Twice Fooled

Have you ever had anyone give you a second chance?

Did you see it as a gift?  Do you feel you lived up to the gesture?

Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work. The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. - Acts 15:37-39

In today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul has a hard time forgiving John for deserting them in Pamphylia.  He chooses to go on without him.

Was Paul wrong?

He has every reason to be concerned, if not upset or even angry.  Looking at the situation from his perspective, one would have to agree that taking John along would be a risk.  He could abandon them again.

Perhaps he does forgive him, but could Paul forgive John and still not include him on the next trip?

There is an old expression: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Paul would not allow himself to be twice fooled.

We can't really blame him, can we?  Who wants to be humiliated twice by the same guy?  We would feel foolish, or worse, stupid!

So, when we hear Jesus tell us to forgive as many as 77 times, as he does in Matthew 18:22, we wonder just how far that forgiveness should go.  Should I subject myself to being played the fool?

How many times do I let someone hurt me before I say, "Enough!?"

What could Paul have done differently to show John he was forgiving, while placing the responsibility back on John to live up to his commitment?

First, I think we need to hear John's side of the story.  It is missing here.  Perhaps Barnabas understands the reasoning behind John's action, or perhaps Barnabas has a higher tolerance for a team member's lack of commitment.  We don't know, because the story fails to give us an answer to our questions.

So, a possible teaching moment is lost.

As we read on, we want to know more about Barnabas and John.  Did everything work out?  Did they have problems?  Did John fail to stay committed?

We may never want to be fooled, and we may have no tolerance for being fooled twice by the same person, so we are challenged in our application of forgiveness to our real life situations.

We have to get out of the mindset that everything we do has a gain and a loss, a win and a lose, a pass and a fail.  This conditioning tricks us into judgmental behavior.

If I were Paul, I would sit John down for a heart-to-heart talk.  I would get to know him and share my disappointment with him.  My hope, I would tell him, is that he would understand my perspective, and I would understand his.

Forgiveness comes from love, and love comes through relationship.  Without starting there, we are doomed to repeat the process up to 77 times or more.

What do you think?

More to come...