consequences

The Truth and The Life

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The Raising of Lazarus by Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet, 1706

Today’s readings:
Psalms 119:73-80; 145, Jeremiah 11:18-20; 12:1-16 (17), Philippians 3:1-14, John 12:9-19

Poor Lazarus.

One might think being brought back from the dead by Jesus would set a person upon a joyous path, but the consequences were not all good. As Jesus’s friend, surely Lazarus must have felt conflicted that the miracle performed on him was the one that finally gave the Pharisees resolve to carry out their murderous intent. Furthermore, though his eventual fate is unknown, Lazarus also became a target of their evil designs; as long as he lived (again), he was a testament to Jesus’s true divinity, so they plotted to kill him, too.

People in power, especially when their grip on that power is tenuous, would often rather destroy the truth than let it change things. Ironically, that very inclination ultimately contributes to the demise of their influence. Sometimes it’s not even power that makes us hate truth, but fear – fear that we might be wrong. We fear that if we tug out one thread of our belief system, the whole might unravel. But God is bigger than a belief system.

The church condemned Galileo for promoting the truth of heliocentrism, yet God survived our travels to space. The church took evolution to court and despite the overwhelming evidence of the fossil record, God survived. The church as expressed in all denominations has been involved in enough cover-ups, scandals, and hypocrisies that it’s a miracle anyone darkens her doors, yet God survives.

When people like Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, or Berta Cáceres speak truth to the powerful, the fearful, or both … truth is assassinated, yet God survives.

God will outlast our beliefs, doctrines, and denials. This isn’t to say we can’t learn or know the truth, but that those who insist only they do – and who would force us to agree – are showing the weakness of their position. Truth-telling may require persistence, but it does not require force.

Christ himself does not force us to believe, but being his friend may put us in precarious circumstances. Whether being a friend to the truth means becoming a target or facing change, let’s remember that because Christ survives, we will too.

Comfort: God endures.

Challenge: Read about the life, work, and death of Berta Cáceres.

Prayer: I welcome your Truth, O Lord, whatever it may be. Amen.

Discussion: What truth have you discovered that has changed your life?

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Hard Choices

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choices

Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 57; 145, Numbers 22:1-21, Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 21:12-22

According to the Gospel of Matthew, the first thing Jesus did after his triumphant entry into Jerusalem was drive merchants and customers out of the temple, and turn over the tables of the money changers. Matthew tells this story quickly and makes it clear Jesus is upset because: “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” Once the temple was cleared, blind and lame people came to Jesus there, and he healed them.

Notice that Jesus didn’t kick out just the sellers, but also the buyers. The sellers and money changers may have been exploiting religious pilgrims, but the buyers were also participating in the corruption of the temple. Surely many of the customers, if asked, would have said they had no choice; without offerings they could not enter the temple. But when their practices finally caught up with them, they were driven from the temple anyway.

Often when we say we don’t have a choice, what we really mean is we don’t have an attractive choice. “If I say something about this unethical practice, I’ll lose my job.” That’s a choice. “I know this business treats its employees more fairly, but their prices are too high so I shop elsewhere.” Also a choice. “I know this song-sharing site is illegal, but money is tight right now.” Choice (and theft). Principles are  not cheap. They can cost us money, respect, and friendships. If we aren’t willing to risk these things, we don’t have principles, we have preferences – and not even strong ones.

Of course these are examples of choices available to the reasonably comfortable. Sometimes our choices actually are restricted by circumstances such as poverty and ability.  Many of us are crowded out by the “buyers and sellers” going about their daily, unexamined business. It is on the shoulders of people who have many options to consider how they are impacting those with fewer options. Luke 12:48 tells us: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”

When a system is corrupt or unjust, we have the choice to opt out, even if it causes us inconvenience or harm. Jesus opted out all the way to the cross.

It’s never too late to start behaving more ethically. We might need to jump-start that change with a purging of our inner temple, a ruthless examination of our own participation in evils small and large. Clearing them out makes room for the healing spirit of God. There is nothing more valuable in the world.

Comfort: You will always have a choice.

Challenge: You won’t always like the choices you have.

Prayer: God of wisdom, grant me the discernment to make good choices, and the courage to follow through on them. Amen.

