Sermon: Loving enemies (yes, those ones) (Feb. 24, 2019)

Epiphany 7C

February 24, 2019

Luke 6:27-38

INTRODUCTION

         Last week I asked you to define for me what blessings and woes were. I was so interested in your answers, that I decided to do the same thing this week, with of course a different question. This week, I wondered about enemies. I’m not going to ask you to tell me examples of enemies, but did wonder if we could start by trying to define enemy. What is an enemy? What makes someone an enemy? [wait for answers]

         The reason I ask, is that two of today’s texts will give us good reason to reflect on this question today. First, our reading from Genesis is the end of the Joseph story. You remember that story? Joseph, the favored son of Jacob who is hated by his brothers, is sold into slavery by those brothers, and brought to Egypt. Through a series of ups and downs, Joseph ends up the second most powerful person in Egypt, which puts him in a position to save his brothers from famine several years later by bringing them to Egypt. Today, when Joseph has every reason to get revenge on his brothers, he doesn’t treat them as enemies – instead, he offers forgiveness. And then of course in our Gospel reading, Jesus will continue with his sermon on the level place, preaching about loving enemies, turning the other cheek, and the Golden Rule. Both are stories about mercy, love, and forgiveness – not always easy things to live out! So as you listen, try to think of a relationship in your life in which mercy and forgiveness might be something to strive for, and whether these stories might help you get there. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         I was a very clever and somewhat sassy teenager, who was always on a quest to outsmart my older brother. I remember once when I smacked him back after he had hit me, and my defense was, “Well, if he was following the Golden Rule, which of course I assume he was, and he was doing unto me what he would have me do unto him, then he clearly wanted me to hit him. So I’m just following his wishes.” I’m not sure I ever saw such a look on my mother’s face! (I thought she would at least be impressed by the clever logic. She was not.)

         Ah, the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Some version of it appears in every major world religion, and today we hear one of the times it comes out of Jesus’ mouth, right along with the equally famous mandate to “love your enemies.”

We know them so well, but even still, we sure find justification not to follow them. Like 13-year-old Johanna, we find all kinds of logical reasons not to love certain people – their background, their family, their ethnicity, their sexuality, or their economic situation might all play a role, but probably most often we find people difficult to love because of their history of behavior. That is, we have either deemed them not to be worth the energy it takes to love, or they have hurt us or someone we love too badly, or they have not appreciated our love in the past so why keep trying, or they bring something up in us that makes it very difficult for us to love them.

But would we call these difficult-to-love people “enemies”? For me, that word, “enemy,” is another hold up to following Jesus’ mandate. It’s not so much that I’m not willing to love my enemies, I tell myself, as it is that I don’t think I have any enemies. Because “enemy” brings with it a connotation of hatred, and even a desire to do violence or harm to another – and I don’t have such strong negative feelings as that toward anyone!

So maybe the first thing we need to do, before we can even think about following Jesus’ commandment to love our enemies, is to figure out what exactly an enemy is, or who it is, so we can then figure out what is required to love them.

Theologically speaking, the Enemy is sin, the sinful human condition, which causes us to turn away from God and act in ways that bring about brokenness in our relationships with God and others, rather than the healing and wholeness God desires. With that in mind, someone might be seen as an enemy if something about our relationship with or perception of that person stands in the way of us living out the gospel, living in the way God calls us to live. Let me say that again: someone might be seen as an “enemy” if something about our relationship with or perception of that person keeps us from living in the way God calls us to live.

         Can you think of people like that? They are the ones about whom we have developed some assumptions and expectations that they will act a certain way. Then whenever we interact with them, we assume they will act that way again, and so we go into our interactions with them with loins girded, ready for battle. They are the ones who “are always that way, not matter what I say or do,” and so then it is no surprise when, in our interactions, they behave just exactly as we expected them to.

