Category Archives: Faith Practice, the Exercise

Faith Practice, the Exercise

Judas and Peter – I wonder

Jesus, the son of God, needed nobody to tell him about people because he knew what was inside them. When he began his work, he chose twelve men to be his closest friends for three years. He talked with them, traveled with them, corrected them, forgave them, and died for them. Yes, for all twelve.

Jesus knew all about Judas. He knew who Judas was. He knew what Judas was. Judas was Everyman. It is popular to view Judas as the supreme traitor of all time, but the fact is that he was no different than the rest of us. He was no different really than Peter, who denied Christ three times during the trial initiated by the betrayal of Judas. We point the finger of scorn at Judas, but all the disciples ran away when Jesus was arrested. We are all alike. When Jesus prayed “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” I don’t think he muttered under his breath, “except for Judas.”

There are two different stories in the Bible about the death of Judas. The differences in detail matter little. The common thread is that Judas clearly regretted his actions and fell into deep despair when he realized what he had actually done. His story is a lot like many other human stories. People sell out and then realize that the price they were paid didn’t touch the value of what they sold.

I think most people assume that there is a particularly gruesome, painful, overheated spot in a dark corner of hell where Judas suffers for eternity in an agony that is still not painful enough to wipe out his memory of Jesus’ face. If human beings were in charge of the universe of time and eternity that would certainly be the case. Humans love retributive justice. They like to see people get what is coming to them. Most people applaud when a righteous fake is exposed and punished. That was Judas – a righteous fake. We would not be human if we did not think he deserved and thoroughly earned his place in hell.

We are human, however, not God, and God is not so much about retributive justice. God is about forgiveness. If he were about retribution, Jesus would never have died on the cross. Jesus himself said that his life, death and resurrection happened because God loved the whole world. On the cross, one of the thieves suffering beside him was promised paradise, even though he had already confessed that he deserved to die that terrible death.

I won’t pretend that I know what became of Judas in eternity. I do know that when Jesus met Peter after the resurrection, Peter was forgiven. It seems pretty obvious to me that Judas repented of his betrayal with just as much bitterness as Peter, who burst into tears when that rooster crowed. Jesus loved both of these men and knew their weaknesses as well as he knew their strengths.

I have always treasured Peter’s life story, because Peter seems to be a lot like me. Like most people, I don’t even try to delve into the life of Judas, because he is the bad apple. Still, when I think about it now, I wonder if we know as much as we think we do.

Some people say that Jesus chose Judas specifically for his role as a traitor. I don’t believe that is the way God works. God can accomplish his purposes without the necessity of evil. However, Satan is at work in the world, and Satan works deftly in the human heart. In the heart of Judas, Satan apparently found ready material for his work. Judas made a choice that led directly to Jesus’ crucifixion. Yet I believe that Jesus did not exclude Judas when he prayed for the forgiveness of all who took part in his execution. On the day Jesus met Judas, he knew all about him, yet he brought Judas near. He touched Judas and loved Judas.

Here is what catches my attention and makes me pause in my judgment of Judas. I have lived a long time and I have claimed the name of Christ for a long time, yet when I examine myself honestly, I know that I have betrayed Christ many times. Every time I am aware of it, I ask for forgiveness. Knowing that I don’t recognize all the betrayals, I often ask for forgiveness for all the times I “knew not” what I did. I trust that as a baptized believer, marked with the cross of Christ forever, that God will forgive me and that my salvation is sure. I trust that Jesus won’t throw me out in retribution for all my sins. I trust that Christ died on the cross and rose again from the dead for me. He forgave Peter for betraying him, and I believe he forgives me as well.

So I wonder – what about Judas?

Faith Practice, the Exercise

The Social Justice God Wants

I hear politicians talk about social injustice all the time. They always bring it up in the context of an explanation for higher taxes and more programs. Right this minute, our president is asking for $50 billion to stimulate the economy. Sometimes it is about money for unemployment benefits or food stamps or other things. The stimulus program is supposedly justified by a crisis in our financial sector that had its roots in a government requirement to lend money to people who could not pay it back so they could buy houses they could not afford. Our country does a lot of things supposedly in the name of social justice.

My church friends mostly believe that the government ought to do these things. I must confess that there are times when I think the government does a good job of helping people with temporary problems. Where I truly diverge from most of my friends is that I do not believe that the church should advocate for social programs to be underwritten by the government. I also do not believe that the church, or any faith-based group, should apply for government money to fund their social programs.

I have two fundamental reasons for my position:

1. God created people free to choose to do good or evil. He did not create robots who can do nothing against his will. He created human beings who are so free that they can, if they dare, spit in God’s eye. There are consequences to their choices, but God never hampers their right to choose.

