The Hunger

Gimme some money! It’s a mantra that many live by. It drives personal lives. Economies. It can control everything we and those around us do.

For some, it brings a sense of accomplishment and wealth beyond imagination, accompanied by feelings of comfort and security. However, this driving force brings insecurity for others and mounting worry.

It’s pretty clear that worry is on the rise around and in us. The recent recession brought increased unemployment, growing poverty and blew open an already astounding gap between the rich and poor in this nation.

Wages have been frozen, raises are smaller and income is being outpaced by inflation though all indicators show inflation has been controlled.
The result is even those who have been able to keep their homes and pay the bills are stressed. What if their job is the next to go? What if their car breaks down? What if the A/C goes out? What if I have a serious illness and lose my health insurance?

All of these concerns are worry driven by money.
Still, there are other forms of worry driven by money. We want to acquire. We are called consumers and we want to consume. In fact, all the economic indicators tell us the market grows when our consumption grows. So, we are being told our consumption helps our country.

And if we stop to think about things, the main indicators used to judge economic health are focused on consumption. New car sales. It’s all about how many are sold. It’s not an indicator of if the purchases were needed. New home sales. If you listen to the reports, they indicate one of the problems right now is people are no longer upgrading into the larger houses they were when so many risky mortgages were available and made deals look too good to be true. And retail sales. Indicators show how much we are buying. Again, no mention of what purchases are needed.

It is all crafted in a way that creates worry whether your are poor, middle class, or wealthy. If you do not have what you need, you worry about how you’ll get it. If you have what you need, you worry how you’ll get what you want. And whether you aren’t getting what you need or not getting what you want it consumes everything you do.

Contentment, long ago, became a lost art.

And it is in this void that Jesus steps. We have been focusing this last few weeks on Jesus' instructions to his disciples to not worry. And when you bring money into this discussion, you have placed this passage right in the midst of its context. Let’s take a look at the verses proceeding this thought in Luke 6 starting in verse 19.

Read Matthew 6:19-24.

In the first century, storing up treasures was typically done in one’s home. Consider how homes were made. They didn’t have the fired brick and cinder block like we have today. Many homes were made of clay or something like it. If a thief wanted to break into a house, he didn’t pick a lock to come in a door or a window. He would dig a hole in the wall. He would climb through that hole, take your valuables and leave.

Many times, people would go and bury their most valuable belongings in a field or hide them in a cave to protect them from thieves. It was an ancient safe deposit box if you will. However, it was in this safe deposit box that bugs might get to your valuables rendering them worthless. And not only moths. You might see what is traditionally translated rust. You see there is another word in Greek that is clearly rust. This word here is more likely some kind of small worm or insect.

So here Jesus is telling his hearers that storing up treasure on earth is foolish. It is fleeting and will not last. So our heart, or our entire will, should not be placed in money or possessions but in Heaven.

So Jesus then moves on to his analogy of the eye. This, again, in its context, was vital imagery. The healthy eye in Judaism signified a generous giving spirit, one given to justice. The healthy eye shined light on the world around it by growing community in which all were provided for. The unhealthy eye, however, was greedy, stingy, self-centered. It was likely to build new storehouses for extra grain for itself and store treasures on earth.

And then we have the teaching about two masters. You love one and hate the other. This language is not as dualistic as it appears. This was common language challenging the hearer to choose what would have the ultimate seat of decision making in life. In this case, would we idolize money and make decisions based on how we could get more of it or would we worship the Creator and make or decisions based on God’s will for the world.

So we are left with the instruction, “Do Not Worry!” And this can speak to us no matter our situation. If you have what you need, are you obsessed with tomorrow? Are you saving, saving, saving trying to secure a future the recent financial collapse suggested is untenable at best.
Are you buying, buying, buying, so your neighbor will see you as successful and a leader? Or are you hungering and thirsting for justice and giving of what you have.

If you do not have enough, are you considering cutting corners? Are you considering dishonesty or theft or the drug trade? Are you considering looking for something for nothing? Rather than worrying, Jesus says trust in God. Trust your debts will be forgiven. And don’t seek to thrust your also poor neighbor into debt or in security in an attempt to lift yourself up.

Jesus, in teaching us not to worry, is teaching us to look out for one another. To look at each other as a community in which none of us is expendable. In which we sacrifice for one another until we all have what we need. If we are provided for today, we should take our eyes off tomorrow, and know there is enough trouble around us today that needs tending.

Worry tempts us to many self-destructive and corporately destructive acts. So we seek a new path. By refusing to worry about earthly treasures and instead focusing on treasures in Heaven, we can find peace and liberation. In reviewing the passages we’ve discussed, we can find three reasons not to store up heavenly treasures as explained by Mennonite theologian Richard Foster.

The first one is especially evident to us today. The world is a very uncertain place. In our recent economic collapse, how many lost chunks of or all of their life savings either to banks gambling with their money, Ponzi schemes exposed, or loss of work.

The second is a matter of focus. If we worry…if we store up treasures on earth, we will lose our focus on God and our neighbor. It is impossible to have your eyes on both God and money. The result of trying to do so is to end up with a false theology of what Foster calls “gluttonous prosperity” in which “incarnate in our theology are covetous goals under the guise of the promises of God.”

The third reason we should focus on heavenly treasures is God has already made provision for our lives. If we will just be about our vocation and focus on one another rather than ourselves we, like the birds of the air and lilies of the field, will be provided for. We will not need to store more than our daily share of manna.

So once we heed these words of Jesus…once we accept these reasons for turning our backs on worry and storing treasures in Heaven, what do we do?

The first step is to think about your patterns of consumption. What are we consuming that is an absolute need? What are we consuming simply because it is wanted? What are consuming that is not just enjoyed but brings an emotional response when consumed?

These emotional responses are often fed by advertising and hype and we get a weird sense of fulfillment when obtaining such things. You look at what you’ve just bought and think, “You complete me.” And it looks back at you as if to say, “You had me at cha-ching.”

This is a false sense of fulfillment that distracts us from God and one another and cheapens life.

The second step can add value back into our life: think about what and how you can consume less. You interest will become less focused on things and more focused on God and neighbor. You can rediscover an authentic life…abundant life…eternal life. And worry will slowly drift away.

Start slow. Think about small things you can give up. Soft drink at dinner. Ho Ho’s for a midnight snack… and grow from there. This is like any addiction whether it be alcohol, cigarettes, soft drinks or the like. Stopping cold turkey may be more than you can bear. But set small goals and build little by little. Slowly you’ll find consuming less and living in simplicity is quite possible, especially when focused on God.

The final step is where we store up treasures in heaven: give. Give to your neighbor in need. Understand that while you may not have any more trouble today, your neighbor has plenty.
Remember things like Imagine No Malaria. Ten dollars can save a life through prevention, education, communication, and treatment. Or give to the Crisis Fund or Food Pantry here at the church. These efforts are serving more and more people and reserves are low. These and other efforts both here at the church and beyond give us an opportunity to participate in the liberation of our neighbor.

If you think consuming less is hard and have trouble giving, put yourself in your neighbors shoes. How would you want people to respond if half the children in your community where killed by a preventable disease? Or if your water and electricity were about to be turned off? Or oyur children did not have three squares a day.

Of course these are steps to take as an individual. But what about our corporate lives. We can look at 1776. I don’t mean when our nation declared independence from Britain. I mean when Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. In this work, Smith suggested the goal of any economy is continuing growth. How we understand it today is our Gross Domestic Product should grow every year. It believed that unrestricted players in a market seeking their own good would end up working for the good of all people due the invisible hand of the marketplace. However, history has shown this invisible hand to be bereft of compassion and justice.

Foster, however, challenges this thinking. He asserts the only invisible hand we should embrace is God’s and when we do this the result will be turning away from self-interest and towards interest in justice and compassion for the poor and oppressed who suffer under the invisible hand of the marketplace.

So as a community…as a state…as a nation…as participants in the global marketplace we need to be involved.

Foster urges advocacy for a conserver economy rather than one of unrestricted growth. In the economy we have, there are growing numbers of poor and hungry, there are fewer opportunities for dignity, and we are destroying the planet on which we live. But this change would require a massive change in our collective American mindset. So how might it look?

Well, if you’re an Old School Republican, Tea Partier, or Libertarian, you may have a severe distrust of government taxation and government’s effectiveness to address problems such as poverty. Yet, if you are storing up treasures in Heaven, you may start to think less of your money as your own and as something to use for your own consumption. You would bring home more of your income, but it would pour out into your community and world so that everyone’s worries of today would be provided for.

If you’re Democrat, government intervention would take forms much stronger than simple assistance that meets some short term needs though leaves people in a state of dependence. It would address the structural injustice that creates poverty. It would take a hard look at wages and the fact that many hard working people remain in poverty and have little voice in the workplace. And it would take a hard look at the fact that this is not just a domestic issue but a global problem.

And while you hold a Jeffersonian view that the wealthiest should be taxed to benefit those in need, you would still give of what have after an increased sacrifice through taxes to be sure no worry of today remained untouched.

And if you're independent or part of some third party the focus will still be on justice and the well-being of all today rather than your well-being tomorrow.

Can you imagine how this world would change if when thoughts arose about buying a bigger, fancier house, people elected to give the money they would have paid on their higher mortgage to help someone obtain a modest house of their own? What if when someone is tempted to buy a new car they choose a less expensive model and give the difference in their car payment to help provide permanent, supportive housing to the homeless? What if someone decides to eat out less often and give their savings to Imagine No Malaria? As we consume less and join together, the world will change and salvation will be experienced as real.

