Trespasses and Debts
The other day we were at our kitchen table and I asked who wanted to pray before breakfast on Sabbath. My son, Keating, said, “I will”. He then launched into The Lord’s Prayer. The whole thing…
“Our Father…Thy Kingdom come, they will be done…Forgive us our trespassesas we forgive those who trespass against us…”
He ended and we all said, “Amen.”
He then started again…
“Our Father…Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done…Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…”
My son, prayed The Lord’s Prayer twice, so that he could include two of the predominant ways people say that prayer in the Christian tradition. How ecumenical and welcoming he is.
I thought this was funny…because you know…it was just our family…and as far as I know, we all pray it the same in our house…but there was an awareness of others…just in case. A silly, but also clear understanding that not everyone sees things the same…even those who call themselves Christians.
As followers of Jesus, we can sometimes get pretty divisive with each other, we can attack one another, and honestly miss really wonderful people or things because we fixate on who is on “our team” and who is on “the other team”. Who is in and who is out.
If you were with us on Sunday, we talked about Loving our Neighbor. I won’t repeat it all here, but you can listen to it on our podcast, here on Apple or Spotify or wherever else you may stream.
Sermon Title – Context. Neighbor.
We looked at where that famous verse Jesus teaches comes from in Leviticus and how the scriptures leading up to that verse, call for a very sacrificial, generous, and honestly counter way to the way we often live in the global west and as Christians.
God asks the Hebrew people to live for the sake of others while they are wanderers.
This is the story of the Good Samaritan.
If you aren’t familiar, this story is in the gospel of Luke. There is a conversation about how to inherit eternal life, and the teaching on loving God and Loving Neighbor are top priority…then, the question is asked,
“okay then, who is my neighbor?”
Jesus then tells a story about a person on a dangerous 17 mile journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. The person is robbed and left for dead.
It says a priest and a Levite pass by and see this person, and what do they do?
They cross to the other side of the road.
Why would they do that?
Well, they are both workers in the temple…and according to the Levitical law, if they touch a dead body, that would make them unclean for a period of time…which means they can’t do their job. So there seems to be a legitimate reason they don’t go and help…except, Jesus says they were going down that road. Jerusalem is always described as going up. So you go up to Jerusalem. It doesn’t matter what direction you are coming from you are going up to Jerusalem because the elevation is higher there. So for Jesus to tell the story that these men were going down, they were leaving Jerusalem from fulfilling their temple duties. They certainly could have stopped to help this person…but instead, they cross to the other side.
The original hearers of this would expect that since two fancy religious elites passed by, the next person who will stop and help is probably a good natured, humble common Israelite…or that is what they expect…
But as you know, it is the Samaritan who stops and helps.
We lose the power of this, because we know this story, but Samaritans were trash in the eyes of the people of Jesus’ day. Samaritans are a sort of mixed ethnicity. They were part Hebrew and part gentile or Assyrians. About 700 years before Jesus, Assyrians captured the northern Kingdom of Israel and then intermarried with the Hebrew people. With this combining of cultures, they were influenced by their own traditions, worship, and culture, so they were not accepted among Hebrew people. They were pagans in the eyes of the Israelites. They were “the others”, they were “the enemy”, they were “those people” not only because of ritual (im)purity, but also because of racial and national prejudice.
This “enemy” came to where the priest and Levite avoided.
When Jesus was asked, about loving God and loving neighbor, he tells a story to explain the neighbor, by giving an example of a foreigner who loved an Israelite. That’s what it looks like to love God, it is to love our enemies.
That story ends with Jesus asking,
“who lived out the neighborly thing?”
You get the idea that the person talking with Jesus can’t even say the word “Samaritan”…so he says,
”the one who showed mercy”…
Then Jesus says;
“you go and do likewise.”
The word that we translate as “go” here, can also be translated as “die”. So Jesus is essentially saying,
“You, die to self, die to the prejudice, selfishness, self-centered nature, die to the judgmental, bare minimum way of loving, and do as this pagan foreigner did. Want to know how to experience eternal life, how to love God and love neighbor? Start now, by actively laying down your life and loving…just like your enemy did.”
You don’t have to agree with your neighbor or condone their actions or behavior or perspectives. You don’t have to agree on HOA rules or politics or about college football. No matter if they are your friend or your enemy, your neighbor is everyone and we are called to love them as the Samaritan did. The enemy, the foreigner, the person on the other side, that person who everyone tells me to despise or dislike, according to both the Old and New Testament, that person is actually my neighbor, created in the image of God. And I am supposed to treat them like family, as one of us, as I would want to be treated, because I am also created in the image of God.
