Mercy is the Antidote to Violence: Sept 14

Year C, Pentecost 14                                       Luke 15:1-10                                                                                   It’s been a very rough week.  At the same time, given how the last few years have been, it feels far too familiar.  I was reading one article that said that political violence comes in waves.  It’s contagious.  What the author didn’t explain was how it was stopped. Some contagious viruses just run their course.  Others require an antidote, a vaccine. We saw that with COVID.      

On the same day that Charlie Kirk was gunned down, there was another shooting in a school.  The shootings were within minutes of one another, one in Utah, the other in the neighboring state of Colorado.  Fortunately the student in Colorado did not succeed in killing anyone.  He wounded two teens and then killed himself, which is also tragic.

I remember when the shooting at Columbine happened. I remember because it was the first mass school shooting (actually the first school shooting) I had ever heard of.  Apparently there was also one in 1966 on a college campus, but that was before my time.  That was 30 years before the Columbine shooting.  The previous mass school shooting was 200 years before that in the 1700s.  Now school shootings are far too common.  We expect them. That is the reality that our children live in.  

What is the antidote?    There is a lot that can be said in regards to public policy.  When we are more concerned about the right to bear arms than the rights of our children to live, we have a serious problem.  But I am here to talk about God and the readings for today.  While I think that sensible laws can help, I also believe that there is a deeper problem in our world that is spiritual.   The antidote to violence is mercy.

                We see several references to mercy in our readings for today.  We see it in our Old Testament reading when God relents and decides not to punish the people of Israel.  In our Psalm, we hear the Psalmist ask for mercy. Paul talks about the fact that God’s mercy had allowed him to change from a blasphemer and violent persecutor into an apostle of Jesus Christ.

                The Gospel reading is also about mercy, even though it doesn’t use that word.  Jesus tells three parables (only 2 that are included in today’s reading).  These parables are told in response to comments that the Pharisees and the scribes made.  They were grumbling and talking about the fact that Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. 

I realize it might seem silly to judge someone because they were eating with sinners, especially when we know that all of us are sinners to one degree or another.  These people weren’t sinners in the way that we are all sinners.  They were sinners who were known by the whole community as sinners.  We might call them notorious sinners.  What upset the Pharisees was not that Jesus was merely talking to these sinners, but that he was sharing a meal with them.  According to Jewish law, observant Jews were not supposed to eat with notorious sinners.  Jesus was not just an observant Jew, he was recognized as a leader in the Jewish community.  This act was scandalous. 

Let’s just assume these were the kind of sinners you wouldn’t want to be sharing a meal with.   Imagine someone you see in person or on the news and you think , those are just horrible human beings.  How can they live with themselves?  Imagine Jesus sharing a meal with those people.

In response to this criticism, Jesus tells three stories of things, animals or people who were lost.  The first was about a shepherd who left 99 sheep to find the one who got away. The second was about a woman who lost one coin and while she still had 9, she looked fervently for this one lost coin until she found it. When both the shepherd and the woman found the sheep and the coin, they called all their friends and had a party. They were so happy they had found the one thing that they had lost.  Jesus then says, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Who was lost in this story? Was it the sinners who were eating with Jesus or was it the Pharisees and scribes who were judging them? I think it was both. They were just lost in different ways.  The difference between the two were that one group knew that they were lost and one group thought they had it all figured out. Jesus would have been overjoyed to be with either group, but one group didn’t think they really needed him and the other group knew they needed him, or maybe they were realizing that bit by bit.

Both groups deserved mercy.  Mercy is a word that we don’t use very often.  We use it in church.  It’s all over our liturgy.  But is that something you pray for…for yourself or others? It’s not something that I often pray for and I had to wonder why.  I think I associate mercy with what comes after punishment.  We really don’t like talking about punishment, do we? 

Since we had our annual dinner with Mikveh Israel this Wednesday, I looked up the Hebrew word for mercy.  It shares the same root as the Hebrew word for womb.  The idea is that God’s mercy towards humanity is like the protection that a baby has in the womb.  Mercy isn’t an alternative to punishment.  It’s divine protection.  It’s also more than divine protection.  It’s about how we protect one another, literally and figuratively.

I started the sermon by saying that the antidote to violence is mercy.  I don’t mean that God’s mercy literally protect us from bullets.  That’s not how it works.  What I mean is that God’s mercy and our ability to be vessels of that mercy can stop the virus of violence from spreading. 

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk before Wednesday.  Yet as soon as the news broke that he died it was like people were equipping for battle.  The right blamed the rhetoric of the radical left and even implied that it was someone on the radical left who fired the gun.  The left blamed it on the rhetoric of the right and some even blamed it on the words of Kirk himself.  And then the right and the left started judging one another on their reactions. Once the shooter was caught, people on the left could not help but mention that his parents were Republicans and gun owners. 

This seems to happen so often when we discover the identity of the perpetrators of these evil acts.  We dissect their lives until we can find that one thing that will align them with whoever is on the other side.  Lord have mercy.