So let’s go forth and not worry…not worry about what we will want to consume tomorrow…for there is a world of people being consumed today. And if we will serve the one true master, those suffering will be set free and we will all find eternal life.

Today we continue talking worry. That hair turning gray then falling out, blood pressure rising, skin wrinkling, head hurting, taking your heart out of chest and stomping on it a few times before placing it back and slumping in a chair in despair worry.

And today we talk about something that goes right to our soul. It gives us identity. It can drive whether we feel bad or good? Fitting in.

We want so badly to fit in. There is little that feels better than having people like you or something about you. It makes us feel valuable.

On the other hand, there is little that hurts worse than being treated like an outcast. To be rejected. It is the sort of thing that makes someone blame themselves and ask, “What’s wrong with me?” It is these feelings of usually mistaken guilt and loneliness that can drive people into a veritable pit.

I can say I know a little about this. For I, like many others, found the transition to middle school to be painful. I went through elementary school with a lot of friends. I was often a teacher’s favorite. Had the lead role in the fifth grade musical. Played quarterback on my pee wee football team.

All of these weren’t all that significant. Besides, I was quarterback. But guess what. My dad was coach. Do the math. So these things weren’t significant, except that, to a kid, they are. And come the next year in middle school, they all started to go away.

The elementary schools came together in middle school and I was suddenly far from the top of that totem pole. I tried to make new friends but it just wasn’t working. Even my friends from elementary school were starting to leave me behind. Some moved. Others decided I was dragging them down socially. I just wasn’t cutting it.

And me. I was just trying too hard. I had my required semester of music class in the fall of my sixth grade year. The choir director had wanted me to join choir. But I wasn’t going to do that. The other boys already laughed at me because I hit higher notes than they did. And I was a boy. In my mind, I was quickly becoming a man. I was tough. And tough didn’t dance and sing. So I left behind a place where I may have actually fit in.

And I kept trying. I quit being myself. I stopped wearing my Mervyn’s wardrobe which was your simple jeans and an OP T-shirt. Instead, I talked my mom into spending gobs of money at a trendy store in Vista Ridge Mall. I had the silk and rayon shirts. Fancy jeans and shoes. I was wearing what the cool kids were wearing. And it looked ridiculous.

I mean, I even had these jeans. They were crazy. They had belt loops with no space between them all the way around your waist. You had to spend like an hour the night before you wore them, just lacing your belt through the endless belt loops so you could get dressed quickly the next morning.

All that and I still wasn’t fitting in.
And then came eighth grade. Garth Brooks was shameless. Bill Ray Cyrus (for you kids, he’s Miley Cyrus’, aka Hannah Montana’s dad)…Billy Ray Cyrus had his achy, breaky heart. And the cool kids were going kicker. So, so was I. And I went big. I didn’t get ropers. I got snake skin boots. I had a different bolo tie for each day of the week. I even had a felt hat and a straw hat. I even had the championship wrestling style belt buckle. I mean it was like a satellite dish. It was imitation gold and silver with a bald eagle draped across an American flag. I don’t what the redneck term for bling it is, but my belt buckle was that.

Nonetheless, kicker me didn’t work either. I was still an outsider, except to one person: my friend Danny. I don’t remember how Danny and I became friends. I think it was from playing football together. But we hung out all the time. We played video games together. We walked The Colony together. We talked about his girlfriends together. We even worked out at his house together. Matter of fact, if you look closely enough, I think you can see some of the residual effects of those middle school workouts.

But all kidding aside, Danny was the one person who remained loyal to me. Despite my uncoolness and his ability to fit in…despite the multiple personalities I went through in a short time frame…he stood by me. And I’m pretty sure his standing by me cost him some friends.

I don’t know what it was, but for Danny, I had value. There were others I would hang out with but
I usually ended up being the butt of jokes. But not with Danny. The respect and value he showed me helped me find myself.

Otherwise, my attempts at fitting in would have become despair and who knows what my path may have been then.

I didn’t know it then and I don’t think Danny thought of it this way, but he showed me the Kingdom of God: a place were an awkward, discouraged outcast can find acceptance. But it was just a partial view. After all, there were those we still made fun of. These were kids I would laugh at trying to fit in with other kids. And I could get away with it for awhile and feel superior until the jokes turned on me and the other kids talked behind my back.

But while it was an incomplete vision of the Kingdom of God, in my experience it brought hope. It gave value to someone like myself who otherwise didn’t see any when he looked in the mirror. It kept me from turning on myself or others and making the hurt in my life even greater.

And really, this paints a picture as to why Jesus can look at hurting struggling people in the midst of his Sermon on the Mount and say “Do not worry!”
He’s not telling individuals to deny reality and pretend nothing’s wrong. He’s calling us to community. To understand this, let’s consider what’s going in the Sermon on the Mount. Here, Jesus is announcing a renewed covenant with the people in the Kingdom of God. Look at the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the peacemakers. Jesus is making the proclamation that the weak and vulnerable are delivered from all that oppresses them. The announcement is not that at some future date they will be delivered. He proclaims it so in the here and now. These were ancient announcements equivalent to modern day sayings like, “I now pronounce you man and wife, “ or “We find the defendant not guilty.” The very words created the reality.

Jesus makes these announcements about a renewed covenant of God with humanity and then gives numerous examples about how to be different. How to live in covenant. How to live in a way that, rather than tearing human relationships apart, unites them together.

And the deliverance announced here hadn’t come because the Romans were suddenly treating them as equals or the Pharisees were welcoming them, though Christ certainly challenged these institutions. It came as a call to learn to lean on and support one another instead of mimicking the forces of empire by building little Romes in their own oppressed villages.

Consider how this works. A few verses before our passage on not worrying Jesus tells the people not to parade their religiosity. Don’t announce when you give alms for the poor. Don’t pray in public and with great bombast or with many words like the Gentiles so you will be seen and heard. And keep your fasting between you and God.

What he’s telling us not to be like the Pharisees who celebrate how religious they are while participating in injustice and making sure people don’t fit in. The Pharisees cared about individual status and being accepted by the Romans. While they claimed God, their faith was in something much smaller: themselves and the power of the empire. They may have fit in where they were, but they turned their back, like all of humanity, on where they belonged: in the arms of the Creator made visible in our love for one another.

This is the call to the church. This is the call to offer acceptance and love to all. We live in a world that wants to divide us by economics, divide us by skin color, divide us by religion, divide us by nationality, and even divide us by political party.

And the church has to say no way. We have to stand up and be the ones who unite. To be the ones that blur the lines. Because what Jesus said to the oppressed and downtrodden is you are being excluded in this world. But if you join together, become less focused on your own suffering and seek to support those around you, you’ll find when we all lean on one another we will not fall. I won’t make us do this today but it’s like that exercise where a group stands real close front to back in a circle. Then, they all squat but nobody falls. Because they’re committed to supporting one another. This is how we’ll thrive.

Now the problem is the church has its problems. For example, the church will readily quote the Apostle Paul’s in Galatians, “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.” But our practice is much different.

You see we start drawing lines in the sand. These are based on doctrine. Cultural experience. Our values. These lines are often based on what we’re comfortable with and often lack a lot of critical thought. Because of this, church is often a place of conditional acceptance. It’s as if we’re saying something like, “We love you, now change.”

This happened in my life. My friend Danny wasn’t very religious. When I became so and had some close friends who were, I left Danny behind. Love was conditional.

Part of the difficulty is the church in America hasn’t understood for a long time what real persecution is. We feel our faith should be accompanied by some form of suffering like Jesus and his disciples so we’ve had a habit of creating culture wars to make us stick out. We boycott amusement parks for treating all people as equals. We protest chain stores for recognizing there are more than Christians in our neighborhoods during the holidays. We act special as though our faith is something we’ve earned.

We’ve forgotten that God loves us because God is love. We’ve forgotten God loves us despite who we continue to be. So we’ve become the judges. We become the persecutors in many ways. We’ve decided we’ll offer love to anyone but only if they’re willing to conform.

This needs to be a place of “Come as you are.” This needs to be a launching pad where we not wait for people to come through our doors but we go out and love people where they are. There are of people who don’t belong. At least where they are. But when we show up, and we’re full of love, suddenly they fit in. Suddenly they experience the kingdom of God where the weak and vulnerable, the awkward and ridiculed, the outsiders fit in.

And we know we may face difficulty wherever. At work. At school. At home. We may not fit in culturally where we are. Maybe we stand up because of our jargon or dress or customs. Maybe people just won’t accept us, but we belong in Christ. So there’s no need worry about where you’ll fit in tomorrow, but follow Christ today because we belong at his side. We belong together.

Because truthfully Christians are often concerned about fitting in with the world. We have visions of power, influence, and prosperity. We have visions of the world telling us we’re great. So we compromise our values. We compromise love. We compromise faith and place our trust in something other than God so we can fulfill these dreams.

And while we may fit in to that world tomorrow, there are too many that don’t fit in today. So that’s what we can worry about. We remember the greatest act is love. To the child bullied in school we offer love. To the person devalued at home, we offer love. To the person looked down on because of their jargon or lack of English we offer love. To the person whose lifestyle others around us despise, we offer love.

