Mythbusters: Clean Slate

This week Pam and Don Heatley preached together.  They each wrote sermons and intercut them.

Don: The Apostles Creed does leaves out some important topics.  No mention is made of the Bible or how we should interpret it.  No theory of atonement is professed. No mention of a correct view of how Jesus’ death accomplishes forgiveness, only that we believe in the forgiveness of sins.  Why was forgiveness so important?  As we have seen over the past two months, many historians believe that this creed, from the second century, was written to bust the myths of Gnostic Christians.  

In the movie “Full Metal Jacket”, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman berates a new recruit by screaming in his face, “What is your major malfunction?”  For a second century Gnostic, the answer to that question was simple.  Ignorance, not sin, was humankind’s major malfunction.  What we all needed was not forgiveness, but enlightenment.  Certainly ignorance and lack of enlightenment are a major problem facing humans.  One need only to look at most Christians who appear on TV to prove that point.  But a central observation of Christianity is that our alienation from the divine is not due to lack of knowledge, but an abundance of disobedience to what we were created to be, and the brokenness that results from it.

 

Pam:  One evening about 10 years ago, I was at a wedding.  I didn’t know the family that well and was seated at a table with people I didn’t know either.  Sometimes that can be a disaster but this time I found myself with two women, Ella and Grace who were very friendly.  I would say they both seemed to have been in their 70’s.  They were best friends and you could tell.  They finished each other’s sentences and looked at each other knowingly when the band played a certain song like the same memory had come to both of them.   I found myself asking them a lot of questions about where they grew up and their friendship in particular.  They told me how they met when they were very young and how they enjoyed playing at each other’s houses even though their families were very different.  

 

As the conversation proceeded they started to tell me a story in which one of them hurt the other very badly and they didn’t talk for 20 years.  They were both in their early 20s at the time and both planning to be married.  Ella had set her date and was happily making her wedding plans that included Grace as her Maid of Honor.  Everything was going on nicely until Grace chose the day for her wedding.  She picked the Weekend before Elle’s, which meant she would be on her Honeymoon and unavailable to participate in Elle’s wedding.    Elle was devastated.  She told Grace she would not be in her wedding either.  Feeling hurt and rejected Elle did not call Grace again and Grace feeling misunderstood knew her call wouldn’t be wanted.  That began 20 years of avoiding each other.  They each thought the relationship would never be the same.

Elle said, After time went by I wasn’t even mad anymore, we had just become the two friends that weren’t talking.   They talked about how much they missed of each other’s lives.  Grace said, “How stupid that we missed the births of each others children.”

I asked how did you end up friends again?  They ran into each other at a restaurant and quickly met in the bathroom and cried and when we were done crying we put fake beauty marks on our faces and returned to our table.  Our husbands thought we were crazy.  It was like nothing had changed.  

God doesn’t wait 30 years – God is ready to reconnect with you the moment after you mess up.

 

Don:  So I had a fight with our dog this week.  I think I’m still not over it.  Cotton is our three-year-old Husky and is the most laid-back dog we have ever had. Except when it’s time to come inside.  The problem I have with him is when I release him from the chain that ties him to a tree and hook him up to a leash to bring him inside, he freaks out.  He runs in tight fast circles.  He’ll jump on me when I’m wearing good clothes and get mud all over them.  I’m sure Caesar Milan could uncover some underlying canine psychological hurt that causes Cotton to do this.  But I’m no Do Whisperer.  I’m really more of a Dog Yeller.

This week I had had enough, so when Cotton began his doing doughnuts on the lawn routine like a NASCAR driver, I just lost it.  I screamed at him to stop.  He froze.  He looked at me, all dejected.  As we walked inside, he gazed up at me sheepishly while I berated and lectured him about how he needed to act his age.  Meanwhile, he was probably looking at me the whole time just thinking, “I wonder if they’ll be food at the end of this rant.”  Cotton and I didn’t speak to each other much the rest of the day.  I felt really bad and embarrassed about it.  I felt the same way I feel when I have an argument with a person.  It was almost as if I wanted my dog to forgive me. The next morning, when I woke up, I called Cotton up in to our bed and started scratching him behind his ears.  All was well with our relationship again.

Later that day, as I began to work on a sermon about God’s forgiveness, it suddenly struck me that it easier to for me to think of my conflicts with my dog in terms of a relationship, than it is for me to think about God that way.