Yet who does Jesus align himself with? The lost.  The sinner and the outcast.  We are all lost.  We are all sinners.  We are all cast out in some way or another.  The sooner we can see that, the sooner we can stop vilifying one another and actually work for a solution.  I would guess that the vast majority of people in this country do not support murdering our political opponents.  The vast majority don’t think our children should have to risk their lives to be educated.  Yet we can’t put down our differences for just a few days to come up with some solution?

Each one of us desperately needs God’s mercy.  But here’s the beautiful thing. Our need for mercy is also the source of mercy.  If we can clearly see our own need for mercy, we can more willingly provide that mercy to others.  If we can see ourselves as lost, then imagine how much easier it will be to find one another.

Be a Neighbor: July 14, 2019

Year C, Pentecost 5                                                              

Luke 10:25-37                                                                                   

            We all know the story of the Good Samaritan.  Hospitals, churches, and even laws are named after it.  The story has become so well known, so secularized, that it has lost much of its power.  It is easy to interpret it as a simple morality tale, but there is more to this story.  Our Gospel reading begins with a question posed to Jesus.   “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  It’s a good question.  It’s kind of like asking, “What do I need to do to get to heaven?”  Jesus volleyed the question back to the lawyer. The lawyer was an expert in the law, so Jesus asked him, “Well, what’s written in the law?” (By the way, in referring to the law, Jesus was referring to scripture---specifically the first 5 books of the Old Testament.)  The lawyer provided the right answer ("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.") and Jesus encouraged him to follow that law so that he might live. 

Now our text says that the lawyer was trying to test Jesus. Maybe he was at the beginning.  But I think his next question indicated that he really was searching for answers.  Part of the law that he quoted was loving your neighbor as yourself.  Had he merely been testing Jesus, it would have been wise for him to leave it at that.  But he asked a follow up question: who is my neighbor. 

            Jesus could have given a straightforward answer.  He could have said, “Anyone and everyone.” But instead, he told a story, because it’s easy to dismiss an answer like “anyone and everyone.”  In the story, 2 religious leaders pass by a man lying on the side of the road.   Neither stops to help. Now, there are a dozen good reasons why they would have passed without helping.  It was an infamously dangerous road.  They could have been afraid that it was a set up as this was a fairly common technique that thieves used.  They could have assumed that the man was dead and had they gotten even close to a dead man, they would have broken one of their holiness codes and become unclean---which means they would not have been able to perform their jobs.  Their intentions or lack of intentions isn’t the point.  We like to focus on them because it’s always easy to point out the hypocrisy of others.

            But Jesus was not interested in their motives. The star of the story is of course the Samaritan.  Jesus never referred to him as the good Samaritan.  He didn’t have to.  His deeds proved that he was good.  Jesus did specify that he was a Samaritan.  This was important because Samaritans were loathed by the Jews.  It wasn’t just that they didn’t like them. They were enemies. In the story right before this one in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus and his disciples were rejected in a Samaritan village.  No one would have expected the hero to be a Samaritan, but that was part of what made this such an intriguing story.  Often when we hear this story, especially in secular environments, the focus is on the person lying in the ditch, the person in need.  The moral of the story is that the person in need is our neighbor. But after the parable, when Jesus asked the question of the lawyer, he didn’t ask who was the neighbor.  He asked who acted like a neighbor.  It wasn’t the man in the ditch.  It was the person who showed mercy—the Samaritan. 

The reason this distinction matter---the reason this specific question that Jesus asks matters--- is that it is so easy for us to argue about who is and who is not worthy of our mercy and compassion.  It is easy to judge people who we think aren’t helping enough or are helping too much, perhaps enabling.  Right now in our society, we spend a lot of time blaming anything and everything on different categories of people. It’s the ultra right.  It’s the unpatriotic left.  It’s the lazy millienials. It’s the entitled boomers.  Humans love to put people in categories.  Yet we get really irritated when someone tries to categorize us because we don’t want to be put in a box.  It’s so much easier to judge others. 

Who is our neighbor? That’s not the question Jesus was asking.  Because the answer really is everyone, but that’s way too hard to wrap our heads around.  So Jesus made it more concrete.  Instead of challenging us to identify our neighbor, he asked, how can you be a neighbor?  The answer is to show mercy to those who are suffering.  There are no qualifications, quantifications or specifications on who we are helping.  Show mercy.  This parable isn’t about the poor soul lying in the ditch.  It’s about our actions as the brothers and sisters of that person lying in the ditch. 

This conversation between the lawyer and Jesus started out as a debate. This lawyer wanted a debate. It’s so much easier to debate what we believe rather than act on what we believe.  The longer we debate and argue, the less we actually have to do.  Let’s stop talking about who our neighbor is and focus instead on how to be a neighbor, a good neighbor. 

We are about to baptize a baby.  There are few things we do in church that are more uplifting than welcoming a child into the household of God. Right before the baptism, we all affirm our baptismal vows together.  One of the questions we ask is: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? The people respond, “I will with God’s help.” I get it. Being a neighbor, showing mercy…it’s a challenge. We might wonder how to start. The answer is in the question of our baptismal covenant. Seek and serve Christ in all persons.  That’s how we start.  We seek out Christ in people.  We seek out the good and then we find a way to reflect that good.  Look at Wyatt.  How can you not love a baby like that? That baby deserves our love and compassion.  Remember that’s how we all start. We are all born into the world as children of God, deserving love and compassion.   We don’t usually stay that cute and fragile, but we never stop being beloved children of God who deserve love and compassion.  Don’t worry about who your neighbor is. Instead practice being a neighbor.  Seek and serve Christ in all person’s with God’s help.

