But since you're here, I'll have to modify it
and see what we can do.
I know what I need to do.
If you can't get the mountain to come to you,
you go to the mountain, right?
Okay. My name is Hilary Monsinger.
Is this the class you thought you were in?
It's on forgiveness, and I appreciate you being here.
Isn't this a beautiful building? Beautiful campus.
I have never been in this building before.
In fact, I don't know how old this building is.
Does anyone know how long it's been in operation?
One year.
Well, it is a beautiful building, and I'm
honored to be here.
I got my master's degree here.
Anybody else got a degree here?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Okay.
How many?
Four to five.
Oh, 45 degrees outside.
You got an MR degree? Well, congratulations.
I did, too.
Yes, Sir, I did. Yes.
And she hasn't been back to this campus since.
No, very good.
Anyway, it's a pleasure to be with you.
We're going to be talking about forgiveness.
God is a God of forgiveness.
And that will be the topic.
What I would like for you to do first,
I would like for you to think, what is your definition?
I'd like to know what your definition is.
And I want to give you about a minute
to either write it on a piece of paper there in
front of you
or to jot it down in your mind or wherever.
I want you to take just a second and come up
with that.
Would you take notes?
Kind of just write down a summary of the
definitions that they come up with.
Now, while you're doing that, I know there's
some people in here
who have already worked on their definition.
So while you were thinking, I'm going to get them
to give a brief definition as they see forgiveness.
Woody, what would you say about forgiveness is?
Forgiveness to me is forgetting whatever has transpired
and loving that individual back to a healthy situation.
Forgetting and loving.
Not just forgetting and...
Okay. Mina? Is it Mina?
Mina. Okay, I'll remember the bird.
What would you say would be your working
definition of forgiveness?
I'm not sure about the forgetting.
You're not sure about forgetting.
Not the loving the person.
What's the one word we've heard twice already? Loving.
Loving. Okay.
Sir, would you want to give a definition?
Forgetting would be with love.
We've had from Russia with love, and we've had
from Sir with love,
and now we've got forgetting with love.
That's interesting.
Okay. Louise, do you want to give something?
It's just blotting out.
Blotting out.
Guy? Thank you, Louise.
Not forgetting whatever wrong someone has done
to you
and loving them in spite of whatever weakness
or whatever wrong they may have done to you.
Loving them in spite of their weaknesses.
Okay. Loving in spite of. Kay?
The clean slate or the in spite of. Yeah.
Also, I'd like to think that God could forget,
but I don't know whether others forget.
That's part of forgiving.
Okay. Did you hear that?
I know God forgave, but did other people forgive?
Oh, forget. Forget.
Forgive me.
I'm sorry.
That's interesting.
To me, it carries a connotation of forgiving.
You can recall something that happened,
but not with a sense of, you know, a prick. Uh-huh.
You know what's back there.
What's happened in your past is a part of you.
Why you look at it is another thing sometimes. Yeah.
I know a brother.
I've got five of them.
He owes me some money,
but I ain't going to ever ask him for it.
I know he owes me,
but I'm never going to ask him for it.
So it's really a clean slate in it.
I do not have that on my debt column, do I?
It's just there.
You're not recalling it,
and I wish something happened bad to him
because he don't remember that.
No. Uh-uh. No.
I do wish you'd pay it, though.
I was going to say the thing about a debt.
When you forgive a debt,
you just sort of mark it off the books.
You may still remember it was there,
but it's not something that matters.
Now, you could mark it off and have resentment, right?
Anyone up there?
I think there's some acceptance in it.
Accepting the other person fully,
not holding a wrong against them,
even though it occurred. Yeah.
Accepting that individual in spite of.
Well, that in spite of keeps coming back.
It's almost exactly.
I've written down loving fully in spite of
what's been done.
Okay. Loving fully. Brandon.
I believe you have to stress the unselfishness.
The unselfishness.
Who's to focus on?
The other individual.
Not self.
Hurt is when you hurt and you think of self.
