Scriptures: Old Testament--Mfcah 6:1-8 Epistle--I Corinthians 1:18-31 Gospel--Matthew 5:1-12

Transcription

1 WHAT SHALL I BRING? a sermon preached in Duke University Chapel by The Reverend Jon M. Laidlaw Acting Assistant Minister to the University January Scriptures: Old Testament--Mfcah 6:1-8 Epistle--I Corinthians 1:18-31 Gospel--Matthew 5:1-12 It frightens me, really. It frightens me that it's all beginning to make sense. It's all beginning to look so sane and rational and pragmatic even. / This is one of the dangers of being tn church as often as t am. This point to which I come and at which I say: ';A fine thing, this Christianity. Makes sense. Makes good sen~e." Because I find myself believing all sorts of things in church that I would never let folks pull over on me 1n the real world--out there where lovers make love and flowers grow and babies are born and ~arriages fail and junkies die and the sacred and the secular collide in a most inelegant way. I. It's not supposed to be this way, of course. And I tnow ft. And you know it, too, I imagine. Soren Kierkegaard knew it- knew it when he said that "Christianity has taken a giant stride into the absurd". And when he said: "Remove from Christianity its ability to shock... and ft is altogether destroyed. It then becomes a tiny, superficial thing, capable neither of inflicting deep wounds or healing them". What frightens me most, I think, is that the craziness of it all--this Gospel of Christ crucified--has given way to the coziness of it all. This sort of snug and warm and comfortable feeling that we have when you and I can come together and sing our hearts out and pray our heads off and preach our tongues numb- and still not hear or feel or even imagine the cutting edge of it all, the utter madness of it all. II. As I say, ft's begun to make sense. And it hardly shocks anymore, if at all. And when I say it doesn't shock anymore~ I am speaking, you see, of this New Thing--this ~ms"become o-a!j' Word become flesh, the manger and Bethlehem, the Cross and the

2 Suffering Servant, Gethsemane and Golgatha--of the grand and holy and preposterously redemptive nature of these places and people and events. To borrow from the old Dane, the absurd has begun to sound reasonable. 2 Or maybe not so much reasonable as that we're numb--you and I- to the bite in it all. I look at my life. And I look at your lives. And I look at our lives--here, together. And I see how much we have accomodated, made room for, been seduced by the wisdom of the world. This daily wisdom, shrewdness, cleverness that we do so take pride in and depend on to get by with--on this demanding planet. And it's no wonder, I suppose. all, we tell ourselves. And from the pretty well when all is said and done the debts are settled. We've got to get by after looks of things, we get by and the sun goes down and Perhaps the sermon on the Mount will suffice--as illustration I mean. HOW BLEST ARE THOSE OF GENTLE SPIRIT;THEY SHALL HAVE THE EARTH FOR THEIR POSSESSION. HOW BLEST ARE THE PEACEMAKERS; GOD SHALL CALL THEM HIS DAUGHTERS AND SONS. Or from the Sermon on the Plain, which is Luke's variation of the same thing, you see. The same sermon. LOVE YOUR ENEMIES; DO GOOD TO THOSE WHO HATE YOU. GIVE TO EVERYONE WHO ASKS YOU; WHEN SOMEONE TAKES WHAT IS YOURS, DO NOT DEMAND IT BACK. PRAY FOR THOSE WHO TREAT YOU SPITEFULLY. This is radical stuff--this talk about love and unquestioned philanthropy and a gentle encounter with an ungentle world. These are the seeds of revolution--of an old humanity givfng way to a new humanity. It's no wonder that the first Christians were thought to be drunk on wine. It's not surprising that King Festus thought Paul's defense of the Christian faith merited a psychiatric examination. YOU ARE MAD is how old Festus put it to Paul. And quite likely he was. Because that sort of allegiance to the faith requires a certain madness--a certain enlightened lunacy, if you will. And maybe that's it. It's wise that we've become. mad that we're not. And it's Until there's hardly any difference at all between what we believe in here and what we live out there. Until the beatitudes,