So identify the people around you who don’t fit. Who are likely alone. Then, get to know them. And love them, don’t judge them. Then, you will both find the Kingdom of God as your love frees them from their isolation and frees you from the presuppositions that keep you from the greatest life.

Because when we offer love, we will receive love. We will reside fully in the love of God and one another and experience the greatest life we can find.

So come on man. Come on woman. Come on boys and girls. We can be better than a great person. We can be a great people. We can gather in the wounded, the hated, the vulnerable and become one in God’s love. While the world seeks to divide, we can unite. So don’t worry about tomorrow. You fit in with us today.

If you have been paying attention to the news recently, it is clear division and hatred is on the rise, at least in the public sphere.

Reflect back several months, when the earthquakes struck Haiti. Pat Robertson declared this was God’s judgment on them for turning to their pagan religions decades ago to escape their oppression. He failed to acknowledge they turned to the gods of the land for deliverance from Christian colonists who had exploited them and their land for economic benefit.

We can reflect on the fight that is ongoing in Arizona regarding the law passed in that state requiring law enforcement to ask for the papers of anyone suspected on being an illegal immigrant.

We can consider the ongoing fight in California over Prop 8 and whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to marry.

We can reflect over the furor and embarrassment surrounding the Shirley Sherrod speech at the NAACP. The speech from which a blogger posted an out of context clip in which she seemingly shared about her prejudice towards a white farmer. One side called for her job. The other side granted their demands. It was only later we learned the truth. This portion of the speech was about her life 20 years ago and that she actually convinced herself of the need to help that farmer. And that the prejudice which she grew past had resulted from the death of her father at the hands of a white man who was acquitted by an all white jury while she was child.

We can reflect on the dispute regarding the Cordova Center in New York City as folks shout they do not want a Muslim community center near Ground Zero. And we can recall this is just the most high profile of several places in the States where people are protesting mosques or Muslim community centers built in their backyards.

Our country is rife with division. It’s full of feelings of superiority and arrogance. And it starts to trickle into our individual and communal lives. But what we do about it?

We begin by looking to Jesus. Specifically, we’ll look to Luke chapter 10. Jesus has just told his disciples they are blessed for what they have seen and heard. The Pharisees, frequently ruffled by Jesus’ presence step up to challenge him. One of them, known as an expert in the law, which included not just the religious sphere, but also encompassed the social and political sphere steps up to challenge Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now, let’s make sure we understand the question.

What this lawyer is asking, is how can I be included in the age to come? How can I experience the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, the covenant, that their people will be the light to the nations? But, let’s be clear, the Greek phrase here translated eternal life means something different than we have come to understand it to mean. It is not speaking of living forever. We have come to think of it that way because of a lack of understanding of this idiomatic phrase from Greek culture. Its literal translation appears to be eternal life so it has been associated with the resurrection. The idea of resurrection is real in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament. It’s just not the idea in view here. The application of this phrase in Greek literature was much different. It’s is actually about the fullest life that can be lived. The life we were all actually created to live in which there is shalom, umbuntu, peace: absolute harmony in the world. The life of the ages if you will.

Now, unfortunately, the Pharisees had come to see this idea through a self-righteous lens so that their version of the fulfillment of the promise was not of reconciliation with their fellow humans but of defeating those not like them so they alone could live that life. They failed to remember there is no life of the ages without the other.

This question has been asked and Jesus knows the lawyer is challenging his worth as a teacher, so he turns it around with another question. “You are an expert in the law. What do you read there?”

The lawyer answers quickly, “To love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus answers, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

This did not satisfy the lawyer, for he sought to qualify it and asks, “But who is my neighbor?”

And it is understood why he asks this. After all, as I mentioned before the Pharisees read the law through a self-righteous lens. His answer about love of God and neighbor comes straight from the law. It was, in fact, part of the Shema in Deuteronomy which Jews recited twice a day. This lawyer, however, needed a qualifier from Jesus because they had several built in qualifiers that made them appear superior to everyone else. Most everyone that wasn’t a Pharisee was unclean and not welcome to worship in the Temple. Whether it was illness or contact with Gentiles, or some other matter within their version of the law, they were inferior and obviously blighted by sin.

The Pharisees ignored their own political contact with the Roman empire and the deals brokered to give them power and wealth in Jerusalem and their own hoarding of this wealth while their fellow Jews suffered around them. They assumed Jesus had a qualifier because their social, religious, and political system had several built in boundaries and narrow definition of neighbor to only those like them.

So Jesus responds with a story. Actually, it seems a rather conventional story for there were many like it which were written to lampoon the elites for their lack of compassion.

A man, we are not told anything about him: race, status, anything like that, is traveling on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Maybe he’s getting supplies to bring home or maybe he’s gotten what he needs and is returning home. We don’t know.

But what those hearing the story know is this is a dangerous road. It was known for its marauders who would beat and rob travelers. The road itself lacked compassion as a 3,300 foot deep canyon with lots of places for these robbers to hide. It was necessary evil and as this man starts down the road you hear the music start to play…Duh, duh…duh, duh…duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.

And the man travels down the road with fear in his heart until he comes around a sharp corner when a group of these marauders jump out. And his fear becomes reality…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!

He knows he’s surrounded and he’s helpless. Maybe he starts to bargain. “Look, Man. I don’t want any trouble. Just take what you want and let me be.” But it’s no use. They come closer.

“I love you, Mommy!” he might have yelled in desperation.

And then it begins. A punch to the gut…Thud! And knee to the face…Crack! Everything in slow motion as he falls to the ground. And then a World Wrestling Entertainment beat down follows.

Repeated kicks to the head. Telegraphed elbow drops to the ribs. And he’s shocked as he wonders where in the world in the first century of all times they found the metal folding chair they are hitting him with.

After too long, it comes to an end. The robbers take all his belongings and flee the scene. He lies there thinking, “Hmmm…it seems I’m lying here half dead. And on this road I’m likely without hope.”

But as this conventional story goes, around the corner comes a priest… Dahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

This man will be saved. After all, a priest is required to help. But no. He passes by on the other side….Wah, wah, wah.

At this point, the crowd of villagers would likely respond, “Boooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! Of course! The priests don’t care about anyone about themselves and their power!”

But, as convention goes, another man appears, a Levite…dah, Dahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Surely he will help. But, no. He passes by on the other side, too. Wah, wah, wah.

Again the crowd, “BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just another elite interested only in his elite status and elite friends.

And here the crowd knows what to expect. They’ve heard these stories before. An everyday Israelite like themselves will come to the rescue. And the crowd will cheer. The hallelujah chorus will play. All will go home happy.

Except Jesus, here, defies convention. The man who appears from around the corner is a Samaritan. And the crowd goes crazy. You think they don’t like priests and levites? They surely hate Samaritans. For, they had history.

First, the Samaritans were seen as half-breeds. Their existence was the result of the Assyrian’s program of conquest which included bringing elite members of nations they conquered and marrying them to their own to strip the conquered elites of any ethnic identity.

Secondly, this people somehow maintained their religious identity and continued to worship the God of the Jews. So much so, that when the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem they offered to help rebuild the temple, an overture the Jews rejected due to the Samaritans perceived inferior status.

The Samaritans responded by building their own temple on another mountain and claiming God was with them there. This set in motion a legacy of religious and political tension between the two groups.

So you can imagine the crowds and the Pharisees response at the Samaritans appearance. “Booooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hisssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go back to Mount Gerizim where you belong you dirty, half-breed Samaritan!!!!!!!!!!!”

Only the story continues and the Samaritan comes to the man’s aid. He treats and bandages his wounds and takes him to an inn to recover. There, he gives the innkeeper enough money for two days stay while the man recovers and, as he leaves, pledges to the innkeeper he will pay him more if it is needed when he returns.

Then Jesus turns to what must have been a disappointed and quiet crowd and asks the lawyer the question, “Which of these was the man’s neighbor?”

The Pharisee responds but can’t even bring himself to say the word Samaritan. He replies, “The one who showed him mercy.”

To which Jesus responds, “Go and do likewise.”
You see, Jesus blew the lid off the law. He reinterprets it for what the covenant with Abraham was meant to be, an act of reconciliation between all humanity and God. About bringing us all to the life of the ages, which we read as eternal life. And in Jesus it is no longer the age to come for John the Baptist and Jesus announced the Kingdom of God is at hand.

This is why Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” This life of the ages is there for us to grab on to right now. We, if filled by the Spirit, can be actors in this present age where love is taking hold now until love wins once and for all.

So let’s rewrite Jesus’ story for today. A man, any man walks through a dangerous neighborhood. He is mugged and left half dead.

Along comes a senator but he crosses the street and continues on his way.

In our current climate, the crowd would shout, “Of course! Politicians only care about preserving themselves and their power.”

Along comes a Wall Street banker. He, too, crosses the street and hurries out of town. “Of course, the crowd says. “He only cares about his money.”

So now we’re expecting the normal, everyday American, or even American Christian, whatever your vision of that may be, to come around the corner. We await the hero.

Only who appears. A homeless man! He shares the change people have placed in his hat and the food he dug out of the dumpster to gather supplies to help the man until paramedics arrive.

This is the same man who can be cited for asking people for money while walking down the streets downtown or sleeping on the streets when the shelter is full because seeing homeless people is bad for business and home values.

