There are very important moments when leadership is not measured by how loudly we speak, but by how carefully we choose our words. Rob Reiner was verbally cruel to President Trump. He had been for many years. No one argues this. But his and his wife’s rather gruesome deaths required words of reverent sobriety, not mockery.
This really could have been a time for President Trump to shine. Simplicity, or maybe even silence, would have been the wiser course. Of course, silence would’ve prompted backlash, so what’s the harm in a brief acknowledgment of loss? A recognition of grief, even for an outspoken enemy? That’s it. I mean, there is a time to argue, and there is a time to mourn.
I should say that I’ve stood before my congregation on countless occasions and in various contexts and shared the characteristics I appreciate most in people. Two in particular stand out right now. I think the best way to relay the first is to say that leadership isn’t always about how quickly a person responds in the middle of a crisis. It’s about whether the person actually understands the moment requiring a response. That said, the ability to exercise restraint when restraint is hardest—when emotion, and even a long history of provocation, seem to beg for a sharp response. Leadership we can call “good” knows when to tone down and hold back. Even better, I think it takes more guts to lower your voice than to shout one’s apparent vindication. That’s by no means a sign of weakness. It demonstrates strength under control.
Trump made a huge mistake. The moment called for restraint, and he blew it. That leads to another characteristic I admire in people. Those with the ability to admit to a mistake and seek to amend that mistake are the truly courageous among us. They are also the wisest, and I trust them above all others.
If I were advising Trump, I’d tell him an apology here would not weaken him. It would show that even a man accustomed to fighting understands when the fight needs to stop. It would communicate that there are moments when compassion must take precedence over score-settling. That kind of humility is already too rare in public life, which is precisely why it matters right now, and why it would strengthen President Trump, not weaken him.
Again, the strongest people I know can admit to being wrong and say, “I’m sorry.” They own their errors. And they correct course. When they do, they earn my trust rather than lose it. In this particular moment, a sincere apology would not erase what President Trump wrote, but it would demonstrate that he does, in fact, understand the gravity of the moment he first failed to recognize. I’ll pray that someone in his immediate circle encourages him to do this.
I learned something about friendship last Saturday while driving to give a presentation in Plymouth. I suppose I already knew it innately. However, I’d not yet formed the thought in a graspable, and therefore shareable, way.
Essentially, I had to be up and doing (as Longfellow would say) before everyone else in my home that day. And so, I crept through my morning routine lest I awaken the multitudes who’d finally been granted a Saturday morning to sleep in. Having showered and dressed, the sun just beginning to share its intentions, I kissed my still-sleeping wife, Jennifer, and left. I returned to our bedroom several minutes later to retrieve a forgotten item. Jennifer was now awake and scrolling through her preferred newsfeed. I grabbed the overlooked item, kissed her screen-lit cheek, and left for the day.
About fifteen minutes into my journey, I called Jennifer. The conversation went something like this:
“Hello?”
“It’s just me,” I said. “I took a chance you hadn’t gone back to bed.”
“No, I’m awake,” she replied. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just thinking about something.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m glad my first visit with Chris Pratt was in Guardians of the Galaxy rather than watching him in Parks and Recreation with you and the kids.” The night before, my family and I had just finished the final episode in a several weeks-long binging of the mentioned television show.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I become endeared to characters I like and the people who play them,” I explained. “And then I expect certain things from their performances. If I had known the character Andy Dwyer before Star-Lord, I would’ve expected certain behaviors from Star-Lord, and I might not have enjoyed Pratt in the role as much. Instead, I brought Star-Lord to Andy Dwyer and not Andy Dwyer to Star-Lord. I guess I’m saying it was just better for me that way. It was better to meet Star-Lord before meeting Andy Dwyer.”
“Okay,” she said hesitatingly, yet still sounding just as happy to be an audience for my relatively useless observation as she is with the more essential aspects of my life. “I can see how that might be true.”
“Yeah, so that’s all I wanted to say.”
“Well, be careful on the road.”
“I will.”
“What time will you be home?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ll call when I’m on my way.”
The conversation became a tender goodbye, and I continued my drive.
