John Fischer The Catch

“You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.

“Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?”   Matthew 5:38-42; 44-46

Jesus wants us to manifest a different attitude personally as representatives of His kingdom and as His disciples. He wants us to refrain from retaliating. He wants us to resist the obligation to even the score. In other places in Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, God says that vengeance is a factor of His judgment; He will repay the evil done. We are not in the business of evening the score.

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“Look at my Servant, whom I have chosen.

    He is my Beloved, who pleases me.

I will put my Spirit upon him,

    and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

He will not fight or shout

    or raise his voice in public.

He will not crush the weakest reed

    or put out a flickering candle.

    Finally he will cause justice to be victorious.

And his name will be the hope

    of all the world.”  Matthew 11:18-21  (Isaiah 42:1-4)

These are not red letters, but they are words about Jesus, describing His character and His mission. They are words from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah recalled by Matthew in his gospel. They present the gentleness of Jesus — something we rarely see or talk about. It’s a prophetic observation about what the Messiah will be like. Had the Jewish leaders been more aware of prophesies like this about the Messiah instead of who and what they wanted Him to be, they would have recognized Jesus immediately.

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Paranoia strikes deep

Into your life it will creep

It starts when you’re always afraid

Step out of line, the men come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what’s that sound?

Everybody look what’s goin’ down

                              – Buffalo Springfield, 1967

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:31-34

Don’t worry; be happy.

                        – Bobby McFerrin

“Stop! What’s that sound?” The year was 1967. Something was going down in the streets. In a year, (50 years ago now), Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy would be dead — cut down by an assassins’ bullets. The war and confusion in Vietnam would escalate. In two more years four university students in Ohio would be shot down by our own National Guard troops; and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — the former Buffalo Springfield — would be singing a new song: “Four dead in O-hi-o.” Paranoia indeed strikes deep.

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Morning sun rising

There’s sleep in our eyes

And echoes of nightmares

Taunt us with lies

But this is a new day

This is the dawn

There is a new way

Calling us on

Hunger and hatred

War and disease

The debt of the devil

Is never appeased

Truth is the weapon

Faith is the shield

Love is the power

For those who will yield

Don’t trust in armies

There’s no hope in guns

Don’t count on missiles

That block out the sun

For nothing below us

And nothing above

Can ever extinguish

The fire of His love

We have won this war

We have won this war

The fight may not be done

But the war’s already won

             – From “We Have Won This War,” by John Fischer

Carole, a loyal Catch member, has an amazing story to tell about how God saved her from an armed attacker who forced his way into her home and held her at gunpoint in her own kitchen. I would tell the story, but it is so compelling that the story would become the point when it is not the point. The point is that God is in control. We are powerless against the forces of evil. To think that training, weapons, pepper spray, and self-defense can protect you is to put your faith in the wrong place.

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“But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven! Matthew 5:20

In other words: Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the most holy people you know, don’t even try.

This was one of the main things Jesus accomplished in the Sermon on the Mount. He established a new order. He put the law on a new basis. He made the law harder (indeed, impossible) to obey, but easier to fulfill. If that sounds like the same thing, it’s not. Think of it this way: If you are setting out to make yourself righteous on the basis of following all the laws of God … forget it. But if you want to know the point of the law — the reason behind it — so you can know why God gave it in the first place, and what to focus on, because you want to please Him and align your life in close proximity to His will … then you can do that by following only one law: the law of love.

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Faith alone will not protect you in a house of God. Dylan Roof, who fatally shot nine congregants in a Bible Study in a Charleston South Carolina church, didn’t start shooting until the parishioners closed their eyes to pray. So keep your eyes open when you pray. Closing your eyes makes you a target. If you do not have an armed presence in your church, you are simply not ready. Here are some tips for keeping your churches safe: Lock the doors (presumably after everyone is inside); study every person who enters; watch the parking lot; have Sunday school and day care teachers carry pepper spray; and teach people to throw projectiles at attackers. Oh, yes, and don’t close your eyes when you pray.

Such were some of the messages delivered to a roomful of mostly men at a seminar on church security in a prominent evangelical church in southern California recently by a pastor and retired police officer and members of the California Rifle and Pistol Association. The overall message was: should we come under attack in a worship service by a deranged shooter, WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY!

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There is a movement afoot to prioritize the words of Jesus over the rest of the Scriptures. That is not what we are talking about here in our Red Letter Review. We’re not talking about the words of Jesus to the exclusion of everything else. The Bible claims that “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness …” (2 Timothy 3:16). (In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter refers to Paul’s letters as “Scripture,” so we know that even the early church considered these epistles Scripture, and all of Scripture is necessary.)

Having said that, however, I also must say that I don’t think you can focus too much on the words of Jesus. Jesus is the focal point of all of Scripture and His words are unique and unlike the words of anyone else in all of history. It’s why the people always said that no one spoke like He spoke. He spoke with authority and not like the other teachers who spoke in cliches and borrowed phrases. They sounded like each other. Jesus sounded like no one else.

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“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:6-7

Jesus does not force His way into anyone’s life. He puts value on our free will. He treats each person with dignity, even those who reject Him. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

Just think about that a minute. The God who made us is asking if we would like to have a relationship with Him. The God who made us — who could just as easily snuff out our lives by shuffling His feet (the earth is His footstool) — has issued a challenge for us to seek out a relationship with Him. He invites us to ask, seek and knock.

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