Text of Sunday Sermon - Secure in God's Love

Luke 6:20-31

Secure in God’s Love

James Sledge                                                         October 30, 2010 (for All Saints)

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”  What on earth for!?  What would possess anyone to do such a thing?  Did you pray for Osama bin Laden in the days after 9-11? 

George W. Bush, who probably wore his Christian faith on his sleeve more so than any president in more than half a century, argued quite forcibly for attacking our enemy before  he attacked us, creating the new American doctrine of preemptive war.

And on an individual level, we don’t celebrate the person who calmly “takes it,” who endures abuse.  We celebrate the one who stands up for himself.  I grew up when Westerns were still popular on TV and the big screen, and the hero was often an every day fellow who, when pushed to his limits by the bad guys, rose up gave them what they had coming.

Truth is, we just don’t know what to do with this love your enemy stuff.

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ Beatitudes flow right into his words on loving enemies and turning the other cheek.  Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is not as familiar to some of us as those found in Matthew.  Not only are the blessings more concrete in Luke – blessings on the poor rather than the poor in spirit – but they are paired with a corresponding list of woes. 

Those in the blessed category are the poor, the hungry, those who are weeping, and who are reviled.  On the other hand, the rich, those who go to great dinner parties, those who are laughing, and the popular folks are in the “woe to you” group.  But this doesn’t sound right.  It’s backwards, just like loving your enemies.  I don’t know many people who want to be poor, hungry, sad, or unpopular, and the reverse doesn’t sound like a curse to me, far from it.

When I was a kid, The Smothers Brothers were quite popular, with a string of records and a television show.  For those who don’t know of them, this musical comedy team involved one of the two brothers, Tommy, playing the fool.  In real life he was the one who had created the act, but on stage the comedy came from his misunderstandings and foul-ups played against his “smart,” straight-man brother.

A recurring bit in their act was Tommy’s feeling of inadequacy expressed in the line, “Mom always liked you best.”  They even had an album with that title.  The album cover featured the two brothers posed like children.  Dick stands there grinning as he wears a toy gun and holster, surrounded by a wagon, bicycle, scooter, beach-ball, and assorted and sundry toys as a dog gazes at him.  Tommy, on the other hand, is seated, gazing up at his smiling brother. He has not a single toy and is holding a rope, used as a leash for a chicken.  The album title is above him, depicted as his spoken words.  “Mom always liked you best.”

The “truth” of Tommy’s words is clear for everyone to see.  His smiling, happy brother is surrounded by good things while he has almost nothing.  Any fool can see that his Mom favors his brother and slights him.

We humans are quite sensitive to such things. “That’s not fair!” cries the young child whose sibling has gotten a slightly larger slice of cake.   Even if the Smothers Brothers stretch it for comic purposes, we are anxious about what others have, compared to what we have.  From an early age, we compare ourselves to those around us, noticing who is different, who seems to have more, who seems to have less. 

When you think about it, we humans are a rather insecure sort.  I suppose that there are biological, evolutionary advantages to this.  It could provide drive to gather or hunt for enough food to get through the winter.  It’s a good survival instinct to notice which potential mate might be likely to provide enough to raise children.  It makes sense to worry about whether or not a shelter is sufficient to keep out the elements.  From a survival standpoint, our insecurity makes sense.

But once we leave the realm of survival, our insecurities cause more problems than they solve.  It begins when we are small.  We clutch at what we have, worried we may lose it.  We don’t want to share.  And we worry about fitting in.  We will change our appearance, our clothes, so we can belong.  Worse, we will belittle others to make ourselves feel more secure. 

Many of us always feel that we are just short of having enough.  If we just made a little more money, just looked a little better, just had a little hotter boyfriend or girlfriend, just had that latest high tech gadget, we’d be happy.  But somehow we never quite get there.

And when things are going badly, our insecurities really kick in.  As we wind down the current political campaign, candidates on both sides play on our insecurities and fears.  They know that we worry about all sorts of things, and they seek to stoke those worries, telling us that their opponents don’t simply disagree with them, but they’re out to destroy our way of life, to take away our jobs, our things, our money, our happiness.

Even the Church has insecurity problems.  For years mainline churches have looked at mega-churches with a mixture of envy and loathing.  Presbyterians have lamented our loss of prestige and power.  Fortunately there is always some congregation that is much worse off than us, and we can feel better about ourselves when we realize that we look a lot more successful than that sorry congregation over there.

