Keeping score; making confession

“Grace cannot prevail,” writes Robert Farrar Capon, “until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed.”*

In spite of the fact that I am a terrible golfer, golf has provided me with a grand metaphor for the concept of original sin:  keeping score. [Just an aside. I don't conceive of an original sin which has infected all human beings always, but rather, an action or attitude that continually breaks our relationships with one another and with God.]

So.....in golf, you are either at par (average), above par (which appears to be a little better, but is, in fact, worse) or below par (which appears to be worse, but is in fact better).  By the end of 18 holes, the winner has the lowest score, but can easily be 'above par' and so not really that good.  Likewise, a loser could end up below par, but not far enough.  It's an Alice in Wonderland sport.

Keeping score is what we do. We claim our  better jobs, better schools, better grades, better sports teams are the easy examples.  Our Instagram pictures prove we take better vacations, go to better concerts, have better friends.  Our family reunions are a cacophony of often not so subtle one upmanship.  Somehow we have convinced ourselves that we are in a lifelong race with every other human being near us, and so we keep score.

Because we are so busy keeping score, watching one another, greedy for advantage, envious of another's good fortune, lusting after power, we can't imagine that God - or however you image the Divine Creator - isn't keeping score as well.  God is just waiting to 'catch' us in some indiscretion or outright nastiness, recording this failure for all eternity, and often planning some kind of punishment for our failure.  No wonder no one wants to talk about God or sin.  The result is that the concept of grace is more dense than nuclear physics.

Grace is both the gift given and the manner in which it is given.  Grace is forgiveness without requiring a pound of flesh or deep groveling.  Grace is making whole what was broken without constant referral to the repaired cracks.  Grace is love.  Love is Grace.  In the end, there is no greater gift. It is a gift we are loathe to accept because first, it speaks the truth and therefore, we want to earn it.  Of course if you have 'earned' it, it isn't grace.

But in our heart of hearts we know that there are a slew of things that someone should be keeping track of - things we have done, or not done, for which we are to blame, which have caused harm to others.  You make up your list; I have my own. So, we are suspicious of such a gift because we know our own flawed history. We also know how hard it would be for us to be truly gracious.

Enter the gift of confession.  Yes, I said 'gift'.  The act of confession allows us to stop running (away from ourselves and away from others) and speak truth - about who we are and what we are capable of doing.  It is a moment when all the posturing comes to an end and we admit - mostly to ourselves since everyone else has known all along - that we were out of bounds, missed the target, broken the rules, hurt someone else.  We say it aloud (even if only in our heads) to make it real. No getting around it.

Then grace happens. Like a warm blanket on those nights when the temperature plummets.  Like a cup of tea with a friend.  Like the gentle touch of a loved one who has been wronged.  Words of forgiveness that allow us to breathe deeply once again.  An outstretched hand that invites us back into relationship.  A voice that calls us 'beloved'.

Certainly consequences will be paid; amends will have to be made.  We will need to do work to strengthen the relationship that somehow we broke.  But we can stop running and begin living. We can be a part of someone else's better tomorrow.

Now that's amazing!  That's grace.

*Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon and Three: Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 7.

Evans, Rachel Held. Searching for Sunday (p. 265). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Forgiveness

"When somebody you've wronged forgives you you're spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience.

When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you're spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride.

For both parties, forgiveness means the freedom again to be at peace inside their own skins and to be glad in each other's presence."

This entry in Frederick Buechner's volume, Wishful Thinking, is at the same time succinct and powerful (as, by the way, are most of Buechner's reflections.)

Forgiveness will trip up even the most faithful of Jesus' servants.  As much as we rely on God's forgiveness through our Lord Jesus, we are challenged to turn around and offer the same sweet gift to those who have wronged us.  Just so you know, this is no different for me than it is for you.

I've given this some thought.  I think there is a secret chamber in my heart that depends on God to forgive me........because that is who God is.  I stand before the Divine Creator and reiterate my frail humanity, mentioning the forces that led to my wrongheadedness.  My prayerful confession can include everything from 'I didn't get enough sleep' to 'he's such a demanding person' to 'Did you see what she did to me first?'

Of course, even I have to admit times when there is no excuse unless one includes laziness, or crankiness, or just plain meanness.  When I take the time to truly consider the broken places in my relationship with other humans and with God, I am full of excuses and explanations.  At some level I want to be left off the hook.  In some secret chamber of my heart, I expect that God will in fact forgive and I can move forward in wholeness.

