The Pain of Forgiveness

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I was recently captured by a story told by Wendell Berry about two friends who lived in a small community in Kentucky in the year 1912. Ben Feltner and Thad Coulter were part of a close-knit agrarian community with strong ties to each other, to the land, and to hard work. Yet tragedy ensued when Thad invested in a risky business deal with his son and lost out. Humiliated and falling into despair, Thad drank himself into a stupor and then headed over to ask his friend Ben for help. Ben did not want to discuss options with Thad in his condition, and so refused to talk with him until the next day when he was sober. However, Thad succumbed to the darkness creeping over him and returned home to get his gun, which he then used to shoot Ben Feltner in a drunken rage. The rest of the story was a beautiful tale of forgiveness and mercy offered by Ben’s family and the community. Yet sadly, Thad himself was unable to experience that forgiveness because he could not bear to live knowing he had killed his best friend, and so ended his own life.

The narrator then makes this profound comment: “People sometimes talk of God’s love as if it’s a pleasant thing. But it is terrible, in a way. Think of all it includes. It included Thad Coulter, drunk and mean and foolish, before he killed Mr. Feltner, and it included him afterwards.”(1)

“God’s love is terrible, in a way. Think of all it includes.” I have often been asked, “Could not God have forgiven people without going through the pain and the violence of the cross?” As nice as that sounds, reality forces me to ask: When is forgiveness not painful? True forgiveness cannot occur unless the hurt is acknowledged and called for what it is. When you look a wrong full in the face but choose to accept the hurt instead of returning it on the one who did it, that is always painful.

Jesus illustrates forgiveness by telling the story of a servant who owes his master more money than he could possibly repay (See Matthew 18:21-35). The master originally threatens to sell the servant’s family and possessions to get some return for the debt, but when the servant begs for mercy, the master is gracious and forgives the debt. Yet the same servant not only refuses to forgive the debt of his fellow servant, but also has him thrown in prison as punishment.

Sometimes we treat forgiveness and justice as though they are mutually exclusive. If we choose the way of justice, we think the options are reparations or retribution--either the guilty person makes up for a wrong or is punished for it. These are the only options the servant offered his debtor. Since the second servant could not repay, he was then punished. However, the master chose the way of mercy when he forgave the debt, neither requiring reparation nor inflicting retribution. If God has really forgiven us like the master forgave the servant, we ask, then why all the pain and death of the Cross? Does the Cross undermine God’s mercy? Is it merely an underhanded way for God to force repayment from humanity or exact punishment on us?

In asking these questions, we betray a misunderstanding of both justice and forgiveness. Justice can never be achieved by reparation or retribution alone, because like the servants’ debts, true wrongs can never be repaid. The hurt and pain caused are not reversible. Punishing the guilty person does not undo the hurt either, even if it brings brief satisfaction to the victim, just as the first servant did not get his money back simply because the other man was in jail. Justice must be about much more than balancing out the wrongs of the world. It must be about making things right, about the kind of restoration that does not reverse the pain, but moves beyond it toward something new.

And just as wrongs cannot be erased by punishment or repayment, they cannot really be erased by simple forgiveness either. When the master forgives the servant’s debt, the debt does not simply disappear. The master takes the loss! He accepts the full brunt of the debt himself. Similarly, when a person forgives, he or she accepts the full brunt of the hurt or injustice rather than returning it on the one who caused it. Although it is painful, this is the way that healing and restoration begin. This is why there is no way to avoid the bloody Cross. And this is why God’s love is terrible. Think of what it includes: us, with our best and our worst, with our failed attempts and outright cruelty, with our wrong motives for right actions and our right motives for wrong actions... us, with the mess we have made of the world, with our brokenness and despair, with our rebellions and inadequacies. We are the ones included in and redeemed by the deep and wide love of God. Paul is astonished by this reality when he emphasizes that Christ died for us while we were still sinners! (Romans 5:8).

Instead of demanding that we pay what we cannot, instead of punishing us for not paying what we cannot, the God we see in Jesus Christ accepts the loss himself and opens his arms even to those who would murder him. The Cross does not represent God’s mercy being tamed by his anger; rather, it demonstrates that God’s mercy is much bigger than we think. The Cross is a graphic picture of God’s terrible love. Think of all it includes.

