Unnatural

Luke 17:1-6

March 19, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was probably about fifteen years ago now. It was a beautiful spring day, and why the kids were not outside playing I do not know, but somehow they had gotten the idea that they would have great fun that day blowing bubbles in the kitchen of our home. Someone had gotten them those bottles of soap bubbles with the little wand, and I could hear them laughing and giggling from the back part of the house. Now, the way that house was constructed, the kitchen was in the middle of the house; you have to go through the kitchen to get to the other part of the house. And the kitchen had a linoleum floor. Maybe you’ve figured out where I’m going with this. I decided to go see what they were having so much fun doing, and the minute I walked into the kitchen, stepping onto the linoleum floor in my bare feet, a floor covered with soap bubble residue—well, it was like a cartoon. My feet went up and my head went down—crash, onto the floor. I saw those stars that always show up in the Road Runner cartoons! I lay there for a moment, and Christopher came over to my side, and he asked the question we always ask in those situations: “Are you okay?” At that moment, this morning’s passage came to mind: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come!” (17:1). Instead of quoting that, however, I said, “No, I’m not okay,” probably in a voice that was angrier than it needed to be, but the fact of the matter is I couldn’t turn my head for about two weeks after. Nothing was broken, but the muscles in my neck had been so shaken up that they stiffened up for a long time. And that’s how the ban on soap bubbles in our house came to be.

What we sometimes (painfully) experience in the physical world, Jesus is applying to our spiritual lives when he talks about stumbling. When we do anything that causes someone to stumble in their walk with him, there are serious things that can happen and major issues that we have to deal with. It’s a big enough issue that, at the end of what we read this morning, the disciples say, “Increase our faith!” (17:5). They recognize that what Jesus is asking them to do they can’t do on the paltry amount of faith they believe they have at the moment. By the time we’re done this morning, we might realize the same thing.

This morning, we’re continuing our Lenten series called “Who Is This Man?” and we’re looking at the ways Jesus has made in “unpredictable impact” on our world. We’ve looked at how he calls us to be perfect in love and how he erased the lines we draw between people in our culture. This morning we’re going to look at what many think is just another impossible demand, maybe the most impossible demand: Jesus’ call to forgive. Forgiveness is Jesus’ most distinctive contribution to the world’s culture because it’s not something that is demanded or expected in many other places, religious or otherwise. As John Ortberg points out in our study book, the idea of forgiveness did not really exist in ancient Greece or Rome, in the culture Jesus lived in. There were things people would do to mend fences and rebuild relationships, but those were more about honor, shame and status than they were about forgiveness. “Ancient conventional wisdom said, ‘Help your friends and punish your enemies’” (Ortberg, Who Is This Man?, pgs. 88-89), but Jesus said (as we looked at two weeks ago), “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Who is this man who calls us to such a radically different attitude toward others?

The passage we read this morning is a brief but critical insight into Jesus’ ministry with the disciples, so it’s important we pay close attention to it. It’s in the midst of a part of the Gospel of Luke that isn’t necessarily tied to a particular location, or historical setting. Rather, through these middle chapters, Luke seems to be collecting a variety of things Jesus said and did during his ministry, giving us a better picture of who Jesus is just before he tells us about what Jesus did on the cross. So we don’t know when this took place, or where, but we can still hear the severity in his words. The warning he gives first is striking: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble” (17:1-2). The millstone he’s talking about was a large stone used for grinding grain or perhaps making olive oil. It would have had a large hole in the middle of it, like this one from Jesus’ hometown of Capernaum. To those who might cause “little ones” to stumble in their faith, Jesus says it would be better for you to wear this like a collar and be thrown into the sea than to experience the punishment that you really deserve (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 203). I could not find out how much one of these millstones generally weighed, but they are too heavy for anyone to lift by themselves. It generally took a donkey or two or more people to push them around the circle to grind the grain or crush the olives. So we’re talking a serious punishment here, though it was not a Jewish punishment. What Jesus describes was allowed by the Romans, though there is no historical evidence that it was ever practiced (https://goo.gl/PAsXgR). To us, it sounds like something you might picture happening in a movie or television show about the “mob.” But here’s what Jesus is saying: you’d be better off with a Roman punishment than you would be facing God if you cause someone to stumble in their faith.