So, what does this have to do with a lesson in friendship? Well, Jennifer once again showed me that she’s more interested in simply talking with me than in the content of the conversation. I had absolutely nothing of value to share, and I could’ve just as easily kept my thoughts to myself. Still, I wanted to call her and tell her what I was thinking, even if it was ridiculous. Something assured me I could. In a simpler sense, it’s not necessarily the subject that matters between genuine friends. It’s the friendship itself that matters. When that’s true, hearing the other person’s voice can easily become so much more important than what they say.
But there’s something else about genuine friendship that I’ve learned along the way with Jennifer. Sometimes, what’s said (or done) must eclipse that comfortable sentiment. One of friendship’s chief responsibilities is honesty. Far too many unfortunate proverbs are being shared about how a true friend accepts you for who you are. When I see a decorative wall print that says something like that on the shelf in a store, I tend to turn it around backward or hide it in a stack of nearby pillows. No one needs to see it. Unrestricted acceptance of any and all behavior is not the definition of a true friend. Genuine friendship cares enough to communicate truths that you may resist acknowledging on your own. A genuine friend—someone who truly cares about you—will risk everything, even your wrath, to steer you toward truth. Indeed, “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Knowing our world and the ever-strengthening gravity of its dreadfulness, none of us should be without such a friend.
All of this came to mind because as I reached for a book on my shelf this morning, I accidentally bumped a nearby greeting card, which resulted in several toppling over and cascading to the floor. Rather than putting them back, I gathered more from across multiple shelves, eventually putting them into a box in a cabinet where I keep such things. When I opened the box’s lid, a handwritten note from a former friend was on top. I won’t share the details, but just know the friendship ended badly. What I will say is that its final discussion had to happen. I made the painfully necessary phone call. He needed to hear that he’d wandered too far beyond the borders of faithfulness to Christ and was teetering at the edge of a dangerous ideological cliff. Ultimately, he cursed my concerns and jumped. It’s been several years since we’ve spoken. I sent him a note a few years back, but nothing came of it. Likely, I’ll never hear from him again. Admittedly, when I discovered and read the note, I could hear his voice behind its scribbled words. I realized I missed it. The content of our conversations was vast and sometimes pointless. But when he spoke, I listened, not necessarily because of what he was saying, but because I liked being his friend.
Perhaps the better lesson learned from this morning’s rambling is this: Don’t throw away the friends who care enough to tell you the truth. Apart from the Lord and His Word, they’re your next greatest asset for navigating and enduring a world doing its level best to pull you toward destruction. With that, there’s a reason God’s Word commends friendship, offering that “two are better than one…. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). There’s a reason Saint Paul encourages us to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). There’s a reason he rejoices in the mutual encouragement that comes from faith exercised relative to the self and others (Romans 1:12). There’s a reason Solomon writes so uncomplicatedly, “One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray” (Proverbs 12:26), and that “oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel” (Proverbs 27:9), followed by the well-worn advice that “iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17).
We don’t need coddlers. We need honest friends. And if we’re so scandalized by the truths they tell us, ultimately resulting in us tossing them from our lives like spoiled meat, we’re likely the problem, not them. This means we need to have and be the kind of friend who is ready to hear others confess their faults and willing to let them show us ours. To be a friend like that takes the type of hardshell humility that only the Holy Spirit can bestow. By hardshell humility, I mean the meekness that can handle its own reflection because it understands its need while knowing the One who met it—Jesus Christ—the greatest friend any of us will ever know (John 15:12-15).
Confronting our failings is never easy. Ash Wednesday is this week, and if ever there was a time to confront our dust-and-ashes nature (Genesis 2:7, 3:19, and 18:7), it’s then. As you do, remember Jesus, the perfect friend. He steered straight into this world’s awfulness, risking everything, even His life, to make you His own. Any friend who’s willing to give up his own self-security to save you from something dangerous is precisely the kind of friend you need. A friend like that certainly isn’t disposable but indispensable.
Again, Lent is soon upon us. Many people give up something for Lent. May I make a suggestion?
Set aside the defenses you’ve constructed around your easily bruised ego, fear of the truth, and ridiculous fragility. Own up to your strayings and rejoice that God’s love was manifested to you by His Word given in the Scriptures and demonstrated through friends who care. His warning against Sin is an essential proof of His concern. Don’t write Him off. He didn’t want to leave you ignorant of your condition, and He has more to tell you. You are not lost. Christ has come. By His life, death, and resurrection, the debt of your sins has been paid. Through faith in Jesus, you receive the merits of His work and are set free from your failings.
