American Confession, or If I Were President
It strikes me that we—as Americans—have never really reckoned as a people with our history of slavery and its terrible consequences. Yes, of course, many individuals and politicians have given speeches lamenting our original sin and promising to do better, but to my knowledge as a nation we have never confessed, asked for the Lord’s mercy, and promised to move forward with repentance.
Reading Nehemiah 9 has made me think that now is the time for a national prayer of confession.
Nehemiah is a story of rebuilding. 140 years after Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians and its citizens taken off into exile (586 BC), Nehemiah leads a group of returning Jews back to the city of their fathers to begin to rebuild (446 BC). He starts with the walls around Jerusalem, which—due to his remarkable leadership and the Lord’s favor—they miraculously rebuild in only 52 days.
After that, Nehemiah (the governor) and Ezra (the leading priest and reformer) lead a covenant renewal ceremony with all the people gathered. The reason that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 was because the Israelites had forsaken the covenant and sinned—generation after generation—against the Lord. Actions have consequences, and the Lord won’t hold back judgment forever, and finally the doom came down on the stiff-necked Israelites.
Now, Nehemiah and Ezra are beginning again, and in a remarkable worship service (narrated in Nehemiah 9), the people pray an agonizing prayer of confession and repentance that is worth reading in full:
“Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.”
“Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
7 “You are the Lord God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous.
9 “You saw the suffering of our ancestors in Egypt; you heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10 You sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day. 11 You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground, but you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters. 12 By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.
13 “You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. 14 You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. 15 In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them.
16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. 17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, 18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies.
19 “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst.21 For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.
22 “You gave them kingdoms and nations, allotting to them even the remotest frontiers. They took over the country of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan. 23 You made their children as numerous as the stars in the sky, and you brought them into the land that you told their parents to enter and possess. 24 Their children went in and took possession of the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites, who lived in the land; you gave the Canaanites into their hands, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with them as they pleased. 25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees in abundance. They ate to the full and were well-nourished; they reveled in your great goodness.
26 “But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they turned their backs on your law. They killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies. 27 So you delivered them into the hands of their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies.
28 “But as soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time.
29 “You warned them in order to turn them back to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, of which you said, ‘The person who obeys them will live by them.’ Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen. 30 For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you warned them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples. 31 But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.
32 “Now therefore, our God, the great God, mighty and awesome, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes—the hardship that has come on us, on our kings and leaders, on our priests and prophets, on our ancestors and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. 33 In all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous; you have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly. 34 Our kings, our leaders, our priests and our ancestors did not follow your law; they did not pay attention to your commands or the statutes you warned them to keep. 35 Even while they were in their kingdom, enjoying your great goodness to them in the spacious and fertile land you gave them, they did not serve you or turn from their evil ways.
36 “But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our ancestors so they could eat its fruit and the other good things it produces. 37 Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress.
The Agreement of the People
38 “In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”
[Nehemiah 9:5-38.]
One of the reasons we have so much racial division in our country is because as a people we’ve never confessed our corporate sin. All of us who are Americans today are inheritors of both the blessings left by the Americans who came before us, and the burdens of the sins they committed. The only way for the cycle of sin and hatred to be broken is through the grace of God, which—by definition—we do not deserve and have no right to receive.
And yet the Lord is a merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God is eager to hear the prayers of a contrite heart.
I believe the heartrending prayer in Nehemiah 9 offers us a way forward. It is time for national repentance.
National repentance requires national leadership. The only person who can speak for the entire nation is the President of these United States. Not as a candidate or member of a particular party, but as the representative of the entire people.
If I were President—God help us all—if I were President, I would pick a date on the calendar and begin to call our nation to participate in a national prayer of confession and repentance. The militant atheists wouldn’t like the mention of God—what else is new?—but even some people with no faith could observe some minutes of silence.
The thought if it stops the breath. Think of the image of the President on his or her knees in a place of national significance—Gettysburg or the Capitol or Arlington—leading the nation in prayer and asking for the Lord’s mercy. It is only then that we could begin
“to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Until a national confession, I don’t see us moving forward freely into that future. As a nation, we have no right to be forgiven, and yet the Lord delights in showing mercy to the humble and penitent.
All we need to do is ask.
Until that day comes, may Christ have mercy on us all.
The Connection Between Forgiving and Forgiven
Jesus tells his disciples that there is a connection between giving and receiving forgiveness.
"Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
Luke 6:37b
What if giving forgiveness is accessed through the same door through which we receive forgiveness? What if the handle that you use to open the door to forgive another is the one that opens the door so you can be forgiven? What if there is no way to open the door to forgiveness apart from opening the door for the purpose of forgiving?
What if Jesus is giving us a stone cold fact about the universe?
Today’s Scripture:
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How to Become a Survivor
Storms are inevitable in life. And what's worse is that they are also unforeseeable. In literal storms, millions and millions of random occurrences come together to produce the winds and the waves; life's storms are also the result of random interactions of complex systems. So, how do you prepare for something inevitable that's also completely unpredictable and random?
In what follows, I want to talk about how we can become the kind of people who can weather life's storms by walking us through the Sermon on the Mount. I personally have been doing a lot of reading and studying recently of this famous set of Jesus' teachings (Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy has been a particularly helpful source of ideas), and I finally feel as if I understand what he was getting at, which is exciting, because this is AMAZING stuff! (This will be a much longer post than I've been writing recently in my weekday commentary on the Gospel reading, but I want to help you understand how in Matthew 5-7 Jesus is giving his followers practical advice they can actually use to become the kind of people who survive life's storms.)
Amazed At What He Had To Say
There's this really fascinating aside Matthew gives us after Jesus wraps up the Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
Matthew 7:28-29
Having just heard Jesus give this famous set of teaching, his hearers are amazed. What Jesus has been saying was so insightful and unusual and so obviously cut to the heart of the matter of everyday life that it was nothing short of astounding. And you know what? Nothing has changed in 2,000 years--these words are still AMAZING.
The Two Kinds of People
Let's begin at the end. Jesus closes the Sermon on the Mount by saying that there are two options in life: the way that seems easy but actually ends in ruin, and the way that seems difficult and unpopular but actually results in blessing [Matthew 7:13-14]. He expands on this by talking about how it's not what people say that matters, but what they actually do (and how to tell between the talked and the doers) [Matthew 7:15-23], and then he sums up the entire set of teachings with a little parable:
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Matthew 7:24-27
In his conclusion, Jesus says that the difference between the people who are destroyed by life's storms and those who survive them are that the survivors actually do what Jesus said to do. But how do we actually do that? That's what he's been telling us in the previous 3 chapters of his famous sermon. In fact, the Sermon on the Mount is meant to be a How-To manual to becoming the kind of person who can weather any storm. And the first thing we have to understand is what Jesus meant when he talked about the "Kingdom".
What the Kingdom Is
Here's how Matthew sums up the central message of Jesus:
"Jesus began to preach, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.'”
Matthew 4:17 NIV
Another way of translating this might be:
"HEY! Turn around and change your mind: living in the reality of God is now one of your options."
Matthew 4:17 AFV [Andrew Forrest Version, in the vein of Dallas Willard]
A kingdom is wherever a king's will is done; beyond that frontier, it's no longer that king's kingdom. Queen Elizabeth reigns over the United Kingdom; she does not reign in France. Each of us has our own kingdom or queendom; where my will is done is my kingdom. So, my body is one part of my kingdom, for example: I command my finger to move, and it does; I command my mouth to speak, and it does. The kingdom of heaven is wherever God's will is done. The only place in the Creation where God's will is not done is here, where God has permitted for a while his human creatures to exercise their own reigns. This is why we pray in the Lord's Prayer "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth [as it already is] in heaven."
From the beginning, it was God's plan that men and women would exercise their free will and rule in his name over the earth [see Genesis 1:26]; it remains God's will that we would freely choose to align our kingdoms under his Kingdom.
So, the message of Jesus is that through him God's Kingdom is now available to anyone, anywhere, RIGHT NOW if they are willing to do what he says. Apprenticeship or discipleship to Jesus is learning to live your life in the reality of the Kingdom. In the Sermon on the Mount which follows, he provides some practical examples of what Kingdom life will look like.
The Introduction and Overview
Jesus begins the Sermon by telling people that there is no spiritual condition that precludes them from learning to live in the Kingdom now: not the spiritually poor, not the mourning, not the meek, etc. [We call this section "The Beatitudes", Matthew 5:1-12.]
Then, Jesus tells his followers that living in the Kingdom will make them distinct from people around them: it will be as if they are salt--thereby bringing out the flavor in life--or light--thereby showing others how best to live. [Matthew 5:13-16.]
To be clear, Jesus wants his followers to understand that he's not doing anything new, that this is ultimately what the Old Testament is all about, and that he's not come to abolish "the law and the prophets". [Matthew 5:17-20.]
