A Sermon from First Church, Scarborough…
A sermon offered by the Rev. Ian F. “Jack” Steeves in the public worship of the First Congregational Church of Scarborough, Maine on Sunday, July 1, 2007. The principal readings was Matthew 5:38-48.
“Compassion in a Hate-Filled World”
This morning, we will try to figure out what it means to be a Christian in a very difficult and challenging world. We will begin to come to grips with and understand that we have to take some risks and move out of our own comfort zone to be the “salt,” and to be the “light,” that God calls us to be in the world.
The world is a scary place, so full of hate and people are so angry with one another. It is a problem for my self when I am called as one of God’s people, to be a person of compassion in a hate-filled world.
Personally, I am more than a wee bit terrified when God says, “Jack, the heart of any matter is always a matter of the heart, your heart and my heart.
We human beings are so capable of the most heinous hatred and evil crimes. How do we live transformed lives, those of us who want to follow Jesus Christ?
The first expression of Christ’s compassion was His incarnation (his birth) – becoming one of us, by being part of us – and by extension, enabling us to be a part of Him, His body, His Church. This is real compassion – com + passion – to suffer with, to feel with, and to bear with. Compassion means the giving of one’s self, not just giving from one’s self. Compassion requires the true stewardship of the human soul.
Here is what Jesus said to his disciples. In Matthew Chapter 5, if penned today, in contemporary American English, we might read:
“Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. Is that going to get us anywhere? Here is what I (Jesus) propose: Don’t hit back! Stand there and take it! If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, then gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes advantage of you, use the occasion to practice a servant’s life. No more tit for tat stuff; live generously.
You are familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’
I (Jesus) am challenging that, I am telling you to love your enemy let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer and patience, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. God gives God’s best – the sun to warm and the rain to nourish – to everyone, regardless: the good and the bad, the nice and the nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a year-end bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect an award for life-time achievement? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
In a word, what I (Jesus) am saying is, ‘grow up in the faith!’ You are subjects of the kingdom. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God persists in living toward you.”
How do we do that? I ask that question against the background that the Christian church has not always been part of the solution, but instead many times been the problem. How do we do that, when so many people in the world fail to hear or worse fail to heed the Gospel of Good News? How do we do that, when much that transpires with in our Christian “ghettos,” our meeting houses, our sanctuaries simply does not impact the world at all? How do we do that?
Because the heart of any matter is always a matter of the heart, God calls us to personally figure out, to collectively respond, and to be people of compassion in our own, individual, here-and-now lives.
I once read a graphic story (and have been recently reminded of it in the writings of the Rev. Stephen Lien, a Presbyterian preacher). It is the story of one woman’s resolution of the Apartheid issue in South Africa.
How does someone who is following Jesus act in a hate-filled world?
The woman, a wife and mother stood, listening to several, white police officers acknowledge the atrocities they had perpetrated in the name of Apartheid. Officer van de Broek acknowledged his responsibility in the death of the woman’s son. Along with others, he had shot her 18-year-old son and burned his body until it was reduced to ashes.
Eight years later, Officer van de Broek and others returned and seized the woman’s husband and forced her to watch as they poured gasoline over him and lit the flames that burned his body. The last words she heard her husband say were, “Forgive them.”
Now, van de Broek stood before the new South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commissioners (including the Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu) asked the woman what she wanted. “I want three things,” she said very calmly:
- I want Mr. van de Broek to take me to the place where they burned my husband’s body. I would like to gather up the dust and give him a decent burial.
- Second, Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.
- Third, I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him, too. I would like someone to lead me to where he is seated, so I can embrace him and he can know my forgiveness is real.
(Quoted from the writing of Stanley W. Green, The Canadian Mennonite, September 4, 2000, p. 11.)
The heart of any matter is always a matter of the heart. Oh, we can and should talk, argue, and debate. We can and should vote. We can and should assert our political clout. We can and should protest. We can write letters. But where does it begin? It begins here (in your heart and mine).
The apostle Paul sums it all up: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…” (2 Corinthians 5:18).
When we partake of Communion, Christ’s spirit can and will enter us. Our response is to give our own body and blood – our real selves and resources – to be poured liberally into the wounds of our world. We are called to be people of conviction, not conformity; of moral nobility, not social respectability. We are commanded to live differently and to live according to a higher loyalty.
We must make a choice. Will we march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds? Will we dance to the music of our time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, stride to the soul-saving music of God’s eternity?
While you and I, standing alone or sitting together, we may conclude that we are insignificant grains of “salt,” or mere specks of sand on the landscape, I would remind us that there are over 600 million of us, Christians worldwide. And, oh, the difference we will one day make and be. Amen.
