For those who want a change from the Gospel

Trinity 17 – Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 (Related)

This passage raises some fascinating questions about the nature of sin, punishment and repentance. The first is about God’s mercy, the second is about God’s timing, and the third our responsibility.

‘I have not come to abolish the Law’, said Jesus, ‘but to fulfil it.’ But we might also say that he also came to make it more complicated. Take the stuff in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, about how even thinking something wrong is as bad as actually doing it. Suddenly it all gets a lot more serious, and a lot more complicated. There are all sorts of areas where a trip through the Bible gives much more nuanced information the further you go on in time. This text from Ezekiel 18 is an example of things which were previously believed by the Israelite community are shown actually to be not quite as simple as they might have believed previously. Yet while the demands of God may become more stringent, we also get a glimpse of an increasing awareness of God’s mercy.

Verses 1-4 appear completely to contradict the 10 Commandments, about the sins of the parents being visited on future generations. Clearly that remains true, and there are all kinds of sins and attitudes which are clearly passed down the family line, and inherited from previous generations. But there is another truth which runs alongside this: it is not inevitable nor unchangeable. There is a way of breaking the cycle, through repentance and turning back to God. Christians know that we don’t just inherit from our earthly fathers, but we now have a new father in God who can put the right moral genes into us. That’s the first take-home from this complex passage, that individual repentance can liberate us from generational sin.

But there is a further idea which is challenged not in this text but in some which follow it. Is it really true that ‘The one who sins is the one who will die’? Later biblical texts such as Job and Ecclesiastes have to wrestle with the apparent fact that this simply is not true, as evil people prosper while the righteous suffer. This further nuances the issue of sin and punishment by suggesting that justice is not always seen to be done in this life, but that there is an eschatological dimension. Only in the age to come will right triumph and evil be destroyed. Meanwhile we have to live with the delay.

Thirdly, there are questions about our own responsibility for sin. It is often said that in Judaism the emphasis is on right living, while in Christianity it is all about right believing. If you look at the list of sins which a righteous person avoids in the verses filleted out of this reading, you’ll find a real emphasis on behaviour, and while there are a couple of surprises for modern readers it is mainly about the familiar stuff from the 10 Commandments about murder, lying, adultery and the rest. This would seek to support the idea that for the Jews right behaviour was what counted, until you get to the last verse, where, in v.31, a new heart and a new spirit are what is needed. This is a common theme in Ezekiel, and it reminds us that the dichotomy between believing and behaving is a false one. We are to rid ourselves of evil behaviour, and seek newness inside. When our hearts, our thinking and our desires are right, our actions will follow.

Ultimately we have decisions to make, and this passage reminds us that sin is a personal choice, as is repentance from sin. We might be left with outstanding questions about the big issues – is God fair, does he actively punish sinners, and so on – but ultimately our own responsibility is to live in ways which please him, driven by nothing less that the desire to please him.

For those who want a change from the Gospel

Trinity 16 – Jonah 3:10 – 4:11 (Related)

There is an understanding of prayer which you’ve probably come across. It says that intercession is not about trying to change God’s mind, but rather that through the act of praying we change our own minds and agree with what he wanted to do all along. So to caricature slightly (although not that much) I might set out praying for healing, but as a result of praying I become happy about being ill. You know the sort of thing. This raises an important question, which today’s passage helps us to answer: Can we change God’s mind?

I can remember a local Pentecostal church near where I grew up which had emblazoned across the front wall of the worship area the text ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever’. So does that verse teach us not to bother to try to talk God into answering prayers? Jonah would say not (had Philippians been written then). Our passage begins with the perhaps startling news that God had relented from delivering the punishment he had intended on the evil Assyrians (and by any standards they were evil). And in fact when you think through the OT, this happens again and again. Perhaps the classic example is Abraham’s intercession for the wicked cities in Genesis 18. God’s promises are usually conditional, and he does indeed respond when we respond. The people repent, and God relents. We see it again and again. Even the angry Jonah understands that God is slow to anger and relents from sending calamity (4.2). He doesn’t like it, but he does understand it.

There are a couple of points worth making, however. The first is that God does not change arbitrarily. He is not fickle, like many pagan deities, so that we have no idea what he is likely to do from one moment to the next. God always acts in line with his character, that fine balance between love and righteousness. Although he does at times withdraw his blessing, it is far more common for him to withdraw his punishment. And when he does so, it is because humans have responded to him in penitence. God does change, but he does so in some predictable ways.

