The Shadow of Uriah

By on Apr 6, 2015

Our staff is reading through the Psalms together. This week, I was assigned Psalm 17, and as usual (as our youth pastor likes to point out), David is telling God what to do.   He starts out with his typical chutzpah: “Hear a just cause, O Lord, give heed to my cry.”   David is confident his cause is just, his lips are truthful, and his way is peaceful (17:1-5). And he’s confident Yahweh knows it. So because his cause is just and Yahweh knows it, he’s confident Yahweh will grant his request.   It’s not terribly surprising that David’s request is that Yahweh will deliver him from his enemies with Yahweh’s sword (17:13). David is, after all, a man of a different age. Save me and kill my enemies—this is what ancient people tended to ask of their gods. Clearly there are still many ancients among us.   Despite my uneasiness toward David’s violent proclivities, I can place it in its proper space in time, and his cry for deliverance resonates deeply with me. I know what it’s like to feel surrounded by enemies. I know what it’s like to know that I am right and they are wrong. I know the desire to take refuge in the shadow of the almighty, but another shadow falls upon this psalm when I read it.   The shadow of Uriah.   Use your imagination and picture it:   David cries out to God with righteous conviction, reminding God of his justice, integrity, and peacefulness. And this prayer rises up to heaven…where God and Uriah sit side by side.   God and Uriah listen to David’s prayer together, glancing at one another from time to time with knowing amusement, chuckling here and there at the sheer absurdity of it all.   David…a man of justice, integrity, and peace!? The pot-marks of healed arrowhead wounds across Uriah’s torso beg otherwise. David is no such thing, and one would presume that, in more honest moments, David knows it (and many of the psalms indicate that he most certainly does).[1]   And yet here he is, making these comically self-righteous claims. Why? Perhaps because the good news of God was simply much better than he could have ever imagined.   Situated where we are—on the other side of Golgotha—we are privy to a view David never quite had. David, at times at least, hoped Yahweh would deliver him because he was a man of justice, integrity, and peace. And across religions, most have believed (or wanted to believe) the universe is tilted in favor of the just. And that certainly would be good news.   But as we approach Good Friday, we are reminded that the news is even better than that. For on Friday, we remember that the universe is not tilted in favor of the just so much as embracing of the unjust; that is, we remember that God desires to embrace the unjust in the arms of love. There are holes in his hands to prove it.   And if the shadow of Uriah falls upon David, the shadow of Jesus falls upon us all.   So if we want to take refuge in the shadow of the almighty, let us first remember: it’s a refuge for sinners. After all, the good news is not that we are good, but that we are loved. [1] And of course to be fair, it’s probably the case that David is referring to his righteousness in a particular case with a particular opponent and not a blanket righteousness. That said, David has a certain tendency to see himself as “in the...

He Hangs There

By on Mar 31, 2015

A Holy Week Reflection ————————————   What does he think as he hangs there?   What memories fill his mind? What emotions flood his soul?   A strange thing—divinity crucified. An impossible thing—one would think. But there he hangs.   Not a very divine thing to do.   Does he perceive the absurdity? Does his blood boil? What does he think as he hangs there?   It’s no easy task trying to glimpse the thing from behind his eyes and feel it from inside his heart. But his words beckon us to follow them back into the abyss from which they sprang.   He speaks to God, a scoundrel to his left, his mother, his friend, and his tormentors.   He forgives, he promises, he agonizes, he thirsts, and he gives up. What does he think as he hangs there?   The question bursts with infinity. But surely, we must say, he thinks it is real. The grieving mother, the repentant thief, the splinters in his back, the gagging on his own tongue, the godforsakenness of it all.   It is real and it means something.   Such a strong temptation—to flood the abyss of Golgotha with the light of explanations. There are certainly worse things one could do.   But first, let us pause and see the thing itself.   God hangs.   It is real and it means...