Discussion: Have you ever felt like you didn’t have a choice? Was that really the case?

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Seventy-Seven Times

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 51; 148, Numbers 13:1-3, 21-30, Romans 2:25-3:8, Matthew 18:21-35

A slave owed his king an unpayable sum. The king decided to sell the slave’s family to collect the debt, but the slave begged for mercy. The king felt pity, released him, and forgave the debt. As the slave walked away, he met a second slave owing him a hundredth of what the king had forgiven. He demanded payment, and when it wasn’t forthcoming he had the second slave jailed. When the king learned this, he revoked his mercy and had the first slave tortured until he paid.

This parable was how Jesus answered Peter’s question: “how often should I forgive?” The story tells us whatever debt we feel someone owes us, God has already forgiven us a debt a hundred (or more!) times greater.

“Tough love” gets tossed around quite a bit. We seem to be firm believers in the power of consequences. It may be fine for parents fostering  the values of children, or managers coaching employees, but the further removed we are from someone personally, the less applicable it becomes. How easy it is to withhold mercy under the pretense of not enabling someone.

By the time we meet most people, life has had its way with them. They behave in ways they have learned best help them physically and emotionally survive. It’s arrogant to assume we would fare better under similar circumstances, and more arrogant to think our petty disciplines will change them.

Should we hand cash to gambling addicts? No. Should we allow co-workers to abuse us? Nope. But when someone is hungry or hurting, we should transcend our grievances to feed and care for them. We can’t fix people – they need to initiate that themselves – but we are called to show mercy to the broken, for we ourselves are broken and beneficiaries of the mercy of God.

Jesus didn’t instruct us to parent everyone. He did instruct us to forgive and love. A crust of bread offered to a starving thief doesn’t condone thievery; it says we trust in something greater we hope to share. Whether he hears that is not up to us.

Comfort: You aren’t responsible for parenting the world.

Challenge: When you feel like someone needs to suffer consequences, ask yourself why.

Prayer: Merciful God, guide me as I seek the balance between mercy and justice.

Discussion: Mercy is a personal matter, but it can seem at odds with civil justice. Have you struggled with this tension? Or do you disagree with the premise?

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No YOLO Is Solo

/ JJS / 2 Comments

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 19; 150, Ezra 10:1-17, Acts 24:10-21, Luke 14:12-24

Do you find today’s passage from Ezra at all unsettling?

After the Israelites had returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon, they confessed to Ezra that they had not observed the Mosaic law’s prohibition against marrying outside their faith. Many of the men of Israel, including the priestly class, had taken wives – and by association their foreign gods – from the various cultures surrounding them. Ezra organized a meeting of these men, and they decided all the foreign wives and their children would have to return to their own lands.

Much commentary on this passage assumes the men of Israel would have continued to support these women and children or that God somehow provided for them, but there is no scriptural evidence for this wishful thinking. We don’t really know what happened to them. Maybe they were watched over, or maybe they grew destitute. God is not answerable to us, but framing this event in divine justice doesn’t erase the potential toll of human suffering.

So what are we to do with this story, besides dispassionately shrugging it off as something which had to be done?

Perhaps this cautionary tale drives home the message that we can’t expect God to clean up our messes for us, and that cleaning them up ourselves can have devastating repercussions for real people. Will they be repercussions we can live with? Surely the men of Israel, even the ones who never saw those wives and children again, never forgot about them.

Coming clean with a spouse after an affair, confessing to a family member we’ve been stealing from them, and turning ourselves in after a hit-and-run are examples of doing the right thing after we’ve already done the irreversible wrong thing. The bitter consequences for us and the people we’ve involved or betrayed may be severe and lifelong, no matter how sorry we are. That’s on us, not God.

It’s sometimes tempting to dodge responsibility with a YOLO attitude. There’s even a Christian version, where we pursue a pharisaical, self-satisfied righteousness that is blind to the harm it causes others.

Doing the right thing may seem difficult at the time, but atonement will be worse, and not necessarily just for you.  Let’s think beyond “right now” to “Right. Now.”

Comfort: You are capable of making good decisions.

Challenge: God forgives us, but when other people don’t it’s our job to respond with grace and love.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14).

Discussion: When are you prone to make bad decisions? What can you do to change that?

