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Reunion Part 4
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to The CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2:Alright. Welcome today. My name is Jeremy. It's great to have you here with us online. Today we find ourselves at the end of our series called Reunion.
Speaker 2:And we've been talking about forgiveness in this series. But part of what we're trying to do is both deconstruct Some unhealthy ideas around forgiveness and reconstruct some better ones and help us move forward in better directions. Now we started by talking about what forgiveness is all about. Forgiveness as a conscious process that we enter into. Sometimes one that takes a very long time.
Speaker 2:Forgiveness as remembering well and finding ways to be honest with ourselves to speak clearly and sincerely about what has actually happened to us, and then forgiveness as a gift to us. Next, we talked about practicing forgiveness. How this is a skill that we can develop and learn and train and grow into. How it takes work, a lot of work to forgive. But how that work is ultimately an investment in ourselves.
Speaker 2:And far too often, I think we caught up on whether they deserve to be forgiven. And sometimes we lose sight of whether we deserve to forgive. But then last week we talked about revenge, And specifically, we talked about why revenge is always so deliciously tempting, but how revenge always Always always escalates. And so we talked about the need to rehumanize even that person who has hurt us deeply. Never to condone or accept bad behavior, but to acknowledge that all of our worst tendencies come from a place of Brokenness.
Speaker 2:That means coming to terms with the fact that redemptive violence is a myth. That when we choose instead to feel our pain, to learn from that experience and all that it can teach us about the world, Then we can choose to play our part in the healing of the world. The undoing of that original sin that led us to think that We could ever save ourselves by hurting someone else. Now, if revenge is what happens when we don't forgive well, Today we need to talk about what happens when we do. And that's going to mean understanding the difference between reunion, which is always the hope, always.
Speaker 2:That's why we call this series this. And boundaries which may need to be the reality in our lives Often times, both of these are valid outcomes to healthy forgiveness. And we called the But the only way that we can participate in something as divine as reconciliation is To begin with the work that God has first placed in front of us is persons. That is forgiveness. So today it's boundaries and reunions and the last conversation in this series for now.
Speaker 2:First though, let's pray together. God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden. We trust that you see us Truly and clearly. You see our hurts, our pains, our hopes, our fears, Our anxieties when it comes to the idea of even forgiving. And yet, God, we pray that you would speak to us By your spirit, be present to us just as we need you to today.
Speaker 2:To show us that we can heal. That we can leave all hurts behind. That we can learn from the experiences that we've had. That we can prepare Pair ourselves for reunion and reconciliation. But first, that we may need good healthy boundaries to protect ourselves, to speak truth to those who are in our lives.
Speaker 2:As we wrestle with all of these ideas, And we do it with a sense of grace and peace, trusting that you are with us in all of the complexity. In the strong name, The risen Christ we pray. Amen. Okay. Boundaries and reunions.
Speaker 2:We have lots That's to cover today. And so I wanna start by diving right into a passage from Jesus. This is a section that appears in both Matthew 5 and then again in Luke 6. And we're actually going to look at both of these today. But we're gonna start in Matthew 5 with what is one of the most difficult passages when it comes to both forgiveness and boundaries.
Speaker 2:And you'll probably recognize at least some of this language. You've heard that it was said an eye for an eye, a Tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, Turn to them the other as well. And if anyone wants to sue you to take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
Speaker 2:Finally, if anyone forces you to go one mile, go 2 with them. So a couple of things here. First of all, Jesus starts With one of his most famous phrases, you have heard it said. He he says this a lot. But what we have to understand is that when Jesus says this, he's not just talking about Well known phrases are common ideas in the culture.
Speaker 2:He's actually quoting from the Hebrew scriptures. And in this case, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth comes from several Places in the Hebrew scriptures. Now Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, and Deuteronomy 19. However, the concept actually predates all of that. The code of Hammurabi, which is an ancient Mesopotamian document from 38100 years ago uses these same phrases.
Speaker 2:And there, as in the bible, the idea was to limit The escalation of revenge that we talked about last week. In fact, in the Talmud, you have this fascinating section where the 12th century rabbi Anadiz is explaining these passages from Torah, and he talks about how you would go about determining how much an eye for an eye should Lost someone. In other words, it sounds like these passages were always understood as figurative. They they were speaking about recompense, what it took to make someone whole not literally gouging out someone's eye. In fact, nowhere In the Bible or in Hebrew history, do we ever see these phrases taken literally?
