Taking a Beating Like a Klingon

Suggested Reading: Isaiah 1:2-9

There is an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where Worf (the Klingon transfer from the Next Generation) is captured by the enemy and is forced into a gladiator style prison tournament. Over the course of the episode Worf fights and wins match after match until he is tired and worn out and then has to fight the enemy's best soldier. Having already been the subject of so much abuse, Worf can barely manage to get back on his feet time after time, but somehow he continues to pull himself up. Because Worf feels he is in the right, he refuses to give up, no matter how many beatings he has to take, no matter how bloodied and bruised he gets.

When Worf continues to stand up time and time again even though it means he will take more abuse, it is considered an honorable thing because Worf refuses to let the enemy win. But what if a person endured such abuse simply because they refused to admit that they were wrong? That kind of stubbornness isn't quite so admirable. In Isaiah chapter 1, God is discussing the discipline that had been poured out on his people because they stubbornly refuse to give up their sinful ways. God asks, “Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness – only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil" (Isaiah 1:5-6, HCSB).

Far too often, we endure suffering, which is either a direct consequence of our own sinful behavior or is the discipline of a God who is desperately trying to turn us around before we destroy ourselves, and we stubbornly refuse to give in, continuing to engage in our sinful, harmful activity. Too often we decide that regardless of the consequences we are going to continue doing what we want to do, no matter how wrong it is or how much we suffer as a result. But while suffering for a just cause can be admirable, suffering because we just don't want to change is destructive and stupid.

What about you? What are you stubbornly refusing to give up, even though you are facing increasingly difficult consequences for it? What are you considering doing, even though you know the consequences could be dire? What are you trying to convince yourself that you can get away with, knowing you probably won't? Imagine yourself facing the full set of consequences for that decision and choose right now to do the right thing.

Suffering for a just cause is admirable. Suffering because we refuse to give up our sin is just sad.

Abandoning Your Rights As a Klingon

Suggested Reading: Nehemiah 5:14-19

Worf was one of the most memorable characters from Star Trek: the Next Generation. A Klingon with giant ridges on his skull, Worf was from a race of warriors who prized honor above all else. But Klingons also believed in punishing children for the sins of their fathers. When Worf discovered proof that his father had been falsely branded a traitor, he brought that proof to the Klingon High Council to clear his family name. As a result, the Council offered Worf the son of the man responsible for framing his father and a chance for his family to avenge the wrong done. Worf was given the right to kill the young boy but he refused to punish a boy who had not personally committed a crime against him.  As far as Worf was concerned, he had the right to kill the boy, but killing him would not have been right.

At the end of Nehemiah chapter 5, after Nehemiah had dealt with the nobles and officials who had been exploiting the poor, Nehemiah made an official notation that almost seems like he was tooting his own horn. Nehemiah wrote, "Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year-- twelve years-- neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor." (Nehemiah 5;14, NIV) Nehemiah went on to say that the previous governors collected a very hefty salary from the people he governed but that he  himself refused to take it, even though it meant feeding 150 officials on a daily basis as well as the occasional visiting dignitaries out of his own pocket. Nehemiah specifically stated that he refused to demand what he was due as governor because it would have hurt the people of the land. Nehemiah could have demanded a salary and reimbursement for all of his expenses because they were his right, but he chose to make the people more important than his rights.

There are many things that we believe are our rights, things that we think people owe us. Sometimes, we have a right to an apology, to an explanation, to compensation. People may owe us credit or thanks. And often, we would be well within our rights to demand those things. But sometimes, demanding our rights simply isn't right. Sometimes, we need to put people and relationships above our rights. That person who hurt you may owe you an apology, but is the apology worth more than the friendship? Jesus set aside his rights as creator of the universe and ruler of eternity in order to save the very people who had taken his gifts of life and freedom and thrown them back in his face.

Jesus refused to cling to the rights he was due as God because we were more important to him. Shouldn't we be willing to forgo some of our rights because people are more important to us?