3 3 let's say, sound something like this: "How blest are peacemakers, They'll have done to them what they are loath to do to others. How blest are those who show mercy. They'll get it done to them a second time. How blest are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. They shall be called fanatics". III. And so I'm beginning to better understand now why it is that God sees fit to place into our midst prophets and sceptics, poets and jesters, children and clowns--that through these the very radical, pervasive, insane, foolish Word of God may somehow reach us and touch us and transform us and lift us a little bit out of ourselves and into grace. WHAT SHALL I BRING? inquired one of those prophets, that contemporary of Isaiah, that one whose name and words would be invoked years later when defenders of yet another prophet named Jeremiah would say: "But wait.. wait... Micah said... And Jeremiah would be gotten off the hook one more time. WHAT SHALL I BRING WHEN I APPROACH THE LORD was the question, though of course there was more to the inquiry than that. There was a bargain to be struck, hopefully, and what the interrogator really wanted to know was this: Just how much is enough--how many calves, rams, rivers of oil? My eldest child? How much do you require, Yahweh? How little can I get by with?" And then the answer. And it's an answer so deceptive in its brevity, so radical in its requirements. AND WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE OF YOU? ONLY TO DO JUSTICE AND TO LOVE KINDNESS, AND TO WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD. In other words, 11 lt's not your piety and your songs and show of solemn faces that I want, not even your money and goods unless given in love. No, what I want you to do is to move away from your worship of power to the use of your power as a means of worship." That's what God is urging. A living sacrifice. And if today that lacks sufficient particularity, then let Jesus provide that: HUNGERING TO SEE RIGHT PREVAIL. MAKING PEACE. SHOWING MERCY. In a world inclined toward violence and vengeance as Christians, ours is a different mandate. Here we are in a world beset by violence and all forms of 11 brutality and death, and the question arises: What can be done? How can those impulses to hurt and destroy be transformed into the desire to heal and make whole? How can these savage impulses so close to the surface of each of us be recycled somehow into creativity? The wisdom of the world says that the only way to cope realistically with evil is 11 the way of the tiger"--that is, to give destructiveness a dose of its own medicine by inflicting pain back upon those who hurt others--employing violence to curb violence. And it is this notion that lies at the heart of the philosophies of war and capital punishment.

4 4 But when you and I reflect seriously on this, it is to see that it is no solution at all. Indeed, it is simply buying into the sickness that we are trying to cure. The truth of the matter is, "The way of the tiger" does not bring peace to the jungle at all. Presently, the conventional wisdom of the world says put to death James Hutchins, and Velma Barfield, too, and the many others so condemned. Eye for an eye, life for a life, violence for violence. But Jesus repeatedly mandates another way--the way of mercy, which is to say returning not evil for evil but good for evil. Martin luther King described it as the "asymmetrical response iving out grace in the presence of all that threatens grace. As Christians--as human beings--exercising our capacity to love rather than to destroy. Our age has come to equate justice with vengeance. But, in fact, in the Biblical scheme of things--that is, God's scheme of things--they are not the same at all. Indeed, were that God's notion of justice, then you and I would have no good news to proclaim, no grace to savor, no hope. It is Abraham Heschel who reminds us: "Divine justice involves God's being merciful, compassionate. And then: "though (human) justice would require that Abel's blood be avenged, Cain is granted divine pardon and protection". No, God does not intend that justice dissolve into retribution. They are not the same at all. And that is why Micah spoke as he did. And that, in fact, is behind the Sermon on the Mount. Justice and mercy dwell together as kindred spirits, and they have as their purpose enhancing human life and human community. DO JUSTICE, says the prophet. SHOW MERCY, urges the Christ. PURSUE RECONCILIATION. And the miracle of it all, by God, is that it works! Over and over again, when the Sermon on the Mount is adopted as a way of life, change has occurred. Destructiveness is transformed into creotivity, curdled hatred recycled into love. If the way of the tiger makes us more beastlike--and it does--the way of the Christ does hold the potential for transforming life and bringing peace- shalom--to a violent world and troubled relationships. IV. WHAT SHAll I BRING? asks Micah for us all. And his name, though SJartan, declares its own truth. In Hebrew it means "Who is like Yahweh?" Who is like Yahweh, indeed? None that I know. And yet.. and yet. Perhaps I have f orgotten. Perhaps we have forgotten. SO GOD CREATED HUMANKIND IN ~! S OWN IMAGE. IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, HE CREATED HUMANKIND. For what purpose? J.HY KINGDOM COME, THy WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. An implausible hope, undoubtedly a

5 5 foolish hope. But someone, somewhere, once upon a time did propose a prayer that includes that vision. WHAT SH A L~ WE BRING--YOU AND I--WHEN WE APPROACH THE LORD? Only the doing of justice, and the loving of kindness, and the walking humbly with the God who creates us. What God requires of us, you see, is not something outside of ourselves but rather our very selves--that righteousness will, indeed, prevail and mercy be shown and the sorrowing comforted and the earth embraced by Shalom. For Christ's sake--and fn his name. Amen.