If that’s the case, then it might be good for us to ask what it means to stumble, or how we might cause someone to stumble. What does Jesus mean by that description? It’s not, obviously, me falling in the kitchen. The word Jesus uses here is skandala; it’s the Greek word from which we get our word “scandal.” It’s an offense, something that causes someone to question their beliefs. In this context, Jesus is indicating doing something or saying something that causes another person to abandon his or her faith, to turn away from Jesus and his teachings (Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, pg. 321). The essence of what causes someone to stumble may be a bit vague in this passage, but elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus talks about those times when we take a stand against justice and compassion for the “little ones” or the “least of these” (Green, The Gospel of Luke [NICNT], pg. 612). The current political climate is difficult in that regard. There are so many voices, so many opposing viewpoints, so many different ideas about what is best, how to handle a wide variety of issues like health care and immigration and violence in our cities and a host of other “hot topics,” but the question we should be asking in each and every situation is: what will be in the best interest for God’s “little ones”? How would Jesus respond to this situation? What is just, righteous and holy? Failing to answer that question leads to causing others to stumble. Sometimes the church gets is right and sometimes we get it wrong, but the call from Jesus remains the same: for justice and compassion, to point people toward the church and not away from it because of our actions or our words.

Philip Yancey tells of a homeless young woman who was sick and unable to feed her two-year-old daughter. She had become so desperate for money to buy food and support her drug habit she had even rented out her daughter to men for unspeakable acts. The man she confessed this to knew he had to report such child abuse, but he had no idea what to say to this woman so he just listened. Finally, he asked her if she’d ever thought about going to church for help. The look of shock on her face was unforgettable. “Church?” she cried, “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse!” (What’s So Amazing About Grace?, pg. 11). Sometimes without realizing it, we set up stumbling blocks for others that keep them away from Jesus. In a survey done a few years ago, Gabe Lyon and David Kinnamon found that two of the biggest stumbling blocks or perceptions of the church were that the church is hypocritical and judgmental (cf. Hamilton, When Christians Get It Wrong, pg. x). When those outside the church see those attitudes coming through, they will generally say something like, “Well, if that’s how God’s representatives behave, I suppose the whole thing’s a waste of time!” (Wright 203). Now, we can sit here and say, “Well, they just don’t know us!” And that may be true, but those perceptions have come from somewhere. They’ve come from the way Christians—maybe not you or me, but maybe you or me—have acted, things we have said, or the attitudes they have seen displayed by us in social media. Sometimes, without realizing it, we set up stumbling blocks by not paying attention to how well we are representing Jesus.

Now, Jesus does say such things are inevitable. In the original text, that’s a double negative; he essentially says, “It is impossible for scandals not to come” (Culpepper 321). So then the issue then becomes what we do in the wake of such a “scandal” or a “stumbling block.” Does how we respond point to Jesus or elsewhere? We’re likely to, at some point, cause someone else to stumble, to be “scandalized.” What needs to happen then? Jesus says that what others most need to see in his followers is an unnatural act. What we’re most called to demonstrate to the world is the act of forgiveness.

Now, I know we talked about forgiveness just a few weeks ago in our Apostle’s Creed series, but as I said then, I’ve got a friend who constantly tells me I can’t preach on forgiveness too often. Besides that, it’s one of the primary things Jesus talks about, and in this passage, he sets it up as the alternative to having a millstone around our necks while we sink in the ocean. When someone is caused to stumble, forgiveness is necessary. Listen again to what he says: “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them” (17:3-4). Now, there’s a nice religious word in there, the word “rebuke.” That’s not a word I use regularly, I don’t know about you, but the word Jesus uses there means, literally, “to put a value on.” It involves reprimand or pointing out someone’s mistake. Now, let me quickly say, this does not give us permission to go around to everyone and say, “You’re doing this wrong. You’re doing that wrong.” I’ve talked with some of you who are about my age and you remember the traveling preacher that used to come to Ball State and other campuses around Indiana, and probably elsewhere, where he would yell at people for their “sins.” If a girl’s skirt was too short, or a guy’s hair was too long he would tell them they were going straight to hell. Brother Jed was his name, and I understand the next generation is still visiting campuses today. Some of my friends in InterVarsity and other campus groups would go out and try to talk with or debate with or reason with Brother Jed, but he would not be stopped. For people who weren’t yet Christians, he became a symbol of everything that was wrong with the faith and the church. Jesus is not giving us permission to become the next Brother Jed. The context here is important: if someone sins against you. It’s more like a situation I had a while back when a dear Christian friend had done something that had not only hurt me but also sort of questioned my ministry. This person didn’t realize that’s what they had done, to be honest, but I talked directly with him, shared how I had been hurt, and he apologized. There was no long-term hurt or damage done. That’s the sort of thing Jesus is talking about here. If a brother or sister sins against you, does damage to you, talk to them. Do it in love, but talk to them directly. It’s the same instruction he gives in Matthew 18.

