Restoring Those Who Cause Grief

For my morning quiet time with God today, I considered 2 Corinthians, chapter 2. There, the apostle Paul refers to someone in the Corinthian churches who had brought grief to the Christians in that area by saying harmful things about Paul himself.

But after the churches had admonished and dealt with the Christian who had done this, Paul said this to the Corinthian Christians:

"...you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him." (2 Corinthians 2:7-8)

There's a difference between sisters and brothers in Christ exercising church discipline, holding each other accountable to their mutual community in Christ on the one hand, and judging others unworthy of the grace in Christ which we claim by faith despite our sinful natures, on the other hand. The former is appropriate and loving. The latter is sinful.

If we Christians use the faults and sinful actions of others as a pretext to withhold the forgiveness that Christ wants to give to those who are repentant and who believe in Him, we put ourselves in places higher than God Himself. We judge God to be too soft on sin. We judge ourselves to be holier than God. Not a good idea!

We are as Christians to speak the truth to each other in love (Ephesians 4:15), but always with the idea of bringing restoration between Christ and the person who has caused us (or Christ or the Church) grief. As Jesus famously puts it:

"I tell you that...there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." (Luke 15:7)

And, by the way, there ARE righteous people in this world, people made righteous by grace through faith in the only righteous One, God incarnate, Jesus.

But there are also NO human beings without the need of repentance and forgiveness. That includes those made righteous by God's grace through their trust in Jesus. Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners, in daily need of repentance and renewal in Christ's power, until the day of Jesus' return when He will make all things right.

Today, every time a sinner repents, that is, turns from their sin and turns to Christ for forgiveness, restoration, and life, there's a party in heaven.

Paul is saying that when that happens, the Church needs to join Jesus in forgiving and have a party too!

If you're a Christian:

(1) Ask God: Who in the Church might you need to lovingly confront--with the aim of reconciliation and restoration--today? (Jesus gives the guidelines for how Christians, who should always be mutually accountable to Christ's community, the Church, are to do this in Matthew 18:15-20.)*

(2) Ask God: Who do you need to release from the grudge you've been holding onto? (Jesus teaches us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

(3) Remember that when we (or others) honestly own our sins before God through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and heaven throws a party.**

*Jesus always speaks of Christian faith as a group activity. The Bible knows of no way that a person can be a Christian apart from the Church. 

**Now there's nothing in any of this to suggest that after we've forgiven people who have hurt us, we should have the same relationship with them that we had before. Years ago, I had to tell a woman caught in the snares of alcoholism and self-destructive behaviors, that, for the foreseaable future, she couldn't lead one of the ministries of the church I was then serving. A spouse or child of a repentant abuser is not expected to re-enter into the same kind of relationship they had with the abuser before confrontation and restoration take place. A school should not place someone once guilty of pedophilia alone with kids. Here, I think that Jesus' words to the devil after the devil had tempted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem because God promises in Psalm 91 to faithfully uphold His people should they fall, are appropriate; Jesus told the devil that believers are not to tempt (or test) God. In other words, God doesn't call us to take absurd measures to test our faith. 

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Forgiven and Forgiving: Life in Jesus' Kingdom

[This is the message that was shared during both worship services with the people of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 18:21-35
At the end of last Sunday’s gospel lesson, Jesus describes how people living in His Kingdom, the people of His Church, are to resolve things when we believe we have been sinned against.

As today’s gospel lesson begins, we can almost read Peter’s mind as he asks Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21)

“I’m willing to forgive someone who’s doing me wrong,” Peter seems to be saying. “But. Lord, if they keep sinning against me, when do I get to stop forgiving?”

Jesus tells Peter how many times he is to forgive a fellow believer: “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22).

Some translations render Jesus’ words as “seven times seven.” Others put it, “seventy times seven.” Various ancient copies of Matthew’s gospel can support any of those translations. But we can’t get hung up here and miss Jesus’ point.

In Jewish thought, seven is the perfect number. It was, according to Genesis, the number of days in the first week of God’s creation and it was on the seventh day that God rested from His labor. Seven is the number of completion and eternity.

So, how often are we to forgive our fellow believers, our sisters and brothers who by their confession of the crucified and risen Jesus, live in the Kingdom of heaven? Jesus says always.

Completely.

Totally.

Eternally.

Repeatedly.

Continuously.

While Peter stands there, undoubtedly slack-jawed and wondering why he would forgive anyone continuously and how he he could possibly do it, Jesus tells what has become one of his most famous parables. He begins: “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like…” Whenever Jesus uses phrasing like this, it’s a signal that the entire fictional illustration He’s about to share tells you what life in His kingdom is like. This is how things work among God’s people, the Church, Jesus is telling us.

Jesus says: “...the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand [The word here in the Greek in which Matthew wrote his gospel is murion, from which we get the English word, myriad...ten thousand] bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled [In fact, the word in the Greek is a form of the verb, aphiemi, literally, released, the word most commonly used in the New Testament for forgave. The king forgave, released the servant from the man who owed the king so much…] the debt and let him go.” [Matthew 18:23-27]

The first thing we learn from the parable about the kingdom of heaven is that it’s where Jesus’ disciples are set free, released! 

By the power of Jesus’ death on the cross, when He offered up His innocent body and blood in payment for the massive debt we owe to God for our sin, our debt is canceled. All who trust in Jesus and what He did for us on the cross, are set free of all we owe God for the ways our lives have violated His holiness:

• all the gossip and misuse of God’s name, 
• all the dishonesty and covetousness, 
• all the adultery and failure to worship God instead of ourselves or our kids or the world, 
• all the financial sleight of hand. 

We are set free to be the people God made us to be! As we sing in the traditional liturgy: “Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood set us free to be people of God.”

And when we come together on Sunday mornings, confessing our sins, because of what Jesus did for us and your faith in Jesus, you can believe that when I say, “As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and by His authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins,” or words like these, it's all true!

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has [God] removed our transgressions from us!” (Psalm 103:12)

Christians needn't say, "I hope that  I’m forgiven.” You are forgiven because Jesus died and rose to bring His forgiveness to all who trust in Him. That’s the first thing the kingdom of heaven is like for those who believe!

Jesus goes on with His parable in verse 28: ““But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The second thing we learn from Jesus' parable about the kingdom of heaven, the Church, is: It’s the dominion of God in which disciples of Jesus forgive others as we’ve been forgiven.

After teaching us to pray, elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” Jesus says: “...if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

If, after being assured of God’s absolution--His forgiveness of our sins--during worship on Sunday morning, we harbor grudges or hold things against others, refusing to release them from the debts they owe us, God will clap the chains and manacles back on our lives. Our lives will come back under an eternal death sentence. We will lose our forgiveness. We’ll lose our freedom.

The servant forgiven so much by the king in Jesus’ parable should have been so grateful for his freedom that he readily forgave the man who owed him so little. Instead, he used his freedom as a license to play God over his fellow servant. No matter how often we go to worship, or how many Bible verses we memorize, hurricane victims we help, or mission trips we go on, unless we forgive others as Christ desires to forgive us, we will not be forgiven. We’ll still be imprisoned in our sin.