Holier than the Himalayas

By on Mar 26, 2015

  One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” -Mark 12:28-34   According to rabbinic tradition, the OT contained 613 commandments. 248 of them were positive commandments, meaning “do this, do this, do this.” And 365 were negative commandments, meaning “don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this.” That’s a lot of things to remember to do and that’s a lot of things to remember not to do.   And so from early on, it was recognized that some of these commands were heavy and some were light. Some were really big and some were really small. In other words, from very early on in Israelite faith, it was recognized that not all commandments are created equal. Some commandments are more important than others. And few things are more destructive and less biblical than the incredibly misguided belief that all the Bible’s commandments are equal.   When I was in middle school, I vividly remember going to youth camp for the first time. I didn’t much want to go but some of my friends talked me into it, and so there I was, walking into the worship service on the first night of camp…and I’m wearing a hat, turned backwards. Now little did I know, but apparently there are some Bibles in which wearing a hat, much less a backwards hat, in worship, is the unforgiveable sin. It’s the mark of the beast, no less.   So no sooner have I walked in to worship then I feel somebody behind me pop the bill of my hat, sending the hat flying up and off my head. I turn around, and who do I see but one of our adult chaperones. And upon seeing me look at him with anger and confusion, he looks right back at me with anger and confusion and says, “Surely you know better than to wear a backwards hat into worship.”   I didn’t know much about Christianity or the Bible back then. I certainly wasn’t familiar with the (rather culturally conditioned) passage in 1 Corinthians in which Paul says that it’s disgraceful to pray with something on your head. But even back then, something in me said, “Why in the world would this guy puff out his chest and take a stand over something like this? Over a kid wearing his hat into worship?”   That’s a pretty benign example. I didn’t curse Jesus and reject Christianity because some grumpy fundamentalist shamed me for wearing my hat backwards. But there are many darker examples in which people’s belief that the Bible is inspired by God leads them to blindly attempt to apply all the teachings of the Bible equally. So not wearing a hat in worship is, supposedly, as important as…feeding the orphan. And saying a bad word is, supposedly, as damnable an offense as…neglecting your family.   And to all of this, to the desire to use the Bible to paint the whole world in black and white, the Bible itself, Jesus himself, says…no. It’s not all equal and it’s not all black and white. Rather Jesus himself teaches us that at the heart of things, there is something that takes priority over all things. At the heart of things, there is something that all other things must bow down before, must serve, must give way to. At the heart of things, there is something beyond black and white.   And that something that the Bible and the whole universe revolves around is this: love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength…and love your neighbor as yourself.   Have you ever wondered why we talk about love so much? Have you ever wondered why we think about love so much? Have you ever wondered why we sing about love so much? Have you ever wondered why, from the beginning of time it seems, we’ve been haunted by the sense that love is the deepest rhyme and reason of things; that love is the center of gravity that holds all things together; that love is the answer to all the mysteries of the universe? Have you ever wondered why we every last one of us carries around the primal intuition that if we could just learn to love and be loved, everything would be ok?   If so, then hear Jesus’ answer: we were made to love. Love isn’t just one thing among many other things—love is the thing. Love is the reason why anything and everything exists. Beyond black and white, there is love.   Not too long ago, I was talking with this guy who thought I emphasized God’s love too much in my book. Because in his mind, God is love, sure, but God is also equally just and wrathful and so on. So it’s wrong to treat love like it’s more important than other important things.   And so finally I said to him, “Dude, you and...