Often we draw God into our insecurities.  Some claim the Presbyterian Church’s woes are because we’ve failed to believe certain things or understand the Bible correctly.  Others say America’s woes are because we’ve abandoned certain religious values, taken prayer out of schools, or said “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” 

We seem to think God operates out of the same insecurities that we do.  Listening to some Christians you’d think God was worried that all creation could come unhinged.  I hear people say God will have to do this or have to do that if people don’t straighten up.  Wow, it must be awful being God and having to worry about all the things that could go wrong.

But Jesus presents a very different view of God.  Amidst our insecurities about having enough, being good enough, being popular enough, Jesus speaks of God’s blessings poured out especially on those who have next to nothing.  Jesus even speaks of those things our insecurities drive us to chase: wealth, popularity, and so on,  as being a curse.  As a 1^st Century, Palestinian Jew, Jesus was prone to speak in hyperbole, but still, he warns us that the insecurities that so motivate us, tend to drive us away from God

Tomorrow is All Saints Day, so we are celebrating it today in worship.  But over the years Christians have distorted the original meaning of “saint” so that it now describes a super Christian, someone who has out-Christianed the rest of us.  Out of our human insecurities, we have undermined the Bible’s insistence that each one of us is an integral a part of the body of Christ, and we’ve insisted that some are better and so more valued.

But the good news of Jesus is that God is not like us.  God has no insecurities.  God is not frightened of anyone or worried that someone could undermine God’s happiness or God’s plans.  And so God is totally free to love.  It upsets our human sensibilities sometimes, but God loves us, not because we are good enough or because we believe the right things or because we belong to the right group.  God simply loves us.  God loves you, whoever you are, whatever you’ve done or failed to do, and wants what’s best for you, even if God’s understanding of “best” looks quite different from what our fears and insecurities lead us to chase. 

On this day when we remember the saints of this congregation who have died, we also remember that Jesus calls us all to be saints.  Saints are simply those who have experienced God’s love embracing them, who have discovered that the security of God’s embrace liberates us from our fears and insecurities, and allows us to live as the children God longs for us to be.  And when God’s love frees us from our worries and insecurities, the transformation is remarkable.  Secure in God’s love, we are free to love, even something so foolish as loving our enemies.

Spiritual Hiccups - You Talking to Me?

I've blogged on this before, but Peter raises the issue himself in today's gospel. "Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?"  Modern day Christians, especially Protestants, are prone to think of the Bible as an evangelical tool.  We presume that everything in it is spoken for everyone, that if we could just get everyone to read it and believe what it says, the Kingdom would surely come.

But of course this is a relatively modern, Protestant notion.  For the first 1500 or so years of Christianity, almost no Christians owned a Bible.  And no one gave Bibles to non-Christians.  It took the invention of the printing press and the development of high literacy rates before Protestants could insist that every individual should read Scripture for himself or herself.  And this idea needed to become ingrained before handing out Bibles made any sense as a conversion technique.

All of this is to say that for most of Christian history, the Bible and its teachings weren't not necessarily thought to apply equally to everyone.  Jesus himself, in today's reading, suggests that those who weren't aware of what Jesus' return meant would not be held accountable the same way his followers would. 

Some Christians are quick to condemn non-believers, but Jesus seems to say that it is believers who need to be on their toes, that they are the ones who will be held to higher standards and scrutiny.  And I suspect that if we believers did hold ourselves to higher standards, that might prove to be the most effective sort of evangelistic witness.

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Spiritual Hiccups - What, Me Worry?

I grew up reading Mad Magazine which featured Alfred E. Neuman and his stock phrase, "What, me worry?"  Neuman's lack of worry seemed the product of a general cluelessness, not necessarily something to be emulated.  And yet Jesus recommends something of Neumanesque pose.  "Therefore I tell you, do not worry  about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will  wear."

Jesus also seems to give a nod to another facet of Neuman's character.  Neuman appears to be something of a "slacker," not the sort of fellow who would  knock himself out to make good grades or participate in lots of extracurricular activities so he would be accepted into an elite college.  Our culture rewards endless striving.  Parents pick enrichment activities for their toddlers, already worrying about college applications.  And yet Jesus says, "And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying."

What do you worry about?  What do you expend energy trying to achieve?  Some people assume that pastors have an advantage when it comes to living "Christ-like" lives.  After all, our work is centered on the faith.  And yet we pastors are often caught up in our culture's obsession with success.  Countless books and conferences aimed at pastors urge us to work harder and smarter in language that would sound familiar to business managers and leaders.  And much of this material that tries to make us "better pastors" feeds off of and adds to a climate of worry.  We're worried about church finances.  We're worried about aging congregations.  We're worried about declining church participation.  We're worried about how it looks when a congregation loses membership on our watch.

