Shoot.
What was I going to say? (ha)
Sorry.
The tape's rolling.
It's taking up space.
Speaking of taking up space...
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
So back in college, I was a secondary ed minor
and some of my favorite classes were all about childhood development, all about education.
There was a thing that they called the Plus-One Theory of Education and the idea was this:
if you are, in whatever area, at a level 4, you can understand everything below four,
four and one level above, like you can understand like the five level of that area,
like mathematics or social studies— whatever the thing was.
But you can't— if you're at a five,
you can't understand seven.
You can understand five, four, all below and you can understand six
but as this is Plus-One Theory so the idea again is when you're teaching children
or teaching anybody anything is "Where are they at?" OK, now I'm going to lead you a little further.
I'm going to share with you a little bit more. I'm going to do this Plus-One Theory
where I'm taking my time in revealing the truth to you over the course of time.
OK, I was thinking about this because I'll often talk to people who say like,
"Father, I'm reading the Bible and I started in the Old Testament
and I don't even know what to think about God because in the Old Testament,
he seems vengeful, he seems wrathful, he seems all about justice.
In the New Testament, he seems gentle and he seems kind
and he seems all about love and forgiveness and mercy.
So are there two different gods?
Because it seems so strange that God— did he change over the course of time?
And here's my answer.
Now, I've heard many people say that, "Let's go back to the Old Testament
where the Lord reveals an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
where if you take out my eye, then I take out your eye— that's fair.
If you take out my tooth, I take out your tooth.
And they've pointed out that this is God saying, OK, stop at one eye.
If you lose one eye, then don't kill the person.
If they knock out a tooth, don't kill their family,
like they're putting a restriction oriented towards justice and I think that's probably incredibly accurate
but I think there's something even more critical,
not just about how we live in looking for justice but something about who God is.
Let's rewind back to when God began revealing himself
and began revealing his very identity.
Here is Judaism, which is born from God to Abraham and to his descendants
amongst a bunch of other cultures, a bunch of other religions where they had many gods.
The crazy thing about that is this:
Is that those gods weren't necessarily wise, they weren't necessarily good.
Those gods weren't just. They were not just.
And so here's God. He's going to reveal himself.
And one of the first things he has to reveal is he has to reveal
actually, here's the deal.
When you get hurt, I care. There's going to be a balancing of the scales here.
When you do injustices to someone else, listen, I care. Why? Because I am just.
Imagine if God would have come on the scene as Jesus
and right away, imagine what if he would have said, "Hey, forgive your enemies."
Now, in the context of these other gods in the world that Judaism was born in,
Jesus coming along and saying, "Forgive your enemies and love those who hate you,"
you would come to the conclusion that,
OK, so God's just like those other gods. He just wants you to roll over and take it.
He's not interested at all about just or fair or good. He simply wants you to ignore evil.
But God first reveals that he's just and he cares deeply about fair,
that he cares deeply about when you're injured.
He cares deeply about when we do wrong to another person,
so that later on, Plus-One Theory, right? Plus-One Theory.
So later on, he can say, OK, now knowing that I am just, knowing that I care very deeply about fairness,
I care very deeply about right and wrong.
Now knowing that and that's not going to pass away,
in the midst of this, there's something higher.
And that's something higher is, even though someone has been unjust and they deserve to pay,
even though someone has been unfair and they deserve the consequences,
I'm calling you to be merciful. I'm calling you to release them from their debts
because that's what I'm gonna do,
not because I think sin just is nothing, no big deal; not because I think sin is just an accident,
not because it's, "Oh, don't worry about it. Get over it."
That's not what God's saying.
He says, No I am just and sin is evil,
but also because I'm merciful I can invite you to release others from their debt
like I, the God of justice, am choosing to release you from your debt.
See, the Plus-One Theory of Education says that I first have to understand God as justice
and then after that, I can understand God as mercy,
but that's the same God;
and praise God that he is both just and merciful
because I need a God who hates what hurts me
but I also need a God who can forgive me for doing what he hates.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Father Mike.
God bless.