It’s possible that after Jesus told this parable, Peter was as slack-jawed as he he’d been before Jesus told it. And maybe we find this teaching intimidating. I know that I do!

But the call and command of Jesus in this parable are simple and, if we take them seriously, liberating and life-giving.

Think of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross and what the Father accomplished for us when He raised Jesus from the dead, think of all of that, as a massive, eternal blank check imparting never-depleted riches of forgiveness and new life to all who turn from sin and trust in, believe in, surrender their lives to, Jesus.

God never tires of forgiving those who genuinely repent and believe in Him. He forgives in perfect seventy-seven times fashion.

In turn, Jesus frees us from the burden of keeping score. He frees us from having to figure out who owes us for hurting us.

Jesus frees us to treat others with the same grace, mercy, and forgiveness He has given to us.

He frees us to get on with the true living of life: loving God, loving neighbor, making disciples.

By the grace of God given in Christ, we are forgiven.

By that same grace, we can forgive others.

Seventy times seven, in utter eternal perfection.

That’s what life in the kingdom of heaven is like, here on earth and in eternity.

Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Today's 11:11, July 19, 2017

In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus talks about how Christian disciples in His Church are to reconcile if and when they have sinned against each other:

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

No one is more realistic about the reality of human sin than the sinless Son of God, Jesus. And no one  else offers the path to reconciliation with God and among human beings that Jesus offers to all who follow Him.

Cherish Those Pearls!

These are my reflections from quiet time spent with God today. For more information on how I approach quiet time, go here.

Look: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Jesus, speaking Matthew 7:1-2) 

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Matthew 7:6)

I used to think that these statements by Jesus were offered in the manner of, “On the one hand...but on the other hand.” You know: “On the one hand, don’t judge your brother and sister in faith by the standards of the law, unless you would be judged by those same standards. On the other hand, don’t entrust the gospel to just anybody.”

This interpretation would be rightly predicated, I think, on Jesus’ teaching about the Office of the Keys. We aren’t to judge people’s fitness for eternal salvation; that”s God’s job. So we shouldn’t judge. On the other hand, we have the responsibility to withhold absolution from those who refuse to repent.

I now think maybe that I’ve been wrong in this interpretation.

The problem is that this construction of Matthew 7:6, would instruct us to stop sharing God’s Word of truth, Law or Gospel, from certain people. And while, in the case of excommunication for unrepentant sin (the only basis on which excommunication should happen, so far as I can see), the sacrament of Holy Communion would be withheld, certainly Jesus wouldn’t want us to stop sharing His Word with the unrepentant, with the desire that they would come home. 

Otherwise, Jesus’ parable about the farmer indiscriminately sowing seed, which Jesus later says refers to God’s indiscriminate scattering of His Word, would make no sense.

There are many interpretations of Matthew 7:6. But the one that most attracts me is the one that sees this verse not as a countervailing contrast to Matthew 7:1-5, nor as an altogether different topic addressed on a series of statements by Jesus, as I had, at different times, seen it, but as an amplification of the first five verses of the chapter.

Listen: In trying to understand what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7:6, I looked at several different interpretations, including those by Martin Luther, Dallas Willard, and others. But the interpretation to which I’m most attracted is found in The Lutheran Study Bible:

“Jesus may be quoting a proverbial saying, which He applies to His previous teaching. He compares His disciples to ‘what is holy’ and to ‘pearls.’ He warns that hypocritical condemnation of fellow believers (vv 1-5) is tantamount to throwing these precious persons out of the fellowship to the dogs and pigs...Disciples thrown out of the fellowship would obviously suffer spiritual harm, and the congregation would be attacked for its hypocrisy.”

This is a different spin for me, and a convincing one. The pearls here aren’t “the pearl of great price” in Jesus’ parable (Matthew 13:45-46). There, the pearl is the gospel itself, a thing so precious and valuable that we should give up all that we are and have to take hold of it.

Instead, the pearls here are sisters and brothers in Christ, people who have been bought with Christ’s blood. Christ looks on each one as a precious jewel. 

I’m reminded of the These Are My Jewels statue, which stands on the lawn of the State House in Columbus. In it, Cornelia Africana, a member of a prominent Roman family and herself thought to be particularly virtuous, stands atop the statue, her hands stretched downward to call attention to seven Ohio jewels, Ohioans who served with prominence and distinction during the American Civil War and portrayed with their own statues. Cornelia is effectively saying, “These are my virtuous Ohio offspring.” 

People who have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are, then, regarded in much the same way by Jesus. We are His jewels.

Don’t, Jesus is saying then, turn them away with your ungracious judgments. To me, it echoes Zechariah 2:8: “For thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye.’”

This then, is an underscoring and intensification of Jesus’ teaching about judging others in the fellowship of the Church.

Don’t cast these pearls out among the dogs who don’t believe! Otherwise, those dogs could trample these precious gems, Jesus’ jewels, under foot, and they will lose their faith.

It strikes me that when seen in this way, we can see connections to at least two other passages of Scripture, one obvious, the other a bit more obscure.

The first is where Jesus says: ““Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:1-2) When we Christians harshly judge or, whether informally or formally, cast out, fellow believers in Jesus because we perceive their sins to be worse than our own, we may cause the judged believers to stumble in or lose their faith. That’s a horrible thing for a Christian to do, even damnable if we don’t repent.

The other passage I think of is Ephesians’ admonition to fathers: “Parents, do not treat your children in such a way as to make them angry. Instead, raise them with Christian discipline and instruction.” (Ephesians 6:4, Good News Translation)

Just as parents are to discipline from love, rather than punish from anger, Christians shouldn’t lash out at fellow believers in anger. Church discipline, if given at all, should be meted out with love, not vengefulness. Otherwise, believers may become discouraged and give up on the faith altogether.

Every believer is a pearl saved by grace through faith in Christ. There are ways to restore sisters and brothers who have fallen into unrepentant sin (Matthew 18:15-20). Condemning them, gossiping about them, shunning them, or tossing them out without a healthy airing of things isn’t Christian and it isn’t loving. Tossing them among unbelievers--who Jesus calls “pigs” and “dogs”--is like taking a Rolls-Royce Ghost and dropping it into a trash compactor. Only the loss is much greater, a person’s eternal relationship with God caused by the discouragement of Christ’s Church. Horrible!

I’ve seen this tragedy happen to Christian believers.

And, often, when the world sees this happen, unbelievers are inclined to trample us under feet.

Respond: No matter what I may be called to say or do today, Lord, let it be informed by Your grace. Help me to love my sisters and brothers in Christ, seeing them as pearls not to be easily judged or dismissed, but as fellow recipients of Your saving grace through faith in Christ. In Jesus’ name.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

'5 Ways to Protect Yourself' from 'Pathological Liars'

These strategies may protect us from pathological liars, but there seems to be no way to prevent them from lying to us short of refusing them access to us to lie. Changes can happen in the behaviors of pathological liars under pressure from the Holy Spirit, for which we pray in Christ's name.

