Overriding Common Values

Based on Luke 6:27-38
First delivered Feb. 24, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            Last week we heard the start of Jesus’s sermon that he gave, not from the mountaintop as portrayed in Matthew but on flat land, a plain, where he stood on a level place surrounded by people who wanted to hear what he had to say. Jesus began his sermon by flipping the script on who we typically identified as who are the blessed and who are suffering woe. Jesus said that the poor are blessed but woe to the rich. The poor are blessed because the kingdom of God is theirs and they will receive some day all the richness and bounty of the kingdom of God. But for the rich, they receive their blessings now. In the future they will go without. This may sound like the rich have no hope for the future. But Jesus explained what he meant through the story about Lazarus and the rich man. It was the hardness of heart and failure to share that led the rich man to suffer in hell. Jesus gives good news to the poor. But he reminds the rich that the blessings they have now won’t last. They have a responsibility, as declared by the prophets for generations, to share what they have with those who are in need. And the rich can do this with confidence that they will receive even more in the age to come. Whatever they give now will be returned to them, shaken, pressed down and overflowing.

            Today we hear a continuation of Jesus’ sermon. Jesus is still flipping the script. Speaking the message of the great prophets of old, Jesus calls all who would hear to practice values that are different from the common shared values of society, both theirs in the time of Jesus and in our own. Jesus is proclaiming kingdom values instead of common values. They are values that turn things upside down, that beckon us to a way of relating to each other that is radical, vulnerable, transformational. You have heard that the mission of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. To the extent that we as disciples live out what our master teacher Jesus is sharing with us…that would truly transform the world. What are our common values that Jesus overrides with kingdom values?

            One common value is reciprocity. This is the basis of our economic life. I offer you my services and in return you affirm me and I get a paycheck so I can pay the businesses who offer me and my family services such as electricity, water and wi-fi. A mutual exchange of goods is based on reciprocity. Contracts are set up on reciprocity: I commit to these things and you likewise commit to these things for our mutual benefit. Reciprocity is a critical value to a just society. It is unjust if some people always give and never get anything back or people only take and never give. Reciprocity, give and take, is the basis of fairness. Surely Jesus has no problem with this value.

            But Jesus challenges us to adopt a value that does not depend on reciprocity. He says, for example, that we are to give without expecting anything in return, not even a thank you. We give and the response of the one who receives is irrelevant. We give just because we can and there is a need. Jesus teaches us not to lend anything. Rather, we are to give when people ask us and not expect to get it back. We don’t lend. We give.

            It’s kind of amusing when you are sitting in a meeting and someone says to you, “Can I borrow a piece of paper?” Are they really going to give the paper back to you? Of course not. So you say, “You can just have it.” I’ve collected a few pens along the way too by asking someone if I can borrow their pen and they say, “You can keep it, I have another one.”

            But then there was a time I asked a church member if I could borrow one of his saws to cut some wood. He said, “Sure” and let me borrow a nice saw. I cut my wood, hung the saw up in my garage and there it stayed for months! I totally forgot to give it back to him! Finally, I noticed it hanging there and, apologetically, took the saw back to him. He said to me, “Keep it, I just bought myself another one.” I don’t know if he gave me his saw not expecting to get it back, but he didn’t ask for it back. He just got himself another one. He was putting a kingdom value to work.

            I think the bigger issue here is that Jesus doesn’t want anything to block us from giving what we can to those in need. He doesn’t want us to calculate if we are going to get paid back or gain some other advantage. If someone is in need, and you have the capacity to give, then just give without thought about whether you will get paid back or benefit in any other way.

            Another common value our society holds is getting even. Another word for it is restitution. If you break a window, you pay for it. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Getting even is all about making things right. I know that in many cases, we just let things go. Sometimes we just want to forgive the person who wronged us and move on. Say it’s late in the afternoon and you are trying to get home after a long day at work. You are stuck in traffic. You get distracted and accidentally roll forward and bump into the car in front of you. You and the person in the car you ran in to steps out and you both take a look. There’s a little dent there but, everyone is trying to get home and cars are all lined up behind you. The person whose car you just dented looks at you and says, “Forget it, no big deal.” You thank them and then get back in your car and make your way home grateful that you were forgiven and didn’t have to go through the hassle of making things right. Now, I’m sure if there wasn’t a lot of traffic, or the damage was more severe, that would be a different story. Rightly, the other person would want you to make things right. They deserve to get even with you.

