THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
August 23, 2004
Passages That Have Made Me What I am.
From the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7.)
It's such a simple line, Matthew 5:37. Let your word be yes, yes or no, no. It's the way I was brought up and have tried to live. It's the old saying, my word is my bond. I'm sorry if it's naïve but I tend to believe the things that people tell me until I have evidence to the contrary. I will be there at 2 PM. So I expect this to happen. When I say I'll be there at 11, I try to be there at 10:45 to be sure. If it takes an hour under normal circumstances to keep an appointment I suggest we allow one and a quarter. I would be a nervous wreck if I tried to catch an airplane in only one half of the suggested arrival time at the airport. Yet many people are able to do this and it does make life more efficient in actions but not perhaps in thinking, prayer and meditation.
But as always there is more to it than just the simple word. Some issues are so complex that we say yes, but. I believe, but help my unbelief is the cry of the father of the boy with the spirit in Mark 9:24. Here is that father, distraught that the disciples had not been able to drive the spirit out of the boy pleading with Jesus and he replies "all things can be done for the one who believes." So the father replies, "I believe, help my unbelief." To me the father here shows tremendous honesty. He wants to say yes, yes but realizes that's not the whole truth, the question of belief in his mind is too complex for such an affirmation. So he says yes, but take away the part of me that can't quite imagine the positive result.
Is it possible that we see here the simplicity and complexity of life? Are we challenged to meet the questions of life as seen in the actions of people with a "that's not right" response but to go beyond that and say "why does the person act or feel that way?"
For ourselves then, let our yes's be yes's and no's, no's but do not be judgmental of the other person when the response is not as direct. Perhaps we don't have the whole story and when we find out we will understand.
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