I've found it best when forced to deal with such people to keep my distance. But when that's impossible, I to try to only speak with them when there is one other trustworthy person present. That way, there is a witness to possible later lies.

From the article:

Some individuals have developed skill in lying to others and have no fear or regret in engaged in lying to a Judge, police officer, therapist, psychiatrist, family member, spouse, supervisor, etc. They can also present as very calm or charming, provide appropriate eye contact, maintain norming breathing rhythms, be personable or friendly, and have calm body language. These individuals certainly fit the description of a sociopath and can be very dangerous for society and the lives of those who are in relation to them in some form or fashion.

I have learned that such persons, while rare, can be found in almost any institution, including the Church. They elude responsibility for bad actions or inaction, while portraying themselves as open, caring people. They're experts at deflecting responsibility for their actions, even when they bear clear responsibility for them. This can make their lies all the more damaging, because of the credibility credulous people may assign to charming liars who misuse others' goodwill.

Private confrontation, if bringing unsuccessful resolution to the lying pattern, should be followed by confrontation with a third and objective individual witness present. And if that confrontation is unsuccessful, it should be followed by confrontation in the presence of the affected group. All of this is designed to get the pathological liar or pathologically irresponsible person to a place of accountability and to gain a healed, recovering relationship with others. It is precisely the strategy for conflict resolution Christ gives to His Church in Matthew 18:15-20.

If failure to bring acknowledgment or a desire to change on the part of the pathological liar happens, more drastic action will be needed.

Pathological lying threatens any group--from the family to the congregation, from friendship to the nation--threatens any institution in which it happens.

Matthew 7:1, 15 (A 5 by 5 by 5 Reflection)

In Matthew 7:1, Jesus says: "Do not juge that you may not be judged."

He goes on to illustrate His point by warning us about seeing the speck in our neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in our own. Before you dare remove the speck from someone else, remove the log that's obscuring your own vision, Jesus is telling us.

This passage is often seen as a command from Jesus for His followers to remain placidly indifferent to the behaviors of others. (Or even of ourselves.) When we try to warn friends or family members of the destructiveness of their behaviors--behaviors destructive either to themselves, to others, or to their relationship with God--the first line of defense is usually, "Don't judge me" or, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

Some Christians clearly have a bad habit of being judgmental, harshly judging the behaviors or motives of others while regarding themselves as models of purity for whom sin is a past reality. In doing so, they disregard the Bible they claim is important to them. Jesus' words here have direct application to them...and to me, when I fall into such judgmental patterns.

But does Jesus want us to avoid making any judgments?

Here, the interpretive principle of letting Scripture interpret Scripture becomes important.

In Matthew 7:15, Jesus warns Christians about false prophets, people who come to us "in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." Inherent in that admonition is the call on Christians to make some judgments about questions like:

• Does this person speaking in Christ's name seem to be speaking the truth based on God's truth source, the Bible?
• Though no human being not conceived by the Holy Spirit (everyone but Jesus, in other words) is sinless or perfectly consistent in matching their words and values with their actions and lives, do the differences between this person's words and actions scream hypocrisy?
• Is this person advocating teachings or actions that are at odds with the Bible, God's revealed Word?

Later, in Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus lays out a process for conflict resolution within His Church for those who feel that another Christian believer has sinned against them. Is the person who forms the opinion that another has sinned against them always wrong? Are they always being judgmental? Apparently not. Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have established this process.

And so long as the person who deems themselves sinned against is willing to be told they've made a wrong judgment by submitting to the judgment of the Church, Jesus doesn't condemn their judging the fellow believer's behavior as sin.

So, is Jesus talking out of both sides of His mouth? Is He saying, "Don't judge, but judge"?

As I thought about these questions, my mind was drawn to 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

In other words, God's Word is the yardstick by which God calls us to match our walk with our talk.

The first and the main person whose life we need to measure against the teachings of Scripture is ourselves, daily submitting ourselves to the daily judgments of the gracious God we know in Jesus Christ. Like David, we pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

We also need to judge whether the behaviors to which our own inner voices are calling us are the right way, right not only in terms of what seems pleasing to God, but also in accord with the wisdom of God.

And there may be times when we sense God calling us to discuss with fellow believers who we sense are walking away from God, speaking to them with Christian compassion and concern. Such discussions will be preceded by "judgments."

The footnote in the Life Application Bible is helpful as it explains Matthew 7:1-5:

Jesus' statement 'Do not judge' is against the kind of hypercritical, judgmental attitude that tears others down in order to build oneself up. It is not a blanket statement against all critical thinking, but a call to be discerning rather than negative...

I think that has it right. There is a difference between judging and discerning. As is usually the case in the Christian life, the key issue is motive:

Is the critical thing I'm about to say or that I feel toward another rooted in God's Word and the concern God calls me to have for others? Or is it born more of my critical attitude, my own desire to feel important or superior?

The key question to ask ourselves before we make a critical statement or harbor a critical attitude may be this:

Is this from God or is this from me?

God teach me to ask these questions before I open my trap or entertain judgmental thoughts about others. In Jesus' name. Amen

Of Pens, Swords, Keyboards, & Throwing Businesses Under the Cyberbus

I don't know that I've ever written a review of a restaurant or retail establishment on my blog or on any of the social media outlets, other than to say we particularly enjoyed or appreciated a place. (The Olive Tree in Hilliard and the Giant Eagle Market District in Upper Arlington, both of which we love a lot, come to mind.)

But Beth McShane makes an important point in a post she titles, The Pen is even mightier than the sword: Our pens (or furious keyboard-tapping fingers) can cause a lot of damage to some establishments, especially to those mom and pop businesses whose owners have a genuine commitment to customer satisfaction and product improvement.

McShane writes:

There is an unfortunate trend among some social media dabblers to tweet first and ask questions later. The days of asking to see the manager when you have a complaint has been replaced with reaching for the iPhone and tweeting directly from the dinner table. Don’t like your haircut? Try talking to the salon before giving that one star review on Twitter. You owe it to them to give them a chance to make things right before you go public with scrutiny.

I like Beth's alternative strategy.

By laying aside our pens, swords, and keyboards long enough to get explanations or better performances in response to the second chances we provide, we might save the reputations of earnest merchants who really do want to the right thing and, unless the fly actually belongs there in your soup, generally have a great product. (You'll have to watch the great Grover clip from Sesame Street that Beth provides at her post to get that.)

So, please check out Beth McShane's post.

By the way, in mentioning McShane's post calling for giving merchants and retailers with whom you're disappointed the chance to make things right, I haven't really wandered from my usual bailiwick of Biblical Christianity.

For example, the eighth of the Ten Commandments, the list of basic moral laws God gives to the human race for us as long as Planet Earth is still spinning on its axis, God says, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

In that edict, it's clear enough that God doesn't want us to spread untruths about others. But back in the 1520s, in a book called The Small Catechism, Martin Luther penetrated to the deeper levels of God's intent for this commandment, when he explained that:

We should fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, lie, or gossip about our neighbors, but defend them, speak well of them, and put the most charitable construction on all that they do.