I don't for a second think that Jesus wants me simply to lounge around doing nothing.  But Jesus says my striving should be for God's kingdom, which is not always the same thing as a "successful" congregation, a to-die-for youth program, or a gang-buster stewardship campaign.

What sort of worry and striving occupies your time?  What sort of worry and striving occupies your congregation or faith community?  I know that a lot of my worrying and striving has little to do with the Kingdom.   I wonder if Alfred E. Neuman might be available for a little church consulting.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Cast into Hell

I readily admit that readings such as today's gospel make me a bit uncomfortable.  When Jesus starts talking about being "cast into hell" or how "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven," I struggle to fit this in with other images of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, with his call to love and pray for your enemies.  Perhaps, as a modern "liberal," I'm simply uncomfortable with judgment and accountability.

Perhaps... But I also think some of my discomfort arises from texts such as today's being used in an "us versus them" sort of way.  Because we are so accustomed to the Bible being employed for evangelical purposes, we often forget that it was originally written for internal use only.  The gospel of Luke was not handed out on the streets as might be done today by the Gideons.  The vary rare copies of it (all copies had to be written out by hand) were read aloud at gatherings of churches, often house churches.  And so these words are aimed almost exclusively at Christians.

I don't know that removes all the discomfort of these verses, but it does change the focus quite a bit.  Nothing is being said here about believers versus non-believers.  This is about how believers respond when their faith puts them in jeopardy.  In this sense the words seem intended more as encouragement than as warning.  They are a call to stand fast in the face of persecution, to trust in God's care for them no matter the circumstances.

And when they are persecuted, "everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will  be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven."  This is a most curious saying.  Speaking against Jesus is not a deal breaker, but the Holy Spirit is another matter.  There is debate about just what is meant by this, perhaps something along the lines of: If in a moment of fear a disciple speaks against Jesus, that is forgiven, but if a disciple actively rejects the Spirit's efforts to strengthen and encourage them, that is not.

However, what is clear is that the only ones in any danger in this scenario are Christians.  Jesus' words are addressed to believers who face persecution.  And isn't it strange that we can take words addressed to us, and somehow turn them so that they speak words of condemnation against others who don't believe the same as we do.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Ticking Off Jesus

Have you ever wondered what Jesus would think if he visited your congregation?  I'm not talking about his presence being there but about the Jesus we meet in the gospels walking in off the street and dropping in on a worship service, a fellowship dinner, a committee meeting, and so on.  I was prompted to wonder about such things after reading today's gospel and being reminded once again how it took religious people to get Jesus really honked off.

For many of us who grew up in the church, this fact is sometimes missed.  Pharisees, scribes, and such have become such stock, bad guys that we don't necessarily see much beyond cartoon, cardboard cutouts.  (I grew up in the South where sometimes Catholics got the same sort of treatment.  If the Catholics did it, surely it was a bad idea, which explains why Ash Wednesday, Lent, and so on are somewhat new to me.)  But what if we replace the term "Pharisee" with something not having the same negative stereotypes?

Today's gospel features Pharisees and lawyers, and I don't think it is all that much of stretch to rename them pastors and theologians.  (Maybe Protestant pastors; we'll let the priests and Sadducees be Catholic.)  It isn't very hard for me to imagine Jesus lashing out at some of us pastors and theologians for being overly concerned about keeping our churches going, about getting the doctrines straight, about worshiping in the proper manner, without worrying much about issues such as justice.  If Jesus visited our committee and board meetings, I can visualize him getting enraged over how little "good news for the poor" gets emphasized and how the poor are often viewed as little more than opportunities for mission projects, who should show gratitude to us for our noble efforts.

It isn't that pastors or theologians are such bad folks, but then neither were those Pharisees and lawyers Jesus addresses.  But all of us can get terribly preoccupied with running our little religious enterprises and mistake all that work and energy for loving God and serving others.

It took religious people to really get Jesus angry.  Perhaps that is because he thinks we should know better.  Perhaps that means we religious types would do well to spend more of our time getting closer to Jesus, letting him invade every little corner of our lives, and letting him rattle our cages now and then so that we get back on the path he shows us.

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Spiritual Hiccups - And Also Many Animals

I've long loved the story of Jonah.  It is a remarkable story that contains a great deal more meaning when one listens for its message rather than worrying about historical events.  Like the book of Job, the book wrestles with the ways of God.  But unlike Job, who becomes enraged over God's unfair punishment of him, Jonah is angry over God's graciousness and mercy. 