A friend who deals in these things is a friend indeed.
Today the people of God at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hartland, Michigan, will celebrate the 67th anniversary of the congregation’s founding. We’ll enjoy receiving Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer as the preacher of the Gospel in holy worship, and then we’ll be blessed by his faithfulness with God’s Word in the adult Bible study hour. If you know anything about Dr. Scaer, then you’ll know he’s a modest man, someone who gives himself over in humble service to the Gospel. But he’s also someone willing to go on point with God’s Word against an ever-encroaching world. I’m glad he was willing to join us. We will be blessed by his efforts.
Looking back at what I just typed, I used the word “modesty.” I did so probably because of the text I just read this morning from Romans 12:2.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
“…be transformed…”
“…discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
These words assume a turning away from “self.” They assume submission to a process designed to align a person to God’s preferences. The scriptures are clear that this submission is only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in a believer (John 1:9-13; Romans 1:16; John 15:16; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Corinthians 12:13). In other words, we don’t choose to submit to God’s will. By the Gospel, He transforms us. This transformation creates within us a humble acceptance of His will and way as better. Genuine modesty is an outcropping of this humility.
Even apart from faith, I’m guessing that modesty is a recognizable virtue and that most normal people aren’t opposed to demonstrating it. This is true in the sense of modesty’s social definition, which is most often visible when someone is praised. In such a moment, the person deflects by underestimating what he or she has done. Of course, plenty of people are modest in the way Lord Chesterfield humorously described to his son: “Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.” I experienced this type of soft braggadocio with someone already this past week.
From another perspective, I’d say that most normal people also practice modesty in the sense that they do everything they can to avoid the appearance of indecency. But again, dwelling among those normal people are also the ones who use humility to hide their truest character, epitomizing the saying, “You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself—and how I, by no means, deserve it.”
I guess what I’m saying is that in both instances, modesty can be genuine, and it can be counterfeit.
Jennifer has been reading a lot about gaslighting, which is an abusive tactic that’s on the rise in our world. I’m guessing it’s always been around (because Sin, while it is very creative, tends to rely on the same essential formulas for getting humans to hurt one another), but it didn’t really get its colloquial tag until 1995 when it was coined by a columnist—and the columnist took it from the 1944 film entitled “Gaslight.” I’m betting that gaslighting is gathering a footing for normalcy today because of society’s ever-increasing run toward full blown narcissism.
Again, Jennifer has been investigating the behavior because she wants our kids to be equipped for identifying and countering it in relationships. Gaslighters are incredibly toxic people. Uneasy contention follows them everywhere they go. This is often true because they are incredibly controlling people who bear a self-perception of never being wrong. This, then, results in the meticulous reframing of reality to the point of making their victims question their own versions of reality.
“Maybe I’m not remembering the sequence of events correctly,” a person will eventually say after regular interactions with a gaslighter.
“Maybe what this person did to hurt me really isn’t that big of a deal,” another will wonder. “Maybe I’m being overly sensitive.”
“Maybe I didn’t do things the right way,” still another will self-inquire. “Maybe I actually screwed everything up royally.”
In all these instances, gaslighting weaponizes the modesty of the one wielding it, keeping itself hidden behind an artificial humility that does what it can to reshape narratives to achieve its goal with little resistance. A gaslighter is skillful at making conflict appear to be the fault of the victim, while at the same time convincing the victim that the efforts of the gaslighter are noble and in the victim’s best interest. Meanwhile, the victim discovers his or her own humility being turned backward in indictment, often resulting in some pretty ridiculous behaviors—like accepting the abuser’s false narratives as real, and then apologizing to the abuser for the hurt the victim believes he or she has caused.
I’m glad Jennifer is taking the time to gear up with this stuff and is passing it along to our kids. It’s becoming more likely they’ll experience this behavior, and if so, they’ll need to know how to deal with it—whether that means direct confrontation, or by keeping certain relationships at arm’s length.
But enough about gaslighting, because that’s not necessarily what I had on the brain this morning.
