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The ebb and flow of life is predicated essentially upon cause and effect. There is always in some shape or form an initial cause or spark which then creates an effect or result. From the beginning of time we can see and understand this Biblically when God created the world and said it was good.
As we
know later on temptations were caved into and evil officially so to speak
enters into history and further enters into our daily battle as we try to live
into our faith as children of Grace. What
then, are the markers of Grace? What
composes the reality of Grace versus the reality of hell—a graceless
universe? An aspect of Grace which does,
can bind us all together is forgiveness, the other is the law of Love.
To
err is human to forgive is divine; so the saying goes. It’s not that cut and
dry, however, for if this was so, the world would be a dualistic realm of just
good and just evil. The ideology of that
challenges our faith for if God did create the world to be essentially good and
is sovereign to the Kingdom of God present here and now as an untapped
reality.... Why does it seem like sin, death and evil is truly reigning these
days in particular?
I had
myself asking these questions in deeply trying to fathom what on earth would
drive some young American girls and some European girls, teenagers to sign up
and join the “cause” of ISIS becoming female jihadists and even boasting about
the murder of those reporters to which the media only seems to acknowledge... The physician, the reporters interviewed on Fox
said that the girls were enticed to come to believe in and act within a totalitarian
ideology presented in social media.
This
is when judgment becomes decisive, when the natural world reigns with its
seeming “logic” that to have one culture of faith reign supreme... another must
die period. How primitive, truly
ignorant and frankly diabolical! The hungering and thirsting souls of those
young women seeking God cave into romantic fantasies of rebellion, intolerance
and warped “justice!” What a “cause...” no forgiveness, no love of neighbor,
revenge and death. Their message is
effective alright... what affect it has is a whole other story.
All
of today’s lessons example beautiful stories of the cause and effect of being
forgiven and forgiving others. The logic
behind both Joseph’s actions in Genesis and the king in Jesus parable are
completely and radically unnatural to our human nature and Satan’s temptations
to live into the ways of the world...
Joseph’s brothers were terrified or quaking in their boots... They were
probably saying to each other: “What’s he gonna do to us?! He’s the Pharoah’s second hand man in
power.... Yikes!”
Well
if we allowed our human nature to fathom before the story continues; we would
probably have a Martin Scorcese’ style narrative of Joseph obliterating them in
some form or fashion... As we know, what
happens next is completely contradictory to that; he most amazingly, graciously
forgives them for what they put him through even offering to take care of them
and their families!
The
gracious act of forgiveness goes much deeper however especially in grounding
our faith to not be, of the world, but living in the world, as ambassadors of
Christ Jesus’ Gospel—for the Glory of the Kingdom of God. We are not attuned to being an introspective,
altruistic (selfless) society however.
In fact, living way too much into the ways of the world have made us
perfected, “logic-driven” empiricists and more or less narcissists to the
detriment of living Grace—faith. We become the kingdom builders of the
graceless reality of Hell.
Becoming
the builders of the graceless wilderness simply takes caving into the sins of
commission (cause) and the sins of omission (effect). How little we truly and truthfully realize
how things we have done and left undone have perhaps affected people in our
lives, gravely. Perhaps even in our own
self-righteous realm we just can’t forgive and forget through Love—living into
Grace.
A few
years back, I recall hearing horrible news about a dear friend while driving
back from Ohio entering into Indiana.
There was a great rainstorm brewing, where there were torrential rains,
outside the car and inside... The tears
shed were angry and full of wanting revenge.... However what horrified me not
but a moment later was seeing the wrong-doers as having the extended fingers of
Satan dragging my heart into feeling these horrible feelings against these
people!
We
are, since the fall, truly both saints and sinners... for I still cannot come
to forgive what these people did to my friend.
It could become my undoing for the Lord shed such beautiful and
underserved GRACE, LOVE and FORGIVENESS upon me... How dare I still harbor these feelings
against these people?! Turning things
into an “us and them” reality is itself the face of sin. Makes perfect logical
sense though, the one you love is hurt—seek revenge, destroy and be vindicated!
