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Let Your Love be Genuine
Sermon by Rev. Sarah Buteux
for Sunday, September 1, 2002
Scripture: Romans 12:1-2, 9-21
There is a lot of talk in our country right now about evil, and great effort is being expended by our government and the media in an attempt to define who our real enemies are and what they will do to us if left unchecked. In the coming weeks, as we approach and grapple with the anniversary of the attacks last September, images will be replayed, painful memories will resurface, and animosities that have steadily been fueled throughout this past year will be fanned into flame. However, enemies, like neighbors, come in different degrees, shapes, and sizes. Just as your "neighbor" can be Bob, the guy who actually lives next door, or your city, or country, or, in the highest sense of the word, the Lord; so your enemy can be someone you know quite well, or someone who, even though you don't know them at all, poses a real threat to your safety and well-being. We don't need to travel half way around the world to find our enemies, for they exist right here in our communities, in our churches, and in our personal relationships. So, with all this talk about enemies on a national scale, as well as our continuing personal struggles with people we interact with regularly, this passage in Romans seemed extremely relevant and timely.
Paul concludes this passage by saying, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." It is a powerful charge, but can it be done? I mean, wouldn't it just be easier to overcome evil with smart bombs, or smart words? How can we possibly overcome evil, really overcome it so it doesn't come back, with good? Well, as I have been praying, meditating, writing and rewriting my thoughts about this passage, one truth has emerged that is glaringly clear to me now. There is only one way to overcome evil with good and it is not easy. In fact, without the Lord's help, I would imagine that it is truly and completely impossible. The only way to overcome evil with good is with pure, honest to goodness, untainted, unadulterated love.
Remember that command of Jesus' to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you"? Well, he meant it. In fact, our reading today begins with this very thought: Romans 12:9, "Let your love be genuine." "Let your love be genuine." Not just your love for those people you truly care about, but your love for those people you can't stand and who can't stand you. You know. Your enemies. This is tough. No question about it. Because loving your enemy means finding the same love within yourself that you reserve for family and friends and directing it toward someone who makes your skin crawl. And love, if it is real, cannot involve pretense, false modesty, feigned courtesy, or forced politeness. And it is not enough to refrain from actively harming your enemy. You need to go two steps further. You need to refrain from even willing them harm and find it within yourself, on the contrary, to will the very best for them.
Now, before you give yourself up to complete despair over this concept, let me define what I mean by the very best for your enemy. If an enemy of yours is truly behaving in an evil manner, the best you can hope and pray for is that they will come to realize the error of their ways, repent, turn, and embrace what is good and true. Swedenborg says that "spiritual power is to desire the well being of another and to desire to give to another as far as possible what is within us" (AE 79). And he also says that "love is acting with prudence that good may result" (p23 Freedom and Evil). If you truly love your enemy then you should be hoping and praying for a day when that person is not your enemy at all, but your brother or sister in the truth. This can be especially hard, because we can come to depend on our enemies to fill certain spaces in our lives and in our identities. Losing an enemy to friendship can mean a lot of work on our part trying to figure out who we really are anymore. But that is a subject for another day. Right now I would like to focus on 4 verses in this passage that can give us some insight into how we can overcome evil with good.
The first verse I would like to highlight says, "Hate what is evil, cling to what is good" (vs. 9). Notice Paul says "hate what is evil" not who is evil. It can be incredibly hard to separate the two, but it must be done. We are told in the Bible to love the sinner but hate the sin. As I was casting around for an example of this, I remembered one of the stories told by our keynote speaker at Convention. Although I can't remember her name at the moment, I do remember that she was a Quaker, and as such she believes in promoting peace through non-violence. She told us a story during her speech about a time when, while parked up near Central Square - right here in Cambridge- and she watched from her driver's seat as a group of young men crowded around a single individual and began to beat him right in front of her car. She immediately stepped our of her car and walked into the midst of the angry mob and held out her arms to them. They were so shocked that they stopped what they were doing, and as she held their attention with her gesture of love, the victim of the attack escaped. She was showing love for the enemy at that point, in spite of the sinful acts being played out right in front of her. A love that not only saved the poor boy who was being beaten, but saved the rest of the young men from doing themselves anymore spiritual harm. She was overcoming the evil act by actively loving the evil doers. So, remember, hate what is evil, but not the person engaged in evil.
The second verse I would like to point out is verse 14: "Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse." Have you ever caught an angry person up short with kindness? Imagine a nasty co-worker who always seems to have it in for you, coming up to you first thing in the morning and shouting for the whole office to hear about a project that had flopped because of your ineptitude. Imagine if, rather than going on the defensive, you took their complaint and turned it into concern for the stress they must be feeling at that moment. Imagine saying something like, "Oh Shannon, sit down. You must be feeling so anxious over this. What I can do to help you right now." By shifting your attention away from the attack and with love reaching out and showing concern for your opponent, you will not only catch them off guard, you may just turn the combatant into a collaborator as you seek a mutual solution. But it has to be genuine. The opposite approach: leaping immediately to your own defense and shouting back, will only heighten the conflict that has been established.
Andrew and I have just returned from a vacation in Ireland and we spent some time in the Northern regions where the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics have raged for years. In the city of Belfast there are memorials throughout the city related to the war. But rather then commending the bravery of local heroes, or the acts of courage and selflessness of their own, these memorials are erected to recount and bear witness for all time, to all the nasty, rotten, stinking things the other side has done. If you curse those who persecute you, they will only curse you back. But if you find a way to bless, or even better, to be a blessing to that person, imagine what good could come forth. When we were little kids, my sisters and I would often say something nasty to one another. My mother could bring a halt to any fight by patiently repeating the proverb: "A harsh word stirs up anger, but a gentle response turns away wrath." That would always get us to settle down, if not reconcile, immediately.