I feel much less obligation towards my fellow frail human beings.  I am hurt by their actions or words or neglect and until those hurt feelings disappear, I find it difficult to truly forgive.  At best I can slowly wipe the slate clean, a little at a time, until the sin disappears.  The larger the hurt, the longer and more difficult is this process.  I've been at this a long time and I am not sure that I am getting any better at it.

But this I can say.  With each passing year, my grief has grown.  I am grieved when I stand before God seeking forgiveness - not because God loves me less but because I am more acutely aware of the fractures I have caused.  Furthermore, I am grieved when I must confess that I have withheld forgiveness from another.  My inability to forgive becomes a much greater offense than that done to me in the beginning.


Now my conversation with God is more about my blindness to the humanity of others and the hardness of my heart.  My confessions are no shorter, just a bit more focused as I struggle to live out the forgiveness that nourishes my life.

All of this sends me back to Buechner's original quote.  He reminds me how life-giving forgiveness is: not just for the one who has erred, but for the one who forgives as well.  Forgiveness is a font of never ending blessing.  It surprises me that I need to be reminded so often to stop and drink deeply.

Making a good confession

Sounds a bit like an oxymoron, doesn't it.  Few people think that the act of confessing has any good in it, mostly because making confession makes us feel pretty bad and how can something which makes us feel so bad be good for us?

 (Just as an aside, I think that is a most foolish question - and we know it - which doesn't keep us from avoiding all things uncomfortable as long as possible.)

We see this dynamic in hundreds of police dramas.  Folks think that if they simply avoid telling the truth that life will go merrily along with no consequences.  Hmmm.  Possibly.  Unless of course, we look deeper than the surface and consider the state of our soul - or spirit if you prefer.

Too few people talk about the freedom that comes with confession - the freedom from hiding, the freedom of being who you actually are, the freedom of walking in this world in truth instead of dragging along a matched set of baggage stuffed with all our wrongs, misdemeanors to felonies.

The hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5 decided to lay down 12 years of pain and anger and sorrow and isolation.  She decided to tell Jesus the whole truth and let the chips fall where they may.  The bleeding had stopped and she was free.  Now she was going to free herself of the stigma and brokenness of the last 12 years.

I have always assumed it was a good confession:  a confession that reached down inside her dark places and dragged them into the light.  But more than that, a good confession recognizes the freedom that has been won, that vast open space where one can live a new and different life.  A good confession not only lays to rest the past, it opens up the future and allows us to breathe deeply.

Listen to this confession (my characterization, not the author's).  It is an excerpt from Ted Loder's prayer Keep Me in Touch with My Dreams, Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle, p96

O Lord,

deliver me

     from the arrogance of assuming

        I know enough to judge others;

deliver me

     from the timidity of presuming 

        I don't know enough to help others;

deliver me

     from the illusion of claiming I have changed enough

        when I have only risked little,

that, so liberated,

     I will make some of the days to come different.

O Lord,

I ask not to be delivered

     from the tensions that wind me tight,

but I do ask for a sense of direction in which to move once wound,

     a sense of humor about my disappointments,

        a sense of respect for the elegant puzzlement of being human,

            and a sense of gladness for your kingdom

               which comes in spite of my fretful pulling and tugging.

I invite you into the gift of confession.  Risk being judged wrong.  Be ready to receive the glory of forgiveness.  Go forth and live life.

Forgive me Lord for I have sinned.

There are so many things that need to be forgiven.  It is easy to forget that truth when you rear up in high dungeon all puffed up with self-righteousness and demand your pound of flesh, demanding that the terrible wrong done unto you be atoned for until your ruffled feathers or bruised ego has calmed itself again.

There are so many things that need to be forgiven, and you and I have been responsible for at least half of them.  Sure, we have been wounded by others, and for this we too often insist on full and satisfying restitution.  We prefer to press to the back of our memory all those 'unfortunate incidents' for which we require forgiveness.  We prefer to play victim rather than admit being the villain even though we know that hides the truth.

Because of our behavior, we are as much in need of the forgiveness of others as we are wounded by the sinfulness of neighbors.  When folks start pointing fingers, there are plenty pointed our direction. Or as the apostle Paul wrote so eloquently  'we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.'  We need forgiveness as much as the next guy. This is an especially good week to remember this.

If Holy Week is anything, it is a time of truth telling.  Pilate chooses the expedient path without regard for justice and discounting the human suffering he was about to impose.  The crowds have little idea who Jesus is or even who Jesus claimed to be, but a good crucifixion would bring a little excitement to the week in Jerusalem.  The leadership of the nation of Israel scapegoated this one person to protect themselves.  The disciples loved Jesus except those who were ambivalent, but all were scared to death.