Rachel Tulloch is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

(1) Wendell Berry, “Pray Without Ceasing,” in That Distant Land, (Washington DC: Shoemaker Hoard, 2004), 69.

Encore!

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I have never been so tired as I was when I stepped on that plane; neither have I been so happy for so many empty seats. I was dreaming of a two hour nap before I even found my place. Of course, as is usually the case in situations like these, when one is intent on being anti-social and insistent on having earned the right to be so, I found myself not only with a companion, but with an animated, loquacious, first-time traveler. The young woman beside me had been a child as she watched the events of September 11th unfold and had determined then never to travel by airplane--that is, until today, when events reared a need to break her own rule. She was terrified and excited and inquisitive all at once. She also noticed things I’m fairly certain I have never noticed in all my years of travel, commenting with elation, curiosity, or confusion on every single one of them. By the time we landed, I not only had a new friend, I was wide awake to the disheartening reality of all I fail to see around me.

It would seem that repetition has a way of lulling us to sleep; monotony a way of robbing us of sight, or else leaving us in the stupor of disinterest. Real life examples are readily available. How many news stories do we need to hear about violence or suffering, racial oppression or injustice, before we fail to hear them at all? For that matter, how many stories about something small but positive do we really take in before we respond in boredom? How many times do we need to sit on an airplane or see the bird outside our window before the marvel of flight simply goes without notice? Like most adults, we learn to tolerate the repetitious by learning to operate on auto-pilot.

And yet, I am certain, even among the most skilled of auto-pilots, there was a time when we found ourselves, like every child, delighting in the monotonous, longing for another minute with grandpa, another page of the story, another trip down the slide. The incongruity is unmistakable. How can our failure to see be blamed on monotony, unconscious living attributed to the repetitive, when at one point monotony and repetition were not only tolerated but invigorating? Blindness can easily be blamed on the world around us--and there is certainly reason to consider the daily effects of all that bombards our senses--but perhaps this is too easy an answer. Perhaps the scales on our eyes are multiplied not by the many repetitions in life, but by our failure to see life in the many repetitions around us.

Jesus spoke of the kingdom as belonging to the likes of little children, and many have speculated the child’s ability to see the world with wonder as one of the reasons for it. G.K. Chesterton saw the child’s ability to revel in the monotonous as another. The child’s cry for more, reasoned Chesterton, is a quality of the very God who created them. “It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”(1)

For the child on the slide or the toddler with a story, “Do it again!” is far from a cry of boredom or routine, but a cry for more of life itself. This is likewise the joy of the psalmist, the cry of the prophets, and the call of Christ: “Consider the lilies, how they grow...if God so clothes the grass of the field...how much more will he clothe you?” (Luke 12:27-28). Jesus asks that we consider the kingdom around us like little children, and thus, something more like God--finding a presence in faithful recurrences, grace in repetition, rumors of another world in the ordinary world around us. Here, even those within the most taxing of life’s repetitions--the daily care of an aging parent, the constant burden on the shoulders of those who fight against injustice, the labor of hope in a difficult place--can find solace. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope,” said Jeremiah in the midst of deep lament. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning...‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (Lamentations 3:22-24, emphasis mine).

Morning by morning, the daily liturgy of new mercies comes with unapologetic repetition to all who will see it, the gift of a God who revels in the creation of yet another daisy, the encore of another sunset, the discovery of even one lost soul.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 65-66.

The Snare of Misplaced Affections

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The book of Judges poses many interpretive challenges for the student of Scripture. Filled with stories of the grotesque and the tragic--the rape and subsequent division of the Levite’s concubine into twelve pieces in Judges 19, the undoing of mighty Samson, or the story of Jephthah and his vow to offer up one of his own children as a burnt offering in Judges 11--challenge any contemporary reader’s sensibilities.

Despite these interpretive difficulties and challenges, the book of Judges reveals the all-too human story of our propensity towards idolatry, and the consequences that ensue from misplaced affections. Perhaps no story is more poignant, in this regard, than the story of Gideon. Born the youngest son of the smallest tribe of Israel, the half-tribe of Mannaseh, Gideon grows up in a land oppressed by the Midianites, the Amalekites and the “sons of the east” (Judges 6:3). The text tells us these enemies were so numerous that they “would come in like locusts for number, both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to devastate it” (6:5-6).