With those remarks out of the way, Jesus explains what it looks like to put his words into practice and live in the Kingdom. What he is going to do is take familiar situations that arise and give an example of what Kingdom living would look like in each of those situations.
Here’s the point: it would seem at first that going along with the conventional wisdom in each of the examples that follow would be the best course of action; actually Jesus wants us to understand that if you just do what everyone else is doing—“the wide and easy path” he references in Matthew 7:13—it will be the equivalent of building a foundation on sand. Instead, if you do what he says to do, as counterintuitive as it might seem, you’ll be building your life on bedrock.
Here’s the point: it would seem at first that going along with the conventional wisdom in each of the examples that follow would be the best course of action; actually Jesus wants us to understand that if you just do what everyone else is doing—“the wide and easy path” he references in Matthew 7:13—it will be the equivalent of building a foundation on sand. Instead, if you do what he says to do, as counterintuitive as it might seem, you’ll be building your life on bedrock.
A Practical Plan for Becoming a Survivor
Anger
Jesus begins his advice by talking about anger. He tells his hearers that though it is obvious that murder will mess up your life, the anger and contempt that are behind and underneath murder are also spiritually dangerous. So, rather then indulging in anger, Jesus tells his followers that they should actually seek reconciliation with people with whom they have bad blood. Living in the Kingdom is trying as hard as humanly possible to be reconciled with others. [Matthew 5:21-26.]
Building on Sand: anger and contempt.
Building on Rock: seeking reconciliation.
Lust
Next, Jesus tells his followers that though it is obvious that adultery will mess up your life, what's really important is to rid your thoughts of lust. Lust is using someone else's image for your own gratification, which is evil because people were created in the image of God, and not for the purpose of pornography. Jesus says that Kingdom living, then, is about doing whatever it takes--he uses the hyperbolic image of cutting off your own hand!--to learn to see other people as God sees them, and not as objects of desire. [Matthew 5:27-30.]
Building on Sand: indulging your thought life.
Building on Rock: disciplining your thought life.
Marriage and Divorce
People have been having marital problems since the Garden of Eden, and they had marital problems in Jesus' day, too. But Jesus tells his followers that marriage is not primarily a contract between two people for the purpose of meeting their emotional needs; rather it is a covenant before God. And so Kingdom living is about being reconciled with your spouse (remember reconciliation is an important Kingdom value) as far as is in your power. Now, if your spouse persists in adulterous behavior, reconciliation is clearly outside of your power, but Jesus tells his followers divorce is a last resort. [Matthew 5:31-32.]
Building on Sand: leaving a marriage when it doesn’t fulfill your emotional needs.
Building on Rock: working towards reconciliation as far as is humanly possible.
Manipulation ("Oaths")
Then Jesus takes on a pervasive human behavior: that of trying to manipulate other people into doing what what we want them to do. In his day there had developed this convoluted practice of swearing on the Temple in Jerusalem to convince people you were sincere. ("I swear on the Temple I didn't take your money!") We don't do that, but of course we try to use language (social media posts?) to get other people to do what we want them to do. In contrast, Jesus says that kingdom living is much simpler: just say what you mean, and leave it at that. [Matthew 5:33-37.]
Building on Sand: trying to manipulate others.
Building on Rock: saying what you mean, and leaving it at that.
Vengeance/Retaliation/Enemies
You will have enemies; people will seek to do you harm. Though it seems natural to us to hit back and hate the people who hate us (the wide and easy path always seems "natural" to us at first), Kingdom living is about forgoing retaliation and instead seeking ways to bless the people who mistreat us, even to the extent of praying for God to bless them! Jesus makes the reason explicit: when you try to love the people who hate you, you are acting like God, who wants to bless all his children. So, Kingdom living is learning to act like God in the times of inevitable conflict we will encounter. [Matthew 5:38-48.]
Building on Sand: vengeance and retaliation.
Building on Rock: seeking to bless those that hate us.
Virtue-Signaling (e.g. Giving and Fasting)
Jesus tells his followers next that they should be careful of trying to impress other people with how they help the poor or do "spiritual" things like fasting. Instead, those should be personal practices and a way of life that's more private than public. In other words, learning to live in the Kingdom is learning not to need to impress other people with how good you are. (Think of all the virtue-signaling on social media.) [Matthew 6:1-4, 16-18.]
Building on Sand: virtue-signaling to impress others with your goodness. Building on Rock: doing the right thing because it’s right, not because people will see you do it.
