A sermon preached by E. Scott Winnette

April 18, 2010

Raining Love on our Rivals

Romans 12:9-12 & Matthew 5:38-48

You have heard it said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” Seems to make sense in the world we live in. Care for those who care for you and hurt those who hurt you. Sigmund Freud diagnosed humanity as basically antisocial. Along with innate drives for pleasure he thought there are equal drives to inflict pain. While exploring these ideas he shared a joke of Heinrich Heine. “Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, He will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. [1]  What an awful sentiment. 

The Apostle Paul taught against patterns of violence and retaliation. But maybe he went too far, and expects too much of us. 

Apostle Paul you say,” never avenge yourselves.” Never? Are you saying we should not have bombed Hiroshima?   But Paul, you can’t understand Pearl Harbor and national defense and the complexities of that world war. You say, “Bless those who persecute you…” Are you saying I should send homemade pickles to the Presbyterian conservatives who argue that I shouldn’t be a pastor? You say, “Bless and do not curse them.” Bless them! Are you saying Tea Bag Partiers, Republicans, and Democrats should complement each other?   Are you saying that gay Bishop Gene Robinson should desire the happiness of the 700 Club’s Pat Robertson? That Fox News should befriend the Daily Show. Paul, you just don’t understand the complex politics of Church and State! 

You also say, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” Are you saying, if someone pushes me down, to hug him?  You say, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.” Are you saying that we should defer our vengeance to God? Let God handle it. But we want to see them lose so we will feel victorious, see them suffer so we will feel satisfied; see our enemies eliminated so we will feel safer.

Paul’s lesson is too hard; too unrealistic. And then Paul says feed our hungry enemies. Give them drink. Care for them. Overcome violence with good. What world does he think we live in? He must have lived in a more peaceful world. Right! 

Paul was taking his lead from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.   Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” To be a good Christian we are to pray for the boss who takes credit for our work, for the teachers’ pets and the abusing bullies on school buses. But come on! Are we to pray for every level of enemy? Are we to pray for the enemies who aim to destroy our country? Are we to pray for our ideological enemies – conservatives pray for liberals –industry for green – unsafe miners for their company’s stock-holders?   Are we to pray for people at church who disagree with us? Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” 

Okay, but what shall we pray? I can understand Glenn Beck praying that Jon Stewart get laryngitis. The Wall Street Journal shared a prayer this week. It was a prayer sent to the members of the Bergen County Education Association. It went, "Dear Lord, this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. . . . I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor." 

Jesus is not telling us to pray that God smite or injure our enemies. He is telling us to pray that they be blessed. He is telling us to pray that every cycle of dis-unity that leads to physical, spiritual and mental violence be ended. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about our passage today saying, “This is the supreme demand. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. For if we pray for them, we are taking their distress and poverty, their guilt and perdition upon ourselves and pleading to God for them.” 

We are invited to imitate Jesus. He witnessed to God’s loves for all people. He shows us how to tap that abundant love of God in our worldly relationships. God wishes the best for all people even our enemies. We are invited to end cycles of destructive behavior replacing them with patterns of good will.  

Yet, we get caught up in the competition. We shut off God’s wisdom within us and strike back. Sniping and pushing and hitting and bombing and disabling enemies seem to be easier actions than peace-filled caring and feeding, good will and blessings. Christians, we are invited to imitate peaceful Jesus. Is it unrealistic? Sure it is. Is it contrary to human nature? Sure it is. Does it seem counter-cultural? Yes. It’s very dangerous too.

But friends, we are living in Easter hope. We are freshly out of the pain of holy week and can recall the suffering Jesus. How he refused to retaliate with curses and swords against his political and ideological enemies. Recall the cost to him. Peace and good will towards enemies is not cheap, it’s enormously costly but worth it. Recall the quality of Jesus’ love for people. Recall the quality of his love. He witnesses to us the quality of God’s love for us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that we might not maim and kill each other but that we might have peaceful lives together.” 

In my youthful pride, I thought I was above having enemies.   Unfortunately, I realize have some in Frederick.   I spent about four months last year expending extraordinary amounts of mental energy trying to win a battle with a group in Frederick. I became fixated on winning and wrote letters to the editor, talked with Frederick citizens, wrote politicians, wrote state agencies, pondered filing a lawsuit.   I spent way too many hours in the mornings plotting rather than praying.  

Now, I am not going to tell you what was going on. I will say that legally I was right and that I was fighting an injustice. However, I let the joy of the battle overwhelm the pursuit of justice.

There is an annoying woman in Frederick who will not speak to me. She’s the spokesperson for my opposition. I saw her last at a grocery store with her young children; compelled by today’s scripture, I smiled and said “good afternoon.” She would not even look at me.   It was easier to try to bless her when I saw her with her children. With her children, my demonization of her was harder.   With her children, I had to suppress my visions of vengeance. With her children, I glimpsed that she is also a child of God.    While she may remain an enemy, Paul and Jesus are teaching me to wish her well nonetheless. Not to curse her but to bless her with my good will. 

