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THE SCIENCE OF GRACE #20
YOUR CHURCH IN MY OCEAN
Today, as we close this five-week adventure called
THE SCIENCE OF GRACE, I want to ask myself: are there things going on
in my world – my denomination, my home church, my circle of Adventist
friends, the ministry I work with – where I’m unhappy and resentful? Are
there people I was a bit mad at last year, and am I holding onto that
here in 2004? Are there grudges in the life of Lonnie Melashenko, where
grace has not been allowed to work its way?
Earlier we told a couple of stories from a 1979 bestseller entitled Love,
Acceptance, and Forgiveness, by Jerry Cook and Stanley C. Baldwin. They
have a section entitled “Quick to Take Offense,” and how many of us almost
have that as our middle name? Then they remind us of this verse, found
in Psalm 119:165:
Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing
shall offend them.
Hmmmm. And then Jerry leans in and makes this rather
pointed conclusion:
“A person who is easily offended apparently doesn’t
love God’s law very much.”
Jerry Cook must pastor a big church, because he has
several associates and a number of secretaries working there. But something
came up once where three of those secretaries got mad at each other. Everyone
in the organization knew it; they had taken offense with each other, and
the strain was being felt throughout the building. Apparently the pastor
who normally dealt with spiritual scrapes and cuts like this one was out
of town.
Have you ever found yourself in a thing like this, where there’s a “situation”?
We all have. A simmering feud is a very real dilemma in the Body of Christ.
Sometimes we let a problem just “sit.” Someone needs to seek forgiveness
. . . but the weeks go by, and they just don’t. Sometimes a personnel
issue is allowed to hang . . . and hang . . . and hang. Meanwhile the
tension builds and spreads.
In any case, Jerry Cook, being senior pastor, decided
he had to step in.
“I called the three of them into my office,” he writes. “I said, ‘I don’t
care who is right or wrong. I don’t want to know any details. This is
not a trial, so you don’t need to present your case. I only know that
you are not relating as sisters in Christ.’”
In other words, these three believers weren’t allowing
grace to rule. They were supposed to be living in the kingdom established
and protected by grace and forgiveness, and they weren’t doing it. Earlier
in this series, we discussed the tough reality that grace is a RULE, an
unavoidable principle. If we are to be Christians, we must forgive! We
have to extend grace! That’s as ironclad as in the classroom where two
plus two equals four. It has to be.
And here at this church where grace was supposed to permeate the hallways,
was it acceptable for enmity to invade and just sit there with its poison
wafting into the various rooms and the sanctuary? No. And so Pastor Cook
gave the three secretaries this interesting timetable:
“‘I’m going to leave the room. There’s a half hour
left in the day for you to get this thing ironed out. I want you to come
out of here loving each other. I want you to pray with one another. I
want you to forgive one another. I want each of you to call me tonight
and tell me that is exactly what you have done.’” And get this: “Then
I left and went golfing.”
That last line might almost strike us as either amusing
or a bit flippant . . . but the reality was that in the Christian faith,
Jerry Cook was simply telling these three followers of Jesus how it has
to be. If our living in the kingdom of grace mandates that we love each
other, and forgive each other, and accept each other – then why would
it take more than half an hour? And why would we want to put it off for
a week or a month or a year?
By the way, he reports in his book that all three secretaries called him
that evening. Mission accomplished. And no, they didn’t just force the
words of forgiveness out through lips still tight with hatred and resentment.
God actually gave them the miracle of FEELING the love and acknowledging
the reality of grace.
Earlier we borrowed a slogan from a nearby Christian church, and it goes
like this: “Grace – Everyone, Everywhere, and Every Time.” We also used
the metaphor of an ocean, where we, along with our friends AND our enemies,
simply bask in this mighty enveloping atmosphere where we are always accepted,
always forgiven. When we sin, we immediately turn to heaven and are thankful
that we are still in God’s family. When others around us sin, we immediately
assure them they are still in God’s family too . . . and ours as well.
