A few years ago I had an interesting talk with my mother about the nature of friendship. At one point I made the comment that the only bottom line requirement I had for a friend was that I needed to know I’d be forgiven for my mistakes. Her response was telling. She said that I had unrealistically high standards.
I thought, “How sad... obviously my mother isn’t used to having friends she can trust to forgive her when she blows it.” But then I started to wonder. Were my standards too high? But then, on the other hand, I have a lot of friends, and I’ve had most of them for quite a long time, and I make plenty of mistakes. Do you think that it’s unreasonable?
I suppose it depends on how big the mistake is. If it’s forgetting an appointment that’s one thing. Depending, of course, on how important the appointment is. If it’s pawning your typewriter to buy a guitar when you’re home for Christmas, that’s another. That actually happened to me, by the way. What about the kind of friend who never returns a borrowed book, never has any cash when the time comes to pick up the check, is always flirting with your husband or returns your tools nicked, uncleaned and covered with rust? That kind of behavior is thoughtless, careless, disrespectful. Who needs friends who treat you like that? Friendship is supposed to be a two-way street.
But wait a minute. Peter doesn’t say when a friend sins against you. He says when a brother sins against you. Or a sister, of course. The difference between a friend and a brother is that you don’t have any choice when it comes to family. You don’t choose your family. You get what you get. And that’s the way it is with the church. Once a person is baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, she is your sister, he is your brother.
Or is he? Last week we talked about church discipline. “If another member of the church sins against you,” said Jesus, “go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” Jesus goes on with the next steps in the process of forgiveness and reconciliation, and finally, “if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” [Mt 18:15,17] Is this an example of forgiving 70 times 7? This does seem to be a contradiction, doesn’t it.
But is it really?
If you’ll recall last week’s sermon, step number 3 was telling the church. That is to say, the leaders of the church, whose responsibility it is to maintain church discipline. I’m going to quote what I said: “your responsibility is finished and, if your heart is right, you will have already forgiven your brother if you needed to do so.” Even if the church leaders have to proceed to step 4, and remove the offender from the fellowship of the saints, it is done for the purpose of ultimately restoring that person, not to punish them or get even with them.
The key to the kind of forgiveness Jesus asks for is this: Forgiveness does not mean taking sin lightly, and it doesn’t mean ignoring another person’s destructive behavior. What it does mean is continuing to wish the other person well regardless of the magnitude of the offense. Forgiveness means giving up any desire to get even. Forgiveness is about letting go of the past, while church discipline is about helping an immature believer grow in faith and practice to become a responsible and effective member of the body of Christ.
And if that were all there were to it, I could finish the sermon here and we could all go home early.
But it’s not.
By far the most common conflicts in the church are clashes between different personalities and behavior styles. Most problems between members don’t have anything to do with behavior that rises all the way up to the kind of sin that merits attention from the elders. It just has to do with the fact that different people have different ways of thinking about things and different ways of doing things. Sometimes we just rub each other the wrong way. What we’re dealing with here, then, isn’t about forgiving a sister or brother for doing something. It’s about forgiving that brother or sister for being a particular kind of person.
Now, Paul’s letter to the Romans focuses in on theological differences... But think about it. A lot of things that look like theological differences are really personality differences. Someone who is very cautious and reserved will interpret and act on his or her understanding of Scripture in a very different way than someone who is spontaneous and outspoken. And so I think that the lesson Paul is teaching is teaching on acceptance of one another’s differences applies to the entire scope of human interaction.
And there are basically two ways of handling it.
Unfortunately, by far the most common way of handling these differences is by being critical. Or, as the Bible calls it, being judgmental. While it is true that some criticism is helpful - we call this kind constructive criticism - most criticism isn’t. It’s destructive, instead.
One of Aesop’s fables tells of an old man and his son bringing a donkey to the market. Passing some people on the way, they hear one remark, “Look at that silly pair—walking when they could be riding comfortably.” The idea seemed sensible to the old man, so he and the boy mounted the donkey and continued on their way. Soon they passed another group. “Look at that lazy pair,” said a voice, “breaking the back of that poor donkey, tiring him so that no one will buy him.” The old man slid off, but soon they heard another criticism from a passerby: “What a terrible thing, this old man walking while the boy gets to ride.” They changed places, but soon heard people whispering, “What a terrible thing, the big strong man riding and making the little boy walk.” The old man and the boy pondered the situation and finally continued their journey in yet another manner, carrying the donkey on a pole between them. As they crossed the bridge, the donkey broke loose, fell into the river, and drowned. Aesop’s moral: You can’t please everyone.
It’s easy to be critical. People criticize their boss, their in-laws, the government. I’m particularly fond of criticizing the media, myself. George Burns once said, “Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.”
I love the story about the minister who, after preaching a sermon on spiritual gifts, was greeted at the door by a lady who said, “Pastor, I believe I have the gift of criticism.” He looked at her and asked, “Remember the person in Jesus’ parable who had the one talent? Do you recall what he did with it?” “Yes,” replied the lady, “he went out and buried it.” With a smile, the pastor suggested, “Go thou, and do likewise!”
