In the movie “Men in Black 3” there is
a character (Griffin) that sees the world in terms of all the possible choices
people have made and the resulting consequences. He sees everything the way it
has happened and the way it could have turned out if someone made another
choice. If I lived like him I would go crazy. I mean think about it, he sees
all the options and all implications of all the options. It’s mind boggling
really. But there is this fun scene in the movie when he takes them to see the
Miracle Mets winning the World Series. He shows them the moment that causes
them to win. He shows them that the ball has a tiny little defect in it because
the woman who sewed had some crisis in her life and that defect affected the
game. One of the key players would not have played baseball if it were not for
the fact that when his dad went to the store to buy him a football for a gift,
they were out of footballs, so dad bought him a baseball mitt instead. (if you don’t mind Greek subtitles and You
Tube doesn’t pull it you can see the scene here - http://youtu.be/8uw57I5SD8s)
We make choices and they all have
consequences, some good, some bad, some neutral. We sometimes think about this
in our family as we are still paying off Kurt’s student loan bills for law school
now that he is almost 20 years out of law school. But, you see, if he had not
gone to Case Western for Law School, then he might not have gotten into Workers
Comp law, and he might not have gotten a job in Toledo and I never would have
met him, and Jamie & Becca would not exist, and well you get the idea.
Every month, I find a way to give thanks for that decision.
Let’s turn, for a moment to science.
Just for fun. Because we tend to think of consequences as bad, but they are not
all bad. And I’m scared to as there are so many science teachers in here right
now. For example, consider Sir Isaac
Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is opposite and equal
reaction. So, if I push on a wall, the wall pushes back. My hand does
not go through the wall. Or to use one of Newton’s examples: If a
horse draws a stone tied to a rope, the horse (it could be said) will be equally
drawn back towards the stone. Why do I use such mundane examples? To be clear
that all actions have consequences.
Now let’s look at some examples that begin to
have some negative consequences. If my child, or if an adult is careless and
leaves a dish too close to the edge of a kitchen counter, and a plate falls to
the ground. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. The plate
hits the floor and breaks. There are consequences to the actions of being
careless with a plate, small consequences. If that same child (or adult) puts
my laptop on the edge of my desk and dog walks by and knocks it off onto the
floor, and it breaks, the consequences are much more painful to my bank account
(thankfully not a real story) But still, these are not intentional. There
are accidental. Careless, but accidental.
When we talk about consequences in
terms of moral choices, the implications begin to have more serious. Today’s scripture
(Galatians 6:7-8 from The Message for
those following along at home) gives us a phrase you may have heard from your
mother or grandmother as a warning when you were growing up: “You reap what you
sow.” That use of the word “sow” is so old fashioned that the spell check in
Microsoft word thought it was wrong. The
Merriam Webster dictionary gives two definitions for sow as a verb. 1) to plant
a seed for growth, especially by scattering. 2) to set something in motion, to
begin an enterprise.
Both of those definitions seem to fit
when we think about sowing as a metaphor for consequences. When you plant one
type of behavior, it is going to result in the same type of behavior. Or when
you set in motion one type of action, such as a lie, it is going to begin an
enterprise of lying, isn’t it? Don’t you find that once you lie, you have to
keep lying? I think we’ve all been there.
The scripture in Galatians says simply,
that whatever you plant, you will harvest. If you plant selfishness and ignore
the needs of other people and ignore God, you will harvest weeds. That is
pretty clear. On the other hand, if you plant what God wants and let God’s
Sprit work in your life, then you will have a harvest of real life, a life that
is eternal.
So, we can choose to ignore God and
have a life of weeds, or we can choose to plant God’s way and have a full life. Either way, there are consequences to our
choices.
So let’s take this idea that actions have
consequences a bit further. A young man lies when he is 15. He goes on a date
with one girl and tells her she is the only one for him. The next night he goes
out with another girl and tells her the same thing. No let’s be honest, girls can do the same
thing. We see such a scene on a TV show and
laugh. Would that we should be so lucky to have two people to date when we are
15!
Fast forward to age 30. The man has two partners.
One is his wife, the other a male prostitute. He contracts AIDS from the
prostitute and gives it to his wife and their unborn child. The behaviors that
we brushed off as adolescent fun at age 15 have deadly consequences at age 30.
Some actions in life have immediate and
severe consequences. They can slowly chip away at our life blood. One by one,
we make tiny decisions that move us away from God’s desire for our lives, and
we die a slow death.