Stepping from Chesterfield’s above comment about modesty, I’m wondering if the best way to test the genuineness of a person’s humility is not necessarily by way of praise, but by accusation. In other words, when a person does something that appears good, modesty—real or fake—reacts by turning the spotlight away to others for equal credit. If the same reaction occurs when the person is accused of sinful behavior, then I wonder if the person’s modesty is as sturdy as he or she would have us believe.
Although, if I’m being honest, which of us can accept the revelation of our sins gracefully? Not too many. And why? Well, for one, I mentioned before that our society is running headlong into narcissism. Narcissists are incapable of seeing themselves as flawed. And if, for some reason, they discover an unsavory quality within themselves, it’s typically cast as someone else’s fault for being there.
“I cuss so much because my parents did.”
“I belittle my wife because she does things to irritate me.”
Well, whatever. Just know that whether a person realizes it or not, ultimately, these excuses are aimed at God. When you blame your own sins on someone else—or worse, you claim your sins and the behavior born from them are justifiable—you are calling God a liar. God’s Word considers this to be one of the grossest affronts perpetuated by the sinful flesh because it gaslights God, telling Him that what He knows to be true isn’t (1 John 1:8-10).
Once again, today, Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland is celebrating her 67th anniversary. It’s good for us as a family of believers to remember that the deepest purpose of this congregation over the course of the past 67 years has been to wrestle against straying from truth. It has been almost seven decades of fighting the urge to lie to anyone—ourselves included—about the precariousness of the predicament we face as sinners. It has been to readily accept that while we may try to hide our self-centeredness from others, we cannot conceal it from the One who will measure us according to His divine standards at the hour of our last breath. It has been to understand that the harm we cause to others, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is always a sign of something deep within us that, apart from faith, we really have no power to uproot and remove. But it has also been an expanse of years dedicated to preaching, teaching, and administering the solution to this Sin problem. It has been nothing short of 804 months of Christ crucified and raised for transgressors in order that those same offenders would be transformed and equipped for desiring God’s reality, God’s holy will (Romans 12:2). It has been 24,472 days of being remade into the likeness of the One who gave Himself over into death that we would have life to the fullest (John 10:10).
Life to the fullest.
This doesn’t mean a life of health, wealth, and ease. Sure, these things may come, but so will struggle. Life to the fullest means the ability to hold fast to Christ in joy and sorrow, Godly pleasure and pain, all the while being carried along through our years wrapped up in the truth that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and that Savior, Jesus Christ, has come. A full life is one that believes these things for eternal life. A full life has no end.
Modesty in this life born from and acted out according to the reality of Law and Gospel, Sin and Grace, will always be divinely genuine.
I’m sitting here wondering… who are the people in your life you trust, and why do you trust them? I know that’s a deeper question than it sounds. Each of us has people in our lives we’ll trust for one thing but not another. Still, there are those we keep close in everything. They are second selves in a way—people we’ll lean on no matter the circumstance.
I’m guessing that for many of you, it’s your family that best fits within the boundaries of this description. Speaking for myself, I can certainly affirm that my wife, Jennifer, is the one person I trust unreservedly with everything. She’s also the person I can trust to not pester me when there are situations happening that, while I need to keep them confidential, are clearly weighing me down. She never pries, but instead, does what she can to cheer me up, all the while encouraging me to keep pressing forward, especially when she can clearly see that I don’t feel like I can. This, again, is an aspect of her trustworthiness.
I have a trustworthy Bishop, too. He’s more than an ecclesiastical supervisor. He’s a friend. Even better, he’s a pastor’s pastor to all in the district. What I mean is that for any of the church professionals out there within reach of his supervision, if they have no one else to trust aside from Christ, they can trust him. I’m glad for that.
Since I mentioned the idea of confidential things, in contrast to those you’d trust, there are those around each of us who display a tendency for handling secrets in the same way they handle cash. They circulate them, using them to buy and sell with others. By the way, those folks are often the first ones to pester for secret information, ultimately betraying their lack of intention or ability for ever keeping to themselves whatever it is you may share. There’s another term for those people: Gossipers. For the record, I keep gossipers at arm’s length. In fact, anyone who knows me will know I have a tendency to come down hard on gossipers. Gossip is poison to the Church and it should never be tolerated.