It is a good week for telling the truth about ourselves - to name the places where we choose the expedient over justice, where we protect our own territory without regard to the displaced and powerless ones, where we are willing to stand by and watch as an innocent one is executed, where we enjoy a little drama without regard to the victims at the center, where our fear has controlled our actions.

I mention this not so you might be filled with guilt, or even worse, shame.  No I simply want you to be ready to receive the incomprehensible gift that is coming your way and to do it without defensiveness.  I want you to be able to say  'I am a sinner' so that when you hear Jesus say, "Father, forgive them' you are able to take into your life the power of forgiveness - and experience in its fullest the gift of new life, new beginnings and transformation.

Take a little time for confession.  No, take a lot of time for confession.  Spend time considering all that this world could be, and all the ways in which you are complicit in its failures.  Talk with God, the Divine Creator, the Divine Lover, the Source of Life.  Re-boot your connection.

Prepare yourself.  Grace is about to happen.

Forgiving your scoundrel brothers

It seems we have been talking about forgiveness for weeks now in our weekly lessons.  (The Church has been talking about forgiveness since the cross).  It has been a deep and thoughtful conversation.

Like the whole episode of Joseph and his recalcitrant brothers that we find at the end of the Joseph saga.  The saga begins about Genesis 35 but we are looking at the final verses in chapter 50.

Joseph is one of 12 brothers, the sons of Jacob also known as Israel.  He is his father's favorite.  He knows it and he flaunts it.  He's one of those trumped up brothers who lorded himself over his older brothers.  After a while, they had had enough and became so angry and jealous that they sold him into slavery!  How's that for revenge.

But as God would have it, years down the road those same brothers needed food during a famine and suprise of surprises, Joseph was the person with the power to say Yes or No.  That gets us to this tender scene between the brothers and Joseph.  (BTW Joseph said yes).

Jacob has died and the brothers are concerned that without his influence, Joseph will take his revenge.  So bowing before Jsoeph, and lying through their teeth, these men claim that their father's dying wish was for Jseoph to forgive his brothers.  At this point in the story, Joseph wept.

Here's the question:  why?  Was it out of frustration because he know his brothers were scoundrels and would always be scoundrels?  Was it out of disappointment over all the years he had missed while he and his family were parted?  Was it out of anger that, in fact, Joseph might still be angry at them but they were the only family he had?

Or could it be this?  Joseph wept because, in fact, he had forgiven them long, long ago and it had taken until this moment for them to be ready to receive this forgiveness.  At this moment, the family could truly be reunited and a new life begun.

because.....isn't that how God loves and forgives us?  God's heart is a heart of forgiveness waiting for us to open our hearts to this healing resurrection to new life. 

Oh yes.  I think this is the best of all possible explanations and I would be embarrassed to admit that I didn't think of it* except that God's forgiveness is never ever something to be embarrassed over.  It is something to celebrate and live. 

Celebrate my friends - new life is yours in the forgiveness of God through Jesus.  I think that deserves and Alleluia!

*thanks to Darlene for her insightful response to this story.  It was a gift to me, and I think to us all.

More journey than event

When I write about forgiveness I am constrained to consider my own relationship with it.  That is, how am I following my own understandings?  Am I preaching to others while failing to follow myself?  Although this is often an uncomfortable internal conversation, it almost always proves to be a valuable one.

My most recent reflection on the subject led to this:  forgiveness is more journey than it is event.

I believe that it is rare that true or pure forgiveness occurs - complete and full blown - in a particular moment.  It is rare that one can confess and ask for forgiveness while the other receives the confession and offers complete forgiveness all in one moment.  It is rare that you can put a time and a place on a forgiveness event.

Rather, what we thought was forgiveness in the beginning doesn't really mature until time has passed and we have tested out our supposed forgiveness in many different situations.  As we journey down this road called forgiveness we recognize those by-ways where we get stuck, where old attitudes rise up and we re-act rather than respond to the other.  When we think back, we can remember the time and place of the original hurt, and it still hurts; it still matters and we realize that our forgiveness is still a work in progress.

Furthermore, the wounds that we cause one another are not interchangeable.  Some hurt more.  Some have longer term consequences.  Some hurts are inflicted on those we love rather than directly on us.  I might forgive you crashing my car a lot more quickly than if you had an affair with my husband.  I might forgive you undermining me at work more quickly than I would intentional lies to a potential employer which costs me a job.  I might forgive your demands for greater alimony much more easily than I will forgive the abandonment of our child.