The Rich Young Ruler, Money, and Downward Mobility

By on Feb 4, 2015

*Here’s an editorialized version of a sermon on Mark 10 and the rich young ruler. You can watch it here* Mark Twain once said: “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand.” And if you’re like me, you tend to agree with Mark Twain.[1] For example, I don’t understand a lot of the book of Revelation and that bothers me a little bit, but it doesn’t bother me near as much as the Golden Rule…because I do understand it. I’d rather take my chances with the lake of fire than I would treat other people the way I’d want them to treat me. It ain’t those parts of the Bible I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts I do understand that bother me. Amen, Mark Twain. And as we continue our series called “Conversations: A Look at Some Run-ins With Jesus”, we’re going to listen in on a conversation that isn’t very hard to understand, and that’s why it bothers me. So Jesus is setting out on a journey with his disciples when this man runs up to him, kneels down before him, and then asks him, “What do I need to do to inherit eternal life? What do I need to do to be a part of God’s everlasting kingdom?” Jesus responds: “Well, you know the commandments—don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t defraud, honor your father and mother.” And upon hearing this, the man is pleasantly surprised because he’s done all that since he was a little boy. This is a good guy—certainly a better guy than me and I’d suspect a better guy or gal than many of you too. So it’s interesting what happens next. We’re told that Jesus looks at this man—one of those deep, soul-searching looks, a peek down into the bottom of his heart—and that Jesus loved him. It’s the only time in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus is specifically said to love someone. Jesus loves this guy. So Jesus puts his arm around him and says, “Man…I love you, and so there’s this one last thing that you gotta do. Sell everything you own, give it to the poor, and then come and follow me. Come be my disciple.” Upon hearing this, we’re told that the man’s face, which was shining bright as the sun, turns cloudy. His face becomes overcast. What Jesus has said has made him very, very sad, and now we learn why—he’s a very, very wealthy man and that will make it very, very hard for him to sell his possessions and go follow Jesus. This whole encounter shocks the disciples and leads Jesus to say, “It’s very, very hard for rich people to enter the kingdom of God.” And ever since this rich man walked away from Jesus 2000 years ago, shocked and sad, we’ve been trying to avoid, deflect, or “qualify to death” what happened and what Jesus said, because we don’t much like people talking to us about our money and our stuff, unless it’s about how we can get more money and more stuff. And we tend to do this avoiding, deflecting and qualifying to death in one of two ways. Deflection #1: we’ll tell ourselves that while Jesus is saying “sell all your possessions and give them to the poor if you want to be my disciple”, he’s not really saying that. I like this deflection and here’s how it works. What Jesus says to this guy is more or less a metaphor: you have to give up whatever you’d cherish more than God; for you, that’s money, so you have to be willing to give up your money. Now you don’t actually have to give up your money, and it’s not really even about money so much as it’s a reminder to make sure you love God more than anything else. Like I said: I like this deflection, especially because, well, it lets me keep my money and my stuff so long as I tell myself I don’t love them and would be willing to give them up if Jesus asked for them…but of course he won’t :). R.T. France says it well: this is a “dangerously comfortable conclusion.”[2] And here’s why I don’t think it works. Jesus tells this guy he has to give away all of his stuff to the poor if he wants to follow Jesus. The guy can’t do it, so he walks away grieving…and Jesus doesn’t chase after him and say, “Dude, come back! I was just kidding. It was just a metaphor. Just read your Bible a little more instead and we’ll call it even.” No. Jesus told this guy to give away his stuff, all of it, to the poor, and when he can’t, Jesus lets him walk away. It’s not “just” a hypothetical and it’s not “just” a metaphor. Is the bigger issue that he loves something more than God? Yea, and that something is his stuff. So he can keep his stuff or he can follow Jesus. He can’t do both. Which brings us to the second way we avoid, deflect, and qualify to death this run in with Jesus. Deflection #2: Ok—maybe Jesus is really saying that. He really is saying that affluence is a massive barrier to the kingdom of God,...

Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed a Year Later: Calvinism Still Isn’t Beautiful

