Vineyard Church | Weekly Update February 12th, 2025

Last Sunday, we made it to Simon’s house and met a Pharisee that we might actually know pretty well. Simon invited Jesus to dinner because it was the “right” thing to do, not because he particularly wanted Jesus to be in his house eating his food, and he certainly didn’t want what Jesus was offering. 

“Right” is not the same as right. “Right” is an attempt to do the correct thing, correct being defined by the corrupted me-first culture around us. “Right” typically is tied to justice and morality as defined by that corrupted culture. Right is different and not really tied to behavior at all. Right is the activity that leads to and reflects righteousness, a Jesus-centered attitude that allows love to permeate a relationship.  

Simon was “right.” He lived his life by a code that he helped create. That locked people into a life of competitive survival, a self-centered pursuit of salvation that could only be achieved through their own work. Simon, as true with all religious people, was chasing a salvation that Jesus doesn’t offer.

Jesus exposes this with the presence and activity of the immoral woman. This woman is not interested in being “right.” Lost in the consequences of brokenness, she sees the deficit in her life alongside the salvation that Jesus DOES offer, and she grasps it with both hands. Her desire to be right is demonstrated by her quest to receive forgiveness, to be pardoned from the thoughts, words, and actions that flow from her brokenness intermingled with the corrupted world. 

What we see playing out in Luke 7 might be one of the most difficult realities that we face, that broken relationships need to be healed. The first relationship that requires such healing is between us and God, but the forgiveness extended to us becomes a forgiveness intended to be extended to others. This is a hard reality; it is hard for a variety of reasons. First, it is hard because people have hurt us… not just minor ouchies either. People have said and done things that were meant to destroy us. They have abused us. They have committed evil against us.

Also, it is hard because even though we have been the victim, in many cases we have also been the perpetrator or shared the role of perpetrator. It is hard to admit, truly admit, that we have played the role of abuser, attacker, shamer, or destroyer as well. 

This task is hard because it requires compassion for those who do not deserve it, forgiveness for things that should not have happened, sacrificing the right to be a victim, the feeling that forgiveness and reconciliation “let’s the bad guy off the hook,” humility to admit the things we have done, sometimes rejection from those that do not want to accept our apologies.

So, again, why do we have to do this? It is not an exaggeration to call this spiritual warfare because this is where the reality of Jesus can profoundly change lives.

16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. 2 Cor 5:16-21 (NLT)

Reconciling, then, is the mission. We see that the ministry we are directed to is the ministry of reconciliation. Now, you might notice that Paul is talking about reconciling people to God, not reconciliation between us and others… So we are off the hook, right!?

That is a large nah. No hook escape for us. Consider what Jesus had to say… In the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus lays out the truth that following him is not the path to the easy life, it is a path to eternal life. He makes it clear that to be reconciled with Him means that we do what is right rather than what is easy according to our culture. Our culture says click unfriend, to cancel. Right means righteous, right relatedness, to do what is right for relationship.

Jesus says 14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matt 6:14-15 (NLT)

Not as a tit-for-tat kind of deal, but for a measure of reconciliation with him. God’s foremost desire is to reconcile his creation back to himself… So, if we are one with him, we would share in that. One barrier is this though…

Henri Nouwen once wrote: “Maybe the reason it seems hard for me to forgive others is that I do not fully believe that I am a forgiven person. If I could fully accept the truth that I am forgiven and do not have to live in guilt or shame, I would really be free. My freedom would allow me to forgive others 70 times 7 times period by not forgiving, I chained myself to a desire to get even, thereby losing my freedom. He forgiven person forgives. This is what we proclaim when we pray and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. This lifelong struggle lies at the heart of the Christian life.”

Jesus goes on, after marking forgiveness as essential to the path to reconciliation he says this: So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you,24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.25 “When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison.26 And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny.[9] Matt 5:23-26 (NLT)

Reconciling with people demonstrates and proclaims our reconciliation with God that begins with self-awareness, that we need to be forgiven in the first place. Our salvation is a gift, and we know that what God gives us, he never intends for us to keep to and for ourselves. Self-awareness opens us up to the necessity of forgiveness, beginning first with us and then moving through us as we extend what was first given to us.