Tribe Unknown

“But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'  "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"  The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."  (Luke 10:29-37)

            I heard “Bob’s” testimony of salvation and redemption this past Monday night.  Bob is not my “neighbor” as the World defines it, not because his skin color is different than mine, but because the bandwith of his life expereince placed him in a different tribe.  There were other men in the room listening as I was who shared Bob’s skin color, but not his tribal affiliation—for Bob came from a tribe where the safety margin between a life of comfort and complete disaster was wafer thin.  We the listeners were of the tribe with a much thicker margin of Worldy security.  You could tell from our straight teeth and easy social grace that we had been raised by people with the time and resources to pay for braces and summer camps.  Our people would have seen those kinds of things as a given.  For Bob’s people, I gathered from his story, these would have been luxuries beyond the reach of their circumstances. 

                Bob’s story was similar to others I have heard from people who shared his perch at the edge of disaster.  A distrust of doctors led him to procrastinate treatment of an affliction that ultimately cost him his job.  Unemployment took him quickly to the street.  The street tumbled him down a stairway of drug abuse and ultimately loss of self.  During his talk, Bob passed around a picture of his “house” at the bottom of that stairway—a bundle of rags and cardboard under a bridge.  He told us he kept that picture as a reminder of a life without God.  While we could sympathize with Bob, I doubt anyone in the crowd could actually empathize with him, for our first step down the stairwell of disaster would have been a different kind of fear and distrust, followed by a different kind of self-medication.  The picture we would carry around to remind us of our bundle of rags at the bottom would have looked different from Bob’s picture, but the effect would have been the same—seperation from God and despair of ever finding a path back.

                Bob described his redemption as a series of unlikely interventions by people who were not from his tribe—samaritans who bandaged his wounds rather than walking by his broken body on the road.  One of those men was with him, and he spoke briefly, not about how good it felt to have helped Bob or why he was motivated to do so.  He didn’t even describe what he actually did to help bandage Bob’s wounds.  He just talked about his relationship with the healed Bob, how they were now brothers in Christ despite the different tribes from which they had come. 

                  In Luke, Christ does not really explain the samaritan’s motivation to give aid to the beaten man.  He simply says “Go and do likewise.”  If I am a faithful follower of Him whose name I have taken, will I need more motivation than that when confronted with beaten man from Tribe Unknown?  

Objection, Foundation--Part II

Judge:  Objection sustained.  I'm sorry Prosecutor, but at most you've only proven the theoretical existence of a net  good person.  You don't even know if you are one yourself.

Prosecutor:  That's true your honor.  With your permission, I'll try again.

Judge:  Proceed.

Prosecutor:  (addressing The Witness) Isn't it true that you allow bad things to happen to PEOPLE?  Just people? 

Defender:  Objection, Foundation.

Judge:  (surprised) Well, now I don't understand your objection Defender.  Surely you are not questioning the existence of people in the midst of a trial to determine the existence of their alleged creator.

Defender:  No your honor.  I am quite sure that people exist.  It's the other part of Prosecutor's question to which I was objecting.  He has not established a proper foundation for the existence of a "bad thing".

Judge:  Defender, I have to say I am at a loss.  Surely you are not questioning whether bad things happen.  Look around at the World.  Are you contending that you yourself have never suffered a bad thing?

Defender:  Yes I've suffered from circumstances that I didn't like.  I admit that your honor.  I just can't say that those were objectively bad things that happened to me.

Judge:  (confused) So you don't know whether the things that caused you to suffer were bad or not.  Is that right?

Defender:  That's right.  I don't know if they were objectively bad.  Take my rejection from my first choice for law school.  I thought it was completely unfair.  I burned about it for months.  It was the worst thing that happened to me in years.  

Judge:  So that was a bad thing?

Defender:  Well, there's the problem your honor.  When I didn't get my first choice, I went to my second choice, and that is where I met my wife.  So, that thing, the rejection, changed from a bad thing to the best thing that ever happened to me within only a few years.  

 

Judge:   OK, I can see how a bad thing could change into a good thing with the passage of time.  But you would have to admit this:  at the time of the rejection, before you met your wife, it was a bad thing at that moment.

