By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Trinity Sunday, May 26th, 2013
“Bear with one another, and if anyone
has a complaint, forgive each other….” (Colossians 3: 13, NRSV).
I was an only child. My wife, being the oldest of 7, will say that
it’s very obvious. We ‘onlys’ have ways
that are not always likeable, nor very social.
We can be self-absorbed. But don’t
be too hard on us. It was the way we
learned to survive in an adult world where we often felt alone. Bear with us.
The first time I realized that it was
not good to be alone, I was still a child.
I had a coloring book and I loved to color. A friend from the neighborhood came
over. I loved having him around---having
someone to play with. We got to the
coloring book. Then came the problem. He wanted to color the page I wanted to color. He could not color the way I could
color. He was going to mess up ‘my
picture’ and ‘my book’. I snatched the
book away from him and said, “Let me
show you how to color in the lines.” My
mother heard me, came in the room and ordered me to give the book back. (How did she know?). Then she said, “Joey, if you want to have friends, you have
to let him color the picture he wants to and to color how he wants to.” It was then, for the first time, I understood
what it means to “bear” another person.
I was a little behind on learning the human skill of ‘bearing’; and
still have trouble with it at times.
If you don’t want to end up a grumpy
person, all alone without any friends at all, you have to learn to ‘bear one
another’. This is what the Apostle Paul
instructed the young church filled with new Christians. What do you think was behind these words? What
was the ‘bear’ behind the bearing? How can, as the French philosopher Paul Sarte once said,...How can Hell be other people?"
THE
“BEAR” IN BEARING
For Christians especially, there is
indeed a ‘bear’ in this command to ‘bear one another’. For you see we Christians understand
ourselves as people who are supposed to live rightly—who are, to put it in this
coloring book image, suppose color rightly, and are even called to help others learn
how to life live so that they ‘color between the lines”. But we also know that this is not always
easy to define. The lines are gray in
some areas. Everybody does not have the
same skill in coloring. Sometimes our ability to ‘get it right’ keeps
us from ‘bearing’ the difficulty others have in ‘getting it right’.
The great example we have from the New
Testament story, is what happen when the Jews handed the coloring book over to
the Gentiles. The Gentile Christians
could not color like the Jewish Christians.
The Gentiles did not know how to color ‘circumcision’ or kosher diets,
or other rituals of the Jewish Christian church. Some wanted to snatch the coloring book back
and show them how to do it right. Others
said it didn’t matter what color they used or whether they got it all right, as
long as they were on the same page. The
whole idea of letting strangers color in God’s coloring book made some people difficult
to bear.
In response to the difficulties and
differences in how people understood the right way to ‘color’ the gospel, Paul
made a big issue in the church about learning to ‘bear’ with one another. You read a lot about the details of the
early church’s struggle to learn about how to share the coloring book of grace
letter to the Corinthians. Particularly
in 1 Corinthians 8 and 9, the apostle Paul writes about what to do about ‘food
sacrificed to idols’. Some Christians
refrained from eating anything that had ‘idol’ stamped on it, just like many
today won’t get close to alcohol, tobacco or other things that can pull people
down. Other Christians said, since there
is no such thing as idols, or we know better, would eat or partake, never letting
any food, or any other substance get in the way of their life and faith. Both of them claimed to know what was the
right thing to do. Both of them had
found a way to deal with the temptation to deny God. But which way was the right way? What was Paul’s answer to such a
relational quandary? How would Paul help
them early Christians to ‘bear with one another’ even though they had their
differences in customs, in beliefs, and in habits and in viewpoints?
This is still as ‘hot topic’ today, as
it was then. People in churches,
synagogues, mosques, communities, cities and nations see things
differently. If we don’t learn to ‘bear with one another’ in our differences
we cannot bear with each other very long.
Without some understanding, appreciation, and maybe even the ability to
celebrate our differences, the world can become a violent, hateful, and
disgraceful place. Paul knew this when
his first word about which ‘knowledge’ was the right knowledge, answered
clearly, “We all think we possess the
right knowledge. Yet, knowledge puffs us
up, whereas love build us up. Just knowing
something does not give you all the knowledge you need for living in hope; God knows you, but your hope for life is
built a greater truth; God loves you.
