Blessed Are Those Who Believe
Commentary for the November 16, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
"You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace." Galatians 5:4, NIV
Before I retired in 2007, I worked as a state employee in a two-story office building that had a lunchroom with a microwave kitchen, a gym, and some small training and storage rooms on the second floor. On the ground floor were all the work offices and cubicles. Central to those offices was a small kitchen with a coffee machine, a microwave, a sink, a refrigerator for storing lunches that needed to be kept cold and vending machines for snacks during breaks and to supplement lunchtime cravings.
The snack machines offered a variety of snacks for different prices. We would put in our money, select the snack, and it would drop into a bin at the base of the machine ready for retrieval and enjoyment. Sometimes, due to vagaries with the machine or the snack packaging, the snack, though paid for, failed to drop into the bin. We all knew when this happened because the frustrated employee could be heard all over the office banging on the machine, trying to get the snack to drop. Sometimes this ploy was successful. Sometimes it was not. When that happened, the employee would put a post-it note on the machine letting the vendor who refilled the machines know that he had paid and received nothing. Usually, the vendor would reimburse the employee.
In many ways, life is viewed just like the employees viewed that vending machine. We put in what is required, and we expect to receive what we have earned. We go to school and earn the requisite diplomas, so we expect life to reward us with a career and all the things that a career makes possible -- marriage, a home, children, education for those children, family travel, adequate family medical care, and eventually a comfortable retirement. If we fail in achieving those things and someone quips, "Life is not fair," we are likely to respond negatively on a level commensurate with the amount of effort we put into making it fair. In short, we demand that life be transactionally just. When it is not, we demand to know the cause and set about vilifying those in charge, even if they had little to do with the actual events in question. Politically, we see this as whoever is president when we are unhappy is at fault. While such scapegoats are popular, they have about as much to do with our unhappiness as the governor of our state had to do with a candy bar not falling into the vending machine bin in our office.
The point is that a transactional basis for life is not a formula for happiness. Eventually, a transaction will fail just like those vending machines. When it does, rather than questioning such an approach to life we place metaphorical post-its everywhere demanding redress, even if the event itself was trivial. When this goes on for a prolonged period, we explode, like the proverbial Karens who seem to blow up over trivial offenses without reason, only to suffer embarrassment and loss of respect as a result. Sometimes it is our bad choices that bring us to that point. Sometimes it may be the bad choices of others who we may not even know. Yet those choices affect us and upset the transactional expectations we hold sacred. We know how remote these things can be. For instance, we know that when someone gains a job in China, Korea, or Mexico, in our global economy, it can mean someone else does not get an equivalent job in the United States. We may have learned our trade or professional qualifications at a cost that demanded we seek employment to recoup, and when that fails, we decry the lack of justice. The transactional justice model has failed us again. Over such things, the governments of countries rise and fall. But despite the changes, transactional justice is never complete.
When we consider the Bible's perspective, God is often portrayed as a heavenly vending machine. We pray or are obedient to some requirement and expect reciprocation from God. In other words, as human beings, we bring our same demands for transactional justice to our relationship with God. This is why we struggle with theodicy. How can we accept that God is fair if he allows the transactional model to fail? And if the holy grail of life is transactional equity, how can we accept the existence of a God whose actions deny the validity of the pursuit of that quest? Because transactional equity has become so ingrained in whom we see ourselves to be, we can readily see the demands for obedience in the Bible as a condition for blessings, but we fail to see all who, in its pages, recognize that such equity is a phantom and even question God about it. Those Old Testament questioners, though revered for their faith and commitment are nonetheless outliers when it comes to weighing them against our demands for justice. Instead of embracing the inequity and seeking understanding therein, we convince ourselves that if we can force everyone to be just and equitable in their dealings with everyone else, the problem will be solved. How can we continue with such thinking when throughout the history of humanity, we have never succeeded in that despite myriad attempts? Even killing off those who will not comply as Stalin did when millions questioned his ill-conceived pursuit of societal perfection that did not achieve its end, for injustice always abounds despite those efforts.
Incarnating into this milieu, Jesus revealed the only thing that we have control over in this ongoing inequity is ourselves. Changing governments does not solve the problem, even though we might claim it will. Passing coercive laws will not solve it. That will only fill the prisons, something we have been particularly good at doing in the United States. Even the defeat of enemies both internal and foreign will not solve it. We like to think if we can only get people to follow the Decalogue of Exodus, chapter 20, or Deuteronomy, chapter 5, we could have a perfect society, but we cannot even manage to accomplish the love required to fulfill the two greatest commands, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and being, and to love our neighbor. As simple as that is, it should tell us something about ourselves. We cannot provide the transactional equity we demand of others. As the Bible says, we are all sinners. We know we should be loving, but when those transactional expectations fail, our love fails also. Instead of loving, we become demanding. In that failing, we reveal, we do not know God. As the Apostle John said, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8) If we are all sinners as the Apostle Paul taught, (Romans 3:23) then we are all guilty of failure to love. Forcing ourselves to be obedient to the Decalogue does not solve the problem. It is possible to obey every one of the commandments and still be a miserable, unloving cur.
And what happens when we have done all of that and still fail to find what we consider to be transactionally equitable? Jesus met such an individual. (Matthew 19:16-22) A young man came up to him and asked how to receive eternal life. Jesus told him to love God and love his neighbor. He assured Jesus that he had done that since his childhood and asked what else? Jesus told him to sell all that he had and follow him. When the young man frowned and left, he revealed that his greatest love was of his wealth. Like the Pharisee with the Publican, we might feel we are not like that wealthy young man, but we should ask ourselves, what would we be willing to give up if we had to choose between that and loving God and our neighbor? Too many prefer to keep track of offenses and pile them up as though they represented great wealth. We are offended that God did not provide transactional equity by answering our prayers. We add that to our stack of grievances until we convince ourselves he does not exist else he would have provided that equity. We behave similarly toward our neighbors. Someone does not say or do the right thing at the right time, and it goes into a pot that simmers with grievance until the meal is well cooked and ready to serve its poisonous broth into a relationship that may have been close but drifted as the score of grievances increased.
Ironically, we may admit our own failings and rely on God's grace to escape the equitable justice we so rightly deserve. Why then do we find it so difficult to extend similar grace to others without keeping score? The sad thing about keeping score is that even one imagined wrong held in the heart can not only destroy a friendship, but it can also eat away at our happiness like a cancer. God grants us his loving grace despite our failings so that we might do the same for others. How are we doing in his school of grace?
Recommended by LinkedIn
If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy these interesting books written by the author.
To learn more click on this link. Books by Stephen Terry
This Commentary is a Service of Still Waters Ministry
Follow us on Twitter: @digitalpreacher
Follow us on Instagram: @stygyz
If you wish to receive these weekly commentaries direct to your e-mail inbox for free, simply send an e-mail to:
Scripture not otherwise identified is taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION and NIV are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.