It is for this reason that we find Gideon threshing wheat in a wine press, hiding from his innumerable enemy. Despite his fear, the angel of the Lord addresses him as a “valiant warrior” and appoints this young man as the deliverer of Israel. Sure enough, as the text tells us, Gideon and a mere 300 men defeat the innumerable armies of their enemies. Gideon is the unlikely hero and the Israelites are so impressed by his military leadership that they seek to make him king. “Rule over us, both you and your son, also your son’s son, for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian” (8:22). Gideon rightly persuades these men that the Lord is their king and ruler. Had the text ended there, we would never see the clay feet of our story’s hero.

We are not told why Gideon does what he does, but rather than be rewarded by becoming king over Israel, he instead opts for a monetary remuneration and exacts a spoil from the men who came to make him their ruler; a gold earring from each one totaling 1,700 shekels of gold. Today, that amount is roughly the equivalent of 3 million dollars. But these earrings were in addition to the spoils of war Gideon had already collected from the slain Midianites: crescent ornaments, pendants, purple robes, and even bands from the camels’ necks. And he used this gold to craft a monument of sorts to himself--a golden ephod or decorative vestment--which he had placed in his home city, Ophrah. While the text is not explicit about the reasons for making this ornament, the outcome was disastrous. “Gideon made an ephod, and placed it in his city, Ophrah, and all Israel played the harlot with it there, so that it became a snare to Gideon and his household” (8:27).

While there are many applications to be drawn out of the story of Gideon, we cannot help but see the warning to us all about the perils of misplaced affections. A desire for honor became the snare for all of Israel and perpetuated their propensity towards idolatry. Subtle and seemingly innocuous, our desires can quickly become entities we worship. It is a reminder to us all to ask: “What are our desires, and what do they tell us about what we love?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” Eventually, what dominates our innermost thoughts and imaginations comes forth as that to which we give our allegiance and worship. Indeed, long before Emerson, Jesus warned similarly that “where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Margaret Manning is associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the Belly of Darkness

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Even the smallest children in vacation bible school that year seemed to catch the irony deeply anchored in the story of Jonah. God calls one of his prophets to deliver a message to save the great city of Nineveh. The prophet, who is in the profession of pointing lives to the God who saves, runs in the opposite direction because he knows God would really save them! The special effects and the unforgettable plot--a great storm, a big fish, and a God everyone knows you can't run away from--make the narrative an easy theme for children's sermons and vacation bible school. Yet, child or adult, the text offers a mouthful. At the thought of Jonah in the fish, one little boy noted anxiously, "Jonah needs God to save him!" Indeed, Jonah introduces us to the God who hears, though our words are wrapped in self and seaweed, and the bars of sin and self-deception continue to imprison us. We need God to save us.

A text within the book of Jonah that is of particular interest to me is a text that in some ways seems not to fit in the story at all. Interrupting the style that quickly draws in its hearers, the text moves from narrative to poetry and back again to narrative. And yet the deliberate jaunt seems to provide a moment of significant commentary to the whole. The eight verses of poetry not only mark an abrupt shift in the tone of the text, but also in the attitude of its main character.

Spoken as a cry for deliverance, the poetic words of the prophet arise from the cold belly of the fish to the presence of merciful God. The scene is a stirring image reminiscent of David's wonder, "Where can I flee from your presence? ... If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there... If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me" (Psalm 139:7-10). By his own actions, Jonah had descended into the depths, moving from the land of life and light into a sea of darkness and dampness. Yet his words ascend to the God to whom salvation belongs, and Jonah is saved:

"I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me...

When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple" (Jonah 2:2-7).

Someone told me recently that we only seem to truly pray when we are in the midst of despair. When we have no other excuses to offer, no other comfort to hide behind, no more façades to uphold, we are most likely to bow in exhaustion and be real with God and ourselves. In our distress, we stand before God as we truly are--lives in need mercy. "For most of us," writes C.S. Lewis, "the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model."

Jonah's eloquent prayer for deliverance stands out in a book that is detailed with his egotistic mantras and glaring self-deceptions. In the midst of the mysterious darkness of the fish, he seems to understand the real deception that keeps him in the dark: "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs" (2:8). Jonah, if only momentarily, clings to a truth more secure than comfort: "Salvation comes from the LORD" (2:9).

In moments of despair and distress, might we see similarly. In times of trouble, may God remove the idols that block our view of Him and reveal his strength in our weakness, his heart in our transparency. At times the deliverance we need is that of deliverance from ourselves.