Those
young women, newly anointed Jihadists feel vindicated in their cause as new
converts to the Islamic faith. “Destroy
the infidels, the white devils where they live in their depravity!” “Allah wills their death to “purify,” his
kingdom.” Hitler said something similar
even distorting scripture passages and theologians such as Martin
Luther... Devisive use and abuse of “power”
to enact—cause radical “change” to fit his ideologies and precepts! These are
the diabolical fruit of Satan’s reign showing itself in the world.
The
ironic role of one of the character’s in Jesus parable was that of a
slave. This slave was granted an amazing
reprieve from the king from tremendous debt upon his plea for mercy. Perhaps the King’s court would’ve thought he
was nuts for pardoning him from such ridiculous monetary debt... but the King
saw something else as a priority. He saw
and most likely felt his heart compelled to do the right thing and be gracious
to this truly undeserving slave.
This
slave was living more into his role on a whole other level. He was a slave to himself—what best solves
his problems, wants and needs. He
indentured himself further by convicting and condemning a fellow slave by
showing no mercy, no consideration whatsoever in collecting what was owed to
him. For it wasn’t to be so much that
the King would find out and be angry throwing him and his entire family back
into prison but the slave’s conscience is indentured by his sins...
Conscience,
soul, identity—these are all words that define our spiritual warfare reality
daily as baptized, disciples of Jesus.
Satan fights for control of them every waking moment of our temporal
life on this “floating rock” in space created amongst millions upon millions of
creations the good Lord made! The world of the self is in itself an ideological
prison. Delusions of grandeur and
conquest are fed to us as a poisonous elixir the Evil One himself concocts out
of our “desires, needs for power and control...”
What
the Gospel of GRACE that Jesus Christ offers us is a type of power that we
truly miss the mark in understanding...
St. Paul’s conversion-fed knowledge of the Living Word speaks best to
this in regards to living truthfully and completely in GRACE is being gracious:
“. 7We do not live to ourselves, (he says) and we
do not die to ourselves. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we
die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the
Lord’s. 9For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he
might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” Why do we avoid this? Is it just a matter of the “no pain/ no gain”
aspect of discipleship we don’t like? Or
is it because we can’t or won’t go there spiritually?
St. Paul goes further in challenging
the Romans to “cut it out” and focus on Kingdom things over worldly things:
He says “10Why do you
pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your
brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11For
it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every
tongue shall give praise to God.” 12So then, each of us will be
accountable to God.”
Judgment is the perfect place for
the battle between good and evil.
Judgment can become in itself an idol creating totalitarian ideologies
that impose “rule” and essentially delusions of power over and above others,
the soul and even one’s identity. Social
media was what was utilized by these ISIS cells and by these vulnerable,
psychologically deprived young women.
They left their middle-class families, small town universities and
lifestyles to join the “cause” by becoming nurses to aid these terrorists and
breed an army of the next generation of ISIS by marrying militants in power.
Who knows what the fate of these
women will bear? Some have been caught
and arrested others are for the moment, living for a “cause...” they have no
understanding of except that it makes results at the expense of death and
destruction! Hitler sought to purify the
world from his neighbor, the Jews by leading and feeding a desperate people
with a culture of belief that actually builds stone by stone, chain by chain
the graceless wilderness; reality of Hell itself.
Being and becoming fully aware of
our accountability as disciples of Jesus living into His Gospel of GRACE and
love requires that we live into everything we resist! In order to know the forgiveness and GRACE of
God—the magnitude of its magnificent power—EFFECT upon our lives begins with
our willingness to radically forgive, love, care, and support one another. Joseph’s behavior, the King’s behavior seems
crazy to the “rational” world but is the beautiful behavior of GRACE—the reality
of living into, becoming a complete person through Christ—the Kingdom of God.
AMEN
Sunday September 14th,
2014; 14th Sunday After Pentecost; Year A; SOLA Lectionary
Nicole Collins
Psalm 103:1-12; Psalm 40:1-11;
Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:1-12 & Matthew 18:21-35
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