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Anticipating Emmanuel – “God in Them”

Texts: Matthew 5: 43-48

Preached at North Oxnard UMC and College UMC

December 17, 2017

Prayer – “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.”

“Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean that they are not out to get you.”  It’s a funny line but it is also true. When you are paranoid, you have this unrealistic idea that everyone else is out to get you. It may be a crazy idea. But just because it’s a crazy idea, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

I can be paranoid AND people may really be out to get me.

When I am afraid, I think that everyone around me is an enemy. They all hate me. And, since I know I am a good person – well, at least a reasonably good person – I am sure that they have no reason to hate me.

If they hate me for no reason, they must be evil. And, if they are evil, they must hate me for no reason.

Growing up in America, I always was taught that the enemies of my country were jealous of my freedom. They want to enslave me like they have enslaved their own people.

I am too young to remember when our enemies were the Germans and the Japanese. By the time I was growing up the only Japanese people I saw were gardeners in the San Fernando Valley and they did not seem either scary or hateful.

But I knew the Soviets were my enemy. They wanted to blow me up with the nuclear weapons that they had stolen from us.

Then they corrupted the Cubans and the weapons were only ninety miles away.

Then the Chinese. Then the Vietnamese. Then that scary Ayatollah in Iran. Then those Muslims from all over the world. Every Muslim in the world wanted to kill me.

And I was told, all of these enemies for more than half a century hated me for no reason, simply because they are evil and they hated me because I was good and I was free and they were jealous and evil. That was the only possible explanation.

Then I read Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount – just a few verses before the words we heard this morning.

Jesus said, “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

I am embarrassed to say that for many years – even though I had heard it read many, many times – I thought these words were about forgiveness. I was so self-centered that I heard the words to say that when good and righteous me was on my way to Church and I remembered that I was at odds with someone because of something that happened between us, I should go and forgive him and then go on to Church.

I was well into adulthood when it suddenly struck me that Jesus didn’t say when I have something against someone else I should forgive them – although I should. No, Jesus said when I remember that someone has something against me, I should go and ask forgiveness and be reconciled with that enemy before I go on to worship God.

Jesus is reminding me that sometimes the other is my enemy, not because of what he did to me – but because of what I did to him.

I have to be ready to recognize that maybe – just maybe – I have given my enemy reason to hate me. Maybe it is me who has to go and confess and ask forgiveness and be reconciled with my enemy because I was the one who was wrong.

But what about when I have not given my enemy cause to hate me? What about when my enemy just hates me? Aren’t I justified in hating him back? Doesn’t he bear the obligation to come to me and ask – beg – my forgiveness?

Jesus says, “No.” Jesus says that God loves the one who hates me just as much as the one who loves me. God loves the evil person just as much as God loves the good person.

So, if I want to be a child of God, I have to love the evil person as much as I love the good person – because the evil person is every bit as much my brother or sister as the good person. Because the evil person is also a child of God.

This makes my life so much more complicated. If I must love my enemy – If I must love the one who hates me – how can I speak out against the evil things my enemy does? How can I condemn the evil while loving the evil doer?

The answer – as difficult as it is – is in the final sentence of the reading this morning. It is a sentence that we usually choose to ignore because it is a sentence that we believe to be impossible.

Jesus says that we gain nothing by loving those who love us. Even the most sinful people love those who love them. Loving the people who love us is the easiest thing in the world.

But loving those who hate us – loving our enemies – that is the hard thing. But Jesus says we have to do it anyway.

Then he says what we think is impossible. He says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Now that is just crazy talk. After all, when people are criticized their most common response is, “Nobody’s perfect.” And we believe it. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody can be perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist.

And yet, I once stood in front of a thousand people and promised to do just that – to be perfect.

It happened on June 17, 1997 – the night I was ordained. The bishop stood in front of me (and about twenty other candidates for ordination) and asked us, “Are you going on to perfection?” and every one of us answered, “Yes, with God’s help.”

And then the bishop asked, “Do you expect to be made perfect in this lifetime?” And again we all answered, “Yes.”

Was I lying? Were we all lying? Were we promising to do an impossible thing? After all, we all say, “Nobody’s perfect.”

But those questions have been asked and answered positively by every person who has ever wanted to be a Methodist clergy. The questions go back to John Wesley, himself.

And they were just a controversial and just as seemingly impossible when he asked them as they were when the bishop asked them of me.

But that is exactly what Jesus challenged us to be – “Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

But then, Jesus also told us that we don’t need to learn a lot of rules and commandments to be his followers. Being a Christian is not about “do this but don’t do that.”

No, Jesus said there were only two commandments – Love God and love your neighbor. That’s it. No “Thou shalt not.” No “don’t do that.”

If you love God and love your neighbor, you are a faithful follower of Jesus Christ and according to John Wesley – according to Jesus – you are perfect.

Now Jesus made it painfully clear – and never clearer than in the Parable of the Good Samaritan – that every one is our neighbor. Even the one whom we call our enemy. Even the ones who hate us. Even the ones who act evilly.

We must love our enemy. It is impossible to be a follower of Jesus and come to any other conclusion. But it does not follow that we must accept the evil that our enemy does.

Mohandas Gandhi loved the Sermon on the Mount – including the words we heard this morning. In fact, Gandhi said that he might have become a Christian, if he had never actually met one. Apparently, Gandhi observed that Christians are no better at living what they profess than are Hindus – or are Muslims, for that matter.

So, even though he could not become a Christian, he could endeavor to follow the words of Jesus faithfully. He could love his enemies.

Early in the movie Gandhi, Gandhi is at a meeting to organize opposition to the apartheid laws of South Africa where he was living at the time. There are those who want to use armed resistance to fight for their freedom.

Gandhi says, “No.” He says, “Freedom is something I will fight for. It is even something I will die for. But it is not something I will kill for.”

A half a century later – as part of that same struggle to end apartheid – Archbishop Desmond Tutu came to the same conclusion. We must love our enemy, but we must actively oppose the evil which the enemy does. Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

If we are to follow Jesus faithfully, we must love our oppressed brother and sister. We must work tirelessly to end the oppression under which they live. To do less would be less than perfect. We cannot be neutral.

But, as tirelessly as we work for the right, we must never forget that the oppressor is also our brother or sister. That God loves them just as much as God loves us. That the oppressor is every bit as much a child of God as I am – as the oppressed are.

Our call is clear. We must feed those who are hungry. We must house who are homeless. We must oppose those who have – whether by action or by acquiescence – conspired to make them hungry and homeless.

If we simply share our food with those who are hungry. If we simply provide shelter for those who are homeless we will be praised – although probably not emulated.

However, when we seek to change the systems that have made people hungry – when we work to change the systems that have oppressed people – people of color – people who are poor – in short, when we work for justice rather than simply for relief, we will be persecuted.

Dom Helder Camara, an archbishop in Brazil, once wisely noted, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

We must never equate love for the oppressor with acquiescence to the oppression. We must work tirelessly for justice.

But our efforts on behalf of justice do not allow us to ever – ever – hate the oppressor. We must always love our enemy because our enemy is our brother – our enemy is our sister – our enemy is a beloved child of God – a beloved child of God in whom God is revealed to us.

Emmanuel – God with us – God in me – God in us –God even in them.

Our loving God is revealed even in our enemy. Perfectly revealed.

Amen.

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