Spirit of Grace

Sunday 14 April 2019
Palm Sunday

Based on the work of Henry Admiraal.

Thank you, Joseph. As you heard in the previous reporting, the unusual display from Jesus of Nazareth happened during a time of already heightened alert. The population of Jerusalem can increase multiple times over as pilgrims stream into the city for the Passover holiday festivities. Every business and home is struggling to accommodate the massive crowds.

If the size of the crowd weren’t enough to put the Romans on edge, the theme of the Passover holiday certainly does. After all, Jews everywhere are celebrating when God freed us from the oppressive rule of a mighty empire by striking dead the first born sons of every family of the Egyptians. That the Romans let us celebrate this holiday at all is a bit of a miracle. That’s why, as we do every year, we’re encouraging residents and visitors to Jerusalem to keep things calm and not cause any trouble.

But there’s no doubt that Governor Pilate and his legion will be on high alert. Supplementary troops marched in yesterday and today from their base in Caesarea by the sea. Anytime there are this many pilgrims in the city, the legionaries will be looking to suppress any unrest, but especially during a season like Passover, a celebration linked so closely with Jewish nationalism.

And we all know what happens when the Romans sense resistance. It seems we can hardly go two years without some supposed Messiah rising up and trying to overthrow the Roman occupation. Usually they don’t get very far, of course. A few highly public crucifixions and everything is over. They want to make it clear. This is what happens if you challenge the Peace of Roman, you end up hanging on a cross.

But many of you will remember the revolt of Judas the Galilean. Not 25 years ago, after the Great King Herod died, he started an uprising that still echoes today. His followers, the Zealots, are still agitating for a new order, a new Jewish state that has no king or emperor, but is ruled only by God. Is this new Galilean rabbi, Jesus, planning to pick up where is follow countryman, Judas, left off? Can we expect more violence in the streets in the days to come?

And who hasn’t heard the stories of one of the elders about Antigonus Mattathias the Hasmonean? Seventy years ago, he courted the help of the Parthians, Rome’s enemy to the east. With their help, he ruled as King in Jerusalem for three years. That’s when Herod the Great first came to power. He was a personal friend of the emperor’s family. They sent him to Judea at the head of a Roman army. After three years of fighting and brutal siege in Jerusalem, Herod and the Romans brought Antigonus, and Herod became King of the Jews. Ever since then, Judea has been one giant construction project, with Herod expanding the temple, building new fortresses and palaces, and even founding whole new cities for the glory of the emperor.

So, what are we to make of this new rabble-rouser, this Jesus ben Joseph from Nazareth in Galilee? His late father was a small-time carpenter, although there are rumors about whether or not he was Jesus’s father at all. They say that his wife, Mary, was pregnant before they were married.

Jesus himself is a bit of an odd duck. Thirty-some years old, but never married. No children, let alone the grandchildren we might expect from someone his age. His life seems to have changed when he went out to the Jordan wilderness and was baptized by John ben Zechariah. After that he seems to have left everything behind and become some sort of wandering preacher, exorcist, and faith-healer. He’s become a bit of a sensation across Galilee and the surrounding area. Crowds have been flocking to him with their sick and demon-possessed. And he’s even been sending his disciples out ahead of him, two-by-two, with the same powers of healing and exorcism.

But the real story has been his controversial preaching. Critics are divided or what it is that he means. So much of his teaching is done with enigmatic stories called parables, it seems like the meaning changes depending on who is hearing him. But there can be no mistake that his constant references to a Kingdom of God have raised the hackles of authorities. Some claim that Jesus is simply speaking metaphorically, but others hear a clear critique of Rome in this subversive, political imagery.

Concerns over Jesus’s possible revolutionary views will certainly not be relieved by his actions today. Parading into town on a donkey like an ancient king can be nothing but provocative. The crowds were even calling him a Son of David. What else could the authorities think except that he fancies himself a king?

And he drew even more attention to himself when he visited the temple. On the busiest week of the year for the temple, he went in and disrupted its regular operation. Jews coming from hundreds of miles away depend on the animal sellers and the money-changers in order to procure appropriate sacrifices. But Jesus came in and overturned the whole thing. A provocative action in an already tense time.

So what is next for this Jesus of Nazareth? If he keeps a low profile for the rest of the week, he might just skate by without punishment. But there is no doubt that the authorities, both the Sanhedrin and the Romans, will be watching him closely. If he shows up in the temple again for anything other than a quiet sacrifice, you can bet that there will be consequences. If he starts preaching his radical message in and around the temple, the authorities will have to do something.

