214 Bitter or Better?

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Bitter or Better?”, originally shared on May 12, 2022. It was the 214^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   Christians are members of the Body of Christ. We belong to Christian communities. But even Christians disappoint us sometimes, just as we sometimes disappoint others. How can we avoid becoming bitter, but instead become better? Today, we’re going to find out.

   I mentioned a song called “They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love” last time. It was sung by pretty much every Christian youth group I knew about during what some have called “The Great Folk Music Scare” of the early and middle ‘60’s.

   Another song, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” was popular in Christian youth groups as well, partly because it was actually being played on the radio at the time. It was written by folk singer Pete Seeger and made popular by the folk rock group “The Byrds,”.

   It was based on a passage from the Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes, 3:1-8.

3 For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:

² a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to break down and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek and a time to lose;
a time to keep and a time to throw away;
⁷ a time to tear and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
⁸ a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

   The song lyrics extended the passage to make it, in part, an anti-war song.

   But have you ever read Ecclesiastes? The name is a Latin transliteration of the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Koheleth”.  It literally means "Gatherer", but “Koheleth” is often translated as "Teacher" or "Preacher".

   When I was a young man, I wondered why it was even in the Bible. It just seemed like the rantings of a bitter old man. But the older I got the more it made sense to me.  😊

   Maundy Thursday is the day when Christians mark the day in which Jesus had his last supper with his 12 disciples, instituted Holy Communion, washed the feet of his disciples as a sign of servanthood that they should all imitate, and the night in which he was betrayed by one of those disciples, Judas Iscariot.

   It’s also the day when Jesus gave a new commandment (“Maundy” is Old English for “mandate” or “commandment.”), in John 13:34-35,

³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

   Did you notice the supreme irony here? Jesus gives his disciples the commandment to love one another in the context of his being betrayed by one of them, Judas.

   I think that people who have been Christians for awhile have experienced intense love, great grace, exemplary sacrifice, and a sense of Christian community that can’t be duplicated anywhere else.

   People who have been Christians for a while have also experienced exclusion, heartlessness, selfishness and yes, even betrayal.

   Christian communities are also human communities. We are, as 16^th century Church reformer Martin Luther said, “at the same time saint and sinner.” No question.

   But we are also a new creation, born again. How do we live the Christian life without becoming bitter by the lack of love we sometimes see in the Christian community and even see in ourselves?

   I think that part of the answer is given in that reading we just shared from John. What is Jesus’ response to being betrayed by a close member of his community? He focuses on what that community is called to be in the selfless love he has shown them and now calls them, us, to live.

   He shows us how to focus on the transformed life that the faithful community is called to live in themselves, among themselves, and in the world, to allow the presence of the Holy Spirit to lead them to get better nor bitter.

   Consider the nature of the Christian community.

   Christian sociologist Tony Compolo once asked an audience to picture themselves in an unfamiliar urban area late at night. You are walking down a dark street when a group of men comes around the corner and walks toward you. “Would you rather know that they are coming from a bar or from a Bible Study?” he asked.

   Or think about all the people you know in your church. How many of them have you met who, upon first meeting, made you perfectly comfortable, and how many would you have once crossed the street to avoid but who now you consider brothers and sisters, or mothers and fathers, in Christ?

   I saw a T-shirt the other day that said, “Normal is not coming back. But, Jesus is!” Nothing and no one will be perfect until then. Only saved for eternity.

   Meanwhile we are called to live in response to the selfless love of God by exhibiting that love naturally and sacrificially, as the new Creation God has made of us, living lives of repentance and resolving to be who we have been redeemed to be for the sake of others.

   Real happiness is not an end in itself. It is the result of the new life we receive as a gift in the love of God and the love we show others in response to the living relationship with God we have been given in Jesus Christ, revealed by the Holy Spirit.

   How are we to live this good news of Jesus? John writes in 1 John 4:19,

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

   We have been transformed in the gifts of faith and baptism. And that transformation is available to everyone because of the cross. Let that be our proclamation, our message of hope, and let us live that message of God’s redemption each day in selfless, tangible love for one another as the people God in Jesus Christ.

   Let our hearts be open to receive the work of the Holy Spirit, the streams of living water that cleanse us, to open our eyes to see God’s presence all around us, to do the work God has equipped us to do, and as a consequence, to know lives that truly are lives and that make us better, not bitter.

   And how will people outside our Christian communities come to know that?

   Love for one another in the Church is a natural outcome of the relationship with God that we receive as God’s gift. That relationship of faith comes through the word of Christ that we share, as Paul describes in Romans 10:14-17,

⁴ But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? ¹⁵ And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” ¹⁶ But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” ¹⁷ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

   That is our power, and it is that power that enables us to live life with all its disappointments with hearts that do not become bitter but instead in Christ become better.

   How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t say that my feet are my best feature, much less beautiful.

   Thankfully, beauty is a result of bringing the good news of Jesus Christ. It is a response, not a condition.

   They are beautiful because they help us bring good news, and the news is good because it is the word of God’s “agape”, God’s selfless love in Jesus Christ. We don’t point to ourselves. We’re sinners. We point to Jesus, the forgiveness and grace that we strive to embody, and the greatness of his selfless love.

   As our song from last time goes:  

“We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand;

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand;

And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land.”

   That is the good news that points to God, that makes us better and not bitter.