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What We’ve Chosen

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 67; 150, 2 Samuel 24:1-2, 10-25, Galatians 3:23-4:7, John 8:12-20

“What you want is irrelevant. What you’ve chosen is at hand.”
– Captain Spock, to Lieutenant Valeris
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

In the sixth Star Trek film (from 1991, so don’t expect spoiler warnings), Spock discovers his protégé, a young Vulcan woman named Valeris, has conspired with representatives from other worlds to murder the chancellor of the Klingon empire – all in the name of keeping the peace. When Spock insists that logic dictates she must kill him to cover her tracks, she says she doesn’t want to and the conspiracy unravels. Peace unfolds anyway.

When we commit immoral acts in the service of a greater good, real or imagined, the eventual consequences are unavoidable. Unfortunately, we aren’t always the one to pay the price.

King David decided to take a census of all the men in Judah and Israel who were fit for military service. His counselors advised against it. The text is not specific about why this was a sinful decision, but common theories speculate he put his trust in military might instead of God, that it was an issue of pride, or that it was a precursor to taxation and military conscription. David regretted it almost immediately, but that did not stop God’s punishment. David had to choose between three years of famine, three months of being pursued by foes, or three days of pestilence (plague). He begged God not to let other people suffer for his sins, but 70,000 people died of plague.

Are we likely to make decisions resulting in the unintended deaths of tens of thousands? Not most of us. But no decision is made in a vacuum. Every day we have the opportunity to make multiple decisions – from what we buy to how we speak to who we include – which affect people’s lives for better or worse. When we come face to face with the results our poor choices in the form of violence, discord, neglect, or harm, regret can’t change anything.

The choices we make now determine the choices available to us – and others – in the future. When making them, will we trust ourselves or God?

Further Reading:
For more on today’s passage from John, see You Don’t Know Me.

Comfort: Making good choices now helps us make better ones in the future.

Challenge: Don’t choose what is hard, or what is easy; choose what is right.

Prayer: Lord of truth and life, guide my thoughts, guide my words, guide my deeds, guide my choices. Amen.

Discussion: When have you had to face unintended consequences?

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Actions and Reactions

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 19; 150, 1 Samuel 23:7-18, Romans 11:33-12:2, Matthew 25:14-30

David had many gifts: bravery, loyalty, cunning, musicality, and most importantly a heart for the Lord. A gift he seemed to lack – or at least to employ consistently – was foresight.

After he and his men fled Nob, they found their way to the gated city of Keilah in Judah. Still pursued by Saul, David asked the Lord whether the citizens of Keilah would turn him over. God’s answer was yes … but that shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, Saul had slaughtered the citizens of the last city where he sought refuge, so Keilah didn’t have much incentive to protect him. David’s remorse for the fate of Nob didn’t seem to make a lasting impression, as he didn’t bother to ask about the safety of Keilah should he stay.

Nob and Keilah foreshadow David’s rule as king of Israel, during which time he would make some impulsive decisions with terrible yet utterly foreseeable consequences. What can we learn from all this?

First it’s yet another example – along with Moses, Samson, Rahab, Paul, etc. – of God working through imperfect people as they actually are. This should comfort us when we screw up, and remind us God still loves people though they do terrible things.

Second it shows us that being loved and forgiven doesn’t mean God is some supernatural fixer who relieves us from the consequences of our own decisions. The consequences themselves are often God’s opportunity to help us learn and grow. It’s like the bumper sticker says: “Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that you’re stupid and make bad decisions.”

Third it suggests we have some responsibility for even unintended consequences of our actions. When conning a priest out of some bread and a sword culminated in the murder of eighty-five priests, David told the one surviving priest of Nob, “I am responsible for the lives of all your father’s house” though it was Saul’s man who’d done the killing. It is results more than intentions which obligate us.

David’s story is like everyone’s story: a lesson of God’s constant love for an inconstant humanity.

Additional Reading:
Read more about today’s passage from Matthew in Moving in the direction of justice.

Comfort: God’s love does not depend on your perfection.

Challenge: Once a day for a week, pick one choice you make and try to map out the repercussions it has. For example, the pros and cons – for you and other people before and after you – of your meal choices.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

Discussion: How do you handle decisions you later regret?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!