February 20, 2022

 Today Jesus continues his sermon on the Plain and so let me start with this from Pastor Katie Hines-Shah  “Now before I even begin to dig deeper into this text I want to make one thing clear: Jesus’ command to love our enemies isn’t a call to allow ourselves to be abused. For centuries some churches had taught that Jesus’ call to “turn the other cheek” meant that battered wives should allow themselves to be beaten and that minorities should put up with unjust situations. Let me just say unequivocally: Compelling a person to stay in an abusive situation is a misuse of the Gospel. As Joseph says in our first reading, our God preserves life. God loves justice and stands for the oppressed. So sometimes loving our enemies means walking away from them. Sometimes it means holding them accountable.”

Today Jesus has just completed the beatitudes, the blessings and the woes.  This morning he says, “Are you still with me, people?”  “Are you still listening?”  Because there is more.  What does living the blessings and woes look like and what will Jesus’ ministry look like?  How will he live his mission statement?  Jesus lives different values than we do.

Jesus loves his enemies.  Jesus crosses into enemy territory when he crosses the sea of Galilee, but he doesn’t treat the people he meets as enemies.  Jesus doesn’t differentiate between the people he comes into contact with.  He wasn’t supposed to talk to women, but he did.  He wasn’t supposed to touch lepers, but he did.  He wasn’t supposed to interact with centurions but he did.  Jesus didn’t abide by the categories of friends and enemies—everyone was worth his time, which is an expression of love. 

Furthermore, Jesus told parables and stories that challenge our ideas of who to befriend and who our enemies are.  The story of the Good Samaritan might as well have been called the story of the good enemy.  Finally, Jesus asks God to forgive those who crucify and mock him and he goes to Peter after the resurrection in a show of friendship toward one who abandoned him. 

Jesus turned the other cheek.  He didn’t defend himself when he was arrested and on trial and beaten and crucified.  He didn’t fight back and  he forbade his disciples from fighting back, when one cut off the ear of the arresting centurion with a sword. 

Jesus did not withhold his coat.  His clothes were divided as he hung from the cross.

Jesus gave to everyone who begged from him.  He healed those who came to him in need of healing.  He fed thousands of people who were hungry. 

Everything we have is a gift from our Savior Jesus, to be shared.  Jesus not only heals and feeds and clothes and gives the people of his day, but he has done so for us.  He has put a good measure, running over into our laps, whether we deserve it or not, but out of love and generosity.  We’re going to sit with that for a moment.  Everything we own, everything we eat, every moment with our family, our church, our technology, our medicine, our surgery, our pets, all the life lessons we’ve learned the hard way, all the love we receive, the roof over our heads and comforts of home, leisure time, and even our own bodies, gifts of God’s grace, overflowing.  It’s too much to bear.  Look around you at your cup overflowing.  Take this moment to appreciate, acknowledge, give thanks.  Let your heart praise God.  That feeling is your cup overflowing.

Now we’re getting to the messy part.  You don’t know how much I wanted to take a pitcher and start pouring it and have it overflow the altar and the floor and make a huge mess, because this is how God works.  God doesn’t stop pouring.  God poured out this beautiful, life-giving world and all the creatures and relationships and the sun and moon and stars and people and rest and messy families like Joseph’s, and all of life’s joys and sorrows.  God overflowed with imagination and hope and loved this world through conflicts and greed and migration and warfare and regret and plague and fears.  God overflowed to us in Jesus, walking among us and never refusing a request for a moment, a touch, a challenging word.  And Jesus poured himself out, his time, his energy, his imagination, teaching, guiding, building, crossing boundaries, making messes of the usual rules that we like to go by about vengeance and violence.  And he took our violence upon himself and poured himself out, every drop of blood and suffering in solidarity with all those who had challenged the norms and been tortured and killed for standing in the way, for standing for peace, for loving and empowering people to see a new way. 

So we come here, bringing our cleanest selves, and we find Jesus making a mess, pouring himself out.  We find Joseph’s family mess—the lies, the jealousy, the fear, the anguish, the pride, the weakness.  It’s all here.  Whatever mess our lives are, uncertainty, illness, addiction, abuse—none of it is too messy for Jesus who is pouring himself out all over our messes.  He’s saying by his life and sacrifice that nothing is too messy for him, nothing is too ugly or painful.

We are here as Jesus’ followers, knowing his love for us who betray and abandon him everyday.  We feel inadequate.  Jesus is capable of loving his enemies, but we’re not sure we are capable.  We don’t give to everyone who begs from us.  We don’t strip off our shirt when someone asks us for clothes.  But Jesus will never keep holding up the ideal for us, an image of the Kingdom of God, of what could be, of what will be when we lay down our arms and refuse to be enemies, when let God’s overflowing mess flow through us to others, when we our gratefulness for all that God has done for us inspire us to give and be generous.  Jesus is telling what life is really about.  The world told us, it was about getting even, it was about being strong and better than others, that it was about getting more and more for ourselves.  But that hasn’t ever worked.  The kind of world that builds is one of division and pain.  Jesus paints this other picture and gives us glimpses of it by feeding and healing and loving his enemies.  And anytime we’re tired of this might makes right world, we have this other way before us of generosity and love and we can catch glimpses of God’s Kingdom breaking through. 

Jesus is telling us who we really are.  The world told us we can only be valued for our work and that people get what they deserve.  The world tells us who are the somebodies and who are the nobodies.  The world lies.  Jesus tells us the truth.  Jesus tells us that we are of value to God as beloved children and so is our neighbor, so let’s live the truth as much as we can.  Let’s not let our sins eat away at us and keep us from trying, but let’s allow God’s love to overflow in our laps and make a mess of the way this world has been ordered on a lie.  This world’s lies are coming to an end.  Jesus has shone a light on them and exposed the fraud and the pain they perpetuate.  This is a new day, for a new way of living.  We are Jesus people, imperfect messes, and yet that’s who he chooses to work through.  We are the cracked vessels that he’s pouring his love into because he never wanted us to keep it, but to pour it out for the blessing of all God’s neglected, forgotten, cursed and blamed children.