The text for this
sermon is Matthew 5:43-45a. Pastor Jim
Kniseley gave this sermon at Resurrection on February 20, 2011, the Seventh
Sunday after Epiphany.
Children’s Message “A Word is
‘Love’”
I’m thinking of a four-letter
word that is found 508 times in the Bible.
Can you guess the word? Yes,
“love”! Jesus said that we are to “love
God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and we are to love our
neighbor as ourselves.” Today I would
like to teach us a song about loving our neighbor:
Love, love, love, love
Christian this is your call
To love your neighbor as yourself
For God loves all.
Sermon for All
The law codes for Jews were meant to help people treat each
other fairly and lovingly. Our first
lesson today from Leviticus is a good example of what the people of Israel were
taught:
·
When
harvesting your field, leave some for the poor and alien.
·
Don’t
steal or cheat or lie or swear.
·
Treat
the blind and deaf with kindness.
·
Don’t
slander people.
·
Don’t
hate any of your family or seek vengeance against any of your own people.
All of this is done for a reason. This reason is repeated several times in
today’s first reading: I am the
Lord. In other words, because I am
the Lord and I am holy, I want my people to be holy. This is how I want my people to act and
behave. It shows you love and respect me
and you want to be my very own.
I could end my sermon right now, for this is a mighty fine
message. To love God and our family and
friends is wonderful. In the Sermon on
the Mount, in today’s reading, Jesus does what he often does. He goes a step further; this is a radical step. He says just loving those who are your family
and friends is not enough. We are to
love our enemies too. Here are the words
of Jesus: “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…”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., must have been thinking about
Jesus’ instructions when he prepared this sermon while sitting in a Georgia
jail just after the bus protest in Montgomery:
Here is a portion of that sermon: (about loving your neighbor) “Of course this
is not practical; life is a matter of getting even, of hitting back, of dog eat
dog…My friends we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time
now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of
communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and salvation
of mankind, we must follow another way.
This does not mean that we abandon our righteous efforts. With every ounce of our energy we must
continue to rid this nation of the incubus of segregation. But we shall not in the process relinquish
our privilege and our obligation to love.
While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved
community.” *
Dear friends in Christ here today: “Why
should we love our enemies?” Of what
benefit to us, the world, and God is there for us Christians to love our
enemies?
It’s a good question, for much of the world and many folks in
our society don’t believe and don’t practice loving their enemies. The natural tendency of human beings is to
hate our enemies and figure out a way to get even with those who oppose us or
hurt us. It is Jesus who blasts our
normal ways and commands us to respond in abnormal ways.
I read a story about former Boston Red Sox Hall-of-Fame third
baseman Wade Boggs. He hated Yankee
Stadium. Not because of the Yankees;
they never gave him that much trouble but because of a fan. That’s right: one fan.
The guy had a box seat close to the field, and when the Red
Sox were in town he would torment Boggs by shouting obscenities and
insults. It’s hard to imagine one fan
getting under a player’s skin, but this guy had the recipe.
One day as Boggs was warming up, the fan began his routine,
yelling, ‘Boggs, you stink’ and variations on that theme. Boggs had enough. He walked directly over to the man, who was
sitting in the stands…and said ,’Hey
fellow, are you the guy who’s always yelling at me? The man said, ‘Yeah, it’s me. What are you going to do about it?’ Wade took a new baseball out of his pocket,
autographed it, tossed it to the man, and went back to the field to his
pre-game routine. The man never yelled
at Boggs again; in fact, he became one of Wade’s biggest fans at Yankee
Stadium. The point of the story is this: love your enemies. It might change them, and we know it will
change you. **
What kind of “love” are we to show to our enemies? Let’s get practical now. Our enemies are probably folks that bug the
fire out of us, who seem to oppose us and don’t appear to have our best
interests at heart, perhaps are folks who really have injured us in some way,
and probably are folks that we have a hard time being near. Do any of you here feel that way about
someone in this world?
What kind of love then does Jesus call us to show to these
folks? A Bible commentator, Douglas
Hare, helps us to see that Jesus isn’t talking about a feeling of love. He does not say that we are to get these warm
fuzzy feelings for folks who are our enemies, especially those we know continue
to behave in hurtful ways. In fact, the
Sermon on the Mount is simply silent on the subject of feelings. Where it is quite descriptive is about
actions, what we do in order to show the love taught by Jesus.
We are to walk the extra mile, turn the other cheek, and help
all in need.
So, what can we learn today from Jesus command to love our
enemies? We learn that:
·
Jesus
commands us to practice his way of forgiveness and peace
·
Jesus
can transform our words and deeds to be like his.
·
When
we act in this radical way of loving, we show that we want to be one with God
the Father and his Son Jesus.
How do Jesus’ words today match up with our congregation’s
new guiding principles? Principle #6 is
this: We proclaim the Good News of the love of Christ in word and deed at all
times and in all places. May God
empower us to so act. Amen!
*Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., page 596, quoted by Chuck Queen, Love Your Enemies
**Phil Thrailkill, Loving Like God Loves