By Luther's perceptive summation, we see that God wants to be sure that, even when a neighbor doesn't meet our expectations, we restrain ourselves from "throwing under them bus." That would include cyber-buses like Twitter, Facebook, or your own blog where you fume about the deficiencies of products or services.

Maybe the businessperson who disappointed you was having a bad day (like Mr. Gower in It's a Wonderful Life) or you didn't understand that the menu really did promote Cream of Mosquito soup (see the Grover video).  (Matthew 7:12)

When we obey the eighth commandment--a tough proposition, I might add--we're really fulfilling what has been called Jesus' golden rule: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you" (Matthew 7:12).

If we do have complaints or questions though, the Bible suggests that we investigate things before complaining to the world. In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus lays down a process for Christians to resolve conflicts with fellow Christians. But its principles clearly have broader application.

The bottom line is that if you have a beef with someone, you go to them first...not the entire Internet. You may be able to get things resolved without resorting to wielding the sword of a blog post or Facebook or Twitter update.

After all, wouldn't you rather help solve a problem than have the privilege of bellyaching in cyberspace? Yeah, me too.

Turns out Beth McShane's advice is good in a lot of ways! You can also follower her on Twitter: @BethMcShane

An Ancient Call to Post-Modern People

[This sermon was shared yesterday morning during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]

Ezekiel 33:7-11
God needs lots of Ezekiels today, people like Jon.

Jon is a man I know whose mother died when he was in his early twenties. Jon, his brother, and his sisters were comforted in knowing that their mother had trusted in Jesus Christ. They were confident that because of God’s gracious gift of the crucified and risen Jesus and their mother’s faith in Christ, she was with God for eternity.

But they were all concerned about their father. Though he had been a good husband and father in many ways, he had, years before, wandered from God. As a result of having no relationship with God, Jon’s Dad was shattered and beyond all comfort at the death of the woman he loved.

Christians grieve. But as the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians puts it, Christians need not “grieve as others do without hope.” Jon’s dad was hopeless and, as a result, he was falling into some destructive patterns of behavior—drinking too much, working too much, staying up all hours watching infomercials. Jon decided he needed to have a heart-to-heart talk with his father.

“Dad,” he said, “I love you and I’m concerned about you. Dad, you’re slowly killing yourself. You’re letting your grief over Mom kill you. And you’re killing yourself too, by relying on beer and work to get you through. I know you don’t want to hear this, Dad, but you need to get right with God. You need to lean on Him.”

Jon’s father began to protest at hearing another religious jaw. “Wait a minute, Dad,” Jon said, “think about Mom. She believed in Jesus with all her heart.” Jon’s dad, tears welling in his eyes, admitted that was true. “Dad, she’s with Jesus, don’t you think?” Again, Jon’s dad agreed. “Dad, I not only don’t want you to be separated from God, I don’t want you to be separated from anyone who has believed in Jesus. I want you to be with Mom again in eternity.”

At that moment, Jon’s dad realized how far he had walked from God and God’s people and how he needed to lay everything aside that he’d been using to make it through his days. Jon’s dad turned to Christ and slowly, started to live again with hope and purpose. When I met him five years later, he was a truly happy man, deeply involved with his church, especially in helping feed hungry people. He still missed his wife. But he had hope.

Jon, a heavy machinery salesman by trade, was used by God in that moment as a sentinel—a guard—warning his Dad of the judgment his father was bringing down on himself, but also showing him the new life that could belong to his dad if he would turn from sin and self-absorption and trust in God alone. The life of Jon’s father was saved for eternity because Jon dared to speak a word of truth to him!

Our first Bible lesson for today comes from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. I can’t delve too far into the history of this remarkable book, but Ezekiel was a prophet and priest who, for years, had warned the people of Judah, the southern grouping of God’s people whose capital city was Jerusalem, that their continuing reliance on things other than God, their unjust and unloving treatment of others, and all their other sins would lead to the destruction of their country unless they repented and turned in faith to God.

These people—God’s people, the descendants of slaves who had been miraculously brought to a land filled with blessings showered on them by God, had turned a deaf ear to Ezekiel’s warnings. As the 33rd. chapter of Ezekiel begins, God calls Ezekiel again. He has more messages He wants Ezekiel to share with His people. God is about to orchestrate the devastation of Judah by foreign conquerors.

But God doesn't intend for that to be the end of the story. God meant the impending destruction and enslavement of his people in Ezekiel's time to lead a different conclusion.

God wanted Ezekiel to carry a new message to His people.

Now, if I had been Ezekiel, I might have thought, “I’ve had enough of the preaching business. No one wants to hear what God has to say anyway. Why should I waste my breath?”

But it was at precisely this moment that God came to Ezekiel again and, in some mysterious way, God told Ezekiel that just as Ezekiel had earlier prophesied destruction, now Ezekiel was to prophesy restoration. God was going to renew His people, give them back their land, allow them to rebuild their temple.

The key to the fulfillment of the promise of restoration was the same as the avoidance of the earlier (and ignored) threat had been: The people must repent for sin (turn away from sin) and trust in God alone. God told Ezekiel that Ezekiel must share this word with His people. Look at how God puts it in verses 8 and 9 of our first lesson: “If I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked ones, you shall surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.”

God called Ezekiel to play for high stakes. He was to tell people to turn to God. If he failed to share that message, the blood of those he feared or hated too much to share it with would be on his hands.

If he shared the message and people still refused to repent and trust in God, their blood would be on their own hands.

Now, folks, this is more than a history lesson. In this history, we see the hand of God and we also see how God still operates to call unrepentant sinners to restored fellowship with Him when they turn from their sin and trust in Him.

We see God operating this way in today's Gospel lesson. There, Jesus lays down a process by which a church member sins against another can be restored to fellowship with God and with the church. If the member at fault refuses to renounce his sin, Jesus says, the Church must excommunicate that person, stripping him of his membership and denying him the privilege of receiving Christ's body and blood. Jesus says that this action must be taken not to bring an end to the story, but to allow the one at fault to understand the full consequences of unrepented sin. When we refuse to acknowledge our guilt, we are separated from God and the life that only God can give. If the one at fault, at the end of the process Jesus lays down in Matthew 18:15-20, will repent, restoration will come. Forgiveness and new life will come.

Jesus lays out this same pattern in his story of the prodigal son. The prodigal was allowed to experience the full consequences of his sin. But when he turned away from his sin and returned to his father, who, of course, represents God, his connection to his family was restored again.

When, six centuries after Ezekiel, God came to the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, He gave the same message to the world which, up to that point, God had given to His chosen people. Today, through Christ, eternal restoration and renewal, the new life that Jon’s father grasped that day Jon and he had a heart-to-heart, is what God offers to all who repent for sin and believe in Jesus. Jesus put it this way according to the Gospel of Mark, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good News.”

