[Introduction – We’re coming up on the 22nd anniversary of my 22nd birthday; significant because just a few days later I had our first child. So he’s about to turn the same age I was when I had him. David caring for him while I was at work – visiting his parents and the baby wouldn’t stop crying. He asks his dad “How long can a kid keep crying?” And his dad answered “Longer than you can stand it.”]
It’s handy answer, “longer than you can stand it,” because it doesn’t really quantify your suffering or your patience. It doesn’t give you any easy outs at say, 10 minutes or 20. It pretty much says, “You’re in this for the long haul, buddy, no matter what it takes.”
One day Peter and Jesus had a conversation pretty much like David had with his father. Peter had been thinking, “These people out in the world - they can be pretty irritating.”
“Yup” says Jesus.
“But you say I’ve got to forgive my brother when he offends me or harms me. I’m even supposed to forgive my enemies and ‘turn the other cheek.’”
“So far so good.”
“So I’m thinking if I set a goal - if I knew what my limits were, I could handle it better.”
“Hmmm...”
“And most people wouldn’t forgive someone the first time, and at most a guy would give the other guy a second chance.”
“Okay...”
“So I’m thinking, seven.”
“Seven, Peter?”
“Yeah. How about if I am willing to forgive someone up to seven times. That’s good, right? And then I know where I stand. Because, you know, Jesus, you can’t just go on forgiving forever. So what do you think? Seven times?”
And Jesus says, “Oh Peter...try seven times seven times. Try 77 times. Try seven times 70 times.”
And I can hear Peter saying, “Are you kidding me, Lord?”
And then Jesus hits him with the truth: “The point Peter, is not 7 or 77 or 490. The point is - you’re going to have to forgive longer than you can stand it.”
So let’s just be clear, from the outset: Christians forgive. Christians are commanded to forgive. Forgiveness is what Christians do. Unfortunately, neither you nor I is any better at forgiving than Judy or Bob or Salim who live down the street, which is to say, we’re not naturally very good at it at all.
We even have trouble forgiving little puny things - in his book A.J. Jacobs whines about getting bumped from his position as garbage scraper volunteer at the soup kitchen. He refers to the guy ever after as “the soup kitchen Nazi.” We mope half the day when someone cuts us off on the freeway. We keep mental lists of the credit we did not get for the things we have accomplished at work. Your husband says something pretty unfortunate and you bring it back up to him in an argument two years later.
Jacobs, in fact, is concerned about his bad memory not enabling him to win arguments with his wife - so he keeps a handy list of offenses on his palm pilot. But he dares not tell his wife he’s got a list on her, so when they fight he has to dash off to the bathroom, quick look up the information, and then run out of there ready to yell all the things she’s done wrong in the previous months and win the day. Of course, when he does that, he doesn’t win anything except more anger from his wife.
Forgiveness is not natural; I don’t think Darwin would have argued that it was one of our evolutionary genes, and usually it grates on our nerves like a baby who won’t stop crying. And the necessity of forgiveness on and on and on...there are always new things happening, bothering you ,creating anger. It goes on longer than you can stand it. Jesus knew that. Seventy time seven: longer than you can stand it.
[Stopped here to talk about the length of the sermon and the two parts I cut out and put on handouts.]
All three of the things I’m discussing, either in person here or on paper, live on the edge between the psychological and the spiritual - because forgiveness challenges us in both areas. Good theology and good psychology always go together.
So the one important issue we have left is this: how do you do it? How do you forgive seven times? Or 70? Or 490?
The fact is, we can’t do forgiveness by ourselves. The only way we can forgive, ultimately, is when God gives us the grace to see things differently, to let the hurt go, and to move on. Forgiveness is a spiritual grace, a spiritual gift. You can encourage the development of this gift in your life however, and there are basically two ways to do that.
The first way to practice forgiveness, to put yourself in a position where God can work healing forgiveness in you, is to live reconciling action. Do something loving that is contrary to your angry instincts.
One of the best examples of this I’ve ever seen was how the Amish families responded when their children were executed in their school. What did they do? They made food and took it to the shooter’s family. They consoled his relatives and gave them comfort. Why? Because that’s what you do when someone dies – you offer comfort. You give love. In this community every memorial or remembrance of the dead always included everyone who had died – the school children and the man with the gun. This is a contrast with the first major school shooting on the national consciousness – in Columbine the first memorials had 15 crosses, 13 for the students shot and two for the boys who had taken their own lives. Within hours angry members of the community had removed two of the crosses, and those boys were never included in memorials again.
So one way to invite God’s power of grace in your life is to act out your forgiveness, even if you don’t feel it yet. God will, eventually, fill in the gaps of your actions with love.