And yet these crowds that are following him are a problem. He’s got them so whipped up with Messianic expectation, who knows what will happen. If he gets arrested and his followers try to resist, we could have blood in the streets, curfews, martial law.

Right now, though, it’s just too early to tell. If Jesus passes through the rest of the week without controversy, he might just make it back home to Galilee and continue his eccentric ministry. If he provokes the authorities again, we could have the start of another rebellion. With the city packed like it is, there could be hundreds, even thousands of deaths. There could even be a return to war.

But more than likely, Jesus’s story will end like so many other so-called Messiahs before him. He’ll poke the Romans in the eye one too many times and get himself arrested. If so, he’ll probably end up hanging on a cross, made an example of, just like everyone else who challenges Rome. And that will be the end of his story. Jesus of Nazareth. Just one more outlaw who tried to stand up to the power of Rome. One day the talk of the town, the next day hung on a cross, and a week later, his name completely forgotten.

Be sure to tune in next week as we bring you full coverage of the continuing situation in the holy city. For Jerusalem News Broadcast, I’m David ben Horace. Stay safe, and good night.

Sunday 17 March 2019
The Second Sunday in Lent

Philippians 3:17-4:1

There are three phrases that jump out at me from the passage we have this morning in Philippians. “Be imitators of me,” “enemies of the cross,” and “citizenship in heaven.” So I want to take a little time considering each of them.

It’s always struck me as a little strange, the advice that Paul gives at the beginning of the passage we have today from the Epistle to Philippians. “Be imitators of me.” We might expect him to advise his readers to imitate Jesus, right? We even have a Latin term for that, the imitatio Christi, the imitation of Christ. But instead, here we have the imitatio Pauli, the imitation of Paul. That’s a fair bit of hubris to come right out and say, “You all should imitate me!”

But of course Paul has never really had a problem with self-esteem. Or at least he has never had trouble promoting himself. One of his many self-promoting speeches appears a little earlier in the letter to the Philippians. He’s arguing against his opponents, Christians who want new Gentile converts to be circumcised into the Jewish community. He says, “We don’t put our confidence in rituals performed on the body, though I have good reason to have this kind of confidence. If anyone else has reason to put their confidence in physical advantages, I have even more: I was circumcised on the eighth day. I am from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew of Hebrews. With respect to observing the Law, I’m a Pharisee. With respect to devotion to the faith, I harassed the church. With respect to righteousness under the Law, I’m blameless.” Paul saying that he is better than the people who oppose him. They say that you can only get right with God if you follow the biblical laws, if you stay Kosher and have your men circumcised. Paul rejects those standards, but at the same time he says that no one is better at fulfilling those standards than he is. There is no one who follows the biblical laws more zealously than Paul does. There is no one who is a more perfect Jew than Paul is.

So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that Paul tells the Philippians to imitate him. He’s pretty confident about himself and his own abilities. He’s pretty sure that he is beyond reproach. So why not recommend that other Christians imitate him?

But what is it about his life that Paul wants people to imitate? He doesn’t want the Philippians to imitate his perfect observance of the biblical law. He’s pretty clear about that. Just after the section where he’s praising his own observance of the law, he writes, “These things were my assets, but I wrote them off as a loss for the sake of Christ. But even beyond that, I consider everything a loss in comparison with the superior value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for him, but what I lost I think of as sewer trash, so that I might gain Christ and be found in him. In Christ I have a righteousness that is not my own and that does not come from the Law but rather from the faithfulness of Christ. It is the righteousness of God that is based on faith. The righteousness that I have comes from knowing Christ, the power of his resurrection, and the participation in his sufferings.”

And that is interesting. Paul says that his righteousness, his very identity comes from participating in Christ’s sufferings. What does that mean, to participate in Christ’s suffering?

Well, that leads us even farther back in to the letter to the Philippians, to the second chapter, and the most famous verses of the letter. They probably aren’t written by Paul at all. He’s quoting a very early Christian hymn, likely among the most ancient of Christian words that we have.

Paul tells his readers to adopt for themselves the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, and then he quotes the hymn: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

For Paul, the story of Jesus is not all about glory. Yes, there is glory in the message of Jesus Christ, but it is glory that is always born out of weakness, vulnerability, and even suffering. The story of Jesus is a story of self-emptying, a story of vulnerability, a story of solidarity with human beings. And not just any human beings. It is important the Jesus is God incarnate in human form. But the particular human form is also important. He did not come as one with great earthly authority. In fact, Jesus made a point of rejecting earthly authority, of rejecting wealth and power. He came from backwater Galilee and wandered the countryside with nowhere to lay his head. The incarnation of Jesus is a sign of God’s solidarity with humanity, but it is especially a sign of God’s solidarity with people who are on the margins, people who have been left aside and counted out.

