Ugh. “So I guess we’re supposed to love our enemies this week,” I caught myself complaining to Marie in the office a few days ago. Anyone else feeling the burden of this?
How are you doing at loving your enemies? I mean, I prefer to do exactly the opposite: either hate them, or just be indifferent to them. As Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel said: “The opposite of love is not hate but indifference.” Yeah, I prefer to do those: either hate my enemies or just not pay attention to them. Definitely not love them.
How are you doing with this?
And then, just to pile it on, we’re reminded that “enemies” are not just some people far away, or even in our own neighborhoods that we just really don’t like… With this first lesson that Kate read, about Joseph and his brothers, we are reminded that “enemies” could just be in our own family. It’s probably the greatest, specific reconciliation story in the Bible. Family members who have wronged you, ex-friends, ex-lovers, ex-partners or co-workers, people that we see all the time, live with or around — these can be the hardest to love, because there’s history there. There’s deep pain there. There’s stories. It’s not just a faceless body with a weapon from another country far away: It’s a face that might even look like yours, with an apron or a briefcase, or an iPhone or a remote control. Enemies could be those very people that reside under the same roof, or those under roofs in homes that you’ve been visiting for decades…
Ugh. So I guess we’re supposed to love them? Forgive them, Jesus says? “Be kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”?!
How?! I’ll remind you again, like last week, Jesus is not talking here to a random “everyone”. If that were the case, this would indeed seem like a disconnected and onerous, even impossible, task: Loving our enemies.
No, again, Jesus is talking to those who have already heard and seen...
And, friends in Christ, we are a people who have already heard and seen! (And so this is actually possible, this can be done.)
We are the insiders, the ones who gather around this Word. I was hoping for a smaller crowd today as an illustration: not because everyone’s not welcome here, but because not everyone understands gets this: [whisper] loving your enemies is a blessing.
With love is liberation. How many of you have ever let go of a grievance during the “sharing of the peace” in church on just a regular old Sunday like this? “Sharing the peace” has turned into more of an intermission in some churches, like a 7th inning stretch, a chance to just say hi to people around you, see if they got your email this week, ask how they’re doing. Right?!
But our worship scholars tell us that it’s far more than that. When we say, as we will again today, “The peace of Christ be with you always...and also with you.” It’s the embodiment of conflicts forgiven! Why do we blanket that with a bunch of quick check-in and Good-to-see-you’s!? (I’ll tell you why!…:)
I had a worship professor in seminary, who encouraged us to just shake the hands around you. Don’t go trying to shake everyone’s hand and visit with people...at this point. That’s for before and after worship. During the week. Yes dig in and talk and care for one another, he said. In fact, he said, if “sharing the peace” is the only time you shake hands and talk briefly, there’s a problem.
Instead, he lectured us, the hand shake or the kiss is powerfully symbolic, just a few hands and cheeks is fine...because this sharing of the peace is the end of war!
It’s walls coming down! It’s hatred and bitterness and anger melting away like the snow this week! It’s peace spreading across the church and across our bodies and across this world like a blanket! The symbol is so powerful. It may be my favorite and least favorite moment in the worship service...at the same time. Because I prefer to hang on to my grudges and bitternesses. They’re like old friends. People who have wronged me should pay for that…not be forgiven.
But, friends, remember, this instruction is for the those who have already seen and heard of Jesus and his love. This is the advanced class, part of a larger sermon, the one that started blessed are you who are poor, remember? Blessed are those who live their lives as a celebration of Divine mercy!
What does a life lived in celebration of God’s Divine love, mercy and forgiveness look like? [pause] What if you went out this week and said, “I’m going to live my life this week as a celebration of God’s Divine love, mercy and forgiveness!” What would look different? What would sound different? Would people notice that you’ve come in contact with something strange? Because you have!!
This instruction is not normal. (Feel free to walk out at any time.) In fact, I’m amazed we have as many as we do in the Christian family! We live in a world that punishes enemies, not reconciles and forgives them. We live in a world that rewards good behavior and shames bad, at least that’s what our cultures say and tend to think. I mean, how many want to see Donald Trump go down? Or how many relished Hillary Clinton looking like a deer in the headlights when she messed up and then lost! We don’t love our enemies. We despise them, we wish them the worst. Our blood boils when they don’t get what they deserve, and we throw parties when they do.
And yet here Jesus is, talking to his disciples, about reflecting Love Divine!
Friends, this is another tough one. Welcome again to the Year of Luke, the year of healing. A year of taking stock. Slowing down. Gathering ourselves. Sticking together in faith. And praying: we can’t do this work without prayer. God’s gotta get in there. Mix with us — what did the text say? “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.” I love that! God’s gotta get in there, and God does, friends in Christ. God is with us in this task. God has always been with us. Prayer is the intentional inviting God who’s already there...
Yes, we are the ones who bear witness to this Love. We are the ones who have already heard and seen. We are the ones who have eaten and drunk Christ’s body and blood. We are the ones who have tasted! We know that this one Jesus blesses us in our weakness, picks us up in our brokenness, feeds us in our hungriest moment, forgives us when we’re at our absolute worst, waits with us in our anger and loves us despite it all! We know, friends, we’ve tasted this bread, we’ve seen this body, we’ve heard this song, we’ve journeyed this path.
So this is God reminding us again today, that’s all. This is God showing up once more to call us back. To snap us out of our funks and wake us when our faithfulness starts to drift off a little...or a lot. [remembering] “Oh, yeah!”
“That’s right!” — really our only response. I know this already. Help me/us, God to live your love more fully, to ingest it ever more deeply and to share it more widely and freely.
For this is the cup that never runs dry! Thanks be to God! AMEN.
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