Pictured above: Manuel Noriega (1934-2017)
*************************
(…continued) On December 20, 1989, United States troops invaded Panama to remove their outlaw leader Manuel Noriega from power. The invasion was controversial. But there was widespread agreement that Noreiga was a corrupt, murderous thug, engaging in drug trafficking throughout the Americas, ruling with fear and violence. No one was sorry to see him go. He was tried, found guilty, and ended up in a Florida prison. Good riddance.
A couple years into his imprisonment, it was reported that Manuel Noriega had become a Christian. He was visited by a prison chaplain, and under his care and influence, Noriega came to believe in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He then enrolled in a Bible College correspondence course, found peace with God, shared his new found faith with others, and was content, even in his jail cell.
I have to admit, my first reaction was not to be overjoyed about this new brother in the Lord. My immediate reaction was, “Couldn’t that chaplain have found someone else to spend his time with; someone who had not caused so much suffering for so many people.” I still remembered the news accounts of Noreiga’s brutality and wickedness, and I didn’t think he deserved the peace of Christ and the hope of the Gospel; not yet, anyway. I remember having the same feelings when I saw convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in a TV interview, telling how much it meant for him to be forgiven by Jesus (the Jesus he learned about years earlier in his Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Sunday School class). Something in me made me not completely happy that he found Jesus. I would guess that the families of his many victims were even less pleased.
Here is one more story, this one about a modern-day Matthew, getting rich by taking advantage of his neighbors. The story is told by a man who knew the crook, but I was unable to locate the source of the article it was taken from.
The other day I heard a television interview with a man in our community. He had just returned to our community from a five-year stint in our state penitentiary. He went there because he swindled a number of his fellow citizens out of their life savings in a shady real estate scheme. He was a real wheeler-dealer who lived in a huge house outside of town. In a fraudulent deal, he enticed a number of people into giving him their retirement savings—everything they had—so he could put it into his business, telling them that he would make them a fortune. He lost everything through illegal loan making and other questionable practices and went to prison for it.
In the interview, I could see that he was considerably chastened by his experience in jail. And well he should have been. But then, during the interview, he talked about how happy he now was, and what a great sense of joy filled his life. I wonder if the people he swindled felt this same sense of joy. Then he explained the source of his joy. ‘While I was in jail, I had an opportunity to look at my life and to face up to certain things. A fellow prisoner shared his faith with me, and we began studying the Bible together. I got saved. I have given my life to Christ and I owe everything to him.’
How do you think I felt when I heard that? Was I glad? Did I rejoice that God’s grace is so amazing? Not really. I felt some resentment. Here was this scoundrel, wrapping himself in the Christian faith, invoking the name of Jesus. Was he truly sorry for what he had done? Had he made any attempt at restitution? He didn’t say. Yet, even if he did, I would still have a problem.
Are you getting the picture? Are you beginning to understand why you might see yourself in the Pharisees in the story? The Pharisees and their families had been swindled by Matthew, and now Jesus was calling him to be his disciple. Couldn’t Jesus have called someone else? There certainly would have been many others without so much baggage. Sure, Matthew repented and he seems to have changed. He did leave everything to follow Jesus. But still– Matthew? Manuel Noriega? Jeffery Dahmer? The swindler of retired folks in the story? Perhaps we should see ourselves in the Pharisees instead of Matthew. They have a point.
So, if that is who we are in the story, what does Jesus have to say to us? This is what Jesus said to the Pharisees: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick… I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
How then will we reply; we, who might object to Jesus coming to Matthew or Manuel Noriega or Jeffrey Dahmer? Will we say, “Well Lord, I am glad I am not sick. I don’t need a doctor. I’m well. I’m just fine. I’m not lost. I don’t need you to come to me, but thanks anyway, Jesus.”
Or, will we say, “I get it, Jesus. I do not deserve your grace. I have not earned your forgiveness. It is your gracious gift to me, as much as to Matthew or Noriega or Dahmer. I am sick and I am lost, and if I am to be saved, it will have to be by your grace. I will rejoice in that grace, for myself and for everyone who will receive it. Thank you, Lord, and thank you for all my brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter their past.”
********************************
Romans 3:9-12 — What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Romans 3:19 — We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
Ephesians 2:8-9 — For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; not by works, so that no one can boast.
*******************************
Incline us O God, to think humbly of ourselves, to examine our own conduct, to consider our fellow creatures with kindness, and to judge others with the charity which we desire from them for ourselves. Amen.
–Jane Austen, novelist, (1775-1817), in a letter to her sister.
Related Posts
