When God Should Come Second

When God Should Come Second—October 9, 2018

“So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” [Matthew 5:23-24]

At the risk of getting labeled a heretic, allow me to summarize: Jesus says sometimes we should not put God first.  Jesus challenges us to put God… second.

Well, maybe that’s not exactly it.  Jesus says that bringing our offerings to God is not nearly important to God as us owning our mistakes, seeking forgiveness, reconciling with each other, and starting over.  God, Jesus says, can wait to receive our offerings.  After all, God doesn’t really need whatever it is we are putting in the offering plate—the ministry of the church might need it, but God can wait.  So it’s not that God comes second in importance, so much as that God is big enough not to have to be first in line.  God’s mercy, after all, does not depend on you giving your offering, but your friend whom you have wronged may well need you to own up to your mess-ups, so that you can both put them in the past and leave them there.  So maybe much like you can tell your trusted friend on the phone, “Hang on, I’ll have to call you back, because there’s someone at the door, and I have to see who it is,” and know that they’ll understand, God can handle waiting for the offering so that we can deal with the people we need to have a face to face conversation with first.  God is more mature than we “grown-ups” are, it turns out.

Ok, so now that we’ve cleared that side of things up, here’s the real challenge in all of this: Jesus challenges us to take the initiative in admitting we are wrong… or even that we could be wrong.  And frankly, none of us really wants to do that. 

I kind of think that sometimes we religious folks would rather use our offerings as a cover for not ever getting around to reconciling with our neighbors, our family members, our distant acquaintances who said something boneheaded on Facebook, our church family, and our friends.  We would almost rather Jesus said, “Whatever you do, give your offerings to God, and then it’s OK if you never get around to reconciling with the people from whom you have grown estranged!” We almost wish Jesus would give us the “Get-out-of-responsibility-free card of church donations as a way of avoiding saying we are sorry.”  But that’s why we started where we did today: Jesus starts out reminding us that God can handle waiting for the offering—we don’t get to use “But I’m putting God first!” as a way of weaseling out of taking responsibility for our actions, for our words, and for our failures.   Jesus challenges us to race to reconciliation first.

This is a pretty radical notion, if we give it even a moment’s thought.  For one, it flies in the face of the cultural winds to be responsible, to take ownership, to admit failings, and not to pass the buck or throw someone else under the bus.  Of course, ever since the ancient storytelling of Adam saying, “It was the woman YOU gave me, God, who made me do it!” we have been struggling as a species with being adult enough to take responsibility for our mistakes and our wrongs.  And really, all throughout human history, we have been looking for whatever angles we could find to put someone else in the hot seat, to make “someone else” the source of the problem, or to turn into the scapegoat.  

But maybe especially in this moment in our lives together, we are desperately in need of the courage it takes to resist blaming someone else or pretending nothing is wrong, the courage to say, “I messed up.  This one is my fault.  I am sorry—and I need your forgiveness.  How can I help make things right again?”  Especially in this moment of our public discourse, we need to recover the ability to look at our selves for possible ways we have contributed to whatever the problem is, before looking to let ourselves off the hook.

And maybe that’s the next car in this logical train of thought.  Not only is Jesus challenging us to stop passing the buck and blaming others, he is actively challenging us to take the positive step own owning our faults, and even beyond that, to allow the possibility that I could be in the wrong without realizing it yet, and that maybe I need to go to the other person and work things out, even if I’m still convinced I’m right about whatever it is that has come between us.  

Notice, after all, how Jesus phrases things: “if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you,” you are supposed to go and reconcile.  Jesus doesn't weigh in on whether the other person is justified in having this bone to pick with you, or whether you are actually in the right, or whether it's all just a big misunderstanding. In a sense, that is all moot--at least in terms of setting preconditions for trying to reconcile.  If there is someone who is upset at me, or who believes I have wronged them (even if I am sure I didn't do anything wrong, or even if I don't recall doing anything wrong, or even if I don't see what I did as wrong), Jesus challenges us to be the grown-ups, and to approach the other person to try and set things right.  Jesus challenges us not to run, or to deny, or to spin, or to get defensive, but first to approach the other person and allow the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I am a part of the problem.  