Overlooking the wrong. Overlooking.
It's there, and you know it's there,
but you don't utilize it.
I had a willingness to forget past offenses.
Desire to or something like that.
Desire, willingness, okay.
Don't disturb a guy that's writing.
He's got a good one.
You can make him say it.
Treating an offender as though no offense had occurred.
Overlooking it as if it were not there.
Maybe it's when you love someone in spite of
the wrong that they've done to you,
but also you're accepting that person for what
they are and how they are.
Love, in spite, acceptance.
Is that your mom? Smart.
Overlooking one's mistakes and loving in spite
of their mistakes.
You two have been around each other, haven't you?
That's beautiful.
It's a release of anger or resentment and
giving that to love
because you can just say that they're forgiven
and say it to yourself,
but you can't really forgive without actually
feeling it,
feeling that release of anger or resentment.
Letting it go.
Yes, Sir.
I just kind of put everything together and said,
Forgiveness is forgetting and erasing the
problem or sin
and loving unconditionally, meaning without
remorse or restraint. Wow.
We need to put that one in the dictionary.
That's great.
That is great.
Did you have the word remorse in there? Yes.
Could you repeat your part?
I didn't hear it.
You want me to repeat it?
Oh, yeah, please.
Forgiveness is forgetting and erasing the
problem or sin
and loving unconditionally, meaning without
remorse or restraint. Yeah.
Sounds like total.
Yes, Ma'am.
I said excusing without holding it against that
person in your heart.
You're not going to hold it right there.
Being merciful. Yeah.
This article here just shatters what I said a
while ago.
A lot better than what I said.
Well, they do have a good statement at the
bottom of that page.
Would you read that?
Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet
which still clings fast to the heel that
crushed it.
To the heel that crushed it. Yeah.
Thank you.
Forgiveness is setting the line to forget. Yeah.
And acting toward the person as though it never happened.
And also actively seeking his good. Hey.
Actively seeking his good. Yeah.
Now, you know, I'm thinking about forgiveness.
I won't hold that against you.
But you better not ever do that again.
I ain't forgot it, have I? Boy.
You know, not reminding them and setting your mind.
See, this is a very good thought.
Setting your mind.
We are the only people in charge of our minds.
And thank goodness for that.
And so we can determine to set our mind.
Yes, Sir.
Yes, Ma'am.
I don't think you ever actually forget things
that are in your mind.
But you ignore that as long as it happens. Yeah.
And love them as much as you want to.
But actually, I don't believe, I can't say
what's in God's mind.
But I don't think you actually ever completely
forget it.
It's there stuck back in the corner somewhere. Yeah.
You don't allow it to come out and possess you
or bother you or cause you to turn against the
other person.
But you set your mind to not remember it
against them. Yeah.
I agree with that.
Yes, Ma'am.
The gentleman there.
I added the restoration of a proper relationship.
The restoration of a proper relationship.
Now, he knows how to put it. Yeah.
The restoration.
That ought to have been the title of my lesson.
The ladies in green.
I wanted to say that to me it's a process and
God can forgive instantly, but for me it's a
process and I may have to work on it almost all
of my life.
Maybe a lifelong process to overcome something,
a real or imagined future.
But I have to work on it.
It's a process.
And I had not thought about the word process,
but that is beautiful, isn't it? Yeah.
I'll tell you now that I have forgiven you.
Now, help me to carry it out. Yeah.
It will take some time. Yeah.
Now, the next thing I want to ask you to do.
There is a second question on the board and I
want you to answer this as a group.
Get with a small group.
At least two of you together.
And here it is.
Why do parents inform family members and other
friends when a wayward son or daughter does well?
Why is it the parents always want to go out and
tell people when the children do well?
Someone said this morning, what do we do with a
wayward father?
In fact, I had a case yesterday where the young
man came to see me because he had a wayward father.
And he wanted that father back in the church.
He was very concerned.
And so I have a feeling that when he gets his
father back to where he wants his father,
he will be calling some people and sharing that.