            Jesus tells us not to get even. Instead, we are taught to forgive others when we are wronged, and that’s it. No demands for restitution. No attempts to get even. Simply forgive. What the person you forgive does in response is up to them. No conditions to your forgiveness. They don’t have to make things right and then you forgive. You just forgive. Now it’s likely whoever harmed you will want to make things right. Then again, they may not. And that would be a bummer. But you forgive anyway. After all, you and I need forgiven ourselves from time to time. It’s nice to be forgiven. Jesus said if we forgive then we will be forgiven. We pray here every Sunday, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” When Jesus was on the cross, he asked God to forgive those who put him there. They didn’t have to repent first. They didn’t have to make things right first. Jesus forgave first.

            There’s another common value in our society, which is to love our friends and family and hate your enemy. That goes without saying. It’s completely natural. How can you have anything other than hate toward your enemy, toward someone who does everything they can to destroy your life, maybe even take your life. The enemy directly threatens your safety and security. For survival, your enemy has to be stopped, deterred, perhaps even eliminated. Hate seems to be the natural posture toward someone who threatens your survival or the survival of your family and friends. Especially if they have killed someone in your family or some of your friends. Hatred is the only adequate response towards people like that.

            Why did Jesus have to say that? Why did he have to give us this hard teaching to love our enemies? This pushes us to wonder what Jesus means by “love.” There is no way that Jesus means we are to have the same feelings toward enemies as we have towards our family and friends. That is just not going to happen. So love must mean more than a feeling. I wonder what Jesus means by love?

            I think we can agree that Jesus does not associate love with affection or warm feelings. Maybe what Jesus means by love is to desire for the well-being of the other and doing what you can for the well-being of the other. What would it mean to desire the well-being of your enemy? How would that impact what you do to your enemy that will provide for their well-being?

            Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan. Samaritans and Jews were at odds with each other. This was a generational disagreement. Samaritans and Jews had been raised to despise each other. They were not friends. They were enemies. The Samaritan saw a man beaten up and left for dead. We don’t know if he is a Samaritan or a Jew. But does it really matter? The Samaritan acts in a way that provides for the well-being of that person beaten and left for dead. The Samaritan has love for this person. Would his response been different if he knew that the person beaten up was a Jew? Perhaps. But as the story goes, a priest and a Levite walk past the man and keep going without stopping. It is extremely unlikely that the priest and the Levite were in Samaria. So it goes without saying that the Samaritan was traveling in Judea. That means the man beaten by the side of the road is very likely a Jew. And it is quite likely the Samaritan knew that. But he looked past the old enmity that he was raised to believe. He didn’t see an enemy. He saw someone he loved and he had to do something about it. What an amazing person this Samaritan was. The Samaritan loved his enemy. Not with a warm and fuzzy feeling, but with a desire for the enemy’s well-being. And not just a desire. The Samaritan acted in ways that provided for the well-being of his enemy. This is what Jesus means by loving our enemies.

            As I said last week, you and I are called as disciples of Jesus Christ to make connections with people. Just as Jesus stood eye to eye with others and removed all obstacles so that people could get to him, so we have to remove external and internal obstacles that separate us from one another. We are challenged to build relationships with rich people and poor people. And today we are being challenged to build relationships with our family and friends and our enemies. In other words, whoever you encounter, no matter who they are.

            It is one thing to close the gap between the rich and the poor. It is a whole other level to close the gap between enemies. Let’s face it. If you do desire the well-being of your enemy, staying away from them may be for their own well-being! There is something to be said for separate corners. Maybe what you can do for the well-being of your enemy is limited to staying away and avoiding doing any harm. But even that can be a challenge. How do we even get to the point of desiring the well-being of our enemies?