Defender:  Perhaps, but I think you're forgetting about the other guy your honor.

Judge:  What other guy?

Defender:  The guy who got into my first choice law school because I was rejected. My rejection was not a bad thing for him at all.  It might have been a great thing for him.  Or it might have been a horrible thing if the love of his life was going to his second choice law school and he never met her.  We don't know.  That's my point.  Because any given thing can change from bad to good over time and be both good and bad to different people at the same time, I don't think we humans can ever point to any single thing and say that it is objectively bad.  Only a creature with an infinite capacity to see all time at once and who can look into deeply into the heart of man can make that assessment.  

Judge:  (pensively turning to The Witness)  Sir, do you have the capacity the Defender speaks of?  Are you big enough to see all time and all hearts at once?

  

The Witness:  I am.

Judge:  So you would be the one who could tell the Court whether there has ever been an objectively bad thing?

The Witness:  I am.

Judge (hesitating) Will you tell me?  Are there bad things?

The Witness:  I will answer your question if you will answer mine.  When one farmer needs rain for it is the perfect time to moisten his crop, but his neighbor needs sunshine for it is the perfect time to warm his crop, would rain on their town be a bad thing or a good thing?  

Judge:  (considering the question for a few moments) I don't know the answer to your question.  I suppose it depends on a lot of variables. It's beyond my capability to know, to understand.  I'm only a man.

The Witness:  I agree.  And that is why I will not tell you whether there is such a thing as a bad thing.    

Judge:  So what is man to do when things do happen to him or others that he doesn't like--things that at least seem bad to him?  Like murder or rape or famine.  Should we just give up trying to understand what those things mean?

The Witness:  I suppose man could completely give up.  After all, you have been trying long enough to completely understand.  It's all or nothing with you I guess.  But there is a third way.

Judge:  What is it?

The Witness:  You could learn to trust Me by getting to know who I am.  You could try relying on on My character for truth rather than frantically seeking truth without My help, only to reject Me when you don't like what you find without Me.  Just a suggestion.  The decision is yours.  Unlike these "things" you are so concerned with, you will find that my character never changes.    

Objection, Foundation

Having affirmed that He can only tell the whole truth, The Witness took the stand.

Prosecutor:   Please state your name for the record.

Witness:  I am.

Prosecutor:  Sir, I asked you to state your name.

Witness:  I understood counsel.  I did state my name.

Prosecutor:  (turning to Judge) Would you please instruct The Witness that He is obligated to respond properly to my questions?

Judge:  (gazing at The Witness) Mr. Prosecutor, I gather The Witness has answered the question as He would have us interpret it. Would it satisfy you to have the record reflect that The Witness is that being upon whom the world generally bestows the name of “God”?

Prosecutor:  (to Judge) Thank you, your honor.  At this time I move to treat The Witness as hostile.

Defender:  Objection.

Prosecutor:  Your honor, this Witness’ very existence is on trial here.  We cannot even get a straight answer out of him regarding his own name.  Clearly, I am entitled to cross-examine him as a hostile witness.

Defender:  I have no objection to counsel cross-examining The Witness, but I do object to Him being referred to as hostile.

Judge:  OK, I see your point Defender.  Motion to treat Witness as . . .  in opposition, is granted.  Proceed Prosecutor.

Prosecutor:  (to Witness) Sir, you claim that you exist, don’t you.

Witness:  I am.

Prosecutor:  You also claim to be just.

Witness:  I am.

Prosecutor:  You have claimed on multiple occasions to know what is in the heart of man.  That’s true isn’t it?

Witness:  Uh. . . through my son, yes, I know your heart. 

Prosecutor:  I have also read that you claim to be omnipotent, all powerful.  Is that accurate?

Witness:  I am.

Prosecutor:   Sir, isn’t it fair to say that if you are in fact omnipotent, than nothing that happens on Earth could happen unless you set it in motion?

Witness:  Well . . .set it in motion, or allowed it to move I suppose.  Same thing I to you I guess.

Prosecutor:  You don’t deny it then?

Witness:   Deny what?

Prosecutor:  That everything that happens in the World is your responsibility.

Witness:   I am.

Prosecutor:  So you are all powerful, always just and in full knowledge of the heart of man—that is all so, is it not?