Think about it. Jesus says: When we plant a life of God’s
spirit, letting God do the work, we have a full life, and a life eternal. But
when we are selfish and ignore God and God’s ways and God’s desires for us,
then we wind up living in a bed of weeds.
We’ve all been there at one time or another.
Every day, we make choices, and those choices
have consequences, slowly and steadily move us along God’s path and God’s
desire for our lives. Others slowly and deceptively pull us away from God and
away from God’s desire for us. Before we know it, we are lost from God and we
wonder, how did this happen? If we look back, we see the choices we made, one
by one that took us away. At the time,
we didn’t realize how far they were taking us away from God.
Thankfully, there is hope for us. You see, as
followers of Jesus we do have this gift. We have grace. Grace is the gift that
God gives us that says: God’s love is bigger than any of our mistakes. It
means, as my friend Paul Nixon writes, “there is life beyond mistakes” (Mother Tongue, p. 204, unpublished
manuscript, copyrighted material). Grace does not mean the
consequences are “erased.” “God takes the broken pieces of our lives and begins
gluing things back together again- but some opportunities are lost. Some
consequences remain forever” (ibid).
The Bible is a book filled with stories
of God’s people, like us. It is a book of stories of decisions and
consequences. Some of them are good choices with good consequences and some of
them bad. Some of them are not so clear. Sometimes when we make a choice we are
not so sure now things will turn out, are we? Other times, we are pretty sure
which choice God would have us make, but we do our mental gymnastics in order
to justify why we are going to make the other choice anyway, because it is the
one we want to make. The gymnastics I
can do in my head are amazing.
We are right now in the season of Lent
leading up to Holy Week and Easter. Think about some of the consequences that
the disciples had to live with after Jesus was gone. His best friend Peter denied
Jesus three times. Jesus predicted he would do it and Peter promised he would
not. But then, in his fear, when he was asked, “Aren’t you one of Jesus’
disciples?” Peter said “No.” I think the consequence of his action was shame
and heartbreak. I wonder what the people who loved Jesus thought of Peter when
they heard about it.
But Peter overcame this mistake. He
became the rock that Jesus said he would be. He was a great leader in building
the church that we are a part of today.
Peter became a great preacher. He
failed Jesus and he could have walked away in shame, never to be seen again. He
could have shriveled up and never forgiven himself. But he accepted God’s
forgiveness, and so he moved on to be a great leader in the Jesus movement.
Here’s another great one, do you
remember Moses? His story takes many twists and turns. You may remember that
even though he was a Hebrew, that he was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. When he
grew up and saw how badly his own people were being treated, as slaves in
Egypt, he was upset. One day Moses saw one of the Egyptian task masters beating
a Hebrew slave. Moses intervened. There was a fight and Moses killed the
Egyptian. Even though he was defending the weak, there were consequences for
murder. Moses had to flee the country. Even though we believe murder is wrong, I
would have to say that Moses had to do that one thing in order to put in motion
a series of events which led to him becoming the leader who could lead his
people out of slavery and into the promised land. He would always carry that
murder with him in his heart. But “God takes the broken pieces of our lives and
begins gluing things back together again.” Even though “[s]ome
consequences remain forever.” (ibid.)
You see, in the privacy of our own
homes, written somewhere in a journal, hidden somewhere in our most private
place, we have something we wish we could go back and change. We are living the
consequences of our choices: a broken relationship, a body abused by our
addiction to food or drugs; we are living the consequences of a crime, a lie, a
broken promise, a betrayal. It could be anything.
This is the good news. God’s grace is bigger
than our mistakes. Grace does not mean the consequences are “erased.” We may
have to live with some consequences. But “God takes the broken pieces of our
lives and begins gluing things back together again” (ibid). Because God does
not want us to remain broken people. God wants us to be set free from our brokenness
and be whole in God’s grace.
That is why God sent Jesus: to tell us we are
always forgiven. We always get another chance. Today, I want to invite you into a ritual. It
is an ancient ritual of the Christian Church and it is quite simple, find one
or more people to do this with that you love.
I want you to stand if you are able, look another person in the eye, and
say “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.” Have them say it back to you. If not, picture taking my hands right now,
and do this. Imagine saying it to me;
and now, I will say it to you, “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven”. Now, I want you to believe it, because
friends, it is true.
Do you have a
place where you can experience this grace?
If not, find one, they are out there.
And if you are near the Toledo area, come to the corner of the Anthony
Wayne Trail and Conant Street one Sunday.
We are in the back of the Maumee Indoor Theater Sundays at 10:30
AM. Come receive this grace.
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