Manna and spiritual milk

Manna was never meant to be a long term food for the people of Israel, they weren't supposed to spend forty years subsisting on that stuff. Can you imagine though how much 2 liters of it per person for the entire nation would have been, each and every day (except the Sabbath) for that length of time? They were supposed to have moved beyond manna in a relatively short time but their disobedience concerning entering the land made it necessary to live on manna for all those years, it is no wonder we don't read more stories of complaints.

Both Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 and the writer of Hebrews in the 5th chapter of that epistle speak about their inability to move their people beyond spiritual milk even though they should have matured. It is never easy to grow up when we find a comfort level that works for us.

We become like spiritual pandas, whose digestives systems are much like our own but who limit themselves to only bamboo in spite of the reality that it has little or no nutritional value so they are forced to consume large quantities of it. Rather than take the risk of growth, entering the promised land, whatever that looks like in our lives, we choose to be satisfied with something less. They ate manna for forty years and never gave it a proper name, it simply means what is it? Stuck between the memories of the bounty of Egypt (?) and the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey, it was easier to eat manna than go forward. Comfort zones can be anywhere we don't have to stretch our faith.

If your brother sins against you...

We tend to get forgiveness wrong in the church. I had someone once tell me that with respect to amazing things someone in the church had done to me that I needed to lead the way for the congregation and turn the other cheek. What really needed to happen was the person needed to be confronted as even my dialogue partner agreed that the behavior was far out of line. Matthew 18 tells us how we are to deal with interpersonal sin among Christians. The Matthew 5 passage about turning the other cheek begins with "Do not resist an evil person."

The body of Christ is actually supposed to confront sin in its midst in order that we all grow up into the image of Christ. If we turn the other cheek when another Christian sins against us we have actually said to them that they aren't a brother or sister but an evil person. In my case it would have required the person stepping down as a leader in the church if I were to turn the other cheek having decided they were an evil person rather than a Christian.

Too often we confuse Christianity as being nice to one another rather than being honest with one another and holding one another accountable for who we are and whose we are. Generally, the world knows this hypocrisy and readily notes it as why they have shunned the church. If we would change that perception, we need to begin by dealing with sin among Christians in a Biblical manner.

Citizens or Children

We tend to think of forgiveness from God in the same sense as a courtroom, that God is a legal entity, like a municipality, that has set up laws in order to maintain the public peace and I think that is where we have lost the battle. When we begin to think in those terms, we lose the real sense of the matter. We lose the understanding of relationship that underlies the situation, we de-personalize the matter of sin.

My relationship with the state isn't horribly compromised by driving over the speed limit unless I get caught and then I pay a fine and we are at peace with one another except I now have points on my driver's license which means I can do fewer things wrong without losing the privilege of driving a car. If I don't get caught, I don't carry a load of guilt around for having exceeded the speed limit. I haven't compromised my relationship with the state of North Carolina in any way. I certainly feel no need to confess that transgression.

There is an enormous difference between being a citizen and a child. When we pray the Lord's Prayer we begin by stating the relationship, "Our Father..." When we de-personalize the law, we diminish both the relationship and our transgressions. David understood that his sins of murder and adultery were primarily sins against God and this was the grief that drove him in Psalm 51. We aren't simply citizens, we are children of a heavenly Father. Relationship is primary.

Forgiveness starter

Monday morning is always a time of second-guessing for me, reviewing my sermon ad nauseum and thinking about the things I should have said. Today is no exception.

I preached on forgiveness and yet didn't begin at the beginning in some ways. Where forgiveness and reconciliation have to begin is at the place where those things are actually desired outcomes. We have to begin by wanting to forgive and wanting forgiveness, if those attitudes aren't present then it makes no difference if the protocols are followed. The rabbis recognized this and thus set the standard that if someone confessed their sin against another three times and were rebuffed in their efforts to reconcile they were absolved of the need to continue to seek forgiveness.

Sometimes we aren't ready to take that step of forgiveness if the hurt is too deep, it takes time to come to a place of desiring to forgive the sin. We all likely have experience of such wounding, either those we have wounded or wounds we have received that took time to get to a place where forgiveness and reconciliation is possible. That experience makes all the more amazing Jesus' appeal from the cross after all He had suffered and was in the midst of suffering. How could He ask the Father to forgive in the midst of His pain? Before we decide it is out of our reach and chalk it up to Jesus' divine nature, listen to Stephen as he was being stoned, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."