[Illustration from the Richard Attenborough movie Ghandi, in which a Hindu man comes to the leader confessing that he has murdered a Muslim child, about 8 years old, after Muslims had killed his family in a riot during the time of the partitioning of the country. He says he is in hell and he knows he cannot be saved, but Ghandi responds that there is a way out of hell, if he will take a child orphaned in the riots, about 8 years old, and love him and raise him. BUT…make sure the child is a Muslim, and raise him as one.”]
In other words, live your forgiveness tangibly. Let your actions guide your heart, and not the other way around.
“Bless your enemies. Bless and do not curse them.”
Fortunately our lives and our hurts are not normally so severe or so dramatic. Perhaps you should try this method on something fairly simple, something not too significant. Does it always make you angry when someone cuts you off on the freeway? Then make it a habit to give way to drivers who are waiting to get into your road in front of you. Look for opportunities to give way. Whatever the habitual angers are in your life, find an action that is contrary to that feeling and live it out. Watch how God changes your heart over time. It will happen.
So practicing reconciling action is one option to encourage the growth of God’s forgiving power in your life. The other thing to do if you want to invite God’s grace and forgiving power into your life – and it’s the hardest thing to do, is pray about it.
Prayer, I’m thinking, is generally much more difficult than taking action. Because in prayer our thoughts wander, and we tend to justify our feelings to God. And I don’t know about you, whenever I try to pray for an “enemy” or someone I’m upset with, I catch myself getting more negative about that person.
“God, please help me forgive Jerry” becomes “God, please help me forgive Jerry, even though he doesn’t deserve it because he’s such a doggone jerk!”
My evangelical friends would say that the “evil one” takes advantage of us in our vulnerability. We mean to pray well, but we end up just more focused on what was wrong. Our thoughts wander back to our negative feelings and they are accidentally reinforced, just when we are trying to get over them.
This is why the quest cards for last week invited you to pray blessings for a person or situation where you have been grievously hurt or where you are seriously angry. If you want to pray for forgiveness, to have the power through prayer to forgive someone – don’t pray for that directly. It’s just too hard. Pray instead for blessings – for happiness and joy and wellbeing and health and every little thing that you can think of to make that individual’s life happy and holy and whole.
In the quest I suggested 100 blessings…because when you are really angry with someone, when forgiveness is most difficult, that’s about how many it takes. I stumbled into this technique several years ago…there’s an AA tradition of praying for someone you need to forgive for 21 days straight. The first time I heard that the individual talking about it said “I know, that’s really radical.” And I thought “What’s so radical about that?” And then I tried it once. Trust me, it’s radical.
At the time I was involved in a situation with a coworker – and I was continually angry with him, and since we worked together there were new problems between us and new offenses nearly every day. So I prayed for 21 days. I was still angry. So I tried another 21 days. I was still angry, in fact it was worse. I knew that I had to try something different, and God gave me this inspiration to write a list of 100 specific blessings for this individual I was so angry at. I put them in a notebook. It’s pretty hard to come up with 100 different specific blessings – I had to get really specific…
So after I had my list made, I took it places with me. And every time I thought of him, every time I got angry, I’d start at blessing number one and keep on praying for each of those blessings until the anger subsided. One time I got all the way to 72. That was a really bad day. But over the course of a couple of weeks, a miracle happened. When I thought of that person, my first impulse became prayer, prayer for joyful things. There was a radical healing in our relationship. It was truly amazing, and I knew it, and the person I was angry at knew it, although he had no idea what lay behind it. There was a total transformation of our relationship, a true healing. A new beginning.
Then something very interesting happened – the change in our relationship was real, and it was sustained. But then in another few weeks I suddenly found myself continually angry at someone else in my life, my brother, just as I had been angry with this first person. I had been so angry with my coworker day in and day out, and now I just couldn’t stand my brother. My brother wasn’t even living in the same state, I hadn’t talked to him for months, and yet every time I thought of him my heart raced and I just felt crazy with anger.
And that’s how I came to understand, clearly, that the anger was in me. It was my problem to begin with, and really had nothing much to do with how anyone else was acting. I was the one, in this case, who needed healing. Not him.
So how many times does a Christian forgive? 7? 77? Well, longer than you can stand it. Except that you can stand it, because God’s love gives you the power and the persuasion to act out your forgiveness and to pray your forgiveness into reality.
[Concluding words…]
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Sermon Excerpt: What Forgiveness is Not
I want to talk about what forgiveness is not, because in the past decade or so there seems to be more and more confusion on this issue both inside and outside of churches. What does Jesus say? “If your brother offends you, forgive him - as many times as necessary.” “If someone harms you, turn the other cheek.”
Here’s a couple of things that I’m pretty sure Jesus did not say, but in the past two years people have been in my office talking to me about it.
