“WHAT,
THEN, SHALL WE SAY . . .?”
Romans 8:31-35, 37-39
Matthew
5:43-48
 |
| Pastor Greg Russell on Holy Thursday at our Ecumenical Eucharist |
So, last Sunday when Lucy Painter and I
gathered at the back of the sanctuary to come down the aisle, she said, “Real
shame about Orlando.” And I said, “What
happened in Orlando?” And that’s how I
found out about what has turned out to be the worst mass shooting on U.S. soil. A madman with a grudge against gay people
and using ISIL as a quasi-religious cover, armed with a military grade rifle,
began his cowardly work with devastating results at Pulse nightclub – 49 dead
and 53 wounded with several more expected to die from their wounds.
And a week later as we bury and mourn our
dead and try to help those who have been wounded to heal, I have to
preach. Preachers preach, so I have to
say something. What can I possibly say
to you? As I told Lucy last Sunday as
we stood in front of the communion table, and you watched me try to absorb what
she had just told me, “I’m out of words; I just don’t know what to say…”
One of the things I can say to you with
confidence is that “Terrorist Attack” is not a heading you’ll find in the
concordance at the back of your study Bible.
I know. I looked.
But I didn’t stop looking there; in
addition, I looked under the heading, “enemies,” and this is the very first
listing I found. In his ‘Sermon on the
Mount’ (Matthew, chapters 5-7), Jesus is recorded as saying this:
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.’ . . . If you love only those who
love you,
do not even the tax-collectors and the
gentiles
do the same? . . . No, you must be perfect,
even as
your heavenly father is perfect.”
(Matthew 5:43-48)
And my first reaction is: “Please,
Jesus! Don’t ask this of me – not right
now! I just can’t do this! I hope we track down all the people who have
inspired and carried out this awful thing, and grind them into a powder so fine
that the wind can’t find enough of them to blow away!” I feel like Peter, who, after his initial
encounter with Jesus, cries out, “Lord, get away from me, for I am a sinful
man!” (Luke 5:1-11)
“You expect too much, Jesus! I can’t be like you --- I just can’t do
it! Now I know why so many of those who
initially followed you fell away! Your
sayings are too hard! They require too
much! There is an extravagance of
goodness here that I simply cannot approach!
“An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that’s what I want! Give me that old time religion!!
Right now, that’s what I want.”
Except, as Gandhi once observed, . . . when
everyone operates out of ‘eye for eye and
tooth for tooth,’ the world winds up blind and toothless. If we descend to that level, then they have
won already.
You may think this is excessively
confessional, but surely I am not the only one on the horns of this particular dilemma
here this morning. I confess this
barbarous act is a hard test of my faith in a just and loving God. And over the course of the next days and
weeks, I will find out whether my faith is of a kind that is fitted out for
foul weather as well as fair. For, you
see, the true test of any people comes, not when things are easy and going our
way. It comes when the bottom falls out
of our lives, and things are hard. When
that happens – personally or nationally -- can we muster a faith that gets us
through?
You see, friends, there are two kinds of
faith in God. One says “if” . . .
then.
“If all goes well, if
life is hopeful, prosperous and happy, then I will believe in God.” The other says, “though . . .” Though everything goes wrong, though
the forces of evil triumph and the cross looms, nevertheless will I believe in God.
The Bible is full of this contrast – on
the one side Jacob saying: “If God will be with me, and will keep me in
this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so
that I shall come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the
Lord be my God . . .” [Genesis
28:20ff] That is fair weather faith – bargaining with
God for our trust if all goes well -- and when things fall apart, of course, it
collapses.
But there is another kind of faith
recorded in scripture – a faith that begins, not with the word “if” but with the word “though:”
Yea,
though he slay me, yet will I trust him . . . [Job 13:15]
Though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with
me . . . [Psalm 23:4]
Though the waters roar and foam, though the
mountains
be shaken in the heart of the sea, yea
the Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob
is
our refuge . . . [Psalm 46:2-3]
Well, friends, I call on you to testify
with me that this is one of those “though” moments.
Though
the hosts of evil round us
Scorn
our Christ, assail his ways,
From the
fears that long have bound us
Free our
hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us
wisdom; grant us courage
For the living of these days. (Harry Emerson
Fosdick: “God of Grace and God of Glory”)
I
don’t know about you, but right now I need plenty of both wisdom and courage to quell my rage. I candidly admit that by myself I am not
equal to the task.
The simple fact of the matter is that we
need each other. As we pray for the
needs of those who are hurt and hurting, as we pray for our own needs, you make
me stronger by your presence here. And
God who hears our prayers will hold close those who are dead and those who
mourn, just as God holds us close.
God must be very sad at the way we treat
one another. I cannot help but believe
that when this horrible thing happened last Sunday morning, God’s tears were
the first tears that were shed.
As predictably as Sarasota heat in July,
we heard calls for “a moment of silence” this past week. SILENCE IS NOT WHAT WE NEED!!! WE NEED TO BE SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF OUR
LUNGS!!! NO MORE!! NO MORE!!!
NO MORE!!!
Some of us may think that the LGBTQ battle
is over, that it ended with the legalization of same-gender marriage last
year. Some of us may even think that
the LGBTQ community has been greedy and overreaching by “infringing” on the
“rights of the majority” – rights LGBTQ folk continue to be denied. And to an extent, I can understand why you
might think that.