Also today, the call that God gave to Ezekiel, the prophet and priest, is a call that He gives to every believer in Jesus Christ. A passage that has played a critical role in Lutheran history, the basis for the Lutheran theology of "the priesthood of all believers," underscores this. Please take up a pew Bible and turn to page 703 and find 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 9. Read it aloud with me, if you would:

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 

God calls every believer in Jesus Christ to be an Ezekiel, to be a Jon, who shares the life-changing news that all who turn from sin and trust in Christ live with God for eternity.

When we believe in Jesus Christ, God walks with us through every step of this life, giving us strength and peace we can find nowhere else.

We all know that the message about Jesus Christ isn’t something that most people are clamoring to hear today, no matter how desperately they need it. Words like those God instructed Ezekiel to share with His people sound like antiquated nail scratches on a chalk board to modern ears. Read them in verses 10 to 11 of our first lesson:

…say…’Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?’ Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?’

In an era in which...

• freedom is institutionalized as selfishness and an excuse for greed, 
• drug addiction right here in Hocking County is epidemic, 
• child abuse and a coarse disregard for the humanity of others can be seen everywhere, 
• sexual promiscuity of all sorts is seen as the inevitable result of irresistible biological impulses rather than the choice of a society that worships at the altar of self, and 
• things like racial bigotry, the unjust treatment of women, and a sense of entitlement pervade our culture, 

the call to turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ as the only way to live here and in eternity is not welcome. In sharing the message of new life through Jesus Christ, we run the risk of becoming the guests nobody wants to show up at the party!

But, here's a question we must all address:

Whose approval do we want more, that of a world hurtling toward death in its sins or that of heaven, which awaits repentant sinners with open arms? 

The answer, I think, should be obvious. Speaking for myself, I want to be on the side of the One Who will be standing when Jesus returns to claim His final victory over sin and death! And, if I can help convey the message of new life to people who don't know Jesus Christ, I am more than willing to live with the disdain of some.

God tells Ezekiel that He takes no pleasure when people spurn Him and follow the way of death rather than following Him. God still takes no pleasure in that. He wants to welcome all into relationship with Him.

Jesus, God in the flesh, demonstrated this same sentiment on the Palm Sunday before His arrest and crucifixion. You'll remember that Jesus was given a hero's welcome to Jerusalem. Later on that same day though, knowing all that awaited Him in the week to come, Jesus wept over the city. The days would come, He told this place that housed God's temple, that they would be crushed because they had failed to see that in Him, God had visited them and offered new and everlasting life to all who repent and believe in Him.

Today, there are people in our community—people in your own personal circles of acquaintance—who, right now, at this moment, are condemning themselves to eternal separation from God and who need you to be their sentinels.

They need you to warn them of the destruction to come for those who refuse Jesus’ outstretched hand of grace and forgiveness and of the new life that can be theirs if only they will quit struggling to be self-sufficient, self-contained, and self-driven and surrender to the only love that lasts forever, the love given to all through Jesus Christ.

Fine, you may say, I’m called to share Christ with others; how do I do that?

Well, it isn’t a matter of what you do. It’s a matter of who you are. As I've said before, God made you a human being, not a human doing.

By Baptism, you are already a child of God. Your belief in Jesus confirms that fact.

So, be a child of God. Live out the privilege of that.

Without apology or self-doubt, be the forgiven, free, and hopeful child of God Christ has already made you.

Ezekiel was a believer God used as a conduit for His message: repent and believe. If you and I try to make believers of others by our efforts or with our own messages, we will fail.

I used to be the kind of Christian and preacher who thought I could, by use of a program or a method or clever word games, win converts to Christ.

But the message I shared came from me, not God, and it was about me, not God.

I’ve never won anyone to Christ by being clever. But Christ has won people to Christ through me when I’ve gotten out of the way and let Christ live in me. He can do the same through all believers!

In Psalm 44, the writer remembers how God gave the promised land to His people: “…not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but Your right hand, and Your arm, and the light of Your countenance…”

God needs lots of Ezekiels today, people who will listen to the Word about Jesus Christ and then, in the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting that Christ is living in them (and He lives in all believers!), open their mouths to spread that Word to others.

That’s nothing other than being a Christian. That’s depending on God to be who we were made to be as children of God. That’s who Jon was. That’s who Christ can help us to be, who God made us to be, and who everyone of we know needs us to be: people who listen to God’s Word and then pass it on.

May we all be Ezekiels!

Amen!

If We Won't Speak God's Truth, the Very Stones Will Cry Out

From Chosen: The Story of God and His People, which we use for Catechism class at Saint Matthew, on why God sent some prophets to ancient Israel with gloomy messages of condemnation if God's people refused to turn from sin and return to faith in Him:

As strange as it may sound, God sent prophets of doom to his people because he loved them. He cares enough to say a harsh word to us because it is for our own good. It is not easy to say hard words to someone you love. Nor is it easy to be critical when you want to say nice things. But it is important to speak the truth. You cannot pretend everything is fine when it isn't. If friends are going to hurt themselves or someone else because of the way they live, then we should speak out. God did this through his prophets.

The apostle Paul spoke about the importance of "speaking the truth in love." Some people erroneously think that pointing out sins that threaten themselves, their relationships with others, or their eternal destinies is the same thing as judging, something Jesus warned us not to do. Not true!

The condemning judgments we express toward others are often done behind the backs of those we condemn. And when we judgeothers, if we do confront them, there is no desire to help them, only to prove them wrong (and by extension, ourselves superior). Love, the desire for what is best for another, even when the other makes us furious or when we find ourselves incapable of being around the other, is absent.

By contrast, when we speak the truth in love, we do so with the other person and with a desire to help them. We do so, Jesus says in His mandate for conflict resolution with fellow believers, even with a willingness to come away from those confrontations proven wrong.

Jesus has entrusted the role of both confronting congregants and the world for sin and for offering the grace of forgiveness and new starts available through Jesus Christ. We must not mince words on either God's Law or God's Good News, the Gospel. Love compels the Church to speak both messages, whether the world likes it or not.

In this era when the denomination of which I am a part speaks with a garbled voice about things like the deity of Jesus, the truth of His virgin birth and resurrection, Christ's claims to be the exclusive means by which humanity enters into a relationship with God, the authority of Scripture over our lives, and the teaching of the Bible that sexual intimacy was created by God as a source of pleasure, bonding, and procreation for a man and a woman in a lifetime marital covenant, we must devote ourselves to speaking the Word of God clearly.

The world may like a garbled message. It enables us to dodge God's truth, to replace our individual desires for God's will. But God refuses to be marginalized. God refuses to allow us to go to hell without a fight.

If we won't speak God's truth in love, God will raise up other messengers who will. The very stones will cry out His truth!

Some may be shy about speaking God's truth, however lovingly, because of an awareness of their own sins. But if you read the testimonies by and about the Old Testament prophets, you discover that they shared this very trait with you.

• God chastised Elijah for that prophet's self-righteous notion that only he was faithful among God's people. 
• Jonah hated the foreigners God had called him to preach to and was ultimately forced to fulfill his call after God had him swallowed up by a great fish. 
• Hosea wasn't keen on marrying a prostitute who he was sure would be unfaithful to him. 
• The New Testament prophet John the Baptist, the one who whooped in the womb when his mother heard the voice of Jesus' pregnant mother Mary, doubted Jesus as the Messiah when he languished in Herod's prison before he was beheaded.