Some stuff is REALLY hard to forgive because it was REALLY hurtful and the hurt is too big to swallow, and in truth, will never be forgotten.  So instead, we begin the journey of forgiveness.  We take just one step forward, perhaps we simply commit to eliminating negative comments about the other.  One step.  When we have mastered that one step, we try the next.  Then the next.  Then the next.

Don't fool yourself.  The steps count.  They move you towards a place which is more healthy for you and your soul; it is more healthy for the community around you, and in time, it will prove more healthy for the (not completely) forgiven other party.  When anger and resentment and jealousy are removed from the equation, however slowly, the world is a better place.

Forgiveness increases the grace quotient in the world, and that, my friends, is never a bad thing.

Forgiveness: simple but not easy.

Jesus talks about forgiveness.  He tells a parable that has commentators tied up in knots.  He challenges believers to do math.  In the end, it was a tough week in the gospel of Matthew (18.21-35)

Forgiveness is a tough topic because forgiveness is tough for humans.  It's tough because forgiveness is only necessary when harm has been done.......nasty words, physical wounds, relationship scars, etc. etc.  If it didn't cause wounds, then it probably doesn't need to be forgiven, you simply need to be polite.

The primary obstacle to forgiveness is pride.  That gives us a second hint as to why this is such a challenging demand of the faith......yet there it is, forgiving others is an expectation of our faith.  Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you; forgive others.

But the whole process of forgiveness cannot take the first step unless someone is willing to lay down their pride and admit....I might even say 'confess'.....that they have harmed someone else.  No slight of hand statements about good intentions or possible misunderstandings.  It begins with someone naming the hurt and harm that's occurred. ...and taking responsibility for it.  I am fairly certain that people exist who would rather die than truly admit they were wrong, and their actions caused harm.

I know how hard it is.  It's hard for me too.  It means I must adjust my internal picture of who I am and just what I am capable of doing. In the end, I am 'the kind of person who would....'  You fill in the blank.

It requires that I open myself to scrutiny, and the person doing the scrutiny is someone I already know that I have harmed.  I am offering them the opportunity to hurt me back.  Admitting my wrong and seeking the  forgiveness of another does not come with guarantees and therefore it is fraught with danger.

On the other side, accomplishing successful forgiveness requires that the injured party be willing to lay down their pride as well.  You can't forgive while protecting your privilege to complain; you can't continue with character assassination.    It requires one to release all claims to victimhood and listen with an open heart to the other.  The larger the hurt, the harder this is to do.  For many, it can only be accomplished in smaller stages.

There you stand.  One who has to adjust their self-image, admit their flaws aloud, take responsibility for actions, and one who has to release all claim to the very real hurt that has been caused.  No one wants to do either, but without this kind of truth, no real forgiveness is possible.

It is a simple formula.  It is very, very hard to do.

Yet should you take a chance, should you lay down your pride, lower your defenses and speak the truth you have a chance to experience the wonder of new life being created.  For just like the first day of creation when  the spirit moved over the waters and God said, 'Let there be light'....in that space between victim and perpetrator the Spirit of God which is the Spirit of Life can make a new beginning.

Carved out by truth spoken, that space is the point where two individuals agree that the past is the past and it will no longer color or shape the space between us.  It's not about forgetting; it is about not allowing what has happened to distort what will happen in the days ahead.  It is a new beginning.

I have actually seen it happen just like that.  I have received just such a gift of forgiveness, and I am fairly certain I have managed a couple of times to give that gift to another.  But it has never been easy, and most times it is incomplete and imperfect.  Yet this image of an open space where I am  not afraid of my enemies, where I can meet the other one without distraction and begin to build a new tomorrow, where I can accept the truth about who I am.....this is to be in the presence of the Divine. This is heaven.

Who is worthy today?

I ask this question because it shapes our lives together.  Who is worthy of God's love and forgiveness today, Monday, June 13th?  Who is worthy to take their place in our society without oppression? without harrassment?  without fear?  Even when we disagree with them, who is worthy to take their place as a brother or sister in our shared humanity?

We need to wrestle with this question.  Do we count some folks as 'less than' us?  Although we might not go out and oppress these individuals, are we silent when others do?  Is there a place in our hearts where we really aren't terribly surprised or upset that these people get the wrong end of the stick?  Do we tsk-tsk over violent acts that rob them of health, peace and sometimes their own lives?