2. The government is a terribly poor steward of a dollar.

The United States was founded by people who believed that God created human beings, and they believed that God gave people individual liberty. They did not always like what individuals did with their liberty, but they firmly believed in that liberty. The hallmark of American history is the individual who tamed forests, prairies, mountains and oceans with a lot of will and energy. The whole structure of the Constitution is to limit the central government and prevent it from interfering with individual liberty. The Constitution was intended to specify the very few things the federal government could do, but lest anyone get confused about the intent, the first act of the new nation under the Constitution was to pass ten amendments, the tenth of which said clearly that the federal government could only have the power defined by the Constitution. All other powers were reserved to the states and to the people.

As an American citizen, I treasure my individual freedom. As a Christian, I treasure my freedom, also. One of the greatest blessings of Christian life is the freedom to try and fail and be forgiven and try again. God is unhappy when we make bad choices, but he loves us anyway.

My freedom as an American citizen and my freedom as a baptized child of God make me cringe when I hear church leaders talk about advocating for the government to tax every citizen in order to pay for programs that do the work of bringing about social justice that Christ would want. They glibly promote the idea that Jesus wants the poor fed and clothed and housed at government expense. I dispute that allegation. If Jesus had intended to change government into the instrument of his kingdom’s work, he missed a great chance when he made his speech about “render to Caesar.” No government on earth could have benefited more from the introduction of a social conscience than the Roman government, but Jesus chose to say that we give to God what is God’s, not to Caesar. What does that mean?

I think it means that if we want God’s work done, we should do it ourselves. To ask the government to do it means that many people who have not chosen to do God’s work of feeding, clothing and sheltering the poor are nonetheless obligated to do so. When the church is successful in advocating for social programs, and the necessary taxation, the church overrules the freedom God gave people to choose to participate in those costs and services as an act of love and service to him. The church is, therefore, acting in place of God by demanding compliance from people who have no desire to serve him. God always invites, but he never compels. Taxation not only compels, but it also oppresses.

Those who disagree with me point out that the government has more power to get the money and can, therefore, get more money out of people that we can elicit by invitation. This statement is quite true. It does not, however, provide justification for overriding the liberty of each human being to be charitable in his own way. Americans have demonstrated over and over that they are very charitable people, even though it is certainly easy to identify some holdouts. The fact that more could be done, however, does not justify the church in advocating for its vision of social justice to be paid for by all citizens.

However, my second point is that the government does not use the money it collects wisely. We citizens never see an honest accounting of what the government does with taxes collected for the purpose of social programs. If we did see such a thing, we would be appalled. We actually ought to ask the government to account for its money the way private charities are expected to account for theirs. If we actually saw how much of each dollar in government hands ever actually helps a hungry or homeless person, we would be angry. This is a major reason for not letting the government take our money away from us taxes. Far too little of it ever comes back to help the people who are suffering.

When I first grew old enough to make my own money decisions, my parents taught me to look carefully at the financial record of charities. Some charities, it turns out, squander money as if they were government agencies. Money donated to those charities turns into huge executive salaries, elaborate and expensive buildings, and nebulous benefit programs for the employees of the charities. Very little of their money ever feeds a hungry child.

On the other hand, some charities are excellent stewards of the donations they receive, putting more than 90% of the money into services and benefits for the people they serve. The Heifer Project is a prime example. The Lutheran World Hunger Project is another. Both of these charities operate on less than 10% of their donations. The rest of the money actually helps not only to feed people, but also to provide people the means to feed themselves into the future. No government program has ever demonstrated either the level of stewardship or the degree of benefit these programs provide. They do it without the use of force, i.e. the power of taxation, and they do it to the very great benefit of a lot of people.

There is one more thing to consider about using government money to achieve the church’s agenda. If the government pays the bill, the government runs the show. In a homeless shelter that operates without government money, a church can ask people to say grace before meals or invite them to a Bible study without apology. It is what churches do. If the government pays for the food or for the building, then the government can attach conditions to its money. The government might say that in the interest of separation of church and state, no prayers before meals and no Bible study in this building. We can protest all we want, but this is the government’s right if it pays the bills. Look at all the strings it attaches to federal highway money or school lunch programs. The government is quite assertive about the price recipients pay for government money. We may get that money without undesirable strings today, but those strings can become quite knotted by tomorrow.

I believe that God’s way of doing business is to call and empower and motivate and guide individuals who commit themselves to his work. I do not believe that it is God’s way to impose the power of the Christian agenda on people who disagree with it. It bothers me for my church leaders to be aggressive in this area. However, even if I thought it was a theologically sound idea, I would object because of the stewardship. If I give a dollar to feed hungry people, I don’t like the idea that the hungry only get a dime. That is the government way, not the way of Christian stewardship. If I give a dollar to feed the hungry, I am much happier when they receive at least 90 cents of it.