 

Pam: I have to tell you about the chalkboards up here.  I tried to find chalkboards.  I went to a local craft store looking for some and when I asked if they had chalkboards the sales girl said to me, “no, we don’t.  As I turned away she said, “they’re old, ma’am”.   I came this close to saying, “So am I honey.”   Maybe I am old because I remember a time before dry erase smart boards.  In every classroom were chalkboards.  The nice part of chalkboard were that the erasers got all full of chalk and the teacher would occasionally pick a student to miss some of the class and clap the erasers outside.  Sometimes you get to be that kid. That was a good memory.  The not so good memory was the list at the side of the chalkboard.  When you were in trouble the teacher would write your name of the blackboard. It stayed there all day as this reminder that you had done something wrong.  Some kids didn’t really care if their name was on the chalkboard but I cared!  All day long all I could think of was getting up and erasing my name. 

 

Don:  How come we spell “drought” d-r-o-u-g-h-t but don’t spell “about” a-b-o-u-g-h-t?  Why do we have three words pronounced “too” and three pronounced “there”?  The rules of grammar and spelling can seem to be totally arbitrary.  It is as if the spelling gods sat down and thought “Hmm starting ‘knock’ with an ‘n’ will be much too easy.  Let’s put something in their to confuse them.  Let’s see, what sounds nothing like an ‘n’.  A-ha!  I know!  A ‘k’, let’s start knock with a ‘k’.  No one will ever suspect that.”  Totally arbitrary laws.  They don’t seem to make any sense or serve any purpose. 

We know God has rules and laws for us to live by, things like the Ten Commandments.  Don’t murder.  Don’t steal.  Don’t commit adultery. Jesus gave us the Sermon on the Mount.  Love our enemies.  Turn the other cheek. Do to others as you would have them do unto you.  Although we may think some of those are good ideals to live by, we seldom ask why.  Why should we be faithful in our relationships or keep the Sabbath?  Is it just because God says so?  Are God’s rules just as arbitrary as the rules of grammar?  Could God just as easily have made a law saying “Make sure you hop on one foot on Wednesdays”?

As Christians we know that when we break one of God’s rules we need to be forgiven. But, why?  Is it because we broke some capricious law or is there something deeper at work when we seek God’s forgiveness.

 

Pam:  As much as the scenario of the list o the chalkboard bothers most of us we inadvertently end up doing the same thing in our lives.  Except on our own we create our personal chalkboard in our mind where we keep a running list of all the things we’ve done wrong - words of failures, regrets, guilt and pain floating around on the chalkboard of our Minds.  Keeping us from feeling free.   I know for many of us there have been times in our life where there have been so many words of guilt and self blame that it’s hard to decipher one bad thought from the other or know what to do with the feelings they conjure up.  When you add it all up you end up feeling shame and guilt.

 

Don:  Have you ever said something to someone you wish you could take back?  Has there ever been a time in your life when you wished there was an undo button so you could erase something you did that was wrong?  Have you ever wronged someone, and even though the person still treated you well afterwards, it just ate you up inside every time you saw them?  It’s like that when we break one of God’s rules.  It’s not that we violated some arbitrary set of codes.  When we break God’s rules, we hurt God.

Most of us remember a time in our lives, when our relationship with our parents changed.  Disobeying your parents at age fifteen is an entirely different matter than disobeying them at age two.  Most of our parents did not take it personally when we were toddlers and wouldn’t fall asleep or had a temper tantrum.  However, as we became teenagers or young adults, their reaction to our disobedience changed.  Our parents took it much more personally when screamed at them as high schoolers than they did when we whined as preschoolers. Our parents took it much more to heart when our disobedience involved cars or alcohol than when it was about not sharing our toys.  Our misbehavior no longer seemed to be about following arbitrary rules or just because they were the authority figure.  It seemed to hurt them in a very personal way, much as if a spouse or friend had hurt them.

The idea of God’s forgiveness or even needing such a thing is difficult for us to grasp.  I think that’s because we picture our disobedience to be like that of a two year old not finishing their vegetables.  In reality, our disobedience of God is more like taking your father’s prized ‘68 Camaro out for a spin when he’s not home and totaling it.  In both cases, the parent is upset but at an entirely different level.