Speaker 2:And that might sound strange at first, But if you were to look up my long term disability insurance here at the church, it will say something like I get a $1,000 if I lose an eye or 10,000 if I lose an arm. It's Same idea. So first of all, an eye for an eye probably was never as violent as we might imagine it. But more importantly, We understand that this was never designed to endorse revenge. It was always about limiting the damage that unchecked revenge could cause.
Speaker 2:And yet now, along comes Jesus with his endless forgiveness that we saw last week. And he's not just interested in limiting the damage revenge can cause. He's actually interested in reversing the damage that revenge has already caused. So here he he gets up and he says, look, you've heard it's head an eye for an eye. And you've come to believe that this is the best we can do.
Speaker 2:I wanna suggest that there is something better. And this is what Jesus thinks is better. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them your left. Now I'll admit that does not sound much Better at First Blosh. In fact, this often sounds like Jesus is saying forgiveness means allowing someone to continue to abuse you.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot going on in the background of these images that dramatically influence how we hear them. And we've talked about this before, but quickly here. One of the best treatments of this passage is by a scholar named Walter Wink. He talks about how in the context of the ancient world, each of these are specific examples Jesus is citing and they are clear acts of social protest. Someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the left.
Speaker 2:In the ancient world, you always interacted with another person with your Right hand. Now the gory details here involve the fact that you would lose your left hand to clean yourself after you used the ancient outhouse. But if you imagine facing someone and you were to strike them using your right hand on the right cheek, that's going to be a backhanded slap. Now if they were to turn their right cheek away from you and they turn their left cheek toward you, well that would leave you with the option to either Strike them with your left hand undignified for you or to strike them with an open hand. Which as strange as this is going to sound offers dignity back to them.
Speaker 2:See, a backhanded slap was how you would discipline a Slave and open handed slap put you in the same social strata in that culture. So when Jesus says, turn to them your left cheek. He's not actually asking you to be slapped again. He's asking you to do something that will Tap them in their tracks. It will force them to see you in your essential dignity and humanity to acknowledge all of Next, if anyone takes your shirt and over your coat as well.
Speaker 2:Now shirt here is Actually, your underwear. It's it's the word catona. But this was that sort of body length piece of clothing that you would wear next to your skin. Coat is the word hamateon, and this was your sort of main outer garment that you would wear around. And the context here is no one is actually Ever gonna sue you for your underwear?
Speaker 2:It's kinda silly, and that's Jesus' point. Because Torah specifically had rules forbidding the taking of someone's coat. Exodus 22 says, if you take someone's cloak as a pledge, you have to return it to them by sunset no matter what. That's because your cloak or that outer garment that you wore around, it was what you wore, what you slept in. It was what kept you warm.
Speaker 2:It had all kinds of different uses. And so you could sue someone to take their house or their livestock, to repay their debts. But if all they had left was their cloak, Torrell says That's off limits. It's theirs. And so Jesus is presenting this exaggerated scenario where someone is so consumed with revenge They try to get around the rule by suing you for your underwear.
Speaker 2:And he says, look in that absurd situation, if someone is that corrupt, If they want to diminish you that badly, then in front of the world, you strip down and you hand it all to them. You let your refusal to be humiliated show them exactly who they have become. Finally, he says this, if anyone forces you to go 1 mile, go 2. This one comes from the rules that governed the Roman army. Jewish people were generally not Roman citizens.
Speaker 2:Some, like Paul were, but most, like Jesus, weren't. They would have been living in the Roman Empire without all the rights of a citizen. And in Roman law, there was a clause called impressment. And this allowed a Roman soldier to conscript any noncitizen living under the protection of Rome to carry their bags for them. Now in Rome, what this meant was that non citizens could be legally forced to carry a soldier's bags wearing up to 100 Libra, roughly £80 today For 1,000 paces or roughly 1 mile.
