Personal Thoughts

We were watching Star Trek, The Next Generation, Season 6, Episode 9, “The Quality of Life” in which Data asked Beverly Crusher, the doctor, “How do we know something is alive?” He was referring to a small AI machine that was created to perform certain tasks. This “robot” was capable of “learning.” Data is, himself, an android—a fact that gives context to his question.

How do we define life? Data, on Star Trek, thought it had to do with the ability to learn and adjust to one’s surroundings or the ability to grow. Maybe, it is more about the ability to reproduce. All living things can do that.

Live beings, “think” according to Descartes. “Cogito ergo sum.” [I think, therefore, I am.] All living organisms have brains? But what about plants? Such questions, however, are generally ignored by those of us who have a life to live, but perhaps, we should take a moment out to “think about it.”[no pun intended].

Sherlock Holme’s Professor Moriarty, in episode 12, claims to be alive (even though he was a hologram). He claimed self-awareness. “I have consciousness!” he argued. Pickard, captain of the Enterprise, realizing Moriarty’s imagined sentience was dangerous, created for him a universe within the hologram that he thought was the real world. Pickard now could pilot his ship in his reality while Moriarty and his woman friend took a shuttle craft merrily though the darkness in theirs. “Who knows.” Pickard mused, “Our reality may be very much like theirs and all this [pointing to his ship] might just be an elaborate simulation running inside a little device sitting on someone’s table.”

The newest definition of life is that all living things have a genetic code. If this “genetic code” is considered in simplest terms a protein mix, chemicals, that somehow program us to function as humans, we might someday synthesize these proteins and, thereby, replicate that organic soup in which life allegedly began?

“But cells are not simple plasmic units of chemical reactions.” affirmed Stephen Meyer in “Signature in the Cell” (New York:Harper Collins Publishers. 2009), Chapter 9. “Cells are complex living units with at least 250 functioning protein clusters,” Meyer said. The organic soup has a cook!?

America is waiting on the latest Power Ball numbers to win 1.2 billion (with a ‘B’) dollars. The odds of claiming the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. We understand that there is a 1 in 1,222,000 chance of death or injury from lightning in a given year; a 1 in 57,825 chance of dying from a hornet, wasp, or bee sting during your lifetime. Google it.

But

“The probability of producing the proteins necessary to build a minimally complex cell—or the genetic information necessary to produce those proteins—by chance,” Meyers calculated, “is unimaginably small.” His abacus ran out of colored beads. “That’s a ‘1’ followed by 41,000 zeros!” he wrote.

Has humankind evolved from monkeys or are we “made in the image of God”? The “monkey” theory reduces hope to nothing more than a religious placebo rather than actually talking to the God Who gives hope!. When there is no real reason for our life in relation to an eternal God, we can only dream within the limitations of this life in which death is inevitable; we are reliant on no one but ourselves, and life is invested in an evolutionary process that will “hopefully” bring in a utopia for our progeny.

For you are my hope, Lord GOD, my confidence from my youth. – Psalm 71:5 [CSB]

Not to believe in God? It makes more sense to play the lottery.

“The Greeks had a word for the feeling one has when one is happy: makarios. It is a feeling of contentment, when one knows one’s place in the world and is satisfied with that place. If your life has been fortunate, you should feel makarios. We use idioms in English to try to approximate this experience. We’ll say, “My life has really come together,”” … “In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you are a peacemaker, then you are makarios. Since English doesn’t have a word for this feeling, translators have struggled to find one. What do you call it when you feel happy, content, balanced, harmonious and fortunate? Well, translators have concluded, you are blessed. Thus our English translations say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5: 9). Unfortunately, this introduces another problem. The English language prefers clear subjects for its verbs. So the missing puzzle piece in the Beatitudes is, How is one blessed? What goes without saying in our culture is that God blesses people. Consequently, we often interpret this verse to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “If you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English. Alas, here is the bigger problem: maybe the reason we North Americans struggle to find makarios in our personal lives is because we don’t have a word in our native language to denote it.” [Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards, Brandon J. O’Brien]

This reminds me of Abram Maslow’s peak-experience of the self-actualized person.