Jesus might have been willing to say “When you loan someone money or help them in some way, and they are irresponsible and do not keep their promises or commitments you should forgive the debt and not be angry.”
I’m quite certain that Jesus did not say, “So therefore when they come to you the next month and ask for additional help from you, having forgiven the debt, you are obligated now to give them more.”
Forgiveness means that you are letting go of the past. Forgiveness does not mean that you are obligated to act in the future as if nothing had ever happened between you. Giving someone the tools to continue to fail in the same way that they have been failing up until now is not forgive-ness, that is enabling. And in theory, most of us know that, but when we are dealing with people we care about, it gets really confusing sometimes.
There was a kind and generous woman in my office last year. She wanted to help people. She offered housing to people at very reduced rates when they were in need. She would go further and loan them money - all in the name of Jesus. She was never clear about her expectations for repayment. She never had anything in writing. She never looked into the past history or the possible addictions of any of these people, and she got taken again, and again.
She was in my office saying, “Jesus tells us to do this, but I just can’t anymore.” And I wanted to say, “Well, duh!” The problem is, when it’s somebody else you can see really obviously that the behavior isn’t helping anyone, but when it’s someone you care about - when it’s your kid or your sister...sometimes we will put out and put out in the name of forgiveness. We tell ourselves we are being good Christians, but forgiveness is the wrong label to put on it. Jesus, after all, said to people “Go and sin no more” - and he said that after he had healed and forgiven them.
There’s another place where this kind of scenario plays out all the time - the scenario where we confuse forgiveness, we confuse letting go of the past with giving someone continuing permis-sion or opportunities to harm others. That is the arena of abuse, particularly sexual abuse by clergy or other leaders in authority.
I’ve been in ministry long enough to have been through this story a few times, I’m sorry to say. The first time I was still in seminary, and there were photographs, incontrovertible evidence, of a youth worker with several undressed members of the youth group. Even with photos to back up the story, it was nasty. Even so, within a year the man in question was seeking a position in youth ministry at another local church and there was hew and cry among many in our congrega-tion as well as the new one. People argued “We are Christians! Where is the grace? We should forgive him!” Jesus said to forgive. He never said “Forgive them and then put them back in the exact situation where they have the authority and opportunity to continue to abuse others.”
Again, from a distance, it seems so obvious. The problem comes when the pastor or teacher or whoever it is is someone that you personally trusted; someone you loved. Someone about whom you just have to say “Him? No, it couldn’t possibly be him. My kids loved him.” Then it is so hard to see, so hard to believe, so hard to hold someone accountable. Can we forgive? Yes. Can we continue to love and care for? Yes. Can that person be part of church in the future? Yes - if there is honesty about what has gone before. But can we restore authority to people who have used that authority for harm? No. No. No. Not ever.
Here’s a couple of things that I’m pretty sure Jesus did not say, but in the past two years people have been in my office talking to me about it.
Jesus might have been willing to say “When you loan someone money or help them in some way, and they are irresponsible and do not keep their promises or commitments you should forgive the debt and not be angry.”
I’m quite certain that Jesus did not say, “So therefore when they come to you the next month and ask for additional help from you, having forgiven the debt, you are obligated now to give them more.”
Forgiveness means that you are letting go of the past. Forgiveness does not mean that you are obligated to act in the future as if nothing had ever happened between you. Giving someone the tools to continue to fail in the same way that they have been failing up until now is not forgive-ness, that is enabling. And in theory, most of us know that, but when we are dealing with people we care about, it gets really confusing sometimes.
There was a kind and generous woman in my office last year. She wanted to help people. She offered housing to people at very reduced rates when they were in need. She would go further and loan them money - all in the name of Jesus. She was never clear about her expectations for repayment. She never had anything in writing. She never looked into the past history or the possible addictions of any of these people, and she got taken again, and again.
She was in my office saying, “Jesus tells us to do this, but I just can’t anymore.” And I wanted to say, “Well, duh!” The problem is, when it’s somebody else you can see really obviously that the behavior isn’t helping anyone, but when it’s someone you care about - when it’s your kid or your sister...sometimes we will put out and put out in the name of forgiveness. We tell ourselves we are being good Christians, but forgiveness is the wrong label to put on it. Jesus, after all, said to people “Go and sin no more” - and he said that after he had healed and forgiven them.
There’s another place where this kind of scenario plays out all the time - the scenario where we confuse forgiveness, we confuse letting go of the past with giving someone continuing permis-sion or opportunities to harm others. That is the arena of abuse, particularly sexual abuse by clergy or other leaders in authority.