Speaker 2:And so Jesus says, if someone tries to rob you of your autonomy simply because you are a non citizen. If they treat you as less than human as a commodity, Then you remind them that your choices are yours. That there is dignity in self determination. That Rome may be powerful. Yes.
Speaker 2:But you are still a living, breathing, thinking human who controls your steps. And so Walter Wing looks at the section where Jesus teaches us not to use violence, but to demand that we are seen as equals. Not to use violence, but to demonstrate that we will not be humiliated. Not to use violence, but to retain our autonomy in the face of Objection and he writes, that human evolution has provided us with 2 deeply instinctual responses to violence. Fight or flight?
Speaker 2:But Jesus offers us a third way, a nonviolent direct action. Now, here's why we need to start here when we talk about boundaries in Because this is the same Jesus who tells us that if we do not forgive, we will not be able to experience the forgiveness of God. This is the same Jesus who tells us that we are need to forgive each other over and over again for a 190 times as many times as needed. But if we don't understand the context of Jesus' nonviolent direct action, When we pair together forgive again and again with a naive reading of turning the other cheek, what we can end up in is a Situation where we are at best turning a blind eye or at worst actually promoting more abuse in the world. That's not That is never what forgiveness is about.
Speaker 2:In the 1st week of the series, we talked about forgiveness as remembering well. And part of that is remembering to let go of false narratives and impressions that we have speaking clearly and honestly with ourselves about what has actually happened to us. But it also means not forgetting. It means not allowing the context for abuse to shelter itself in our good intentions. Now does that mean that someone should pay for their mistakes forever?
Speaker 2:No. It means they should be confronted with them. It means they should be forced to reckon with them. It means there should be consequences for them. And If there is repentance, characterized by honesty and events and transformation, then there can be reunion.
Speaker 2:But the Jesus of infinite forgiveness is not the Jesus of gaslighting that pretends that everything is okay when it is not. Even when we choose, especially when we choose to follow the forgiving Nonviolent path of Jesus, we recognize that we still set the terms of our reengagement. Forgiveness is the road that chooses to forego revenge always, but it is not an abdication of our essential autonomy as human beings or Our responsibility to love ourselves well. Remember when you forgive, You slip the yoke and your future becomes unshackled from your past. You are free to move on.
Speaker 2:No longer a victim of the one who hurt you. Remember, that's That's from Desmond Tutu. But that necessarily entails the fact that you do not choose then to place yourself back in a place of abuse. So that is not what Jesus is saying here when he says turn the other cheek. In fact, what Jesus is saying is that When you forgive and you choose to let go and you choose non violence over revenge, you are actually taking Act control of your emotions and your actions and your pain and your dignity regardless of what anyone around you tries to do to you.
Speaker 2:No. Obviously here, he's talking in the context of an oppressed people living in the shadow of Rome, but There's all kinds of implications for our interpersonal relationships here as well. In fact, that's exactly where Jesus goes in the Lucan version of this In Matthew, he says, you've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who Persecute you. In Luke, he adds, love your enemies.
Speaker 2:Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who have mistreated you. So if you have heard it said an eye for an eye, eye tells you we can do better. Now he says, you've heard it said, hate your enemies.
Speaker 2:I Tell you that, well that's not going to work either. And so in the light of everything we've talked about, here's what it means for you to choose differently. Three things here. He says, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.
Speaker 2:Pray for those who mistreat you. Treat you. Now, I think it's really easy to blow past this. It has the kind of Feel of the kind of thing that the kind of person like Jesus might say. But this is actually poetry here.
Speaker 2:I think I mentioned this last week, but Hebrew poems generally don't rhyme. They do they do have rhythm and wordplay. But the central feature of Hebrew poetry something that we call parallelism. This is where you restate an idea with increasing intensity or contrast each time. That's what Jesus is employing here.
Speaker 2:We've got someone who hates you, someone who curses you, someone who mistreats And we've got the response that Jesus calls us to doing good, blessing, and praying. And in Hence, both of these triplets are becoming more intense. On the one side, you've got someone As this intense irrational dislike of you that consumes them until they begin to speak negatively about you and eventually they begin to actively hurt you. Someone who goes out of their way to And for some reason, the intensity of this enmity, this relationship is spiraling out of control. It's it's become incredibly toxic.