I shared this G.K. Chesterton quote yesterday, but it is too good not to share again,
“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”
We will have plenty of opportunities today, this month, and in the coming 6 weeks to be fiercely loving towards people we disagree with. There are plenty of commercials and signs and rhetoric that encourage division, hate, and anger. As followers of Jesus, we must live emotionally differentiated from the ways of this world. That doesn’t mean we don’t care or we don’t get involved. It means we elevate, we lift up, we love. If Jesus thinks the greatest commandment is to love God with everything we have and love our neighbor and those two are intertwined…can we live that way? Will we be kind, generous, sacrificial, and loving?
I’ve been reading the book, The Exodus You Almost Passed Over by the brilliant Rabbi David Fohrman. In the book he explains how the Hebrew people understood the Exodus and how they were chosen to be God’s child. The Hebrew word for that is called the “bechor”. It is the child that takes on the responsibility for the family. They get the blessing, but also have to carry out the ways of the family. Then this morning, the day after I taught yesterday on Exodus 19:6 and how Israel was called to be a Kingdom of Priests and Holy nation and the responsibility to live as children of God and love our neighbor, I picked up the book and read this passage…
“One thing stands out about being a “priest” or a bechor: your life is essentially selfless; your mission is one great act of service. The minute it starts becoming about you-I have this special relationship with the Parent, and that makes me the greatest thing since sliced bread-that’s when you know you’ve failed. A good parent, heavenly or earthly, loves all his children, and a bechor is meant to serve the purposes of that love, helping parents and children connect more effectively. A bechor who ignores the existence of those other children, basking in his own perceived exclusive relationship with the Parent-subverts his mission and becomes a failure. The mission of Israel only makes sense because God is intensely interested in a relationship with all humanity, and it is up to Israel never to betray its mission by losing sight of that.”
As we talked about yesterday, as followers of Jesus, we are welcomed into that same family, that responsibility has been passed to us.
To be selfless, to love, to help, to serve, so that the world may know our God and King.
Blessed by God to be a blessing to the world.
Can we love our neighbor, even though they are foolish and quite frustrating and they seem to only care about themselves because they see things differently?
Yes, we must.
Because Jesus loves us, even though we are foolish and quite frustrating and only care about ourselves because we see things differently than Jesus.
It is because Jesus loves God and loves neighbor that you and I are welcomed in.
Can we do the same?
Let us follow in the footsteps of Jesus to abide in him, be changed by him, to embody his ways for the glory of God and the good of others.
So that when people catch a glimpse of us, the way we live, speak, act, and love, they catch a glimpse of our incredible God and God’s love.
Forgive us our debts…and our trespasses as we forgive our debtors…and those who trespass against us.
I hope you will join us as we work to love God and love our neighbor as Christ did and taught us to live. Lots of great stuff coming up. Check out details below.
- We have a noon prayer hour every Tuesday at noon. We partner with our friends at 30A Prays for a guided prayer time. Come and go as you need. It’s quiet, it’s still, it’s guided, it’s a great time to pause everything else to fix our eyes on Jesus.
- Bible studies are in full swing. Our Men’s Study on Wednesday meets from 8am-9am. We’ll be in Exodus 8 and 9 this week. The Women’s Study on Wednesday meets 9:30am-10:30/11am.
- Our young adult/20’s and 30’s group meets on Thursday mornings 8am-9:15am. They are also studying Exodus. This week, we’ll be in Exodus 18.
- We are excited to share we have a new addition to our sermon podcast called “Chapel Study Notes”. If you haven’t check it out yet, it is a Bible Study recap led by me and Sarah team teaching what we covered in the previous week’s Wednesday Bible Study. The newest episode is posted early each week. You can access it on our normal podcast channel, The Chapel at Seaside Podcast.
- This Sunday, October 6th we will share in communion at 9am, followed by coffee and pastries between services. Our communion table is open to everyone and I invite any who desire to share in this beautiful and ancient sacred time, will join us, visit with others, and stick around for service at 10am.
- This Sunday, October 6th from 5-7pm we have our Chapel Beach Bonfire. For more info and to register, please follow this link.
- We have secured parking on Sunday morning with Seaside. If you haven’t gotten that information yet, will you please let us know and we’ll send you the passes. Email us at [email protected] or [email protected].
- If you are out of town, under the weather, or just need to worship from home, you can watch our live-stream on our website, thechapelatseaside.com, on our Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheChapelAtSeaside and our Vimeo page, Vimeo.com/thechapelatseaside.
Other upcoming things.
- Sunday, October 6th – Communion at 9am at The Chapel, followed by coffee and pastries. Worship like normal at 10am.
- Sunday, October 6th – Beach Bonfire in Seaside 5-7pm at Seaside Beach. Click here for the information and to register.
- Sunday, October 20th – Chapel Lunch following worship.
- Sunday, November 3rd – Communion at 9am at The Chapel, followed by coffee and pastries. Worship like normal at 10am.
- Sunday, November 17th – Night of Worship led by Daniel Pratt and friends.
Let us know if you have any questions and we look forward to seeing you this week as we strive to love God with everything we have and love our neighbor as ourselves.
Blessings.
Andrew