I’ve been in ministry long enough to have been through this story a few times, I’m sorry to say. The first time I was still in seminary, and there were photographs, incontrovertible evidence, of a youth worker with several undressed members of the youth group. Even with photos to back up the story, it was nasty. Even so, within a year the man in question was seeking a position in youth ministry at another local church and there was hew and cry among many in our congrega-tion as well as the new one. People argued “We are Christians! Where is the grace? We should forgive him!” Jesus said to forgive. He never said “Forgive them and then put them back in the exact situation where they have the authority and opportunity to continue to abuse others.”
Again, from a distance, it seems so obvious. The problem comes when the pastor or teacher or whoever it is is someone that you personally trusted; someone you loved. Someone about whom you just have to say “Him? No, it couldn’t possibly be him. My kids loved him.” Then it is so hard to see, so hard to believe, so hard to hold someone accountable. Can we forgive? Yes. Can we continue to love and care for? Yes. Can that person be part of church in the future? Yes - if there is honesty about what has gone before. But can we restore authority to people who have used that authority for harm? No. No. No. Not ever.
Sermon Excerpt: The Myth of Ventilating Your Anger
Jesus didn’t tell you to forgive just because it was good for someone else. He told you to forgive because it is good for you. Forgiveness is absolutely necessary for your own wholeness.
Now I have a question for you. Just for a minute, put on your Oprah Winfrey/Jerry Springer/The View hat - whatever the talk show of the week is - and think about the messages most of our popular culture gives to us about anger. If you are watching television tomorrow and they are talking about anger - what advice are they most likely to give?
The message I think you are most likely to hear, by far, is that you should “let your feelings out.” In fact, this perspective is so endemic in our culture they may not even have to say it; it is just assumed by everyone that self-expression is critical to health. If you are angry, you should express your anger.
One of the greatest myths, or even lies, of our culture is that if you let your feelings out, if you express your anger, you will feel better. Pop psychology says we need to express ourselves, lay it on the line, tell it like it is, get “the truth” out there. We are told that our relationships will be better, “more honest” if we put everything verbally on the table.
Of course, when you have a serious grievance in a relationship, you need to resolve it in some way. It should be discussed or considered or something. But do you really need to express your anger? Does expressing your anger really improve the situation?
Last summer I very much wanted to get a good picture of my three children before the middle one left for Germany for an exchange year. Two of the kids were happy and willing to participate in this venture, but the third one was ticked off about something else and wanted nothing to do with it. So we tried to take a few pictures, and they all ended up having two beautifully smiling children and one gargoyle. And I was ticked. I mean, I was sooooo angry. Right at the very end, the gargoyle finally made one sort of half-hearted attempt to smile for the camera. And I gave up. In my anger I said to that child “You know 10 or 20 years from now you’re going to look at these pictures and say to yourself ‘I was such a jerk that day.’” “No mom,” the gargoyle said. “You are going to look back at my one smile and say “that was a lie.’”
But you know, I’m grateful for that one decent picture. I’m going to hang it on my wall someday soon. I would have done just fine without that child expressing his anger so obviously. It didn’t help me, it didn’t help him. It didn’t help the situation. Do we really have to express, physically or verbally, our every thought, in the name of honesty?
There’s a rather horrifying story in the book where A.J. Jacobs thinks he should be utterly honest about everything. In a restaurant they run into an old college friend of his wife’s. They are thrilled to see each other again. They talk for a few minutes, and then the old friend says, as you might expect “We’ll have to get together soon.” And Jacobs, in the name of honesty, turns to her and says “Well, I don’t really want any new friends right now, so I’ll take a pass on that.” At which point, his wife murdered him and his book came to an unceremonious end [LOL!].
Where did we come to confuse politeness with a lack of integrity? Where did we start to confuse discretion with outright lying? Who convinced us that we are fools to forgive too quickly - that it’s necessary and imperative and critical and socially appropriate to let everyone know just how angry you are, and then, only then, after everyone’s feelings are thoroughly hurt, can you possibly even consider letting go of your anger?
Did Jesus say, “First, blast your neighbor or your wife with every negative thought and feeling you have, make sure you have it all out of your system, and then forgive him or her?” Because if he said that, I missed it.
You see, if the cultural rule is that you should or must express your anger to be honest, there is a converse to the rule that is also a wildly popular idea - that is, if you don’t express your anger, it will dwell in you and you will have high blood pressure and heart attacks and all kinds of nasty things happen to you when the anger from within comes out and attacks you. Our anger, or so the theory goes, is a tangible thing, and it lives in us, we store it up inside and it becomes like a toxic sludge. You’ve got to ventilate it, let it out. So for your own good - you’d better not forgive too quickly.
And so we hurt people. People we care about. People we love. We think that we have to say everything on our minds, “tell the truth” as we call it, let it all out. And in so doing we cause all kinds of harm. How many times have you told someone else about someone or something else that has angered you. Do you feel better afterwards? Maybe. But do you feel better because expressing your anger has reduced it? Or do you feel better because in expressing your anger your position has been validated by your friend? Do you feel better because, in a sense, you have not so much vented your anger as rehearsed it, and now the story you have in your own mind is even more strong, more clear, you are more sure of your own rightness, your justification.