 

Pam:  Why is it so hard to let go of those words especially when they represent mistakes we made so many years ago.  I remember when I was a young adult I had a friend who held on to a great deal of shame and self blame in her life.  She told me that she knew deep down inside that she needed to forgive herself to ever have a happy normal life but she just couldn’t do it.  She told me, “Every time I try I have this conversation in my head I end up reliving the whole situation, all the facts come up in my mind, the why’s and the why nots, the pain and the blame.  I begin to think “I wouldn’t have done this if they hadn’t done that.   I just can’t seem to let it go.”

Learning to forgive herself had taken on the same untouchable desire as learning to love herself.  Both things she thought she was failing at miserably. 

And isn’t funny I said to her that the often people in your life are more willing to forgive you and you can forgive them easer than we can forgive ourselves.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could just take ourselves out of the equation? We are our own worst enemies aren’t we?   

Don:  We all love stories about forgiveness between people.  There is nothing so moving as to hear about the Amish community who demonstrated forgiveness to the family of the gunman who killed the innocent children of their community.  Or Pope John Paul II forgiving the man who attempted to assassinate him. Or Steven McDonald, the New York City cop who has visited our schools here in Warwick to speak about forgiving the man who shot him and left him paralyzed for life.  These stories reach us at the deepest level and move us to be more forgiving ourselves.  We are amazed by these people.  We stand in awe of them.

Yet we are seldom amazed by God’s forgiveness.  God’s story of forgiveness contains a cast of billions of characters and trillions of hurts, mistakes, and evils.  Remember for a moment the worst thing anyone has ever done to you, the worst grudge you hold.  Now imagine forgiving them.  How difficult would that be?  You may even find it impossible.  Now imagine the worst things ever done to everyone in history, every insult, every act of violence, every betrayal and every lie.  Could any of us ever forgive all that?   Our own attempts at forgiveness pale in comparison when we realize that all those things were done to God.  And somehow God is capable of forgiving them.

Furthermore, when humans forgive, we don’t forget.  For us, healthy forgiveness is not excusing bad behavior or pretending it never happened, but instead freeing ourselves from power our grudges and resentments have over us.  When we can pull it off, it’s a remarkable thing.  But God goes a step further.  In the Book of Jeremiah, God says he will remember our sins no more.  I don’t how a perfect God can have the seeming flaw of forgetfulness.  Maybe, when it comes to keeping a record of wrongs, forgetfulness is part of perfection.  God is able to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

 

Pam:  I can blow off something someone does to me much easier than I can stop being made at myself for something I shouldn’t have done.  I have come to realize I just don’t have the power.   Asking God’s forgiveness is the same as asking God to relive you of the burden of your own sin.  Your saying I can’t make this go away on my own. 

Even if you haven’t forgiven yourself, God forgives you.  The past is gone there is nothing left to hold on to.   The only stipulation with God’s forgiveness is that you forgive others.

 

Don:  The Kingdom of God is like a man who screwed up at work.  It was a mistake so big he should have been fired for it, but he wasn’t.  The mess-up lost his boss a lot of money.  At first the man denied his mistake and grumbled to his co-workers, “I only did what everyone else here does.  The only difference is I got caught.”  Every day he would come to work and try to make small talk with his boss in the coffee room like they used to.  But his boss was cold and distant. Their camaraderie was gone.  As time went on, the man stopped grumbling.  Instead, he started doing his job extra carefully and changing his work habits.  He became a different employee.  Every time he saw his Boss he looked for little clues that his attitude was changing - a laugh, a smile, anything.  One day, weeks later he went into the coffee room and his boss was there.  He began to make small talk and this time his Boss spoke with him.  They laughed and joked together again, like old times.  The man was elated.  He was back in good standing again.

 

Pam:  God forgives as we forgive others.  If we can’t forgive others how can we understand that God can forgive us.   But God can do what we can not.   Of course, we like to give God our characteristics and when we do that we tend to treat God as if God were just like us.   But God is not, we are made in God’s image.  God is not made in ours. 

 

In 2 Cor 12:8-10 Paul tells us that Three times he pleaded with the Lord to take his sin away from him. But God said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  For God is God and we are his people and he knows we are full of imperfections.  He knows our weaknesses and does not run from us in fact his grace works through whatever weakness we think we have. If you’re anything like me that’s a hard thing to imagine, you may even look for clues that God loves and forgives you through your weaknesses.   When I was a kid I used to be like that with God.   I‘d ask God to give me clues that God was with me, loved me and forgave me. But really there is no need for clues.  The only clue we really need is the cross.  It is in overcoming human sin that God is most powerful.