Lev 19:1-2, 9-18
1 Corinthians
3:10-11, 16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
Today’s passages are
central to the ultimate message of Jesus.
We are told by Jesus that really there are only 2 commandments. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. But Jesus explains over and over who that
neighbor is, and it is not just the person who lives next door, or the family
member or the friend who can return the favors that you grant. It is also that person whom you fear, and the
person you hate, and the person who makes your very skin crawl. It is that person who represents for you everything
that you are against. Who might that
person be for you? We all have people
like this in our lives, and it is not usually those people we might first
consider. In this church we are very
good at seeing and feeding and housing and LOVING the economically
disadvantaged. We give money and food to
Monument Crisis Center. We house the
homeless through Winter Nights and CCIH.
We serve meals through Loaves and Fishes, Feed the Kids, and the
Pittsburg Community meal. We support
advocacy through Multi Faith Action Coalition and Heifer Project. We participate
in work days at Oakland Peace Center and Bay Area Rescue Mission. And it is not just the economically
disadvantaged. We are connected with Rainbow Community Center and offer
workshops and host booths at their events.
We are good at seeing certain groups of displaced, disenfranchised,
rejected and hurting people as our neighbors.
But there are others. When you
think of people who make you angry, or who make your skin crawl, who do you
think of? Are there people you consider
the epitome of evil? Who are they?
Corrie Ten Boom shared a very powerful story
on forgiveness. She wrote, “It was in a
church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a
brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the
basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs
to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated
Germany with the message that God forgives. It was the truth they needed most
to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental
picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to
think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’
I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’
“The solemn
faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never
questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in
silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
“And that’s when
I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the
overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its
skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh
overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the
floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail
form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin
you were!
[Betsie and I
had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of
Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we
were sent.]
“Now he was in
front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know
that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’
“And I, who had
spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that
hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner
among those thousands of women? But I remembered him and the leather crop
swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood
seemed to freeze.
“ ‘You mentioned
Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not
remember me.
“ ‘But since
that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has
forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from
your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’
“And I stood
there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive.
Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for
the asking?
“It could not
have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed
hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
“For I had to do
it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we
forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive (others) their
trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your
trespasses.’
“I knew it not
only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the
war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were
able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside
world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who
nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as
that. And still I stood there with the
coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too.
Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the
temperature of the heart. ‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I
can do that much. You supply the feeling.’
“And so
woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And
as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder,
raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth
seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“ ‘I forgive
you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’
“For a long
moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner.
I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then”
That was an
enemy. This man, who had responsibility
of her sister’s death and for her own torture, humiliation and deepest
suffering – that is an enemy in the truest sense of the word. And while the story I shared with you is a
story about forgiveness, it is also a
story about making the decision to love, truly love, your enemies, those people
you would rather never see, never touch, never interact with. It is the hardest thing in the world to do,
but it is our call.
We know of other
stories that are similar: the Amish community that chose to forgive the man who
killed all of those children in the school.
The African American church that chose to forgive the man who broke in
and killed all those people. These are
stories about people who are choosing love in the face of great evil. They are not looking at recrimination, they
are not looking to counter evil with evil.
They are choosing their own health, by not allowing their souls to be
infused with hate. But they are doing it
by choosing love for the other.
I look at these
words from Matthew, “But I say to you that you must not oppose those who want
to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left
cheek to them as well. When they wish to haul you to court and
take your shirt, let them have your coat too. When they force
you to go one mile, go with them two. Give to those who ask,
and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you.” There are so many books, so many studies, so
many interpretations of these words. There
are so many explanations out there for what it means to turn the other
cheek. But in each of these situations,
the bottom line is one not simply of not seeking retaliation, not simply one of
not returning evil for evil. Each of
these commands are calling us into engagement
with the enemy. When someone slaps your
right cheek, are we told to just walk away and not retaliate? That could have been what Jesus said. Just don’t retaliate. Accept what has come to you that is evil,
accept it, don’t return evil back, and move on.
But that’s not what Jesus said.
He says, turn the other cheek to them as well. In other words, engage them. Continue to be with them. Look them in the eye and continue the
relationship, even in the midst of the pain they are causing you. Second, we are told when someone forces you
to go one mile, “go with them two”. GO WITH THEM two. In other words, don’t just quietly accept
what they’ve asked you to do. Don’t just
allow yourself to be used for a mile.
Engage the other, walk with them for two miles, walk with this enemy,
this brother. Engage them. We are told when they haul you to court and
want to take your shirt, give them your coat too. In other words, don’t just let go of anger
and accept that you have to pay and pay and pay what is not fair and not right
and not theirs for you to pay them.
Engage them further. Give them
more. Interact with them and hand them
what is more.
I am reminded of
the musical and now the movie “les Miserable”.