Now, as I said before, the issue Paul is dealing with in his letter to the church in Rome is at least superficially theological. They were divided over special diets and special days. Some of the members thought it was a sin to eat meat, so they ate only vegetables. Other members thought it a sin not to observe the Jewish holy days. If each Christian had kept his convictions to himself, there would have been no problem, but they began to criticize and judge one another. But each group was sure the other group was not at all spiritual.
Paul is quite clear that this kind of attitude has no place in the church. “Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.” [Rom 14:3-4] That is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. I learned it in King James, myself, and that’s how I always remember it: “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.” If that is true of theological differences, how much more true it must be of personality differences? For as far as theological differences go, it may very well be that one is right and one is wrong. It’s just that it doesn’t matter in the light of the greater obligation to love one another, to refrain from putting a stumbling block in that person’s relationship with God. But by all means continue to dvocate for your point of view. Gently.
But with personality differences, it is much more often true that one isn’t right and the other wrong. It’s just that people rub one another the wrong way. One person finds the interested questions of another intrusive and invasive; another finds the first person’s reserve an indication of coldness or indifference. In these cases it's even more important not to judge.
The parable in today’s passage is one illustration of how to understand our obligation to forgive one another as God forgives us. But forgiving is only necessary when the other person has actually done something wrong. When we’re talking about forgiving someone for being a different kind of person than we are, for having a different set of faults and weaknesses, the better illustration comes in Matthew 7.
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye." [Mt 7:1 5]
Let’s think about this illustration that Jesus gives us. If you were on a construction site and accidently get a big piece of wood stuck in your eye, wouldn’t you think it really dumb to ignore your problem in order to tell your coworker that he has a speck of sawdust in his eye? Jesus tells us that it’s just as dumb for us to ignore our own faults while we’re getting all bent out of shape about someone else’s.
At the turn of the century, one of the world’s most distinguished astronomers, Sir Percival Lowell, was certain there were canals on Mars. His particular field was the solar system, and he was particularly fascinated by the Red Planet. When he heard, in 1877, that an Italian astronomer had seen straight lines crisscrossing the Martian surface, Lowell spent the rest of his years squinting into the eyepiece of his giant telescope in Arizona, mapping the channels and canals he saw. He was convinced the canals were proof of intelligent life on Mars, possibly an older but wiser race than humanity.
Lowell’s observations gained wide acceptance. He was so eminent that no one dared to contradict him. Now, of course, things are different. Space probes have orbited Mars and landed on its surface. The entire planet has been mapped, and no one has seen a canal. How could Lowell have “seen” so much that wasn’t there? Two possibilities: (1) he wanted to see canals so badly that he did, over and over again, and (2) we know now that he suffered from a rare disease that made him see the blood vessels in his own eyes. The Martian “canals” he saw were nothing more than the bulging veins of his eyeballs. Today the malady is known as “Lowell’s syndrome.”
When Jesus warns that “in the same way you judge others, you will be judged” and warns of seeing “the speck of sawdust” in another’s eye while missing the log in our own, couldn’t he be referring to the spiritual equivalent of Lowell’s syndrome? How often do we see faults in others because we don’t want to confront our own, and it’s easier to place the blame for a conflict on the other person? How often do we blame our hurt feelings on someone else, rather than reminding ourselves that, as Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, ‘Love is not irritable or resentful.” [I Cor 13:5c] If there’s been a misunderstanding, it’s easier to believe the worst of another person than look to see what part our own issues or actions have contributed. It’s too easy to convince ourselves that we are seeing someone’s shortcomings with crystal clarity, when in fact our vision is distorted by our own spiritual condition.
“Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” asks Paul. “Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then, each of us will be accountable to God
J. B. Phillips’ translation of the New Testament puts it this way: “Why, then, criticize your brother’s actions, why try to make him look small? We shall all be judged one day, not by each other’s standards or even by our own, but by the judgement of God.” And Eugene Peterson in the Message finishes up like this: “Eventually, we’re all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgement facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren’t going to improve your position there one bit.”
Paul asked the weak Christian, “Why are you judging your brother?” Then he asked the strong Christian, “Why are you despising your brother?” Both strong and weak must stand at the judgement seat of Christ, and they will not judge each other - they will be judged by the Lord.
Which one is the weaker? Which one is the stronger? Does it matter? Both are criticizing the other, looking down on the other.
Forgiving is about letting go of the past. Church discipline is about building a better future. Not judging is about making the most of the present. Instead of criticizing, appreciate. Whenever you are tempted to wash your hands of someone who just plain drives you nuts, spend some serious time counting their good points. If that doesn’t help, spend some equally serious time counting your own bad points.
The difference between us - you and me - and the brothers and sisters we find it so easy to criticize - shrinks to nothing at all when we look, instead, at the difference between ourselves and Jesus. And not only does Jesus forgive us for the things we have done, he loves us. Warts and all. Can you do less? Dare we do less?
