God's Political Party

Luke 6: 27-38

Epiphany 7

2-20-22

Rev. June Wilkins

 

So my friend who is a pastor somewhere else completely

told me that at the beginning Advent, which is

when we all started to read the Gospel of Luke together,

that he told his congregation:

“if you don’t like your worship services to have some

political commentary in them, then I’m sorry to tell you,

you’re going to hate this entire year.”

 

I guess I wish I had started the year saying that,

but I guess I’ll say it now.

All the gospels and the whole bible itself

is political, it’s not partisan, but it is political.

Politics is about power and how we use it.

All the scriptures speak about the communal care for

the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed

and in every era that has become a political issue.

 

And Luke is the most out there with his concepts.

From Mary’s promise that God will turn the world

upside down, through Jesus brazen talking to all kinds of

women, through his constant raising up of all sorts

of marginalized people through the book of Acts.

 

And in the Sermon on the Plain last week,

Luke told us that the poor were blessed,

not the watered down, poor in spirit, but actually the poor.

And woe to the rich.

This is a political statement.

 

And, of course. Luke wouldn’t miss out this week

with telling us about the rest of the sermon Jesus told

that crowd in front of him.

 

Love your enemies.

Imagine hearing that for the first time.

Pray for those who do you wrong.

Don’t try to outsmart them or get the best of them.

Don’t hurt them. Love them.

It’s a political tactic that hasn’t been tried too often.

 

We like to think that there’s only two ways to respond

to evil or violence or wrong-doing  --

Retaliate or ignore it.

But Jesus outlines a third: Resisting without violence.

 

Jesus says,

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other one also.

And if someone takes your coat, then give them your shirt too.

These are not actions of passiveness,

These are acts of defiance.

 

Turning the other cheek is not an act of weakness.

It’s an act of defiance.

Jesus didn’t say cower until they hit you again.

Jesus said turn the other cheek, offer it to them.

It is showing the other person that you

have not been reduced by their actions.

And if they wanted to humiliate you by taking your coat

then you show them that the

coat didn’t matter and give the shirt too.

Let them see you walking around in your underwear.

 

Jesus advocates standing up and showing

the enemy their wrongdoing by offering more.

Jesus advocates not reacting in fear,

but acting with the confidence and power of God.

Jesus advocates not getting caught up in this endless

cycle of escalating violence,

but exposing it for the activity that it is.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. took the power of this action

seriously, it was the guiding principle of the civil

rights movement he led, he did it himself, he lived it, and it worked.

When people saw protestors on TV getting hit with

the spray of hoses and attacked by police dogs,

and not retaliating, it didn’t show the

weakness of the protestors, it showed the

weakness of their enemies. It was powerful.

More powerful than seeing a another fight.

It showed that loving our enemies

is more powerful than hating them.

 

When Martin Luther King preached

on this part of Jesus sermon at his church,

and talked about the power of loving our enemies,

He told this story about Abraham Lincoln.

 

When Lincoln was running for president,

there was a man named Edwin Stanton, who ran all around

the country campaigning against Lincoln.

He said a lot of bad things about Lincoln,

He was an abolitionist and he thought Lincoln was too weak.

He said a lot of unkind things.

Sometimes he would even talk about Lincoln’s looks

saying, "You don’t want a tall, lanky,

ignorant man like this as the president of the United States."

He wrote and spoke and went on and on about Lincoln.

 

Edwin Stanton & Abraham Lincoln

Finally, Lincoln was elected,
and when he had to choose

his cabinet, he needed to
choose a Secretary of War,

A very trusted position
that he would have to work very

closely with considering
the impending Civil War.

Lincoln looked all over and he finally chose Stanton.

 

And when Lincoln told his advisors,

they said to him: "Mr. Lincoln, are you a fool?

Do you know what Mr. Stanton has been saying about you?

Do you know what he has done and tried to do to you?

Do you know that he has tried to defeat you on every hand?

Did you read all of those derogatory

statements that he made about you?"

Abraham Lincoln said:

"Oh yes, I know about it; I read about it; I’ve heard him myself.

But after looking over the country,

I find that he is the best man for the job."

