Story Lines

2 Cor. 5:16- 20

video link: https://www.facebook.com/LakeCityEvangelicalPresbyterianChurch/posts/3937418642966956

Happy Father’s Day! As a father myself, I can tell you it does my heart good when I see my children getting along well with each other. I am also saddened when my kids don’t get along well. I’m thinking about this because God our heavenly Father is presently watching his children on earth having a really difficult time. 

So, today, I feel the need to speak about the social stresses and issues we are dealing with in our culture today. It must break our Father’s heart to see our land in this condition. For weeks now it may seem that I have been avoiding any discussion of current issues. There have been lots of stories in the news. But I have been digging into the Bible and focused on what it says about life in Christ. That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring current issues.

I believe that the power of the Gospel is still real and can have a profound and positive impact on our culture if we believe it and live in that power. I also believe that our nation, our whole world, needs a revival of the Church, and prayer most of all, and that these things, praying for the land, repenting of generational sins, and a strong and healthy church are the only sources of hope for the world to become the way we wish the world would be. But even the Church is divided right now, you know all those denominations, combined with liberals and conservatives who have a hard time talking together. A man named Will Ford said, “It will take a united church to heal a divided nation.”

So, I’m speaking today on the ministry of reconciliation. Now I know that the main focus of the text we have read is being reconciled to God through the forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus. But I believe there is more to this ministry of reconciliation than just announcing the gospel. I agree with Paul that we preach Christ and him crucified. And I know that as a missionary Paul did nothing but travel and preach Christ.

But we can’t be all talk and no action. Even Paul wasn’t. He cared about the people he spoke to and prayed for them. We know that some were healed of sickness because of Paul’s ministry of compassion that accompanied his message. We are ambassadors for Christ. That means we represent His Kingdom and act in the interest of that Kingdom, to show God’s love to the world in every way that we possibly can because that drives out the hate that satan uses to keep his captives in the dark about the hope we have in Christ. Today’s missionaries preach Christ and do all kinds of benevolent work to bless the communities in which they preach.

To reconcile is to set things right. When you reconcile a bank account you work to make the banks numbers agree with your own records of income and expenses. And if you’ve ever tried to reconcile your bank account with pencil and paper you know how frustrating that can be. I usually just end up believing the bank is right. Reconcile also means to restore friendly relations between people, to make things harmonious or peaceful, and to settle a disagreement. We can act on those principles and do much to correct injustices and racial tensions by loving our neighbors with that otherish love I like to talk about.

You may say, but pastor, this is a small town, everything is fine, and the people are great. We don’t have those big city problems so why are you talking to us about this? Because, you never know what impact your small contribution might make to the wider world. There is a ripple effect. Your kids and grandkids know you, and you never know where they might end up or what good they might be doing in the big cities because of your influence and example.

Also, there’s a Proverb that reads, “Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: A servant who becomes king, a fool who is full of food, an unloved woman who is married, and a maidservant who displaces her mistress.” Proverbs 30:21-23

In that list of things the world cannot endure, they are simply human relationships. Servants of kings may be important actors on the stages of life. We can understand how that’s a major influence on world order. But how can a fool full of food, an unloved woman, and a maidservant mistress be such a big deal to God and the world? These relationships have an impact on the basic building blocks of society.

It also means that being an active part of the solution does not require you to be a major player who makes the news. There is hope for all of us in this. If you really want to be faithful and brave to act as part of the solution and play an important role in the ministry of reconciliation, start at home and just be decent human being, who loves and lives well, with the wisdom that comes from God! That’s what sets things right around you and brings order to your home and family, along with joy and peace. And never forget to give thanks for the gospel of hope by which our sins are forgiven as we stumble along to find our way.

The question most central to solving the world’s problems is “What’s really wrong with the world?” It’s a tricky question, because there are a lot of things wrong with the world. But these all turn out to be symptoms of a deeper core problem. The question is, what is the core problem that needs to be addressed in the world, the root cause of evil and human suffering, and what solution can be offered to fix it?

For example, we should want to see justice flourish and racism of all kinds come to an end, especially in light of our nation’s history and evidence that our African American neighbors have not been treated equally before the law. But can justice flourish? What could possibly eradicate all signs of racism, or any other social ill such as greedy big businesses, exploitation of anyone, or the vitriolic divisiveness of our current political system?

Theorists analyzing the core problem from a worldly perspective claim there is systemic racism and injustice, that every person on the planet is part of a world economic system in which each person is either being oppressed by more powerful people or is in the powerful group, oppressing the weaker ones, or at least benefiting from that oppression. They claim that whites oppress blacks, but not the other way around. The rich oppress the poor in ways that the poor cannot withstand or fight off. Oh, and men oppress women, too.