The story begins with the release after 19 years imprisonment of Jean
Valjean. In the story, he was sentenced
for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving sister and her family, and
then he received more time for an attempted escape from prison. Now that he’s been released, he can’t find a
place to stay because his papers mark him as a former prisoner. But the Bishop, Myriel offers him shelter
when no one else will. Still, instead of
expressing gratitude and thanksgiving to the bishop, Jean Valjean waits until
night and then runs off with Myriel's silverware, stealing from the very man
who has just given him a break, shown him grace and care. When the police
capture Jean Valjean, the Bishop though surprises everyone, especially Jean
Valjean by pretending that the silverware Jean Valjean stole was actually given
to him as a gift. He goes even
farther. Reflecting what Jesus asks us
to do, not only does he not press charges against the man who has hurt him, not
only does he fail to insist on what is right and fair, which would be that the
bishop be rewarded for caring for this man rather than punished by having his
things stolen, not only this, but he follows Jesus’ command to give even more
to those who would take from us and the Bishop presses Jean Valjean to take two
silver candlesticks as well, as if he had forgotten to take them, too. He does exactly what Jesus says to do – he
gives, in essence, his cloak as well as his shirt; giving the candlesticks as
well as the silverware that Jean Valjean would steal. We know the rest of the story. Jean Valjean is changed by this act of grace.
He changes his life around and becomes a successful and giving member of
society. He forwards generosity, he
forwards grace, he offers care to others whom no one else loves and accepts.
But the reality is that we cannot do
good for the other expecting the good that we do to change them. Because often it won’t. And, that part isn’t our job. Our job is to do what God asks us to do and
leave the results of that love and that care to God. Does that mean it might not make a
difference? Of course. Does that mean that a person we offer care to
might just take advantage of us and continue to use and be unkind to us? Of course.
But again, what others do with the love we offer them is not our concern. What is our concern is to offer the love
Jesus calls us to offer.
Still, what Jesus asks here is
SOOO hard. How many of us could do
that? When we are taken to court, we
fight. When someone steals from us, we
want them to pay. How many have we seen
on the news who insist “in the name of God” on “justice”, completely missing
that God’s justice is detailed here,
by Jesus, and it is NOT, NOT EVER one of revenge, or one of seeking what is
“fair” for us, or seeking retribution.
NOT EVER. God’s justice, what we
are called to do, looks like this. It looks
like the behavior of the Bishop in Les Mis, it looks like Corrie Ten Boom in
her response to the guard, it looks like what Jesus outlines here – it looks
like loving our enemies and engaging them, giving much more than is deserved,
even to those we fear, even to those we hate, even to those who are seeking, actively to hurt us.
How hard are these words! For us, these enemies may be people we have
loved, people closer than we know, people who have hurt us beyond compare. I have a friend who has been divorced almost
a year. When his wife left him, the
courts gave instructions for the children to live with their mother but to have
a set amount of time with their father.
But his wife is angry, though it was her decision to seek the
divorce. She does not want the children
to have access to their father, she does not want their father to have access
to the kids. So even though the law
instructs that they have a certain amount of time with him, in the year since
the divorce, he has seen them for a total of about 12 hours, or one hour a
month. His ex-wife is an “enemy” in the
sense presented to us here. She is
taking from him what is rightfully his.
She is taking from the children a relationship with their father. She is taking what matters most to him in all
the world, despite the fact that she has no real right to do that. What would Jesus say to do in a situation
like this? How do you love an enemy like
this, that is taking what is most dear to you, what is most important to
you? And when that decision is not just
affecting yourself but others as well, children as well, how are we to respond
in a loving way?
The scriptures today again show
us this one really important aspect that transcends most problems, and that,
again, is engagement. Continuing to keep
those lines of communication open, continuing to work not from an adversarial
position (no matter how much we may feel adversarial!) but from a place of
love, of care, of outreach, that is what we are called to do. What will the results be? We don’t know. We can’t know. But again, the results are not up to us. What is up to us is choosing to act in love,
even in the face of our pain, even in the face of our loss, even in the face of
others’ determination to hurt us. Again,
not easy at all. Not at all. And yet it is what we are called to do. Every time.
I do want to throw a caveate, and
an important one, into what I am saying here.
Because I don’t think we are being told to stay in abusive
situations. I know of too many women who
choose to stay with their abuser of the abuser of their children standing on
passages like this. I don’t think we are
being asked to continue to stay in that kind of situation. Frankly, it is not loving to the abuser
anymore than it is loving to the one being abused to allow that kind of abuse
to continue. It is damaging in a very
real way to the soul and being of the abuser to be allowed to act in this
way. These passages are talking about taking
a stand of strength to stand in front of those who would do harm and choose to
show them what they are doing, choose to stay engaged in forgiveness and love,
choose to assert one’s ability to care despite the evil coming our way. That is completely different from allowing
oneself to be harmed in a repeated and damaging way.
As with everything that God calls
us to do, this is not going to be something we are always able to do. But we do it as much as we can. And we trust in the grace of God, the love of
God, that continues to encourage and hold us, even when we can’t spread that
same love to others. And that is the
good news, today and everyday. We are
made more whole, we are made more complete when we are able to love in this
way. God calls us to this for our own
sakes. And we truly will be the
benefactors of these choices. They are
choices, but the choice is to follow God’s call or to be less for not
trying. Thanks be to God that we are
given that choice each and every day, again and again. Amen.
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