Romans chapter 15 gives us a beautiful picture of this abiding policy:
“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement
give you a spirit of UNITY among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus,
so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ.” And please hear these next words: “ACCEPT one
another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to
God.”
Let me close with one final grace illustration, and
this one is most precious. Earlier we shared the heartbreaking story of
a dad, David Wilkins, whose son, Monte, was killed in a plane crash off
Nova Scotia in 1998.
Dr. Wilkins, by his own confession, was a very faithful, devout, loyal
Seventh-day Adventist Christian. Which, as you know, is my community of
faith as well. And sometimes, in our zeal for the perspectives of our
own church, we begin to create mental and spiritual barriers between ourselves
and others. Our church has “the truth.” Our church is the most dedicated
to doing God’s will. Our church is most faithful at following God’s Commandments.
Our church most clearly understands all Bible prophecies. That kind of
thinking. I’m sure people in other denominations grapple with this feeling
too, but today I’m just talking about how Dr. Wilkins was feeling, and
how maybe I have felt at times. If grace was a mighty ocean of God’s love,
we perhaps saw a reef there, or a dike, separating us from those “other”
churches where we felt important truths were being neglected. For sure,
our church was in the mighty deep swells of biblical fidelity, while the
other denominations were just in the wading pool.
But then something very powerful happened to the Wilkins family when Delta
Airlines flew the grieving survivors to Nova Scotia and bused them out
to Peggy’s Cove Point. A man came up to them and introduced himself. “I’m
Captain Dan Dearing,” he told Larry, and he explained that he was there
just to be with them, to pray with them, to care for them and sustain
them with Jesus’ love and power and grace. Well, that was wonderful, and
the Wilkins immediately bonded with Dan and learned to love him. But “captain”?
What was all that about? It turns out Dan Dearing was with the Salvation
Army.
A bit later in that agonizing week, as the family was preparing to hike
out on the rocks and have their own private little service, another minister
came over. And he was a captain too! As in “Captain John O’Donnell,” a
Roman Catholic chaplain. And David writes to confess how, along with many
people who sit in our pews on Saturday mornings, he had never thought
of Catholics as being truly part of the “Body of Christ.” But here this
godly man wanted to hug his children, to share Jesus, to give comfort
according to the promises found in God’s Word, to affirm their common
hope in the resurrection of the dead. Together they sang: “Nearer My God
to Thee,” “It Is Well With My Soul,” and “Amazing Grace,” and as they
stood there together at the edge of the surging Atlantic, David Wilkins
began to sense how God’s own ocean of grace and love was a more expansive
thing than he had ever realized.
Later in Halifax a Christian minister named Greg McMullin spoke with power
about how God lost a Son too, how God identified with the pain of the
Wilkins family. And David, with his old feelings of denominational exclusivity
melting away by the moment, went up to this faithful servant, this Anglican
minister, and thanked him for being such a friend in time of need.
By the way, these disciples of Jesus didn’t just say a prayer, offer a
hug, drop a flower into the ocean and then leave. Years later, they were
still ministering to David and Janet. And David admits that he resonates
now with what recording artist Bobby Michaels once said when he performed
at Monte’s high school:
“Although we belong to different fellowships with differences
of opinion on certain doctrines or teachings, we have parallel hearts.”
And David concludes, discovering that correct doctrines
were not any longer the foundation of his faith:
“Increasingly, I realize that parallel hearts are anchored
in the Foundation Rock, Jesus Christ . . . When we are in heaven with
the One we love more than life itself, I’m sure we’ll discover the flaws
in our theology. What none of us will doubt is that Jesus’ love for us
cost Him everything. To say that His grace is amazing – which we’ll say
often – still leaves a limited understanding of its grandeur.”
It’s as true of grace as it is of all mighty oceans,
friend: for sure we can never see to the end of it.
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