1. A comfortable acceptance of life [Deuteronomy 29:29]
2. Acceptance of others (unprejudiced) [Zechariah 8:17; Galatians 6:2]
3. A love for nature. [Genesis 2:15; 1 Corinthians 12:22]
4. Single-minded, non hypocritical, natural and spontaneous [Romans 12:9; 2 Timothy 1:5; 1 Corinthians 5:8; 2 Corinthians 2:17]
5. People are not problems; people have problems [Ephesians 4:28; 2 Corinthians 12:21]
6. Increased desire for privacy to meditate, dream, “pray,” create [Psalm 1:1; 91:1]
7. Environment independent: can work, live, enjoy life anywhere in any cultural setting. Socially independent. [Philippians 4:11]
8. Fresh emotional responses to life, deep feelings, especially of joy. [John 4:14; 10:10]
9. A deep sense of belonging, family, part of something “big” or “important” [Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6]
10. A keen awareness of others: “empathetic understanding” to use Carl Roger’s phrase [John 11:35; Romans 12:15]
11. Meaningful friendships [John 15:15; 1 Corinthians 1:9]
12. Appreciative of the contributions, successes, and achievements of others as adding to their well-being. [1 Corinthians 12:24]
13. Strong ethical and moral principles [Exodus 20:1-17]
14. Non-defensive, not easily offended, but accepting of the opinions and feelings of others Non-hostile sense of humor. [Galatians 4:12]
15. Creative, active ministry [1 Corinthians 12: 7, 11]

I might not be the best person to raise this issue but isn’t it far time to challenge the use of the term “racist” when we are really talking about a prejudice, NOT based on skin color, but, ethnic differences?

Ethnicity is “belonging to a social group that has a common … CULTURAL tradition.” Different ethnicities means different languages; different foods, different rituals, including worship; different social values, a different importance placed on community and family …to name a few.

In America there was no legacy culture—unlike many other nations that have histories of traditions that define what it means to be who they are as a nation. We started with 13 colonies for that reason. We have always been a nation of immigrants or descendants of immigrants. We are, in all honesty, already multilingual. Our cuisine was borrowed from a global buffet. Our government is not parliamentary, as other democracies, though, many Americans don’t understand this and that is a constant political soreness.

If there is a common thread it has to be the belief that there is a FREEDOM in America to live unencumbered by a national mindset that restricts one’s dream of a fulfilling and “happy” life. The Declaration of Independence reads,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men .. are endowed by their Creator with certain … Rights, … among these are … Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And maybe in each one’s personal pursuit after this dream, we began to climb over one another on the way to the top [it’s called “hubris”]. Some are more inventive, more willing to take risks, to acquire that “freedom.” Prejudice is the idea that someone else because of their ethnicity is in the way and they should be pushed aside, or worse, exploited in order to reach that “top rung.”

The dictionary defines prejudice as “preconceived opinion that is NOT based on reason or actual experience.” There are a few things wrong with this definition. First, please don’t solicit “reason” to justify the notion that another person is “in the way” of your “happiness”! And second, prejudice profiles ALL persons of another ethnicity. There is an “individual” factor in how someone lives, and the values they place on experience—this should not be subject to the opinion of another!

Prejudice is, therefore, placing a personal value on someone else’s way of life which is based on opinion only [a judgment not based on knowledge] and NOT based on the other person’s own evaluation of themselves—not based on “getting to know them as a person, as American.”

“In Genesis 27:46, for example, Rebekah exclaims her frustration with Esau’s wives because of their ethnicity: “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women,” she says to Isaac, her husband. “If Jacob [her other son] takes a wife from among the women of this land, my life will not be worth living.”

There are examples throughout the Bible of what ought not be! “[The] Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” John sadly wrote [John 4:9 ]. The Bible is alerting the wise to something that must be purged from Christian society. We don’t have to claim a friendship with every one living in America but when we do not, make sure it is not based on prejudice.