Witness:  I am.

Prosecutor:  (turning to face the Jury, and with his back to The Witness):  Well then sir, if you do in fact exist and are in fact just, how do you explain the fact that bad things happen to good people?

Defender:  Objection, Foundation.

Judge:  (confused) State your grounds Defender.

Defender:   Your honor, Prosecutor’s question assumes facts not in evidence.  The Bible states that there are in fact no “good people”, not one.

Prosecutor:  Your honor, please.  This so-called Bible, and the existence if this Witness that supposedly inspired it, is exactly what is on trial here.  Defender can’t use the discredited writings of a non-existent being to argue the existence of that very being.  That’s absurd.  It’s illogical.

Defender:  All right your honor.  Prosecutor has a point, though narrow and legalistic.  Even without the evidentiary weight of the Bible, it is clear to me that there are no good people.

Judge:  (looking kindly at Defender)  Mr. Defender, are you telling the Court that you are not in fact a good person.

Defender:  In spades your honor.  Though I have done many things the World calls good, I also have done many things even the World would admit were bad. 

Judge:  At the end of the day, doesn’t your good outweigh your bad Defender?  (they had known each other for many years).

Defender:  Your honor, I would need to know the weight of the scales used to measure my bad from my good to answer that.  At best, I can only say that I hope that I am found to be “net good”, although I think that is an immaterial point. 

Judge:   Well, if you are only net good, don’t you know of any wholly good people Defender?

Defender:  I know many people who, like me, hope that they are net good.  I have never met a sane man who claimed himself to be more than that, no sir.  Not even you.

Judge:  (smiling, and turning to Prosecutor).  Does the Prosecutor have anything to add?  Do you claim to be wholly good or to know someone who makes that claim that you could offer in evidence to this Court?

Prosecutor:  (uncomfortably).  Uhhh, I would also concede that I am at best net good, and do not know any sane man that considers himself to be wholly good.  But, it is not Defender and I who are on trial here.  Our relative goodness is not relevant.  Surely, there must be a man in the world who is wholly good.  The Court can take judicial notice of that.  I mean, it has to be so. 

Defender:  Your honor, I object to the Court taking judicial notice of the existence of wholly good people as to do so would be overly speculative.  To provide sufficient foundation for his question, Prosecutor will have to produce a sane man who actually claims himself to be wholly good.

Judge:  (to Prosecutor)  Can you sir? 

Prosecutor:  (shakes head, does not respond).

Judge:  Well, I suppose that I must sustain Defender’s objection then.  Can you rephrase your question Prosecutor?

Prosecutor:  I can your honor.  (to Witness) Sir, isn’t it true that you let bad things happen to . . . uh, net good people?”

Defender:  Objection, Foundation.

                                (TO BE CONTINUED)

Just Deliver Us

The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."  "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied.  "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.  But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."  The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger." Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.  (Job 1:7-12)

                As a child, my worldview was formed in ignorance of Scripture and informed primarily by popular culture.  My understanding of the relationship between God and Satan would have been best described by the scene in Animal House where Larry Kroger is tempted to rape a high  school girl who had passed out in a drunken stupor in his room during a fraternity party.  As he gazes lustfully down on the defenseless young girl, a tiny devil and counterbalancing angel appear on each of Larry’s shoulders to urge him respectively towards a choice between evil and good.   In my ignorance, that is how I saw the state of man—as a morally neutral pawn caught in a battle of good and evil where God and the Devil were equally matched.  The events of life, the skirmishes in this battle, were random.  Sometimes you were Larry, sometimes you were the drunk girl, and the consequences of our actions were ultimately beyond not only our control, but beyond God’s control as well.  If the Devil made me do it, well it wasn’t my fault, but it wasn’t God’s fault either.  The Devil had just won that round.  Good luck next time God!  After all, you are little. 

                My notion of the random battle of good and evil persisted into adulthood, even during those times that I considered myself an atheist governed solely by civic virtue and my own idiosyncratic code of conduct.  Sin, and its consequences, were not a form of disobedience to God, but the result of my own transitory moral weakness at a time when I had the bad “luck” to find myself tempted beyond my will to resist.  No longer seeing evil incarnate in a pitchfork wielding Devil, I yet believed in a faceless force of evil that triumphed in those times that I had insufficient karma to resist.  In this state of mind, it was not that the Devil made me do wrong, but that my resistance to evil was overcome by events that were both beyond my control and more powerful than the vague forces of virtue that sometimes were able to help me out—but not this time. 