Get two of you together and come up with a
quick answer.
I'm going to give you about two minutes.
Why does your parents want to say all these
good things?
Find you somebody to work with.
No more than four.
I know.
You take care.
Have a good one.
Come on in.
You're counting?
Take two of you, right?
I don't know if you were in here a while ago.
There was Lipham, L-I-P-H-A-M.
He was eating pecans a while ago.
And guess what he did?
He left me pecans up there.
Isn't that neat?
Give them to the squirrels. Yes.
You need to find you...
Well, all right.
We'll work with you.
We're asking the question,
are you talking about a wayward son that does
well for the Lord
or just does well in business or something?
No, does well behavior.
This person who's doing well has come back to
the type of behavior
that mom and dad are proud of.
It doesn't mean he's still a wayward in terms
of church
but is doing well in a career somewhere.
It means mom and dad are pleased with his behavior.
Regardless of the career, it is his behavior,
his Christian behavior.
There might be an extra pin in here.
You don't have two, do you? Pin?
Yeah, for the Lord.
It's the only one I know of.
I'll check another one.
Okay, let's see what we've got.
Let's do this kind of quickly.
We'll start right up there.
Why is it that parents want to tell about good
things that their children do
once their children start doing well?
There's a need to rejoice.
There's joy in the heart.
To get others to come back. Yeah.
Right, to encourage others. Super.
Joy, joy, joy.
What about over here? Yes.
That's what my mama said. Yes.
Okay, to share the joy.
Okay, right here. Mm-Hmm.
You bet.
Thank you. Sir?
I would say why my parents would do it is that,
oh, I'm not in the church,
or they are not in the church, would be to play
their ego so that, you know,
they could say, look at me, you know, I've
brought my son back.
There's a feeling of achievement within themselves.
In most Christian family situations,
it's most likely that the family members and
friends will be praying,
so it's an answer to prayer.
An answer to prayer.
It's exciting that you want to tell me this.
It's exciting.
You too, Father?
This shows the greatness and the importance of
the family unity.
Family unity.
It's like a spider web.
If you pull on any corner of it, it's going to
affect the whole family,
and this is what's happened.
And when the son or daughter comes home,
it's like the father and the son says,
this is my son who was lost and now he's found. Yeah.
That's the feeling they have, and they're
rejoicing over it.
You bet.
Right here.
Thank you.
We have another thing, too.
So that the family or the friends could also forgive.
So that others would forgive. Yeah.
Up here.
Think about this.
As parents, we always want the best for our children,
and we always brag on their accomplishments
many times,
especially in my situation.
I think in the spiritual sense, that's
extremely important to me. Yeah.
And I just wanted everybody to know that as
much as I do.
You bet.
We said just to pray or to share good news.
We want to share good news, don't we?
Right here in front.
Nothing bad.
Do what?
Nothing to add. Brandon?
I think they pretty much reflected it,
but one thing I think is maybe a little off-base.
I'm not a parent, but I thought maybe a parent feels
because the son or daughter has gone astray,
I thought maybe they feel kind of a sense of embarrassment
within their peers. Yeah.
And when they do get it, they can feel relieved.
They can get back to normal. Yeah.
A balance. Yes.
I was thinking of another comment that was made
over here a while ago.
Assuming this were an ideal situation,
we've got family members and truly close friends.
Military has a terminology that they would use.
It's a need to know.
A need to know.
Those folks would need to know in that situation.
It's neat, isn't it? Yeah.
Because when our children are out late at night
beyond the pointed hour to be home,
we have a need to know. Yeah.
We need to know just for our own security.
Love, joy, a need to know, pride.
What else did I leave out? Unity.
Let me see if you can read this one.
Can you see it okay?
Proverbs 23 and 7, what does it tell us?
So our heart is going to be very important to
the way we behave.
Now, if we take that scripture and really look
at it, it says three things.
A person thinks, a person feels, a person behaves.