The everyday prophets Christians are called to be aren't perfect either. They're willing to be proven wrong. But they are unwilling to see their friends, family members, or society turn away from God and the life that only God offers without telling them the truth about God's condemnation of sin and about God's gift of new and everlasting life for all who repudiate their sin and surrender their lives and wills to Jesus Christ.

"What Do You Do with a Broken Relationship?"

That's the title of a helpful little booklet from Radio Bible Class, which you can download here.

I would only add two points to the booklet's advice and undergird one point that is made there:

1. It's important to be in constant prayer about the broken relationship, whatever step you may be taking. Even if the other person with whom you are in conflict refuses to reconcile, it's important that you spare damage to your own psyche and spirit by praying for that other person.

2. It's important to enlist the counsel of one trusted Christian friend, maybe a counselor or a pastor. This is less about "venting" than it is about getting the input of someone who can tell us the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

3. This is a hard one, especially for a certain loquacious pastor I know, who has the gift of gab: Don't tell everyone in sight about your conflicted relationship. That's apt only to compound the problem. Jesus gives a process for dealing with conflicts which arise among Christians, here.

I happened on the link to What Do You Do with a Broken Relationship? on today's daily devotion in Our Daily Bread.

I Loved This on Resolving Conflicts

See here.

Also, last week, I heard a great presentation from Pastor John Waak of Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Victoria, Texas, dealing with Healing After Conflict.

In it, Pastor Waak used the Biblical narratives of the lives and interactions of Saul, Israel's first king, and the younger man David, whom God chose to take Saul's place. Waak said that in any conflict, we are likely to exhibit traits like one or the other of these men.

Before going into the specifics of this, John made several observations:

• In conflict, we must learn to be Christians who stand on our feet, often that will mean running away from actual conflict.
• Conflict does happen even in churches and has an impact on us personally and as congregations.
• Conflict rarely yields a winner.
• Conflict makes us feel "ugly and torn," not "a purposeful child of God."
• Most frightening of all, conflict can cover us with unrighteous anger. The Bible says that Satan kills, steals, and destroys. We can see how Satan, the Evil One, employs to kill, steal, and destroy our faith and our fellowship as Christian people. By contrast, Pastor Waak, pointed out, Jesus came into the world to give us abundant life!
• Then, Pastor Waak showed the contrast between Saul and David in their conflict.

I urge you to contact Pastor Waak at johnwaak@oursaviourslutheran.com. Tell him you'd like a copy of his fantastic breakout presentation given on October 6, at the annual gathering of Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. The group participation piece can be a great template for congregations dealing with conflicts.

You might want to read this passage: Philippians 4:1-9.
You might also read Matthew 18:15-20.

Holy Anger: The Conrtolled Burn That Can Change the World

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

John 2:13-22
Once, back when our daughter was a teenager, a headline on the front cover of one of her magazines caught my eye: “Chill Out! Take Our Anger Quiz.” I flipped to page 122 and found eight multiple choice questions. I’m going to try a couple of them on you. If you’re not a teenage girl, pretend that you are for just a second and consider how you might answer:

(1) Your dad won’t let you go [to a] concert. When you ask why, the answer is, “Because I said so.” You: a. scowl and request a better explanation. b. hurl the TV remote at his head and stomp upstairs. c. shrug.

(8) A really bad cold has your brother laid up in bed for two days. You happen to walk by his room, and he demands in a pompous tone that you get him a glass of orange juice. You: a. tell him that saying please doesn’t hurt, and then head to the kitchen. b. immediately walk to the garage and slash both of the tires on his bike. c. rush to see if there’s any fresh-squeezed in the fridge.

At the end of this quiz, you were supposed to know whether your anger was too tepid, medium hot, or boiling over. We can quibble with the accuracy of a magazine quiz. But it is based on a reality about us as human beings. It’s this: the capacity for anger is something God has built into us and there are times when it’s right and times when it’s wrong to be angry!

Someone has said that, “Anger is an emotional reaction to your interpretation of a life experience in which your expectations are not met or are violated.” A wife comes home from work expecting a quiet evening alone with her husband and kids only to learn that her husband has invited buddies over to watch the NCAA basketball tournament. An employee gets good reviews for three years in a row and is promised a promotion, but the promotion never comes. Our lives are filled with a hundred potential flash points each day. Anger happens. We need to learn to manage it, harness it, and use it creatively.

The Institute for Mental Health Initiatives has developed a method for coping or controlling our anger built on the acronym RETHINK:

• Recognize when you’re angry and what’s causing it;
• Empathize, trying to see the other person’s point of view;
• Think of other ways you might be able to interpret the situation making you angry;
• Hear what the other person is saying;
• Integrate love and respect into the way you deal with your anger;
• Notice your body’s reaction to anger and find ways to calm down;
• Keep your attention focused on the present and don’t bring up past offenses.

In the Bible, God doesn’t condemn anger itself. In the New Testament, for example, the apostle Paul advises, “Be angry, but do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” In other words, it’s okay for us to get mad as long as we don’t let our anger turn into spitefulness or hate. And by all means, if we’re angry with someone, we should try to resolve our disputes right away. Unresolved disputes inevitably cause us to sin.

I must confess that anger doesn’t come easily to me. I would probably lean toward the tepid end of that quiz’s reckoning. It takes a lot for me to get angry. There may be others here today who tilt toward the boiling over end of the spectrum. Either place is probably unhealthy. But if we can find a way to use our anger, putting it under the discipline of God, it can become a force for good.

Our Gospel lesson for this morning recounts a famous incident in which Jesus, visiting the temple in Jerusalem, gave full vent to holy anger. In those days, people would go to the temple to offer sacrifices to God. Wealthy folks could afford to sacrifice cattle and sheep. Poorer people sacrificed doves or even grain. In the outer court, the place where non-Jews were allowed to be, the temple featured a kind of shopping mall. At the temple, you could only use temple money to buy the animals that were used for sacrificing. But out on the streets of Jerusalem, Roman money was used. If you came to the temple to offer a sacrifice then, the first thing you had to do was exchange your Roman coins for temple coins. You did this with a person called a moneychanger. These moneychangers were notorious gougers. They didn’t care what the exchange rate was. They were the only game in town, so to speak. So they got away with charging the worshipers exorbitant service charges. The same gouging was practiced by those who sold the animals to be sacrificed. Jesus was enraged by all of this!

That was when Jesus had His famous temple tantrum, throwing the moneychangers out of the place, upsetting their tables, freeing the animals from their cages, and generally setting loose what forest firefighters might call a “controlled burn.”

As followers of Jesus, the only legitimate kind of anger is Jesus’ brand of holy anger. But what is holy anger?

Holy anger, first of all, has to do with zeal for God. After Jesus’ anger, they remembered words from the Old Testament’s Psalm 69:9: “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” Jesus was zealous for the things that make God the Father zealous.

We see similar zeal in people who follow God.