By on Feb 2, 2015

  “They’re not going to embrace your theology unless it makes their hearts sing.”[1] -John Piper   One of the more persistent myths regarding art (broadly defined) is that the artist understands what he or she is creating. It is, as it were, a half-truth. You understand parts of it, catch glimpses of its deeper meaning, shape it toward certain ends. But you certainly do not understand all of it. As Madeline L’Engle says, “The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver…each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.’”[2]   Two years ago, I started writing. I didn’t intend to write a book so much as document a journey I had taken in and out of Calvinism, with the hopes it could help people in my own church who were treading similar paths. It ended up becoming a book and has helped people, and for that I am grateful.   But as I look back—now two years removed from when I started writing and a year removed from its publication—I feel as though I only now understand the deepest intention of the book. Bear with me if this seems indulgent.   Back when I was a Calvinist, I came across the above quote from John Piper: “They’re not going to embrace your theology unless it makes their hearts sing.” And while I didn’t fully understand it at the time, I knew what it was about.   I embraced Calvinism, not just because I found its exegesis and inner logic compelling, but because it made my heart sing. It was true, but also (and perhaps more importantly) good and beautiful.   Christians believe that truth (being grounded in God) is not only, well, true, but also good and beautiful. Beauty is “a measure of what theology may call true.”[3] Because God is infinitely good and beautiful, theology must be good and beautiful or else it’s not true. When properly understood, the truth invites not only the mind’s assent but the heart’s affection. The truth should make your heart sing.   This notion of the truth’s beauty is not an invention of secular humanism or some other boogey-man, but belongs to the deepest intuition of biblical Christian sensibilities. As the various psalmists never tire of telling us, “Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable…The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. The Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145:3, 8-9).   God is infinite power but also infinite grace, so beauty “qualifies theology’s understanding of divine glory: it shows that glory to be not only holy, powerful, immense, and righteous, but also good and desirable, a gift graciously shared.”[4]   John Piper understands this better than most, and his brilliant attention to the aesthetics of Calvinism (channeling Jonathan Edwards) is one of the (if not the) primary reasons for the tremendous surge of Calvinism among young evangelicals. Simply put, plenty of people have argued Calvinism is true. Piper’s particular genius has been in arguing that Calvinism is also beautiful. Many young evangelicals have been convinced and their hearts sing for Calvinism.   My exodus from Calvinism was set in motion when I came to believe Calvinism was not beautiful—indeed, when I realized that Calvinism (consistent Calvinism at least) was, at best, cold and brutally enigmatic (which is, perhaps, why many cannot be consistent Calvinists). This realization then forced me to further reconsider its veracity.   The heart of the book, then, was a challenge to the aesthetic of the New Calvinism. The New Calvinists attempt to paint a ravishing picture of the manifold excellencies of the self-glorifying, all-determining God of Calvinism, expressed primarily through the doctrines of grace. I say that picture is a false veneer that only works when you ignore the reprobate. I say that picture cannot contain, as its central image, a crucified God who would rather die for sinners than give them what they deserve. Using the Bible as my measure of beauty, I say Calvinism isn’t beautiful.   People have asked if I could ever see myself “going back” to Calvinism—a little less young, a little less restless, and reformed again, perhaps? It’s a question I occasionally ponder. Depending on my mood, I can still find some of the exegesis and inner rationale for Calvinism compelling. As I’ve stated numerous times, I think Calvinism is one way to make sense of the teachings of the Bible (though as I also always state and many of my Calvinist friends have a hard time hearing, I think there is a better way to make sense of the Bible’s teachings that has far deeper ecumenical and historical roots).   And yet while I suppose I could again entertain the possibility that Calvinism is true, I don’t think I could ever again believe that Calvinism is beautiful. To my mind, calling Calvinism beautiful is to subject the very concept of beauty to so ruthless an equivocation that it loses any intelligible meaning.   So I agree with Piper: theology needs to make our hearts sing. That’s not a “strategic” statement about how to make Christianity more persuasive in its use of pathos. It’s...

Charlie Hebdo and the Beauty and Brutality of Religion

By on Jan 15, 2015

The recent attacks on Charlie Hebdo are a sobering reminder of the brutality of religion. Religion has killed lots of people (and there’s no need to pick on Islam here…Christianity has plenty of blood on its hands). Religion is capable of arousing the ugliest passions and cruelest actions. It boils the blood of some, causing them to do things that make the blood of others run cold.   Maybe the new atheists are right. Maybe religion poisons everything. Maybe it is a crude, savage myth we’ve outgrown, best relegated to the caves of ignorance we stood up and walked out of long ago.   But I have my doubts.   And in the wake of a worldwide display of religion’s brutality, those with ears to hear detect whispers of its beauty.   Most of the world has sense enough to lament the tragedy of Charlie Hebdo. And yet, to my ears at least, the lament of those steeped in secular ideology shows all the signs of the morally impoverished vocabulary and imagination of strict secularism. The attacks were lamented, with considerable emphasis, as an attack on freedom of expression (or freedom of the press or freedom of speech).[1]   For the record, I’m quite fond of freedom, be it of expression or speech or the press. But when human beings are murdered, surely our grief must run deeper than this—surely the most precious thing that has been attacked is not an ideal, but a human being…a human being with a family and story…a human being, dare I say, created in the image of God.   We are on the horns of a dilemma in the modern world. Many secularists want to do away with religion and Charlie Hebdo certainly provides a case in point: religion kills people. And yet…   It nevertheless appears that religion (and of course, Christianity to my mind) is the only thing that can look at Charlie Hebdo and truly grieve—the only thing that can really call it brutal and cruel and tragic beyond measure instead of, well, something that happened…survival of the fittest perhaps.   As David Bentley Hart says it, to kill the person who stands in our way is “the most purely practical of impulses. To be able, however, to see in them not only something of worth but indeed something potentially godlike, to be cherished and adored, is the rarest and most ennoblingly unrealistic capacity ever bred within human souls.”[2] And despite whatever rage might rightly be aimed at religion in general or Christianity in particular, it is a capacity that Christianity has bred with astonishing regularity, and often against all odds.   What happened at Charlie Hebdo was a damnable mockery of religion, but it was religion nonetheless—that much, all religious people must accept. But there is much more to the story, as it is only the mind informed (whether consciously or unconsciously) by the deepest moral sensibilities of religion—of charity, justice, and love—that looks at Charlie Hebdo and thinks to call it damnable and brutal. And that is the beauty of religion. [1] For example, check out the responses from many of the world leaders from “modern” countries. John Kerry’s are a good place to start. [2] David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions,...