December 7, 2014: Isaiah 40

It is time to cry out!

Year B, Advent 2                                                  

The texts for today are beautiful texts.  They speak to the greater message of Advent, to preparation for the coming of God and to hope in general.  I wanted to talk about what it is to have hope when things seem lost, but I had a really hard time writing that.  It is been an exceptionally difficult few months in our nation. This week was no exception.  I don’t understand why violence is such a big part of our culture.  The average child will see 40,000 murders on TV before they finish elementary school and that is not including video games.   It almost seems as though we have become immune to it to some extent.  Yet there are times when something shakes us from this numbness to violence. 

Just a few months ago the nation gaped in horror when a video was released that showed the beheading of a journalist.   This week the video of Eric Garner’s death was released.  It was gut wrenching to watch that video.   It’s not just in the movies or video games, it’s real and it’s on youtube.  What frightens me is that our reaction to violence is often more violence.  I looked at the comments under the video of the journalist’s beheading and people wrote things like, “Let’s bomb them!”  What frightens me even more is there was a part of me that really understood that and empathized with that emotion…that need for vengeance.  After 9-11, I remember feeling so happy to watch the news coverage of bombs dropping in retaliation.  We see again and again that violence begets more violence.

            It’s hard to know what to feel right now.  I have immense respect for our military and our police.   They have very difficult jobs. I just don’t understand how our society got to a point where all of this was the norm, when people felt like they needed guns to protect themselves.  Fear is rampant in our society and in many ways it is merited.  Yet this fear is not protecting us.  It is just causing more pain, more violence.  I don’t know what the answer is.  What I do know is that we are never going to get the answer if we don’t start talking about these difficult issues, even in the church. 

            The church is supposed to be a light in the darkness, not a shelter from the darkness.   Both the reading from Isaiah and the Gospel are about proclamation of the message of God.  Isaiah is a little confusing in the way it is written.   It would be easier if it was in script form so we knew who was talking in any given moment.  It starts with that famously repeated line, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.”   It would seem as though God is telling someone to comfort his people.   Scholars have hypothesized that God was talking to a divine council, kind of like God’s entourage.  He was asking them to comfort his people.  You might think, hey, isn’t that God’s job?  Shouldn’t God have been comforting the people? In a way he was.  He was imploring his people, the people who were not beaten down by weariness and pain, to share his love and comfort with those who were.

            What I like about this specific council that we hear from in Isaiah is that they seem to interact with God and one another.  One member of the council said, “Cry out!” And then another said, “What shall I cry?  All people are like grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field…” This voice sounded frustrated.  I mean, what’s the point of crying out when you are crying to grass, grass that withers so easily? The people of Judah screwed up again and again. They committed their love and loyalty to God again and again just to abandon him.  Because of that, this speaker’s frustration is understandable. The divine council has no reason to trust the people of Judah.  Then the voice that began responded, “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”  It would seem that this member of the council had little confidence in people, but a great deal of confidence in God.  This voice was saying, it’s ok that people are weak.  It is God who sustains us, even in our weakness.

            Then this text shifts again because someone else is talking.  “Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings, lift up your voice with strength…lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’” It would appear that this member of the council is done talking amongst themselves. It is time to talk to all of the cities, all of the people.  It is time to proclaim the good news.  And the good news is not that God will save them or even comfort them, but that God is here, ready to lead.  He will not only lead them, but he will feed them and even carry them if he has to.  Because that is what the good shepherd does.  The shepherd carries us in our weakness, in our indecision and fear. 

            I have a little more confidence in people than this divine council in Isaiah did.  I believe that we can conquer fear.  But only if we address it.  Only if we stand up to it and cry out-- even when it seems like those cries are not heard or just ignored.    Much like the divine council, we must speak to one another so that we can encourage one another.  Because in the midst of all that is going on in our world and our nation, it is tempting to give up the quest for justice, mercy and love.  It is tempting to grow a little numb to violence and hatred.  But we cannot. 

Jesus was born as a baby so that he could experience what we experience, so he would be vulnerable to pain both physical and emotional.  He did that to remind us that God’s love is stronger than the fiercest hatred.  Jesus knew what it was to live in a violent world as a member of a persecuted people. He knew what it was to die a violent death.  We know that he conquered all of this when he rose from the dead.

            It’s true that sometimes I can feel a little hopeless about what is going on in our world.  Yet, I feel more hopeful now than when I started this sermon.  I also believe that God is stronger than my hope or lack of hope and that together as the body of Christ, we become stronger.  We become louder.  Isaiah called people to go to the mountain top and cry out. I wonder if that is why so many of our churches are so tall, so that we can be that mountain top in the world.  Here at St. John’s we have a mountain top (ours is even newly renovated).  More importantly, we have the voices.  Now all we have to do is to cry out.