And that is a reality that Paul is very mindful of. It is important to know that when Paul tells the Philippians “Be imitators of me,” he is writing them a letter from prison. Paul is in jail for preaching of the gospel. That is the example that he hopes they will follow. Because Paul himself is following the self-emptying example of Christ. He is being emptied himself. He tells the Phillipians, “Even if I am poured out like a drink offering on the altar of service for your faith, I am glad.” He is happy even to face death if he is doing it for the benefit of others.

So when Paul tells the Philippians that they should imitate him, he is also saying that they should imitate Christ. They should resist the praise of the world and instead align themselves with all who are suffering, just as Christ did. They should be in solidarity with those who are on the margins, with those whose story is not told, with those who are taken advantage of by the powerful. Because that is what Jesus did, and that is also what Paul has done, finding himself among the prisoners, those who have run afoul of the powerful.

In doing so, Paul aligns himself with the cross. He is following the same path that led Jesus to the cross, a path of solidarity with the weak and suffering, a path of self-emptying love. It’s Jesus’s solidarity with those on the margins of society, those on the outside, that leads him to the cross. Were he not crossing societal boundaries and flouting societal norms and upending the power structures, he would not have needed to die. But it is that solidarity with the suffering that leads him to the cross.

In today’s passage, Paul talks about those who are enemies of the cross. And when I first heard that phrase, I thought it was just a way of talking about people who aren’t Christians, that it was just a way of Paul excluding people who have not claimed Jesus as savior. But as I thought about it more, something else occurred to me. You know, the cross is scandalous. The idea that God, the perfect and all powerful, could come humbly in human form, that is scandalous. And the idea that that incarnate God could not only live as a human, but also die as a human, that is more scandalous still. And the idea the God could die in such a humiliating way, nailed to a cross, that is scandal upon scandal. It isn’t right. It’s not the way a God should behave. It is beneath God’s dignity. It is shameful, scandalous.

And that’s the point, Paul says. That is what makes the revelation in Jesus so remarkable. God in Jesus was completely shameless, no sense of dignity or decorum whatsoever. God in Jesus endured the utter humiliation of death on a cross. Why? For you and for me. To show us that there is no place that we can go that will separate us from God’s love. There is nothing we can do that can shame God. There is no pain we can endure that is too much for God to understand. There is no amount of guilt or shame that we can feel that will hinder God’s ability to love us. That is the scandal and the miracle of the cross.

And to be an enemy of the cross is to deny God’s incredible, shameless love. To be an enemy of the cross is to deny that God can care for us even when were are in the depths of sin, even when we are in the depths of pain, even when were are in the depths of guilt, even when we are in the depths of humiliation and shame. God in Jesus has already been to the depths on the cross. God in Jesus has never been afraid to claim the sinner, the leper, the outcast, the orphan, the widow, the tax collector. God in Jesus has never found a human being that is unworthy of divine love. Never. There is nothing you can do that will put you outside of God’s love. No matter how unworthy you might feel or how hard you might try to hide from God’s love, God will seek you out.

And recognizing that fact, and accepting that love makes us what Paul calls citizen’s of heaven. Being a citizen of heaven means that we belong, even when we don’t feel like we belong here on earth. Even when we feel alienated from the world, from our families, from the people at work or the kids at school, we aren’t alienated from God. In God’s Kingdom, we belong. We are citizens of heaven. Even when we feel like we are disempowered, like our voices don’t matter, like we are pawns in someone else’s game, we are not disempowered in God. In God’s Kingdom, we have the full rights of citizenship. We are full members. Our voices matter. Our gifts and service are needed. We are citizens of heaven.

Paul invites us to follow him on the Jesus Way, to walk in solidarity will all those who are suffering, in pain, excluded, or unheard. He invites us to surrender our sense of propriety, our delusions of self-mastery, our endless quest to make ourselves worthy of love, to surrender all of that in the absolute assurance of God’s love. Because it is when we walk the way of the cross, it is when we surrender all, that God’s power is able to work in and among us. It is when we surrender our striving to be perfect that God’s perfection is manifest in our weakness. It is when we surrender our guild and our shame that God’s grace can fully embrace us.

Melissa and I just got back last night from a conference for adoptive and foster parents. It’s called Refresh, and it’s hosted by Overlake Christian Church near Seattle. The theme this year happens to fit perfectly with the text we have before us this morning: Beautiful Surrender. It comes from a contemporary Christian song of the same name by Melissa and Jonathan David Helser. And I want to close this time today by sharing it with you. I didn’t give anyone any warning, so there won’t be any words on the screen, but if you start to catch on to it, I’d love to have you sing with me. Beautiful Surrender.