Sadly, Jonah's idols of self and comfort returned not long after the prayer was finished and his life was spewed back into normalcy. As he rages over the death of a plant and the saving of Nineveh, Jonah doesn’t want to see the God who saved him. The scene brings to mind Isaiah's description: "Surely the hand of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear, but...your sins have hidden his face from you" (59:1-2). Even so, the book ends on a note bidding us to see that God is always about the work of salvation. Whether in the lives of nations "who know not their right from their left" or in the lives of men and women blind with self and sin, God moves faithfully among us. Might we remember in distress and in safety, salvation comes from the LORD.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

No Greater Communion

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

There are some communities that tragically seem to miss something vital in their communing. A support group can be a place where a person can delve deeper into the behavior that isolates them; websites are reportedly linking strangers together who are, in turn, simultaneously committing suicide. Moreover, the sheer number of online confessionals reveals the need for a community where one can be real about plaguing guilt, failures, and offenses. Members clearly express a need for the fellow humanness of a flawed community, and at the same time a need to remain, in some ways, inhuman--unknown, nameless, faceless.

Brandon's is a name and a story over which to pause. The 21-year-old died in the privacy of a chat room full of people who watched by web-cam as he killed himself with drugs and alcohol. Their conversation was disquieting, left behind in a hauntingly silent script. Voices cheered him to pass out on screen. Brandon responded with his phone number. "Call if I look dead," he said. But even after he passed out, they spoke as if he was something less than real. "He's dead," said someone. "Happy trails," said another. "Should I call 911?" "No!" they agreed in unison.

After this tragedy, columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote in shock of Brandon's story and what seemed to be the telltale signs of yet another failed community: the virtual community. The very community, he reminded, that we were promised at "the dawn of the Internet Age, the one that would link all humankind in brotherhood, sisterhood, enlightenment."(1) Such connectedness clearly failed Brandon. Even if his friends would have stopped to call for help, they didn't know his real name.

Beneath the promises of our successfully linked world, a poignant undertow of despair is noticeably emerging. We are living in a lonely world, in a very needy world, and the need for true community and meaningful connectedness has never been more piercingly heard and severely felt. When the diaries of the famed atheist, Madeline Murray O'Hare were auctioned off several years ago, they found three times punctuated in her journals the words: "Will somebody somewhere please love me? Will somebody somewhere please love me?"

What heart is not stirred at those words? Our longing for meaningful connections is real, and it is a longing that runs deeper than any one area of our lives. We are looking for connections of the heart, soul, and mind.

The same teacher who said the greatest commandment on earth is to love God with all of our strength and our being, once held a child in front of him and said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me" (Matthew 18:2-5).

Showing us a child as a sign of the community of God’s kingdom, Jesus is saying something deliberate about the kind of community he is drawing together. Little children love readily with all of themselves. Their connections and unity are genuine, perhaps because the mind has not yet been deterred by suspicion, disappointment, or pride. As such, their hearts grasp something about communing we often do not. G.K. Chesterton, who said he learned more by watching children than any philosophy book, once observed that children have in their ownership the obscure idea of loyalty even to a thing. The child who has gone to bed without his toy does not only feel that he is sad without it. He also feels in some transcendental way that the toy is sad without him.

I believe Jesus urges us to see that those who will be like children, like men and women aware that the love we seek also seeks us, will find the kingdom of God. The very community we long for is governed by one who longs for us to be in it. If God is like the shepherd willing to leave the flock to go out searching for the one who has strayed, there is nowhere we can flee from his presence; there is never a time we won't belong. Indeed, there is no greater love, no greater connection, no greater communing.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Leonard Pitts, Jr., "Another link to connect us doesn't work," The Detroit Free Press, Feb. 12, 2003.

Collapsible Walls

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

At certain times of the year, an extremely ferocious wind from the mountain blows through the city of Bursa in Turkey. This wind, named Lodos by the locals, is so strong that if you were anything short of a 100 pounds, you would be blown off the street when it hits.

A few years ago, when Lodos was making one of its many visits, a grade school building collapsed and tragically killed six schoolchildren. Later, officials blamed the poor structure of the building's walls for the cause of the crash. The public claimed that had the walls been properly constructed according to safe building standards, the school would have been able to withstand the destructive blow of Lodos and the unfortunate incident would not have occurred.

