Bitterness and the Shelf-life of a Twinkie®

‘Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. But if you refuse to forgive, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.”’ Mark 11:22-25

I always get hung up on the strong metaphorical language of verses 22-24. I marked that in green. I process this with great difficulty. What does it mean “‘a mountain is cast into the sea…? None of the gospel writers record an instance of Jesus doing the kind of miracle where tectonic plates in the earth’s crust and geographically displaced.

I often miss Jesus’s “But…” warning that starts in verse 25, marked in a different color in my Bible. So I started to think about what I was reading and it kind of hit me: do I have faith big enough to speak to mountains and see them cast into the sea…?

I don’t even have OBEDIENCE big enough to forgive those I’m holding a grudge against. A cast of names rolled through my brain movie credits style as I come to grips with the reality of where my heart is. Wow I need to deal with this between God and me. There’s some business that needs to get done in my relationships.

So I started to pray… But you know that thing that happens when the conviction doesn’t quite go deep enough to really expose your heart to God like you should? Your mind starts to wander. Here’s where my mind went…

-Doesn’t the Bible say somewhere, “there’s a time to hate?” I wonder if this is one of those times?

-I could use another cup of coffee… Man, she really didn’t make it very strong this morning? I wonder if she’s slipping me decaf again?

-Is there any of that dinner left from last night…? It was pretty decent. It might be good warmed up for breakfast…

-What was that sermon I heard in 1994…? Bitterness has a longer shelf-life than a Twinkie… that’s good. Who preached that? I think Damian Kyle at Calvary Chapel Modesto… Who was the Old Testament dude that preacher was talking about? Ahithophel. Right…

-I wonder what the shelf life of a Twinkie is. Will Twinkies survive nuclear holocaust if all man-kind is wiped out? Who will be around to eat the Twinkies? Cockroaches?

-Yeah… Bitterness, I need to deal with that, Lord… Oh, good… now we’re back…

Twinkies

Twinkies are a funny metaphor for bitterness. They are so sweet. And unless you’re a little kid munching on the golden, cream filled sweetness from a sack lunch for dessert, you know Twinkies are really bad to eat. Grown-ups should know better. They have no nutritional value and you definitely can’t live off them. You should never buy them off the shelf in a convenience store because you have no idea how long they’ve been on the shelf. They last forever.

Unchecked, bitterness has a longer shelf-life. And bitterness is a soul decaying carcinogen. This is where my wandering mind ended up in the above list of prayer-time rabbit trails.

Ahithophel

So who is this guy? Let me make things easy and share this link to an article by the great and popular theologian DR. WIKIPEDIA. Actually, the piece is footnoted really well.

This is the jist of the sermon I remembered while thinking about people I have issues with.

Ahithophel started out as a wise advisor in King David’s court. But then he became the advisor that used his sagacity to advise usurper Absolam, David’s treasonous son to sleep with David’s concubines. This was the shock and awe that morphed Absolam’s rebellion into a national movement that ignited a civil war. The whole nation had to pick a side after that. And Ahithophel, formerly one of David’s closest friends picked a new king, thinking he was getting in on the ground floor of some new dynastic movement. But when things went wrong for Ahithophel and his new king didn’t follow his advice, Ahithophel hanged himself.

Where did Ahithophel go wrong? What turned him against David? How can anyone have anything against “a man after God’s own heart?”

The grudge

With a little Bible forensics, we pick up a trail of crumbs: First, check 2 Samuel 23:34. Here we meet Ahithophel’s son: Eliam. Eliam is on a list of warriors called “The Thirty”. These were David’s most trained, elite soldiers. Eliam, it turns out, is Ahithophel’s son. By the way, if you scroll to the bottom of chapter 23 to verse 39, you see a familiar name at the end of the list. Put a pin in that name. I think that name is there for punctuation. look who’s name punctuates this list of powerful warriors in verse 39.

Next, we go to 2 Samuel 11:3 where the trail both starts and ends. This is the infamous story of David and Bathsheba. Wait! What? Did you see that?! Click here again.
Now here.
Now here again.
Here one more time. You saw it right. If Eliam is Bathseba’s father, Ahithophel is Bathsheba’s grandfather! Mind blown!

When a David becomes a Goliath

King David abused his power when he used it to cause a voyeuristic fantasy to catalyze into a lusty affair with Bathsheba. The cover-up of the affair and resulting preganancy became a conspiracy to murder Uriah (Bathsheba’s husband and the man linked to above in 2 Samuel 23:39), an elite, special forces style warrior, so David could marry Bathsheba. Any of us can fantasize about sinning like this, but only someone with the power and resources of a king can put a plan like this in motion. What happened to the shepherd boy that miraculously subdued the monster Goliath? That kid grew up to be a monster himself. None of this happened in secret. Ahithophel felt entitled to even the score.

When somebody in my life is in authority or has influence over me – or both – mis-uses said authority, I’m ENTITLED to be bitter, mistrusting, unforgiving, unloving, hateful, sarcastic, spiteful, gossipy, and vindictive. I relish the moments when I lay in bed at night and make a mental Rolodex of ways to get revenge. It’s a sweet, comforting feeling. It’s like eating a Twinkie real slowly in secret and enjoying it even though I know it’s bad for me.

When I’m ENTITLED to be bitter, it’s impossible to release a grudge. And here’s the thing, those people I’m mad at, have no idea they’ve hurt anyone. They, like David (as indicated in Psalm 51), have probably received God’s forgiveness and made amends as much as they know how. They’ve moved on.

Meanwhile I’m stuck, if I don’t deal with it. Then I’M THE ONE on a path of self-destruction. On-lookers in Ahithophel’s life, because of his reputation, thought his wisdom came from God. And they’re probably correct to think that.

But here’s the thing…

One can walk in amazing giftedness – giftedness that can only be attributed to God – and still be on a path of self-destruction. Seeking revenge comes naturally to us. If you Google “How to get revenge” 278 million results are returned. 278,000,000.

Joseph

Finally, I want to contrast this pair of OT characters : David during a season of megalomania and Ahithophel a man who throws it all away because of a grudge with the story Joseph in Genesis. Joseph’s example of forgiving a grudge is mind-bending.

He forgives and God uses his life to accomplish amazing, miraculous feats of wisdom that literally saves early civilization from possible extinction.

Think if Joseph had used his power to even the score with his brothers. Because we so easily identify – you and me – with the other characters in the story I’ve laid out, it’s hard to imagine – it is for me anyhow – doing things the way Joseph did.

But forgiveness is miraculous. And that’s what I think Jesus is trying to get across to us in Mark 11:22-25 (above).

The payoff is massive.

So here’s your action item: Google “how to make amends”. About 22 million results are returned in this search. It’s a lot, but less than a tenth of the results of the revenge search. I didn’t link to that search on purpose. Way too many people are interested in revenge and not enough in making amends.

We reviewed a book recently by missionaries Elizabeth and Jonathan Trotter called Serving Well: Help for the Wannabe, Newbie, or Weary Cross-Cultural Christian Worker. One of my favorite chapters in the book is called How to Transition to the Foreign Field and Not Croak. This chapter exhorts missionaries-in-training to deal with life issues BEFORE going to the field rather than waiting for them to blow up on you once you arrive. The bottom-line is you have issues waiting for you on the mission field you don’t know exist yet. So I’ll leave you with this thought from missionary-the-field Jonathan Trotter to nudge you toward a strategy for making relationships right in your life: “… the most fruitful thing [you] can do today is connect with the heart of Jesus.”