Forgive the sins of the preacher, O Lord, that only your Word be proclaimed and only your Word be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
For those who are paying attention to the news about the government, it’s a disconcerting time. Constitutional and historical norms are being disregarded, chaos and confusion are rampant, and there’s a tone of division and meanness that are menacing. You all know that in the Baptismal Covenant, we commit to striving for justice and peace among all people and pledge to respect the dignity of every human being. So for those of us who are committed to the ideas of treating people with respect, of caring for the environment, that families should not be ripped apart, that who a person loves should not impact their civil rights, that diversity and inclusion are not problems but virtues, for those committed to following the way of Jesus – we’re at a loss about what to do. Attending a rally can feel like an echo chamber, contacting Congress feels like an exercise in futility, posting on social media is vain virtue signaling, standing by idly and hoping that mid-term elections help seems too passive and naïve, and prayers are confusing because for many, this outcome is exactly what many prayed for. I wonder what Scripture has to say about all of this?
Let’s see, Psalm 37: “Do not fret yourself because of evildoers.” Busted. Scripture, if we’re willing to let it speak to us, will challenge our sense of self-righteousness, upend our world view, and give us a holier path forward.
Beloved, I know there’s a lot that is happening in our society right now, and there’s a lot going on in our personal lives. But fretting only plunges us further into anxiety, division, and a sense of helplessness. Furthermore, fretting ourselves means that we’re confused about who is ultimately in charge – fretting makes us think that it’s up to us to come up with and implement the solution to whatever problem is before us. Psalm 37 continues, “Put your trust in the LORD and do good.” I’m not saying that we choose willful ignorance, that we stop caring, that we resign ourselves to doing nothing – but fretting not only is ineffective, it’s contrary to Scripture. Whatever it is that we’re prone to fret over – a family situation, a problem at work, concern about politics – Psalm 37 suggests that the way forward is to trust that God is with us, which makes all the difference, and to do good. Doing good is key to not fretting because it gives us a healthy place to direct our energy instead of it leading to fretful angst.
But what does it mean to do good? I’ll warn you, this might be one of the most difficult sermons I’ve ever preached. And I’m not trying to deflect, but please know that none of what I’m about to say is my idea – it’s Jesus’. As I was preparing the sermon this week, it’s not as if I sat down and thought “What’s the most challenging and controversial thing that I can come up with?” No, I just read the readings appointed for today and there it was: “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
In the past, as a priest, people have told me “You know, I really don’t know what to do with those passages in the Bible that talk about having enemies – I get along with everyone.” I haven’t heard that comment in a while. Because of the fractured state of our common life and the partisan nature of politics, a lot of people are very clear about who their enemies are. So instead of this being a passage that we just push off to the side, it’s now one that gets under our skin and seems either implausible or irresponsible.
There’s no “well the word in Greek here actually means something softer and easier.” Nope. Jesus even doubles down, “Do not judge, do not condemn, but forgive.” I want to be as clear and honest as I can about this – I don’t like it. I hope some of you all can vouch for this – but when I make mistakes, I try my best to admit it, apologize, and reconcile what has been broken. I do the same with my kids – I think it’s very important that parents model and demonstrate humility and repentance with their children. As Tyler can attest to, I have multiple things to seek forgiveness for on a regular basis. I’m all in favor of deference, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness – with people I like.
But when it comes to people who are intentionally and consistently mean, I really struggle with the idea of loving them, praying for them, or forgiving them. There are people in my personal life that I hope I never have to interact with again because I have not and do not want to forgive them. Mercy is hard stuff, I know. The idea of forgiving people who have wronged us, who have abused children, who govern brutally and murderously, who steal from the vulnerable seems like more than we can stomach or imagine.
This, though, is what makes us Christian. As Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them… But love your enemies.” This enemy-love is at the heart of the Gospel and Christianity crumbles without it. When Vice President Vance said a few weeks ago that we first have to love our family, then our neighbors, then our community, then our nation, and then, after that, the rest of the world he was sorely wrong. And I don’t mean that as a political statement – it’s theological. And given that it’s out there in the media, in my role as a pastor and teacher, it must be corrected.
For one, it is to misunderstand love as something that has limits or rankings – Godly love is abundant and never needs to be restrained or conserved. Love is prodigious and prodigal. But the bigger issue is that it completely ignores the teaching of Jesus to love our enemies, and that’s the heart of the Gospel. You can find some version of the Golden Rule in most world religions. You can find helpful meditation practices in all sorts of spiritualities. You can find stories about death and rebirth in all kinds of literature. But what is distinctively unique and holy about Jesus and those who dare to follow him is that we love our enemies.
And the reason why I say this is at the heart of this Gospel is because it is. This is clearest in chapter 5 of Romans, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Rarely will anyone die for a righteous person… But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us… While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son.” In other words, because of our disobedience, selfishness, and sin, we were and are enemies of God. But the enemy-love of God embraces us and redeems us.
And the reason why Jesus can command us to something as audacious as loving and forgiving our enemies, the reason why we can be told not “do unto to others as you would have them do unto you” but “do unto others as God has done to them” is because of what we know from First John: “We love because he first loved us.” We don’t have to muster up this enemy-love, it’s already been shown to us. So instead of us having to go into the depths of our soul to come up with mercy and compassion, we share what we have already received graciously and abundantly in Jesus.
