Scripture: 2 Cor. 5:11-23
We’re coming out of Independence Day weekend. I spent the 4th with some dear friends – one of whom is a pyromaniac – and we celebrated the freedom of living in this country with a lot of fireworks. I am so thankful to live here and to call this country my temporary residence. I am proud of my family members who have fought and died to protect this freedom – and to gather here and worship openly. I am humbled and thankful for their sacrifice.
I am also completely aware that not every American feels the way I do. I know there are those who hate this country and who feel betrayed by this country. I know that in many places of this land there is a brokenness that I do not understand. I know that that many feel that our country is pretty lost right now and that divisions seem to multiply by the day. I also know that our rhetoric and words are non-stop. I’m aware that there seems to be a fuse that is lit under us all and it is giving rise to a rage that is scary.
We have a lot of problems in front of us, but I’m not going to speak to the problems of this country, but what I do want to speak to is a problem in our pews. I know a pastor here in Kentucky who has a million YouTube views because he had a dream that an army came in and took away American freedoms – he claims it was God’s wrath and we had better learn to fear. I know a pastor who regularly, only what I can call, hate-filled words against politicians, words that he claims are judgments from God.
I know church members who are more focused on their political party’s story than they are on the message of Jesus and who would rather quote their preferred news outlet than the words of scripture. I know people who claim to be followers of Jesus who trust a political figure hundreds of miles away more than they trust that the savior of the world lives within them. I know Christians so angry with other groups that I can’t help but think of the words “be angry and sin not” and wonder if it’s possible?
America has been called the melting pot of the world – with hundreds of different cultures making their home here. A single culture or identity can’t happen here because we have so many cultures that pour into this land. There was a time, often called idyllic, that was much more uniform (at least to the majority). But it came at a price. In the 1940’s there was a common problem that united our nation beyond our many differences. During those days 2 common enemies – a depression and a world at war united us beyond our differences.
We no longer have a shared opponent but multiple ones and multiple expressions of those opponents. We each have a “thing” and when you are for my “thing” I am validated. If you are not for my “thing” then I am attacked or slighted. When I feel attacked or slighted, I need to shout louder or risk being further victimized. And our individual, personal opinions and focus create the ability to lose site of what could be good for the greater community.
We want to be accepted for who we are, and we say I’ll accept you as you are, so long as You agree with me (which isn’t tolerance by the way.) Take for instance the BLM movement. Just saying Black Lives Matter may immediately divide, but friends, the lives of people who have felt oppressed or have been victims of ongoing blind injustice is a theological matter – a God-matter. To say a black person’s life matters is to agree that their life matters as much as mine and should have the same freedoms as I DO. And, yes, I agree rage-filled violence doesn’t help us get to that agreement, but not seeing oppression when it has been clearly put on display is anti-Christ.
And let me be equal in my criticism – those of us who are so willing to criticize and demonize our political leaders and opponents are equally in danger of giving your attention to an empire rather than Jesus. I see and hear a whole lot more fear and rage and moral destitution in many Christians instead of the example of Jesus and this is a problem. I see a lot of language directed at elected officials that is far from Christian – it is far from re-presenting the person of Jesus.
In the middle part of the 1st century, Rome had a similar challenge. An emperor who thought he was a god, a nation living under fear, fighting within and fighting without, individuals reduced to objects and the sick, elderly, and children abandoned for personal security was what the roman empire was about. And in the middle of the mess, a small movement began to upset the establishment.
A group of people came together and chose to submit themselves to a person who offered something different. Corinth was a hot mess when Paul wrote his letters to the church. Many were struggling with how politically involved they were to be – how much they were to be like their city. Others in the church were more willing to point out the many sins and how to avoid the city. And Paul says hold on a minute. He says to the church, we are tasked with the mighty work of reconciliation. “And God has given us the tasks of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.”
The word reconciliation means to re-establish a relationship of friendship. That’s what God did for us. Paul would say elsewhere, while we were enemies of God, Jesus reconciled us to the Father. We were enemies who were restored to friendship – not on our own merits but because God chose to do so. And being reconciled, we are to do the same with others. To the Roman world, this was utter nonsense – it is to many of us too.
Paul says if we “seem crazy it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds it is for your benefit. Either way, Christ’s love controls us.” Reconciling broken relationships is hard, but we do it because we have been given a new life in the Love of Christ. “He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”
Here’s the problem we face today. Many church people have forgotten that we have been given a new life. Not a polished up old life that has our old prejudices and fears still trying to maintain control, but a new life that is lived IN Jesus’ love. Paul said to the Corinthians, we are ambassadors of Jesus – spokespersons for the life and love of Jesus; not ambassadors for the emperor, or the army, or the economy, or whatever else. We are made friends with God and we are given a new life – “Anyone who belongs to Christ is a NEW person the old life is gone; a new life has begun.”
We are not called to an individual response, but, as a people who claim to have experienced the love of Jesus, we are called to lives of restoring friendships. We are called not to social actions alone, we are called to respond to the work of Jesus on the cross that looks at the brokenness around us and says no more fear.
In March, we were given the equivalent of a time out. All of us were sent home and told to chill. Schools and businesses were closed as fear gripped us. We tuned into daily updates and we were afraid. A lot of us thought this was time out was going to be a good thing for us – it doesn’t feel like that right now. Our anger and rage our quick and ready responses to things we don’t understand or fear is thick. We need to do better.
Christian, we should not worry about the government taking our freedom – that has been every government’s plan since the beginning. You should be a threat, but not one of anger and violence, but of radical love and peace. We should be a voice for the hopeless, not a hopeless voice. We should be ambassadors of a love that takes down oppression and we should be trusting not a cause or a person or a flag but the One who is Lord of Lords. Let’s take another time out and sit down with someone we disagree with and let’s see them as Jesus saw us – enemies that have been reconciled as friends.
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