Or an undocumented immigrant who probably dropped an anchor baby comes, as the propaganda goes, and provides aid using the money he has from his less than minimum wage job that day that could help feed his impoverished family down South.

Or a homosexual helps the man with a coat and phone call to get help and by calling his family to let them know which hospital he is going to.

This is the person we accuse of destroying the family and for bringing judgment on America.

Or…shudder…a Muslim is the hero. This Muslim who must want to bring Shariah law to America. Who is likely to be a terrorist, as the stereotype tells us.

Jesus is calling us to a radical form of social networking beyond like what you may find on Facebook, at happy hour, a weekend barbeque, or the chamber of commerce after hours. This is not networking for our own ego and benefit but social networking for the other and the world at large.

It is social networking that will lead us to step out from the world’s propaganda and the aforementioned stereotypes. Jesus is calling us all to show mercy to one another, for it is through this act, we express our love for God. It is through this act we break down the barriers the world constructs between us, whether those barriers are economic, religious, or social. It is through this act we find eternal life, the life of the ages, here and now.

So start breaking through the barriers by expanding your inner circle. We tend to drift toward those who look, think, and live like us. Think about those you come in contact with regularly. Perhaps its work, school, walks in the neighborhood. Maybe there are those whose appearance made you uneasy, whose thoughts you found off putting. In whose actions you found disdain. And seek to break down barriers by initiating a relationship. Something like this.

Then listen. If you haven’t done this before, you will see and learn things that make you uneasy, that shock you or challenge your worldview. Don’t just write people or their thoughts off because it doesn’t fit your life narrative. Seek to learn from them rather than reacting to them. And don't enter the relationship assuming you have something to teach. Rather, approach it assuming you have something to learn. Hear their story and you’ll start to understand so much better than by making pre-packaged assumptions. By doing so, you will find God in unexpected places.

Finally, as Jesus commands, love your neighbor as yourself. This radical love will come under scrunity. You may be accused of being unpatriotic, a heretic, or any number of propagandic terms seeking to dehumanize you at home, in the workplace, among friends, and perhaps even at church. But persevere. For love of neighbor is love of God and the radical social networking life of love is eternal life. The life of the ages. Here today.

The past month we have been discussing forgiveness. We discussed how humanity is so valuable to God he has chosen to forgive us for our rebellion and if God’s nature is love and forgiveness, we should reflect that in our lives as well. We also reflected on the fact that forgiveness is offered. We simply have to confess our sin and choose to live in the Spirit-filled way and the Spirit will empower us to do so.

We then talked about forgiveness at home and how the practice of forgiveness at home connects us with Abraham and his family of promise and how forgiveness breaks the cycle of division at home. This then included the importance forgiveness in marriage which serves as the glue of the family.

And this week we talk about perhaps the most difficult kind of forgiveness: forgiveness of others. And to do so we will begin by reflecting on South Africa.

South Africa was inhabited and controlled by the Zulu tribe until the late 18th and early 19th century. It was at this time that Dutch settlers known as the Vortrekkers arrived in the southern part of the African continent. They viewed the Zulus as heathens and believed God had given them this new land. They viewed their journey to the African continent as an Exodus from British imperialism. Those beliefs and the power they found in the barrel of their rifles led them to overtake the Zulus. Sounds not unlike the American colonists and the Native Americans.

One moment in history stands among all others in assuring the white settlers they had arrived. A group moving north from the coast came across a tribe of what they called the heathen natives. They were greatly outnumbered and circled their wagons. They prayed and made a covenant with God that if they were victorious in battle they would forever commemorate that day. They won that day and for more than a century going forward that day in South Africca became known as Dinggan’s Day after the Zulu tribal king who was defeated.

This set in motion white dominance in South Africa that led in 1948 to the inauguration of Apartheid in 1948. As part of these policies the races were mostly segregated with the blacks stripped of their farmland and forced to live in much less fertile areas. They also had no presence in law enforcement or a voice in the political sphere. The white experience in South Africa had been institutionalized as normal and God-given both in the government and the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. In addition to this injustice was the ongoing persecution and genocide of indigenous Africans.

Obviously tensions built and finally reached a point where militant groups formed and began to enact violent policies of trying to defeat the whites as whose hands they suffered. The violence became unbearable and was on the verge stripping South Africa of any meaningful future.

In the midst of all the chaos arose a growing number of blacks who chose nonviolence. They, informed by faith and led by people such as Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, decided they would not be defined by their enemies. Nor would give their enemies power by becoming what their enemies had become. They would not return hate for hate. They, like the others in the resistance, would suffer. They, too, would be called terrorists and Communists. Many in their ranks went to prison, most notably Mandela for 27 years, but they would not participate in the bloodletting in South Africa.

And finally, it seemed the Spirit moved in the hearts of South Africa. It’s not clear if President F. W. De Klerk’s motivation was a crisis of conscience after meeting with the peacemaking Mandela in prison or increased global political pressure but on February 2, 1990, he announced unexpected reforms including power sharing among the races. Nine days later Mandela was released from prison and the seemingly endless cycle spinning towards an all out Civil War was stopped.

By 1994, a fuller, fairer democracy took hold in the country and Mandela was elected president. It was a joyous day both for black South Africans and the world. But it brought great unease to the country’s former oppressors.

The fear came from expecting the worst. After decades and decades of oppression and genocide, the whites in South Africa were scared to discover what their fate may be. It was a choice Mandela and the new power holders would have to make.

Now their choice was the same as any individual or group has to make when someone sins against them. You stand at the fork in the road and have to choose one of three paths.

The first path is revenge. Revenge is more than payback. Revenge says I’m not just going to get you back. I’m going to do you in. Revenge takes measures to an extreme to make sure the previous perpetrators are so intimidated they will be too scared to try anything like they did before. Nor will they stand up to the newly empowered. It is a complete and unhindered releasing of pent up rage. This would have seemed like the likely scenario in South Africa.

The second path is retribution. Retribution makes sure offenders get their just desserts. Whatever offense you perpetrated, should be answered by a proportional response. It is how our system of legal justice in the United States generally works. The problem was many of the crimes and human rights violations did not have proportionate responses that could be pursued without being viewed, and perhaps being, revenge.

The third path is forgiveness. This seeks to restore the relationship and bring some form of harmony to the situation.

So the black South Africans had a choice to make. They had been beaten, imprisoned, raped, kidnapped, murdered, disappeared. Families had been harassed and torn asunder. The decades prior had seen white power, oppression, and genocide all in the name of God and capitalism.

And yet they chose forgiveness. The country would form the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which hearings would be held. Victims would be allowed to tell their stories. Perpetrators would be brought to these hearings as well. Yet, the result would not be a statement in which they pledged forgiveness to their oppressors followed by the usual brand of justice, meaning punishment.

No. Rather than punishment they offered amnesty. All a person had to do to be granted amnesty was tell the truth. They were to testify about every crime, every atrocity, every human rights violation in which they took part.

Perpetrators were liberated by the forgiveness they received as a burden was lifted off their shoulders both of the guilt for what they had done and of the pressure of a system of Apartheid they felt they had to enforce.

The victims were liberated in the disclosing of their pain and forgiveness that lifted the burden of bitterness and hate off their heavy hearts.

Restitution has been made in small, manageable ways including reparations for victims and the return of some lands to the families who had previously owned them.

And a country was liberated and enabled through reconciliation to move into a period of relative peace. I say relative because there are still those on both sides looking to mete out vengeance. But they are not government sanctioned or politically or religiously backed.

Now, other truth and reconciliation commissions have been held in other countries where atrocities took place on a large scale with government sanction. But none accepted the radical move that was amnesty. None embraced forgiveness the way South Africa did.

But what made this possible. Desmond Tutu said it was an African attitude they call ubuntu. Ubuntu recognizes that all our lives are intertwined. It says a person is only a person through other persons. Its foundational statement is “I am human because I belong.” It believes that social harmony is the greatest good.

If harmony is such a great good, and revenge and retribution further alienate people from one another, ubuntu says these must be rejected. So South Africa chose forgiveness.

And that presents us with a challenge: if the people of South Africa could forgive such horrible violations of their personhood and their lives, why are we often so unable to forgive what are usually much more minor offenses? If a coworker of friend takes advantage of our generosity, talks behind our backs, or flat out steals from us why do we often not forgive? After all, when we put things in perspective, our suffering is not near on the level of what those people in South Africa forgave.

And, while we may not live in Africa and be familiar with ubuntu, we know the idea. After all, it is what the Jewish word shalom which we encounter in the Old Testament means. It is what the biblical English term peace means. These ideas go far beyond the mere absence of war. They speak of communal wholeness where we are united with God and with one another.

Ubuntu, peace, shalom all declare the reality that we are created by God and thus we all have the same value. We are all rebels against a loving God, yet precious. God forgives us and we are to forgive one another.

It is illustrated by none better than Jesus, who tells us to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven times. Jesus also tells us the parable of the prodigal son which Rebecca discussed last week in which God, like the waiting father in the parable has already forgiven. We just have to accept.

Even in a seemingly more difficult teaching in Matthew 18, he says confront someone who sinned against you. If they do not repent, take two or three witnesses. If they still do not repent, take them before the church. If they still do not repent, treat them as you would a tax collector or a sinner.

But here’s the kicker: how did Jesus treat those the Jewish leaders called sinners and tax collectors? He welcomed them. Wow!