What I’m offering you here is a fairly complicated argument in very very abbreviated form. I realize there are exceptions and situations where anger can be turned into productive action. I’m talking here briefly and broadly about our tendency to think that we are helped and justified by verbalizing general every day anger at the usual frustrations in life verbally.
My ideas are from a seminal study on Anger by Carol Travers - a book I was asked to read for a class in conflict management. The book is extraordinary and it is out of print, largely because her ideas are so wildly counter-cultural. Travers argues that it isn’t always the best or the healthiest thing to express our anger in the American cultural way; she describes many cultures who handle anger in many different ways. She claims that expressing our anger verbally usually doesn’t make it go away, but makes actually makes it stronger. She claims we can do an awful lot of harm in verbalizing all of our anger in relationships and that verbalizing the anger rarely has anything to do with actually solving the underlying conflict.
I would add to Travers that verbalizing your anger - letting it out “at” someone is a very different thing from metabolizing your anger. Next time you are angry, instead of talking about it, try exercising while intentionally thinking about something else. You can give your body relief from its adrenaline induced stress without giving that stress to another person.
Peter was a fine one for expressing his anger to others verbally or through fighting. He had the nerve to tell Jesus to lay off when he was talking about going to the cross. He whipped out a sword in the garden of Gethsemane and cut off a slave’s ear with it. Peter got plenty angry, and every time Jesus looked at him, in love, and pretty much told him to chill. “Forgive, Peter.” Not once, not ever, did Jesus say “Peter, let your feelings out.”
Now just to be perfectly clear about it, Jesus did get angry. When he cleansed the temple with a whip, that seems pretty angry – and he was expressing it. BUT – he was expressing his angry in a righteous, productive way. He wasn’t being polite, but he was doing something to change the situation that needed to be changed. He didn’t just stand there yelling at people about how stupid they were. He wasn’t just venting, but taking direct action to solve a problem.
Now I have a question for you. Just for a minute, put on your Oprah Winfrey/Jerry Springer/The View hat - whatever the talk show of the week is - and think about the messages most of our popular culture gives to us about anger. If you are watching television tomorrow and they are talking about anger - what advice are they most likely to give?
The message I think you are most likely to hear, by far, is that you should “let your feelings out.” In fact, this perspective is so endemic in our culture they may not even have to say it; it is just assumed by everyone that self-expression is critical to health. If you are angry, you should express your anger.
One of the greatest myths, or even lies, of our culture is that if you let your feelings out, if you express your anger, you will feel better. Pop psychology says we need to express ourselves, lay it on the line, tell it like it is, get “the truth” out there. We are told that our relationships will be better, “more honest” if we put everything verbally on the table.
Of course, when you have a serious grievance in a relationship, you need to resolve it in some way. It should be discussed or considered or something. But do you really need to express your anger? Does expressing your anger really improve the situation?
Last summer I very much wanted to get a good picture of my three children before the middle one left for Germany for an exchange year. Two of the kids were happy and willing to participate in this venture, but the third one was ticked off about something else and wanted nothing to do with it. So we tried to take a few pictures, and they all ended up having two beautifully smiling children and one gargoyle. And I was ticked. I mean, I was sooooo angry. Right at the very end, the gargoyle finally made one sort of half-hearted attempt to smile for the camera. And I gave up. In my anger I said to that child “You know 10 or 20 years from now you’re going to look at these pictures and say to yourself ‘I was such a jerk that day.’” “No mom,” the gargoyle said. “You are going to look back at my one smile and say “that was a lie.’”
But you know, I’m grateful for that one decent picture. I’m going to hang it on my wall someday soon. I would have done just fine without that child expressing his anger so obviously. It didn’t help me, it didn’t help him. It didn’t help the situation. Do we really have to express, physically or verbally, our every thought, in the name of honesty?
There’s a rather horrifying story in the book where A.J. Jacobs thinks he should be utterly honest about everything. In a restaurant they run into an old college friend of his wife’s. They are thrilled to see each other again. They talk for a few minutes, and then the old friend says, as you might expect “We’ll have to get together soon.” And Jacobs, in the name of honesty, turns to her and says “Well, I don’t really want any new friends right now, so I’ll take a pass on that.” At which point, his wife murdered him and his book came to an unceremonious end [LOL!].
Where did we come to confuse politeness with a lack of integrity? Where did we start to confuse discretion with outright lying? Who convinced us that we are fools to forgive too quickly - that it’s necessary and imperative and critical and socially appropriate to let everyone know just how angry you are, and then, only then, after everyone’s feelings are thoroughly hurt, can you possibly even consider letting go of your anger?