                When I became a believer, I gradually abandoned both my childish notion of God  as a tiny angel beseeching virtue from his tenuous perch on my shoulder AND my “sophisticated” notion of God as vague karmic force that occasionally and inconsistently assisted me in my battle against the random temptations of the dark side.  Post salvation, neither of those formulations of God could be reconciled with the effect of the Spirit I felt within me or the plain meaning of the text of the Scripture I read.  I came to believe that  God is neither tiny nor impotent, and nothing that happens or fails to happen is outside of His control.  The “battle” of good and evil is fake—it is not a test between equally weighted forces of good and evil fighting it out in divine equivalence.  As we see in Job, in order to assail us with his fiery darts of temptation, the Devil must first come to God for permission to pierce the protective “hedge” that He has placed around his children.  Got that.  Got that.  The question is, why does God grant that permission and let it happen?  Why not simply Not Lead Us into temptation—and Just Deliver Us from evil?  

               

The Soft Tyranny of Silence

                A Consensus, per Wikipedia, is:  “a group decision making process that seeks not only the agreement of most participants but also the resolution or mitigation of minority objections.”   Put another way, Consensus is not the end-state of an agreement, but the means or process by which an agreement may be reached through the resolution of opposing viewpoints.  Thus, Consensus is a means of dispute resolution, but it is not the only one.  There is also Surrender (one side gives in to the viewpoint of the other), Tyranny (the stronger successfully imposes its viewpoint over the weaker) and Strife (the dispute is resolved by blood).  While resolution of opposing viewpoints is obtainable through Surrender, Tyranny or Strife, we need the moral clarity to discern those types of resolution from an agreement by Consensus.  Only the latter is consistent with the freedom and security provided by our nation to its citizens.

                This nation arose from a Strife-resolved dispute over representative government.  After King George declined Consensus on the Crown’s right to unilaterally tax the Colonies, he sought resolution through Tyranny, leaving the Colonies with the choice of Surrender or Strife.  Having chosen the latter, and paying due cost in blood, our founding fathers designed a governing system that so limited and divided power that Consensus was the best option of dispute resolution.  While not perfect, the Constitution is the best arrangement yet devised to avoid Strife, thwart Tyranny and force Surrender upon no man who seeks only the pursuit of happiness and individual liberty.  To funnel dispute towards Consensus, our fathers crafted governing institutions that were deliberative and premised upon the free and open debate that fuels the process. 

Recognizing that Consensus would fail if debate were not kept unfettered and adversarial, our wise fathers made it clear by adding a restriction that they actually thought superfluous, given the limited nature of the Constitution.  Nonetheless, as a belt to suspenders, they added the First Amendment:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  I contend our fathers knew when they wrote this that the process of Consensus was hot and messy.  I think they knew that enshrining in first order the right of its citizens to engage in hot debate would come at the Cost of hard words and hurt feelings.  I believe that they weighed the Cost and found it the far lesser evil to the cost in blood of Strife, the cost in freedom of Tyranny and the cost of right relation with divine providence that is inherent in all forms of Surrender.  Because they were adults, they recognized that their choice was hard and no option was perfect.  So they made an adult decision, the result of which has been a guarantee of freedom, prosperity and security that the world had never before seen.  We are the beneficiaries of that adult decision and we should honor it every day in our respect of each man’s right to make his best argument--particularly when we do not like what he has to say. 

When I was asked to act as defense counsel in a lawsuit seeking to impose speech restrictions upon people who assemble at abortionists’ gates in hopes of persuading the doctors and mothers not to terminate the lives of the unborn, I hesitated, and not only because I would not be paid for my efforts.  I also had doubts about the hot and messy way these people went about their work.  While I truly believed in the high sounding words I wrote in the paragraphs above, I did not much like being confronted with the hard truth of their application.  Pasha of the sanitized debates of the courtroom, I found the rams horns and fetus posters of the abortion debate to be beneath my, well, dignity.  But ultimately, I came to see it this way:  while I might softly cajole my little daughter not to touch a hot burner while we sat together watching Sponge Bob in the den, how loud would I yell in the kitchen with her little hand inches from the flame?  Would I scream at her?  Would I throw a rolling pin at her?  Anything would be better than watching her burned.  It is a matter of context.