And if that isn’t enough of a wow moment for us, consider his words as he hung on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” I mean, Wow!

So why won’t we forgive? Well, part of it is it’s hard. We fear justice won’t be done so no one will have incentive not to hurt us again. And we’ll appear weak and vulnerable to constant harm.

But that fails to make a distinction between modern legal justice resulting in punishment and the biblical justice of the kingdom of God which is about ubuntu, shalom, peace. And that fails to understand what forgiveness is.

After all, forgiveness is not about pretending the thing never happened. No. There are three parts of forgiveness as Miroslav Volf, a Croatian theologian who knows the suffering many experienced during the genocide and war in Serbia and Herzegovia during the 1990’s, explains in his book Free of Charge.

The first part of forgiveness is surprising: condemnation. Condemnation is a step that refuses to passively respond to injury by acting as though nothing happened. No. forgiveness begins by proclaiming to the offender they have sinned against you. Yet, this must be done humbly and through great discernment to be sure we are not telling someone else about their sins while ignoring our sins in the relationship. Self-righteous condemnation, after all, will only advance the divisive cycle which forgiveness longs to halt.

The next part of forgiveness is the one we think of the most: release of debt. This is the one we think makes us weak. However, the condemnation we just spoke of exposes the offender but letting them know their sin was noticed and they are called out on it. But here, in the next step, we make the radical offer of the open door. I forgive you. I love you. I do not seek to punish you. The door back into this relationship is open for you. You just have to walk in.

And finally, we release the offender from guilt. In this, we tell the offender, you are loved. We remain equal. There is no need to hang your head in shame.

These three parts of forgiveness recognize both our equal preciousness in God’s eyes and our sinfulness as humans. They also acknowledge that being created in God’s image, it is in our nature to forgive.

The tragedy is we deny our nature. We deny it because we are asleep. We are like those in the new hit movie Inception who go day after day into the basement of the chemist’s shop to be sedated so they can dream. They have become so engrossed by their dreams they accept their dreams as reality.

When the chemist’s assistant is asked the question, “So they come here to sleep?” He responds, “No they come here to wake up for their dreams are their reality.

Humanity is fast asleep. Christianity is fast asleep. We’ve sedate ourselves day after day so we can live the lie that has become our dream. It’s wrapped up in delusions of grandeur and power and wealth and myself while neglecting ubuntu, turning our backs on social harmony. We have projected a Jesus much different from the Jesus of the gospels into this dream to make it even more believable. This lie which has become our dream has many names: Kingdom of the world, spirit of this age, evil. Whatever we call it, it is a lie. And it brings chaos and division when we were meant to be together. But we sleep on in our fragmented lives convincing ourselves this is peacefulness.

But we need to wake up. We need to experience the kick of the Spirit in the depths of our souls and remember what our reality is. Created to love. Created to forgive. Made to be one with God and each other. So let’s go out from this place today and offer forgiveness to those from whom it has been withheld and confess our sins to those we have failed to repent to and seek the biblical justice of reconciliation. Ubuntu. Amen.

Family. It is integral to our lives…to society…to the world. Populations, traditions, and values are passed down through families.

Yet family is not easy. It’s needed. It’s required. But it can hurt. It seems when conflict arises in our family, we are likely to take a harsher path in handling conflict than we would in other societal situations. We are more likely to take advantage of one another. We are more likely to manipulate one another. We raise our voices more. We push the limits more. We hurt one another more.

You wonder why that is. Maybe it’s because of the intense familiarity and commonality found in family bonds. Maybe it has something to do with not being able to choose our family of birth. Maybe there’s a comfort level in believing that what happens in the family stays in the family. Whatever it is we know family life often brings a great deal of hurt. And where there’s a great deal of hurt, there’s a great need for forgiveness.

So we continue our series on forgiveness. Last week we asked the question, well I asked the question, “Is God crazy?” We looked at the Psalms wondering if God is crazy for his forgiveness that continues to be available no matter how long humanity continues to mock the Creator. Of course, we reached the conclusion that it is not God who is crazy, for it is in his nature to forgive, but humanity is crazy for its continued mockery of God. And we anticipated that if it is in God’s nature to forgive, and we are created in God’s image, then it must be in our nature to forgive. So we begin looking at our forgiveness of others today.

And that brings us to Genesis. After all, Genesis gives us not only the beginning of existence but also the beginning of rebellion from God, thus, the beginning of forgiveness.

We discussed this briefly last week but you may still question the idea of God’s forgiveness in Genesis. After all, the first humans were cast out of the garden. Cain was cursed for life. The flood wiped out almost all of humanity. The language of humanity was confused for building a tower to the heavens. So where is the forgiveness in that?

As I mentioned last week, God could have just wiped slate clean, yet the Creator chose a different solution in Genesis. Adam and Eve and Cain all received consequences but were spared. Great suffering was brought on humanity in the flood but its existence was spared in Noah. When humanity continued the cycle of sin after the flood, God did not repeat the previous action, but brought confusion instead. It appears grace and forgiveness remain as God has never given up on us.

Still, there is another way to consider these texts. And that is in the evolving nature of the understanding of God’s revelation by humanity. This approach compares the biblical texts to other ancient religious texts and notes the similarities while finding significance in where our texts differ from those texts.

For example, in our canon creation comes about not through a violent battle between two gods with the carcass of the losing deity serving as the matter from which the universe is created, but as an act of love from a hands-on God. The flood occurs because of rampant sin, not simply because humanity annoyed the gods with their noise.

So this comparison shines the light on a different kind of God. One who is not unpredictable and irritable and bringing down random violence at any moment, but one that interacts with humanity and is trying to save humanity from itself. In other ancient faiths, it was the lesser gods who showed mercy to humanity by telling them a flood was coming or giving them fire to keep them warm. In the faith of Genesis, however, it is the ultimate God showing mercy and offering forgiveness.

This helps us to see the early books of the Bible as a progression in the understanding of God from those ancient writings that came before. It also opens us up to see the progression in our canon regarding the understanding of the Creator and God’s relationship to suffering. And with a better understanding of God’s relationship to suffering, we can better understand God’s forgiveness.

Early on, God appears almost as an angry king judging those who fail and being the source of both good and ill. As the scriptural canon progresses, however, we are introduced to the idea of Satan, who begins in the Jewish tradition as a tempter but who is slowly understood to be the source of suffering and evil.

Still other texts in our canon suggest later that the source of our suffering is our own failure to live the way we were designed to live. It’s kind of like throwing your car in park at 60 miles an hour. It breaks down because that is not how it was designed to operate. Perhaps,this will help us start to understand why God brings rain on the righteous and the wicked. He is seeking to love all and we become our own undoing by trying to be our own god. This God of love was willing to come to earth and suffer at our hands offering forgiveness and salvation rather than coldly wiping the slate clean from above. This God is a far cry from the God who brought the flood.

So perhaps this makes it easier for us to grasp the idea of grace and forgiveness in the early part of Genesis and prepares us to understand the story of the family of promise beginning with Abraham.

The call of Abraham is the start of God’s work to call humanity back to its created nature through a people called to be a light to the nations. Abraham left his homeland and immediately became vulnerable. He could only rely on God. Yet he too stumbles. He and Sarah try to fulfill the promises of God in their own ways by having Abraham conceive with Sarah’s servant girl. When they succeed, God chides them for not trusting the Creator’s promise and Sarah becomes jealous of her servant Hagar. The sort of family conflict seen between Cain and Abel rears its ugly head again.

The cycle continues with Jacob who is said to be grasping his twin brother’s heel trying to be the first born. He then steals Esau’s birthright sending Jacob on the run. He winds up in his extended family’s land where a web of deceit and trickery on both Jacob’s and Laban’s part leaves Jacob with two wives who are rivals for Jacob’s affection. They compete to give him the most children using both themselves and their servants so that Jacob, now known as Israel, has thirteen sons.

This cycle of rivalry continues as the youngest, Joseph, is Israel’s favorite and is hated by his twelve brothers. Joseph has a dream that his brothers will one day bow down to him. When he shares this with his brothers they first decide to kill him before deciding instead to throw him down a well, sell him to some passersby and tell their father he was killed by a wild animal.

From there a series of events takes place until Joseph finds himself as the Egyptian pharaoh’s second in command and his brothers coming to him for food during a famine, though they do not know it is him. He toys with his brothers for awhile before revealing his identity. And here Joseph does not seek to vengeance he had the power to deliver, but offers forgiveness out of the joy from this reunion. And after his father dies, this forgiveness is reinforced.

Let’s turn to Genesis 50:15-21 and see this play out.

Joseph’s brothers are frightened. Joseph loved his father and they feared Israel’s presence was the only reason he has spared their freedom or, worse, their life. They are so scared they concoct a story that their father’s dying words were for Joseph to spare his brothers. Even then they expect to be slaves.

But Joseph found the strength to forgive his brothers and maintain their wholeness. But what gave him this strength?

The answer to the question is found in Joseph’s words. He has reunited his family and forgiven his brothers because he understands the biggest concept of all: it’s all about something bigger than me. Joseph understood the power he had in Egypt. He also understood the power his brothers exercised over him in getting him out of the way. They made themselves kings over his life and sent him as an orphan into servitude. He could have done the same and gotten even with his brothers. He was, in a political sense, practically a king over their lives now. He could order dismay on them and their families.