Paul goes on, in verses 17 and 18, to say "Do not repay evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live at peace with all." It takes two sides to keep a conflict going. And as my example from Northern Ireland can attest, grudges can go a long way and become so ingrained in us that they finally become a part of who we are. We cannot control how another person feels toward us, but we can, with the help of God, control our feelings about them. If, rather than repay evil for evil, you let a person know that you forgive them and are willing to let things go and start over, there is a possibility that the evil can end right there. Evil needs a foothold to survive, and you remove a big piece of the ledge when you choose to forgive someone who has wronged you.
And really, what is the use of holding on to grudges, or constantly evening the score with an enemy? What does it gain you, or what does it prove? I have seen the potential in so many relationships flounder because there is a person who just can't let things in the past go. They harp on the other person's mistake, and never let them forget what they did wrong. George Dole gives a beautiful illustration of the futility of this way of being. He writes in his book Freedom and Evil, "It is unfair to blame me for things beyond my control. My past is beyond my control. ErgoŠ I am accountable essentially for the way I deal with the present effects of my past. It is appropriate to expect me to clean up the toothpaste, but not to expect me to put it back in the tube" (Freedom and Evil 23).
We can't undo our past, but we can effect our present. The question is whether we will allow others, or they will allow us, to move beyond the wrongs we have done, and work toward a better future together. George Dole continues with a simple plea: "Let me see what has happened just as clearly as I can and then respond just as constructively as I can. Let me see what has come apart, and then see whether it can be put back together" (23). We need to give each other a chance to start over, but we will only allow that if we truly love the person and really want things to be better. If we hate our enemy, there is a part of us that loves that hate, that doesn't want to give it up. Beware of that type of anger, for it says more about the evil in us then the evil in our enemy.
Finally, Paul concludes this passage with a quote from Proverbs: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of GodŠ if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads (verses 19 & 20)." It is my firm belief that showing care and compassion for your enemy cannot hurt. It may in fact draw your enemy closer to the truth. The question for you is: do you really want that? When you approach your enemy do you want to see them redeemed, or do you want to see them suffer? Paul's quote from Proverbs is a good litmus test to apply to ourselves. We are not to show mercy to our enemy in order to heap burning coals of shame on his or her head. Shame is simply a natural consequence for any of us when we see our evil and selfish actions against the backdrop of someone else's kindness and mercy.
I think of Jean Val Jean, the escaped convict in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserable." If I remember correctly, Jean Val Jean takes shelter in the home of a priest one night, and as the priest serves him dinner in his house, Jean Val Jean becomes aware of some of the beautiful silverware, and the great silver candlesticks in the parsonage. In the middle of the night he wakes up, steals the silver and makes his way from the house. He is apprehended almost immediately by the authorities and in his heart he knows he has done wrong and that he will be forced back to prison. However, when the soldiers bring him to the priest to have the priest witness the theft, the priest looks at Jean Val Jean and says that these pieces of silver were a gift from him to Jean Val Jean that he might have something with which to begin a new and honest life. That moment of mercy changes Jean Val Jean immediately. He feels the shame of those burning coals upon his conscience, not because the priest has accused him of a shameful act, but because he has loved him in spite of it. If we show kindness toward our enemy with the hopes of shaming them, we are truly only repaying evil for evil. But if we show them kindness and mercy out of love and in hopes of gently guiding them toward the truth, the shame they feel, will change them and eventually be replaced by gratitude and a desire to do better. Love cannot only help us overcome our enemy with good, it can help us transform an enemy into someone who is, in fact, a friend.
As it is communion Sunday, I would like to close with a personal story that relates some of what I have said to this rite we are about to celebrate. A few years ago I had a terrible fight with my sister about predestination. She is a strict Calvinist and I confess to you, nothing gets me as steamed up, theologically speaking, as talk about predestination. We had a bitter fight about it. If you had asked me afterward if she was my enemy, I would have said, certainly not she's my sister. But by Jesus' standards, we were truly viewing and treating one another as enemies. I think we managed to not speak with each other for more than a month, until one Sunday, when I was sitting in church and it was time to take communion. As the elements were being passed I took hold of the bread and was struck forcefully by the presence of God. I felt a deep sadness and shame overcome me, and I realized that before I could come to the altar of God I needed to ask for his forgiveness and my sister's. I needed to make peace with her. And so, right after church, I went straight home and as I was reaching for the phone it rang. She was on the other end. She had had the exact same experience and was calling to say she was sorry, and, although I can't remember who said it first, we both agreed in that conversation that no matter how much we might disagree about matters of faith there still had to be a way we could love and relate to one another as sisters. I am pleased to report that we have both been talking and taking communion without incident since that time.
Jesus said, "when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:21-24). Before we come to this table today, before we bring our offerings before God and accept his gift of love for us, let us take a moment to think about who it is in our lives that we have hated as an enemy. If you are able, ask the Lord to help transform your hate to genuine love for that individual. Ask for help to love the sinner in spite of the sin. Ask for the generosity of love, that you might bless them, rather than curse them. Ask for humility that you might repay evil with good, and for the ability to serve their needs rather than desire their suffering. For it is only through love, genuine love, that we can truly "not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Let us pray.
Creator God, you present us with a great challenge this morning. I pray Lord that we would not conform to this world and its way of being, but that we would be transformed by your love and mercy. Help us Lord, help us to forgive those people in our lives who vex us. Help us to love as you love. For you love us, not because we are perfect but because you are perfect: perfect in love, perfect in wisdom. We need your help to love everyone without reservation, for a love like this can only come from you.
In your precious name we pray,
Amen
Copyright 2002 by Rev. Sarah Buteux
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