Secondly, the change here is in the direction of mercy. This is what Jonah struggles with so much. If you were caught by Assyrians you were likely to have a hook put up through the soft bit under your chin and into your mouth, and you’d be led away to be skinned alive and impaled on a stake. They weren’t nice people. Maybe you know people whom you believe ought to be beyond God’s mercy. Vladimir Putin might fall into that category for many … and let’s leave it there. But something in us cries out for God’s wrath to be poured out on cruel people like that. I can remember hearing a preacher comparing some great villain or other to St Paul: if God could so dramatically turn him around, he could do so for anyone. So we ought to be praying for whoever it was, not calling down God’s judgement on them. God challenges Jonah’s sense of perspective by drawing his attention to the fact that he cares more about a plant then he does about a whole nation heading for destruction.

The book of Jonah is actually full of humour and irony, but the most ironic thing is how the prophet is revealed to be so unlike the God in whose name he speaks. God is slow to anger: Jonah has a nasty tantrum like a two year old. God is gracious and compassionate: Jonah is angry enough to die at the thought of the Assyrians repenting. God relents, but Jonah keeps a tight grip on his anger, even when challenged twice about it by God. So we have here a story of a God who does change in response to human penitence but a follower of God who does not, the exact opposite of the rhetoric about prayer with which we began. Personally I have more faith in human ability to change God’s mind than I do in humans managing to change themselves. And I pray that my thoughts and action will come over more like a merciful God than a vindictive human.

For those who want a change from the Gospel

Trinity 15 – Genesis 50:15-21 (Related)

Today’s readings deal with a very difficult topic for Christians, that of forgiveness. In a break from my usual methodology I want, rather than try to expound the OT text, to share some of the best stuff I’ve ever heard on this subject. But let’s begin with some background. Joseph had been turned on by his brothers  (although to be fair he did handle his dreams in a bit of an obnoxious way – sometimes we need forgiving too), he’d been narrowly rescued from murder and instead thrown in a pit, sold as a slave, and did time in an Egyptian jail. So we might consider him a bit justified in bearing a grudge. But then in the Gospel Jesus tells us that unless we learn to forgive we won’t be forgiven. We all know we ought to forgive those who have harmed us, often severely. But how do we actually do it? There are lots of clever sayings: unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting your enemies to drop dead, that sort of thing. But it remains an issue for many.

Several years ago I went to a safeguarding training day and was introduced to an academic paper[1] which made some of the best sense I have ever heard on the subject. Writing in the context of sexual abuse, Steven Tracy suggests that the Church has often been too quick to tell victims that they must simply forgive those who have so violated them, often leaving them feeling guilt-ridden as well as abused. In fact, he suggests, the biblical material is far more complex than many Christians take the time to consider. In particular, he distinguished between three kinds of forgiveness, judicial, psychological and relational. I have found his insights invaluable in many different circumstances in which people have been harmed by others.

Judicial forgiveness is about the abuser’s relationship with God. On this, Tracy suggests, the biblical material is very clear. God forgives those who repent, so however much someone may have hurt us, if they turn to him in genuine penitence, they will be forgiven. But if not, they won’t. Scripture is very clear on this.

Psychological forgiveness, though, is more complex. It is about their relationship with us now in the sense of whether we forgive them as God would. This is often the most difficult part, because everything within us cries out for vengeance. There’s a bit of us which wants to inflict on them the same kind of pain they have made us suffer, so that they know what we’re going through.

Finally Relational forgiveness is about our relationship with our abusers on into the future. In an ideal world there might be complete reconciliation and restoration of relationship, but Tracy notes that this is often difficult to the point of impossibility. It certainly won’t be helped if there is no evidence that they have been judicially forgiven by God, or have not even sought it.

The point, says Tracy, is that of these three types, we as victims only really have any control over one, psychological forgiveness. Whether or not our victims repent before God is something we simply can’t control: it’s between them and their maker, and nothing we can do will affect that. Only their genuine repentance will allow their forgiveness. And relational forgiveness might be impossible because trust simply can’t be rebuilt. Looking at the evidence from, for example, domestic violence, shows a very high statistical likelihood of them doing it again, so the wisest thing might be simply to get out of their way, for our own protection.