Of course, keeping confidence isn’t the only thing that makes a person trustworthy. Again, speaking only for myself, the people I keep closest are the ones I know will receive my words honestly—easy or hard—and in turn, they know I’ll do the same with theirs. I hope Jennifer doesn’t mind that I’m repeatedly using her as an example, but this reminds me of something she articulated so wisely a few years ago. In fact, I mentioned it in The Angels’ Portion, Volume III. I may have shared it with you before. Either way, here’s what I wrote:
“‘Friends are friends until they’re not,’ my brilliant wife has observed. And the substance of her meaning is a direct outflow of her life as a pastor’s wife. She knows all too well that her husband is always just one decision, action, conversation, or sermon away from ticking someone off and seeing that which once was become a thing of the past. She knows all too well that if she shows up on Sunday and gets the cold shoulder from someone who only last week was as fresh and friendly as a springtime sprig, it’s because of something I did.”
Friends are friends until they’re not, which is why I’m guessing that like me, the people you trust the most are the ones who continue to prove the long-lasting nature of real friendship that can withstand being over-taxed by mistakes, careless words, or whatever else might cause division between people. Most often the first action of a trusted friend, at least the kind I’ve described so far, won’t be to attack you, but rather will be to seek peaceful ways to fortify his or her friendship with you through faithfulness to Christ.
I appreciate the phrase, “True friendship is never serene.” Marie de Sévigné said that. She was right. And her point: True friendships are not without turbulence. Still, I’m guessing they have something that other relationships do not: Humility and forgiveness.
Humility will always be a sturdy bridge for carrying heavier issues over from one person to another. And if forgiveness is there waiting on the other side, the friendship will be proven capable of withstanding what breaks all other relationships.
Christians, in particular, know these things very well. And why wouldn’t we? We know that even as we were God’s enemies, completely dead in our trespasses and sins, Christ humbly submitted Himself to death on our behalf (Ephesians 2:1; Romans 5:6). The forgiveness He won for us by His death is the foundation of our very identity as human beings. From this, we know without question that He is the absolute epitome of “friend,” having made clear to us that there is no greater love to be found among friends than that one would be self-sacrificing, that one would lay down his life for the other (John 15:13). When Jesus speaks this way, of course He’s referring to Himself as the only One capable of being the truest friend. And yet, He certainly gives this faithful Word in order to establish the same selfless relationships between His people, knowing that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we would be found emitting to each other in much simpler ways what He first demonstrated to us in the greatest of ways.
You may have other criteria behind your determining of trusted friends. I certainly have others I’ve not shared. Nevertheless, what I can tell you with relative simplicity is that when humility and forgiveness are present in a person, the rest of what we might consider to be not-so-likeable qualities are most often barely noticeable—which makes complete sense. It’s a lot harder to see the bad stuff when Jesus is blocking your view.
Obviously, I’m still on vacation. And it’s been restful, for sure. Apart from a few excursions, the Thoma family’s goal has been just to be together. Although, my early-morning alone time has produced (as it always does) daily posts for Angelsportion.com. It’s been good to revisit the humorist hiding in my keyboard. Of course, knowing we’d be gathering with God’s people at Zion in Winter Garden this morning, I was thinking of you and hoping all was well back home among God’s faithful people at Our Savior.
You should know that having taken a gamble and visited with my email this morning, I was nudged by a thought that may be of some value to some of you, while for others, it may only be worth putting into your pocket for later. It has to do with forgiveness.
I’ve always thought that forgiveness costs the offended so much more than the offender, and by this, it will forever be an incredibly imbalanced exchange. Indeed, the one who bears the scars of attack must also be the one to rise from the pain to give a comforting word to a penitent enemy who, at the victim’s expense, may even have made personal gains by his dark deeds. But you must know that while we are promised plenty of challenging experiences in life, the sacred exchange of forgiveness between the offended and the offender is one of the few that truly tests the courage of both involved.
One must be brave enough to admit the behavior and its shame. The other must be courageous enough to let it pass by while facing off with the innate desire for retribution, which is to wrestle with one of the darkest parts of the human condition.