Speaker 2:Into that, Jesus says that we can do 3 things. We can do good. We can bless. We can pray. But there's a progression there as well.
Speaker 2:Isn't there? Jesus says if someone hates you, maybe it's completely maybe you have done something to them. Maybe you've hurt them and that's why they're upset. Either way, then you can go out of your way to be there, to show up in their life, to really demonstrate that you are different than what they know you as. You can be in their life with a presence that offers healing and grace that shows transformation is possible even in this relationship.
Speaker 2:You can take an active posture of pursuing reunion while that is possible. Now If they start to curse you, which is essentially to speak badly about you, Jesus says, well, if that's the case then you can do your best to speak well in return. If their words are full of venom and bile, ensure that your words are full of light and love. Now don't speak untruth. Remember, forgiveness takes an honest reckoning.
Speaker 2:But when your first instinct is to run them back down, do your best to speak truth and healing to them. However, if that if that doesn't work, if it doesn't affect a change in that person and they escalate to mistreating you. By the way, understand, mistreating you can be done with nothing more than words. Abuse is far more than just broken bones. But if they are mistreating you Actively then you, according to Jesus, pray for them.
Speaker 2:You do your best to heal yourself, Off to forgive so that you can be free from them, but there is a demarcation that's happening here in Jesus advice. When it's hate and it's hard feelings, you can be there in their life and work toward reunion. When it's bad words and gossip, you can step back but still choose not to descend and into the mud with them. When it's abuse and mistreatment and injury, you can love that person. You can forgive that person, but you do not give that person access to You can remove that person from your life.
Speaker 2:You can set up appropriate distance boundaries, healthy barriers to protect yourself. And you do this precisely so that you can choose to love and pray and even forgive when you're ready to. You see you always love your enemies, but as the intensity of the offense This is going to necessitate an increase in your boundaries, your distance as well. You do good, you speak well, you pray always. Loving your enemy is not about allowing them to continue to hurt you any more than turning the other cheek was ever about welcoming Use in our lives.
Speaker 2:Because part of loving your enemy well is demonstrating that while you choose love, You refuse to accept bad behavior that is damaging the divine image embedded in both of you. Trust me here, I get it. Even at that distance praying for that person after you've invested That much energy into them after they have continued to be that toxic. This will always be the hardest step. It is after all the most Intense response that Jesus calls us to, but you cannot love them by continuing to You can know their actions.
Speaker 2:You cannot love them if you're allowing them to steal the healing you need for yourself. You cannot love them unless you find a way to step back to Create the boundaries that make your forgiveness possible. Hear this. Healthy boundaries are not a sign of unforgiveness. They are what will help you forgive well.
Speaker 2:And Brene Brown, she talks about this. In her research, she has found that the most loving people are often in her words, the most boundary to people. That is that is certainly true of my experience of myself. When I begin to lose sight of my boundaries, it's not even just with talks To people, it's just with my time and my energy, it's with my emotional capacity. Anytime I lose sight of my boundaries, what happens is I realize I don't have much left to give.
Speaker 2:If my boundaries fall, if my reservoirs run dry, I have nothing left for my family or for Sunday. I have no empathy left for you when we sit down and have a coffee when we're able to do that again? I mean, all of us, I mean, we can run-in an emotional deficit for a time, but it will Actually catch up to all of us. Because you and I, we talked about this 4 weeks ago. We are not bottomless pits of relational vitality.
Speaker 2:On the contrary, you and I, we need to intentionally seek out people that pour into us. We need to guard and protect that reservoir with everything that we can because a Healthy you, healthy me, this is the most important thing that I can offer to anyone else including my enemies. And so at a very basic practical level, boundaries are important. When do I answer my email? And how much of my day do I spend on So media, all of these are important for each of us to think through in our life.
Speaker 2:But then when it comes to forgiveness, All of this just gets ratcheted up. It becomes so much more important because if I don't know how to limit someone's access to If I can't learn how to say no, it can't go back to the way that it was, not until some changes are made. If you can't say I love you, but you are unhealthy right now and I can't afford for you to access the deepest parts of my soul because I need those. I need them clear and healthy and in line with the person God has made me to be. The Unger that we keep ourselves in these cycles of hurt.