And when you’ve come to an understanding, Jesus says you must forgive them. Notice the word: “must.” It’s not an option. It’s a command, straight from the lips of our Lord himself. And even more, Jesus says we must forgive every time someone asks. Even if they come back to you seven times in a single day, you must forgive them. Now, I don’t think the number is the point, any more than the number is point when Jesus tells Peter he has to forgive seventy-seven times (or seventy times seven, depending on how you translate that, Matthew 18:21-22). The number is not the point; in fact, if we’re keeping track of just how many times we have forgiven someone, we’ve really missed the point. Jesus is using the number “seven” as an example. If they come to you over and over and over again, to the point where we sort of groan inwardly every time we see them, we still are to be people who forgive, especially when they ask us for forgiveness.

But what if they don’t ask? This passage isn’t directly addressing that question, but it’s still an important matter for us to think about. If forgiveness is at the heart of the message of this unpredictable Jesus, if it’s the thing that perhaps causes us most to ask, “Who is this man?”, then we need to look at the other side of this unnatural and difficult act as well. What if they don’t ask for forgiveness? Or what if they can’t ask for forgiveness because they have died or you no longer have any contact with them? Let’s remember first what we talked about a couple of weeks ago: the act of forgiveness is ultimately about the health of our own soul. Someone has said that refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It corrodes our soul. It damages our relationship with God. In fact, Jesus indicates that we limit our ability to be forgiven if we refuse to forgive others, and he puts no restrictions on that. He doesn’t say we only forgive if the other person asks. Forgiveness is about the health of our own souls.

That does not mean it’s a quick process, in any situation, but the person’s absence may actually make it more difficult for us to move ahead. The lack of exhibited repentance may make it more difficult for us to move ahead. Nevertheless, there are two essential movements for us to make as we work on the health of our soul. The first movement is to release the anger, bitterness or desire for revenge that we often harbor in our hearts. That is the natural response: we want them to hurt as badly as we have been hurt. And, depending on the depth of the wound, letting that desire go might take quite a bit of time. When the person is gone or absent, it is sometimes helpful to journal about what you are going through or what you have felt. I have a dear friend whose husband did some terrible things both in his business and his personal life, things she did not know about until just shortly before he took his own life. That’s been several years ago now and she is still working through the pain, the anger, and the guilt. She has people who tell her—not directly, but in different ways—that she really should be over it by now, but there is no timetable in the Bible or anywhere else for forgiveness. And, in her case, there is a lot of forgiveness to work toward. She tells me there are people in her life who just don’t want to hear about it anymore, but she has a few trusted friends who will listen, and she journals, and she sees a counselor. All of those things, over time, will help her down the road toward forgiveness, toward giving up that anger and bitterness. Some folks in her situation would hold onto the anger and bitterness for the rest of their lives; again, that’s the natural response. But we’re aiming toward an unnatural response, a Christian response. To work on forgiveness, it requires soul work to be able to release the anger, bitterness and the desire for revenge.