When we look askance on another class of individuals - a group formed by their actions or beliefs or gender or race or religion - we are convincing ourselves that We are right. We are more worthy.

Sometimes we think we are more worthy because we have worked hard for our position and so obviously they have not.

Sometimes we think we are more worthy because they are strange, follow strange rituals, and make us feel uncomfortable.  Our comfort is the norm we follow.

Sometimes we think we are more worthy because 'they' could always act differently and keep themselves out of harm's way.  They need to make a greater effort to keep themselves safe.

Safe from us.  The ones who are more worthy.  We are more worthy because we have more money, the greater power, the right gender, the right skin color, the right Holy Days.

On a day like today, when 50 people were gunned down because they were different......because they were counted as 'not worthy'........because too many 'regular' folk will remain silent at their slaughter........our silence is deafening.

The story of the Pharisee and the woman who anoints Jesus cautions us about determining in our own hearts who is worthy of God's love and grace and life-giving forgiveness.  It embarrasses us with our cultural assumptions.  It cautions us about counting ourselves as more worthy than another. Luke 7.36ff.

And, please note:  it cautions us about holding these thoughts in our hearts even when we never speak them aloud.  Jesus knows.    

Today is a good day to wrestle with our hearts, our neighbors, and Jesus' call to love.  When we treat folks as if they have no value, we give permission for society to oppress them.  Our society.  Us.

Perhaps today is the day for our silence to end.  For who among us is truly worthy?

It's either ALL or its NONE.

Who is worthy?

It's an odd little story that comes from the Gospel of Luke and it asks many questions.  Here is where I want to start:  Who is worthy of Jesus?  Who is worthy of Jesus' life giving forgiveness?  Who is worthy of the transformation that comes from the love of Jesus?  [I know, that comes to 3 questions, but they are all really just versions of one another.]


She is a known sinner.  No one ever explains that because it seems to everyone who reads the story (I'm talking really knowledgeable biblical scholars here) that what she does to make her a 'sinner' is fairly obvious.  She is a woman who sells herself: she is her own commodity.  Sex for money.

Now I think it is important to point out that women who take this path  have few if any other options open to them.  They need money in order to survive.  There is no man: husband, son, even father, who will take her into their household and protect and provide for her.  She has few options for making the money she needs to survive.  You need to understand her cultural context before you go making assumptions.

She functions in a culture which values her for her fertility.  Without the ability to bear children, she has no value.  She may be able to give pleasure, but she is not valued as a person.  If she is lucky/blessed, she has given several children to a husband before she grows old.  If she is really blessed she has given her husband a son.  If God is looking favorably upon her, her husband has actual affection for her.  If all the stars align right, she will die before her husband so she isn't faced with the possibility of having no son who will include her in their family.  Daughters don't count.

So, on about 6 different counts, this anonymous woman has no value; she is a known sinner.

Is she worthy of Jesus' attention?  forgiveness?  love?  inclusion into his social circle?  By the standard rules of society, Jesus owes her nothing.  Nothing.  At. All.

Yet, there she is, touching !!!!! him in a gathering of important men (for who else would the Pharisee have invited to a dinner that had Jesus as a guest?)  She is making a regular spectacle of herself, crying and washing his feet and anointing him and kissing !!!! his feet.  Too much drama by half.

Then the story gets itself all twisted up.  She has shown great love because she has received great forgiveness.........that's what Jesus says.  But then Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven.  Your faith has saved you."  So were her sins forgiven before she began this dinner outing or did she anticipate the forgiveness of sins or did she bring the ointment so that Jesus would forgive her?  What exactly is the sequence here?

What if I said the answer to all those questions is "Yes?"  She was forgiven before she arrived whether she had seen or heard Jesus or not.  She was forgiven as she anointed Jesus.  She was forgiven after she anointed Jesus.

Here's the key:  she was forgiven.  A child of God.  Worthy of Jesus' love, attention, and life giving forgiveness.  She was worthy: with or without the ointment and the tears and the uncertain Pharisee.  She was forgiven because Jesus was/ is in the forgiveness business.  She is forgiven because Jesus is forgiveness, and at some moment she knew this to be true.  It moved her to tears.  

I'm not surprised.

Forgiveness given and received....or

                                               
"Why this scene on the beach between Peter and the risen Jesus is so important for people of faith."

If you are familiar with Peter's understandable but deeply disappointing behavior when Jesus was arrested, and subsequently crucified, you will understand why this scene grabs our attention.