Speaker 2:Even if it comes from the place of best Tensions the more that will grow and fester until it starts to feel like all of that pain is actually part of us. And when that happens, we will never be able to pray for the person who's mistreated Which means we'll never be able to fully let go of the pain that they've inflicted on us. Which means that we will carry that hurt with us far longer than we ever needed to. It means that the gift and the power and the transformative Significance of forgiveness will never get to release us from all that we were never meant to carry. You see, This series has been called reunion but we've talked about our side of that equation.
Speaker 2:We've talked exclusively about forgiveness. But that's because that's the only sign that we ever control. And I can do all of my work. I can Forgive you well, but I can never make you come to the table until you want to. I can't make you see what you've done until you choose to and the more weight I put on myself to fix you.
Speaker 2:Then the less energy I have to do what I actually need to do which is to forgive you. To heal myself, to do my work, to make myself ready to be present to the opportunity of reunion if and when that moment comes. You see this word reconciliation is a big one but it it's actually rooted in Latin. It's a compound word and it's made of 3 very small ideas. Re meaning again.
Speaker 2:Con meaning with. Sile All meaning to sit. That's what it means. Literally to sit with again. You have to go through your own process of forgiveness.
Speaker 2:You have to remember well and let go of false narratives. You have to pursue forgiveness as a gift that you give to yourself. But even after all your work, you cannot sit together until you see the truth together with someone. You cannot Together until that person is willing to return to the table with you. Because forgiveness is what makes possible reconciliation, but reunion requires transformation on both sides.
Speaker 2:And if you struggle with unforgiveness, if there's some hurt that you just can't seem to let go of no matter how hard You try perhaps where you need to start is to sit down with this clear ahead as possible and ask yourself, am I giving this situation or this Person too much access to the most vulnerable parts of my heart. Are they healthy? Are they life giving? Do they pour into the best parts of me or do I need to forgive? And then bless and then pray for Them honestly, but at the same time begin to limit my exposure to their toxicity.
Speaker 2:Because that is not about closing yourself off, it's about choosing where you will open yourself up. And my prayer Is that you would begin to recognize that you are more than the way that someone has treated you. And that you can reclaim your autonomy and your dignity more powerfully through forgiveness and non violence than you ever could through Pursuing revenge and bitterness. That you would know that you need Healthy boundaries in your life not just to protect you, but to help you become the most graceful, forgiving, healthy version of yourself possible. That you turn to face toward that future today.
Speaker 2:A renewed imagination of what is healthy for you. With the choices and habits, the boundaries that you can put in practice in your life today. Hey. The confidence in the day that you can find yourself free from all that you have carried around for far too And here's the key. Full of hope that if you can heal, then they can heal.
Speaker 2:And that reunion may yet be possible in those relationships. Let's pray. God who comes to us having forgiven us, Having let go of all the pain that we've inflicted on you, ready to sit at the table with us. Ready at a moment known as for us to turn towards you, to take a step towards you so that you can reciprocate and move toward us. May we understand that this story is possible within us.
Speaker 2:And that even in the moments where we have experienced Found trauma and pain. We can heal. We can be renewed. We can invite your spirit to do that work in and through us and if the time comes. If the same work is done on the other side, then reunion can actually be possible.
Speaker 2:That The things that we think are impossible. The things we think could never happen begin when we do the work of ourselves. Healing, repairing, becoming the healthiest, most truest, most graceful version of who you've created us to be. And sometimes that takes boundaries. And sometimes those boundaries are the precursors to reunion.
Speaker 2:So may we heal well. May we make good choices and habits. May we trust that reconciliation is the goal of all things, and everything is being returned to You in the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Thanks for being here with us for this conversation as we begin this new year.
Speaker 2:I pray that you experience The freedom, the grace, the peace of the spirit of God as it floods in and helps you heal and move past All of those hurts. They've taught you something and as you carry them with you for a time, you can learn so much from your anger and pain. But there comes a point where it's worth setting it down and leaving it behind, and I pray you find that. But we will end as we always do with this. Love God.
Speaker 2:Love people. Tell the story. Have a great week and we will see you back here next Sunday. Thanks everyone.