These being true, I’ll go further and say I’m not one to agree with those who’d wander the perimeter of this exchange repeating what pop-psychology teaches—which is that for peace of mind, the offended must come to terms with an unrepentant enemy by forgiving them in one’s heart.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s a teaching of Christianity.
Real forgiveness does not move from one sphere to the other without the avenue of repentance. Even as it meets with our Lord’s work on the cross, He paid the full price that accomplishes absolute forgiveness for all of Mankind’s past, present, and future atrocities. Forgiveness is there. It is available. And yet, no one receives even an atom-sized drop of heaven’s storehouses of forgiveness apart from faith. Faith is born of the Gospel, and as it is birthed, its bearer’s eyes are opened to the inescapable dreadfulness of his sinful condition. From there, trust in the sacrifice of Christ as the only rescuer is engaged. The ultimate One offended—God—works this humble faith in the offender, and in that moment, the floodgates of forgiveness are opened, and the sinner is drowned in the mercies of His divine love.
An unrepentant offender remains divided from forgiveness. Apart from forgiveness, the truth is that nothing is reconciled and the two live in completely different spheres leading to vastly different consequences.
I know some might contend that texts like Luke 7:47 and Matthew 6:14-15 are clear cut examples of the Lord instructing us to forgive everyone no matter the circumstances. With regard to Luke 7, I’d argue that we ought to pay closer attention to the love the Lord describes in that particular verse before leaning on such a loose interpretation. With regard to Matthew 6, I’d suggest an important text that comes before it: Matthew 5:43-48. It’s there Jesus describes with precision how we are to relate to devoted enemies and persecutors. The word for forgiveness isn’t used, but rather the Lord calls for us to show them genuine love and to pray for them. Christ is pressing His Christians to deeds of kindness that will serve as markers leading others to the one true merciful God awaiting the lost with open arms. By the way, you may recall He already began describing this at the beginning of the sermon in Matthew 5:16. In a way, He’ll describe the glory of the whole thing later on in Luke’s Gospel when He tells the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:17-24).
And so, boiling all of this down to relationships in general…
Did your husband cheat on you? Has he recognized and admitted to his wrongdoing and returned to seek your forgiveness? No? Then I’m not so sure you can just declare him forgiven and move on. From a Christian perspective, how would that lead him to Christ? What would that teach the children?
Did someone tell a dreadful lie about you, one that has spread like wildfire and devastated your reputation among others you once considered friends? Again, has this person come clean with you, doing what she can to amend and repair the damage? No? Again, I’m not so sure you can blanketly offer her forgiveness. How would that display for her the deeper value of forgiveness to be had from God?
I know all of this may sound somewhat controversial, especially as it seems to leave one person in the relationship to suffer. But that’s not it at all. None of this is to say you must move on from such challenging circumstances completely devoid of inner peace. God has given a way for going forward. For one, He has promised to comfort and uphold you in times of trouble (Deuteronomy 31:8; Job 5:11; Psalm 27:1; Psalm 46:1; Matthew 5:4; John 16:33; 2 Corinthians 1:3). Even better, He has already drawn you to Himself by the forgiveness He has bestowed in your life, and by this, you can go from day to day with the knowledge that you are not at war with the One who matters most, but rather you exist at peace with Him (Romans 5:1-15). It’s there you can know that no matter the offending behavior of other human beings in this awful world, be it big or small, as much as it depends on you, you can speak and act in ways that have the potential for leading your persecutors toward genuine peace with God (Romans 12:18).
With that, I pray the Lord’s blessings for you this morning, namely that you’ll be richly upheld in penitent faith by His wonderfully abundant grace given through Word and Sacrament in holy worship.
I had an interesting thought that came to me during the Elders meeting yesterday morning. It happened while leading the group through a portion of Article IV of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Essentially, I was reminded of something that happened a few weeks back while watching my daughter, Evelyn, during her horseback riding lessons.
At one point during her lesson, I could tell just by looking at her that her blood sugar was getting low, and so as she lapped the place where I was observing, I asked her how she was feeling. She confirmed that she was a bit tired and feeling a little woozy. Of course, the last thing you want to be doing with low blood sugar is riding a horse, and so I asked her to come back around to me so I could give her a juice bottle. I knew after a few big gulps, she’d start to feel better and be able to keep going. Besides, she wanted to keep riding. It bothers her when her Type 1 diabetes gets in the way of her abilities to just be a normal kid. With that, she turned her steed (whose name is Moe) in a circle and trotted up beside the platform where I was sitting. I gave her the juice bottle. She took a few big gulps, gave it back to me, and then gave Moe the cue to proceed.
