The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, 23 February 2014

“Balancing”

The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

23 February 2014

Saint Francis Lutheran Church

San Francisco, California

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18

Psalm 119:33-40

I Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23

St. Matthew 5:38-48

INI

Hatred given for hatred

I presided at a wedding last evening – a marvelous affair at which I represented the Christian tradition and a Cantor represented the Jewish tradition.  Afterwards seated at the sit down dinner, I was speaking with an Episcopal Deacon seated next to me.  “Have you been watching the Olympics?” she asked, opening a break from what we had been talking about.  (And here I had sort of an Out-of-the-Body experience as I watched and listened to my words behaviors in a somewhat surprised mode)  “No!” I exclaimed.  “No, I don’t watch the Olympics.”  (There was a pause, and I went on to explain with no small bit of passion.) “I moved here in 1981, right around the time of the first gay Olympics, and I saw what the U.S. Olympic Committee did to the men and women who had organized the games, specifically the suit that involved Dr. Tom Waddell, who lost his house, and I think his life as a result.”  As a lesbian she understood and the topic was dropped.  I, for one, was stunned at my on-going emotions about this.

So, I won’t be going to Arizona any time soon, unless the governor of that state sees the light.  I won’t eat at Chik-fil-a, nor order a Domino’s Pizza.  I won’t shop at Lowe’s, or was it Home Depot, nor at Target (what did they do again)?  I do this with the same fervor with which I refused Shell gasoline over apartheid, and Denny’s over racism.  I once convinced a national board that I chaired not to have a major convention in Virginia, and I’d do it again.  I wonder if my anger has turned into madness?  Into the heart of my anger and my frustration about the world in which we live – into that heart God speaks:

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

My kin?  My neighbor?  My people?  It is quite explicit isn’t it – my kin, my neighbor, my people.  Where is the “they” that I like to rail against so much.  For Leviticus (how ironic) there is no “they”, no “them”, only kin, neighbor, and people.  In an ancient world of blood vengeance and feuds, we still live with the results of these ancient insults and responses and an unending hatred.

At the root of things

In the Gospel for today, Jesus is a true radical.  He wants to get at the root, the radix, of things.  He tells old stories of hatred and reprisal.  “You have heard it said,” he reports and then goes on to completely radicalize the Law upon which ancient hatreds were based.  This was a world of the lex talionis, of an “eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”  And we need to understand that even in this harsh environment there was an attempt at balance.  It was an eye, only an eye for an eye, not a death, or a life of slavery.  It was a world of enemies and friends, and you hated the enemy.  But Jesus says something different.  “Love your enemies.”  Again, ironically, Leviticus weighs in again noting how we are to actually treat those that are different from us.  They are not to be driven outside of our communities, but rather invited in.  They, the poor, the alien, the “not one of us”, the people different from us, the outside – these are invited to the same field from which draw our sustenance and invited to share the gleanings, the parts left over, for them.

And here, based on these biblical examples, my angry heart wants to deliver a blistering attack about the bankruptcy of our national policy on immigration, or how the poor are treated, or how I ignore the homeless, oh, the list goes on.  However, it is I who need to hear Jesus’ words.  “Love your enemies.” 

Recall the rhetoric, which we often used to describe those who were against us as we fought discrimination in the Church.  They were benighted, they were not fully involved with what the Gospel required, they were missing the point, they were wrong. 

In Jesus’ demand, “turn the other cheek”, he does not ask us to walk away from the fray and to assume a disinterested stance.  No, he would have us meet the situation with love, unreserved love.  Nor is it a love that cannot speak, not only its name but its objections as well.  Jesus calls us to reprove those who do our society a great wrong, “with justice you shall judge your neighbor.”

It calls for a balancing, doesn’t it?  It calls for some wisdom, some understanding.  It calls for something outside of our selves.

Holiness

In the third century, Tertullian observed something that pagans were saying about Christians.  “See how they love one another,” he reported.  On Maundy Thursday, at the Last Supper, Jesus models a different kind of rabbinic behavior when he teaches by getting on his knees and washing the feet of his students, and then he says something about what he has just modeled,

“I give you a new commandment:  love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

If there is a behavior that describes the Christian it is this behavior of loving the other.  It is a love that is not limited by the belief or the behavior of the other.  It is love given as once given first to us, and it is given to any and all.  So then the question becomes, how do I balance my reproof of my neighbor when he or she is doing wrong, with my love of them?  Hard, isn’t it?  Perhaps Leviticus has another answer for us.

Leviticus calls us to live in holiness.  The author unequivocally states, “God is holy – therefore you must be holy as well.”  Holiness talk always sets Lutherans on edge.  It smacks of the semi-Pelagian attitude that allows that we might participate in our own salvation.  Holiness is a gift of God, not something that we might obtain on our own, yet.  Here the Bible clearly calls us to holiness. 

And what is God’s holiness?  Recall with me the young lawyer who wonders, “What must I do to be saved?”  Jesus quickly responds with the Great Shema of Israel:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength and might, and you shall love your neighbor, as you love yourself.

There’s that pesky neighbor again, requiring our attention and our prayer.  And there is that pesky “self” as well, requiring an equal amount of love and respect.  Ah, people of the reformation, understand the forgiveness that you once released to the world, and understand the forgiveness that is (as Saint Paul calls it in the second reading) a foundation in Christ.

Will I travel to Arizona?  Maybe.  Will I eat a Chick-fil-a?  Probably not.  I am reminded of a story that keeps coming into my mind.  I was walking down the street in Berkeley, when I noticed that the ACLU was doing some street work, asking people to donate money for work on LGBTQ issues.  I had my collar on, and as I caught the eye of one of the woman polling the street, she quickly looked away.  I walked on, but quickly realized that I had to go back.  “You don’t want to talk to me, do you?”  I asked her.  “No,” she said, “I’ve had enough hatred for one day.”  And then she related how another clergyman had derided her for the work she was doing that day and consigning her to hell.  So I talked with her, shared my story, and asked her to give any other people who might give her trouble a second chance - a chance to tell her story.  I had to turn around and go back.  I couldn’t avoid.  I had to speak to the situation.

Some questions:  Can you accept the forgiveness that allows you to appear in holiness before the God who loves you?  Can you accept the holiness and forgiveness that is given by God to those who don’t agree with you?  Hard, isn’t it?  Let us forgive ourselves, as Christ has forgiven us, and let us keep up the words that make for Good News telling.  Those words may not always be heard, but someday they will.  Those words of grace are the cheek that we turn, our response to an ungracious world.  Remember, my kin, my neighbor, my people.

SDG