Love is the greatest knowledge.”
(My paraphrase of 1 Cor. 8:1).
To learn to love people you don’t agree
with can be a bear. We all know this
too well. Our news/media world today (or
should I say circus), capitalizes on our differences; different viewpoints,
extreme ideas, exceptional ways. It does
not make money unless it has a story to tell.
Stories are made up of contrasts, differences, and conflict. Our media is also based upon trying to remain
neutral, with no ideal, no truth, no vision, and no resolution other than the
facts. This can lead to more coldness,
more division, and less understanding and more confusion.
If a news reporter were reporting on the
differences in the early church concerning food, he or she would never speak
the way Paul spoke later about the ‘food issue’ saying, “Food will not bring us close to God.
WE are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of your does
not somehow become a stumbling-block to the weak.” (8:8-9). The News media can’t say there is a
god---there is no proof. The News media
also can’t say it doesn’t matter what you eat, because that makes there ‘news’
not matter. Finally, the News media can’t
tell you not to be a ‘stumbling block’ because they are to remain neutral,
without any encouraging any kind of moral value other than valuing their skill to
report the truth as they see it.
But here’s the rub. Nobody can report the truth except ‘the way
they see it’ or ‘want to see it’. There
is a value judgment in everything we see and say. Pilate was indeed asking the right question:
What is truth? The only truth that
exists in this very human world is what we decide we want the truth to be. This does not mean there is no absolute
truth, but there is always some kind of angle on truth. You and
I have to decide who or what determines or constitutes ‘truth’ in our world. To have faith in God is deciding for a certain
truth---a truth that is not automatic, but must be decided by faith. To believe that you need to go on a religious
diet is much different than going on a regular diet. One is obvious, but the other is not. It is decided from the heart---from the
inside out.
And this is exactly what Paul is getting
at. If you want to bear with others,
then you have to decide that what kind of spiritual ‘diet’ you are going to go
on. Are you going to have a faith that
feeds on hate, differences, and dislikes or are you going to feed on a diet of
love, similarities, or common goals, such as Paul suggests to the Colossians, as ‘compassion,
humility, gentleness, patience and ‘bearing with the other’ as the greater
good, the greatest knowledge and the best decision. What do you want to happen here, Paul is
asking us too? You can’t have a human
race without learning how to bear our differences in love. You
can’t have a church without deciding whether to make grace exactly what it is. We can only learn to bear one another when
we learn how to implement God’s own grace into our own human relations.
GAINING
THE ABILITY TO FORGIVE
When we learn to ‘bear with one another’
the real question comes down to where do we draw the line, and how firm or
flexible will we be with drawing that line.
When I went on my first overseas mission
experience in Brazil back in the late 1980’s, one word of advice that was given
to us ‘would be missionaries’ was whatever you do, be flexible. Don’t try to make everybody in Brazil into a
Baptist. Don’t try to say that just
because they are not Christian like you are Christian does not mean that they
are not Christian. We all come to God
with a different set of cultural eyes, cultural viewpoints, and cultural
experiences.
I really didn’t know what the Mission
trainer meant until I hit it head on. I
ran into a Brazilian Baptist who told me that everybody who smokes a cigarette
is going straight to hell because they already smell like hell when you get close
to them. That was quite a shock. It wasn’t that I was for smoking. I didn’t smoke. I often confronted my mother about the
unhealthiness of her smoking. But I
didn’t like the fact that this Brazilian Baptist had it all figured out and
didn’t allow for things like wrong choices, the power of addictions, or
cultural difficulties, like people in Iredell and Yadkin county, where I grew
up who had tobacco farms. I knew that
these folks were promoting tobacco by selling it, but I also knew they were
just trying to make a living. Some were
trying to get away from it. Others
couldn’t. I didn’t like that Brazilian calling
my people devils from hell preparing to go back to hell by participating in the
tobacco industry.
