Session 3 - Rob Bell

We began this morning with another Christian comedian - by the name of Nazareth. He actually does hail from the city of that name in the Middle East.

The musicians for this morning come from Australia - called Sons of Korah - and their music comes entirely from the psalms. This are not “happy jolly tunes,” but are songs that are quite soul-searching, expressing their longing for the Lord.

We also heard an interview with two individuals about the situation in the African nation of Rwanda. Emmanuel Katongole is a Ugandan Catholic priest, now teaching at the Divinity School at Duke University. His parents were Rwandans who migrated to Uganda. His parents actually came from the competing Rwandan tribes. The tribal strife in Rwanda is particularly painful because it involved Christians killing Christians.

Catherine Claire Larson is a writer with Prison Fellowship. She has written on some of the amazing stories of forgiveness involving both victims and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. (Nearly 1 million people were killed with the span of 100 days.)

The sheer number of perpetrators was overwhelming to the justice system. Perpetrators who have confessed and asked forgiveness are now being released. She described this as a “case study in forgiveness.”

Katongole suggested that we not be too quick to “move on.” This genocide reached its peak during Easter Week of 1994. Killings even took place in Christian sanctuaries. We need to learn from this madness. It is tragic when the blood of tribalism goes deeper than the waters of baptism.

Ironically there were no tribal killings among the Muslim communities of Rwanda. How can we reach the point that our identity as Christians is more important than our tribe or race?

Larson suggested that if forgiveness is possible in a situation like Rwanda, then it gives us great hope for the power of forgiveness in the much smaller rifts we face. “To see a glimpse of that reconciliation gives me great hope.”

(Later in the program, there will be a screening of a new film - As We Forgive - highlighting these stories of forgiveness, and highlights actual encounters between perpetrators and their victims.


Our speaker for this session is Rob Bell, a pastor in Michigan, well known for his series of short videos called NOOMA.

He came on stage with a grocery cart. (But I guess we won’t find out why until later.)

He described something he called the “chocolate covered turd” - when someone comes to you with a positive that also contains a negative. When we hear 9 good things and one bad thing, it is the bad thing that continues to replay in our heads. It’s harder to blow these things off than we think, and we become frustrated with ourselves.

NOTE: Rumors even happened to Paul - look up Acts 21:38!

Maybe you have a little church group seeking to enforce doctrinal purity and theological correctness. After awhile, it just hurts. We tell ourselves to be strong, and not to let things get to us. But over time, it gets to us. Finally you think - “everyone has completely lost their minds, and they are taking me with them!”

Over time, if you are in this work long enough, you have “death by paper cuts.”

For me, it’s like a moment in the grocery store, where I am with my family (here‘s the cart, by the way), and I see someone who left the church because of blah blah blah, and then you see someone and you remember what their sister said. So you’re in the grocery store, and all of a sudden you are right back there at that painful little thing that is still swimming around in your heart.

As leaders, we absolutely must learn how to forgive. We must become masters at forgiving people. Because if we don’t get really good at it, we suffer and the whole place begins to suffer. If one thing is wounded and limping, the whole thing is going to suffer.

It is imperative that we learn the fine art of forgiveness. When we don’t, all kind of subtle things begin to happen. A lack of forgiveness manifests itself in a lot of nuanced ways. Sometimes we don’t even have language for it.

A few categories:

When we don’t forgive, we hold back, and we back off from the prophetic. The last time we said something prophetic, you got shot at. So we hold back - “I’m not doing that again.” We may hold back creativity. We may hold back great ideas. It’s the painful reality that sheep have teeth. We may be holding back, and not even realize it.

We may develop artificial lists and/or labels. Make guesses about who is associated with who.

There is also flat-out revenge. Gossip. Sarcasm.

When we don’t do something with this pain, it will come out somewhere.

First - there are a few things that forgiveness is NOT.

It’s not always forgetting.

Read Proverbs 26:11 - Some people are toxic. Forgiving them does not mean you have to hang out at their vomit.

It does not mean the relationship goes back to the way it used to be. Actually, it may mean that now you are free to set up some boundaries. I don’t have to put myself into destructive places again and again.

Read Titus 3:10. Paul seems to accept that some people are divisive, and their hearts are bent. I can forgive without condoning or being best buddies. I can have some boundaries. It is okay to call a halt. ‘We love you. We have heard you. But this has to stop.’

It’s okay to have strong boundaries. You are not a punching bag.

Read Luke 12:13. Jesus himself has very strong boundaries. ‘Not my business!’

Try this response: ‘Is that your understanding of my role?’

There are some very distorted notions of pastors in our culture. Some things are not a good stewardship of you as a resource.

Being a leader in the church of Jesus Christ begins with loving yourself. Some will take a disproportionate amount of your time and head space. Some people are toxic and divisive, and they will drain you. You are needed to have a crystal clear sense of what it means to love yourself, because you are an unbelievably precious resources. Some things you don’t have to take. You can be loving, kind, generous, truthful, but you can also come to the point of saying, “I’m not giving this another hour.”

To forgive does not mean turning a blind eye to the realities of how we spend our time.

This Christ path is the ONLY path to life. When we are wronged, we are handed something. If we hand it back, that’s revenge. If we hold back, we nurse the pain. That is a kind of revenge. We may carry it around. You can also choose to absorb this pain, entering into it, allowing it to infiltrate your being. It will hurt. This death/suffering - if you are willing to undergo it - will lead to a resurrection. This Christ pattern we see in Luke - ‘Father, forgive…’ It hurts to forgive. It hurts not to hand it back. This is a skill, a discipline. Here are some things that help me:

You have to name it. You may have to name the fact that you don’t have all the answers. There may be some good points you need to acknowledge. When you name it, it is no longer free to steer your ship.

You have to accept it. Ten percent may be true!

You have to absorb it. This is unbelievably painful - like a sort of death - but you will not come out the other side the same person.

Tim Keller, in The Reason for God, says forgiveness means ‘refusing to make them pay for what they did. To refrain from lashing out, when you want to with all your being, is agony. It is a form of suffering. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out on the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a hind of death. Yes, but it is a death that leads to resurrection instead of the lifelong living death of bitterness and cynicism.’

(Otherwise it may be death by paper cuts.)

Parker Palmer: ‘The cross means that the pain stops here. The way of the cross is a way of absorbing pain, not passing it on, a way that transforms pain from destructive impulse into creative power. When Jesus accepted the cross, his death opened up a channel for the redeeming power of love.’

Is there anyone today you need to forgive? Or is it a general overall forgiveness of a group? Let’s say a communal prayer - put the name in the shopping cart - and love it and forgive them!)

NOTE: At this point, Rob actually went around the room with the shopping cart while people put names in the basket!

It’s both the small things, and the really BIG things. There’s a power in writing in down - leaving it behind. The next time you run into that person, remember that pain you left behind in a shopping cart in San Diego.

This was a very moving address that really touched some of the tough stuff that all pastors are dealing with.