I had the distinct pleasure, this last Thursday, to meet with Rev. Steve Miller, my counterpart at the First church in Jaffrey. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss plans for the Ash Wednesday service – which, by the way, is going to be great – you should come! The United Church of Jaffrey will host that service here in the Parish Hall this year, at 5pm on March 5th.
As he was taking his leave, Steve gave me one of his patented Steve hugs.
“Take care, Brother,” he said, “and have fun writing your sermon this Sunday!”
What? I was not aware that there was anything particularly challenging about this Sunday. Seeing my confusion, Steve explained:
“It’s Love your enemy” this Sunday.”
Ahhh…
The mists cleared…
Steve is right.
Christ’s “love your enemy” teaching, which Laurie just read for us, is hard message to preach about.
This teaching presents two challenges:
One: it is totally straightforward – you can’t misinterpret his meaning…
And two: it feels like an impossible directive to actually pull off in the real world.
I wish Jesus made a polite suggestion… It would be very helpful if he said something like… “You know… it might help if you reached out to your enemy.”
I might be willing to do that.
Jesus might even say something like: “treat your enemy with respect.”
That would be a tall order, but I could try to do that.
But “Love your enemy”?
Really?
Isn’t that overdoing it a bit?
Honestly, I protect myself by being a bit miserly about applying the word “love” to people that I encounter in my life.
Love is a word that I tend to reserve for people in my intimate circle – people like my parents, my wife, my children, some of my close friends.
Love is a powerful word.
I am more liberal with the word “like.”
I might be open to “like your enemy.” It would be hard, but it would at least be within the realm of reasonable consideration.
“Love your enemy?”
I’m having a hard time with this message right now.
A woman at the Prepared to Serve workshop that I facilitated yesterday, told a story about a friend. This friend who is of Cambodian descent, but is an American citizen, was stopped on I-93 for no apparent reason. She was held in detention for a week, before her lawyer could prove that she is an American citizen.
In response to this story, another person related that her daughter’s boyfriend, who is a young Black man, has been stopped and questioned five times since January 20th.
These people’s crime?
They are not white.
Racist profiling is quickly becoming the norm.
This…
This is the despicable work of the people who, today, I call my enemy.
People who seem intent on poisoning the beautifully diverse fabric of American culture for the sake of their own power.
So…
Love your enemy?
I don’t think so.
I don’t think I can do it right now. It’s just too much to ask.
**
I seem to have dug myself into a hole here.
I’ve noticed that I do this with some frequency in my sermons – dig myself into a hole. I don’t mind. It makes getting out of it more fun and satisfying for me – and hopefully for you too.
Even though this hole is deep, I do think that Jesus is onto something important with his unequivocal insistence that we “love our enemies.”
But to clamber out of this hole, I’m going to need a ladder.
And yes, you guessed it, the ladder I want to use comes from this morning’s second reading, from the Book of Genesis.
This is another tough passage.
In it we overhear an irate God who is the very act of cursing Adam.
And to the man God said,
‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree
about which I commanded you,
“You shall not eat of it”,
cursed is the ground because of you;
Well… I cannot help but take a moment to disagree with God who curses Adam for “listening to his wife.” In my experience “listening to my wife” has always resulted in blessings! I am sure that curses would be heaped upon me if I didn’t listen to my wife!
But I digress.
These painful words are the words that God uses to expel Adam and Eve from the garden. These are the punishments that result from the eating of the forbidden fruit. This is what, in our myth of origins, we know as “the fall.”
I introduce this passage because it is from this story that the early Christian theologians came up with the doctrine of Original Sin. The idea, that first appeared in the works of Cyprian (in the third century AD) and was honed and codified by Saint Augustine (in the 5th century AD) proposes that the first humans, Adam and Eve, were created in a state of pure sacredness, but through an act of disobedience (the eating the forbidden fruit) they turned away from God, and the purity of their sacredness was distorted. This distortion was the original sin – and it is this distortion – this turning away from God, that has been passed along from generation to generation.