The solution, under this theory, is for the oppressors to apologize and hand over the power to their former victims. It is important and very good when oppressors repent and apologize. That would be a sign of the power of the gospel at work in them. But the power of the gospel must be at work in the oppressed too, to forgive. Otherwise this solution doesn’t really balance power or create a fair and equitable society. It only allows the formerly oppressed to become the new oppressors.

Students of the Bible, who hold a biblical world view, know that the core problem goes much deeper than outward actions that restore order on the surface. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It doesn’t matter who’s holding the power, there will be oppression and exploitation by whoever holds power. That’s why Cain killed Abel.

Unless the powerful one is reconciled with God and determined to live by Godly wisdom and the greatest commandment, to love one’s neighbor as oneself, corruption and exploitation of power will result. Unless the weak one is reconciled with God and determined to live by Godly wisdom and the greatest commandment, to love one’s neighbor as oneself, he won’t be strengthened by hope in God in order to forgive, and experience healing from the wounds of injustice.

Therefore, protest marches, used to complain about injustice verbally, can draw attention to a problem and that may be necessary. But that doesn’t automatically shift the balancer of power. It often doesn’t even have much impact on garnering support for a cause. The only people attending your protest are usually the ones who already agree with you. And an angry protest doesn’t help. Martin Luther King Jr., famously said, “Dark cannot drive our dark. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”

So, after the protest, and even if you’ve never protested anything, what really matters is how you live each day. After the protest event, persons concerned to solve the problem need to be part of the solution the next day and the next. For a simple example, one of my friends said, “I was involved in a public protest against food inequity. But I did not do that by standing on a platform and shouting about how unfair it is. No, I did my protesting of that injustice by driving the bus that delivered packages of food to a couple dozen families.”

I was so glad he said that, because it pointed out that our Good Neighbor Food Pantry is the same kind of protest against injustice by giving away food. And that is an example of love driving out hate. It’s also an example of the ministry of reconciliation that is ours through Christ. God has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

Here’s another example. It’s an amazing story of reconciliation through the power of the gospel. And it starts out small. 2 men have different dreams that lead them to the same place. One accepted an invitation to a prayer meeting to be a main speaker and tell his story of his ancestors who regularly prayed to be set free from slavery. The memory of those prayers comes with a large iron pot that has been passed down through the family. The significance of that pot is not just that it was used for washing clothes and cooking food, but that it was also used for praying.

You see, there really were Christian slaves! They prayed for freedom. And they prayed for their masters to repent and become more loving and kind, maybe even set them free. But the masters hated that. The slaves were often punished for holding prayer meetings. But they learned that praying into the open pot would muffle their voices, so they could not be heard outside the barn. They prayed. They obeyed God rather than men. Will Ford, who owned the pot his ancestors bequeathed to him, would take it with him to prayer meetings where he spoke about, and prayed for, racial reconciliation. That’s why he was at the prayer meeting in 2005, in Washington DC, also attended by the other man who was there because of a dream, Matthew Lockett.

As will Ford told his story, he mentioned that some of his slave ancestors were named Locket. That intrigued Matthew Lockett. So, the two met, as Matt wanted to talk to Ford about his testimony. They wrote it off as a mere coincidence, but they became friends in the cause to pray for and work for racial reconciliation. After ten years of deepening friendship, research has revealed more details.

Matthew Lockett’s ancestors had owned Will Ford’s slave ancestors. The iron pot was used by the slaves praying in the Lockett family barn, as they prayed for their own freedom and for the redemption of the Lockett’s. It also turns out that the last battle of the Civil war was fought on the property of the Lockett family farm!

As the story unfolded for Will and Matt, Will had to work through issues of forgiving the people who had oppressed his family, and now he had a new layer, a member of that family was his own close friend! Matt, for his part was humbled by the sad fact that his ancestors had been guilty of such evil. But some comfort came in the additional discovery that some of his other ancestors were abolitionists, who also prayed for freedom for slaves and repentance of slave holders. The power of the gospel worked to resolve and heal.

There are two story lines in Lockett’s family, slave holders, and abolitionists. Matthew Lockett now continues to participate in the abolitionist movement, seeking now not the abolition of slavery per se, but the abolition of the last traces of racism that still plague our nation. Will and Matt continue to work closely together in that prayerful ministry. In the spot where Will and Matt first met, Martin Luther King Jr. had given his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in which he said that he was dreaming of the day that the sons of slaves would pray with the sons of slave holders. Now Will and Matt know that dream came true on the day they met in that spot in 2005.

So, every one of us is living out a story line founded upon the story lines of our ancestors. We can’t change what happened before. But we each get to choose which line to live out today. Is it going to be hurt or healing? Division or reconciliation? What story line do you want to be a part of? God is the God of reconciliation. He wants us to proclaim the gospel and work to make things right.

God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

We have the awesome prospect before us of making our eternal father very happy. And at the same time, we remain very grateful for His amazing grace and love that preserves us in His family.