Did Jesus say, “First, blast your neighbor or your wife with every negative thought and feeling you have, make sure you have it all out of your system, and then forgive him or her?” Because if he said that, I missed it.
You see, if the cultural rule is that you should or must express your anger to be honest, there is a converse to the rule that is also a wildly popular idea - that is, if you don’t express your anger, it will dwell in you and you will have high blood pressure and heart attacks and all kinds of nasty things happen to you when the anger from within comes out and attacks you. Our anger, or so the theory goes, is a tangible thing, and it lives in us, we store it up inside and it becomes like a toxic sludge. You’ve got to ventilate it, let it out. So for your own good - you’d better not forgive too quickly.
And so we hurt people. People we care about. People we love. We think that we have to say everything on our minds, “tell the truth” as we call it, let it all out. And in so doing we cause all kinds of harm. How many times have you told someone else about someone or something else that has angered you. Do you feel better afterwards? Maybe. But do you feel better because expressing your anger has reduced it? Or do you feel better because in expressing your anger your position has been validated by your friend? Do you feel better because, in a sense, you have not so much vented your anger as rehearsed it, and now the story you have in your own mind is even more strong, more clear, you are more sure of your own rightness, your justification.
What I’m offering you here is a fairly complicated argument in very very abbreviated form. I realize there are exceptions and situations where anger can be turned into productive action. I’m talking here briefly and broadly about our tendency to think that we are helped and justified by verbalizing general every day anger at the usual frustrations in life verbally.
My ideas are from a seminal study on Anger by Carol Travers - a book I was asked to read for a class in conflict management. The book is extraordinary and it is out of print, largely because her ideas are so wildly counter-cultural. Travers argues that it isn’t always the best or the healthiest thing to express our anger in the American cultural way; she describes many cultures who handle anger in many different ways. She claims that expressing our anger verbally usually doesn’t make it go away, but makes actually makes it stronger. She claims we can do an awful lot of harm in verbalizing all of our anger in relationships and that verbalizing the anger rarely has anything to do with actually solving the underlying conflict.
I would add to Travers that verbalizing your anger - letting it out “at” someone is a very different thing from metabolizing your anger. Next time you are angry, instead of talking about it, try exercising while intentionally thinking about something else. You can give your body relief from its adrenaline induced stress without giving that stress to another person.
Peter was a fine one for expressing his anger to others verbally or through fighting. He had the nerve to tell Jesus to lay off when he was talking about going to the cross. He whipped out a sword in the garden of Gethsemane and cut off a slave’s ear with it. Peter got plenty angry, and every time Jesus looked at him, in love, and pretty much told him to chill. “Forgive, Peter.” Not once, not ever, did Jesus say “Peter, let your feelings out.”
Now just to be perfectly clear about it, Jesus did get angry. When he cleansed the temple with a whip, that seems pretty angry – and he was expressing it. BUT – he was expressing his angry in a righteous, productive way. He wasn’t being polite, but he was doing something to change the situation that needed to be changed. He didn’t just stand there yelling at people about how stupid they were. He wasn’t just venting, but taking direct action to solve a problem.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Ruth Ann's Mission Statement
I shared this in worship today - it's my personal mission statement (I don't really like the sound of that, but...) I wrote it originally for my first doctoral seminar, but it's remained important to me for the past 7 years as a statement of my spiritual identity. Every line has a specific scriptural reference. Do you have a mission statement, key Bible verse or quote that provides special direction for your life? What is it?
Standing at the well of my ancestors,
my purpose is
to drink the living water of Jesus Christ,
to celebrate its becoming in me
a spring gushing up to eternal life,
and to pray that rivers of living water
will flow from my believing heart
so that I may offer
at least a cup of cold water
to each thirsty person
and barren desert place I encounter
until justice rolls down,
the deserts all bloom,
and the plain water set aside to purify my life
has become new wine.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
How to leave a comment
Several people have told me they've been here to read the blog, but never having used one before they are not sure how to leave a comment. It's not too difficult!
Below each post that I write is the word "comment." You start by clicking there. This will take you to a screen with a box where you can begin writing your comment. If you do not have a Google account, you will need to do that first.
All that is asked of you for a Google account is a valid email address and whatever password you designate. You will not get advertising or spam from this. The reason it is important is that lots of not so nice people in the world will put extremely inappropriate things on a blog, and I have to have a way to say "no, that person is not allowed to write here anymore." I can't do that if you are not tied to an email address.
To set up a Google account, select that option below the box where you can write your comment. You will be taken to a new web page where you give an email address and your password. Then there are some silly looking letters that you have to type in the box they provide. A computer can't read these crazy letters, so you are just confirming that you are actually a human being and not some automated advertising-bot. When you submit this page you now have a Google account that you can use from now on to leave messages on my blog or on others. You will be taken back to a page where you can leave your comment.