 

Mr. Stanton became Secretary of War,

Now I’m sure their relationship wasn’t instantly smooth and easy.

But Stanton accepted the position.

And a few years later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

And Stanton was called to his death bed and as he died,

Stanton said the famous words:

 "Now he belongs to the ages." And he also said:

"There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen.”

 

Martin Luther King said in his sermon:

If Abraham Lincoln had hated Stanton,

if Abraham Lincoln had answered everything Stanton said,

Abraham Lincoln would have not

transformed and redeemed Stanton.

Stanton would have gone to his grave hating Lincoln,

and Lincoln would have gone to his grave hating Stanton.

But through the power of love,

Abraham Lincoln was able to redeem Stanton.

And Lincoln was also redeemed

by his own choice to love instead of hate.

 

Remember, Martin Luther King Jr.  was

preaching to a group of people who had

every reason to hate the people of their country.

They had every reason to strike out and react with

violence, they had every reason to be consumed

by bitterness and hate.

But he chose to preach love.

 

Our enemies are redeemed only by love.

We are redeemed only by our love.

The world will be redeemed only by God's love.

 

How can we make those decisions to love instead of hate?

To pray for those who do us wrong?

In the grocery store, or while we’re driving?

Can we pray for politicians we don’t agree with?

Can we pray for those who have treated us badly?

Those who have betrayed us?

Those who when we think of them and what they did

it makes our blood boil.

Can we pray for those people?

Can we pray even for people who resort to violence?

Murderers? Terrorists?

Who makes you the maddest? Pray for them now.

Not that they change, but that they would find peace

and joy and that no harm would come to them…

 

Love has an awesome power.

It is the politics of God working in our world.

And Jesus has given it to us to use.

We are the blessed people,

we are God’s political party

we are the light of the world.

and God means to use us to

redeem the world.

Jesus' Sermon Writing Technique

 Luke 6:20-31  February 13, 2022

 
Jesus was a good public speaker, wasn’t he?

I mean, he told stories and fables and parables.

He actually just had just a couple of actual

sermons like this one today.

But  he really knew how to draw people in with his words

 

He must have had a good stage presence

to attract people to himself like he did.

I think from seeing Jesus depicted in movies,

many of us might think he had all his words

chosen, or written before hand by

a scriptwriter or a speechwriter.

 

Like Laurence Oliver reciting a Shakespeare soliloquy.

“Blessed are the poor. For theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Right?  that’s what the movies make you think.

Like there was no spontaneity.

As if Jesus was more moved by hearing his own voice

 and by his own dramatics more than anything else.

 

But I like to think of this sermon of Jesus–

and all of Jesus stories and sermons - in a different way.

I like to think that Jesus spoke from his heart and emotions

I like to think that what he said

was changed by the people he was talking to.

 

My hypothesis about this sermon - and it’s only mine.

Is that Jesus came there to say one thing

but he ended up saying what we heard today.

Jesus in a Crowd
J. Kirk Richards

Maybe he came there to give the

“Love your enemies” sermon that we’ll hear

next week, but he was moved to first, say what we hear today.

  

What we hear today is called the Beatitudes

this whole section in Luke is called the “sermon on the plain”

or “sermon on a level place”

In Matthew the same portion is called “the sermon on the Mount”

In Matthew, Jesus is standing on a high place

 and talking to the people below.

But here, Jesus is standing among all the people.

 

It says that  a huge crowd was gathered around him

wanting Jesus to heal them and get rid of their bad spirits.

It says that Jesus healed all of them that were gathered there that day

and that they could all feel the power coming out of him.

 

After it was over, Jesus must have been exhausted,

his 12 new apostles must have been excited and a

little scared with their new role.

And the people there probably would have been poor,

and desperate and disheveled,

but more hopeful than they had been in a long time.

They all must have been looking at him with hopeful expectation.

 

All those eyes meeting his, Jesus knows they need to hear

something. Something that tells them that this was not just

a fluke, that the power that they’re feeling is not just magic,

but it’s God’s power, it’s God’s Kingdom in their presence.

And they have not been abandoned.