But he saw how God had used their evil schemes and made good out of it. Joseph’s ordeals had made it possible to deliver his family in a time of need and preserve a numerous people. It was bigger than Joseph’s desire to be king of his life or his brother’s lives. It was bigger than his hurt. It was about the deliverance of the family of promise: that family called forth to live as a light to the rest of the world and reveal God’s grace and forgiveness in a way that will call the rest of the world to turn back to the Creator and the way we were created to live.

If we are to have the fullest family lives we possibly can, we have to embrace this concept: it’s about something bigger than me. But that is difficult because of centuries of surrounding influence.

We now live in a culture focused on "Me". And the roots of the “Me” culture are often traced to the writings of the philosopher Descartes who said, “I think therefore I am.” His answer to the crisis of existence and answering the question, “Why am I here?” was framed in an individualistic sense. And why not? To answer his existential crisis, he was asking an individualistic question, “Why am I here?”

This so-called revelation played its role in answering a lot of troubling questions at the time. However, as it trickled down the centuries through the works of philosophers like John Locke and Adam Smith it increased in its individualism: to the point that a person’s main goal in life is to be king of his or her own life.

Now this seems like a worthy notion. After all, it was the notion of freedom as an answer to centuries of religious wars and religious compulsion at the hands of the rulers of nation-states. But it quickly reached the point of hyper-individualism in which being king of one’s own life became the sole focus of our existence. To the point that if anything came in conflict with what we wanted, there would be no compromise and no community.

This progressed even in Christianity where Jesus came to be seen not as a savior of kings and priests who passed that down to those below them but as a personal savior to those free to choose to follow him. However, in our current day this has morphed to the point where our personal relationship with Jesus is what matters most. Community is often sacrificed. Where our beliefs are in conflict with another, we often walk away. Where accountability is offered, we view ourselves as the only accountability we need. We are the authority of our faith and have trouble lending an ear to anyone else. We often go to church but focus on me.

So as these attitudes have gripped our society and our faith, it’s easy to see how these influences have affected our families. Each member of the family acts as a king demanding their way. When we don’t get the satisfaction we desire from a family member we may seek it elsewhere with no concern for the hurt or betrayal it may cause. When a family member doesn’t give us what we want, we take it anyway or we con them or guilt them into giving it to us.

The hurt builds. Division grows in what should be society’s most unified institution and we find ourselves lost and alone. We end up gathering together on holidays to dredge up old wounds time and again and trying to love one another as we continue to mutter under our breath and view our family members as valuable for only what they have to offer us.

But as people of faith, we have to realize our families are the continuation of the family of promise. We are to be a light to the nations calling people back to God and the Creator’s design for our lives. As the family of promise, we understand turning back to God does not start with the existential question “Why am I here?” Instead of seeking to be king of our lives we acknowledge Jesus is the Lord of all our lives and ask the existential question, “Why are we here?”

Once we ask that question, we can understand that this life is about something much bigger than me. We can rest in the fact we no longer have to strain to call the shots in every aspect of our family life. We can turn away from the exhaustion of constantly seeking to be the alpha dog at home and making our family serve our desires or be who we want them to be. We can rest in love of one another. We can become vulnerable to one another through the weakness of forgiveness and lean on God to preserve us and renew us and save us.

So let us think today about our families. Who has hurt you? More importantly, who have you hurt? And step out of this place prayerfully seeking and offering forgiveness. After all, forgiveness is in our nature. It is through this apparent act of weakness, made known on the cross of Jesus, that our families, all part of the family of promise, will once again be a light to the world. Why are our families here? So our love will be a beacon to the world that there is hope.

Forgiveness! It’s not about winning. It’s not about getting even. It’s about love and hope for the future. It’s about something so much bigger than me.

Today, I’m going to start with a proposition. I’m just going to put it out there right from the start. Here it is: God must be crazy!

I know what you’re thinking. You’re slowly moving further from me so you aren’t struck by the same lightning bolt that takes me out. I must be a heretic. I must be arrogant to think that I can make such a statement of the one who created us. Or maybe I’m the one who’s crazy for making such a claim.

But surely God must be crazy!

After all, humanity is a spoiled brat. From infancy humanity has resisted the motherly embrace of God’s steadfast love. God was there cradling and nursing humanity and simply asked for our trust. But we wouldn’t have it. We screamed and we squirmed and we wrestled our way out of God’s arms wanting to take care of ourselves. That is until we were hungry and soiled and couldn’t handle it any more. And there was God to cradle us once more.

So we became toddlers. There was God loving us again. Asking for our trust. Setting guidelines for us to live together in peace. But again we wouldn’t have it. We wanted what we wanted when we wanted it. We kicked God in the shins and told him to go away. Then we found ourselves sick from eating too many cookies. There was God again to pick us up, nurse us back to health, and embrace us once again.

We grew into teenagers. God was there with fatherly advice of how to have the fullest life. Of how to give and receive the most love. But again we wouldn’t have it. We were invincible. We knew what we were doing. When God tried again to give us that advice, we gave God a hearty two-handed shove to the chest and said, “Leave us alone!” and commenced on the greatest freak out ever. Then, we found ourselves beaten down and alone and having just one place to turn. There was God again waiting for us with a firm embrace.

We became young adults. Ready to enter a riskier world on our own. God remained by our side asking for our trust. God claimed to know how to avoid destruction, failure, and emptiness. But we were fiercely independent and shouted, “I don’t need you anymore!” as we punched God in the face. We went off on our home, began to party and live life to the fullest on our terms. But we found ourselves broke, in debt, and homeless. There again was God to give us shelter and a new start.

So we entered full adulthood ready to make a life for ourselves. God was there still attempting to earn our trust and point us down the right path. But we had a better idea. We exclaimed, “Are you still trying to tell us what to do?” as we killed God so we could be once and for all be on our own. That was until humanity found itself ill and dying and on the edge of destruction and thinking it no longer had anywhere to turn. But how shocked were we when God appeared again as we learned that not only does God’s love never die but neither does God.

So is God crazy? Humanity, the spoiled brat keeps pushing God away. And God responds time and again with forgiveness every time we turn back to him. Why doesn’t God save Godself the pain, do away with humanity, and be done with it?
God doesn’t do that because it is not in God’s nature. In the foreward of Miroslav Volf’s book Free of Charge, Rowan Williams explains it is as much in God’s nature to forgive as it is in a duck’s nature to quack.

And does this truth not rehearse itself over and over in Scripture? Even when the ancients were more likely to attribute great suffering to God as punishment for sin, grace always had the last word. Humanity cast out of the garden but not destroyed. Cain cursed for murdering his brother but spared murder at another’s hands. A people delivered from slavery only to stray from God, be forgiven, stray from God, be forgiven, land in exile, be delivered. And it all culminates in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ which makes God appear weak to so many.

So, perhaps, if it is as much God’s nature to forgive as it is a duck’s nature to quack, we can logically make the conclusion that God is, in fact, crazy. I mean humanity, to this point, still hasn’t embraced the forgiveness and love God offers yet God persists.

Or maybe, we need another question. Maybe the question isn’t if God is crazy to continue to forgive. Maybe we should ask if humanity is crazy to not yet embrace its need for forgiveness. Humanity continues to push itself to the brink. Individuals continue to seek their own interests at the cost of the well being of themselves and others. All because humanity stubbornly believes, despite all the history to the contrary, that we can get along in our own strength.

So maybe we’re crazy, but if we’re really going to answer this question, we have to start to ask just what we are doing that requires forgiveness.

Let’s start to answer that question by turning to Psalm 92.

Psalms is a collection of poetry compiled to address a community in crisis. A nation who knew itself as God’s chosen people had rebelled and found themselves in exile. This psalm, in the voice of the musician king David, is a confession. As king, his confession represents the confession of a people who were feeling the effects of rebellion and were now turning back to God after having turned away.

They were a people who had been delivered from oppression in Egypt and now had become the oppressors. Righteousness and justice had escaped them as they sought their own self-interests.

Here, the speaker in the psalm points to three terms in the confession. The first is the most familiar: sin. It speaks to the general idea that we as a people created in God’s image and called to love as God does have missed the mark. We have generally lost sight of our identity and are lost in a wilderness of self worth.

The second term is transgressions which connotes a willful rebellion. It suggests that even though we were aware we missed the mark we continued on forcibly leaning on ourselves and rejecting the Creator’s overtures.

The third term is iniquities and it signifies the enduring, destructive effects of disobedience. This is inclusive both of the effects of our disobedience on ourselves and on others.

As these things mount in our lives, they begin to weigh us down. Spiritually they take a toll on us because we know deep down we were meant for something more and it tears at our soul. Physically and practically they take a toll on us through sins destructive effects and alienation from one another as we have trouble moving beyond what I want. As the psalmist points out, our silence and denial of our need for forgiveness only makes it worse.

Confession, though, results in forgiveness which results in God freeing us of sin and its effects. The psalmist says confession results in the forgiveness that brings us back into God’s presence where we find the shelter, a hiding place, where we will be delivered. It is simply up to us, from that point forth, to follow God’s instruction. In this shelter, our confession and repentance can free not only ourselves but also those hurt by our transgressions.

And here is good news. It is not that we have to be perfect to be in God’s shelter. We simply have to confess and repent. At that point God wipes the slate clean for those who truly fear him. As Psalm 103 tells us, he will remove our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. It is at that point the humble, those who understand they must rely on God rather than themselves, will be filled with the Spirit and live in a much different way.

