McMahon Life

Loving is easy when we feel good.  But when about when we don’t?  What about when we have been stabbed in the back?  What about when our hearts have been ripped out?  How do we love in that context?  How do we even forgive, which, if we are honest, must come before we are really able to love anyway?

I am reminded of a teaching Jesus gave in Luke chapter 6.  He speaks of loving “sinners” and “enemies.”  Jesus said,

“If you only love those who love you, why should you get credit for that?  Even sinners love those who love them!  And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit?  Even sinners do that much!  And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?  Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.
Love your enemies! Do good to them.  Lend to them without expecting to be repaid.  Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.  You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.”
- Luke 6:32-36 (bold and italics added)

While we may not be prone to label friends and family who betray us – who hurt us, who take our love and stomp on it – as enemies, in that moment that is how they function.  Isn’t it?  They become the last people in the world we want to reach out and embrace, the last people in the world we want to share generously with.  Because if we do we fail to protect ourselves.  ”You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.”  How? HOw? HOW?

How do we forgive when there has been no change?  I think often we would be much more willing to forgive if the person who hurt us changed, repented, or at least recognized their mistake.  But Jesus is saying that that’s how the world functions – that is not the way the Kingdom functions.

I think many of us often claim we are walking in love toward our enemies, and even that we have forgiven them; but let us remember the words of James,

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by our actions?  Can that kind of faith save anyone?
- James 2:14

So we can recognize that just as faith is known by your actions, so is faith, so is love.  So if we think we have forgiven, if we think we are walking in love, let us closely examine our behavior toward that individual.  And I’m not sure that, “I haven’t killed him yet” counts as walking in either forgiveness or love!

So how do we do it?  How do we forgive those who have hurt us deeply?  How do we walk in forgiveness and walk in love?

If I can be honest, I’m not sure that I know.  I am trying.  I want to.  But it’s hard, isn’t it?  I don’t know exactly how, all I can do is walk.  And as I walk I can look back and describe a little of the path I walked.

• I wake up every morning.  That is a start.  And I pray for that person. That God will bless them.  That is perhaps the hardest prayer (that God would bless someone who hurt me deeply).
• I recognize that I hurt, and that I hurt deeply, but I do not allow my hurt to determine the way that I function.  This is not to say do not take time and space to find healing and restoration.  It is simply to say that how we feel toward an individual cannot dictate how we act toward them.
• I choose to be a friend. A friend cares about their friends.  I choose to care for the person who has hurt me.  Sometimes this is really super duper hard. I know. I do it anyway.  Sometimes I have to stop for a while because my caring turns into me wishing I could change the situation.  That’s not what it’s about – it’s just about me caring enough to want what is best for that person (and what is best is always the presence of God, because God’s presence changes everything).

I don’t know if that is forgiveness.  I don’t know if that is love.  I know that love and forgiveness toward those who hurt us are two of the hardest things in the world.  It’s as if all the beauty that we built up was destroyed and stomped on, and now we are asked to play with the ashes instead.  Yes.  Perhaps it is.  But isn’t our God one who can create beauty even from the ashes?

I must hold onto that hope – that my God is the greatest; that my love always wins.  Maybe that’s why Jesus made such a big deal of forgiveness.  Perhaps more than any other single thing the way followers of Jesus forgive set us apart from the culture of anger, or betrayal, and of holding grudges.

Let us seek to forgive, even when we don’t know what that means.
Let us seek to love, even when everything in us is telling us to hate.  Because not everything in us is saying that – the Spirit is alive, and it is the love of the Spirit that will flow out of us to transform the world (and the people) around us.

It’s raining outside.  My friend David told me that his grandmother use to say that it rained because God was crying.  We made a joke about wishing people would be repentant of their sin causing God to cry every time that it rained.  I don’t think that’s why God is crying today.

They tell us to arrive early or we may not find parking.  Maybe you don’t know.  Pastor Tom Ferguson passed away this past week from his second heart attack.  I have been to a few memorial services, some for good people, but never to one for a great man.  Tom was a great man.  I never met him, but I am surrounded by people whose lives were touched by this mighty man of God.  A pastor of New Life Center for 15 years (out of which my church, Mill Creek Foursquare, was planted), district supervisor for Foursquare Northwest, planter and pastor of Hope Foursquare Church in Snohomish.  I wonder if Newlife has ever had a shortage in parking before.  They will today.

They say Tom was unassuming.  They say he was kind.  They say he was generous, dedicated, loving, caring.  They say he was great.  He will be missed.  Tears come to my eyes as I recall all that people say about him.  I think people always speak well of those who are gone, but I don’t think these people are speaking “well” of Tom – I think they are simply being honest.

I will be there among the masses of people to honor Tom Ferguson today.  I may not have known him, but that does not mean I have not been impacted by him.  Isn’t that a picture of true greatness?

As we honor this great man of God, I wonder what people will say of us when we are gone.  Will they conjure up something to “speak well” of us?  Or will they simply state the truth, and will that truth say that we transformed the world around us as we left nothing behind in our quest to make Jesus known, to bring people to healing at the foot of the cross?

Let us simply pause, and honor a great man.  Let us recognize that greatness is not found in energy, volume of voice, charisma, or any of the hundreds of other ways the culture around us tries to be great.  Greatness is found in character: in a heart that stops at nothing, but pursues God relentlessly, and facilitates a way for others to find Him too.

Thank you, Tom, for all you have done for our community.
Thank you, Tom Ferguson, for being a man of God, a model for generations to come.
Thank you, Tom, for loving God enough to love all the broken people around you.
Our community is better because you walked among us.
You will be missed. We honor you today.