Rogue Table Talks

Your neighbor’s dog kills your dog or cat …

Your dog kills your neighbor’s dog or cat …

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  (Colossians 3:13)

What makes forgiveness so hard?

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.  (Matthew 18:23-27)

10 thousand talents - 10 thousand bags of gold: one talent is 20 years of wages for a laborer

In our economy - $10/hour - $80/day - $400/week - $20,800/year - one talent = $416,000

28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”  (Matthew 18:28-35)

100 denarii - 100 days of wages for laborer - $8,000

Why is forgiveness just?

Why is withholding forgiveness so bad?

Do I realize how much I have been forgiven?

Admit something needs to be forgiven - Admit that I am commanded to forgive

Peacemaking - Peacefaking … overlooking an offense vs. peacefaking

Return good for evil - do not hold it against them, do not hold the moral high ground, give up righteous victim status

Love keeps no record of wrongs

Romans 12 starts with the illustration of the body - which invites us to see each other in the body as important and necessary and worthy of honor ...

Then Rom 12 says to outdo one another in showing honor. In order to honor and respect one another we have to see each other as the image bearers and followers of Christ.

Every member of the body is to be held in the highest of esteem.

What does it mean for Christians who:

Honor one another - Romans 12:10

Wait for each other 1 Corinthians 11:33

Have equal concern for  1 Corinthians 12:25

Submit to  - Ephesians 5:21

In humility consider others better than yourself - Philippians 2:3

Humility is a great step towards honor.

Bear with one another - Ephesians 4:1-6

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Identity - Who are we?

Team sports stories …

How do we answer that question? (as individuals only or as individuals within a group)?

The problem of our identity in our culture ....

How should we answer that question?

In Christ …

In the Body of Christ …

In the Church … the family of God … etc.

Those we love - are connected to eternally …

John 15 - Love one another … a new commandment ...

1 Peter 2:4-5,9-10 - As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Loving one another should be part of our group identity …

RTT 111 - Redemption in Stories and in our Story

Ladybird

The Dark Knight

Harry Potter

Armageddon

Inside Out

... and so on, and so on ...

Sacrifice is a key element in so many stories because it is perhaps the key element in our Big Story 

John 15:12-14 - This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.

Love involves laying down our life - being a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1), denying ourselves and picking up our cross ... and so on, and so on ...

Stories and the Big Story

A brief theology of culture - what is culture and how should we live with respect to the culture in our world? How do stories in general and movies, in particular, help us understand and experience true things about the big story we are in?

Example - what can we see about good/evil in The Dark Knight?

Acts 17:16-34

RTT 108 - Loving Your Neighbor - Seeds and Demons

Loving our neighbor - 2 ways to look at it.  (or, most aspects of the Christian life … 2 ways to look at it)

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

30 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” (Mark 4:26-32)

This view of what the kingdom is like and what kingdom work looks like ...

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.[a] 2 And when Jesus[b] had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.(Mark 5:1-13)

This view of what the kingdom is like and what kingdom work looks like …

Translation to loving my neighbor

Which view are we drawn to?

Do we feel that, having “failed” in what seemed like a decisive encounter, the game is over (that Mark 4 process is over also …)

Theme of Alienation … the fall brings alienation 

(The following list of alienations from the fall are from Professor Jerram Barrs, Covenant Seminary - all errors mine)

How that impacts loving our neighbor …

Biblical theme of being called out of comfort and into a journey, because our home is elsewhere and our citizenship is elsewhere … all throughout the Bible - Abram / Jacob / Joseph / David / Israel itself / Jesus has nowhere to lay his head / Paul / Apostles … us

Now the Lord said[a] to Abram, “Go from your country[b] and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”[c]

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak[d] of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.(Genesis 12:1-9)

Psalm 130

A song of ascents

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;

Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,

Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness,

so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

6 I wait for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,

for with the Lord is unfailing love

and with him is full redemption.

8 He himself will redeem Israel

from all their sins.