To be clear, that doesn’t make it much easier, but it at least makes it possible. As Jesus tells the disciples, “For humans it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” So when it comes to enemy-love, what are the why and how for this radical commandment?
Why? Martin Luther King said, “We must learn to live together as [siblings] or we will perish together as fools.” Like it or not, we’re all in this together and beloved community is only possible with a boundaryless love. The story we heard from Genesis is a demonstration of this – by the grace of God, Joseph forgave the brothers that sold him into slavery and their relationship was restored. This is why forgiving those who wrong us is worth the hard and holy work – we are stronger when we are together, when the image of God is more complete.
A second reason why enemy-love matters is that it allows us to not become our hatred, resentment, and fear. Hatred has a way of taking over and hardening us. Hate, like love, has no boundaries. If we allow ourselves to hate one person or group, like a wildfire, that rage will spread into other relationships and consume us. I was struck by the image from President Carter’s funeral in January of Presidents Obama and Trump sitting next to one another and laughing. I know they don’t agree on a lot, but, at least in that moment, they connected and shared a common humanity. The world has enough good haters in it, we don’t need any more of those. The admonition to love and forgive our enemies saves us from losing ourselves to resentment and evil.
One more why – when we started having conversations with the Cathedral in Mumias, Kenya, we asked Bishop Wandera why he wanted to have the Cathedral there in a relationship with an American church. He said, “Because we do not agree about everything.” Our disagreements are the reason we need to be in relationships with others, not the excuse for our estrangement. We grow only when we are challenged to think differently, to hear someone else’s perspective, to recognize the validity of someone else’s position. As today’s Collect puts it, “without love, whatever we do is worth nothing.” In loving our enemies, we redeem all of our actions and open ourselves to love’s transforming power in and among us.
The why might be understandable, but the how is harder. How do we love our enemies and forgive those who wrong us? For one, we remember that love isn’t about emotions, it’s about how we act towards others. We can’t control our emotions, but we can attempt to act in love. The word “forgive” means to let go, to unburden. It’s like forgiving a debt. If you let someone borrow $100 and they don’t give it back, you have two options. You can forever carry that negative balance on your balance sheet, be angry about it, or try to force them to pay it back. Or, you can just forgive the debt and move forward without having to track and carry that debt. Whether it’s money or wrongs, it’s the same idea.
Forgiving those who wrong us is about liberating ourselves as much as it is pardoning them. And, to be very clear, just because you forgive a debt doesn’t mean that they haven’t effectively stolen from you. Forgiving someone does not mean approving of their actions, saying it was okay, or putting yourself or others in a position to be harmed. Forgiving isn’t about condoning, it isn’t about forgetting, it isn’t about saying “it’s not a big deal.” Not at all, forgiving is about saying “This debt can never be satisfied, and I’m not going to carry around a promissory note forever.” Forgiveness is about turning a dead end into a new path forward; sometimes that path will include reconciliation, which is a deeper and next step, and sometimes it means walking away separately. But without letting go, we can’t move forward.
When it comes to how to do this hard and holy work of letting go, we pray for the strength and the will to stop holding those wrongs as if they are a valued possession, and maybe you would be helped by scheduling a time for Confession, and then pray some more, and enjoy the forgiveness and freedom that God has given you. To truly let go and forgive might take years, decades, or we might not ever get there fully. But we strive to love our enemies, to be merciful, and to forgive as we have been forgiven because this is what it means to follow Jesus, the one who came to us when we were enemies and said “Father, forgive them.”
Where forgiveness is rooted is in God’s power to do the impossible and redeem all things. This is what St. Paul is writing about in First Corinthians – because of the Resurrection, we know that redemption is always possible. There are so many people who were enemies, but were transformed by the power of God: St. Paul himself went from a persecutor to apostle, or John Newton went from slave trader to abolitionist, or Oskar Schindler was a Nazi intelligence officer who came to risk his wealth and life to save as many Jews from the Holocaust as he could. Or look up the story of Daryl Davis, a black R&B musician who is known for having conversations with members of the Klan and has, so far, had over 200 former Klansman give him their robes as they walked away from that life.
God is making all things new and redeeming people who were, by all accounts, lost and enemies of humanity. Forgiveness is about leaving the door cracked open for all of our enemies, for trusting that God can do something lovelier and bigger than we can imagine. And if one of your enemies is yourself, this is just as true – God is in the transformation business. It can be a trite phrase, but forgiveness is about letting go and letting God. To be merciful is to hope and to forgive is to trust in the power of the Resurrection. I know that the thought of loving and forgiving those who do us harm and do evil to others seems crazy, but it is only because God is graceful and merciful that any of us are here. Love is the only way out of the mess that we’re in.
Of course, forgiveness and loving our enemies is something we enact in worship every week. This is one reason why coming to worship matters so much - we need to practice forgiveness. We confess our sins, acknowledging that we are enemies to God, to others, and to ourselves. And so we come and ask for forgiveness, we ask for the grace to forgive others, and we are assured of our pardon. The Peace is our liturgical enactment of our restored relationships and prepares to come to the Altar to get a taste of the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, and it is a most certainly a Kingdom of mercy, of love, and of reconciliation. We are the forgiven and loved people of God, so don’t fret.