Prayer
Jesus tells his followers how to pray. Learning to live in the kingdom is to make prayer a habitual action ("When you pray, go in your room and shut the door....") and to use Jesus as a model for prayer. [Matthew 6:5-15.]
Building on Sand: praying haphazardly.
Building on Rock: having a plan for habitual prayer.
Money/Wealth
It seems that having more money will make you happier, but Jesus points out that which we all already know: more stuff won't necessarily make you happier. (If that were the case, then the people in Beverly Hills would be the happiest people on earth, but we know that isn't true.) Living in the Kingdom is learning to trust God more than our own stuff. [Matthew 6:19-24.]
Building on Sand: thinking more stuff will make you happier.
Building on Rock: learning that trusting God actually makes you happy.
Worry!
If there were ever a topic for practical pastoral advice, it would be worry! Jesus tells his hearers that worry, which seems so natural ("the wide and easy path") will actually be harmful. So, he tells his followers to focus only on the problems of that particular day (over which they actually have some measure of control), and leave the rest of God. [Matthew 6:25-34.]
Building on Sand: getting worked up and worried over things you can't control.
Building on Rock: focusing on what you can control today, and working to trust God with everything else.
Other People's Behavior and Hypocrisy
Jesus tells his followers that though discerning between good and bad, right and wrong has a place, focusing on other people's behavior and ignoring our own is foolish. Rather, kingdom living is about turning most of your attention on your own shortcomings and working on those. [Matthew 7:1-6.]
Building on Sand: judging other people by their actions and yourself by your intentions; getting all worked up over other people's hypocrisy.
Building on Rock: focusing on your own actions and shortcomings.
Asking God for Stuff
Which brings us to the final bit of practical advice in the sermon: definitely ask God for stuff you need! Lots of folks think "I don't want to ask for the wrong thing; I'll just pray a generic prayer for God's will to be done." Instead, Jesus tells his hearers to ask boldly. [Matthew 7:7-12.]
Building on Sand: refusing to ask and not persisting in prayer.
Building on Rock: asking and persisting in prayer.
Two Kinds Of People
All of the above is Jesus providing his hearers of examples of what Kingdom living looks like. Each topic he covers is a topic that each of us encounters all the time; doing what Jesus said is putting his principles into practice when you encounter anger, lust, worry, etc. Anyone can choose to participate, because Jesus came to bring the good news of the Kingdom to everyone. But, he concludes with telling his followers that hearing is not the point: actually practicing what he said is the point.
The people who actually do what he says will be the kind of people who, rather than going along with everyone else by taking "the wide and easy path" will be the kind of people who take the narrow, hard path that actually leads to life.
The people who do what he says will be able to survive any storm--even death!--because they are learning to live the eternal life of the Kingdom RIGHT NOW.
If you want to learn how to survive life's storms, start doing what Jesus says. Go down the list, and begin to practice the kingdom response or mindset. It works.
The Sand Palace of Mexico Beach
In October of 2018, Hurricane Michael came ashore in the Florida Panhandle. It made landfall on the town of Mexico Beach. When the winds died down and the sun came out afterward, this is what remained:
This house, called "The Sand Palace", was built by two men in 2017. They didn't do whatever everybody else did, they built their house their own way, to withstand the storm of all storms. What they didn't know was that that storm would arrive just a year later. When it left, all the houses around theirs were destroyed, whereas the only damage the main structure of their house retained was one cracked shower window.
Storms in life will inevitably come; no one is exempt. Jesus says the only way to prepare is to start learning to live in the Kingdom now, and the Sermon on the Mount offers advice how to do just that.
What are you waiting for?
Today's Scripture
Matthew 7:13-29, though I actually just covered Matthew 4:17-7:29.
And, In Case You Missed It
I preached a version of this message last night.
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A Terrifying Verse
This has got to be among the most terrifying verses in the entire Bible. After he teaches his disciples how to pray what we call "The Lord's Prayer," Jesus says this:
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:14-15
The context is the closing part of the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." (The language is old-fashioned. What Jesus literally says is "debts," but the sense is more like "sins" or "wrongs, etc. I personally like "trespasses," which always makes me think of someone deliberately transgressing on someone else's property.) I don't totally understand, but Jesus clearly implies that there is some spiritual connection between our willingness to forgive others and our capacity to receive forgiveness from God.
Terrifying. Who do you need to forgive today?
Don't wait.
Today's Scripture