Fifth after Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Matthew 5:43-48
43"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Annette was a recently transferred missionary to Chile when my sister Lolly and I went back to visit my parents there in 1982. During mission meeting that July, she and a couple of other missionaries, who were likewise either newly appointed or newly arrived, had an opportunity to share their testimonies with the rest of the mission family.
The dynamics of a person standing up and sharing what has been a life-calling in front of people who’ve experienced the same thing is such that there are few boundaries to overcome in the depth of sharing.
In this case, Annette had been transferred from Colombia. She was appointed as a nurse to do medical missions there. In Chile, she would be working as a nurse at the Well-Baby Clinic in Antofagasta.
In the course of her testimony she shared about the event that precipitated her departure from Colombia. She was serving in a hospital, and a gunshot victim had been brought in for treatment. The staff had stabilized the man, and had assigned him to a ward to recover. A couple of days after his admission, a group of masked gunmen had entered the hospital and shot the man to death as he lay in his bed.
Colombia has had a decades-long battle with political insurgents and drug-related violence. This was just one of probably hundreds of such events.
The decision was made that, for Annette’s safety as much as anything else, she would be transferred to Chile.
Though that was one story she shared during her testimony.
The story that stuck with me more, though, was of her own family.
A few years earlier, her brother had been murdered as well. In the exchange of gunfight, his killer had been wounded, and was taken to the hospital for treatment. While he was there (and this is where she was not able to hold back the tears), her mother and father had reached out to the man who had murdered their son and ministered to him. She didn’t elaborate on how. In retrospect, I think just the fact that they were able to speak to him at all was overwhelming enough. In the midst of their own grief, they had found the … wherewithal to overcome, to … in a sense, set aside that grief in the face of the potential good they knew could come from what they KNEW would be a powerful witness to the young man who had taken their son from them.
What I remember most is the impact – both emotional and spiritual – that watching her parents do what they did had on Annette. Her own questioning in the midst of HER own grieving led her to the point of recognizing what it means to forgive your enemies … to pray for those who persecute you … and led her ultimately to the mission field.
Our text today comes from the Sermon on the Mount. This is in the same passage that calls the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, blessed. It is the same passage where we find Jesus setting the bar high. Regarding anger, Jesus had the following to say:
21"You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.”
Those are not easy words to hear. Not by a long shot. To equate anger toward a brother or a sister with murdering them … let me remind you that this was Jesus speaking … he went on to say if you insult a brother or a sister, you will be liable … where does it stop? How can we possibly meet that standard???
Jesus went on to address the issues of adultery, divorce, oaths, and retaliation. If you have heard the Sermon on the Mount read or preached on, you know what he did. With each issue, he raised the bar further and further. He internalized and personalized the responsibility for each one. He called all who heard him to a life of radical obedience to the SPIRIT of the law, not the letter of it.
But let’s focus on forgiveness.
In Genesis, beginning in the 25th chapter, we find a story that would make any daytime drama producer sit up and take notice. Isaac and Rebekah have twin sons, Jacob and Esau. Right from the beginning, the groundwork is laid. Isaac loved Esau more, Rebekah loved Jacob more. Esau was the burly he-man, the outdoorsman who had his father’s favor and the promise of the blessing of the birthright, since he was the firstborn.
Jacob was, to put it in modern terms, a momma’s boy. Rebekah and Jacob work together to arrange for Jacob to receive the blessing of the birthright instead of Esau from an aging, nearly blind Isaac. Through lying and treachery, Jacob brings on himself a blessing that rightly belonged to his brother. There is a subtext to the story, that of Esau’s recognition and understanding of what it meant to HAVE that birthright, what it meant to BE the patriarch of the family with whom God had entered into relationship through Abraham … nevertheless, the fact remains, Jacob was far from pure in motive and spirit. In fact, the whole family could serve as a textbook example of the term ‘dysfunctional’. The amount of manipulation, treachery, lying, cheating, stealing, selfishness, and idolatry that we read about in Genesis is staggering.
I believe the greatest miracle in the Old Testament was not about parting waters, or suns that stood still in the sky, but the simple fact that God kept God’s promise of blessing to the people of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, in spite of themselves. The promise to bless them with land, and with children, and through them bless the nations of the world.
To make a long story short, Esau comes to his father after Isaac has already given Jacob the blessing, and finds out he’s lost his chance. There is no other blessing to be given, no second place. Isaac is near death, and Esau starts talking about killing Jacob after that. Rebekah hears about it and convinces Jacob to go live with her brother Laban and build a family there. Isaac blesses him again and sends him on his way.
Again, there’s a subtext to the story of his time with Laban, and his taking Leah and Rachel, Laban’s two daughters, as well as Bilhah and Zilpah, two handmaidens of the household, as his wives. Laban is less than honest, promising Rachel to Jacob but instead substituting Leah for her at the wedding. He lassoes Jacob into another extended period of working for him in exchange for Rachel.