In a separate incident, some musicians were tearing down parts of their house to build a music studio. Imagine their horror when they found newspaper stuffed between the bricks of the walls of the house! Apparently, the contractor appointed to build the house used paper to gap between bricks to save on costs and make more money from the project.

Such reports sound peculiarly like what Jesus warned in one of his parables. In Matthew 7:24–27, he tells of two builders--one wise and another foolish. The houses of both builders look sturdy in fine weather, but the test always comes with the storm. The one who built his foundation on the rock had his house still standing after the rain and flood, but the house of the foolish man came crashing down after the storm, as it was built on sand.

The original audience of this parable knew very well what Jesus was talking about, since theirs was a land known for its torrential storms. Through this familiar analogy, Jesus was warning his followers that only those who take heed of his teachings and live out what they had learned from him will withstand the storms of life and ultimately the final test on judgment day. Any shortcuts or shoddiness will eventually be revealed.

The devotion of those who pretend to have faith, those who simply pay lip service, those who have faith in faith instead of trust in Jesus, will be tested and proven powerless and unable to hold up under pressure. Even those who merely have an intellectual commitment to the teachings of Christ will find that their structure will fool no one when the storms of life come.

In Ezekiel 13:10–13 a similar warning is given to those who cover up the weak wall that they have built with whitewash. The Lord assures that the storm will come and the foundation of those whitewashed walls will be leveled along with the destruction of its builder.

Clearly we live at a time in history when the storm is beating endlessly against the foundation of our walls from all directions. Our belief in an absolute standard of morality is confronted by relativism; our conviction in the authority of scripture is challenged; our reverence in the person of Christ is mocked, and our attempt to live a simple lifestyle is constantly distracted by the lure of consumer advertising and its promise of a better life.

Yet, there are no two ways about it: if we are to be like the wise builder, then we must construct our foundation on the rock by practicing the righteousness we have learned.

As Thomas a Kempis writes in The Imitation of Christ, "To many the saying, 'Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,' seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.'" We will find that the cost demanded of us is no less than a radical submission to the exclusive lordship of Jesus. However, the reward comes when we find our house still standing after the final storm leaves and when the sun breaks through again.

I'Ching Thomas is associate director of training at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Singapore.

Slumber and Sleep

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It is commendable that the city that never sleeps is at least taking naps. MetroNaps, a New York company that was founded in 2003 and tested at Carnegie Mellon University, provides a chance for over-worked employees, shoppers, and travelers to put their busy schedules on hold. For 20 minutes and 14 dollars, the weary are offered a state-of-the-art sleep pod designed to maximize the invigorating effects of a brief rest. Appropriately, the gift of napping is also givable. "Nap Passes" can be purchased for stressed-out colleagues and bosses, friends or family.

The subject of busy lives and well-worn calendars is one that hits close to most homes. In fact, that busyness is the common denominator in so many of our lives can be seen in the marketing tactics of products from cell phones to portable breakfasts. Everything is meant to improve our demanding lives (or at least make the chains of busyness more comfortable).

I was intrigued once to discover an editorial offering a proposal to counter these chains that bind us to clocks, palm pilots, and inboxes, 24 hours a day. The suggestion, which the author admittedly referred to as radical, was to set aside a day, and in setting aside this day, to also set aside our electronics. Calling readers to take a day to refocus and reorder, he urged the world to give itself permission to take a full day off. "Maybe the ancients didn't pick the number seven out of a hat," he reasoned. "Perhaps they understood that human beings can only immerse themselves in commerce for six days at a stretch before losing touch with anything approaching a civic, social, or spiritual reality."(1)

Something about the seventh day was not meant to be forgotten. The book of Exodus recounts, "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day" (20:11). While each of the six days of God's labor was pronounced good, God chose to set apart one day out of the seven, pronouncing it holy. In the form of a commandment, God then asked us to keep it that way. It was to be a sign between God and humanity for generations to come, "so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy" (Exodus 31:13).

But after centuries of living with the command to rest, humanity struggled to see it as anything more than a command. In this, Jesus found opportunity to remind the crowds, "The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).