 

He would get to the “be kind to your enemies later”

But right now, he looks at that whole crowd

and his heart is filled with God’s love for them and he says this instead:

 

Blessed are you who are poor. For yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and exclude you,

and revile you. Blessed are you. You poor and hungry and hated.

  

Blessed are you.

This would have been so the opposite

of what these poor, hungry, sad, hated, bedraggled

people would have heard at any time in their lives.

This is so the opposite of what any of those

Twelve apostles, the former fishermen

and tax collectors, just one step above

the poor and hungry, sad and hated

would have ever heard too.

But this is what Jesus knew to be true.

What was in Jesus heart.

What was in God’s heart.

And Jesus knew they all needed to

hear at that very moment.

 

The desperate situation that

this crowd has found themselves in

has put them in a unique and vulnerable

situation of truly knowing their need of God.

 And that has made them blessed.

The Kingdom of God belongs to those

who have nothing except God.

 

But the next part is where

Luke’s sermon on the plain diverges from Matthew’s sermon

on the Mount and where it gets a little tough for the rest of us.

The Woes.

 

Jesus is also clear in Luke’s Gospel in a way

that he isn’t in Matthew’s and in a way that

the crowd may not have heard before.

That wealth and privilege and comfort are dangers

for those who are afflicted with them.

That they have the power to separate

us from God and from human community.

Good news for us is that these woes are not

Jesus condemning those in the crowd who

are comfortable, satisfied, and happy.

But what Jesus is doing, as usual, is turning everyone’s

assumptions on their heads.

 

If everyone has believed that they knew

the heart of God because of where

they stand economically in this world

Jesus is saying, “think again”.

 

Jesus is comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

That term is familiar, right?

 

For those who were poor and hungry,

and assumed that that was certain evidence that they were

hated and abandoned by God, the lesson is easy,  

Jesus just has to say,

“Contrary to popular belief, you are blessed.

God loves you. Now come in for that hug

God wants to give to you.”

 

But for those who were rich and self-satisfied

and who assumed that their status in the Kingdom

was sealed up as evidenced by their success in life,

and they no longer needed to work on their relationship

with God anymore, so they could just skip all of that

because they obviously have it all sealed up.

Well, that lesson was a little tougher for Jesus.

 

He has to start with “Woe to you who are rich,

woe to you who are full, woe to you who are laughing.”

Things might not be as tied up in a bow as you

think it is right now. So don’t just move on from

 God and think you have better things to do with your time.

God wants your attention and your heart too.

And, at a later time, when you’re not so full of yourself,

God would love to give you that hug too.”

 

This is Jesus seeing all parts of that

crowd he’s in and reaching out to

all parts of them with his words.

 

Jesus hope is that every part

of that crowd and every part

of this crowd and every

part of this world would

blessed by God’s love

Ours is the Kingdom of God.

Jesus Picked You First

 Luke 5:1-11

February 6, 2022

 

I have a question for you.                                                                   

In PE or gym or basketball,

or kickball or stickball, or whatever you played,

when were you picked to be on the team?

When were you picked by the designated captain?

Were you always picked first or second?

Were you picked somewhere in the middle?

 

Or were you picked last? Dead last? After the girl with the broken arm?

Were you actually taken begrudgingly with an eye roll?

Did teams actually fight over which one had to have you?

 

That was me.

I wasn’t popular. I was kind of large and uncoordinated.

I had allergies and asthma. I was afraid of flying balls.

I was an awkward, bookish kind of kid

I had a loud, New York accent.

And I didn’t know how to play, but

somehow I knew all the rules to the games

which you think would help out, but it really did not.

Sometimes I was picked in the middle,

but it was usually because someone

felt sorry for me and was doing a good deed,

which almost felt as bad.

 

I would have been picked first on the

wise cracking, English Literature, trivial pursuit team,

but there was never any picking for those teams.

So I was always picked last.

 

I can still remember today vividly what that felt like.

I don’t know who came up with this barbaric, Lord of the Flies type ritual.

Or Why otherwise caring adults would constantly give certain children

so much power to shape so many other children’s lives.

But millions of children have suffered through this torture.

  

There are two factors when it comes to being picked on teams:

ability and popularity. I mean popular kids who played as bad

or worse than me were still picked first, or at least

in the middle somewhere so that kids

could make points by picking them.