The second movement in this process is to extend mercy toward the person who has wronged you. Mercy is compassion extended toward someone whom you could punish or harm. Mercy is a characteristic of God and one he desires to see grow within us. When we turn to him, God chooses not to give us what we deserve; instead he gives us mercy and calls us to do the same toward those who have hurt or harmed us. Sometimes, though, extending quick mercy toward the other might not be helpful. One example is in the case of abuse. The first time an abuser hits his or her victim, they are often instantly remorseful. They are apologetic and promise it will never happen again, and usually mercy is given. Then, a short time later, it does happen again and the cycle starts over. Mercy extended each time right away does not help the abuser. It’s more helpful, perhaps, to say something like, “I understand you feel bad, but this cannot happen again. You must get help for us to go forward.” Mercy extended too quickly in such instances can in fact short circuit the redemption process and derail the healing that needs to happen. And that is the goal in any act of forgiveness: redemption and reconciliation. Reconciliation, though, does not necessarily mean putting yourself back in an unsafe environment or a dangerous situation. For instance, in the case of abuse, it does not mean going back to the same potentially abusive situation until and unless you are certain there has been a deep, true change in the behavior and the life of the abuser. But offering mercy is still our calling (cf. Hamilton, Forgiveness, pgs. 81-85). Again, it is for the health of our soul, and it is a matter of following in the footsteps of this man from Galilee, the one who prayed forgiveness even for those who nailed him to the cross. Even when the person is no longer around, or even when the person doesn’t repent, for the sake of our souls, we forgive, as unnatural as that seems.

Can you begin to see why the disciples, after this short teaching by Jesus, are so distressed? Forgiveness is meant to define us as followers of Jesus, but it’s an unnatural act. And so the disciples say, “Increase our faith!” (17:5). We need more faith if we’re going to be able to do this. This is hard, Jesus. Did they think Jesus didn’t know it would be hard? Did they think he expected them to immediately become more forgiving, more like him? Growth in grace is a process, and in fact Jesus says they don’t need more faith. All they faith they need they already have, but it’s misplaced. They can only see themselves trying (and failing) to do what he has asked them to do. What they have failed to see and what we often fail to see as well is that this is not something we can do on our own. This is something we can only do by the grace of God and with God’s help. They don’t need more faith; they need to put their faith in a great God! In verse 6, Jesus says, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” (17:6). Honestly, a lot of times this verse is used to spiritually abuse people for “not having enough faith,” as if Jesus is saying you can do anything you want with just the smallest amount of faith. The action isn’t the point of Jesus’ saying here. Whether we can move trees (or mountains, as Mark [11:23] has it) isn’t the point. Jesus’ point is we already have all the faith we need to be able to do what he asks us to do, including forgive. If we have the smallest amount of faith—faith the size of a mustard seed—we can do this. When I was in Israel one time, our guide pointed out the mustard bush and showed us some seeds from the mustard bush. I asked if I could have some to bring home, thinking they would be a great sermon illustration for times like this. He said, sure, and so I carefully packed them. I didn’t have any ziploc bags, so I put them in that inner pouch part in the suitcase, and when I got home, I couldn’t find them. There were so small, one of the tiniest of seeds, either they had been crushed or fallen out during customs. So Jesus’ point here is not how big is your faith. His challenge is this: how big is your God? Is your God big enough that you can even forgive those who hurt you, those who wronged you, those who shamed you or abused you? Is your God big enough that you can let him take responsibility for the justice that needs to be done? Is your God big enough to change you and me into people who are merciful and forgiving, even to the person who deserves it the least? Don’t ask how big your faith is, disciple. Ask how big is your God.

On March 11, 2005, Brian Nichols escaped from the Fulton County courthouse in Atlanta during his trial and in the process he murdered two people and wounded another in the courthouse. Later he killed another person, then ended up in the apartment of Ashley Smith, a single mother and recovering methamphetamine addict. Smith, whose husband had been shot and killed sometime before, became Nichols’ hostage as the city searched for him, and Smith later said she got through the experience by reading The Purpose Driven Life. In the midst of that reading, Smith and Nichols came to a crossroads. One of those moments was dramatized in the film Captive. Take a listen.

VIDEO: “Captive”

“Maybe God can.” To which we would say, “Absolutely God can.” Don’t wonder how big your faith is. Remember how big your God is. So…who is this man, this unpredictable Jesus? He is the one who demonstrated the absolute centrality of forgiveness for human flourishing. He is the one who calls us to forgive as we have been forgiven. He is the one who forgave even those who did not ask and could have said they were only doing their job. He is the one who offers you and me and the world the power and the hope found in forgiveness. Let’s pray.