A Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Genesis 45:3-11,21-28
Psalm 37
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50
Luke 6:27-38
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Old, blind McFail, of the Clan MacDonald,
expressed over and over again his hate for the Campbells of Glencoe,
for they had massacred his great grandfather and many other MacDonalds long ago. One day a school teacher, probably also a MacDonald, approached young Malcolm, the old blind man's grandson, and reproached his grandfather, saying, "Your grandfather must forgive the Campbells if he's going to be a Christian!" Malcolm responded, saying: "You see Miss, my grandfather can't be seeing the Campbells – he's blind. If you can see your enemy face to face you can forgive them. But not to worry, when he sees them in heaven, he will forgive them." At that, the prim school teacher bristled, "What makes you think the Campbells will be in heaven!" Then Malcolm replied, "Ah, Miss. If you're thinking God didn't forgive the Campbells, you must not have forgiven them yourself!" (George MacDonald, "Fisherman's Lady") |
"Love your enemies." "Do not judge or condemn." "Forgive and you will be forgiven." . . . Easier said than done.
We don't love our enemies. That's what makes them enemies. We don't have good loving feelings for them. But this isn't about love as a good feeling. This is action rather than emotion. Jesus is talking about love as something we choose to do, not a feeling that just happens. And he's very specific about what are to do. Turn to all those who hurt us and in return, do good, bless them, give them what they ask for and then some. That's hard work.
And it's even worse when there's a family feud involved, whether between MacDonalds and Campbells, or between parent and child, or spouses, or siblings. The closer to us the hurtful people are, the harder they are to love. -- that's what makes the Joseph story so powerful.
Joseph's brothers sell him off to slavery. They think they're done with him. As far as they are concerned, Joseph, the dreamer, is as good as dead. And then this powerful Egyptian lord, to whom they have come to beg for food, turns out to be that same brother ... the other brothers probably thought they were as good as dead then. Yet, to everyone's astonishment, Joseph forgives them.
That looks like insanity to us Clan-MacDonald types. Whatever happened to good old "eye for an eye" justice? Or even, "What you give will be given to you"? They should get back what they gave Joseph. His brothers tried to kill him, he should reply in kind. And instead he showers them with gifts.
Forgiveness often looks absurd and foolish. And yet that is just what Jesus is asking us to do – to act like fools. When we get handed bad stuff, we don't retaliate in kind; we don't ignore it; we return something good, or even laughable.
Now we may not hear anything laughable in, "Turn the other cheek." That sounds like asking for punishment, or enabling abuse.
But in Jesus' time, striking someone on the right cheek was an insult - it was a backhanded blow intended to humiliate, not injure. It was the way of admonishing inferiors. Turning the other cheek is saying in effect, "Try again. Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status (gender, race, age, wealth) does not alter that fact. You cannot demean me." If the striker does now strike the other cheek with a forehand hit, it would be an acknowledgment of equality. (Walter Wink) Turning the other cheek puts the striker in a very uncomfortable place.
And things do become ridiculous when Jesus talks about giving both garments. A poor person wore only two garments, so a rich person demanding one, then given both, would share the embarrassment of having the poor person walk away naked, like an early Saint Francis.
Jesus isn't alone in suggesting humor in dealing with one's enemies. The Bible does have a sense of the intersection of the ridiculous and the holy. Just listen to what the was said about loving enemies in the Scriptures that Jesus would have read:
"If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and the Lord will reward you." (Proverbs 25:21-22)
Like that reading from Proverbs, Jesus is suggesting creative alternatives to what is expected. He proposes something other than responding to violence with violence or running away. Jesus advises disarming the hurtful power by responding with unexpected dignity or absurd humor. It breaks the cycle of oppression by choosing a something new. It looks oppression and hurt straight in the eye and takes them by surprise.
The savior of the world surprises the powers of world by dying on a cross. Joseph surprises his brothers in Egypt. Campbells surprise McDonalds in heaven.
Look into them straight in the eyes, and painful family memories are healed and forgiveness happens. One might even smile or giggle a bit about it.
It's like an Indiana woman's memory of her mother's peacekeeping strategy.
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When she got in a fight with her sister,
her mother would draw up two chairs,
facing each other about a foot apart.
She ordered the two adversaries to sit.
"Now," she said, "you have to look at each other for five minutes,"
and she stood there to make sure they did.
"Jennifer, look at your sister," she insisted. The two sisters set their faces to stare frostily at each other's folded arms. "Look at her face. Look her in the eye," her mother ordered. They grudgingly complied, struggling to maintain their angry scowls, trying not to smile at the hilarious scowl on the other's face. Their efforts to maintain resulted in yet more hilarious facial contortions. Before long both the sisters were laughing out loud, and their mother was trying not to smile herself. "You may go now," she would say as solemnly as she could. "We never had to sit there the full five minutes," the daughter remembers. "I remember squirming on that chair, trying so hard to hold onto my anger and finding it impossible when I really looked at who I was angry with." |
Jesus invites us to look into one another's eyes. If we stare long enough, we must finally see another child of God.
Thanks to Richard Bolin. Indiana sisters story adapted from "Looking Your Enemy in the Eye", "Peace Tales, World Folktales to Talk About", edited by Margaret Read MacDonald, Linnet Books, p. 88.