It seems that what captures our focus as we read the bible are those words and phrases that we experiences as negative while at the same time we overlook the positive. Take this passage from Exodus as an example. Many of us stumble over the words: I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation. This sounds harsh.  And for many of us it is what we hear when this passage is read. The sad thing is it is sometimes all we hear. We do not hear the next part of that verse: but I show steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.      

I wondered how many ancestors each one of us would have if we went back a thousand generations. With every generation the amount doubles. Two becomes four, four becomes eight, becomes 16, becomes 32, becomes 64, becomes 128, becomes  256, becomes 512, becomes 1024.  By ten generations each of us have 1024 ancestors.  I used a scientific calculator to try to discover how many ancestors we would have in a thousand generations. The number was astronomical.  It was more than a trillion.   More than I know how to name.  We likely have a million ancestors by the time we go back a hundred generations. Scriptures tells us God shows mercy to the 1000th generation. 

Among our ancestors going back a thousand generations, we must all have at least one person that loved God and did their best to keep God’s commandments. One person for whose sake God shows mercy on us.  

Most of us don’t have to go back very far before we find a saintly ancestor whose love made a tremendous impact on those who bore witness to it.  I think of my grandmother Annie Sims, who didn’t say much about her faith, but lived it in so many ways. I bless my grandmother’s name, for her sake and for the sake of all my unnamed ancestors God has mercy on me. I think of my grandfather’s mother who ran a nursing home in a time and place where there were few doctors and no hospitals. Her favorite bible verse was 'as is your day so shall your strength be.' My mother remembered her singing hymns as she went about her work. 

If I go back six generations I find a William Sims who fought in the American Revolution, whose heart was warmed by the Wesyan Methodist movement. Family lore tells us a man whose faith moved him and caused him to become involved in the Underground Railway. For his sake God will certainly have mercy on his ancestors.  And then there is my mother. She didn’t always get it right, but she loved God and she loved us, and everyday she and her husband would name each of us in prayer. 

Many of us have trouble with the words jealous God.   I wish I could read and understand Hebrew to have a sense of this world in the original language, but what is expresses is God’s desire that we put God first in our lives.  When we do so, others don’t suffer, for it is God’s express purpose that we love others and ourselves.  Loving God, loving ourselves, and loving others provides life with balance and harmony.

When I thought about the words punish to the third and fourth generation it spoke of a reality that I see lived out in the world.  A reality that has nothing to do with God’s punishment, but is a natural consequence of living in a broken world. Broken wounded people, raise broken wounded people, who raise broken wounded people. Children raised by an alcoholic parent are more likely to become an alcoholic.  A daughter raised in a home with family violence is more likely to marry an abusive man. If you look into the histories of many folks in jail, you will usually, but not always, find a missing or abusive parent. 

One man in jail, decided to try to earn money, by making father’s day cards to sell to other prisoners.  His cards never sold.  The reason?  Most male prisoners, either had no father figure, or a father who was abusive and provided no positive influence.  The sins of parents are truly visited on the children,  and have nothing to do with the acts of God.  It is just the way life works in this world.    

It is into such a world that Jesus comes. He comes to make the grace of God known.  He comes to be one of us that he might make us one with God. He comes to show us a better way to live. He comes to break the power of this generational curse.  If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation, the bible tells us. Over my life time, I have met many people who have had a terrible history.   They have experienced things that can leave a person badly scarred. They came to the God who forgives and with God’s help were able to forgive those who wounded them and in doing so they found freedom. In Jesus they found a new well from which to drink.  They no longer drank from the bitter waters of rejection and betrayal, but they drank from Christ, who named them as God’s very own beloved children.    

The cross can seems like foolishness, but many can testify to the power they found to change their lives when they looked to the cross and saw on it a Word from God.  The word made flesh reveals that nothing in all creation, not sin, not even death, can separate us from the love of God.  In the cross of Christ, God communicates forgiveness and love in a language that goes beyond mere words. In Jesus words on the cross, 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do, we hear God’s word to us.'  There is a power in forgiveness, a power that sets us free to walk a different path than the one destiny laid out for us.  

If the cross is foolishness then it is a foolishness that communicates that God understands what it is to suffer rejection and pain. If it is foolishness then it is a foolishness that communicates that God can take what was intended for evil and bring something good and redemptive out of it.  The cross as the foolishness of God has helped many a person, shamed by the world, find a new identify as one that God so loved. The cross as the foolishness of God, has helped many a person burdened by sin, real or imagined find peace with God and the power to forgive themselves. The cross as the foolishness of God has helped many a person forgive the one who has hurt them as they listen to the words of Jesus.  Father forgive them for they know not what they do.  God’s foolishness is indeed wiser than human wisdom.  Thanks be to God.