• Mother Teresa was zealous for loving and cherishing life.
• Martin Luther was zealous for tearing down the walls the Church of his day had erected between Jesus Christ and the world for which He died and rose.

As Lutheran Pastor Dan Anderson puts it, “Holy anger is righteous indignation that leads to action.”

Holy anger is also about love for others. Jesus didn’t give vent to rage because somebody had cut him off in traffic or because somebody took the last scoop of black walnut crunch ice cream that He’d wanted. Jesus was upset that the merchants at the Temple Mall had put a price tag on God’s love and forgiveness. You and I know that these are gifts that God offers to all through Jesus Christ. When we see others being hurt, our call is clear. Holy love demands that we get angry for our neighbor’s sake.

Holy anger is productive and useful. Martin Luther knew this. “When I am angry,” Luther said. “I can write, pray, and preach well, for my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.” Luther’s holy anger compelled him to do the right thing as he sought to give all people personal access to the God we know through Jesus Christ.

Anger is an inevitable element of our humanity. But God calls us to harness our anger for His purposes. In 1979, on a Maryland street, the car in which five-and-a-half month old Laura Lamb and her mother, Cindi were riding was hit head-on by a drunk driver traveling at 120 miles per hour. Laura became the world’s youngest quadriplegic. In California less than a year later, thirteen year old Cari Lightner was killed by a drunk driver. Just two days earlier, he had been released on bail for a hit-and-run drunk driving crash and already had two drunk driving convictions behind him. Cari’s mother Candace formed an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and soon linked her efforts with those of Cindi Lamb, who had already undertaken similar efforts in Maryland. Twenty-three years later, MADD is still a controlled burn, translating the anger and rage of parents who have seen the pain inflicted by drunk drivers into positive actions. MADD has heightened our awareness of the dangers of driving while under the influence of alcohol and of the need for designated drivers. They’ve gotten laws passed that get drunks off of our roads and highways and make all of us safer.

What holy anger do you have today?

Maybe you’re angry over child abuse.

It may be the increasing evidence of drug addiction here in Logan or the crying needs of the unemployed.

It could be the way in which Satan and the evil of the world fogs people’s minds and wills, turning them from the better and eternal life offered by Jesus Christ.

I get angry sometimes with the Church at large and at times, myself in particular, for failing to invite others to know and experience life with God or hiding God behind a lot of churchy language.

Today, commit yourself to harnessing your holy anger—the anger that comes not from selfishness, but from the love and passion of God for people in need around you--and using it in positive, productive, proactive ways.

Burn for God and let the world see the glow of Jesus’ love in you.

When Other Christians Sin Against Us

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Matthew 18:15-20
John was a member of my first parish. Whenever there was a congregational meeting, no matter what the issue being voted on, John voted, “No!” If someone had proposed a resolution that read, “Resolved: Grass is green,” he would have voted, “No.” Finally, one day, several years before I was the pastor there, some members of the congregation, purely out of curiosity, asked, “John, why do you always vote against everything?” He looked at them as though they were from another planet. “Because if I didn’t,” he said, convinced of the flawlessness of his logic, “the vote would be unanimous.”

Psychologist and pastor Alan Loy McGinnis says that in all healthy relationships, we must be willing to allow one another our little insanities. Because the people of that church were so spiritually and emotionally healthy, they could accept John’s contrariness even as they shook their heads over it. We all need to be charitable toward one another and to recognize that even when we get exasperated with each other, we’re still called to love and live in fellowship together.

But what happens when a fellow church member moves beyond simple contrariness and sins against us in some way?

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says that when one member of the Church sins against another, we have the means of resolving things because He--the crucified, once-dead, now-risen, and living Lord of the universe--is with us. Jesus promises to be among us.

For some, the very notion that Christians might sin against each other doesn’t compute. Many believe that if Christians ever hurt each other, it’s proof that they’re not Christians.

But the Church is a support group for recovering sinners, a haven for the imperfect. Lutheran theology, taking its cue from the Bible, realistically looks at baptized believers and says that we are “saints and sinners simultaneously,” just as was true of the disciple Peter who, in one breath, Jesus called the Rock on whose confession of faith he would build the Church, and in the next Jesus described as, “Satan,” someone who was standing in Christ’s way.

My friend Virgil Meyer likes to remind people, “If there weren’t any sinners in the church, it would be empty.” We Christians aren’t called to live in the Kingdom of Nice, but in the Kingdom of God with other real-life, feeling, thinking human beings. And this side of heaven, though we’re forgiven and recovering sinners, we are still nonetheless, sinners capable of doing wrong and of wronging others. It happens.

So, why bother being part of the Church if other members will maybe sin against us? Why not live in isolation and have a “Jesus and me” sort of faith?

Because the Bible repeatedly affirms that to be Christians, we need the imperfect fellowship of the Church. Paul, for example, says that the Church is the body of Christ in the world and just as an eye, or a leg, or a brain can’t function without the whole body, our faith will die if we don’t remain in vital fellowship with the church.

Part of growing up as followers of Jesus Christ is recognizing that we won’t always agree on everything. We’ll have disputes. And ninety-nine percent of the time, those disputes we have with other Christians are insignificant. But sometimes, they’re the result of someone having sinned against us or our belief that they've sinned against us.

Jesus says that the way for Christians to handle these latter situations isn’t to simply ignore them.

Or to sue the other person’s socks off.

Or to gossip about or ignore the other person.

As followers of Jesus, we can dare to take a more difficult approach. Jesus outlines it in the Gospel lesson this morning.

First, Jesus says, we go to the person we feel has sinned against us. The congregation I formerly served in northwestern Ohio was in a rural setting in which we had to burn all our trash. Once, during a drought season, the burn barrel fairly full, the fire I started fell out of the barrel and onto the ground. Ann and I had to work quickly to put it out. When we finally did, three-quarters of the softball infield, next to which the burn barrel stood, was blackened from the fire. The next day, a bunch of kids were playing ball there and asked me what had happened. I told them about my fire. That evening, I got a call from a church member asking why I’d told everybody that he had started the fire. “I didn’t,” I told him. “I told everybody I started the fire and what a dolt I'd been to have done so.”

The point: That man didn’t bother gossiping to anybody else, complaining about how I’d pinned a bad reputation on him. He came directly to me and in short order, our conflict over my perceived sin against him was resolved.

Jesus says that when another Christian sins against us, we’re to go to them privately. We may learn that they didn’t really sin against us and our fellowship will be restored. Or, if they did sin against us, they may apologize and fellowship will be restored.

But, Jesus says, if the other person turns out to be unwilling to hear you out, you’re to enlist two or three other Christians to listen to both of you and guide you toward restoration. Lutheran pastor Mike Foss once told the true story of a time when he and a man in his congregation and the man's three sons formed an intervention group to confront a wife and mother for her gambling addiction, something that was having a devastating effect on the family.

At the beginning of this session, for twenty minutes, the husband laid out all the reasons for his concern for his wife and what her addiction was doing to all of them. Then, weeping, he told her how much he loved her.