Now, as they think and as they feel, so they behave.
Have you ever thought, I need to do this, but I
just don't feel like it? Yeah.
There are things that we knew to do, we just
didn't feel like it.
Have you ever done something that you knew you
ought to do and you did it, but you wish
you didn't have to do it?
You went out and did it anyway.
But see, we have three parts of our mind and we
all know that all three of them interact
with each other.
What I want to share with you here is that I am
a proponent of the fact that we are born
with love prepackaged inside of us.
Our hearts come prepackaged with love.
Because Genesis 1:26, 27 says that God is, I'm
sorry, 1 John 4 and 8 says God is love.
Now then, you go back to Genesis 1:26 and 27
and God said, let us make man in what?
Our image.
And so, if the image of God is love and man is
made in the image of love, then you and
I come prepackaged with it in us.
I don't believe we can convince any
grandparents that that's untrue, can we?
Grandparents just know that it's true.
And so basically, what happens is through life,
we have experiences.
Life experiences every day are hitting us and
we're bumping into them.
Now, when those life experiences start out
being positive and continue basically to be
positive, the love that is already there is
increased, strengthened, developed, enhanced,
enriched, you name it.
And it grows.
And then that individual begins to see how to
love others.
And that love is expressed through being
compassionate and service-oriented.
Now then, you take and you start abusing that
little child and you take key people away
from that little child.
You send away key people from that little child.
And now then, what's happening?
There's a fearful type of existence that begins.
As fear develops, what we have is a negative
kind of reaction.
And many times we see that behavior through
being self-oriented and being defensive.
And since I've worked in the prisons now for
the last 6 or 7 years, I have come to believe
that basically the reason they are there is
because of sinful behavior that had its roots
in fear.
Its roots were in fear.
And out of that fear, they became selfish and
they became defensive.
And you try to help them and they reject it.
And it's because there's no trust.
But also notice that once they trusted
somebody, whomever they trusted, they followed.
And then I notice that the people that we
trust, whether we have been inmates or not,
the people we trust have provided basic needs
for us.
If somebody provides me my basic needs, food,
clothing, shelter, protection, security,
I used the word acceptance a while ago, I will
trust those people.
The sad thing that I've learned is that there's
a lot of families who rear their children
to sell drugs and commit crime.
And I wonder, how on earth can these children
grow up and do that?
And it's because they trusted those parents for years.
All we've got to do is go see the movie
Godfather and we see the unity of the family
and how that the unity of the family is
stronger than any moral values.
But the unity of the family transmits moral values.
And that's how they are transmitted.
They're transmitted subconsciously.
And so, as I work and teach and counsel, I find
out that children will tell you,
not freely, but once you get to know them,
they'll tell you their mom and dad are in the
drug business.
They don't tell you in a condemning way, it's
just a fact of life.
And many of them will follow right on into that
path themselves
because the relationship that they have has
been a love relationship as far as they know.
They don't know what love really is.
But they have had their basic needs met.
And they will forgive the people for doing
wrong if those people have met their basic needs.
It's interesting. It really is.
Once you develop the cohesiveness, you will
forgive just about anything.
Why don't you think about that?
The Manson family is a good example of that too.
Within that little sick family, they would
forgive each other.
Yeah, they really would.
Patty Hearst would forgive the people within
that little Symbionese army.
And so, once we feel the acceptance and when
we're in that group,
there is a tendency to be able to forgive.
Now, I want to draw your attention to the word
that we had right here a while ago, and that's unity.
Unity is another word for cohesive relationship
as far as I'm concerned.
We must have that unity to get that forgiveness
set up.
If we go to Philippians 2, we find there that
Jesus Christ was with God, right?
And he did not count that awkward for him to be
equal right there with God.
But there was a job that needed to be done.
And the job was to bring about forgiveness.
And so what Jesus did, he came and made it
possible for us to be forgiven.
And what he did, he went through a lot of pain,
a lot of suffering.
And back to the process, forgiveness is the
process that Jesus went through.
