Simply clear or clearly simple.

Matthew 6:14

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Last night Trudy and I watched a new movie, Amish Grace, on the Life Time Movie Network. I do not usually watch movies on the channel as I find them saccharine and sappy and overly sentimental. But I had read the book, Amish Grace, and wanted to revisit the story. This is a true story about the killing of 5 Amish girls at the Nickel Mines School and how the Amish parents and community dealt with that tragedy. The book was a serious work written by three scholars from Christian colleges. The book had a profound impact on me and in part was one of the catalyst for my Lenten study this year. This book is one I recommend to anyone who has ever struggled with the practice of forgiveness.

The movie attempted to portray this struggle through the eyes of one of the families whose daughter was killed and their difficulty with forgiveness. A brief synopsis: A neighbor of the Amish families walked into the school and shot 10 girls, after letting the boys go. He wanted to anger God because his own daughter died. He then committed suicide. Almost immediately the Amish forgave him and came to the aid of his wife and children. They attended his funeral, and sent gifts to his children. They met with his wife to tell her that they harbored no ill feeling towards her or her children. This act of grace astonished the community, as most of those outside the Amish community have little understanding of their faith.

What draws me to this story is that the Sermon on the Mount is one the central pillars of the Amish faith. Every year they set aside time to study, reflect on and pray about the lessons of the sermon. Like many great ideas the sermon is simply written (or more correctly spoken). Simply is not simple. The Gettysburg address is simply written, but profound and deep. Simply mean clear, plain words with an unambiguous meaning but that cause you to think. Simple writing is writing that has no depth, does not stir though contemplation. The Matthew 6:14-15 verse is a clearly stated direction. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Do not forgive and you will not be forgiven.

When I was teaching 7th and 8th graders they were always questioning simple rules. They were always looking for the loopholes, the grey areas, and the boundaries. They wanted to know if I really meant what I said. They thrived on ambiguity as it gave them an excuse for not complying, a way out. But they really wanted clear boundaries, it made them feel secure. Teachers with foggy boundaries always had more discipline problems than those who were clear. God is always clear, but sometime we have a hard time hearing that. We are so busy looking for a way out.

Simply written expectations do not mean they are easy. Anyone who has struggled with the untimely death of someone close can tell you that. Often we want a simple explanation of why it happened. We want to know that it was reasonable. We may want justice, we want a chaotic world to make sense, or we want to undo the undoable. Forgiveness is the path through trauma to peace. It is a narrow road. It must practice continually. Forgiveness is not a one time act. We may have, as one Amish mother said, Forgive and in an hour, forgive again.

Forgiveness is really for us, the victim. Truly done, it gives the anger and hurt to God. It trusts God to be Just and Loving. I have spent my entire adult life struggling with Forgiveness. My first wife Kathy died in bed next to me. Every day I have to work at Forgiveness. Why she died and I lived is not a question that I can ever answer. It has taken years find any Peace. The Amish Grace story resonates with me because I have walked in their shoes. In a world that often seems to make no sense, God clearly makes sense.

The Narrow Gate

The Narrow and Wide Gates



13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
 
It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets  Spoken by Albus Dumbledore.

I love to wander.  Many times I gotten in the car with no destination in mind, but to wander, explore and enjoy the journey.  When Trudy's parents came to visit us in Australia, we took them to Tamania for Christmas.  As we drove around the island, we would stop at any place that was even mildly interesting.  Trudy's dad had a very difficult time with this.  If we left point A in the morning to get to point B by that evening, he expected us to go by the straightest route in the fastest possible time.  We had long "disscusions" about the purpose of our trip.  Trudy and I saw it as a journey and her dad saw it as a destination.

What this passage reminds me is that the journey and the destination are both important.  Wandering on a day off is one thing, wandering through life without a destination is another.  For our lives to have purpose, we have to have a destination.  I am not talking a location as much as I am a goal.  To reach that we can not merely wander with vague notions of where we are headed.  We have to make choices that lead us to that goal, destination, or life. 