As a whole, we like to distance ourselves
from the past when it is ugly. We love
fairy-tale endings, particularly ones in which no one has to deal with feelings
of guilt or accountability. This kind
of thinking is not new – just look at pretty much EVERY conversation
surrounding our rape culture or conversation about race.
We do this so we can wash our hands of the
atrocities committed in our country on a daily basis. We do it so we can chalk up this horrific
shooting as the act of a single extreme madman rather than acknowledging our
complicity in shaping the culture which makes this kind of crime not only
possible but inevitable. That approach
keeps it easy and comfortable and distant for us. It is also deadly. It does not fix the situation, but merely
perpetuates the cycle of violence in place.
It would be comforting to think that the
LGBTQ battle is over, but that is far from true. We dare not forget the struggles and
injustices that have shaped and continue to shape this community. We dare not forget that our own President
Ronald Reagan refused to acknowledge the AIDS crisis until a million people had
died from it. We dare not forget that
Matthew Shepard was beaten, tortured, and died because of his sexual
orientation, or that Brandon Teena was raped and murdered for being a
transgender man.
We dare not forget the LGBTQ youth who
took their lives because of bullying, harassment and rejection. We dare not forget that over 20 transgender
women – many of them women of color – were murdered in the last year (2015)
alone. We dare not forget that 52% of
the LGBTQ population lives in a state that does not prohibit employment
discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
LGBTQ people are still discriminated
against and victimized daily. This
shooting was not an isolated event, or remnants of antiquated homophobia, or
just religious extremism. It stems from
a very real homophobic culture that exists in our country – the cul-ture many
of us contribute to, whether we want to admit it or not.
If we believe that “tolerance” is enough,
we are part of the problem. We don’t
have to beat up an LGBTQ person to commit a hate crime or encourage another
person to do so. If we misgender
Caitlyn Jenner, cringe at the thought of gay affection or use phrases like “no
homo” or “Oh, that’s so gay,” we contribute to the culture that fostered this
crime.
You see, tolerance isn’t a real thing;
anything less than accep-tance is just gross indifference or suppressed hatred. Loving Neil Patrick Harris, but finding the
thought of “gay sex” gross is not acceptance; embracing white, gay men while
rejecting trans people is not acceptance.
Every time we do that, we tell criminals like the Pulse shooter that
they are not alone in their thinking.
We send the implicit message that LGBTQ folk are a nuisance and an
intrusion only meant to be tolerated for social appearances. In doing these things, we not only
dehumanize an entire group of people; we provide the social ammunition needed for
someone to commit these kinds of atrocities.
If we would be allies, we have to be
active allies and truly combat homophobia and transphobia when we see it. That means calling someone out when they say
something hurtful or ugly. It means
caring more about what is right than what others think of us. It means not tokenizing LGBTQ folk, or
dismissing their struggles, or spouting some “liberal” thoughts just to score
social brownie points. The LGBTQ
community doesn’t need for us to patronize them; THEY NEED US TO STAND UP FOR
WHAT IS RIGHT!!
This community
is one of the most resilient groups in the world, but just because they can withstand the worst of storms does
not mean they should be subjected to them.
They should not have to live in a world
where their love is questioned and dismissed.
They should not have to live knowing that many of their members are on
the streets or in the cemeteries. And
they shouldn’t have to live in a world where they mourn the deaths of fifty of
their sisters and brothers. They
deserve better; they deserve better from our government, they deserve better
from our society, and they damn sure deserve better from the Church at large! We shouldn’t have to tell them, “It gets
better;” it’s time for us to be able to tell them, “It is better.” In fact, it’s
past time.
So, this morning, I want us to covenant with
one other that we will do three things:
First:
We need to stop being bystanders. We need to
speak up for our gay friends and
neighbors. They cannot
afford for us to laugh at the gay jokes.
But more important:
They cannot afford for us to be
silent! They need for us to
help them advocate for same-gender
partners to be able to
make medical decisions. (Thank God Pres.
Obama relaxed
HIPPAA rules following the Orlando shooting
for that very
reason!) Just last Sunday in this very space we sang God of
Grace and God of Glory, and in particular the line: Save us
from
weak resignation to the evils we deplore . . . I heard
us.
We
sang it well; we sang with gusto; I even thought we meant
it!
Second:
We need to remember that the shooter and ISIL
are part of a political movement that is
using Islam as a
pretense. They represent just a tiny minority of
fanatics
who no more accurately represent the
basic tenets of Islam
than
Jim Jones (of Jonestown), or David Koresh (of Waco)
accurately represent the basic tenets of
Christianity. For the
safety of our Muslim sisters and
brothers, we must not fail
to remember this and to get that word
out to the larger
community.
Third,
and finally: We need to remember who we are and,
more importantly, whose we are. For we belong
to Jesus
Christ, through whom the Lord of history
has revealed an
uncanny knack for bringing forth good
out of evil. If you’re
ever in doubt of that, please refer to
the cross for exhibit A.
What, then, shall we say about all
this? The last word I shall give over
to the Apostle Paul, who, in his letter to the church at Rome, writes (8:31-39):
Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall
tribulation,or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or sword? .
. . No! In all these things we are more than con-
querors
through him who loves us. For I am
utterly certain
that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the
love of God made known in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:31-39)
Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God!
This is the
word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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