The first part of your email (before the @) will be posted as a signature on your comment. If it's not related to your name in a way that allows me to figure it out, I would appreciate your signing your post or also sending me an email so I know who you are and can say "thank you, thank you!!" in person.
Below each post that I write is the word "comment." You start by clicking there. This will take you to a screen with a box where you can begin writing your comment. If you do not have a Google account, you will need to do that first.
All that is asked of you for a Google account is a valid email address and whatever password you designate. You will not get advertising or spam from this. The reason it is important is that lots of not so nice people in the world will put extremely inappropriate things on a blog, and I have to have a way to say "no, that person is not allowed to write here anymore." I can't do that if you are not tied to an email address.
To set up a Google account, select that option below the box where you can write your comment. You will be taken to a new web page where you give an email address and your password. Then there are some silly looking letters that you have to type in the box they provide. A computer can't read these crazy letters, so you are just confirming that you are actually a human being and not some automated advertising-bot. When you submit this page you now have a Google account that you can use from now on to leave messages on my blog or on others. You will be taken back to a page where you can leave your comment.
The first part of your email (before the @) will be posted as a signature on your comment. If it's not related to your name in a way that allows me to figure it out, I would appreciate your signing your post or also sending me an email so I know who you are and can say "thank you, thank you!!" in person.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Three Promises
I'm not sure exactly what he has up his sleeve, but a few weeks ago in a staff meeting, Pastor Dan gave each of us an assignment. We were to come back to the next staff meeting with a list of three promises. "What three things would you want to say our church could promise to anyone who came here?"
We got off to a great start because no one (with the possible exception of Jan Slagter, who forgets nothing) came to the next meeting with our list ready. And then we had a couple of meetings where there wasn't time to get to that agenda item. (You may not be aware of this, but I have learned that at Woodbury/Peaceful Grove there is a regulation that one meeting may not end until it is time or past time for the next meeting on the schedule to begin. You may want to check the calendar before you attend any more meetings and bring a snack if it looks clear for more than a few hours.)
I have been thinking about Dan's question. What are the first things that come to your mind?
One of the first things that came to my mind was"authenticity" - we promise to be a church where people do not pretend to be other than we are. If we are confused, we do not try to act like we have all the answers. If we are lost and need support, it shows. If we are joyful, we dance in the aisles.
For people under a certain age (I'm 43 and I'm apparently under that age) authenticity is often associated with informality. We busters do not trust "dress for success" and don't appreciate "your Sunday best." We are often unimpresssed with signs and symbols of institutional authority. I don't prefer to wear vestments except for special occasions, for example, and I don't especially like being called Pastor Ruth Ann...I'd rather just be Ruth Ann. (Call me Ruth, though, and I'll freak out on you.)
For other people, and I do get this, informality suggests disrespect. Formal vestments suggest that this most reverend pastor person is set apart for holy work in this time and place. "Pay attention" the cloth yells.
One time my son, Jonathan, gave the sermon at my church. He was around 19 then, and he did a wonderful job. What was so fun about it for me is that he kept saying all of these things that are very important to me but I had no memory of telling him directly - in other words he had picked up many of my most important values by spending all those years at home and in church with me. But on this occasion Jonathan wore jeans that were holy in the wrong way. Very expensive, but ripped out. Not to long after that I got a nasty anonymous comment (gotta love those) that my family did not dress appropriately for church. So the remarkable fact that this young man could give a coherent and vibrant 20 minute (mother's child) sermon was completely lost in light of the fact that a patch of his knee skin was showing.
When I say that I want our church to offer authenticity, I'm not saying that we should be formal or informal, traditional or contemporary. What I do mean is that there should be a significant degree of honesty in all of our encounters with one another. We still have respect, we still have confidentiality and privacy, when necessary, but we are not pretending to be happier or holier or more successful or more confident or more penitent or more sober or more anything else than we really are.
Last year in my church a respected professional man, of some wealth and stature in the community, stood up during prayer time and asked us to pray for him as he was leaving the next morning for treatment - he was admitting he was alcoholic. He was an airline pilot, so an admission like this was potentially career ending. (In fact, his employer already knew and supported him throughout the process. After being clean for a number of months, going through a personal and family counseling program and a great deal of re-training, he is flying again.) My point is, this was a moment of great authenticity. He was telling us the truth about his life in that moment and his need for our love, support, and prayer. Events like this are transformative for a church community.
Is authenticity a priority for you? How do you describe authenticity in worship?
I've been told, for example, that if you say a prayer that you've already written out on paper, it's not authentic; it's not "from the heart." Do you agree with that?
What promise would you want to make on behalf of your church?