Thus, I came to believe, the volume and heat of the words used in the resolution of any dispute are a matter of context that is open to debate, but not a debate that can lead to their restriction by the those in opposition.  I saw that what the abortionist in the lawsuit I was asked to defend wanted above all was silence, and that was something I had to stand against—despite my lawyerly feelings about the constitutionally protected right to abort a baby, or my personal feelings about the manner in which those in opposition exercised their constitutionally protected right to object to the abortion of a baby.  In short, I was either willing to defend the sanctity of unfettered debate in its messy application, or I was only a believer in it theoretically and safely from afar.  I chose the former. 

And the foregoing is the argument I made in court.  And it is the argument that the judge found more compelling than the abortionist’s appeal for silence.  I anticipate that it is an argument that freedom-loving people will have to continue to make, whether the dispute at issue is abortion, taxes, school choice or bubblegum because America is becoming a difficult place to have a debate, regardless of the issue.  In elevating misguided notions of “tolerance” to the highest form of civic virtue, we are fostering a Soft Tyranny of Silence where Consensus by debate is discredited as “mean spirited” and where Surrender or Strife become the only options.  This is not the America our forefathers shed blood for.  This is not the America we should pass to our children.  This will be our undoing.  

Rage Comes Veritas

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.  (James 1:19-20)

               

                In trial, the best witness is not the smartest, wittiest or most prepared.  It is the man who is not enraged by confrontation with an uncomfortable truth.   A witness (even without coaching) will generally adopt his most reasonable demeanor—the same mask that he might wear for a job interview—in hopes that the jury will “hire” him for his version of the truth.  During the direct examination, his lawyer helps him with this by asking him questions designed to support the mask.  If done well, by the end of his testimony, the jury is thinking, “well, this is a reasonable fellow who did what he could under tough circumstances.  That could be me.”  

                And then there is the cross-examination.  When I was first learning to try cases (by badly trying cases), I would painstakingly prepare complicated cross-examination outlines.  Full of logic and irrefutable reason, they were designed to prove the witness wrong, and they were useless.  What sounded good when I practiced it in the mirror before the trial never went anywhere during the trial because the witness would just politely disagree with my logic, feign confusion with my reason and leave me angry and looking like someone who had already convinced himself he was the smartest guy in the room.  And most importantly, after all my hot air, the jury would be looking at the witness and thinking, “well this is still a reasonable fellow, even with all that lawyer’s badgering.  That still could be me.“   

After a lot of bad cross-examinations, I ultimately realized the trick was not to prove the witness wrong, but to prove him unreasonable.  All I had to do was unmask the witness a bit so that the jury would “fire” him and accept my witnesses’ version of the truth.  I also realized that I did not have four hours to do that because the jury’s attention span was at most 20 minutes long.  I learned that the quickest way to unmask a witness was to  make him angry, and the quickest way to make him angry was to confront him with an uncomfortable truth about himself.  You would think it otherwise, that it would be an unfair or untrue accusation that would do the trick.  Nope.  The witness will just deny it.  He might even laugh.  But an uncomfortable truth pricks the pride.  The anger wells, and the man fights you over what is plain for all to see.  From Rage Comes Veritas, and the mask falls off.  The jury starts thinking, “well, this man is not so reasonable after all.”  They stop thinking “that could be me.”  But I don’t stop thinking the angry witness could be me.  He is me.  

His Nemesis Mine

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.  (Isaiah 11:6).

                As I stood talking with two black men in the lobby of the Stratford Richardson YMCA, I saw a white police officer pass in through the doors.  He was in full uniform with pistol and flak jacket.  Context is funny.  Had I been in the Dean and Deluca on Tryon Street, I would have assumed he was after a Cobb Salad.  Here, I feared he was after something quite different.  The officer scanned the crowded lobby until he saw my little group.  He paused for just a moment and then walked directly towards us.  The resolve in the officer’s eyes led me to believe (profiler that I am) that one of the black men I was standing with might be in trouble, and I girded myself.  But, I was wrong.  When the officer reached us, he asked, “are you men here for the Bible Study?”