            It seems to me that the only way we can desire and even contribute to the well-being of our enemies has to be rooted in our relationship with God who loves us no matter what. Because God is love, God loves all of creation. God loves every human being. God desires the well-being of every creature and does all God can to bring about the well-being of every creature. Of course, God is not the only actor. How else to explain the discord and brokenness in our world? But that’s the subject for another sermon.

            What I’m trying to say is that for us to have love for our enemies has to be involve an overflow of love that we receive from God. It helps to know how much you are loved by God so that you can love others. In fact, there is a scripture that says, “We love because God first loved us.” Love comes from God. So the only way we can love, much less love our enemies, is to know that God loves us, desires for our own well-being, acts for our own well-being, no matter what. God’s love is not conditional. We can always count on God’s love. And the kicker is that God loves our enemies as much as God loves us. That is how radical God’s love is. God desires your well-being and God desires the well-being of your enemy. When we act against the well-being of our enemies, we are frustrating God’s desire.

            What is God’s desire for the special called session of the General Conference? Yesterday was a day of prayer and preparation. The deliberations over how the United Methodist Church will move forward begin today and last until Tuesday evening. A lot will be said in these three days. There will be a lot of rhetoric, a lot of emotion, and very likely a bit of pain. It pains me to say that there will be times over these next few days when some people at the conference will wonder if everyone there desires their well-being. People may wonder if there is any love at the conference.

            Surely God desires the well-being for everyone at the general conference. God desires the well-being of every person who identifies with the United Methodist Church. The challenge is, will we find a way forward that cares for the well-being of all of us? That is my prayer and I hope it is yours too. Let it be our prayer that love will prevail over these next three days. What that will look like may not be what any of us would choose. But whatever happens, let us hope that what God desires will happen.

Seeing Across the Chasm

Based on Luke 6:17-26

First delivered Feb. 17, 2019

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            I want to ask those of you who watch late night chat shows, like the Tonight Show, for instance, have you ever noticed that the host who is interviewing the guest has his chair positioned so that he is slightly higher than the guest? It’s very subtle, but it is done to almost subconsciously communicate who is in a position of authority in the show. It is the host’s show and he is in charge. Think about when you have found yourself in a court room. In every court room I have been in, the judge not only sits behind a desk but is elevated higher than anyone else in the courtroom. Again, this communicates a level of authority. Now look where I am standing, behind this pulpit, a position of authority.

            I know of a church in Oklahoma City called Church of the Servant. The sanctuary of that church was like nothing I had ever experienced before. The ceiling had skylights to let in natural light. There were lots of indoor plants, a waterfall, and even, if I remember right, some birds they had flying around in there. The seats were arranged like in an arena. On the floor was centered the altar. So, when the sermon was being preached, the pastor was actually at the lowest level on the floor while everyone else was sitting in their stadium seats. You could see everyone and all their attention was down at the center. I thought that was pretty cool. It removed any obstacles from seeing what was happening and it sort of flipped the signal of where the authority figure was.

            This morning our scripture reading was the beginning of a sermon Jesus preached. It is similar to the Sermon on the Mount we find in Matthew. But the setting is different in Luke. Here, Jesus comes down the mountain to a level place. And it is from there, standing level with the people gathered around him, that Jesus preaches his sermon. Clearly he has the authority. Everyone was there to hear him and to be healed by him. He did not need to be physically elevated above the crowd. There was no obstacle that blocked people from having access to him. Jesus came down to the level of the people. I think that is significant. Jesus placed himself in a position where the people could get to him, where he could look at them eye to eye, where they didn’t have to go up a mountain or stand on their tippy toes to shake his hand while he stood behind a desk, a pulpit or a barrier. I am so tempted to step down from this pulpit and give this sermon from the floor.

            Jesus starts off his sermon by saying some things that run counter to who we typically value and bless in society. Jesus blesses the poor and curses the rich. Well, maybe not curse them, but certainly letting the rich know that they better enjoy what they have now because it won’t get any better for them than it is right now. The poor, though, they have something to look forward to. The poor are the ones who are blessed, lifted up, elevated. The rich are given a message of woe. For them, things will get worse. It is the poor that will be better off.

