Episodes
Monday Jun 22, 2020
What Peace? What Love? - June 21st, 2020
Monday Jun 22, 2020
Monday Jun 22, 2020
What Peace? What Love?
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC June 21, 2020, third Sunday after Pentecost. “Living As If…” series.
Text: Matthew 10:24-39
Last week Foundry received a powerful call from Rev. Kimberly Scott to live as if our loved ones are at risk, to recognize that God has placed us where we are today to be part of building up a new world. When Rev. Scott repeated the call to live as if our loved ones are at risk, I found myself thinking our loved ones ARE at risk. The question is: Who do we count as our loved ones? Who is our neighbor? Only our blood kin? Only those we know well? Only those with whom we agree?
Today, the lectionary gives us what folks in my Thursday night Bible Study widely agree is a not-so-favorite passage of scripture. And, I get it. It’s full of all sorts of confusing and triggery words and phrases. “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” “Whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” “Do not think I have come to bring peace, but a sword.” “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” And what’s all that business about finding and losing life? It’s a lot! But, honestly, the more I’ve read and prayed with our text this past week, the more I realize that these lines of scripture are the sermon Jesus might give if he were to show up at the podium at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Black Lives Matter Plaza today.
Matthew chapter 10 begins with Jesus calling together his disciples to give them authority over unclean spirits and power to cure disease (Mt 10:1) and to proclaim the good news of the Kin-dom (10:7). Jesus then sends them into the world and communicates clearly that some folks will not receive them, will not acknowledge their authority, will not welcome their message (10:14). And worse, they’ll likely get beaten up by those in power and “dragged before governors and kings” (10:17-18). We hear in verse 25 “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!” In other words, the disciples who do what Jesus does in the world, aren’t going to get better treatment than Jesus himself. And, remember, Jesus wasn’t out of the manger before the agents of empire were trying to kill him. He hadn’t started to walk, much less talk, before his parents were forced to seek asylum to save his life (Mt 2:13 ff.). And we know that trend continued throughout his life. Even still, Jesus didn’t back down or pipe down but simply continued doing what he had been sent to do. And he was firmly in the prophetic flow of his ancestors like Auntie Esther whose story we heard last week.
Following Jesus, being called to do and to speak and to love as he does, is risky. It is costly. If your Christian faith isn’t making you shift in your seat, re-examine your priorities regularly, sacrifice some time, energy, or money, try something that feels uncomfortable, make space literally or figuratively for people who make you twitchy, and risk losing something for the greater good, then, well, something is missing.
Let me interject here—as I know we are all weary and in various stages of grief for so many reasons right now—our faith—of course!—is a source of comfort and encouragement. God’s grace and peace is always available for us.
But any kind of “peace” that is pretending there is nothing wrong is not peace. “Peace” achieved by proffering a bland niceness wrapped around simmering resentment, aggravation, dismissiveness, and hatred is not peace. Any “peace” that avoids difficult conversations or avoids naming or changing things so as not to make people angry or uncomfortable is not peace. These and other things are not peace, they are denial, avoidance, and lies. Jesus taught in the beatitudes that peacemakers are blessed. I don’t think he was talking about denial, avoidance, and lies. It’s a different kind of peace that Jesus reveals to us. The next beatitude is instructive: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5:10) You see without righteousness, right relationship—justice—there is no peace. No justice. No peace. “Peace” without justice isn’t peace, it’s pretending. // And understand: the point is not to seek persecution or to stir the pot just to stir the pot.
Jesus wasn’t persecuted because he disturbed the peace in an already peaceful world; Jesus was persecuted because he disturbed the injustice of an unjust world. And he did that in order to make real peace. Jesus comes to disturb anything in the world that keeps people from knowing the fullness of their dignity, value, power, and belovedness. This means—for just one example—that sometimes a gay child will have to challenge the teaching and beliefs of his father and mother in order to live in freedom and in love. Jesus comes to disturb any system or mindset or attitude or practice that would systematically deny anyone their freedom, safety, and daily bread. Sadly, I’ll bet you can come up with myriad examples of that in our world.