It is intimate.  Although others are around, the gospel writer clearly makes this between Peter and Jesus.

It is serious.  Simon, son of John.......remember when your mother called you by your full name?  It's serious.

"Do you love me more than these?"   Jesus never clarifies what the 'these' are, but his point is made.  Am I number 1....or do I fall further down your list of priorities?

What do you do when you are across from the one you claimed to love yet betrayed so completely?  What do you say when you are as deeply disappointed in yourself as the other guy is?
What do you do when your crime.....sin.....wrong doing.....weakness....is an enormous elephant sitting right in the middle of the room?

Somehow, with your mouth dry from the depth of your emotion and a lot of stress, you croak out, "You know that I love you."   and you wait.

You wait to hear how big a disappointment you've been.  You wait to hear how much hurt you caused.  You wait to hear someone say outloud, "You really screwed up."  but instead you hear.

"Feed my sheep".

This is forgiveness in its rawest form.  No recriminations.  No words recapping the bad deeds of old.  No finger pointing or name calling.  Just a mission.  An important mission.  A mission to lead the others in the telling of the story to the whole world.

There are lots of potential explanations of why Jesus repeated the question three times.  Some say it parallels the 3 time denial of Peter.  Some say it helps Peter focus on the task at hand instead of the past.

Perhaps it took three times for Peter to truly believe he had been forgiven in such a way that his past was just a building block for the future that Jesus had for him.  Perhaps it took three times for Peter to truly forgive himself for being the fragile, fractured human being that we all are.

But this is the one who received the mission:  tend my sheep, feed my lambs.  Tell the world about God's love poured out; tell the world your story.  Forgiveness given sets us free and breaks open the possibility of new life.  Forgiveness received sets your steps on the path of life in God.

This is Jesus: God's great forgiveness given for you.

Can't see beyond the border.....

It shouldn't surprise us that there was some kind of competition between Capernaum and Nazareth.  We humans are always comparing ourselves to one another and, of course, wanting to come out on top.  We have this terrible tendency to treat everything in life......even life itself.....as some kind of contest.  (That, in fact, might be a good definition for original sin.  I'll think about it.)

This, often hidden, tendency to want to be the best pops right up when (after an outpouring of the Holy Spirit) Jesus takes on God's mission as his mission - to mend and heal the world, i.e. "to preach good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, release to the captives."

There was amazement that day.  The Gospel of Luke tells us so.  I also think there was that giddy kind of nervous laughter mixed with joy that occurs when something GOOD and TOTALLY UNEXPECTED comes your way.  Wow!

And, just think.  It's Joseph's boy.  One of our own.  From here in Nazareth.  Wow!  This is going to be something.

And it will be something.....something for the entire cosmos.....those who live in Nazareth and those who live in Capernaum.  Those who follow Torah and those who do not.  Those who do dastardly deeds and those who are faithful and obedient.  Jesus' mission is to mend and heal the entire world.  Not just Nazareth. Not just you.  Not just me.

Seems reasonable to you and me, but apparently there were a bunch in the crowd who were truly unhappy with this turn of events.  Jesus was their homeboy.  He owed it to his village to take care of them - if not exclusively, then at least well ahead of everyone else.  Otherwise, how are we going to one-up Capernaum, the next village over?

Healing belongs here, they might say.  Charity begins at home.  Take care of our own people first.  Use your talents and gifts and time right here.  If anything is left over for those other folks, fine.  But us first.

Which of course is another definition for original sin.  Us first; them maybe.

Know why I call it original sin?  Because we all do it.  Perhaps not all the time; but we all do it.  We all secretly believe that there is only a limited amount of Jesus to go around.  Forgiveness is limited.  Healing is limited.  Reconciliation is limited.  Heaven is limited.

So we will build walls, put up fences, set up check points, have secret passwords, stare down the outsiders, stand our ground when a stranger appears at our pew, never wear our name tag (because everyone knows us) nor introduce ourselves to new people (because it is their job to get to know us)....and a thousand, thousand other things to keep US and THEM separate.

Of course, Jesus gets lost in all of this.  The Jesus who loved all in the face of hate and forgave all in the face of death.  The Jesus who died at our hands yet blesses our hands again and again.  The Jesus who invites YOU to the table as he moves in this world, mending and healing and loving.  The Jesus who is Good News for us.

I can't decide if I should cry at my own stupidity or rejoice at Jesus' overwhelming love.  Or maybe both.

That, and try to refrain from building walls.