Central to my beliefs is the idea of choice.  God has created us as free agents, able to choose.  Those choices determine who we are.  Regardless of what others do or don't do, we are responsible for our choices.  If someone treats me badly, I am reponsible for how I respond.  If things don't go my way, I am responsible for how I react and deal with the situation.  If I am going to make it through the narrow gate, I must make choices that lead me down that narrow path.  I must turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, give away my riches and love others as I love myself. 

The whole purpose of the Sermon of the Mount for me is set out a clear set of sign posts directing me to the narrow gate. Read the signs, choose to follow them and the gate is open.

Derek and Sophia

Matthew 7
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened.
9 "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

James 4:3
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.



When I was a youngster at home, my father had a favorite response to request for thing from my sisters and me, "manana" (Spanish for tomorrow). It meant "not yet". It was often frustrating, because it wasn't a no or a yes. It was hard to argue with this answer because it could be no or could be yes. For the most part we took it as a no. By tomorrow we would forget what we had asked for and my dad would be off the hook. The lesson I learned was that my dad used this answer for things he considered trivial. If I was going to ask for something, it had better be important or I would be ignored.

My struggle with prayer seems to come from this experience. If I am going to ask for something, it ought not to be trivial. It must be important.
But how do I decide what is trivial and what is important. As I read the verse from James it took a load off of my mind. It was so much what I was asking for, but what my motivations were. If my neighbors are difficult to get along with, do I pray for vengeance or for strength to love them? Am I praying for something I covet or something I need?

I also struggle to remember that prayer is not just a chance to ask for things. I need to remember that it is also chance to thank God for literally everything he has given us. It is also a chance to confess the ways we have separated ourselves from God. Prayer is also an opportunity to be quiet and listen to God. This is perhaps the area I have the greatest difficult with, being still and quiet. After about 20 seconds my mind starts to wander. I know that this is something we have to practice to get better at this. I recently received and email with this quote which I have found helpful:

"Have confidence in that divine Love which holds you close. You have nothing to fear, and if you don't know which way to go, stay where you are. Just be still and quiet and you will find how remarkably conditions will work out for you. So much tangle is made by this eagerness to get on with something. You only get into a muddle and then have to retrace your steps. Be still and trust in God."
White Eagle
" The Quiet Mind"
One of the things that the James passage also reminds me is that all of the Sermon on the Mount really speaks to our motives and should guide us in our prayers. Jesus even gives us a model to use.

Lord,
I thank you for time today to sit and quietly listen. I want to be busy and I want to be heard, but I need to be still and hear. Help to be unbusy and quiet. Help me to wait and listen with an open heart.

Judging Others

Matthew 7: 1-11 ...First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you'll see clearly enough to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye. ...

This is a passage about learning empathy and practicing mercy. Mercy come from being able to see how yourself in your neighbor's predicament. Until we can see that we are all fallable and in need of God's grace, we find it difficult to love our neighbors as ourselves. Mercy implies judgement on our part, not comdennation, but judgement that comes from recognition of our neighbors troubles and our call to help them come to awareness of the Grace that God had made available to all.

This passage illustrates that we need first to recognise our own failings and need for Grace. Once we have seen our need for Grace we can do as Jesus told the adulterous woman and the woman at the well: Go and sin no more. If we truly work at this we will see that it is not easy and that we are continuously in need of Grace. Knowing this, we should judgeour neighbors with mercy and love.

Matthew 6:16-24

Fasting is a practice I don't understand, but I think this passage has a larger topic that I do struggle with daily. It is the problem of priorities and relationships. I certainly want to have a relationship with God and I also, as a consequence of God's Love and Grace, want to have a relationship with those around me (family and neighbors). I want to share what I gain as a result of my relationship with God with those around me. How do I do this?