But I also knew he had a point. Tobacco is not a Christian ideal. Tobacco is not good for you. Growing tobacco is a sin that we need
forgiveness for, like a lot of other sins we all have committed in our
lives. Getting rid of our sin is not always
as easy as saying “stop that” or “don’t do that”. Sometimes sin is all wrapped up in who we are,
who our families have been for generations, and it is not that easy to just ‘stop’
and ‘do better’. Sin requires grace. Getting rid of, or overcoming sin is not that
easy.
One of the most difficult and
controversial issues in our day is homosexuality and gay marriage. As a Christian, I sincerely believe that the
highest ideal is heterosexual marriage.
I believe this is what God intended, just like he didn’t intend for
people to pick up a cigarette and light up.
I can’t preach that smoking is O.K., just like I can’t preach that
homosexuality is what God intends. But
should gay people be loved, be accepted, and be part of our world? Science tells us that Homosexuality
has been part of our world since the beginning. You can call it sin, you can call it a flaw
in the DNA, or you can call it a choice or a social problem, and you can even
call it 'normal' for some people, but the truth is there is nothing any of us can do to stop them from being a part of our
world, our nation, our communities and even our churches.
But like other less than ideal behaviors
we can’t stop, and other people can’t stop,
we must come to make a bigger decision about what to do in the
future. If as Christians, we must draw
the line about homosexuality, could we learn to draw the line like most of us
did about smoking. It’s not what we
want. It might not be what’s
needed. It’s certainly not what I can
preach. But it is what it is….and what
we must do is decide whether or not we will love someone we can’t understand,
even someone we don’t like. Can we
understand that being with others will always mean ‘bearing with’ people in
this imperfect world that is not yet fully redeemed. Remember in heaven, there will be no cigarettes
and there will be no sex. Well, the truth is Jesus didn’t say whether or
not there would be cigarettes, but he did tell us there would be no sex. So, my advice to everyone should be to stop
sex now, since there won't be any in heaven---right! Wrong! My advice should be to love each other, bear
each other let’s the courts do what courts do, and
trust that one day God will do what only God can do---make us complete,
perfect, whole and righteous. I’m
counting on God’s court of forgiving
love.
For now, in this imperfect world, if we
are going to be the church is a world where people are different, we have
decide where to draw the line, and we also have to decide what kind of line we
will draw; and what will we do when people color outside of those lines. Paul has a suggestion, or should I say
command from the Lord. Paul suggests
that even if we have to draw lines, that when we draw them, we still ‘forgive’
each other when people step across that line.
This is exactly what ‘forgive us
our trespasses’ means in the Lord’s prayer.
To sin means to step across God’s line, or not to be able to reach God’s
standard, ‘to fall short’. When God
forgives ‘sinner’s’ who fall short, he calls us to do the same thing. Only when we forgive are we able to keep ‘bearing
with each other’.
When I told my mother it wasn’t O.K.
that she smoked. I also told her I didn’t
wouldn’t allow her to smoke around my daughter.
I wanted my mother to try even
harder to break her addiction. But if
my mother failed. I would love her anyway. I always forgave my mother. I remember how she also forgave me. I gave my mother grace, just like she gave me
grace. I didn’t look down on my
mother. She was my mother and I loved
her more, not less, due to her struggle with tobacco. In the same way with all the other hot button
issues of our day. We may have to draw
the line with what we can handle or not handle.
But we still have to forgive each other. When I came home from the mission field, one
of my best friends in church and school told me he was gay. I immediately went to him. I told him that did not want that for him,
but I accepted him, loved and forgave him, whether I needed to or not. I only asked that he also accept, love, and
forgive me, for not always understanding. But no matter our different worlds, I would
still be his friend. If he ever needed
me, he could call on me.
A lot of things happen in this world that
God does not intend. In a healthy
understanding of God, we can say that God allows things to happen in this world
that are not according to his perfect plan.
If he didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.
