Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS
November 15, 2015
Sermon Texts: Isaiah 2:1-4, Matthew
5:43-48
Just like the scripture passages were wrong in the bulletin, the
sermon title is wrong, today, too. I wrote that sermon earlier this week, but
it’s not the one I’m giving today. One of the risks of writing a sermon on
Thursday each week is that sometimes the world changes between Thursday and
Sunday.
Did the world change between Thursday and Sunday this week? I
don’t actually think it did. What happened in Paris this weekend was tragic,
horrific, unsettling, sickening….and, sadly, it’s nothing new. We who live at
the beginning of the 21st century are accustomed, by now, to living
with terror. Our nation has been involved in a “war on terrorism” for 14 years
now – longer than some of us in this room have been alive.
And so I have mixed feelings about the fact that I rewrote this
sermon on Saturday afternoon. After all, I did not rewrite my sermon after Boko
Haram killed 2000 people in Nigeria this past January. And I did not rewrite my
sermon when 147 were killed at a Kenyan university in April. And I probably
wouldn’t have rewritten my sermon after the attacks in Beirut, Lebanon on
Thursday killed 40 people. Many of us might not have even heard about the attacks in Beirut - or if we had, might have just lumped them in as "all that violence in the Middle East" in our heads.
But Western Europe makes the news. And the fact that so many
in the U.S. are reacting so strongly to the attacks in Paris speaks volumes
about what garners our attention. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs that the
deaths of 2000 people in Africa barely made the news, while the deaths of 11
journalists in Paris a few days later made us sit up and pay attention. There
is no excuse for the shameful reality that some lives seem to matter more than
others.
I strongly considered just going on ahead and preaching that
other sermon I prepared, simply because I feel so very uncomfortable with the
disparities in our responses to attacks in different parts of the world. I’m
still not sure I made the right choice.
And yet - I've been carrying within me this weekend such a heaviness. Just such a sense of profound sadness when I ponder the brokenness of our world right now. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this feeling of sadness. I feel that one of my tasks, as a preacher, is to attempt to
create a space where the Good News of Jesus Christ and the beauty and terror of the world
can comingle. A place where we can set aside the noise of CNN and Fox News and
our Facebook news feed and the impassioned anger of politicians.
Our job, as followers of Jesus, is to intentionally cultivate a
space where we can put aside our national identities, our ethnic identities,
our political identities and re-center ourselves in our first and
most-important identity: Beloved Children of God.
To be human in this particular moment in time is to clumsily
attempt to hold space for so very many conflicting emotions at once. The world
that we live in seems particularly fragile and unmoored these days. It
sometimes feels like there is a crisis lurking around every corner. But, then,
five minutes later, we experience the bliss of a perfectly blue sky, or a small
child’s laughter, or the aroma of freshly baked brownies, or the simple
pleasure of a kiss or embrace…and all seems right with the world. Until we turn
on the news again and discover the world is so very broken.
The 24-hour-news-cycle and immediate availability of so very much
information is enough to, quite literally, make us lose our minds. Or perhaps
our souls. Finding a balance often seems impossible. I know some have chosen to
unplug completely and others wake up at 3:00am and reflexively reach out for
their iPhones to see if they’ve missed anything important. I don’t know exactly
where the balance is. My guess is that it lies somewhere between those two
extremes.
What I do know is this: when the world is filled with chatter, we
who are people of faith often dive more deeply into our sacred texts to find a
way to re-center ourselves and restore our souls for the very difficult work of
being human.
In the midst of politicians that speak stern words of retribution,
promising and eye for an eye, we hear now the voice of Jesus: “You have heard
that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say
to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may
be children of your Father in heaven; for God makes the sun rise on the evil
and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Love our enemies.
But how? How can we do this when we are scared? How can we love
people who hate us? How can we love those who commit unspeakable acts of evil
against innocents?
My friends, I don’t know. I really don’t. And yet I believe that
Jesus calls us to struggle mightily with his teaching. I don’t think he said it
casually. I think he meant it and I think we’re called to do it and I think we
need each other very much if we have any hope of succeeding.
Because it takes courage to love our enemies. We have to realize
that others will call us names and say that we’re disloyal and call us cowards.
We have to realize that our friends may tire of listening to our constant
love-talk when it’s so very much easier and more socially acceptable to engage
in hate-talk. But the biggest thing of all, I think is this: we have to realize
that it’s not safe to love our enemies. Because there is absolutely no
guarantee they’ll love us back. In fact, they might just kill us instead.
Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who wish we
were dead. And there’s no if, and, or but after that statement.
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| Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich in the United Nations Art Collection |
Some hopeless dreamer wrote these words. Did John Lennon somehow
get translated into Hebrew? Or Marvin Gaye? A world without war? A world where
humans use their creativity to create tools that nurture and sustain rather
than destroy and kill? Where is this place? How do we get there?
A plow is an agricultural tool
created by human ingenuity. The plowshare is the sharp metal part on the front
that actually cuts into the ground, disturbing the earth. By carving out
furrows, the farmer breaks up anything old that might stand in the way of new
growth, brings needed nutrients to the surface, and creates a safe landing
space for seeds. It is an act of hope. What appears to be cold, hard, dead
ground is transformed – with a little ingenuity and a lot of sweat – into a
supple place for new life to grow.
And so on this particular day, when –
once again – the threat of violence seems closer than we would like and the
world seems more broken that we even know how to begin to understand – I find
myself clinging to that image of the farmer and her plow.
Where
there appears to be no way, God, help us make a way.
When
the work seems too difficult, God, help us use our creativity and shared wisdom
to lighten the load.
When
fear closes in and crowds out love, God, help us to create furrows where small
seeds can be nurtured and sustained and provide much-needed nourishment for all
of your children…..those we call our neighbors and those we call our enemies.
God
of peace and justice, help us to never lose sight of you in the midst of the
voices that clamor for our attention.
May
we seek to love all, especially when it seems impossible.
May
we remember to pray, especially for those who hate us.
Examine
our hearts, God of Knowledge, and bring our attention to the weapons we each
harbor. Together, may we give up the false sense of security we find in our
swords and spears and guns and hate-filled-speech and drones and bombs.
Guide
us, O Holy One, in the more peaceful way.
Use
our creativity and brilliance for good; that we, your children, might begin to
plant seeds of peace in the furrows of your Love.
Amen.
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