By the way: For the believer in Christ no other believer for any reason should be marginalized.

“Therefore accept (befriend) one another, just as Christ also accepted you, to the glory of God” [Romans 15:7].

Can there be an “up” without a “down”? A mountain peak without a valley? Do we recognize good only because it is not the evil we had known? Does happiness override sadness? Is love requited a sign that our loneliness is at an end?

What we are asking” Is it the bad that now serves to recognize the good for what it is? The greater the difference between opposites, the more pronounced that difference, the more we appreciate the change. “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection … becoming like him in his death,” Paul testified [Philippians 3:10]. God can even use the bad to develop the good in us. Paul noted that tribulation (stress, hard times, opposition) leads through patience, character, and hope to a recognition of God’s love [Romans 5:3-5].

The Lord never takes something away without replacing it with something else far better. [This is a wise practice counselors and therapists as well as medical professionals have discovered, that addictions cannot be starved to death without replacing them with more wholesome behavior.]

“Do not get drunk on wine,” Paul counseled, “which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” [Ephesians 5:18]. Wine might be representative of all kinds of addictions from drugs, any entheogen, pornography, etc. Consider the exchanges God has made and will make in us that have transformed our lives:

• “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” [Ezekiel 36:26].
• “By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear” [Hebrews 8:13].
• “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” [Revelation 21:1].
• “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” [2 Corinthians 5:17].

Evil is not this way. With sin, things just get worse without any benefit in exchange. Satan doesn’t believe in filling an empty life with something better: “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” [Luke 11:24-26]

We must not look on all the things we did that were self-destructive—before we knew the conviction of the Spirit and the forgiveness that is in Christ—as a worthless existence, irredeemable. A shameful past now serves to magnify what God has done and is doing for us and validates the change God is making in us for His glory [Romans 8:28].

We must reconcile with our past if it represents a life we no longer live thanks to Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer tells us in his work, “The Cost of Discipleship” that “…grace and discipleship are inseparable,” [Bonhoeffer, page 46]. In a phrase: Grace is costly, not only because it cost God His Son’s life on Calvary [1 Corinthians 7:23] but because it costs us, ours, as well [Luke 9:23]. A grace that saves us but does not change us: our perspective on life, our passions, our dreams or how we live, is a cheap grace since it has accomplished nothing for which Christ gave His life to provide.

We are called to “deny ourselves and carry our cross as we follow Christ. …and not on weekends or Sundays only but “daily” [Luke 9:23]. And what does it mean to “deny”? Its most basic meaning is “to say, ‘No!’” [Kittel, vol I, page 469]. Oh how demanding we are of self! How soft, selfishly soft, the comfort we seek and rationalize we deserve! Have we lost the ability to say, “No!” to ourselves, to sin and comfort, for the sake of our witness and God loving others through us [1 Corinthians 9:27]?

Forgiveness

Grace might be free but it is not cheap. We have always recognized the ‘e’ in the acrostic to mean “expense” And yet, that is not the whole story; for, in speaking of “cost” Jesus taught the parable about an unmerciful servant [Matthew 18:21-35] and his master’s absolute forgiveness of this servant’s debt which was not the result of risky investments or poverty but of swindle. This servant defrauded his master of what was his master’s rightful possession, which is a metaphor for our unfaithfulness toward the God Who loved us. We abused through sinning the gift of life God gave us while He made us for His fellowship. But what did Jesus emphasize in this story? Not His forgiveness but the need of ours toward each other and others [Matthew 18:35]. Grace is cheapened when we are thereby forgiven without any interest in forgiving. To forgive indeed we must forgive in deed! This incorporates a desire for reconciliation. A forgiving heart holds no bitterness or vengeance. The story of grace is a story of God creating in us forgiving hearts.  [It is not strange to discover that both words, grace and forgiveness, derive from the same Greek word, Ephesians 4:32.]