Sunday 3 March 2019
Transfiguration Sunday

Luke 9:28-36, Acts 10:1-11:18

In the story from Luke today, Peter and James and John see Jesus transformed before their eyes. They see him shining like the sun and accompanied by Moses and Elijah. They see him looking like nothing they have ever seen before, and they are terrified by it.

Of course, it’s not Jesus that changed. He has always been shining with the light of his glory. It’s just that most of the time they can’t see it. Jesus has always been the glorious Son of God, it’s just that most of the time that is hid from their eyes. It’s when they see him shining that they see the truth. And they are terrified.

My sermon topic changed midweek. As many of you already know, there was news in the United Methodist world this week. The church’s General Conference, the legislative gathering of the whole denomination, met in St. Louis. This was a special session of the General Conference, with delegates coming from around the world to debate the church’s understanding of human sexuality. And for those of us who were hoping for a move toward greater inclusivity for our LGBTQ sisters and brothers, it was a disappointing week.

The United Methodist Church is a global denomination, with congregations in the United States, Africa, the Philippines, Russia, and parts of Europe. That is a very broad spectrum of cultural contexts, and it makes it hard to find consensus. There were hopes that the General Conference would have voted to allow for regional differences in the church’s understanding of sexuality, just like the ELCA did in 2009. But instead the conference chose more of the same: prohibitions on same-sex weddings and the ordination of gay clergy.

The church has been struggling with these issues for longer than I have been alive. The first reference to homosexuality appeared in the church’s law book, The Book of Discipline, in 1972. And since then, it has been a topic of conversation and controversy every four years when General Conference rolls around.

I remember when I first became aware of the issue. It would have been 1992. I was in middle school, and we were pretty new members at West Salem United Methodist Church.

Our pastor, La Vernae Hohnbaum, had died while she was serving there. A retired pastor who was in the congregation served as an interim. But then it came time for a new pastor to be appointed. And the bishop appointed Rev. Jeanne Knepper.

Now, I didn’t meet Jeanne back then. But I remember that her name was used almost like a curse word. You see, she was… a lesbian. Always in that hushed tone. Lesbian. And that was all that we needed to know about her. Clearly she was unacceptable. Clearly she was not a real Christian. Clearly she was a liar and a cheat, and certainly a sinner. Clearly the bishop was trying to destroy our little church.

There was a huge uproar in the congregation. There was a meeting with the bishop, and the superintendent, and Rev. Knepper. I remember that I wanted to go. I had already been confirmed, so I was a full, voting member of the congregation. I should be there. But my parents went without me. In retrospect, I’m pretty glad I wasn’t there. It got pretty ugly, I gather. I’m pretty sure there were some people there who weren’t living their Christian values, but probably not the ones I thought at the time.

The appointment was rescinded. All I knew about Jeanne back then was her sexual orientation. What I didn’t know was that she was a highly-gifted, massively overqualified pastor and advocate. She had her doctorate, because although she had been a qualified pastor for ten years at that point, she could not find an appointment. She was qualified, but she couldn’t find a congregation, so she got more schooling.

What the Book of Discipline said, both then and now, I believe, was this: “While persons set apart by the Church for ordained ministry are subject to all the frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world.” Okay, that’s a high bar. But we should be aiming high, right? It continues: “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.” That’s the bit there. That’s the provision that she was supposedly violating.

It’s interesting, though. It says pastors are subject to human frailty, and it says that pastors should nonetheless maintain the highest moral standards. But it only lists one activity that should bar a person from ordination. Only one. Nothing in there about adultery, fraud, embezzling church funds, domestic abuse, gambling, drug or alcohol abuse, sexual harassment, participation in a hate group… none of that. Just one thing. Self-avowed practicing homosexuals. Strange.

As you can imagine, there has been a fair amount of wrangling over what that phrase means: self-avowed practicing homosexual. It has been the subject of eight separate rulings from The UMC’s highest legal authority, the Judicial Council, kind of like the Supreme Court of The UMC. They offered this clarification. “Self-avowed practicing homosexual is understood to mean that a person openly acknowledges to a bishop, district superintendent, district committee of ordained ministry, board of ordained ministry, or clergy session that the person is a practicing homosexual.” So, if you’re gay but you’re celibate, you’re fine. If you’re gay but you’re closeted, you’re fine. You’re only violating the clause if you’re gay, you’re in a relationship, and you announce that publicly and officially to a particular set of church authorities. By that definition, by the way, Rev. Knepper had done nothing wrong.