When I was discharged out of the Navy, I had a month before I started back to college. I took a trip across the United States with 3 friends. They were all two years older and had all completed college. I often felt left out of the conversations because my experience were down a different track. I tried to find ways to relate with what was happening in the conversation. At one point an one of my friends asked me why every thing I said started with "I". This rebuke silenced me for days. I listened as they talked. As I listened I realized my priority was to get them to notice me, rather than to relate to them.

I still struggle to give God his due in my daily life. I am afraid that I will not be able to say things right or will offend others so I remain quiet. OR I really want attention for myself so that I offer myself rather than God. We all want to be loved for who were are, but some of us don't believe that is enough. We try to puff our selves up with wealth, success, or good works to seem better than we are. Yesterday, as I was driving to Eugene I was listen to an audio recording of the Bible and this quote stood out.

10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' [a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

If I truly remember why God love and grace are important it is because I am sinner who needs God's grace. The struggle then is my fear of letting other know that I am a sinner who needs grace. We live in a time when such a premium is put on success and goodness that we fail to see that we are all in need of grace. We place a huge stigma on those who fail or fall. We isolate ourselves so that we need not come in contact with the "sinners" I fall for this hypocrisy all the time. My sin is not as bad as his sin. I wear my piety as a cloak to hide the real me.

Oh Lord,
I wander lost because I hold man's esteem for me higher that yours. I fail to honor what you have done for me. I struggle to put you at the center of my life. Forgive me. Amen

Giving and Praying who is it for?

Matthew 6: 7-15

It is so easy to dismiss this portion of the Sermon on the Mount and say "I not performing for others, but the reality is that only means I am better at hiding that fact from myself. How often have I, in group settings, where I am praying aloud, anguished over the words to sound better to the group rather than just speaking to
God. I find it difficult to center myself on my love of God and all he does daily for me and not on my current needs. In fact when look at the prayer time at church many of the prayers people request are personal, either for themselves or family. I know I rarely use that time to praise or thank God for his constant Grace and Love.

I have struggled with the idea that I need to place my offering higher on my list of priorities, not for myself but in response to God and what He has given me. Centering my life outside myself is a daily challenge. It seems so much of what I fill my day with is about me. Often, the closest I get to focusing outside myself is taking care of my grand kids. Its feels great because they respond automatically with joy and thanksgiving when grandpa does things for them. I wish I could be half as responsive to God in remembering all that he does for me.

Dear God,
You are so good to us, even our daily breath is your gift. I struggle to remember to thank you for all you do. Even in my darkest hours you have been there,keeping me, guarding me and forgiving me when I doubted your presence. Give me. Thank you for my daily breath, for sweet air that I take for granted. For all that I take for granted or that I remain unaware of I thank you and praise you.

Turn the other cheek...

It has taken a few days of thinking to deal with this sections of the Sermon on the Mount and still I am struggling with this passage. Tom Wright explained that the Old Testament idea of "...an eye for an eye..." was actually an attempt to limit vengeance and to keep revenge from accelerating as people sought revenge. He said it was the first step toward mercy. I can understand this. When I was teaching much of my time was devoted to settling disputes and fights. The most common response when I ask why someone had hit another student was that the student had called him a name. As the name calling accelerated they came to the place where no verbal insult was enough and the punching started. Student found it very hard to be the first to step back and say "Wait a minute this is getting out of hand." We put such a value on winning, success, and victory that choosing another path seems like losing.

We hate to be the first to give in, to take what seems to be second place or to take the servant role. Kids are often incredulous when you suggest using the golden rule, "treat them as you wish to be treated." They want them to do it first. As adults we seem too have the same problem. The other guy had to show mercy first, apologise first, admit they were wrong first or we can not forgive. Yet as Christians we should know that God forgave us before we sinned. His grace is there waiting for us to realize we need it and accept it.

This part of the sermon is difficult because it calls us to act with "loving kindness and mercy" which for some reason we think of a being weak. But this is how God act towards us.