Followship

Jesus cannot become our Savior and not our Lord! The message of grace is cheapened if nothing is required of us to “come out and be separate” [2 Corinthians 6:17]. If so, if we seek to receive His love but not let it flow out to others, our experience is a stagnant religion rather than the witness of the living stream of eternal salvation Jesus spoke of [John 7:38]. Love is put in to flow out [Romans 5:5]. We are to love as He does [John 15:12]. Our thoughts may become so fixed on what He did for us we don’t take serious what He intends to do through us. The rich young man toward whom Jesus’ heart was warmly drawn is not really the story of liquidating one’s wealth for charity as it is relinquishing all personal ambition and interest for the glorious vision of following Him as one of His disciples [Luke 18:22]. Bonhoeffer calls fellowship, followship, and rightly so [1 Corinthians 1:9].

Grace, therefore, is more than forgiveness, it is God’s empowering to follow in our Lord’s footsteps. [Seventeen times in the Gospels we read Jesus instructing His disciples to “Follow me.”] Justification is a marvelous gift of God but the same word also translates “righteousness” [Kittel, vol II, page 202ff]. We should not claim justification if we do not live it! Grace is cheapened if it is only a declaration of righteousness without sanctification. As we can rightly maintain God’s gift of grace is working on us [“from glory to glory”] transforming us into the image of Christ [2 Corinthians 3:18]. Justification leads to glorification [Romans 8:30]. It has to! It is cheapened if it becomes mere religious duty or devotion or a Sunday morning habit.

Knowledge

Grace is cheapened if we continue in sin [Romans 6:1-2]. Cheap grace is a carte blanche to sin and is not what God offers! As Bonhoeffer, in other words, noted, “acquired knowledge cannot be divorced from the experience in which it was acquired” [Bonhoeffer, page 51]. “The call to discipleship,” the pastor affirmed, “is [the] gift of grace” [italics added. Bonhoeffer, page 51]. There is no biblical word for academic knowledge.

Faith

Cheap grace cheapens faith because it denies that the word “faith” includes “faithfulness,” the other side of the same coin, so to speak. And faithfulness is also an ongoing experience [“from faith into faith” Romans 1:17] …into Christ according to Paul [Philippians 1:29 says “into” as an activity (faithful) and not “in” as a condition (faith)]. Salvation is a deepening relationship with Him. Faith is faithfulness. Saving grace is God’s empowering us to follow in His steps as His disciples.

Here is where Bonhoeffer waxes eloquent and inspired. “Do we also realize that this cheap grace has turned back upon us like a boomerang?” he asked. “The price we are having to pay today, “he observed, “in the shape of the collapse of the organized church [I think not just a dwindling membership but the apparent absence of commitment to pastoral vision] is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low cost. We gave away the Word … wholesale.” [Bonhoeffer, page 54] Bonhoeffer recognized with sadness the Church’s message being made more seeker friendly than challenging.

Discipleship

Bonhoeffer continued, “Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving. We poured forth unending streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way [Matthew 7:14] was hardly ever heard” [Bonhoeffer, page 54]. We need to relearn the relationship between grace and discipleship. Bonhoeffer concludes, “It is becoming clearer every day that the most urgent problem besetting [the] Church is this: How can we live the Christian life in the modern world?” [Bonhoeffer, page 55].

The encouraging thought is that Jesus gave us the answer in His “Sermon on the Mount” and added “it’s easy” [Matthew 11:30]. Jesus used the word, “Happy” [blessed] as He unfurled the scroll of such a revelation. There is a bit more to this truth than what is found in Matthew’s record but it is all good—excitingly good.

Bonhoeffer concluded, “Happy are they who, knowing that grace, can live in the world without being of it, who, by following Jesus Christ, are so assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world. Happy are they who know that discipleship simply means the life which springs from grace, and that grace simply means discipleship. Happy are they who have become Christians in this sense of the word. For them the word of grace has proved a fountain of mercy” [Bonhoeffer, page 56].

The Sermon on the Mount

One cannot talk grace without studying discipleship and that is a study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and primarily the Beatitudes. Here is where we find the gateway that opens to the way that is narrow that we are called to walk.