The story depicts a reluctant prophet who heads off in the wrong direction when God calls him.  Finally forced by God to go to Nineveh, Jonah unenthusiastically fulfills his mission, then is angry that God reverses course (literally "repents") on plans to destroy the city.  Jonah complains that this is why he ran from God's call.  He feared God would show mercy all along. 

The story concludes with a curious little aside that is both poignant and humorous.  Jonah goes out and sits, perhaps hoping God will yet destroy Nineveh.  As he waits, God has a plant spring up to provide Jonah shade.  But then God sends a worm that bores into the plant which withers, taking its shade in the process.  And Jonah is so upset he asks to die himself.  This allows God to respond, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.  And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand  persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

The story ends there with that "and also many animals?"  Jonah is angry that God has not meted out justice to those Gentile Ninevites. Then he becomes so enraged over the loss of a bush that provides shade, he loses all composure.  In a mixture of religious self-righteousness and egocentricism, Jonah cannot even see the thousands of men, women, and children he hopes God will kill, not to mention all those animals. 

"And also many animals?"  Interesting that their fate would weigh on God so.  I know many Christians who seem to picture God as remarkably cavalier over the fates of those who don't get their religious beliefs correct.  And who even counts animals? 

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Spiritual Hiccups - Too Busy for God?

My wife and I decided to get away for a couple of days, a possibility that comes with no children any longer living at home.  We went to Ohio Amish country for a relaxing weekend.  We stayed in Berlin, OH, visited the many shops on its main street, and watched the Amish families in their buggies.  On a nice Fall weekend, we were hardly alone.  Traffic in Berlin was bumper to bumper.  But we were walking so it didn't much matter.

I had never been to Berlin before so I was not prepared for the contrast between Saturday and Sunday.  We left our little cottage in late morning to discover the streets of Berlin nearly deserted.  None of the shops we visited the day before were open, and there was scarcely a car to be seen.  Berlin, it seems, is closed on Sunday.  It reminded me of my native South when I was very young and Sunday was a "day of rest."

I would imagine that Berlin, OH is quite dependent on tourism dollars, and weekends would seem to be prime time for tourists.  But, perhaps because many of the shops are Amish, the only shopping going on was window shopping.

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
         from God comes my salvation.
God alone is my rock and my salvation,
         my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

I don't think I would want to be Amish, but I do wonder if we haven't become so busy and anxious as a people that we have difficulty finding any time for God.  Despite all those things Jesus says about wealth and possessions being a hindrance to relationship with God, we want more.  More things, more information, more entertainment, more and more, and we want it now. 

The Amish are an exotic novelty to us because they are so foreign, so different from us.  They have not bought into our culture's norms.  I do not necessarily agree with their reasons for this, nor do I idealize their lives.  But still, they do stand as a kind of reminder that happiness and contentment do not always require more.

I often find that when I am swamped with things that need doing in the office, when I am feeling the most stressed, those are the times when I lose touch with God.  At the very times when God's presence would seem to be most needed, I am too busy to stop.  I am too busy for silence.  I am too busy for God?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Focusing on What Matters

It is a deservedly famous line from the prophet Micah.  "And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  What God requires is a basic religious question.  In the case of Micah, the answer rejects much of the traditional religious ritual of that day, burnt offerings and sacrifices.  That's not what God wants," says Micah.  You know what God wants, justice, kindness, a humble faith life.

The gospel reading for today also touches on this issue of what really matters.  This passage is often noted for the way it explodes conventional gender roles.  But beyond that, it raises more general questions about priorities.  Someone had to get dinner ready if Jesus and the other house guests were to eat.  I don't think Jesus or Luke is saying that domestic tasks are bad things.  This issue is one of priorities.

All our lives are filled with choices.  We have finite energy and resources.  If we work 65 hour weeks, something else suffers.  Living in Columbus, OH, I've learned of people who live 500 miles away and yet spend every weekend of a home Buckeye football game here in Columbus.  Clearly those weekends are not available for other things.

It strikes me that when the passages from Micah and Luke are considered together, they ask people of faith to consider two different sorts of priorities.  Luke addresses a more general issue of priority.  Where does our faith fit into the other priorities of our lives?  Micah, however, asks about the priorities of our faith lives.  Where does our religious energy go?  It isn't that worship is a bad thing, far from it.  But if religious rituals encompass the majority of of faith lives, what happens to those things God requires of you, "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

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Spiritual Hiccups - What Must I Do?