         I worked with someone like that once. Shortly after we began working together, we had a big, hurtful blow up that left me physically shaking. We could not truly hear one another, and I felt like he did not even care that he had hurt me (and he probably felt the same about me), and that he had no interest in improving the situation, despite my efforts. After that initial blow-up, every single time I received an email from him, I could feel my anxiety go up, and my heart would start pounding. “He’s mad about something,” I would think. “I’ve done something to make him mad.” Even if the correspondence was completely mundane in nature, I still assumed there was some edge to it. Because my anxiety was up with every interaction, and I expected anger from one or both of us, I did not always respond to him in the kindest or most charitable way. I seldom assumed the best. No surprise, our relationship never improved; in fact, it ended in tears and anger.

         Can you think of a relationship in your life like this? Someone who you assume will act a certain way, and so they always fulfill your expectations? Someone who seems to bring out the worst in you, rather than the best? Someone who, when you interact with them, you find it difficult to practice more loving, gospel-like behaviors, like compassion, or empathy, or simply sitting with another in their pain and listening, or even seeking forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation?

         We all have triggers – those buttons that someone just really knows how to push to raise our anxiety and get us worked up. You may not call these people enemies (I would not call the person I mentioned an enemy, for example)… but I do think these are the people Jesus wants us to try to love, treat with the compassion we’d want to be treated with, and even, forgive. These are the interactions Jesus wants us to rise above, so that we do not get derailed in our efforts to live out the gospel of life, love, healing, forgiveness, grace, and reconciliation – even with people we’d rather not have to interact with at all.

It’s a pretty tall order! (Most of Jesus’ teachings are!) The Lutheran tradition has a very helpful resource to help us with this. It’s right in the Small Catechism that many of us studied or even memorized in confirmation class. It is Luther’s explanation of the 8^th commandment, “you shall not bear false witness.” With Luther’s explanations, you may remember, there is not only a “you shall not,” section, but also a “what you should do instead.” So regarding bearing false witness, Luther suggests that, “We are to come to our neighbor’s defense, speak well of them, and [now this is the kicker] interpret everything they do in the best possible light.” In other words, rather than presupposing malice or selfishness in their words or actions, presuppose the best intentions. Assume they are doing the best they can under the circumstances. Assume that if they are acting hurtfully, they are probably doing so because they are, themselves, hurting.

Like think of this: you’re in Wegmans, reaching for a bunch of bananas, and you accidentally bump the person next to you, knocking her bananas out of her hand and onto the floor – and she immediately begins screaming at you for being so inconsiderate! What might your first reaction be? You might yell back. You might be stunned into silence. You might take it personally. You might find yourself thinking, “Geez, lady, calm down! Man, what a jerk. She is so tightly wound, she must have no friends!”

But now, try to interpret the same situation “in the best possible light.” She starts yelling, and you think, “Hm, she seems really stressed. She must be having a really bad day, or have something big going on in her life. Maybe she’s recently lost someone, or lost her job, or her kid just got expelled. Whatever the case, she must really be hurting, and this was the final straw.” What sorts of different emotions do you have toward the banana woman with that assumption, rather than the assumption of malice? Do you find it easier to have compassion for her? Not pity, but compassion – like, can you recall some time when you, too, felt the weight and stress of the world and were short tempered as a result? Do you feel her pain with her? Do you find it a little easier… to love that high-strung banana lady?

Now, apply that to that person you work with, or your annoying neighbor, or Donald Trump, or Chuck Schumer, or your spouse…

This is the sort of love that changes the world. Jesus is right – it is easy to love the people who love you. It’s easy to love people who think and believe like you do. It is easy to be kind to people who are kind to you. But being a disciple of Christ requires more. Being a disciple of Christ means that you do what is needed to bring healing to the brokenness of the world, and love into the hatred, and light into the darkness – not just because it’s a nice thing to do, but because that is what Christ did. Being a disciple of Christ means figuring out how to cultivate life where death threatened to win, because that’s what Christ did. Being a disciple of Jesus means loving our enemies, and doing unto others as we already had Jesus do unto us. That is what will heal the world.

It is a daily discipline. Loving our enemies must be practiced in the most mundane interactions at Wegmans, and when we’re watching or reading the news, and in our relationships at work, and in our families, and in our churches. It is a practice, and one at which we have failed and we will continue to fail. Yet for all the times we fall short, God never does. As many times as we assume the worst in our neighbor, and fail to love them, we still come here each week with hands outstretched, asking for forgiveness, and being given a morsel of bread with those words, “My body broken, and given for you.” My grace, given for you – to heal your own brokenness, so that you, too, might go forth to love and heal the world.