We take comfort in calling this life a “pilgrimage” in which our real home is in heaven (John 14:2-3) along with our true citizenship as believers (Philippians 3:20). Yet before we get there, it’s all about …“the journey.” The Scripture that comes to mind is Hebrews 12:2) which was written to the early Jewish believers who were holding on too tightly to their religious traditions to appreciate the changes happening in their experience as believers. We, as followers of Christ, have come to view suffering (1 Peter 5:9) as a real part of our worldview. Sometimes it hurts to be a Christian either because of some form of persecution or being marginalized by family or others, or perhaps, because we didn’t realize that life goes on—same job, same emotional luggage, same “headaches” are brought along with us on this journey. Our faith has not immunized us against pain or hurt.

Yes, God knows when this or that in our circumstance is a hinderance to what He is perfecting in us and He will remove it accordingly (Revelation 3:7), but somehow our humanity is very much a part of life as it always was. The temptations are just as real, sickness is just as real. We may become flummoxed about the paradoxical inconvenience of pain while knowing that God’s faithfulness and love were never more real as when we are hurting. Suffering on many levels remains a part of life as it did for the Savior!

What has changed? We have Jesus as both our example to follow and the One who will “perfect” our faith. Our trust in Him will be absolutely rewarded. He is irrefutably trustworthy. He didn’t save us to abandon us! That’s what “perfect” means.

But the gem of this verse is found in the word “for.” When Jesus was, Himself, looking at a level of suffering off the scale of human endurance, He knew that at the other end of what He must endure, there was a joy. Joy is what Mary Magdalene and “the other” Mary experienced when an angel told them Jesus was alive! (Matthew 28:8). Joy is what awaits us when He welcomes us home! (Matthew 25:21, 23).

Meanwhile we “endure,” we soldier on (is what it means)! And it makes a huge difference if we are looking at our tired legs or heaving diaphragm, or, instead, at that joy that is ours—to use Paul’s analogy from verse one—after this race is run! For some of us, the banner over the finish line is almost visible. It reads “Enter into the Joy of Your Lord.” And if we see it, it inspires us, or, as verse three reads, encouragingly, “so that [we] may not grow weary or fainthearted” when we are so close to that mark!

I had to run the mile in high school in 6 minutes to pass Physical Education. I was running far to slowly to make that clock until a friend of mine, realizing the shortfall, jumped on the track in front of me and yelled out, “Keep up!!” All I knew was I had to keep up with Carl as hard as it was to breathe (compliments of my asthma) or how my legs aches. I kept up … and passed!

Let’s keep up with Jesus!

The Church does not depend on its theology for its existence. The Church depends on the faithfulness of its parishioners, their devotion to God. I can say this confidently because most church-goers do not know what their church believes. Newcomers, who were not raised on its teachings, are less likely to be drawn to its doctrine than to friendships within its doors or the atmosphere it maintains for worship.

Young’s Literal Translation of 2 Peter 1:7 calls this “piety” [translated “godliness” elsewhere] and what the dictionary calls, “a belief … that is accepted with unthinking conventional reverence.”

But this is as it should be because as much as any church endorses discipleship, our knowledge of the Bible remains incomplete—a confession which should be an encouragement. A close friend who has been pastoring now for decades admitted with a soupçon of irony that if Jesus will grade his understanding of all Biblical truth at 10% when God calls on him, he will be humbly grateful for having had the opportunity to learn that much (1 Corinthians 13:12). He speaks for me, too.

Theology doesn’t save; God does!  It is not what you might know but Who you know, Jesus, Who saves.  We are not called “believers” for no reason. We trust Him, Whom we love, to save us! It is our faith in our Lord’s work on Calvary that is our salvation (Romans 10:9; Galatians 3:8), not our knowledge of the theological details. In Biblical days the cult of Gnosticism [after the Greek word, “knowledge” which based salvation on a supposed understanding of God’s revelation that to outsiders remained a mystery] was unequivocally rejected by the Apostles (Galatians 1:6-10).

