Vineyard Church | Weekly Update December 20, 2023

“Keep the receipts!” Twice a year, on the two days that the kid year revolves around, we heard this. Every Christmas and every birthday, some adult would implore me to keep those strips of paper that seemed to hold more power than strips of paper ought. I remember hearing this as a kid, another thing adults say that sounded way too adult for me to care about. I understood their point; they wanted to make sure we could return the gifts that either didn’t fit or were something that we already had…. Very practical in the age before computers, customer records, and the need to have hardcopy proof of purchase.

A phrase that began as boring adult wisdom has transcended to a cultural norm that demonstrates a deep relational problem likely borne out of social media. Driving in to the building this morning, I was listening to a sports talk radio show that has a segment each week they call "keep the receipts." They bring up something someone said or posted on social media in the past that has been proven incorrect or foolish and make fun of the person for this thing said or done in the past yet recorded by the internet.

A person I am married to that shall remain nameless (I have agreed to never name Jenna in my blogs) gives me another example to consider along this train of thought. In her wallet is a collection of receipts that have been there so long that you can no longer make out what store they are from or what was purchased. Once every decade or so, this nameless person realizes that the pain in her back might be related to the forest of trees she is carrying as paper in her wallet and conducts a purge of all but “the important ones.” Receipts kept and curated. 

Keep the receipts… this phrase is another phrase, though perhaps rooted in justice, that demonstrates how wide the gap might be between cultural norms and a Jesus-following ethic. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul states that love keeps no record of being wronged. This is an unequivocal directive against keeping receipts that is rooted in the Word of God and demonstrated by the stuff that Jesus did. 

If Jesus is the example of my life, I must recognize how antithetical the idea of receipts kept is to following Him. When he taught the disciples to pray in the Sermon on the Mount, the teaching was to ask God to forgive us just as we forgive others. The most powerful example of this, the example that shows the extremity of unkept receipts, is found in one of the last statements Jesus makes as He hangs on the cross. In Luke 24, Jesus prays for those executing him and asks that the Father “… forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

Surely, if keeping the receipts were consistent with following Jesus, this statement would never have been uttered. Paul again, in Colossians 3:13-14, gives us this instruction based on the example of Christ: 

13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

As we move towards the end of the Advent season, we can pause to reflect on two realities that come from the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God into our lives represented by the birth, life, death, and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. First, when I was yet a sinner, my Father forgave me. Second, I image Him to the world by recognizing that He has no receipts on me, which leads me to keep no receipts on you. 

Our prayer as we close Advent together is this… Father, thank you for showing us that real love keeps no record of the wrongs we have committed. Please grant us the wisdom, courage, and strength to love in this same way; walk with us as we choose to not keep receipts. Amen.

Adam Greenwell
Pastor  |  Billings Vineyard Church
www.BillingsVineyard.org