But the one thing we can control is our own forgiveness of our abusers, and once you separate that from the need to kiss, make up, and carry on as before, it becomes relatively easy. It is simply the decision of the will to hand back to God the right to punish them, rather than wanting to do it ourselves. What we feel about them isn’t something which Jesus can command us to do, but he can show us that to set ourselves free from them by handing them back to him is not just the right way to behave, but it is also the healthiest.

In a world where we are constantly hearing on the news that people ‘will never forgive’ someone who has murdered their daughter or whatever, I find it tragic to hear such self-cursing. Words have real power, and I fear for people who are unable to forgive because a righteous God is not on their radar, and because they think they’ll have to start feeling warm feelings towards those who have acted so cruelly against them. As Christians we have resources which can help us to rise above the harm others cause us, and to put them back where they rightly belong, into the hands of a righteous but merciful God.

[1] Tracy, S. (1999). “Sexual Abuse and Forgiveness.” Journal of Psychology and Theology, 27:3, 219–229. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164719902700302

For those who want a change from the Gospel

Trinity 14 – Ezekiel 33:7-11 (Related)

For a large proportion of my ministerial career I have found myself teaching on evangelism, whether during parish ministry, lecturing at theological colleges, or producing materials for diocesan use. I once produced a video course called Safe Evangelism – sharing your faith so it doesn’t hurt for the Church in Wales, and I am still quite proud of it. All this is a bit strange, because evangelism comes way down the list of any gifts I might have. But then I realised a few years ago in a flash of inspiration that actually the best people to teach on evangelism are those who actually would feel a bit embarrassed about turning to the person next to them on the bus and asking if they knew Jesus. The problem with most materials and courses are that they are written by evangelists who simply can’t see what the problem is for the rest of us normal people.

It has been said that evangelists are people who know no shame. In my experience there is no subject more likely to inspire guilt and shame in ordinary Christians than that of sharing your faith. Today’s OT passage is one which is often used to beat ourselves up with. If we fail to talk to someone about Jesus and they go to hell, so the rhetoric goes, their blood is on our heads. Maybe you’ve heard sermons like this in the past. Well today I want to bring you good tidings of great joy which come from a reading of this text. Let’s try to get all this in proportion.

The first phrase which struck me when I first read this through was the final bit of v.9: ‘…though you yourself will be saved.’ These words helped me to read the text in a new and less condemning way. Firstly, to whom is it written? Obviously this is part of a word which God spoke to Ezekiel. But does this simply transfer to you and me in the 21^st century Church? Ezekiel, the more astute among you will have noticed, was a prophet. But the NT epistles talk about many different gifts, and Paul in particular keeps saying whatever your gift is, do it to the best of your Spirit-empowered ability. So while it is not surprising that God is telling Ezekiel the prophet that he’d better get speaking out, the take-home for us is far more likely to be about using whatever gifts we have, not one we haven’t.

The second point is that God was speaking to Ezekiel as an individual, but I have become convinced that evangelism is the job of the Church, not some individuals within it. It’s far too important a matter to be left to evangelists. I have developed some material on evangelism as a process which involves everyone in the church being involved by using their own particular gifts. Comparing the task to the list in Romans 12, for example, which was the Epistle a couple of weeks ago, different people might do their evangelism in very different ways. Someone with a prophetic gifting might well be a powerful Billy Graham-type preacher, but a teacher is more likely to be at home engaging in apologetics on an Alpha Course, whilst a pastor will do their evangelism one hurting person at a time, probably with an arm around their shoulders. And as for those servant-hearted people who put out chairs and cook pasta, they also serve in the Church’s evangelistic process. I often compare it to a game of rugby (the rules of which I have no idea about, so afficionados please forgive this illustration): lots of people are involved in passing the ball in the right direction (although I believe it’s actually the wrong direction) but someone has to make the final touchdown. While those gifted as evangelists are great at slamming converts home, many other people have different roles in getting them nearer and nearer. So the upshot of all this sporting ignorance is that we can’t all hear God’s words to Ezekiel as direct words to us. Our job is to do what it is that God has given us to do, and to be ready to give an account of the hope which is in us, with gentleness and respect, when asked.

So that little clause ‘…though you yourself will be saved’ opens up a way to read this passage which takes away all the threat, guilt and shame. There is one unforgivable sin, according to Jesus, and it isn’t not being an evangelist.