That devotion, I speak of, is now being threatened in “subtile” ways [Genesis 3:1. The Hebrew word means “crafty”] through TV movies and series, talk shows and other media. All these are methodically introducing a narrative that compromises the Biblical message. I was interested to find out that the issues being discussed today where prevalent in their infancy in movies and TV series a decade ago. We have been the proverbial frog in the sauce pan of hot water and we haven’t hopped out yet! Church leaders have for the last half century been reevaluating church theology in the light of all this change.

This is a mistake, if the narrative being sold by the media is bought by the church to live below or outside the Biblical message! And that much we do know! It is Eve and the snake all over again! The Devil’s deception always begins with “Did God actually say.” The devil’s rhetoric is understood to mean, “God didn’t mean what you think He meant.” And yet nothing could be said in simpler terms: “this tree here, avoid it!” (Genesis 3:3)! The account begins with the devil spouting, “APH!” It is a rhetorical “yea,” ”really!” or “indeed!” It is an impassioned challenge to what we know all along about what God did say!

There is a lot of Bible to learn and some of us have had more time than others to learn it. But without our faith or an absolute devotion to our Lord, our faithfulness lived without compromise and without apology, the church ceases to be a spiritual force. It is our faith that has empowered our witness and message! We are “… God’s people … set apart by faith…” (Acts 26:18).

In Proverbs 17:7 we understand Solomon to say, “Lies do not become a nobleman.” Perhaps, a more literal translation might read: “too much talking is not attractive for a fool, as it is equally so that the nobleman will not disappoint when they speak.” But why these words? Who is “noble”? What “lies” and who is a “fool”?

The Lie

The Hebrew for “lying” speaks to all forms of deception. In the Bible this word describes the unreliability of the heathen gods made of wood and stone to whom supplication was made in vain (Jeremiah 10:14). Any devotee who prays to a pagan statue will be disappointed. Lies always disappoint!

The Noble

The Hebrew term “noble” [translated ruler or prince] is spoken of one who is generous, who offers freely of his resources, or who volunteers himself to the service of another. He is a good Samaritan. His offerings to God are spontaneous and wholehearted—called free-will offerings. In the Biblical narrative this was apparently considered “noble” or what should characterize nobility. Thus, a ruler or prince among the people is one who is “generous as well as just.” The Dictionary concluded someone is “noble of rank and by implication [noble of] character.”

The Fool

The “fool” is an ignoble, arrogant or insolent person who treasures his wealth over any opportunity to help another—riches often gained through [if I may] ignoble means. Jeremiah defines this kind of fool [NIV 17:11] “Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay… who gain riches by unjust means. … and in the end they will [be] prove[n] to be fools.”

The miser is a constant provocation to the Divine Heart (Psalm 74:22) because they do not believe in Him (Psalm 14:1; 53:1) nor represent Him before others. A just or righteous man will be generous with his or her “good fortune.” He or she is no hoarder of wealth. Isaiah 32:6 told us that, “The fool is a hypocrite, and misrepresents the heart of God toward the poor and needy. They leave the hungry empty and the thirsty man in his thirst.” A person who is truly noble cannot turn away from the needs so obvious to him or her.

The Parable of the Rich Fool

Nothing explains this better than Jesus’ words [Luke 12:20-21]

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

True Nobility

Matthew 25:34-40 perhaps, says it best:

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

A few days ago, our Lord called home a fellow college classmate of Joyce and mine, Dan Fratto. He was from Joyce’s hometown in those earlier days and on a few occasions drove Joyce and me back to school after a visit with her family. This now begs me to revisit the scriptures that reaffirm our faith in the hope of a reunion in that glorious place where now our brother enjoys an unfettered, unfiltered, and unrestricted absolute joy in our Lord’s presence.

My imagination runs wild with the thought that so many former classmates, as well as beloved teachers, who already have made that journey have been awaiting Dan escorted by our Lord into such a saintly community. They must have joined a chorus of angels applauding his homecoming!