It puts our LGBTQ clergy in a terrible situation. We tell them we are happy to have their service. We just want them to be celibate. But if they aren’t celibate, that’s okay too, just don’t tell us anything about it. But in the mean time, we’ll discriminate against you, call you names, refuse you positions, because we have this complicated language that allows us to use you and abuse you, whichever we choose, and whenever we choose.

When Rev. Knepper’s appointment was cancelled, I felt like that was a great step forward for good Christian values. My church had been saved from sin and corruption. You see, I knew that homosexuality was wrong. I knew that it was condemned in the Bible as an abomination. I knew that  it was unnatural. I knew that none of my friends or family members was gay or lesbian.

Except that I was wrong about every single one of the those things. But it took me a while to realize it. And I want to tell you how God changed my mind.

Temperamentally, I’m pretty conservative. I don’t like pushing the boundaries. I don’t like causing a fuss. I am not a radical. I don’t like stirring up controversy. I like following the rules. I know that sometimes rules have to be broken, but I don’t like doing it unless there is a really good reason. I’m the kind of person who has their own copy of Robert’s Rules of Order and has actually read the whole thing. I don’t change my mind just on a whim.

So what changed me? It was two things. One was a personal encounter, and one was the bible.

Now I’m college. I think it’s the summer between freshman and sophomore year. It would have been 1998. I was a youth delegate to Annual Conference in Boise, Idaho. After sessions were over one night, I was walking with a friend of mine from college. I’ll call her Sarah. Sarah was a few years older than me, and I really looked up to her. She was one of the most gracious people I knew, someone who had been a model to me of Christian living. I knew that she was planning to pursue ordination as a pastor, and I was sure she would be a great one.

In Methodism, when we talk about whether someone is called to ordained ministry or not, sometimes we talk about “the gifts and graces for ministry.” It’s more than just asking if someone has the skill to be a pastor. It’s more than whether they have the qualifications. When we talk about gifts and graces, we’re asking if there is evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work in someone’s life. The evidence that God has called someone should be visible in that person’s gifts and graces, or rather, the gifts and graces that the Holy Spirit is working in them. Sarah had the gifts and graces. It was clear that the Holy Spirit was working in her. I had no doubt of it.

That night, as we were walking across campus, Sarah came out to me. No one had ever done that to me before. I was no longer quite so naïve as to think that I didn’t know anyone who was gay or lesbian. And I was beginning to realize that gay people seemed to be very much like straight people. But this friend coming out to me was something new.

I don’t remember what I said to her. Probably not what I should have. I think I at least had the grace to listen more than to speak. I remember thinking it was brave of Sarah to be so vulnerable. I remember feeling a sense of embarrassment, though I wouldn’t have been able to explain exactly why. And I was anxious and confused. This did not fit with the truth I thought I knew.

But it didn’t change my mind, not on it’s own, not right away. What changed my mind was the bible. And the text that God gave to me was from the Book of Acts, the 10th chapter. It’s a long story, the story of the Apostle Peter and a Roman centurion named Cornelius. Now, the centurion is a Gentile, which means that Peter, as a good follower of the Bible, is not supposed to consort with him. An encounter in public would be one thing, but he certainly should not enter the house of a Gentile or accept hospitality from a Gentile. That is because the Bible says that Gentiles are sinful. They are, by definition sinful. They are unrepentant sinners. Peter knows that they cannot be part of God’s people, not as long as they remain as Gentiles.

And yet, God is about to do something new. God is about to do something that will violate the faith that Peter knows, something that will violate the precepts of the Bible. God is about to pour out the Holy Spirit on Gentiles. God is about to adopt Gentiles into God’s family. They won’t have to change first. They won’t have to repent of their sinful ways. They will keep on violating the commands of the Bible, commands about circumcision, dietary rules, and purity. They will keep on in their unrepentant, sinful ways, but God will accept them anyway. And God wants Peter to welcome them into God’s family.

But God needs to prepare Peter first. So while Peter is praying, God grants him a vision. He sees a tablecloth being lowered down by its four corners from heaven. And inside the tablecloth, he sees all of the different animals that the Bible says are unclean, all of the animals the Bible says it is sin to eat. Peter knows that it is a sin to eat them. But he hears a voice, “Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!”

“Absolutely not!” Peter replies. “I’ve never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

But the voice responds, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

Peter has the same vision and the same conversation three times. Never consider unclean what God has made pure.