Writes Foss: “She looked at her three boys, took a long look at her husband, and then looked at me. What came out of her mouth next was probably the fiercest barrage of venom I’d ever heard from anyone...ever. With her three sons sitting close by, she called her husband names that made my skin crawl...”

That’s the sort of thing that can happen when we confront other believers for their sins against us. But if our motives are to help the other person and not get some sort of revenge, we can do this knowing that Christ is with us.

Jesus goes on to tell us that if the person refuses to listen or repent after we’ve enlisted two other members of the church, we’re to get the whole church involved. Probably in our case, the involvement of the church would happen through our Church Council.

A colleague of mine in northwest Ohio once told us about an incident that happened in the congregation he served. One member learned that another member of the congregation, a guy he didn’t like, had cancer. So, after worship one day, this fellow walked up to the cancer victim. “Joe,” he said, “I understand you have cancer.” “Yes,” Joe replied. “Well,” the first man said, “I guess you get what you deserve.” When my colleague got wind of this remark, he followed the process Jesus outlines in today’s lesson. The man refused to repent and ultimately, the Church Council decided that he was no longer a member of the congregation and could not receive Holy Communion.

The whole point in the process Jesus gives is not for us to spiritually look down on others, but to facilitate the restoration of relationships. It’s designed to act as a megaphone so that those who sin against us can hear and heed the Holy Spirit again and so, repent and be at peace with God and their Christian family.

My colleague’s church excommunicated its member not to punish him, but in hopes that he would see the gravity of his guilt and be restored to the body of Christ.

Had they not taken the action they took his unrepented sin against a fellow church member would have been another sort of cancer, one on the body of Christ that blocked God’s forgiveness not just from one unrepentant person, but from the whole congregation.

The process that Jesus outlines requires courage and truthfulness and humility and a commitment to living in the fellowship of a church to which Christ calls all believers. It requires us to think less about me, more about we.

For all the risks, the results of pursuing this process can be wonderful! Years ago, I became aware of a fellow Christian saying some things about me to others that were completely untrue, things which I felt at the time, if left unchallenged, would severely damage my reputation and hamper my ability to do ministry.

I stewed about what to do for a while. Then, praying desperately, hands shaking, I picked up the telephone and confronted the guy.

He immediately confessed that he had repeatedly said the things I’d heard attributed to him, apologized, and promised to tell everyone to whom he had previously spoken that his statements were untrue.

“I’m sorry, Pastor,” he told me, “I know that everything I said was wrong, but sometimes I’m a gossip.”

That man died a few months later and I presided over his funeral. I felt a special twinge of sadness because not long before, our confrontation and the restoration that resulted had given us a good friendship. We genuinely appreciated and loved one another. And the funny thing is, as I was preparing the sermon for today, Ann and I tried to remember what the man had been saying about me and though we racked our brains to remember, we both have completely forgotten. We can’t always forget, of course. But, with Christ’s help, we can forgive.

Are there are any Christians—here or in other congregations--you feel have sinned against you? Then, resolve today to strengthen your relationship with God and the life of Saint Matthew by taking the steps Jesus outlines today. You will be glad you did.

Be reconciled to those who have wronged you. Forgiveness among us is a salve that heals our souls and strengthens Christ’s Church.

Q-and-A: Is It Wrong for Christians to Become Angry?

[This is the first part of an ongoing series of posts I intend to present, based on questions I get in my everyday life as a pastor.]

Q: Is it wrong for Christians to become angry?

A: For some people, anger is a way of life. Filled with a sense of personal inadequacy, unable to cope with life, they lash out at others, usually spouses or children. Through outbursts of anger, they think that they can control their lives.

But anger isn't always bad. This may come as a surprise to some people, Christian as well as non-Christian.

If you are a Christian, you may have had the experience of becoming angry with a family member or co-worker and then hearing them indignantly say, "And you call yourself a Christian?"

The Christian may feel ashamed, thinking that they've given a bad witness of their faith because they lost their cool.

But they may have no reason for shame. An interesting passage in the New Testament tells us, "Be angry but do not sin." The very phrasing of that admonition should tell us that there's nothing inherently wrong or sinful about getting angry. It's possible to be angry without engaging in sin.

One clearly legitimate reason for being angry is when we see an injustice.

Once, Jesus entered the temple in Jerusalem. It was the center of Judah's worship life, the place where Jesus and His fellow Jews said that the presence of God lived in a place called "the holy of holies." One of the ongoing activities of the place was the sacrificing of animals or, in the case of extremely poor believers, cereals, on the altar. Most people came to the temple without sheep, doves, or cereals to be used as sacrifices. Those would have been purchased at the temple. But those purchases could only have been made with special temple currency. Set up in the temple then, were various "money changers," who would exchange whatever currency worshipers might have for the temple money, apparently at exorbitant rates. After securing the temple money, the faithful would then have to purchase the objects of sacrifice, again for exorbitant sums of money.

The entire business was unjust. Playing on the piety of sincere worshipers of God, the temple merchants made a killing. This enraged Jesus! No wonder He upset the tables where the business was done and set the animals there to be sacrificed loose.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus was both God and human and that our salvation depends on Him having led sinless life above reproach. Only a sinless Savior could be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

If anger were always a sin, Jesus' ability to work forgiveness of sin in our lives would be forever negated. But anger can lead us to sin.

We can also be angered when a person treats us inconsiderately. Is that wrong? Not, apparently, if we use our anger as an occasion to work things out with the other person. "Be angry, but do not sin." Anger can lead to sin when we nurse it, feed it, and allow it to cause us to be sanctimonious or to be disrespectful of the person with whom we're angry. It's a sin to be self-righteous or hateful.

The same New Testament verse that advises, "Be angry but do not sin," says that when we do get angry we shouldn't let "the sun set on [our] anger." In other words, resolve your differences.

Jesus, in fact, gives a process by which conflicts can be resolved among believing people, one which I think contains principles for resolving differences among all people. In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus says that we should first go to the person we feel has treated us unjustly, confronting them directly rather than gossiping about them. If no satisfactory resolution results from that confrontation, a disinterested third party, another believer, should be asked to, in effect, mediate, offering a solution. If the confronted party still refuses to deal with matters, an authoritative group within the Church should be brought in to mediate.

If this process looks cumbersome and not worth the trouble, that may mean that the situation that has made you so angry may not be a big enough deal to warrant such treatment. If that's the case, then you should simply ask God to help you forgive and then go on. The last thing you want to do is to continue harboring anger.

It's this harbored anger, I believe, that Jesus has in mind when He says, "“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry [some of the ancient manuscripts insist that Jesus adds here, "without just cause"] with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire" (Matthew 5:20-22).

Much of our anger is unjustified. And it could be avoided if we would remember Paul's admonition in the New Testament book of Philippians: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:4). Chances are, 95% of our anger would go away if we followed this advice.

Anger isn't always wrong. Some people say that we should count to ten before expressing anger. That's not bad advice, especially if during that ten-second interval we ask, "Lord, am I justified in feeling anger? Let me know one way or another and then, whatever may be true, tell me how to deal with it."