And we can learn a lot about the mind of God
and the forgiveness of God by watching what
Jesus did.
Jesus, if he had been of a selfish nature, he
could have said,
Look, I don't want to go down there.
Why should I?
Why pick on me?
There's three of us here.
Why can't we send somebody else?
And so, he just did it.
And he took upon himself the form of what?
And then there was a big S word.
He became...
Yes, I'm looking for a particular word. Servant.
Forgiveness almost puts what it does.
If we are going to be in the business of
forgiving, we must see ourselves as a servant.
We're not going to forgive as long as we're the
boss because we have the power.
So humility is a prerequisite for forgiveness.
Haughty people have a real hard time forgiving.
Have you ever noticed how servants forgive
their masters?
A lot quicker than masters forgive their servants.
And so, for us to get into a forgiving spirit,
the servant attitude must be there.
Now, let's take Luke 15 because that's the
thing we're supposed to study today.
Take a look at that.
We know that Jesus was being friendly to
sinners, right?
And he was being criticized for that.
And so, he then thought, I need to teach a
lesson on forgiveness to the righteous people,
to the self-righteous people.
And so, he told a story in order to get to a story.
Have you ever known you needed to prepare
somebody for the story before you get to the story?
So you tell one or two stories to get them ready.
So he told a story about the sheep.
Now everybody understood that story, didn't they?
Everybody knows what it's like.
And you go out, in fact, you may have to carry
that sheep on your shoulders.
That sheep may not be able to walk on its own.
So the person in the church who's gone astray,
who's just put his nose to the grindstone, like
we say,
and let their work or their recreation take
them away from us,
they know they're lost, but now they're crippled.
And they don't know how to get back many times.
Somebody's got to go after them.
Now when that one comes back, all of those
listeners knew that the shepherd would be happy.
And that he'd tell the other shepherds, I got
my sheep back.
Now, they understood the joy, the pride, the
unity of having all of your sheep together.
He knew that.
And they knew it.
And so then he tells a story about the
housekeeper, the lady who lost a coin.
She had nine more.
I don't know why she needed that other one, do you?
My goodness, she had nine.
But no way would she be happy until she got her
kerosene lantern out,
or whatever kind of oil lantern she had, and
she went, she removed the reeds from that floor,
the palm leaves, or whatever.
Nobody will know.
But when you're happy, you've got to go share
it, right?
When you're happy.
Yeah, and so she went out and told her friends.
Now then, Jesus knew that the religious leaders
would understand that story,
that there's joy when one comes back.
And the angels in Heaven do what?
When what? Sinner.
When one sinner comes back.
More so than what?
All the righteous.
So he's getting them up for a story.
And so Jesus now begins the third story.
And he starts the story and it goes this way.
There was a man, had a big farm, ranch,
whatever it was, corporation, could be a corporation.
Probably was a corporation.
Farms are corporations.
And had two boys, older son, hard worker,
younger son said,
Dad, I want my share and I'm leaving.
And evidently it must have been legal,
and it must have taken some time for them to
sell off enough whatever to get the cash to
give him
so he could go and leave.
Now all of the religious leaders knew this story
because they had been telling it to their sons.
Mike Armour, my minister at Skillman Avenue in Dallas,
tells this story that was the story that went around
and all fathers told this story to their boys.
And here's the story.
The younger son took his money and he went off,
left his family,
and wasted his money in sinful living.
He went bankrupt.
And guess what happens when you go bankrupt?
Famine is going to happen.
Famines just seem to happen, don't they?
When you're down on your luck, what happens?
Your luck gets worse.
And so this younger son then, humiliated,
embarrassed, and broke,
went and had to find jobs that would embarrass
his folks
if the folks knew about it, and they may or may not.
And then the boy began to realize what was wrong.
It was his fault.
And so the young boy wanted to go home to his
dad and apologize
and get back in good graces.
And so the boy makes his way home.
And when he gets back home, there's a servant
out there at the gate.