War & Peace: Welcome to the Future

By on Dec 1, 2014

 A Confession So this morning we come to the end of our series on War & Peace and instead of starting with a recap I’d like to start with a confession: I really, really did not want to do this series, because I was quite aware of how delicate and difficult matters of war and peace and violence and conflict and hostility and justice and forgiveness can be. I was well aware that nothing stirs up a good fight like talking about peace. And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who follow Jesus picking stupid fights with each other. Amen? In fact, that’s one of the things I love most about Vista: we don’t pick stupid fights. We don’t fight over the music—we just have awesome music and it’s loud and if you want to pick a fight about it, we just turn it up so we can’t hear you. We don’t fight over the color of the carpet—we don’t even have carpet. We’re too busy engaging lost and unchurched people with the gospel and turning them into disciples to have carpet. So because of all that, I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want to tell you that the violence we find so fascinating and necessary is boring and naïve and will be put to death by God. I didn’t want to tell you that we have to be more serious about forgiveness than the world is about vengeance. I didn’t want to tell you that we have to learn to love our enemies and not just forgive and forget them.   Thank You All of that stuff is hard and I wanted to wimp out, but became convinced that this was something we could not afford to not talk about. Because if we miss this, I begin to wonder what we’re doing here. And can I just say, I’ve been so amazed by all of you. Over the past 4 weeks, I’ve heard so many stories of forgiveness and reconciliation—big stories, little stories and everything in between. And what I love most about them is they’re real stories, not fairy-tale stories. They’re ugly and messy and unfinished, but by God, they’re the truth. Stories of you, of us, stepping beyond all the phony boundaries of what is and isn’t possible, what can and can’t be done, what can and can’t be healed…and stepping into God’s wild and unpredictable world of peace where forgiveness is making all things new. So on behalf of leadership—wow…yall are amazing. And as we end our series this morning, I want us to continue a conversation we started last week; namely, in a world at war, how do we become a community of God’s peace?   Fischer Wedding About 3 hours east of here, there’s a small town called Lufkin. Nestled deep in the piney woods, Lufkin is an unlikely site for the biggest, wildest party the world has ever seen, but on July 9th, 2011, that’s exactly what went down. Allison and I got married in front of all our friends and family and the reception that followed was, plain and simple, the greatest party the world has ever seen. Because there are parties and then there are parties, and this was a party. The whole town of Lufkin—young and middle age and old, and black and white and Hispanic, and Episcopal and Catholic and Baptist and Methodist and atheist and who-cares-a-ist—celebrating and eating and drinking and dancing together. I saw dance moves that I still cannot explain nor erase from my memory. I swear I saw my 80-year old grandpa crowd-surfing in a mosh pit (he denies it, but I know what I saw). It was the most joyous moment I’ve ever been a part of. And if only for a few hours, all of the walls that divide us were transcended and swallowed up by a huge swell of love and generosity.   God is a Party Now in the Bible, we get many different image of God. We’re told God is like a king and a warrior and a loving father and a judge, and so on and so forth. But believe it or not, we’re also constantly told that God is like the host of a massive, generous, extravagant party. God is like a party-giver. It starts in Genesis 1 where creation itself is portrayed as God throwing a cosmic party. God doesn’t create because he’s lonely or bored. God creates because his own existence is so filled with love, delight, joy, and energy that he just can’t keep himself to himself. He wants others to join in on the party. That’s why he creates. That’s why we’re here. And then once we’ve ruined the party because we’re terrible guests in God’s universe, God doesn’t just call if off. No way—God isn’t going to let us ruin his party. And so we get images like this from the prophet Isaiah.   Isaiah 25:6-9- “The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined, aged wine. And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces…And...