You have not heard me preach about Original Sin. I don’t recall ever using that phrase, though it is an idea that has made its way into the consciousness of people of all three of the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam.)
I don’t like the premise that sin is innate – that we are born with it. I am impatient with hamfisted doctrines like this that claim to be true of all human souls regardless of the way each person chooses to live their lives. I suppose I am a jealous mortal. I don’t like a doctrine that limits the influence we have on how our own lives turn out. If a divine curse makes sin inevitable and in this way predetermines the course of my existence, I feel cheated. Life seems too full of mystery and poetry for something as clumsy as original sin to hold much sway.
That said, I realize that I have no problem with other doctrines that universally apply to all human souls – like the idea that we are all made in the image of God. I emphasize God’s blessings, and tend to leave God’s curses to gather dust in the corner.
And we cannot pretend that our souls are not susceptible – perhaps even eager, to be distorted. I don’t like the idea of original sin, but I can certainly see that there is something at work in the human soul – something that is prone to turning sour, curdling in our gut, so much that we become instruments, not of love, but of hatred.
If God is love, then original sin or not, we certainly do have the ability – the well developed skill – of turning away.
As often as we turn away from Love, we turn away from God.
**
OK, but where’s the ladder that was going to get us out of the love your enemies hole?
When I think about the challenge presented by love your enemies, it occurs to me that the thing that is most difficult about this directive, is that for me (and I thik probably for all of us), love is hard to separate from admiration. I admire the people I love, and since I find it well nigh impossible to admire my enemies, I find myself in an irreconcilable hole when it comes to “love your enemies.”
But it the notion of original sin makes me wonder if, maybe, God loves us in a different way – in a way, perhaps, that doesn’t require admiration.
I wonder if God sees us, not only as we are now…flawed and broken… but also as we were when we were created – pure, sacred, turned toward love.
Can we also tap into this kind of love? A love that is not directed at the flawed enemy, but at the flawed enemy’s forgotten essence? Could we love that possibility, rather than the reality of hatred, greed, and violence?
Could such a love – a kind of original love be offered to an enemy, even if that person, in his or her woundedness, is most distinctly not worthy of admiration?
If such a love was possible, maybe we could have a more generous understanding of how we love.
Sexual love clearly involves a very physical kind of admiration. The love of family, the love of friends, even the love of self – they all seem to involve admiration. We are personally invested in these loves. Our admiration gives us pleasure, so these are relationships that we benefit from.
These loves make us happy.
Jesus, though, was capable of giving out his love to all. He did not discriminate. Or rather when he did try to limit his love (as with the Syrophonecian woman) he corrected himself.
Maybe Jesus was capable of a kind of original love – a love that the Greeks called agape – selfless love – a love that does not benefit the self.
A love that is not for the sake of oneself.
A love that is for the sake of love.
This kind of love does not require admiration.
If we don’t have to admire the object of our love, we can see more clearly how that person is choosing, by his or her actions, to turn toward, or turn away from God.
Perhaps Christ was capable of this love because he saw beyond original sin to an original love. Perhaps Jesus was uniquely able to recognize, in each of us, the pure, unqualified sacredness that God gave us before we turned away.
As I think about it, perhaps this agape – this selfless love – does not depend on admiration, but flows from generosity. This love wants to be given, not because the person it is being given to deserves it, but because the person it is being given to needs it.
For is it not likely that the person who hates the most is the people who has been most hated?
What if, as a child, my enemy – the hateful person – had encountered a generous spirit who had loved him or her?
What if that love had been given, not because the person was admirable, but because the person needed it? In that case, I suspect that the person – my cherished enemy – might not have become our enemy in the first place.
**
It seems to me that today, more than ever – when the halls of power are tainted with hatred, this kind of love – this original love that can be generously given – is both subversive and crucially important.
This is what we do.
This is what Christians have always done.
And this…
This is the time when it is more important than ever to climb out of our holes and love our enemies.
Amen.