Life still has flaws. Life is
not perfect. Look at a diseased person,
a handicapped person, or a person who struggles in life. We might say, their life is not worth it not
valuable or worthy, but God says that life is still worth it and even sinners
are welcome. Again, many things happen
in life that God did not intend like idols, dishonoring parents, lies, stealing,
murder, adultery, or coveting what others have.
These are all things that are against God’s law---and at least to God,
they are far more important to God than the lines people might draw about cigarettes
or sexuality. So if, we are going to
draw the lines, draw them where the God has drawn them in the 10 commandments. But no matter where you draw them, and no
matter whether or not everyone else can ‘color’ within the lines, remember that
if you are going to share life with others, even share God’s love with others,
you are also going to have to be able to forgive those who transgress the lines
you have drawn, because God forgives those who transgress his lines.
LETTING
GO OF POWER HELPS AND HEALS
How do we gain the power to forgive
those who cross the line---either the line God has drawn or the line we have drawn
in the sand, or in the Bible, or wherever we draw it? I want to suggest something that comes out of
Luke’s gospel story about Jesus’ healing power.
Jesus has the power to heal and help us. I believe that this power of Jesus can help
and heal us now, even in days of moral and ethical confusion. Even when the lines are being redrawn, or
unclear, or transgressed, I believe that Jesus’ line of love is the one line
that can’t be moved. Just as the 10
commandments were immovable lines for Moses and Israel, and are still immovable
lines for a healthy culture, I also believe that love is the immovable line for
Jesus, even when the commandments have been broken and forgiveness, grace, and
healing is needed. Jesus did not change
the immovable lines, but he did forgive and reach out to people who could not ‘color’
within those lines. This is part of what
made Jesus---well, Jesus. He let people
color in his book, even if they couldn’t always stay between the lines. I first heard Jesus in the voice of my
mother. She first instructed me to be
like Jesus so I could love my neighbor who could wanted to color, but could not
color like I did. So what did I have to
do to love, forgive and help that ‘stranger’ fell loved and welcomed in my
house and in my book? I had to let go
of my power over the book. I had to let
go of having to have everything my way.
I had to ‘bear with’ them, to suffer their difference, even if it wasn’t
me, wasn’t what I wanted, and definitely wasn’t how I wanted to see my book all
colored up. I had to allow some
mis-coloring to have a new friend. I
had to allow that people were not like me, for them to like me. I had to ‘bear’ even what I didn’t want to
bear. I had to forgive them, just like
I would forgive myself, if I couldn’t color between the lines.
How do you and I give up ‘power’ to
control what happens in this world, like God has given up ‘power’ to control
people? How do we give other people a
chance to live an love, even if their idea of life and love is very different
than our own. Of course there are still
lines. We must draw lines. But perhaps we can also forgive the lines,
when others can’t color in those same lines.
But How?
Turn again to this story, where the
great Healer is going through the crowd trying to heal people who lives are
different. They are different because
they are not whole, and they are not what or who God intends. Who cares whether they made choices that made
them this way. Jesus doesn’t seem to
care. All Jesus cares about is helping
and bringing healing to people who realize how they hurt and need his healing touch. On this particular mission Jesus is on his
way to heal someone, but another someone, a stranger, a trespasser touches
him. You see it was not allowed for a ‘woman’
to touch a rabbi or any man in public.
But Jesus allows this woman to touch him. Jesus allows anyone to come to him. Jesus refuses no one. Jesus does not draw lines when it comes to
love, care, compassion, gentleness, kindness, and patience.
But notice what happens when this woman
touches Jesus. Luke tells us that ‘power
goes out of him’. This is what happens
when we love and bear other people. We
have to let go of some of our power.
When I went to see my friend who was struggling, I had all the power in
the world to condemn him, to curse him, to criticize him or to cut him
down. Instead, I let the power go out of
me, so that, at least between us, there could be healing love. This
may be the most needful image of power in our day---not the power we hold on to
because of fear, hate, or lines that have been drawn in the sand; the greatest
source of healing may still be for us as it was for Jesus, the power we let go
out of us and into them. Amen.
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