            I tell you, it just doesn’t seem that way. What is blessed about being poor? It seems like everything goes against poor people. Yes, there are social services. But they can often be hard to access. And you have to go to different places, wait in line, keep up with paperwork, to access these services. The housing you get is probably substandard. Getting good, quality food at a reasonable price can be a challenge. The schools most poor kids go to are often run down. There is a lot of trauma around being poor and that trauma plays out in broken relationships, violence, stress, drug abuse and mental health issues. I could go on and on. There is nothing I can see that’s good about being poor. I think most of us would rather be rich. If you are rich, there are plenty of resources you can access that others can’t tap in to. You have a powerful network of relationships that can make life easier for you. People who are rich have lots of options, lots of freedom, lots of support. Being rich doesn’t seem like a bad deal to me.

            But Jesus seems to be pushing against what seems so obvious to us. Blessed are you rich and woe to you poor. Jesus flips it around. Jesus wants the poor to hear good news. Remember? That’s Jesus’ mission statement, which he read from the book of Isaiah when he started his public ministry. Part of his mission is to proclaim good news to the poor. And so he does by telling the poor that the kingdom of God belongs to them. They don’t have much in this life, in this society, but they do belong to the kingdom of God. Jesus is giving the poor hope that one day they will be full and they will laugh. One day, the blessings the poor long for will be theirs. There is hope for the poor. God is with the poor.

            The rich, on the other hand, need to be reminded that God is paying attention. All that wealth they have is meant to be shared with the poor. If the rich forget that, and hoard all they have for themselves and for their children’s inheritance, God’s going to take it away from them. Later, in Luke 16, we read the story of Lazarus and the rich man, traditionally named Dives. You remember the story? Lazarus was a poor man who laid at the door step of the rich man’s house. He longed for just a scrap from the heavy laden table in the rich man’s dining room. Dogs would lick his sores. He was poor, hungry, and full of sorrow. The rich man was full, laughing at his dinner parties he had all the time, and apparently paid no attention to Lazarus.

            Lazarus dies and is carried up to heaven to the bosom of Father Abraham. The rich man dies and is buried. He descends to Sheol where he is tormented by flames of fire. Looking up to Lazarus and Father Abraham, the rich man begs for relief from the pain, the suffering that he is enduring. “But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.” Blessed are the poor and woe to the rich. This was part of the prophetic witness of Jesus, a witness that can be traced all through the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures. What Jesus is preaching in his sermon isn’t new. And it still has an edge that provokes, that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, as the old phrase goes. That’s what prophets do.

            Prophets can get themselves into a lot of trouble. Jesus said it himself. Jesus said that prophets are excluded, reviled, and defamed. They also get killed. John the Baptist was a prophet. He chastised King Herod for the way he was living and got his head cut off. Jesus was a prophet. He was crucified because of the things he said to the religious authorities. He was portrayed as a threat to Caesar’s power and authority. We know that prophets are excluded, reviled, defamed, and killed. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet. Oh, he’s famous now. He has a memorial in Washington, D.C. and a federal holiday. But not many people wanted to build a monument to him when he was assassinated. He said things about our involvement in Vietnam that turned a lot of people off. He advocated for the government to either be the employer of last resort or provide a basic income to every American because, in his mind, it is intolerable that there would still be American citizens and children of God living in abject poverty in the richest nation on earth. That got him derided as a communist. He was helping to organize sanitation workers in Memphis when he was killed. He was in the middle of planning a poor people’s campaign, an ambitious program that would bring together poor people, white and black, to march on Washington and demand that the federal government do what it is supposed to do, which is to promote the general welfare, as stated in the preamble to the Constitution. King knew what it was like to be excluded, reviled and defamed. That’s how prophets get treated, even to this very day.

            This series of sermons we are in is generally focused on the topic of who are the people in our community, who is the “other” that we are to love. Love God, and love one another. Who are the “one anothers”? What do we learn in today’s scripture about who we are to be in a loving relationship with? It appears to me that the people that were crowded around Jesus were a mixed crowd. There were poor people in the crowd who needed to hear the good news. But there were also rich people in the crowd who needed to hear a prophetic word. Jesus didn’t just preach to or heal poor people. He healed rich people too. He preached to rich people as well. He healed and taught all who came to him, whether they were rich or poor. And he gave his message in a way that spoke to the needs of the poor and the rich. The poor and the rich needed the message Jesus gave them.

