Give to everyone

A Sermon for the 7th Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL A) 2-20-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry
Texts: Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18; Psalm 119:33-40; 1 Corin. 3:10-11,16-23; Matt 5:38-48
Title: Give to everyone

Many of you already know this fact, and I’m sorry that I have to admit it now. But, I’m a little odd. I’m a bit different.I think differently than many others. I can’t help it. I’m a nature guy.

So, when I had the chance to spend a few days this past week up in the snowy mountains of New Hampshire, I was thinking a lot about porcupines. There is a cliff on the hillside behind our little cabin, and among the rocks at the base of this cliff lives a family of porcupines. In the winter, it is very easy to see what they’re up to, and in the summer I sometimes pick up quills that they drop.

With me today, I have some of the quills that I’ve found up at the base of this cliff. I’ll pass them around for everyone to see. (Sorry all of you internet folk - all I can offer you here is a picture!) 

Do you know how porcupine quills work? They are found on the back side of porcupines, but the quills do not shoot out and off of their bodies. The end of each quill has tiny barbs, like microscopic fish hooks. They can easily grab the fur or the flesh of an attacker and they are designed to easily disconnect from the porcupine’s body. When they are stuck in the flesh of an attacker, these little barbs swell up from body heat. This makes them even more difficult to remove and thus more painful.

This is how a porcupine treats its enemies. Why does the animal do this? Because of the real possibility of loss. The porcupine has to protect itself against losing its life, or losing the life of its offspring, and so against the end of its family.

And so as I was snowshoeing through the forest this week, I was thinking about our Lord’s revolutionary teaching that loving our enemies is the best way to live, and also thinking about porcupines and how they react to their enemies.

There is no doubt about the fact that we human beings are animals. We are part of the animal world. The animals of this planet are our relatives, our cousins. We share many things in common with them. And yet, it is also true that we are different from them, that we are heavenly, spiritual beings who have been blessed by God with consciousness, soul, a different kind of intelligence.

And so when Jesus gives us this powerful call to “be perfect, therefore, as [our] heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), he is calling us to live our daily lives in accordance with the spiritual aspect of our natures.

This is a difficult passage for us to understand. What does it mean to be perfect? I think a better translation of this passage is the one supplied by Eugene Peterson in The Message. This is how he words it in contemporary colloquial language:

Jesus said: "In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."

How is it, after all, that God is able to give the blessing of the sun and the rain to all people, even to the nastiest people of all? How is it that God is able to live generously and graciously even toward people who hate God? Because, unlike the animals, God has no need to fear the possibility of loss. There is nothing that any human being can do to harm God, to cause God loss or pain or suffering. Beside the extraordinary situation of the passion and crucifixion of Jesus, there is no way for human beings to truly harm God.

This is how I understand what Jesus is trying to communicate to us in this phenomenal teaching. We each have the choice to respond to the actions of others either according to our animal instincts, or else according to our soul force.

It is easy to see other people as threats to our lives. And so it is easy to treat our enemies the way that porcupines treat their enemies.

But we have another option. It’s a bit crazy, a little radical, I know. Jesus invites us to see humanity in the same exact way that God sees them. Because our lives are now “hidden with Christ in God”, we can in fact respond to others, even our mortal enemies, with generosity and grace. We can live without the fear of loss, because our lives are in the hands of God.

It is only when we let go of our fear and when we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the grace of God that we are able to love our enemies.

Because the truth, my dear friends, is this: if you live as part of the body of Christ, then there is truly nothing that anyone can do to harm you. If God truly and honestly is in charge of this mess which we call life on planet earth, then we have nothing at all to fear.

Dallas Willard talks about the Christ-like attitude toward our enemies in this way:

“We are not passive, but we act always with clear-eyed and resolute love. We know what is really happening, seeing it from the point of view of eternity. And we know that we will be taken care of, no matter what. We can be vulnerable because we are, in the end, simply invulnerable. And once we have broken the power of anger and desire over our lives, we know that the way of Christ in response to personal injury [and imposition] is always the easier way. It is [in fact] the only way that allows us to move serenely in the midst of harm and beyond it” (The Divine Conspiracy, p. 181).

However true this may be – and it is true! – we all know just how easy it is to fall back into our old animal ways: to go about getting revenge on others, gossiping about people behind their backs, wishing ill toward people that we don’t like, being afraid of what others might do to us. Unfortunately, it is very easy to sink back into this old pattern of thinking.

We need help in making our new life a reality where we live and work every day. And so we are reminded again of our peculiar vocation as the church of God. We are called to be a soul-force boot camp, a spiritual university where we learn and study together all of the practical ways by which we can transform our minds from those animal instincts and into a pattern of thinking and living which reflects the reality of God in our lives.

That is why God has given us to each other in community: for practical training in true inner goodness. Thankfully, we don’t have to invent the curriculum. It’s all right here!

For instance, when our Master teaches us to pray for those who persecute you, he is giving us a practical way to change our lives.

Have you ever actually tried this with intention and discipline? Tried to pray regularly for someone who was troubling you, for your nemesis? Whenever I have done so, I find it impossible to wish them harm, or to think ill of them. If I am praying for them, praying that God blesses them and fills their lives with joy and peace and guides them in the ways of truth, then I find that I am not able to wish them any different!

Here is just one of the many practical ways given to us by our Lord Jesus by which we can change our habitual ways of thinking through intentional practice. There are countless more.

It is my prayer and my hope that we can truly become this kind of community where we study and practice together in the ways and methods of changing our lives, as we all grow together in our ability to live out our God-created identities. May it be so. Amen.