;

What-might-have-beens

All around.

In shame, we sweep them under

The strangely elastic rug.

We reach out to others,

Help them quickly,

To do the same.

Briskly sweeping

What-might-have-beens,

No,

What-should-have-beens,

Under the strangely elastic rug—

Rationalizations, explanations,

Other excuses.

This,

After all

Todays-becoming-Yesterdays

Since that first

Should-have-been;

Building a great hill

Under the strangely elastic rug,

Now stretched taught.

All mankind,

But one,

Sculpting the hill,

Stand on the edge,

Of the rug,

Lest, horror,

Our should-have-beens

Might be exposed.

All stood around

The Hill,

But One,

Hung

Upon the Hill.

The One,

Who birthed

No What-should-have-beens,

Who died,

Now lives.

The Rug,

Now, torn asunder.

 

                             © 1984 Greg K. Dueker

Hear A Just Cause!

This week my Cultural Engagement post can be found on my Honest2God blog!

We are all for peace for people like us...but what about for people from different countries and different religions? 

Out of David’s covenant-based confidence there is yet a very human urging, even a deeply pleading tone for the Lord to confront the enemy. Today, as we are once again made aware of man’s capability to objectify, abuse, and destroy the innocent and the weak, we cry out to the Lord with Davidic fervency for the deliverance of hurting people—be they religious minority Christians, Yazidis, Sunnis, or Kurds in Northern Iraq. In other areas of the world it may be other minorities that are being tracked down, surrounded, and slaughtered by power-hungry men.

 

Do we cry out with the psalmist, “Arise, O Lord! Confront him, subdue him!” 

Read the whole post here: Psalm 17 Hear a just cause!

 

 

 

"Bump, Set, Spike!" Serving Up a New Metaphor

This blog is written as an assigned response to Paul Louis Metzger’s post, The Rabbit Hole Revisited.

"Bump, Set, Spike, Block, Dig, Pass, Side out!" 

What does a game like volleyball have to do with revisiting “rabbit holes” and working towards racial unity? Perhaps not much but perhaps more than one might think. I will do my best to build this metaphor—a volleyball team—while tying it to what Dr. Metzger has written.

Let's begin by looking at the distorting influence of the “rabbit hole” as Metzger writes,

“Some friends of mine and I have spoken of the rabbit hole of race relations. I have often experienced vertigo when trying to address power dynamics involving “majority” and “minority” cultures, for lack of better terminology. So often, I don’t realize my privileged status as a white man in the United States and the American church and what that so often entails for minorities.”

While I understand the power dynamics Metzger writes about, up till now I have had my issues with this metaphor. I am pleased to report that I have finally seen how this metaphor relates to race relations. In fact, there is something called Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS),

AIWS...is a disorienting neurological condition that affects human perception. Sufferers may experience micropsia [seeing objects smaller than they really are], macropsia [seeing objects larger than they really are], or size distortion of other sensory modalities. A temporary condition, it is often associated with migraines, brain tumors, and the use of psychoactive drugs.

This condition that affects human perception might very easily be describing racial perceptions. Do we see other races as less than they really are and our own as greater than it really is? Sometimes ethnicities that have been oppressed or ignored by dominant cultures come to see themselves as less than the people that God created them to be. In volleyball, as in racial reconciliation, it would be very hard to be effective while suffering from AIWS!

Volleyball is very much a team game and at the rec level (6 v. 6) one that involves continuous rotation of positions. One person cannot specialize (e.g., outside hitter, setter) but must play every position in turn. A team with more than one weak spot is liable to lose. However, I have noticed that in our group you are not judged by where you are from. What matters is how well you play as part of a team. Some combinations work better than others. Sometimes, after watching a couple of missed touches, some more advanced/aggressive players may tend to overplay the positions of less confident players because they expect them to not make the play. Usually, this frustrates the newer player and results in a badly hit ball.

These same players with less developed skills and a lower confidence level tend to blossom when playing next to someone who respects them, encourages them, and doesn’t try to play their position. They show more effort and confidence when the team’s confidence is placed in them and may quickly begin to play up to the level expected by the team. People know the difference between when they are being patronized and when they are invited to fully participate as teammates.

In addition to a few run-of-the-mill dominant-culture white Americans, our volleyball group is made up mostly of foreign nationals and first-generation immigrants. In the last year, our small group has included regulars, semi-regulars, and visitors from at least 15 different ethnic and national backgrounds— Taiwanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Salvadoran, Mexican, Greek, Turkish, German, Japanese, Korean, Tongan, Hawaiian, Swiss, Guatemalan, Indian, and Laotian.

I try to use my "white privilege" to argue line calls, but it rarely works. We did not start out to be an intentionally multi-ethnic group, but over the last couple of years a number of our founding members moved away to plant churches and pursue mission opportunities, then as college students left for school the need for players increased. Through word-of-mouth and personal invitations, our group became wonderfully diverse. For some reason, they allow this slice of aging Wonder Bread to continue playing with them… I am glad. Our identity as a group is that we play volleyball as a group of equals, and as a young German engineer said after our game tonight, “I have come to really like this group!”

As a text I have been reading puts it,

“Multiracial congregations can serve as gathering spaces where whites and persons of color begin to see and relate to each other as human beings…

To this end, a multiracial congregation with egalitarian relationships between the races offers the best opportunity to learn about other cultures.”[1]

While I don’t sense a lot of racial tension in my increasingly integrated area, I recognize the counter-intuitive direction God’s plan takes—life through death, honor through humility, cleansing through confession, strength through weakness, and up through down, just to name a few. If that is what Metzger means by “going down that rabbit hole” then I am following. When I play volleyball I find I need to spend considerable time on my knees or face-down on the floor for the sake of keeping the ball up and the volley going. I'm usually pretty sore the next day. It's not so different from real life after all.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. (Romans 12:3-5)

---

[1] DeYoung, Curtiss Paul; Emerson, Michael O.; Yancey, George; Kim, Karen Chai (2003-04-22). United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation As an Answer to the Problem of Race (p. 129, 133). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

 

Have the Lines Fallen in Pleasant Places?

This week my Cultural Engagement post can be found on my Honest2God blog!

We are all for racial reconciliation on an individual level...but what about collectively?

What does Joshua and Philippians 4:13 have to do with it? Read the whole post here
Psalm 16:4-8 "Pleasant Places"