And it’s just as the vision is ending that messengers knock on Peter’s door. Cornelius has also had a vision from God that led his people to come and find Peter. Peter hears a voice telling him not to ask any questions and to go with them. Despite the prohibition, Peter invites these Gentiles in as guests, and the next day he goes to visit Cornelius. After Peter enters the house, he tells them, “You all realize that it is forbidden for a Jew to associate or visit with outsiders. However, God has shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean.” After Cornelius explains the vision he has had from God, Peter continues, “I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another. Rather, in every nation, whoever worships and does what is right is acceptable to God.” And he begins to preach the story of Jesus.

And as he’s preaching, the Holy Spirit falls on the Gentiles who are listening. Just like had happened with all of those Jews at Pentecost, now Gentiles are speaking in tongues by the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter and his fellow Jews are confronted with evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work in people that they thought were impure, unholy, outside of God’s love. They see something they thought was impossible: the Holy Spirit at work in a Gentile sinner.

And they change their minds. It takes a while for them to convince others in the Jesus community, but eventually they do. They decide that God has done a new thing and that they should go against the Bible and include these new followers of Jesus even though they have no intention of following any of the bible’s rules about diet or circumcision or purity. They go against the Bible because they see the Holy Spirit at work in a way they did not think possible. Peter explains to the other church leaders what had happened and how they saw the Spirit working in these Gentiles, and he closes, “If God gave them the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

I heard that story, and my heart burned. I felt convicted. I felt like I was Peter. I was sure I knew who was inside of God’s plan and who was outside, who was a saint and who was a sinner. But I had been presented with evidence to the contrary. I had seen the Holy Spirit at work in Sarah. I had seen that she had the gifts and graces for ministry. And I felt just like Peter. Who was I that I could hinder God? That’s how God changed my mind.

It wasn’t until later that I learned that those six passages I had been taught condemned homosexuality really had very little to do with a loving, committed relationship between two people of the same sex. They had to do with rape, temple prostitution, the abuse of slaves and children, but not about same-sex marriage. But even without that, my mind was changed. The bible says that eating shellfish is an abomination, but we don’t bar people from ordination for eating shellfish. The bible says that mixed fabrics are an abomination, but we don’t bar people from ordination for wearing poly-cotton blends. More telling, we don’t bar people from ordination for succumbing to greed, even though Jesus preaches more about greed than any other subject and more than 2000 verses of the Bible are devoted to the subject. All I needed to know was that God was doing a new thing and that I could not presume to hinder God.

Of course, in truth, God was working among LGBTQ people the whole time. It was not something new. But I had failed to see it before.

I am grieved that the General Conference again told our LGBTQ sisters and brothers that we know better than God and that they are not full participants in our community. I am thankful for the many brave LGBTQ pastors and deacons who have served faithful for years in this church and for those who have been brave enough to tell their stories. I give thanks for those who have continued their ministry in The UMC, and I wish well to the many, like Sarah, who eventually felt they had to go somewhere else to fulfill their call from God. I ask forgiveness for the ways that I have hindered God. I am grateful that our Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and our Western Jurisdiction are continuing to insist on full inclusion and are gladly welcoming the ministry of our LGBTQ clergy. I know that there continue to be complex cultural and social issues surrounding this topic, and I know that some of you may be in a different place than I am. I pray for the unity of the church and that we might find a way to continue to be in ministry with each other even when we disagree. But as for my part, I know what God has shown me, and I will do my best to love with the unimaginably expansive love with which God loves us.

Sunday 24 February 2019
The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 6:27-38

Most every week I get together with a group of local clergy in a gathering we call Reflectionary. On Wednesday afternoon, everyone comes over to the Spirit of Grace office building, and we spend a little time checking in with one another, and then we read through the Bible passages that are assigned for the coming Sunday and talk about our reactions to them. Pastors come from Hood River, Odell, Parkdale, White Salmon and The Dalles, and from six different denomination to participate.

The lectionary assigns at least four different bible passages for every Sunday, and sometimes there can be eight or even twelve to choose from. So most weeks not everyone is preaching on the same text. Usually there are two or three different lectionary readings that different pastors are preaching on. Sometimes most everyone is preaching on one text, but just one or two have chosen a different text to preach from that week.

But not this week. This week everyone is preaching from the same text. I can’t remember the last time that happened. But this week none of us could avoid what may be Jesus’s most radical teaching of all, Luke 6:27: “I say to those of you who are listening, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.” Easy right? Just love your enemies. No problem.

So what is that supposed to mean? Is it like what Michelle Obama says, “When they go low, we go high”? Does it have that sense of not being dragged into the mud by other people? That’s definitely part of it. Just because someone treats you inappropriately, it doesn’t mean that it gives you an excuse to treat that person in an inappropriate way.