Strangely, Moe was slow to move.
When he finally did—and I know this is going to sound weird—he seemed to be acting judiciously, as if he knew Evelyn needed him to be a little more careful with her. The more I watched, the more I noticed his apparent awareness. For example, when Evelyn gives him the cue for cantering, which is a relatively swifter pace of travel somewhere between and trot and a gallop, usually Moe hops right into it. But not this time. Evelyn gave the cue and Moe was slower to engage, taking a few extra paces to transition into it rather than taking off abruptly.
Again, the more I watched, the more I noticed these things. He didn’t take the turns as roughly as before. He added a few extra paces to his stops.
Intrigued, I grabbed my phone and did a search online to see what I could find out about the intellectual abilities of horses. I wanted to know whether or not they actually had the capacity for caring all that much about the welfare of the rider. I was surprised to learn that the so-called science is up in the air on the subject. For every article that said horses form emotional bonds with their riders or caregivers, another would frame their behavior as more animalistic and instinctual. In other words, they could be trained to act in ways that make it look like they care.
I can’t say for sure. Although, I’d say for my part, I believe the former analysis rather than the latter. I say this not only because of what I observed over the course of Evelyn’s thirty-minute lesson, but because of one article that suggested horses actually do have the cognitive ability for communicating with humans. Essentially, a study was performed proving horses are more than capable of telling their trainers when they are too hot or too cold. The horses in the study, if they were too hot, they would touch their noses to a certain placard indicating they didn’t want to wear a blanket. If they were cold, they’d do the same thing with a different placard, indicating they wanted a blanket. In my mind, if horses can think certain things through and ultimately tell us what they want, then I think it’s likely they can take in what we’re communicating and reply through deliberate action. Just watching Moe with Evelyn, I think he knew something wasn’t quite right with her, and he was watching out for her. He was one way, and then when she changed, he changed, and not in a mindless way, but in a measured way.
As you might expect, this sent me into the realm of theology.
I don’t know who said it, but there is the quote which goes something like, “Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” In other words, even a horse knows better than to expect goodness in people, let alone count on them for much anything at all. A jesting proverb, and yet a truthful one acknowledging the innate sinfulness of Man. Just by watching Moe with my daughter, I couldn’t help but recall past and present interactions with certain people who’ve proven themselves far less capable of the simple kindnesses being shown even by this horse. Admittedly, however, in that same moment I felt shame nudging me for being just as capable of reckless unkindness. There’ve been times when I was annoyed and short-tempered. There have been times when someone else’s need was of little consequence to me and I cantered along to other things unconcerned for their wellbeing.
But here was Moe, a creature designed and given by God, showing me a better way.
I don’t know what it is about moments like this, but when I experience them, I almost always discover some sort of lesson ready and waiting in the motion-filled details. And each one usually involves being neck-deep in silent confession with my Lord, which, I’d say, is a good thing. Through the combined lens of repentance and faith, I’m forever being reminded of just how undeserving I am of every ounce of concern God gives. And yet, He continues to give it (1 John 1:8-9). He doesn’t want me to fall. He wants to carry me through to the end of my days securely in His care. Thankful for His grace, I become more aware of the opportunities faith reveals for a humble approach in my dealings with others as I wrestle to put aside the “self” in order to show Christ-like care to others—even those I’d consider to be my enemies.
To come at it from another angle, without genuine Christian humility, it’s very possible that the wrongs we exact in the lives of others, in comparison to the wrongs they measure against us, will never be weighed by the same scales. When this is true, nothing ever becomes reconcilable. Our deeds will always be justified and theirs will always be condemnable. You know, I should probably just go ahead and be blunt in this regard: If you’re someone who rarely sees the guilt of his or her own sin in any given situation, but rather is forever innocent, always being on the receiving end of the offensive actions of others, I know a horse you should meet. His name is Moe, and I’d be glad to arrange an introduction.
Cruciform Stuff 