As I sit here daydreaming of sleep pods and power naps, I realize that we evidently need that reminder again and again. The seventh day is a gift, a nap pass--a gentle invitation, albeit a powerful sign between God and humanity. It is a day set apart from appointment books and pressing schedules to remind us that the most pressing aspect of our lives is that we are creatures made in the image of our Creator. Who we are is most authentically realized and most dynamically lived out when we are resting in the presence of God, sleeping like Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham and the care of a Father who guards us by day and night.(2)

Whether or not the notion of paying for a nap actually catches on, it is probably not reflective of the universal longing--and need--for napping. "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" said Jesus to a crowd in Galilee. Yet if we slow down long enough to consider it, we might realize that Christ is also talking to us. We might remember that rest is not only a luxury, but that it is something he knows we need. We might remember that the labor of God is far more significant than our own. We might remember--and rejoice--that the God who watches over us neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Douglas Rushkoff, “An Argument in Favor of a Day Off,” The New York Times, December 1999.
(2) See Luke 16:20, Psalm 121
(3) Matthew 11:28

Remember My Name

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

There is something about knowing and calling a person by name that gives dignity and worth to that individual. To be able to look someone in the eye and say his or her name communicates knowledge, oftentimes warmth, and a sense of value--I care enough to know your name.

Several years ago, my husband and I worked among the nameless homeless in Boston. Like so many other homeless individuals all around our country, they were merely faces in a crowd, a nuisance to be avoided, or simply another pan-handler asking for money. One gentleman in particular, sprawled against a building in a self-induced alcohol coma became a fixture for me and the other passers-by in Boston’s financial district. He was stepped over and generally regarded as simply another facet of the building against which his stupefied body slumbered. He had no name or value to me, or to anyone who daily passed him by on those cold streets; in fact, at times he seemed barely human.

That is, until we began to be involved in this ministry that made a point out of calling people by name. As we participated in this ministry to the nameless among us, we learned their names--Bobby, Jim, Fred, John, Daniel, and Carl. We ate meals with them, and talked with them. We listened to them and shared prayer with them. We picked them off of the streets, and brought them into a place of warmth and solace. Soon, we couldn’t walk the streets of Boston without seeing these faces as persons we knew by name, the same faces who formerly were without names. Now I saw Bobby, and Jim, Fred, and John--and I called them by name; they were known to me, and they had value.

It seems ironic to me, in light of this experience, that we know the names of Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Estee Lauder, Sam Walton, Michael Dell, Paul Allen, and Ted Turner. Individuals that we will never know personally become synonymous with power, success, prestige and renown. As a result, they are known and valued by most in our society simply because they make the Forbes Magazine Billionaire list year after year.

In the Kingdom of God, we aren’t known because of either money or power, though both can be used for kingdom purposes. While we often recognize the names of those who are rich and powerful in our society, Jesus turns our society’s values on their head. He tells us the name of Lazarus, the poor man who lay at the gate of the rich man, who remains the nameless one in this parable.(1) In this story, the rich man is not known to God despite all his worldly renown and power. Instead, Lazarus is known and received by God into Abraham’s bosom.

In our culture, our worth is largely determined in monetary measures, and by our buying power. Money and power are the things that our society teaches us to value, and we name the names of those who attain high levels of both. But to experience the kingdom Jesus reveals we need not have money or power. Rather, it is in our willingness to use both money and power to serve others that demonstrates our citizenship in God’s kingdom and our identity as Christ’s followers. And as we serve one another with the gifts we’ve been given, we come to know those who might otherwise remain nameless. Moreover, as we serve, nameless though we may be by our world around us, we are known to God, and through offering our lives in service, we remember the name of the one who “came not to be served, but to serve and to offer his life as a ransom.”(2)

Margaret Manning is associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Luke 16:20ff
(2) Mark 10:45

"Something Understood"

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In an essay titled "Meditation in a Toolshed," C.S. Lewis describes a scene from within a darkened shed. The sun was brilliantly shining outside, yet from the inside only a small sunbeam could be seen through a crack at the top of the door. Everything was pitch-black except for the prominent beam of light, by which he could see flecks of dust floating about. Writes Lewis:

I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving in the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.

Each time I come to the gospel accounts of the woman with the alabaster jar, I notice something similar. "Do you see this woman?" Jesus asks, as if he is speaking as much to me as the guests around the table. With a jar of costly perfume, she had anointed the feet of Christ with fragrance and tears. She then endured the criticism of those around her because she alone saw the one in front of them. While the dinner crowd was sitting in the dark, the woman was peering at the Light. What she saw invoked tears of recognition, sacrifice, and much love. Gazing along the beam and at the beam are quite different ways of seeing.