Let us pray… Loving God, you showed us how to love our enemies by your son, who forgave his accusers and adversaries right from the very cross on which he died. Give us the insight we need to view people and their actions in the best possible light, so that we might be compelled not toward judgment, but toward compassion. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: True blessing (Feb. 17, 2019)

Epiphany 6C

February 17, 2018

Luke 6:17-49

INTRODUCTION

         Today’s texts will get us thinking in new ways about what it means to be blessed versus cursed. So, by way of introduction, I actually wanted to turn it back to you: how would you define that word, “blessed”? [wait for answers] Okay, now how would you define “cursed,” or as Jesus says in his sermon on the plain, “woe to you”? [wait for answers] Okay, you’ve got some interesting ideas. Hold onto those, and as you listen, think about how especially Jeremiah and Luke understand those words, and how their understanding compares not only to your understanding, but to how we understand those words in the broader culture. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         In her 2013 book entitled, Blessed, Professor Kate Bowler offers a thoughtful history of what has come to be known in some circles as the “prosperity gospel.” This is a message preached by millionaire televangelists and megachurch preachers around the country, who tell us that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy, and so if you have acquired these gifts, then you must surely have received God’s favor. If things in your life are going well, or even if they are headed in the right direction, then surely you are… blessed.

         Even for those who don’t subscribe to the prosperity gospel, which certainly comes with its share of problematic theology and biblical incongruency (as I hope you can plainly see after hearing our Gospel reading today!), the basic idea of it seems to be something toward which we are all prone to gravitate, at least sometimes. Because it feels good and makes sense, doesn’t it? Even dogs understand a system of punishment and reward: if someone (even a divine Someone) is pleased with what you’ve done, you get a treat, a reward – like recovery from a disease, or a big promotion. If not – punishment: poor health, poverty, things that are meaningful to you taken away. It is logical, it gives incentive to do good and avoid doing harm, and it helps us make sense of a world in which so many of the Very Big Things that happen to us don’t make a bit of sense. I can see the appeal of this message that is so prolific in American culture. Problem is, of course, that as simple and straightforward as that message is, it makes those times when things aren’t going well – when you sit by a loved one’s bed waiting for the Lord to take them, when you aren’t sure how to make ends meet this month, when you feel despised by your community – it makes those times even worse, to feel also that God is also somehow against you.

         Today’s Gospel reading takes that reality into account, offering us a very different understanding of “blessings” and “woes.” “Blessed are you who are poor,” Jesus says. “Blessed are you who are hungry now. Blessed are you who weep now. Blessed are you when people hate you.” Hmm, those don’t seem like blessings to me, how about you? Certainly not by society’s standards! When I feel like I lack the money I need, I feel stressed, not blessed. When I’m hungry I feel weak and agitated, not blessed. When I’m weeping, I’m sad, even heartbroken – but not blessed! And who, ever, was aware that someone actively hated them, and thought, “Boy, I am so blessed.” Not me! So what on earth could Jesus mean here?

         But it doesn’t even stop there. Just in case you hadn’t gotten the message, Jesus goes on: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that’s what people used to do for false prophets.” Oy, Jesus! Here I was, feeling pretty good about myself for having some money in savings, and healthy food on the table, and enjoying a good laugh and being liked by my community. But woe to me for all that? What are we to make of this??

         In my newsletter article for the February Link, I wrote about some of the reasons I really love Luke’s Gospel. Really I should have said, reasons I both love and hate Luke’s Gospel. Because passages like this, while immensely intriguing to me on a theological level (that’s the love), also make me feel very uncomfortable. I’m much more comfortable with Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes, in which Matthew uses more spiritual language, like, “Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, and who are poor in spirit.” I can see myself in those things! Sure, I hunger for righteousness, and I have felt poor in spirit – so that must mean that I am blessed! Woohoo! But Luke leaves little room for interpreting myself into the blessed. The fact is, I fit much more, and more often, into the descriptions of the “woes” then the “blessed,” and I’m guessing that is the case for most people here, too.