And the servant says, I am so-and-so.
I lived here once.
My father and my brother live here.
Would you tell my father that I'm here?
And so the servant goes back to this father.
And he says, Sir, there's a man out there.
He's young, dirty, hungry, skinny, sickly.
He says he's your son.
He wants to come in and be restored to you as a son.
And the father says to him, I only have one son.
He says, you can look out the window and you
can see my son.
Hard-working man.
I don't have another son.
I used to have two sons, but the younger son is dead.
You go out and you tell the imposter he's got
about three minutes to get out of this land.
If he's not gone, we turn the dogs loose on him.
Now that's the story that all of those
religious leaders had shared with their boys
to prevent their boys from wanting what?
Their inheritance too young.
It was to scare them in that if you go away and
you waste it and you come home,
the only people who are going to greet you are
the dogs.
Nobody's going to let you come back.
So you have the right to leave, but I just want
you to know the risk that you're leaving.
Now, Jesus is leading through this story and
he's got the boy at the hog pen
and the Jews knew how terrible, awful that was.
And Jesus now says the boy comes to himself and
realizes in his father's house
there's plenty of food and he says, I should go home
and I should ask my father for forgiveness
and I should ask him, can I just be a servant?
Let me just start at the very bottom.
I'll stay at the bottom.
I've sinned against you and God.
And so now Jesus is going to tell this story
and the young man comes home
and it's not the same story.
And the religious leaders are now hearing the
father was out there
and the father saw that it was his son
and the father ran to the young man or whatever
age man he was
and the father couldn't hear, father, I've
sinned against you in Heaven.
The father didn't hear any of that as far as
wanting to hear it, right?
All he wanted was to hug his son.
He could care less where he's been.
He could care less what he's done.
You know what he cares about?
He's home.
He's safe.
He's alive.
And I'll make him well.
Yeah, he's home. Unity.
Now the joy is there.
And he says, get this young man the ring and
the robe and the shoes.
And what else?
A fatted calf.
Which says we are going to have a party.
We're going to have the big party.
You just don't have little parties when you
kill the fatted calf.
No, sirree, you have the big party.
It's going to be the big time around here.
And so God is saying to these religious leaders,
when a sinner comes back to the church, it's
big time.
You restore that individual.
You celebrate.
You hug him.
You kiss him.
And you make him feel like he belongs to you.
And so I would imagine these religious leaders
are confused.
And so now then Jesus is going to nail the
final plank in his platform.
He's left out the older brother, right?
And he says the older brother, he was out in
the field working,
trying to earn his inheritance, being very
loyal to his father.
But he comes in to hear the music and the dancing,
and he won't go any further.
Do you know he doesn't even know his brother's there?
All he knows is somebody is having a good time.
Now what kind of person is it that is not going
to be attracted to having a good time?
I think it's somebody who's got some resentment
in them.
I think it's somebody that doesn't want anybody
to have fun.
I think what we've got is a sourpuss on our
hands here.
We've got a guy who's a workaholic who is going
to come in and say, what?
And he's going to find out that he's a brother.
And then he's not going to come sure enough.
I'm too good.
I've worked too hard.
I've worked too long to get this corporation,
this farm, this restaurant chain, whatever it is.
And guess who has spent his one-third?
I'll bet you what he wants.
You know what he wants?
Yeah, he wants some more.
I haven't seen him yet, but I know what's on
his mind.
I bet he's not sincere.
I bet the only reason he came home is because
he's hungry.
He knows his dad's a loving man.
He knows his dad's weak.
That's what it is.
And so he's come home to trick his dad.
So I ain't going in there.
I do have good grammar.
I just use ain't occasionally.
I feel at home here.
Back in North Carolina, that's all we say.
Anyway, the father goes after the older brother.
Do you know what?
The shepherd went after the lost sheep.
The lady went after the lost coin.
And the father went after the lost son.
Isn't that kind of interesting?
He went after the lost son.
Who was the prodigal?