The late seventeenth century poet George Herbert once described prayer as "the soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage." At those words I picture the woman with her broken alabaster jar, wiping the dusty, fragrant feet of Christ with her hair. Pouring out the expensive nard, she seemed to pour out her soul. Fittingly, Herbert concludes his grand description of prayer as "something understood."

The woman with the alabaster jar not only saw the Christ when others did not, Christ saw her when others could not see past her reputation. "Do you see this woman?" Jesus asked while the others were questioning her actions. "I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much" (Luke 7:44-47). Her soul's cry was heard; she herself was understood.

As we look to Christ and his startling sacrifice, might we find ourselves peering at the face of glory himself, seeing the one who sees us.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Lost and Found

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A nurse named Melanie was on her way to work when something in the trash bin caught her eye. She was immediately taken with the possibilities in the discarded treasure. It was a cello, slightly cracked in several places, but nonetheless a discard of great character, a piece quite charming to the eye. Her boyfriend, who is a cabinetmaker, also saw the cello's potential. Together they thought it could be turned into a beautifully distinctive CD holder.

At first glimpse, this story seems to evoke a mantra commonly upon artist's and antique-hunter's minds alike: "One person's trash is another person's treasure." With a mother as an antique dealer, I have an endless bank of similar stories. Yet this one was deemed newsworthy and is thus worth retelling.

The discarded cello was indeed old and it in fact had really been abandoned, though authorities are not sure why or how it ended up in the trash that day. But a most shocking revelation to the nurse (and possibly to the thief as well) was the fact that it was not merely an old cello. It is a one of only 60 like it in the world, made by master craftsman Antonio Stradivari in 1684. The 320-year-old masterpiece, valued at 3.5 million dollars, was stolen from a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra just weeks before it sat rescued in Melanie's apartment with dreams of becoming a CD holder.

In the music world, "Stradivarius" is an untouchable description. Neither scientist nor musician understand the difference between the voice of a Stradivarius versus the voice of modern violins and cellos, but the distinction is real--and costly. They are the most sought after musical instruments in the world--works of art in their own right--coveted by collectors and players alike. To be in the presence of a Stradivarius is to be in the presence of something great--whether it is recognized or not.

What I find so compelling about this story is that Melanie knew for sure that she had found a treasure (and there are countless people overwhelmed with thanksgiving that she felt this way). She saved a magnum opus from landing in a truck of garbage because she saw the potential in a piece of trash. But she had no idea how true her thought actually was, until reports of the missing cello transfigured the precious masterwork before her eyes.

Hearing this story, I wondered if our relationships with God do not hint at something similar. Like the disciples on the mount who fell on their faces as Jesus became "like the sun" and "as white as light," it seems God brings us again to that place where we are awed by his glory, his goodness or mercy--his fearful existence. And like the disciples, like Job and Isaiah, we are reminded that we are in the presence of the Father in all his glory. Whether we are aware of it or not He is always near, his glory declared day after day, the work of his hands proclaimed night after night.

A poem penned by Augustine of Hippo utters the lament of a soul who has realized too late that God is there, while he himself was not aware of it. Writes Augustine, "Slow was I, Lord, too slow in loving you. To you, earliest and latest beauty, I was slow in love. You were waiting within me while I went outside me, looking for you there, misshaping myself as I flung myself upon the shapely things you made. You were with me all the while I was not with you, kept from you by things that could not be except by being in you. You were calling to me, shouting, drumming on deaf ears. You thundered and lightninged, piercing my blindness.(1) His words remind us of all that we miss when we fail to taste and see the goodness of God. There is surely rejoicing in being found, but lament in not seeing sooner how near God was all along.

Like Melanie who saw beauty but did not see the splendor of all she was holding, like the thief who held a masterpiece but saw nothing worth holding on to, we are often unaware of how near we are to God Himself. God’s kingdom is like "treasure hidden in a field," taught Jesus, "like a merchant looking for fine pearls" (Matthew 13:44-45). In finding the pearl of great value might we recognize it. In finding the God who is there, might we fall on our faces treasuring our find, thankful that we ourselves have been found.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Garry Wills, (New York: Penguin, 2006), 234.