War & Peace: A Community Called Forgiveness

By on Nov 24, 2014

Recap For a quick recap, we’re in the third week of our series called War & Peace, a series where we’re trying to figure out what the Bible has to say about matters of violence and conflict and hostility and justice and forgiveness. And what we’ve learned so far is this. The very first and last thing the Bible has to say about war and peace is peace. Violence was not in the beginning and it won’t be in the end, because while we find violence fascinating, God doesn’t, and while we find peace naïve and boring, God doesn’t. That said, we live in a world filled with war and violence and faced with such a world, God’s peace moves forward by forgiveness instead of vengeance because God’s goal is not revenge but reconciliation. And it’s almost impossible to properly emphasize just how radical a thing this is—that Christians believe in a God who would rather die for his enemies than give them what they deserve. That Christians believe in a God who desires to embrace his enemies in the arms of forgiveness. And while that’s the most beautiful thing any of us could ever hear, here’s where it gets hard. Christians are not just called to accept God’s peace and forgiveness—we’re called to practice it, we’re called to embody it, we’re called to be a community that lives out God’s peace and forgiveness right smack dab in the middle of our families and our workplaces and our towns and our nations. Last week, we talked about what God’s peace does when confronted with a world at war, and so this week we have to talk about how we (the church) practice God’s peace in a world at war. The Sunflower During WW2, Simon Wiesenthal was a Jewish inmate at a concentration camp in Poland when he was asked to do the unthinkable. He was led down a hallway and brought to a room where a young Nazi soldier was dying. And in the moments before his death, this Nazi soldier wanted to confess his sins and receive forgiveness from a Jew. And so as Simon stood at the bed of this soldier, the soldier started confessing his shame at being a Nazi and admitted he’d been a part of a group that had rounded up hundreds of Jews into a house and then set it on fire, burning them all alive. And as Simon listens to the confession, he’s moved by the soldier’s grief and shame but sickened and repulsed by the things he’s done. So Simon listens in silence to the confession and when the soldier finishes, Simon walks away without saying a word—certainly not a word of forgiveness. Years later, Simon wrote a book called The Sunflower where he tells this story and then ends by asking the question: what would you have done? I’d like us to take up Simon’s challenging, troubling question this morning and think about it as the church, as a community of people who follow Jesus: what should we have done? We’re going to use two important texts from Matthew to help us move toward an answer: Matthew 18:21-22, 5:43-48. Matthew 18:21-22…70 x 7 So Peter comes up to Jesus and asks him, “Jesus, how often should I forgive one of my brothers when he sins against me? Should I forgive him as many as seven times?” Peter clearly thinks he’s made a very generous proposal, and I have to agree—I mean, forgiving somebody seven times is a lot, isn’t it? Can you imagine forgiving your spouse seven times for cheating on you? Can you imagine forgiving your buddy seven times for roundhouse kicking you in the face? Both of those things would be hard for me, so I think Peter is being awfully generous. And yet Jesus has other ideas, so he says, “Actually Peter, you shouldn’t just be willing to forgive somebody seven times but seventy-seven times.” Jesus is alluding to Genesis 4:24, where Cain’s great, great, great, great, great grandson, Lamech, brags to his wives that if anybody messes with him, he will seek 77-fold vengeance upon them. If you roundhouse kick Lamech in the face, he would roundhouse kick you back 77 times. Jesus’ point here is clear. Our capacity for forgiveness toward each other (in the church) must be deeper than even the world’s capacity for vengeance. Do you have any idea how deep the world’s capacity for vengeance is? How far people will go to seek revenge? Of course we do, because we’ve felt it—that primal, gut reaction of rage that wants to track down our enemy to the ends of the earth to get them back. Yes, we know the world’s capacity for vengeance, which is why we’re shocked and stunned when Jesus says we’re supposed to be more serious about forgiving than Liam Neeson is about revenge. We’re called to be better at forgiveness than the world is at vengeance. In the church, forgiveness is willing to move toward infinity. And now Matthew 5:43-48. Matthew 5:43-48…Love Your Enemies So as if having a capacity for forgiveness within the church that moves toward infinity is not enough, now we have to deal with this—a teaching from Jesus that seems so ridiculous and impossible that Christians have been trying to explain it away for 2000 years. What Jesus says is really clear. You’ve been told...