That sounds a lot like the advice that you might give a child, right? Well, he hit me first. She called me a name first. Okay, but that doesn’t mean that you are allowed to hit or to call names.

So part of the message here is about integrity. Don’t let your values be compromised by what other people are doing. If you know it’s not right to hurt other people, then don’t hurt other people, even if they might be trying to hurt you. 

But that’s not all of it. Jesus doesn’t say, Don’t hate people who hate you. That would be hard enough, right? But that’s not what he says. He says, Love people who hate you. And that’s a lot more difficult. What would that be like?

Well, let’s look at some of the examples that Jesus gives. What does he say? “It someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well. If someone takes your coat, don’t withhold your shirt either.” Matthew’s version of this same text also adds, “If someone forces you to go one mile, go with them two.”

This is a really dangerous passage, because it can be very easily misinterpreted. It often leads to a kind of doormat theology. People who are without power are encouraged to let people with power hurt them, over and over, without putting up any resistance or protest. You’ve certainly heard these words used that way, right? Turn the other cheek. Just don’t let it bother you when someone abuses you. Just be quiet and put up with it. These words have been used, especially against women and oppressed minorities, to keep them down. If you are being abused by your husband, just be quiet and take it. If you are being brutalized by society, just be quiet and take it.

But I want to tell you today, that is not what Jesus is saying here, not by a long shot. Jesus does not say to just be quiet and take it. He does not say that if you are abuse you should do nothing. He says that if you are abused, you should do something. And what you should do is shame the person who is abusing you.

In ancient Mediterranean culture, and to some degree today, there is a difference between a backhanded slap and a forehanded slap. The backhanded slap is considered more shaming to the person who is hit. A forehanded slap is what you might use on an equal. A backhanded slap implies that the person being slapped is inferior. It’s a bit more clear in Matthew’s version of this saying, where Jesus says to turn the left cheek if you are struck on the right. Doing so would force your assailant to slap you forehanded, to acknowledge that you are a person of equal humanity.

But even if we forget about the left and right thing, turning the other cheek is not an act of submission, it’s an act of defiance. The normal reaction to getting hit, especially if you are hit by someone who has power over you, is to cower, to shrink away. Or the other reaction would be to hit back. Be a victim, or fight back. But Jesus suggests a third option. Protest the act of violence that has been committed. Imagine what that looks like to get hit and turn the other cheek. “You want to hit me? You missed a spot!” That is defiance! And it shames your abuser. Everyone will know that they are one who resorted to violence, not you. Everyone will know that they were wrong, and everyone will see you weren’t afraid.

It’s the same thing with the coat and the shirt. Your typical Judean peasant only had two articles of clothing: a sort of tunic, called a χιτῶν (chiton), and a cloak that went over it, called a ἱμάτιον (himation). Jesus says if they take your cloak, you should give them your tunic also. Again, this is not just standing by while someone abuses you, this is defying that abuse and shaming the person who has done it. They take your cloak. If you give them your shirt, you’ll be standing their naked. It brings attention to the wrong that has been done to you. They can’t get away with taking your coat without suffering the shame of having caused your nakedness. It is defiance, not submission. It is a form a protest.

In fact, we have a name for this kind of protest. It’s called nonviolent resistance. Nonviolent resistance was famously taught by Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. They all came upon this strategy through their study of Jesus and each other. Nonviolent resistance is a strategy that refuses to engage in the violent tactics of the oppressor, and instead defies them. It points out the injustice of the situation and highlights the humanity of the person being injured. It attempts to make the abuse public, so that it cannot escape notice. That should engage the abusers shame. They will see that what they are doing is wrong and stop. But even if the abuser is shameless, having made the harm public should inspire the outrage of other people. Once the abuse is exposed to the rest of the world, in a way in which it cannot be ignored, then there should be pressure to make things right.

Nonviolent resistance is not easy. It requires people to endure abuse and to make that abuse public. And it usually doesn’t work right away. It takes time to convince enough people of the virtue of your cause so that those in power will be forced, through shame or through other political pressure, to change. But it is the sort of activity that Jesus recommends here. It’s not meeting violence with violence. But it’s not being a doormat, either. It is an act of defiance in the face of violence.

But that isn’t all that Jesus is talking about. What Jesus calls for is even more radical than that. It’s not just about refraining from harming those who are against you. Jesus says that we should love our enemies, do good for those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us. So part of that is going high when others go low. Part of it is nonviolent resistance to abuse. But there is still more.