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” We are invited to rain grace upon our rivals imitating God. 

We are invited to spend our lives passing on the abundant love of God. Our God offers us boundless, unreasonable love. Our God rains down love, feeds us with acceptance, plies us with mercy, and calls us to friendship. We are invited to interrupt the cycles of violence initiating cycles of unreasonable generosity.  

As God’s agents, as Christ’s disciples, as good humans we are to counteract natural inclinations for retribution with clever responses of love. I do not believe we are being invited to disparage our own worth. We are not being invited to sacrifice our lives, to belittle ourselves before others allowing them to abuse us.   We are being invited to respond to evil with clever actions of love, and with goodwill prayers of peace. 

Look to the verses before ours today in Matthew, Jesus gives examples of clever responses to enemy actions. Turn your cheek – it does not mean to invite them to hit you again. It means to embarrass them before others by not dignifying their violence with your own. Scholars believe this is about a master or a superior backhanding a servant or inferior. The backhand was to show displeasure and to embarrass the subservient one.   In this culture only the right hand was used for such things. Turning the cheek was defensive. 

It prevented the master from backhanding your left cheek again. And it stated your dignity, that you are not cowed. In that culture money lenders could pressure you into paying your debt by making your give them the cloak off your back as a daily collateral. Jesus is saying embarrass them, reveal their greed publically by not only giving them your cloak, but give them your Hanes briefs too. Stand before the court naked. 

Be clever, as wise as serpents in your pursuit of peace with enemies. Don’t succumb to their violence against you and don’t return their violence. 

There is nothing sentimental or the least bit easy about loving enemies. There are no guarantees that our love will always conquer evil. We may be crucified but the ultimate gain for our world is greater than the risk.    Every time we disable a cycle of dis-unity we further the peaceable promises of God.

Peace-making is hard, it’s costly. But we know that making and keeping enemies is more costly. Retaliation is more expensive than peace. Wars are costly, offensive maneuvers are costly, defensive maneuvers are costly, preemptive maneuvers are costly much more costly than peacemaking.

Building stockpiles of missiles both real and metaphoric takes too many of our God given resources and corrupts them, wastes them, destroys us.

Friends, we can learn to be peacemakers. We need God’s providence. We need merciful rain, the abundant rain of God’s perspective to nourish us. We need God’s love of the other and of ourselves to fill us with the emotional energy necessary to move the mountains of dis-ease, disregard, disgust and destructive dislike. 

Partake of God’s peace daily. Soak up God’s nourishing rains of peace daily. Respond to each other with loving maturity. Be Clever and react towards your enemies with God’s abundance of unreasonable love. Pray to God daily for peaceful power, for peace-filling wisdom, for friendship, and for love of friendship. 

Barbara Brown Taylor in a sermon on Loving enemies, tells this story.

I still remember my nephew Will's first birthday party. He was as, round and bald as a Buddha at that point, still hovering on the verge of speech. Never out of his parents' sight, he was a typical only child—used to being the center of attention—only he was not spoiled yet, because he had not yet learned how to manipulate love for his own ends. He just thought everyone was loved the way he was, and he gave it away as fast as he got it.

There were only a handful of us there that day—Will's parents, aunts, and grandparents, plus his godparents and their seven-year- old son, Jason.

After the cake and the singing and the presents were all over, Will let us know how pleased he was by doing his new dance for us—a shy twirling in place that he had invented several days before with lots of fancy arm work.

We were all circled around him admiring his dance when Jason simply could not stand it anymore. He charged through the circle, put both of his hands on Will's chest, and shoved. Will fell hard. His rear end hit first, then his head, with a crack. He looked utterly surprised at first. No one had ever hurt him before, and he did not know what to make of it. Then he opened up his mouth and howled, but not for long. His mother hugged him and helped him to his feet and the first thing Will did was to totter over to Jason. He knew Jason was at the bottom of this thing, only since no one had ever been mean to him before he did not know what the thing was. So he did what he had always done. He put his arms around Jason and lay his head against that mean little boy's body, and at that moment all my Christian conviction went right out the door.

I will buy him a BB gun for his next birthday, I thought. Iron knuckles.  A karate video for toddlers. It just about killed me, to think how that sweet child would have to learn to defend himself, but it was either that or eat dust on the playground the rest of his life, with some bully's foot on the back of his head.

Only according to Paul, Will was right and I was wrong. "Do not repay anyone evil for evil," he wrote the Romans, "but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all." What Will did to Jason put an end to the meanness in that room.[2]

I close with the wise words of Abraham Lincoln, “Do I not conquer my enemy by making him my friend?”

May it be so! Amen.