                We were in fact there for the Bible Study.  Amazed at the officer’s ability to ferret us out from a crowded lobby with only five seconds of observation, I asked “how did you recognize us?”   

“By these,” he said, pointing to the Bibles we three held in our hands.  Together we entered the room where other men were already seated.  Of the seven men gathered to study scripture that night, the number of men who had been in prison outnumbered the men who hadn’t.  An odd gathering in which the police officer found himself.  He turned to the man seated next to him and asked, “have we met?  You look familiar.”

“Well I’m sure you’ve arrested me.”  The man answered without rancor or irony—his tone that of a man describing something as mundane as the color of his car.  The rest of  us laughed nervously, which seemed to surprise him. 

“I’m serious.  If you’ve been a police officer in this city for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve arrested me.”  And he went on to tell us of a pre-salvation lifetime of criminality that was leagues beyond my suburban mindset to comprehend.  It was like listening to a man describe the plot of a movie that I would be afraid to even watch.  And, it was a tale that was jarringly disjointed from the man telling it, for it was impossible to reconcile the man’s story with his gentle demeanor.  The deeds were so dark and sour—but the man so light and sweet, that it seemed an impossibility.  I have to admit that I began to doubt his veracity. 

But the police officer next to him had no such doubts.  He suddenly leaned back and said, “I know this man.  He was my Nemesis.  It was my mission for ten years to root this man out the community he dominated.”  And he went on to describe the effect on the police of having to continually confront such a dangerous man.  The white officer verified every claim the black man had made about who he had been before he met Jesus.  “He could take a man out with one punch!  He could break handcuffs if we cuffed his hands in front rather than behind!”  The officer, experienced, job-hardened and armed, was still agitated to find himself seated unexpectedly next to his Nemesis.  For though it was clear that the man’s salvation had utterly transformed him, it must have been hard to forget who the man had been before he met Christ.  I imagine that the newly-converted Paul had engendered similar feelings in the men he had persecuted when he had been known as Saul. 

And then we did what we had come together to do—we studied the Word.  Ironically, we had planned to study the rarely read book of Philemon.  In his plea to Philemon on behalf of his repentant runway slave Onesimus, Paul concedes that Onesimus deserved punishment, for he “was once useless.”  But, not anymore.  For now, Onesimus had  “become useful both to you and me.  I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you and to me.”  Paul pleads with Philemon not to apply the full and justified measure of the secular law against Onesimus:  “if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.  If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.”  No piece of scripture we could have chosen beforehand would have better applied to the unimaginable circumstances in which we found ourselves as we read it together that night.  Here was a man, who had once been criminally useless, seated next to a police officer who was the very representative of the secular justice system that existed solely to redress the very deeds from which the man was now repentant!   

Duty called the police officer from the Bible Study before it was over.  He shook hands with his former Nemesis and told us he couldn’t wait to tell his captain what had happened.  When the officer left the room, the man who had once broken handcuffs with his bare hands looked at us and said, “I think the Lord brought the officer here tonight to help him heal the wounds my actions may have caused in his heart.  How great our Lord is.”  A few days  later, the officer confirmed his former Nemesis’ interpretation.  He told me that he had awoken that morning with a brain full of excuses for not coming to the Bible Study.  But, during his daily prayers, he felt the Lord urging him otherwise.  He believed his obedience left Jesus “grinning from ear to ear!”

For a season yet this fallen earth remains occupied by the Enemy.  By Adam, we are born into sin, and in sin we would die but for the redemption offered by the blood of Jesus.  He alone offers freedom from this dark captivation, but we must consciously choose it.  Although it seems impossible to our human minds—for we are yet creatures of both flesh and spirit—the wolf will live with the lamb, and it will be a child that leads us to that blessed reconciliation if we are willing to follow Him.  Like Onesimus, we can choose by obedience to become useful to the Lord—or we can choose to resist and remain His Nemesis.  There is no third choice.