How can I love my enemy? What does it do if I try to love my enemy? Obviously I’m never going to be able to love an enemy in the same way that I love someone who is dear to me. It’s going to be hard to have affection for someone who hates me. That’s not the kind of love we’re talking about.

You may remember a few weeks ago we talked about agape love. It’s not like the love between spouses, or the love between friends or the love between parents and children. Agape love, the kind of love we’re talking about here, is the kind of love that God has for us. It is unconditional love, not based on any merit at all. It is a love that is based on grace. In fact, the passage today says as much. It says, if you love the people who love you, what credit is that to you. What it actually says in Greek is, what grace is that to you. In other words, it doesn’t take grace to love someone who loves you, but it does take grace to love someone who doesn’t love you.

So if I try to love my enemy, what happens? Well, first I would try to wish good things for them. I would want them to have a happy and fulfilling life. Of course, having a happy and fulfilling life does not include abusing other people. But nonetheless, I would wish good things for them. And then I might start to think about the circumstances of their life. What would a happy and fulfilling life look like for a person in their situation? What are the things in their life that bring joy? I would wish them more of that. And what are the things in their life that bring discomfort and pain, fear and anxiety? I would wish them relief from that.

And in the process, I might find that I am starting to see my enemy not as some heartless foe, but as a human being. And human beings are complicated. If I am loving my enemy, then I start to be able to see things from their perspective. It doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with them, but perhaps I can begin to understand. When people hurt others, it’s usually not because they are just evil to the core and enjoy inflicting harm on others. There are usually motivations behind their actions. Those motivations may not justify their actions, but they might explain some things. Because behind destructive behavior, there is usually some need that is not being fulfilled, some hurt that is not being tended, some fear that is not being addressed. Fear is often at the core. Fear of change. Fear of losing power. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the loss of identity. And as Master Yoda has taught us, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Behind that hate and suffering, there is usually some fear. And if I am trying to love my enemy, I can begin to see the fear or the hurt that lies behind their hatred for me.

And like Yoda, Jesus warns against a dark-side response to suffering. Jesus encourages us to break the cycle of hatred and violence with a godly love. To love our enemies and do good to those who hurt us.

And again, it doesn’t mean simply submitting quietly to continued abuse. But we can wish well for someone even if that person is hurting us. Sometimes our act of love for an enemy is enough to transform the situation. How do you react when you heap abuse on someone and they return it with love? It can be disarming. It can lead us to see the wrong that we have been doing and make a change.

But things don’t always work out that well. Sometimes our love for an enemy does nothing to lessen their hatred for us. And even in that case, it is still worthwhile to love. It is good for us, because otherwise we can be consumed by our own fear and hatred. It is good for those around us, because it sets an example for how to be made free of hatred. And it is good for the world, because evil can never be defeated with more evil.

Our Buddhist sisters and brothers have a word for a concept that is not dissimilar to our agape love: Metta. Metta can be defined as benevolence, loving-kindness, friendliness, amity, good will, and active interest in others. And many Buddhists spend time in meditation, seeking to cultivate this Metta compassion. Many of you will know the Ven. Kozen Sampson, who is the monk in charge of Buddhist temple at Trout Lake Abbey. Whenever we have events together, if Kozen is asked to give a benediction, he uses a Metta prayer. And it’s very simple. It is: may you be well. May you be happy. May you know joy. May you know peace. But he always likes to lead us in it together, so I’d like to lead you through it now. We always start with ourselves and move out. So repeat after me:

May I be well. May I be happy. May I know joy. May I know peace.

And now we’ll move beyond ourselves and address those who are around us.

May you be well. May you be happy. May you know joy. May you know peace.

And now think of someone who is dear to you, but someone who is not in the room here with you now. And direct this blessing to them.

May you be well. May you be happy. May you know joy. May you know peace.

This time we’re going to try to stretch like Jesus asks us to. Call to mind the person or people you would call enemy, rival, the thorn in your side, and direct this blessing toward them.

May you be well. May you be happy. May you know joy. May you know peace.

And finally, think of all the world’s people, in our great variety and diversity. And with the whole global community in mind, let us say,

May we be well. May we be happy. May we know joy. May we know peace.

This is the kind of love Jesus is calling for. He says that when we have that kind of love for our enemies we will be greatly rewarded, because, he says, we are acting like children of the Most High, because God is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. Jesus says: “Be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.” This is what Jesus calls us to, a transformative love in the face of hatred. It is not easy. It is a gift of God. So may we be empowered, along with all of God’s children everywhere, to see each other with the eyes of compassion, to wish well and do good even for those who are against us, to love our enemies, because God has offered us unconditional love.