Sunday, February 23, 2014

Sermon: Why stop hating and start loving (February 23, 2014)

Epiphany 7A
Matthew 5:38-48

            Jim Wallis is a pastor and Christian leader who has been involved for years in urban ministry, living and working in an impoverished area of our nation’s capital. He shares a story about being mugged one day by a gang of teenagers. Three of them were about 15 and one a bit younger, maybe 13. They knocked him down and tried to get his wallet, but he popped right back up. Being a weight-lifter, he is a rather large man, and this was fairly intimidating for the misguided youngsters. A believer in non-violence, Pastor Wallis decided to confront them with words, rather than fight back. He writes, “Instinctively, I began to scold these lost young souls. I told them just to stop it, to stop terrorizing people, to stop such violent behavior in our neighborhood. Finally, I shouted at them, ‘I’m a pastor!’ And I told them if they wanted to try to beat up and rob and pastor, they should come ahead and take their best shot.” Something about what he said convinced them, and they turned and ran. But the youngest kid, as he ran, turned back, and said in a sad voice, “Pastor, ask God for a blessing for me.” Reflecting back, Wallis writes, “He and his friends had just assaulted me. The little one had tried so hard to be one of the big tough guys. Yet he knew he needed a blessing. The young boy knew he was in trouble. I think they all did.”
            Muggings like this happen all the time, every day. But this boy’s comment makes the attacker suddenly three-dimensional. What made him say that? What part of his history, his story, was he tapping that made him turn back to ask the man he had attacked for a blessing? Who is this attacker? He is a person in need, a person in trouble. He is an enemy in need of love, a persecutor in need of prayer.
            These words we hear today from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount – “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” – are familiar to us, so familiar, perhaps, that they lose their punch. We hear them and either say, “Yes, yes, I know, love my enemies,” but don’t take the next step of actually doing it, or we hear them and think, “That sounds good, Jesus, but that just doesn’t fly in this world. I can’t turn the other cheek and still get ahead in life. I can’t love my enemies, because then they will take advantage of me. So it’s a nice idea, but really, come on. Who are we kidding?”
            I suspect another reason we gloss over these words, and I am speaking personally here, is that we think, “Well, I don’t have any enemies.” I’m a pretty agreeable and forgiving person, after all, and while I have not waltzed through life without an argument now and then, or even a prolonged conflict, or a frustration with someone, I would never go so far as to say I hate these people, or that they are my enemies. These are awfully strong words.
            So perhaps it’s those words – “enemy” and “hate” – that need rethinking. Instead, let’s think: what person, or group of people, or type of people do you find most difficult to love? Maybe you find it difficult to love… Michael Dunn, or William Spengler. Or, political leaders who abuse their power. Or, people who abuse the welfare system, who refuse to get a job and instead just mooch off of others’ tax dollars. Or, the kid who has been bullying your kid at school – or that kid’s parents for letting them! Or, that person at work who took that promotion that you deserved, and now flaunts it to everyone. Or, I have a friend who likes to say, “The only people I’m bigoted about are bigots. I can’t stand people who hate people.” Hmm, now there is something I can relate to. I hate haters, too!


            Who do you find to be difficult to love? That’s the question that helps us take to heart Jesus’ challenging words. First, we need to identify who the people are that Jesus is talking about, for us personally, when he says to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and to realize that we are not, actually, without what Jesus’ calls “enemies.” So if we have enemies, than what is our hold up? Why are these words so difficult to take to heart? Why don’t we just stop hating people and start loving them?
Maybe a better question is, why wouldn’t we want to stop hating them? Perhaps it is because there is a certain satisfaction in hating someone or something. Last week, when we talked about anger, we observed that anger can sometimes bring some excitement and satisfaction in the moment, because it gets up our adrenaline and makes us feel self-righteous, and like the better person. Hatred can be the same – it feels good to tell ourselves that “I am a better person than that person.” So then, if we take steps to stop hating someone, two things might happen. We might be forced to notice our own shortcomings. Or, when we have to let down our guard, and might find that our hate is actually just a mask to hide what is more properly named, our fear.
And when we recognize that, well, then we have to deal with our shortcomings and our fears, and this can feel very vulnerable. Suddenly what we had previously been able to peg on someone else reveals an insecurity that we actually have with ourselves.  To leave it there feels bad, but to deal with it is so very hard. Resorting to hatred is sometimes a much easier option.
As many of you know, Michael and I are currently in a musical, and we’re at the point now where we are trying to become our characters. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “What is my motivation in this scene?” What about my character would make him or her behave this way? This is a helpful question to ask as a Christian, as well. What is motivating me, as a Christian, to love and pray for my enemies? Why bother? I can think of all kinds of psychologically sound motivations for it. Love your enemies because hate is bad for your emotional and mental health. Love them because spending that energy hating gives them power over you. Love them because it proves you are the better person. Love them because loving feels better than hating, and loving will make you feel better about yourself. Love them because, as Ghandi famously put it, “An eye for an eye makes everyone blind.”
But the truth is, Jesus doesn’t offer any of these motivations. The motivation is in the last verse of the passage we hear today: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Sounds like a steep demand, no? But it is not so much demand as it is promise. See, that word that is translated as “perfect” has a richer meaning in Greek than in our English translation. It really means to come into yourself, to become what you are meant to be, who God intended you to be. Be perfect, as God is perfect.
And who did God create us to be? God created us to be beloved children of God, blessed and dripping wet with God’s grace. We just are those things, already. And when we take those difficult steps to love and pray for our enemies, we are living into that identity that God already promised to us: living as beloved, forgiven children of God, eager and equipped to share that promise with others.
In a moment, I’m going to say a prayer, as I usually do at the end of sermons. I will leave a space for you to name the people in your life whom you find particularly difficult to love. You can say their names aloud if you like, or say them in your heart for only God to hear. Whichever way you pray, I encourage you not to let this be the last prayer you offer for them this week. Name that person or those people in your prayers all throughout this week, lifting to God prayers for them, for their families, for their well-being. Pray for understanding about their particular struggles and challenges so that you might find a way to sympathize with them, rather than criticize them. Pray for love to find a way to make itself known in your relationship with them. Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray…

Gracious and loving God, there are people in our lives whom we find easy to love, and we give you thanks for them. But there are also some people we find more difficult to love, and difficult to understand. We name those people before you now, aloud or in our hearts… Help us know how to love these people, God, and to pray for them. Grant us the humility to understand them, and not to fear them. And as we seek to love them, may we learn to love you more and more deeply. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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