On April 7-8, Dr. Clarence Jones spoke at our church 50 years after Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. We built this week’s GPS around Bible examples King cited in his April 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” White Christian and Jewish clergymen had published a critique of non-violent civil rights protests as too impatient and extreme. Click here to read the full text of King’s powerful response.
Daily Scripture
Romans 12:17 Repay no one evil for evil, but try to do what everyone regards as good. 18 If possible, and to the extent that it depends on you, live in peace with all people. 19 Never seek revenge, my friends; instead, leave that to God’s anger; for in the Tanakh it is written,
“Adonai says, ‘Vengeance is my responsibility; I will repay.’”[Romans 12:19 Deuteronomy 32:41]
20 On the contrary,
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
For by doing this, you will heap
fiery coals [of shame] on his head.”[Romans 12:20 Proverbs 25:21–22]
21 Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good. (Complete Jewish Bible).
***Reflection Questions:
“We would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: ‘Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?’ ‘Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?’”
- Traveling in Nero’s corrupt, cruel Roman Empire, the apostle Paul must have at times felt the urge to lash out in anger against evil. So much was unjust, corrupt and immoral! Yet Paul, and Christians who lived out his counsel, formed a movement living by utterly opposite values that has long outlasted Nero and his Empire. Paul said in today’s reading they devoted themselves to “defeat evil with good.” Did that “work” for Paul and the early Christians? Did it “work” for Dr. King and the civil rights movement?
- Paul drew on ancient Hebrew wisdom, quoting Proverbs 25:21-22. When, in your own dealings or world affairs, have you seen enemies brought together because one side was willing to act toward the other with kindness rather than hatred or contempt? What has to happen in human hearts to bring about mutual reconciliation, to make people receptive to even overtures that are kind and generous?
Lord Jesus, it can be hard to purify myself from angry, vengeful feelings and actions. Keep growing the fruit of the Spirit in me, showing me better ways to respond. Amen.
Read today's Insight by Brandon GregoryBrandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Vibe, West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
They say you shouldn’t discuss religion or politics at the dinner table. That’s mostly true, but they make even worse topics for Facebook conversations. I remember one fateful evening when an atheist friend of mine posted something claiming the science and religion were incompatible. He immediately got a few replies from like-minded friends affirming his position. I (foolishly) decided I should speak up about it, so I posted a calm and well-reasoned question asking him what made my love of science less valid than his. That’s it—a calm and well-reasoned question.
Immediately, people started jumping on my comment and attacking me. I tried to defend my position, but they wouldn’t give me any ground to stand on. I was fighting a losing battle in a comment war on Facebook. Eventually, my friend who originally posted the comment noticed the conversation and posted something quickly from his phone (he was away from his house at the time) asking us to remain civil and respectful, and the conversation actually did calm down quite a bit. But it was hard for me to have respect for these people who had just attacked me and belittled my intellect.
Well, my friend soon got home and we had a pretty reasonable conversation about it in the comments. We wrapped up that conversation and I was ready to call it a night when I saw a new comment from one of the guys who initially attacked me. I tensed up as I clicked the notification, and then immediately felt bad for it. It was a heartfelt apology. The guy had grown up in the church, but eventually had questions his Christian family and friends wouldn’t answer and he fell into what could only be described as an abusive relationship with his church. He eventually got out, but basically had to sever ties with his family and the friends he had grown up with. I immediately told him I wouldn’t judge him for that or try to defend the people who hurt him, and I think he was really relieved to hear that. He didn’t change his mind about God—really, it would be unreasonable to expect him to right then and there—but, for the first time in a very long time, he had a conversation with a Christian that didn’t revolve around hate.
So many of our conversations—political, religious, or otherwise—revolve around a history of hatred and animosity. Seeing the vitriol in political conversations these days hurts my heart. Seeing the hatred in how people view people of other religions often makes civil discourse extremely difficult. Those people are constantly saying hateful things about people like me. Those people throw up straw men to make people like me look stupid. Those people rejoice whenever something bad happens to one of us.
In talking to people who disagree with me, I constantly see that any of those comments could easily be reversed. My peoplesay hateful things and rejoice when something bad happens to them too. What we rarely realize is that most hatred comes from hurt. Just like that guy who attacked me with his Facebook comments had years of hurt coming from Christians that he was still dealing with, almost everybody that I see making angry comments has been hurt while trying to have calmer conversations. The hurt may be deep or it may be shallow, but it’s always unaddressed. They’ve been trained to be defensive. And we’re letting decades- or even centuries-old disagreements prevent us from having loving interactions today.
There’s a reason Paul reminds us in Romans 12 that revenge belongs to God alone. It’s not that God is so much more effective at doling out punishment for the people we hate; it’s that only God knows the whole story of the hurt that drives them to act in that way. Maybe they’re really just being jerks, but maybe they’re recovering from a lifetime of hurt and abuse and will take years to recover emotionally and spiritually. And the fact is, we can never discern that from one small conversation or one Facebook comment. The people who need love the most are often the least deserving of it. The people who lash out are often the people who hurt the most. Ending these cycles of hatred is complicated, but it begins with refusing to respond to hatred with more hatred, whether it’s a Facebook post or something much larger. God’s way is to love even the people who hurt us, and there are no exceptions to that rule.
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- “Outside agitator” or missionary?
- Prayer Tip: What Dr. King Would Say
- Luke’s ending—the risen Lord’s mission went on
- Luke’s ending—source or echo of Mark 16:12?
- Matthew’s ending—some of what Mark may have reported
- Or download this week's printable GPS.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
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