James and John entered the Samaritan village to make arrangements for Jesus, but learning that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, the Samaritans refused to offer any hospitality.[1] Incensed, James and John returned to Jesus. asking, ““Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” Strongly rejecting their offer, Jesus responded, “the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them (Luke 9:54-56).”
[1] The animosity between the Samaritans and Jews reaches back to the 9th century BC after Israel was divided into two kingdoms. The Samaritan Jews, living in the North, no longer traveled to worship in Jerusalem, located in the southern kingdom, and eventually developed their own version of Judaism. Intermarriage between the Samaritan Jews and the Assyrians also contributed to the hostility with the Jews considering the Samaritans as impure half-breeds. The walls between them continued for 550 years.
HOW WOULD WE LIKE IT IF WE WERE MISUNDERSTOOD MOST OF THE TIME?
WHO BROUGHT LUNCH?
James and John radically misunderstood what Jesus was about, but the gospels are replete with other occasions when the disciples misunderstood Him. For example, when Jesus warned against the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the disciples assumed He was speaking about bringing bread for their trip to the other side of the lake. Correcting the disciples’ misunderstanding, Jesus clarified that it was not bread for lunch, but the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees that concerned Him.
Jesus didn’t seem to be greatly perplexed over being misunderstood. He just kept going, only infrequently stopping to make Himself understood. He was confident that the Father would send the Holy Spirit after Him to bring all He had said to His disciples’ remembrance, illuminating what they had misunderstood (John 14:26)
MISUNDERSTANDINGS
Today, we still need the Holy Spirit to teach and point out misunderstandings we hold about Jesus. Many scriptures and stories of what He said and was said about Him have become so familiar that we fail to examine His life in deeper ways. We think, ‘oh, I know what that’s about’ and think no further. Considering how we may have misunderstood offers a strategy for revealing Jesus in more authentic ways.
For instance, forgiveness was a key concern in Jesus’ teaching and life. He taught that forgiveness had no limits and God’s forgiveness is linked to our willingness to forgive others. He told stories about forgiveness such as the prodigal son who received undeserved and unexpected forgiveness. He extended forgiveness to a paralyzed man lowered before Him from a rooftop, to an immoral woman caught in adultery and to his persecutors who unjustly crucified Him. Most of us know these teachings and stories well, but what is our experiential understanding of forgiveness? How does it align with what Jesus taught and lived?
FORGIVENESS
Lord Jesus, we think we understand God’s forgiveness. It seems so simple, but do we dilute it, misunderstand and reduce it to much less than it is?
A testimony from a woman healed of breast cancer illuminated Your forgiveness for me. After Susan was healed, her doctor said that it was as if the cancer was never there. Later, asking You what to tell others about her experience, You told her, “Tell them that’s how I forgive. It’s as though it never happened.”[1] (WOW!)
[1] Brenda Scott, The 700 Club, September 13,2023, https://www2.cbn.com/video/shows/700-club-september-13-2023, mark 19, accessed 9.15.2023.
We have a hard time believing that You consider our sins as though they never happened, but it is written in Your word. “He removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west,” (Psalm 103:12) and “You remember them no more.” (Hebrews 8:12). You keep nothing to measure us with, not our bad behavior or our good behavior. You simply do not measure us. You love unconditionally.
Because we overlay Your nature with our humanness, there can be a gap between who You really are and our perceptions. We misunderstand Your nature. With forgiveness, for instance, when we have failed, sometimes over and over, we can have a hard time believing that You would want us to think well of ourselves, that You want us to repent, leave our failures and move on with our lives. Don’t we need to flog ourselves?
We know You took our sins on Yourself, removing them, but do we think that we must do a certain amount of penance to deserve this gift of forgiveness?
We accept Your forgiveness, but the enemy reminds us of past sins and we find ourselves confessing again what we has already been repented. Imagine if the paralyzed man whom You forgave, stopped You a few weeks later and asked You to forgive His sins. How puzzling would that be?
We simply misunderstand Your nature. We accept Your forgiveness but forget that You are not like us. It’s not that You erase Your memory but, as You said to the woman healed of breast cancer, forgiveness always triumphs over what has happened. You actually remove our sins from us as far as the east is from the west and remember them no more. You cover us in Your forgiveness as though our sins never happened.
THE PAINTING
The painting attempts an exploration of the facets of misunderstanding. Although all misunderstandings are born of a misinterpretation in translation, not all misunderstandings are not of the same nature. Each pair of panels contains a reversal, but the impact of the reversal varies. The first and last pairs seem to be the least affected or altered while the pairs in between denote greater discrepancies. The arrow panels may look similar but they definitely do not convey the same message. Up is up and down is down. Neither do a curved edge and a smooth edge, as in the fourth yellow and purple pair, say the same thing. The point being that misunderstandings of any sort, verbal or visual, will carry varying consequences. In studying the ways that we misunderstand Jesus, there is also a range that will carry meaningful to less consequential import.
Lord Jesus, forgiveness is only one area that we need to revisit in light of our experiences with You. The questions for us are, How have we misunderstood You?” What are the things that we no longer question, but should? What differences would occur in our relationship with You if we let the Holy Spirit reveal what we misunderstand?
At times, we completely misunderstand You and, at other times, we understand You with our head, but our emotional understanding is off, leading us to act in ways that contradict Your truth.
You reassured the disciples that the Holy Spirit would teach and remind them of all You had said. We need to be taught as well, but we can’t learn what we think we already know. Help us to be open to letting the Holy Spirit lead us in re-examining our understandings of You.
Sydney Walker, September 21.2023
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