Perhaps, it is my age and mortality that has me hungering for that reunion; perhaps, the home going of a friend from days long gone has become, like our Lord’s gentle touch upon the soul, a simple reminder that as more and more from those school days are finding their way to the gates of that heavenly city, we must stoke the fire in our own souls, to stir up the gift, remind ourselves why we are here for now and to inspire a joy that robs all sorrow to detain us or sidetrack us while we press forward toward the mark for that prize (Phil. 3:14).

Out Lord’s Word is His promise that He (John 14:3) will someday come for us, too. He is away building us a home in His Kingdom. And when He said He will return “to receive” us, “to take” us to Himself, these are the words of the Bridegroom reaching out for His bride’s hand to join her to himself. This is the language of intimacy and companionship.

Recalling Paul’s own heart’s cry (2 Corinthians 5:5-9):

We know that we are journeyers but will soon no longer need this tent we travel in because God has made us a permanent home in heaven. Oh how we long for it! This body is but a garment which we long to replace with that glorious one. Such a heavy burden, to finally let go of it and don that incorruptible and immortal one, when death will be finally defeated by eternal life! And how might we know this! The Spirit whom Jesus sent confirms it, guarantees it!!

We are therefore most confident, our hope rests in this truth, that while here, in this life, we live by faith. We live each day trusting our Lord who is most trustworthy. Our confidence has excited hope. Yes, our sole desire and aim, is to please our Lord in the meantime. But we are no longer at home in this life—to be sure—we so much prefer to be with our Lord where we will be … home!

Let us call for a day of forgiveness patterned in part after the Ancient Jewish notion of a Year of Jubilee in which all debt was “forgiven” although this will be one day every four years (paralleling the USA election for the presidency) and it will not be about money but about family and community.

Forgiveness gives us the chance to start over, to set aside all self pity, and to have a chance to emphasize unity—on all  levels: relational, family and national. If the “Day of Forgiveness” comes the Sunday after a presidential election, we can have at it, politicking passionately, but  with a sincere desire for unity just afterward. (This always had been an American democratic tradition.)

Over the course of a relationship, whether in a marriage or in a friendship or within a community, mistakes are made, regrettable and hurtful things are done, some planned out, some recklessly rushed into in the heat of the moment, that strains relationships, sometimes to the breaking point. We are animals of indiscretion—as the song goes: “Everybody plays the fool, sometime.”

We all realize later after a lapse of wisdom, when we come to our senses, that what we did or said was the worse mistake of our lives. People break laws, incur fines, make financial investments that prove too risky. People are prone to say hurtful things. People live with addictions. All of us make mistakes that tend to divide us, that damage our relationships, but nonetheless, we are loved by persons who wants us back—emotionally back, back for real!

No one moves to Canada, but there is an unforgiving spirit present when we are not united; when we cannot resolve a matter, we cannot compromise, we cannot empathize. A banquet turns into just another meal and no one is hungry anyway. We win battles but the war is too costly in terms of our friendship and union. We celebrate ourselves but in the absence of those who should be celebrating with us. We make new friendships sometimes to hide the pain. But what we really need is forgiveness!

Some church congregants treat militancy and division as a righteous thing, although, by biblical definition, it is the exact opposite. A worship service without Christian unity is nothing more than an exercise in social pride that we fulfilled some commitment (which in our hearts, we did not do at all). Did you know that repentance and forgiveness is by biblical definition [Joel’s prophecy] what revival is all about and Christians are always longing for revival.

Families are sadly divided by politics and religion. Married people have affairs, children are sadly and tragically hurt, money is often misappropriated, gambled away. Any one of a number of excuses are readily available to accuse another, project blame, in our pain, on someone we used to be close to.

We need a day of forgiveness which should come every fourth year after a presidential election to erase the escalating contention of the past four years, to give families a chance to be families again, to remind couples of their wedding day and believers of the first day of a new found faith in God’s goodness. November should symbolize renewal. Let’s call for a day of forgiveness in which families and communities as well as congregations within churches may “let go” of the past and look to a more hopeful future …together.