And of course, that's the part of all this that we don't like.  Of course I don't want to consider the possibility that I messed up.  And I really, really don't want to consider that I might not even be able to see the ways I have messed up, and that I might need someone else--even someone who has felt I have hurt them--to help me to see it... so that then I can put things right, make amends, and be reconciled.

This challenge from Jesus runs counter to every instinct of self-preservation in our bodies.  We are hard-wired, experts tell us, either to run away from confrontation or to fight back to keep our selves, our reputations, and our stuff secure.  And in the face of all of that, Jesus says, "No--there is a third option: consider that you might be a part of the reason things broke down here, and own it, so that you can deal with it, rather than denying or defending it.  That will be the option my followers take."

And he is right: there is that third option--the one we never (on our own) want to choose.  We are so afraid of either getting yelled at or blamed or losing "face" or being proven wrong that we run from those we think have issues with us, or we get in their face to fight them rather than to listen to what they have to say.  And we are constantly doing this: it's the person who doesn't talk to you anymore at work that we just avoid because we don't want to find out that they have been hurt by something we did.  It's the impulse on Facebook and social media to assume the worst of those I disagree with and to assume that I have been nothing but fair and open-minded (when I have actually been something of a horses' rear-end).  It's the fear of looking "weak" that refuses to even consider that you might be a part of the problem, rather than to allow that we might each contribute to the situation that has come between us.

We leave, or we lash out.  And we do either of those, if we are quite honest with ourselves, because we are petrified inside.  It takes courage to do what Jesus challenges us to do here.  It takes real, honest-to-God guts to stop yelling or running long enough to pause and look inside at ourselves, to ask where I contribute to the problem, and to own it, so that we can reconcile.  It is a hell of a lot easier (and I do mean it is an easiness that smells of brimstone) to write the other person off, decide we're never going to deal with what has come between us, and pretend to take the moral high ground with the cliché "I guess we'll just agree to disagree," as a way of avoiding the possibility that I might be just plain wrong.

There it is: there's the real fear.  We are afraid in all of this that we will be shown up to be wrong.  We are afraid we'll discover we aren't as smart, as virtuous, as righteous, or as pure as we imagined ourselves to be, and we are afraid of being unacceptable then.

So here, at the last, then, is the ultimate way Jesus short-circuits that fear and makes it possible for us to find the courage to look inward to admit we are part of the problem.  Jesus assures us right from the get-go that we are accepted.  That we are accepted, not because we are perfect peaches or never wrong or haven't messed up, but because the living God has declared us acceptable and beloved and chosen and cherished, and that God has done that without regard for how many times or ways we have messed up.  That is called grace. And that grace makes truth-telling possible, the truth-telling that bubbles up to prompt me to say, "Honestly, I am probably part of the problem here."  That is the grace and truth that allow me to take the initiative to go to someone who has something against me, whether I understand or agree that I am in the wrong, to at least learn to see things from their angle, to come to understand their view, and then from there, to make amends and start over together.  Grace stands in the background of every part of my life, so that I can know it is possible for me to bear admitting my failings rather than hiding them, denying them, running from them, or yelling as I pass the buck.  There is no reason to leave nor to lash out, if I take such gracious acceptance from God seriously.  And I can, at last, own the ways I have contributed to the breakdowns between us.

That possibility of setting things right between us is important--so important, it turns out, that Jesus says God is willing to wait by the sidelines for us to attend to that reconciliation before we get back to putting our offerings in the collection plate.  

God, Jesus reminds us, is secure enough to take second place at a time like that.  Maybe right now.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to take up your challenge and initiate the hard conversations we have been putting off, because we are afraid of owning our mess-ups.  Let us be grounded in your acceptance.