We got off to a great start because no one (with the possible exception of Jan Slagter, who forgets nothing) came to the next meeting with our list ready. And then we had a couple of meetings where there wasn't time to get to that agenda item. (You may not be aware of this, but I have learned that at Woodbury/Peaceful Grove there is a regulation that one meeting may not end until it is time or past time for the next meeting on the schedule to begin. You may want to check the calendar before you attend any more meetings and bring a snack if it looks clear for more than a few hours.)
I have been thinking about Dan's question. What are the first things that come to your mind?
One of the first things that came to my mind was"authenticity" - we promise to be a church where people do not pretend to be other than we are. If we are confused, we do not try to act like we have all the answers. If we are lost and need support, it shows. If we are joyful, we dance in the aisles.
For people under a certain age (I'm 43 and I'm apparently under that age) authenticity is often associated with informality. We busters do not trust "dress for success" and don't appreciate "your Sunday best." We are often unimpresssed with signs and symbols of institutional authority. I don't prefer to wear vestments except for special occasions, for example, and I don't especially like being called Pastor Ruth Ann...I'd rather just be Ruth Ann. (Call me Ruth, though, and I'll freak out on you.)
For other people, and I do get this, informality suggests disrespect. Formal vestments suggest that this most reverend pastor person is set apart for holy work in this time and place. "Pay attention" the cloth yells.
One time my son, Jonathan, gave the sermon at my church. He was around 19 then, and he did a wonderful job. What was so fun about it for me is that he kept saying all of these things that are very important to me but I had no memory of telling him directly - in other words he had picked up many of my most important values by spending all those years at home and in church with me. But on this occasion Jonathan wore jeans that were holy in the wrong way. Very expensive, but ripped out. Not to long after that I got a nasty anonymous comment (gotta love those) that my family did not dress appropriately for church. So the remarkable fact that this young man could give a coherent and vibrant 20 minute (mother's child) sermon was completely lost in light of the fact that a patch of his knee skin was showing.
When I say that I want our church to offer authenticity, I'm not saying that we should be formal or informal, traditional or contemporary. What I do mean is that there should be a significant degree of honesty in all of our encounters with one another. We still have respect, we still have confidentiality and privacy, when necessary, but we are not pretending to be happier or holier or more successful or more confident or more penitent or more sober or more anything else than we really are.
Last year in my church a respected professional man, of some wealth and stature in the community, stood up during prayer time and asked us to pray for him as he was leaving the next morning for treatment - he was admitting he was alcoholic. He was an airline pilot, so an admission like this was potentially career ending. (In fact, his employer already knew and supported him throughout the process. After being clean for a number of months, going through a personal and family counseling program and a great deal of re-training, he is flying again.) My point is, this was a moment of great authenticity. He was telling us the truth about his life in that moment and his need for our love, support, and prayer. Events like this are transformative for a church community.
Is authenticity a priority for you? How do you describe authenticity in worship?
I've been told, for example, that if you say a prayer that you've already written out on paper, it's not authentic; it's not "from the heart." Do you agree with that?
What promise would you want to make on behalf of your church?
Praying for the Local Church
Okay, so that was a slightly longer nap than I intended after church. Sunday afternoon naps are a tradition I inherited from my father. Anyway, here are the prayer suggestions from the Church of the Resurrection conference the staff attended last week-end. (The ones I promised in church that I would post after my nap.)
I hope you will join us in praying for these concerns. Bill Hybels (founding pastsor of Willow Creek Community Church) often says "the local church is the hope of the world." I believe that because the local church is where the power of God is formed in people and where people organize to change the world. Sunday - Passionate Worship Lord, we pray that churches across the globe would have an awesome encounter of worshiping you in spirit and in truth today (John 4:24). Monday – Calling Young People into Ministry Lord, we pray that you would raise up laborers for the harvest (Matthew 9:37-37). And specifically we ask you to raise up young clergy in America and call them into the ministry of the local church. Lord, we pray that You would raise up new churches in America in places where there is no vibrant witness for the gospel right now (Romans 15:20). Wednesday – Ministry to the Poor Lord, we pray that you would use the local churches to alleviate poverty, stamp out malaria and HIV/AIDS, and minister to the less fortunate and overlooked in the name of Jesus (Matthew 25:40). Thursday – Renewed Vitality of the Local Church Lord, we pray that you would bring renewed vitality to the local church (Ezekiel 37) and that you would daily add to your church through professions of faith (Acts 2:47). Friday – Unity Lord, we pray for a healthy unity across the community of churches such that the unbelieving world may see and believe in you (John 17:20-21). Saturday – The Word Lord, we pray that as the Word of God is preached in our church and other local churches tomorrow that you would bear fruit that will last forever (Isaiah 55:10-11).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