All of this leads me to imagine Jesus marching down 16th Street, NW in Washington, DC, stepping up to the podium—after spending some time with the folk who are sleeping on the steps of St. John’s Church—and then stepping into a certain kind of prophetic speech, a cadence meant to unsettle and to make a point. Strong language, hyperbolic utterance, hard words tumble forth such that we are left with little doubt that they’ve landed and done their disturbing work. What is getting shaken loose in these words? What is Jesus trying to get through to us?
That there are more important things in life than our own comfort or ease. That we are made for more than looking out for #1. That going along to get along may have its place in small matters, but doing so when some lives are treated as they don’t matter may cost you your soul.
The Greek word translated “soul” in verse 28, psuché, is the same word translated “life” in verse 39: “Those who find their life (psuché) will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Psuché can also be translated as “breath.” Our soul, our life, is breathed into us by God. And Jesus teaches our life is precious, valued—every hair of every head is counted!—and meant and sent to do healing and life-giving things. We were made to love—to love God and to love neighbor. That is the life purpose breathed into everyone. But, this life can be diminished, denied, even lost.
Think of how much true life is lost by those who think they’ve “got the life” and have it all figured out: those who focus only on their own advancement and comfort and are willing to do anything to get it, those whose “smarts” fuel a cynicism that blocks any vision of a new world, much less motivation to work for it, those unwilling to take attention away from managing their own stuff long enough to realize the folks they’re saying should pull themselves up by their bootstraps don’t have boots, folk who don’t bat an eye at the thought of thousands of lives lost to COVID-19 if it means boosting an economy that already benefits those who can comfortably avoid infection as they enjoy the pool at their second or third home.
God breathes life into us and sets us in creation and in community to live with and for one another. We have been given a Kin-dom vision for life together that breaks down walls of hatred, tribalism, prejudice, selfishness, and greed. We are given authority and power and grace from Jesus the Christ to live and to share that vision and that life with love, with boldness, with compassion, with courage. Jesus isn’t preaching that we shouldn’t love our parents or that if we mess up we get a star taken off our “worthy” chart. One of the ten commandments is to honor father and mother—and there are plenty of ready examples of God’s unfailing compassion and mercy and love in scripture as well. What Jesus is preaching is that the love and the way of life to which we are called requires something of us that may lead to conflict even within the communities that have raised and formed us: our families, our church, our circle of friends, our nation.
Jesus is preaching that we can live a thin peace that doesn’t “rock the boat” and in the process lose the life we were created to live, the life that is willing to sacrifice something in order to participate in the work of love, compassion, and justice. Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor who initially supported, then opposed the Nazi regime in Germany was imprisoned for 7 years in concentration camps. He wrote the following—with some additions to fit our moment: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.” [Then they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out—because I was not an immigrant. Then they came for the unhoused, and I did not speak out—because I was not unhoused. Then they came for LGBTQ people, and I did not speak out—because I was not LGBT or Q. Then they came for black people, indigenous people, and people of color, and I did not speak out because I was not a person of color.] Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. Beloved, our loved ones ARE at risk and we are receiving message after message to do something about it.
We are being called to rise up in this moment of Spirit-breathed, Spirit-ignited revolution in our city and our nation and in our world—the Pentecost revolution that ignites God’s dream. Today we are given authority and power by the grace of Christ to let go of our fear and find ourselves as agents in the revolutionary dream of God’s all-embracing love unleashed in the world. That will take many forms and each of us will need to discern our particular role.
What are you willing to risk for the sake of the dream? What kind of peace will you pursue? What love will you share and with whom? What are you willing to risk for the sake of others? What are you willing to lose in order to live the life you’re made for? Are you willing to live as if more than your life is at stake?
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