            So this is our challenge: to be in relationship with poor people and rich people. In these days the gulf between the poor and rich is not just in the size of bank accounts. There is a social gulf that is so vast. It takes effort for poor people to be where rich people are and vice versa. Reflecting back on Jesus’ story of Lazarus and Dives, Father Abraham said to the rich man, “There is a great chasm between us and you that has been fixed. No one can cross over from here to you and none can cross over from where you are to us.” It seemed that when Lazarus was lying at the very doorstep of the rich man’s house there may as well have been a great chasm between them. We know that a great chasm separates the rich and poor today.

            Where are we able to cross that chasm in our society? The BMV is probably the most likely place where poor and rich are forced to be together in one space. Everyone has to get a driver’s license. You know our society is divided up in ways that separate. Poor people have public housing and public libraries while rich people have private schools and private country clubs. How do we be in relationship with the poor and the rich when we live in a society that keeps us apart?

            We have to figure out how to remove the obstacles that block us from being in a loving relationship with poor people and rich people. Jesus came down the mountain and stood on a level place where everyone who wanted to could get to him. No barriers. Everyone had access. What are the barriers that we need to remove?

            I would like us to think about what internal barriers block us from being in loving relationships with poor and rich people. Maybe you avoid being in relationships with poor people because they make you feel uncomfortable. They act different or hold different values. You don’t want to be caught up in a dependency where they are always asking you for help or you feel guilty about all the comforts you have while they go without. And maybe you are uncomfortable around rich people, find them a little intimidating. They seem so much smarter, more sophisticated, maybe a little standoffish. What are your feelings or biases toward poor people and rich people that you need to acknowledge and overcome?

            Jesus came down the mountain and came to a level place. And a crowd gathered around him to be healed of their diseases and to hear him preach. He placed himself so that he could see the people eye to eye, so that the people could reach out and touch him. Jesus removed obstacles so that everyone could get to him. When it came to Jesus, there was no great chasm. Anyone who wished could get to Jesus. No barriers.

            We can do this too. We can put ourselves where the crowds are. We can allow ourselves to connect with others who need healing from their dis-ease. We can speak the gospel that people need to hear. We can look at people eye to eye. Taking the lead of Jesus, there is no reason for us to erect obstacles that block us from placing ourselves at the same level with anyone else. So I invite you to look past the barriers that separate us one from another, especially look past whether the person you are relating to is poor or rich, to walk with Jesus over those chasms, so that we can make connections with anyone who is willing to connect with us.

            I was a little kid in junior high. I had just gotten old enough to be in my church’s youth group. We were all loaded up on the church bus to head out for a youth retreat. It would be my first time away from home. Sitting by myself on the bus, I looked out the window and saw my dad waving good bye to me. I waved back. And as the bus began to move forward the tears started streaming down my face. I was already home sick and we hadn’t even left the church parking lot.

            Someone on the bus noticed me and saw that I needed a friend. His name is Jake. He was an upper classman and one of the cool kids. He is also black. He saw this little white kid who needed to know that everything was going to be ok. Jake came over and sat with me for a little while and just talked to me. Throughout the weekend, Jake would check in on me and make sure that I wasn’t stuck sitting somewhere by myself. He went out of his way to make sure that I was included, that I belonged to the group. Jake saw past the barriers of race and of age and made a connection with me. Jake and I became friends. And that made a huge impact on my life. Getting past the barriers, of rich and poor, of white and non-white, of citizen and non-citizen, of elder and child, and all the other ways we are divided up in this society, and making connections with people who need healing, who need to hear a word of hope or a word of challenge, who need a friend…this can impact lives in ways we may never know.

Let us pray.

O God, the One who crosses all barriers to be in relationship with all people, the One who crossed barriers to be in relationship with each one of us, we ask you to help us through the power of the Holy Spirit, to cross all the barriers, internal and external, that block us from being in relationship with others, so that through us You can speak a word of hope, a word of challenge, and a healing touch. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.