 

Being picked last gave two distinct messages:

I don’t really think you can do the job or

I don’t really want to be associated with you.

 

Now we don’t know whether Simon Peter and Andrew

and James or John were popular.

And we don’t know whether they were good at their jobs.

The scripture doesn’t really tell us about those two things.

What we do know is that they were fishermen.

Not fishermen as in relaxing hobbyists.

And at the time, fishermen weren’t even proud, independent

business owners we know today.

 

Fishermen were at the bottom of society’s barrel.

Fishermen had very hard, unrewarding jobs.

They didn’t have a special craft or skills.

They weren’t even hired by big conglomerates to fish.

Fishing was something that people did

when there wasn’t much else to turn to.

They were kind of the equivalent of

sharecroppers of the turn of the 20^th century.

You rented a boat and you put a net down

 and you hoped there were fish at the end of the day.

 

If there were, you ate and you could maybe pay for something more.

If there wasn’t you starved and went into debt.

On top of that, you smelled like fish.

 

Fishermen were not doctors or lawyers or tax collectors.

They weren’t even carpenters or farmers.

Fishermen were somewhere in the same club as

sheep-herders, prostitutes and beggars.

Fishermen were last.

They were told by the world that they could not do the job.

And other people did not particularly want to be associated with them.

 

The area around the Sea of Galilee wasn’t big.

It was like Hilton Head, I guess. With fewer people.

Capernaum where the Sea of Galilee

was only about 20 miles from Jesus home in Nazareth.

There weren’t many people around. Rumors fly fast.

These fishermen probably heard about Jesus.

They had heard about the religious gangs walking around Galilee.

Jesus was the one that John was talking about,

the one who was baptized by John in the Jordan.

The one who seemed to be chosen by God for something special.

 

But it didn’t really matter because

that kind of stuff passed people like fishermen by.

No one asked them for help.

No one bothered with people like that.

They could barely make a living fishing.

They had never shown any people skills,

they didn’t know much about God or theology.

They had no reason to think that they would be of any use to Jesus.

They were the ones who were always picked last.

 

But Jesus picked them first.

Not out of pity or because no one else was around.

There were other smarter, more popular,

more connected people to choose from.

Jesus came to them because he wanted to.

Because he believed in them.

He wanted them to come with him and to fish for people instead.

Jesus picked them because he thought they could do the job.

And because he wanted to be associated with them.

 

Jesus didn’t care about their resumes or reputations.

He didn’t care what the neighbors said.

He didn’t care what folks though about fishermen.

Maybe Jesus knew that being picked last all their

lives would give these fishermen a special

understanding when dealing with all of God’s people.

When we’re looking around to make a team for ourselves

in school or in work or in our social lives, we often look around

for the people who share the skills that we want:

law, finance, artistic skills, athletic skills.

We are look for people who already have proven that

they can do what we need to do.

 

But Jesus was working in partnership with God.

God doesn’t just look for gifts or skill to use, God makes skills,

God gives gifts to people. Jesus picks the last to be first.

Jesus picks the unlikely candidates –

those are the ones who God’s glory can shine through the brightest.

God doesn’t just look for the best, God can make the best out of anything.

 

So this a message for anyone who has been picked last.

Or anyone who has been in that position.

Anyone who has felt awkward.

Anyone who has failed a class or been let go from a job.

Anyone who has been dumped by a romantic interest

or forgotten by a friend.

Anyone who feels too old or past their prime. Or maybe too young.

Anyone who feels like their best days are behind them.

Anyone who wasn’t let in on the joke.

Anyone ever felt like something good was going on

behind your back, in the other room, wherever you weren’t.

This is especially for those who were picked last:

 

If you are in this room right now,

God has chosen you to do something wonderful in this world.

It’s not some chance or accident.

God didn’t call you here because there was no one else left.

God wants you to come as you are,

God wants to teach you skills that you don’t think you possess,

God wants to give you gifts that you don’t even know that you have.

 

So drop your nets.

Leave your past, your failures and disappointments and your status behind.

The creator of the universe knows that you can do the job

the ground of all being wants to be associated with you.

God has picked you.