The older brother.
That's the lost son.
Because Matthew 6 says,
if you don't forgive, you're lost. Yeah.
On that lesson sheet, you'll find that.
That if you don't forgive your brother,
you aren't going to be forgiven.
And so this older brother, he says,
look, dad, your son,
not my brother, your son.
And the father comes back and says,
your brother, your brother,
don't forget he's your brother.
Don't forget he's of your blood.
Don't forget he is of your unity.
Don't forget that you should rejoice
when your brother does well.
Who was it a while ago that said,
you wish them well?
You wish good?
Did you say that?
For the good.
That older brother did not seem to be interested
in the good of his younger brother.
And so he said,
your brother, who was what? Lost.
Is found. Yeah.
Your brother, who was lost.
He's home. Yeah.
I see God through this story
as wanting unity. Yeah.
You know what I think parents do this for?
They want everybody to be united
mentally, emotionally.
I really believe they do.
When one of our brothers goes away,
one of our sisters go away,
our mind of Christ says,
I hurt until they return.
Because they are blood of my blood.
They are mind of my mind.
Because you see, we have the mind of Christ.
Our brother had the mind of Christ
and now he's left.
Guess what?
My mind is still with him.
I can't just say, well, you've left the mind of Christ,
so I have nothing with you.
We hurt.
That is the reason for disfellowshipping
someone, isn't it?
It's so that they will what? Hurt.
And when they hurt,
they are to come back
so they can remove the hurt.
I had finished college.
I went to Atlanta, Georgia
and went through a little 6-week, 12-week school.
I forget now.
Became an insurance adjuster.
And while I was there,
I was baptized in the Church of Christ.
Baptized into Jesus Christ
in a Church of Christ building.
I had been studying the New Testament
for about 4 or 5 years.
Finally made that decision.
On my way back to North Carolina,
I mean through North Carolina to New York
to where I was stationed to be,
I stopped and I told my mom
and my little sister on a Sunday morning
that I was going to go to the Church of Christ.
And my mom, she just was so angry.
Oh, she was so angry.
She had grown up a Methodist
and I had grown up a Methodist.
And she was upset.
4 daughters, 6 boys.
She said, just get out of here
and don't come back.
And my little sister who was 18 or 19,
she just cried.
Just cried.
And so I left.
Went on to church
and didn't come back for Sunday lunch.
And some of you know about lunches
or it's not lunch on Sunday.
It's dinner.
And it's a big meal.
It's a big deal.
It is the weekly gathering of the Klan, okay?
And there are children.
There are grandchildren.
And there are great-grandchildren, okay?
And you don't even know how many are going to
be there.
You just know you fix food
and it goes around.
I don't know how it happens
but it's miraculous.
There's just enough.
And then there's leftovers.
Now then, I didn't come home for lunch.
I went to eat lunch with some members of the church
because I couldn't go home.
I came home that afternoon around 4:00
to pick up my suitcase
and make my road on up north.
And my mom was crying.
And my sister had quit crying.
And my mom said,
if that's what you want to do,
if you want to be a church of Christ,
then that's fine.
Just don't ever miss Sunday lunch.
Don't you ever put me through that again.
Don't you ever go eat somewhere else
when all of us are here eating.
See the unity?
I think that's what God's trying to tell us.
Don't you dare tear us apart.
Don't you dare tear us apart, older brother.
Don't you dare stay out here in the field
and try to earn salvation
when we are holding each other's arms
in love and in celebration.
I think that's what the mind of God is all about.
Don't you forsake us
when we are in a love feast.
Thank you for being here with us today.
Yes, Sir.
I would say we need to tell the individual,
we love you,
and there's nothing you can do to destroy our love.
And we will accept you as a person,
but we cannot accept you as a Christian
with that behavior.
And we are not going to turn our backs on you,
but we may excommunicate you
out of thoughtship.
But if you ever walk in the door,
we're going to shake hands with you.
Be ready to forgive and have a forgiving spirit.