This gives us a basis for understanding a need for forgiveness, but then we have to understand what it is in our day that may need to be confessed and repented.

Old Testament theologian Walter Bruggemann gives us a hint. He talks of four scripts which seek our worship and seek to control our lives. It is our dependence on these scripts that the gospel, he says, challenges by calling humanity back to a counter script. This is, of course, the true script which we were called to live by.

The first script is the therapeutic. It is that assumption that there is something to take away all discomfort in life. Whether it is drugs, insurance, or financial planning, it is believed we can rely on ourselves to prevent any pain or suffering in our lives.

The second is technological. This is the idea that if something is wrong we can fix it. If we have damaged the earth with the way we live, we’ll just create new ways to live the same lives to fix the problem. If our plans to provide our energy desires destroy an entire region of the Atlantic, we’ll create a new way to get that energy source.

There’s, then, the consumerist script which asserts we can buy whatever we want when we want it with our money. It states we are all individuals responsible for ourselves alone with no concern for how the items we consume are produced and with minimal concern for those who don’t have the same consumer power.

The final script is that of militarism. The script that says our power should be used to protect our interests around the globe or that when in conflict with another group or nation we call on the military so willing to give their all to defend us. But it often becomes like Mark Twain said, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

These scripts work in concert to affect our focus so we miss the mark. Where my life and my comfort and my nation is more important than God and our neighbor. Where our power to buy and to win is relied on rather than the creator who gives us breath.

These are scripts that affect not just out common life as a nation, or a church in a nation and the world, but also our personal lives. We buy, buy, buy. People in our lives, including our children and spouses become mere objects to bring us personal satisfaction. Our technology threatens to undermine our needs for physical presence. Harsh words, a fist, a knife, and a gun are used to get our way rather than relying on love to serve the common good.

Conflict rises. Tensions intensifies. Harm increases. All fueled by the need to rely on our own strength.

But God remains. That thankfully crazy God offering a loving embrace to humanity when we turn to him despite all our mockery of the creator. It is in this moment we can confess our sins. We confess the harshness, self-centeredness, arrogance, addiction and violence of our personal lives and the power-based and supremacist feelings of our common life and seek to lean on God in a new way of life. It is not a life that proclaims we have been perfect. Just that we are choosing to lean on God in this new life. The life of love. Focused outwardly on God and the other. After all, if we embrace the fact that God’s nature is forgiving and we are created in God’s image, it becomes clear we are called to forgive. Something we will discuss in the coming weeks.

Imagine a drought in a time far removed from ours. Crops are not shipped from around the globe in a matter of days. Nor are they genetically engineered to grow in different climates. In a basic situation such as this one, crops grow locally or you go hungry. Famine follows closely behind the drought.

Now imagine you’re a widow. No husband means you have to fend for yourself. For many widows, you’re treated as an outcast. If you have other family, you’ve already been married so you have little value anymore in a society ruled by men and in which women are viewed as property. No one will give your father a dowry for your hand because you’re used goods. There’s no hope in going home.

You’re a widow in a drought. The fields are drying up. There are no longer any bountiful fields for you to glean what the workers left behind. On your own, you have little remaining on which to sustain yourself. All that’s left is a handful of meal and a little oil from which you can make one last meal, and then you and your son will die.

Then, Elijah comes along and asks you to bring him some water and some bread. What! You know he is coming. You know you’re supposed to feed him. What you probably don’t know is he has been hiding from the king in the wilderness after telling the king there would be a drought. And you probably don’t know that ravens have brought him meat and bread in the morning and evening while he was hiding.

Still, you’re questioning of his arrival and questioning whether you can be hospitable seems justified. After all, you have one last meal remaining and he is asking for it for himself.

Until he says, “Do not fear.” This was a common phrase signifying the Creator’s bringing something out of nothing. Of bringing life from death. This action is on behalf of the hopeless. You comply with these words because, while you still carry some doubt, you are starting to believe that salvation has come to your house. For you the slimmest potential of life is an easy choice for you for death would otherwise come without an invitation.

You make the bread for Elijah, he eats, and what he promised becomes reality. Suddenly, in this drought…in this famine…you and your son have enough to eat. You will live. Hospitality has been your salvation as it was for Abraham with the three visitors.

For Elijah, the choice may have come much more difficultly. The narrative does not tell us whether or not Elijah was poor. But he puts his neck on the line. His role in our story begins with his confrontation of King Ahab. Ahab represented the climax of the descent of the kings of Judah into soul-selling alliances of kingdoms.

From the beginning, the prophet Samuel had warned the Israelites of the problems with wanting a king. Many of those warnings became reality under the rule of Saul, though things seemed to take a turn for the better with David. But that turn was short lived before David’s hunger for his own self-satisfaction began a slow but certain demise for the throne of Judah.

Now with Ahab, the demise takes a sharp turn into idolatry with his marriage to Jezebel and adoption into Jewish life of her god Baal. Ahab had caved to pressure. Assyria was on the march. Assyria came with great power and seemed certain to overrun Judah. And rather than a vulnerable reliance on the Creator. Ahab sought an alliance of power to take a stand against Assyria. He makes a seemingly common sense move. He also begins to assert his and Jezebel’s newfound power throughout his own kingdom oppressing his own people in greater ways than any Jewish king before him.

Elijah steps in, declares a drought, rescues the widow and her son from Jezebel’s land with food, and then heals her son of a deadly illness. The message is clear. Ahab is irrelevant. Though he and Jezebel have sought to consolidate power, they have none in sight of the Creator who is Lord of all and who can or cannot bring the rain, unlike their god Baal who was known as the rainmaker.

Ahab could have chosen life through the vulnerability of reliance on Creator. This is what Elijah and the widow did. But, whether it was caving to the external pressures surrounding his nation, his own self-seeking, or both, he chose death by relying on false power found only in idols. A king relying on power, rather than trusting the creator, was of no value to his people. Elijah, however, brought life.

In chapter 7 of the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus steps into Elijah’s role. Read with me verses 11 through 17.

The stage is set for this narrative. In Luke’s juxtaposition of Jesus’ birth with Caesar’s census, with Mary’s magnificat proclaiming hope for the poor, with John the Baptist calling the powerful Jews who allied themselves with Rome’s power a brood of vipers, with Herod’s confrontation with John the Baptist, and with Jesus declaring blessings on the poor and woes on the rich in his sermon on the plain, the stage is set for Jesus to take up Elijah’s role of prophet and giver of life.

Like other prophets in scripture and others called to follow the Creator’s way, Jesus spent time in the wilderness where he was trained to rely not on the produce of the powerful, but on God alone.

And he confronts, in this widow and her dead son, the illegitimacy of idolatrous power and the doctrine of scarcity. Once again, we have a widow with nothing but mourners behind her. Her son has died and once his funeral ends she will be on her own. These mourners offer only wailing and will be gone when the day ends. Her life may also end soon after out of starvation, thirst, and loneliness.

There is no compassion, until Jesus steps in. Reminiscent of Elijah, he says, “Do not weep.” And commands her dead son to rise. Her son’s life and her own are restored. Jesus’ compassion brings life. So many around him choose death through power, but Jesus chose vulnerability and life. And Jesus proclaims that where compassion reigns, abundance is revealed.

And we are invited to Jesus’ table today. To reflect on the body and blood of Christ shed for all creation and reflect on what following Jesus is. To reflect on what compassion is. And the challenge stands before us: do we choose the idolatrous life of self or the compassionate life of one another.

It seems ingrained in us today that the most important thing we are to focus on is looking out for number one. It can affect the way we are at home, at work, at church, at school. We can be friends and neighbors as long as no one stands in the way of what I want. This manifests itself on the political scene in dirty campaigns making false claims about each candidates’ personal lives and providing incomplete information about voting records. Our previous and current presidents have been repeatedly compared to Hitler as the party out of power hungers to get it back.

And we see the pressures of life. We see the person with a lesser conscience moving up the ladder at work. We see classmates with certain talents getting special treatment. We see parents and children, husband and wife struggling for power in their relationships. We see nations leveraging economic, political, and military clout to make one subservient to the other. All this because we fear, because we believe, that there is so little to go around. And it becomes easy to be deceived and believe power is the way to live. But this is idolatrous and if we continue on that path we’ll find it is the path to all sorts of death. Our family life, work life, social life, economic life, and political lives will be riddled with holes though they may appear so successful. We will find that rather than being human, we are simply consumers leaving a trail of waste in our wake as we attempt to satisfy our never ending hunger for power.

But Jesus called us to life. Jesus had radical compassion and it stirred up opposition that took his life. But compassion doesn’t bring waste for the grave could not contain the Christ. It brings regeneration. It brings new creation signified by the fact that the one consumed by the world for his radical compassion raised from the dead.

And we have the opportunity to enter into the narrative. We can take the place of Ahab and live our lives as an exercise of power. In some areas of our lives, we may act as Ahab to compensate for other areas in which we feel we have no control, allowing our feelings of inadequacy to hurt others. Or we can stand in the place of Elijah, whose names means “Yahweh is my God” of Jesus, his name meaning deliverer and take the risk of love of the path to real life.

So as we approach the table today we ask ourselves, we will follow Baal in our self-serving hunger to death? Or will we follow Jesus in a compassionate, self-sacrificing hunger for new life?