         So what are those of us who, by society’s standards and at least on the outside, are blessed – what are we to do with a passage like this? Well, one thing we do is take it to heart: give away all our possessions, and live voluntarily in poverty. Many Christians over the centuries have done exactly this – from the Early Christians, to the desert fathers in the 3^rd century, to Francis of Assisi, to Dorothy Day, to Mother Theresa. That is absolutely a faithful response to this gospel. There is plenty of biblical support for that route.

But…. I’m going to guess most of us are not really prepared to do that, for any number of reasons – myself included! So I’m going to offer a couple of other approaches that might be a bit more meaningful to us just now.

First of all, I want to point out one key difference between Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, and Matthew’s version. Anyone remember what another name for Matthew’s Beatitudes is? It’s the Sermon on the Mount. He gives that sermon while on a mountain. There are many theological reasons for that which I won’t get into in this sermon. But did you notice where Luke says Jesus gave this sermon? ... He’s on a plain. On a level place.

That may seem like inconsequential detail, but check this out: In the Old Testament, when prophets talk about a “level place,” it has a very specific meaning. A level place refers to places of… death, disgrace, idolatry, suffering, misery, hunger, annihilation, and mourning. Level places are places in need of redemption, and life, and healing, and renewal.

Knowing that, listen to Jesus’ words again: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you and defame you on account of the Son of Man. … Your reward is great in heaven.” Whoa. Talk about bringing redemption, healing, and renewal to the level places, the very places that dearly need them! Jesus is telling them, “Listen, folks, the kingdom of God, God’s vision for how the world ought to be, is coming to you. You are blessed.” By calling them “blessed,” he is not saying, “Everything will be fine, you’ll be rewarded, you will have gifts showered upon you.” The Greek word he uses really means, you will be “satisfied, unburdened, and at peace.” You are blessed.

It seems to me we have a lot of level places in this world – a lot of broken places that long for a word of peace. Racism, ageism, sexism and any number of other “-isms” certainly plague our society, not to mention poverty and wealth disparity, division, hatred, and war. But even on a more local level – yesterday, St. Paul’s lost two great men, and many of us, I know, have been among the weeping in the past day. (I know I have.) We know how it feels to be in such a level place! And so Jesus’ words are a comfort to us in that place. But that isn’t all – Jesus’ sermon also calls us to ask, “Where else are the level places in this community and world, and how do we, or how could we, manifest the values and practices of the kingdom of God – things like healing, and peace, and life and renewal – how can we manifest them in the midst of those broken places?”

         One more comment before I wrap up – I want to take a look at those woes.

It’s important that you know that the word that Jesus uses here, “woe,” does not imply some sort of curse. It does not mean that the rich, full, laughing and loved are doomed. Rather, when the prophets used that same word translated here as “woe,” they were issuing a sort of warning, and a call to repentance. So what could Jesus be warning us about? Well, it is so easy, isn’t it, to enjoy such, shall we say, blessings, as health and happiness, that I wonder if we might start to put our trust in them. We trust our resources, our reputation, our networks and connections, rather than God. So then, these so-called “blessings” cause us to do exactly what the prophet Jeremiah warns us about: “Cursed are those,” he says, “who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord.”

         When we do put our trust in mere mortals (and whether we want to admit it or, I believe that does sometimes happen to those of us whose physical needs are easily met!), we could also take to heart what Jeremiah says next: “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water… It shall not fear.” And that, my friends, is a true blessing, and a true promise: that as long as we trust in the Lord, we will get all that we need, and we shall have nothing to fear. Because rich or poor, hungry or fed, laughing or weeping, hated or spoken well of: Christ died for us and rose again so that we do not need to be afraid. Because Christ is raised and dies no more, we do have hope. Because Christ is raised and dies no more, we all have received the abundant blessings of God: renewal of the level places, healing of the broken, comfort to the grieving, redemption and resurrection of that which we thought was dead, and the gift – and blessing – of new life.

         Let us pray… Trustworthy God, when we feel tempted to look at our worldly goods and see them as blessings, turn our attention to the blessings that only you offer: our selves, our time, and our possessions, indeed, our very lives. Turn our eyes to the level places of this world, that we might seek your healing and renewing presence there. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.