Today's gospel contains the famous parable of the "Good Samaritan."  The parable is intriguing enough in own right, with its use of a despised Samaritan to demonstrate acting neighborly.  But I was struck by the lawyer's original question to Jesus, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Now I presume that if the lawyer were to ask this question today to a group of Christians, a significant number of them would say something to the effect that "You must believe in Jesus and profess him as your Savior."  But the curious thing is that Jesus' own answer says nothing of the sort.  Jesus simply queries the lawyer (a religious scholar and not what we mean by "lawyer" today) about what the law says. The lawyer responds by quoting Scripture, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your  soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 

Upon hearing his answer, Jesus responds, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."  There is no "You need something more," no "You lack but one thing."  Jesus simply says that if he loves God and neighbor, that is sufficient.

Now I am acutely aware of the hazards inherent in creating grand theologies from small snippets of Scripture.  But if Jesus thinks that loving God and neighbor is enough, who I am to insist otherwise?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Folks Like Us

Luke's gospel speaks of the poor and lowly being lifted up while the rich and powerful are pulled down.  In keeping with this theme of reversal, in today's lection Jesus speaks of God having "hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have  revealed them to infants."  He goes on to tell his followers how blessed they are to have been a part of his movement.  "For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see  it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."


I've never been quite sure how to reconcile Jesus' words about God's revelation "to infants," with a church where wisdom about the faith seems to be lodged with experts.  All that is required to show this is to ask church members to teach a class.  "Oh, I could never do that," is the common refrain.  Sometimes this is false modesty.  Sometimes it is an excuse.  But underlying it is the notion that real information about the faith is held by experts.  Just as I would never have tried to teach my daughters calculus, so a great many church members assume that faith, biblical knowledge, and so on are best handled by specially trained experts.

But Jesus seems to think otherwise.  His disciples are hardly made up of the religious elite.  The first few are fishermen, one of the very last places one would expect to find any candidates to lead the Church.  And in today's reading, Jesus makes a special point about how God chooses to work this way.

My own Presbyterian/Reformed tradition has long valued having "educated clergy."  To be ordained pastors must have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from an accredited seminary.  We must have had courses in Greek and Hebrew to facilitate handling biblical texts in their original language.  And it is certainly true that things get lost in translation.  There are things one can see in the Greek that you can't find in English, and there is real value in congregations having someone that can see these things.  But when a congregation comes to see faith as primarily the purview of experts, the value of an educated clergy seems to have done more harm than good.

Jesus tells his first followers to "make disciples of all peoples," so presumably he wants to let all of us in on these wonders revealed to infants, these things prophets longed to see and hear.  Presumably Jesus expects all of us to be filled with the Spirit and thus "know" what no expert can know because of learning or study.  And it seems to me that we sell our faith woefully short, that we sell Jesus woefully short if we do not draw near to him expecting him to reveal to us what prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah could only long for.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Changing Ourselves

I read Richard Rohr's Daily meditation in conjunction with today's lectionary passages.  Rohr spoke of how we need mentors to help us stay on track because religious people often think their job is to help other people change.  We forget that faith is about God transforming us, a process that is never quite finished.  And when we focus on getting others to be like us or agree with us, we often forget about the work of transformation in our own lives.

I thought about Rohr's comments in light of the reading from Micah.  Micah, like many other prophets, blasts the rulers of Israel.  In a sense, these prophets seek to mentor the rulers.  King in ancient Israel is a religious position.  Kings were messiahs, God's anointed ones.  Their rule was to be guided by God, but privilege, power, and rich friends made it easy to go astray, and the prophets sought to call them back.  Of course kings often found false prophets who would tell them what they wanted to hear.

All this makes me wonder about who serves as my or your mentor, who reminds us of our own need to change.  Who is our prophet, counselor, mentor, or spiritual director?  Who reminds us to let the Spirit continue her transforming work in our lives?  This is especially problematic for pastors, at least for me.  I often think that if only I could get those people to be more.... things would be better.  But who says to me, "First remove the log from your own eye..."

The tradition in which I grew up didn't have spiritual directors, and it didn't really encourage mentoring relationships.  Faith was mostly about agreeing with what my tradition said was true.  As an avid reader, I was fortunate to find mentors on the printed page, but books are easier to ignore than someone who has a relationship with you. 

Who draws you back when you are going astray?

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Sunday Sermon video - Peering into the Darkness; Glimpsing Hope