As we encounter the story of Abraham and Sarah and the three strangers, we are asked to reflect on just how it is we greet strangers and how radical Abraham’s response may be. I’ll illustrate from my life.

Let’s just say you shouldn’t be fooled about me. When I am up here, it may seem rather natural for me. You may think that I’m a naturally outgoing individual. But such a disposition comes much more easily for me in a public setting such as this, than it does in private. Truthfully, I am, deep down, very reserved. Very guarded. I have a hard time letting people in.

I stand as a contrast to Abraham. Imagine me getting home after a busy day. I’m physically tired. Mentally exhausted. And ready for a break. I fix a tall glass of sweet tea, say hello to my family and tell them I love them and sit down at least briefly to relax.

Then, there’s a knock on the door. Now, unfortunately, this is where then worst of me comes out, at least behind the scenes. I throw up my hands in frustration, let out a big sigh, and mutter to myself as I pry myself off the couch and toward the front door.

“Come on! I just sat down. Who comes over this time of day? I’ve had my fill of human interaction today.”

Sadly, it’s not a welcoming spirit. Tragically, I fear that, while I put on a happy face when I open the front door, my disappointment feels the air and pervades my attempts to overcome it.

My children, though, are a different story altogether. They can be looking at a book, which they’ll be reading one day soon, or watching their favorite show, or engrossed in a game. It doesn’t matter. That door knocks and they go crazy like the dog.

“Mom! Dad! Somebody’s here! Somebody’s here! Who do think it is? Who do you think it is?”

This is followed by uncontrolled and very loud giggling.

“Hee, hee, hee, hee! Haa, haa, haa, haa!”

Whoever is on the other side of the door feels so welcome, perhaps too welcome.

This was Abraham’s response when the three strangers approached his camp. He ran out to meet them and bowed to the ground.

He says to the visitors, “If I have found favor in your eyes, do not pass your servant by.”

Now while the narrator tells us in verse one the Lord appeared to Abraham, the narrator also makes it clear in verse two that all Abraham knew at first were three men were passing by his camp. His attitude of servanthood was the expected response to any visitor, though it was not often followed. One was to consider strangers who came into their camp as more important than themselves.

And Abraham goes on to wash their feet, bring them bread, prepare the finest calf for dining, and instruct Sarah to bake them cakes. He treats them as kings.

This sort of behavior was vital for nomadic people. They were vulnerable. They relied on the land and traveled to wherever the resources to survive could be found. Many strangers would be encountered along the way. Without a welcoming spirit, their very survival was threatened. Hospitality, then, was a matter of justice for all.

It is in this hospitality, this radical hospitality in which Abraham considers others as more important than himself and resists the urge to put his self-preservation above all else, that a new world of possibility opens up before Abraham and Sarah.

For it becomes clear as the story progresses, that God is among the visitors. As we discussed, earlier, much of the Christian church sees this as pointing to the Trinity: Father, Son, Spirit. The Three-in-One. While not all the church, or all scholars agree about this, there is powerful imagery here.

Consider the presence of El Shaddai, the God of the mountain who is capable of all things coming to walk among Abraham’s camp as he does in the person of Jesus and opening up new possibilities in the Spirit through the birth of a child to an elderly, barren couple as the Spirit did on Pentecost. Even if it was not the Trinity here, the image remains strong. The all-powerful creator does not stand at a distance from a rebellious creation but moves among us. We are not left to our designs of decay and destruction. The creator brings new creation.

But while Abraham and Sarah were the models of hospitality to the stranger, they found difficulty offering hospitality to the message God brought. So God asks the doubting couple, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

He asks this because the couple doubts the ability of God to bring new possibilities. But the lesson of this story is that if we open up our hearts to strangers, and if we open up our hearts to God, new, seemingly impossible, things will start to take shape. Here God is telling them once again that though they doubted and they chose for Abraham to try to bring about the heir promised by God by having a child with their servant Hagar, another common custom, and though Abraham later laughed in the face of God and though Sarah now laughs, if they will but humble themselves and take the leap of faith, an heir will be born. A new people will be God’s light to the nations to bring about a new creation through its vulnerability.

It all began by welcoming the strangers, something we find so difficult to do. We hear the news of homicide, terrorism, gang violence, and drug wars. We hear of so many children leaving the faith and making mistakes, even early in their teenage years, which affect them for the rest of their lives. This makes us scared. Afraid to open up ourselves and be vulnerable.

After all, as Old Testament theologian Walter Bruggemann says, “this story shows what a scandal and difficulty faith is. Faith is not a reasonable act which fits into the normal scheme of life and perception.”

We are so afraid, we build walls between us and anything that is different afraid our weakness could be exploited and we could be hurt. We take up a spirit of self-preservation and revenge that leads to us becoming forces of power which only feed the suffering, hurt, and destruction we hope to avoid. This has often times become the normal scheme of life. More than resembling the welcoming spirit of Abraham, we more closely reflect the image of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah which follow in Genesis 19. When the visitors entered their cities, they sought to overpower and oppress the visitors in a spirit of inhospitality. It was clear outsiders were not welcome. God heard the outcry against these cities: that they did not live in justice. And he came to the aid of the powerless. Instead of experiencing the world pregnant with possibilities Sodom and Gomorrah experienced destruction.

And out of fear or selfishness, we wall ourselves in. We believe in a rebellious world, we must participate in that rebellion to some degree, though we are people of faith, in order to survive until God brings the ultimate change. We have trouble believing God will deliver us in the end if we will take up our cross and make ourselves vulnerable to be the ambassadors of love at all costs. We fear what the world can take from us rather than embracing what God can give us.

And why wouldn’t we? After all, wall building and inhospitality have become a strong thread in the history of humanity. We can look at the murder of Abel by Cain which tells a story of farmers and ranchers building walls between themselves. The tribes separated from one another. Then nations. Then empires. It became a racial matter, then a nationalistic matter. And you look at churches and the thousands of denominations we now have and it seems the people called to be a light to the nations has covered its lamp.

So can we uncover the lamp? Can we consider new creation and new possibilities?

Like the boy in the movie Pay it Forward, we must take a risk to help the world. In a world pregnant with new possibilities, we must tear down the walls which separate. We must shatter the categories we create based on difference and remember what we all have in common: we are all created by a good God who loves us all and calls us to participate in that love. And in doing so many of us will entertain angels without even knowing as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote as a reference to the stories we find in Genesis 18 and Genesis 19.

But in order to do this, we must rid ourselves of our inhibitions. We must overcome our fears. We must risk vulnerability and reach out to the other. This follows the way of the cross. The path laid by Jesus when he did not call on legions of angels in an exercise of power but surrendered his life in love.

In so doing, we will overcome the need to justify our actions. Turn our backs on the need to be like the rest of the world exercising power through manipulation, deceit, oppression, and violence. We will learn to love by trying on other people’s shoes and walking around for a bit.

Imagine feeling isolated. You move into a new neighborhood. You know no one. You’re hoping someone will say hello and get to know your name.

Imagine walking into a church. You’re new in town. Or you were hurt in a church you just left. Or some crisis has struck your life and you’re in need of answers. You’re desperately wanting to feel at home. Wanting to belong.

Imagine living in this country and being of Arab descent. Everywhere you go someone thinks you might be a terrorist. They may wonder if you have some connection with the kid who planned a bombing in Dallas. The people’s stares burn holes through your soul. Perhaps, anger and despair begins to grow as you’re made to feel more isolated.

Imagine being an undocumented immigrant. Your farm went broke after NAFTA took effect. You and your family have little food. You can’t find work that provides what your family needs. You applied for a green card but the waiting list is such it could be 15 or 20 years before it is granted and your kids need to eat. You leave behind your parents, siblings knowing that even if you received a green card, it could easily be another 15 or 20 years before your petition to get your parents and siblings a green card is granted and your family is reunited. Your family’s needs outweigh any concern of possibly be taken advantage by some crooked employer in the States. As it is, a bad job is better than no job because you will still have money to send back home. And you risk the results of violating a law written on the other side of the border because your children’s hunger is bigger than your freedom.

Imagine being an ex-convict, perhaps even a pedophile. Your name is on a registry. Your past follows you everywhere you go. People know who you are and do not trust you. And it’s not like you’re innocent but you’re desperate for a chance to start over. You wonder, like Red in Shawshank Redemption, if being out is really worth it.

People are surrounded by walls. Walls that prevent them from believing there is a better life. Walls of isolation and powerlessness that lead to the growth of dishonesty, manipulation, force, and violence. But imagine what would happen if we who call ourselves by Christ’s name welcomed them in. Imagine if we treated them as more valuable than ourselves. Walls of separation could crumble. Walls of presumption could fall. Instead of embracing the ways of the world, we could see there is hope, all be it hard to grasp, in the way of the cross. And we would encounter God in the weak as we take such a risk.

Children who are moved by such encounters with God, who see their parents love in radical ways will be moved by how wonderfully loving their parents are. They will moved by the character of God. They will see more value in faith than they ever imagined and continue in faith throughout adulthood. If they have already moved on, they will quite possibly return. That makes this a story we should know.

Now hospitality is vulnerability and vulnerability may lead to suffering. But, more importantly, it brings deliverance. It brings redemption. It brings liberation. It brings salvation. But to find that salvation we must answer the questions which confront us. Do we have the faith to believe in this future? We will be hospitable to God’s word to us? Christ Followers, will we tear down those walls?