Skip ahead twenty years, and Jacob is still to some degree up to the same old stuff. In the end, rather than leave Laban on good terms, honestly and in the open, Jacob sneaks out in the middle of the night. Though he gives one explanation for slipping away like that, the actions speak to a guilty conscience as much as anything else.
As Jacob approaches the old home place, he sends messengers ahead of him, to tell Esau that he is on his way. He sends them with gifts, afraid that Esau is still on the warpath on which he left him two decades earlier.
His messengers come back to him with news that Esau and 400 men are coming after THEM. Jacob is petrified. He is so scared at the prospect of what the coming confrontation holds that he divides his company into two groups and separates them, in the hopes that, if Esau and the 400 men destroy the first group, the second group will get word of the massacre and get away.
In the midst of the planning, Jacob says a prayer: beginning in chapter 32 verse 9:
9And Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, 'Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,' 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. 11 Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. 12 Yet you have said, 'I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.' "
True to form, Jacob made elaborate plans to save himself and his family in the face of Esau's potential threat. He provided his servants with abundant gifts for Esau and instructed them carefully on how to approach Esau when they met. In it all his desire was to "pacify" Esau and deliver his family from his hand. Again we see Jacob the planner and the schemer. As he had taken Esau's birthright and blessing, as he had taken the best of Laban's herds, so now he had a plan to pacify Esau. However, it was not Jacob's plan that succeeded but his prayer. When he met with Esau, he found that Esau had had a change of heart. Running to meet Jacob, Esau embraced and kissed him and wept (33:4). Jacob's plans and schemes had come to naught, for God had prepared the way.
As they are approaching the meeting place, they camp for the night. We’ve heard the story before. Jacob wrestles with a man all night. The next morning, when the man saw that he wasn’t going to beat Jacob, he asks him to let go, because daylight is coming. Jacob refuses to do that until he receives the man’s blessing. It is in that moment that we see Jacob’s life crystallized. The man turns out to be God. He asks Jacob his name, and when Jacob gives him his name, God changes him. His name now becomes Israel, which means ‘you have struggled with men and with God and prevailed’.
The reunion scene with Esau resonates with other passages and parables we find in scripture.
Jacob bows down 7 times as Esau draws near. What is Esau’s response? Is he raging with 20 years of pent-up fury over the injustice he suffered so long before?
NO.
33:4But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.
Does that wording remind you of any other passage? Embraced, fell on his neck … and wept …
The parable of the prodigal son, which we find in Luke, has the father reacting basically the same way, on the return of his youngest son.
The rest of the meeting is a study in contrasts.
5 When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he said, "Who are these with you?" Jacob said, "The children whom God has graciously given your servant." 6 Then the maids drew near, they and their children, and bowed down; 7 Leah likewise and her children drew near and bowed down; and finally Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down. 8 Esau said, "What do you mean by all this company that I met?" Jacob answered, "To find favor with my lord." 9 But Esau said, "I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself." 10 Jacob said, "No, please; if I find favor with you, then accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God--since you have received me with such favor.
We see the contrast of fear and grace, of mistrust, and an open welcome, the contrast of living with years of guilt and the knowledge of injustices perpetrated with a life, though affected by that, nonetheless, reflecting the freedom from that same cauldron of despair. Scripture doesn’t tell us what Esau went through on a personal level, except to bring out one pertinent detail: after Jacob left to seek his fortune with Laban, Esau went to Ishmael, his uncle, and asked to marry his daughter Mahalath.
So what is it about forgiveness, and what does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
What it is about forgiveness is this:
We’ve received from Christ a command that is nearly impossible to fulfill. The degree of difficulty is directly proportional to the degree of pain inflicted. In small things, where little harm has been done, it is relatively easy to brush the injury aside and reengage the person who caused it. In larger things, where the wounds are deep, it is much, much more difficult. But there is no distinction, no gradation, in what God has commanded us to do. The harm done does not change the requirement that we forgive it.
Some of Christ’s final words from the cross were asking for forgiveness on the very people who were crucifying him.
Esau seems to have received the teaching better than Jacob. His response reflected more of the presence of the Spirit of God than did Jacob’s.
It is our call as Christians to follow that example, to work for that to become a reality not only in our own lives, but in our world. In Hebrews, in the middle of the litany of faith, we find the following verse:
11:20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
Mahalath, Esau’s last wife mentioned in scripture, is the daughter of Ishmael, the son of Hagar and Abram, the same man whom the Muslims of the world consider to be their patriarch, after Abram.
We must make it our goal to bring the sons of Jacob and the sons of Esau back together, to recreate that encounter so long ago, in which past wrongs were set aside, and the fact that brothers were brothers was all that mattered.
Let’s pray.
No comments:
Post a Comment