If I Were Preaching this Week.

I would go after this lectionary passage from the gospel of Matthew 5:38-48 again.  Matthew has a way of holding up a mirror, and when we think we need to zag, we find a zig.  The passage for this week is no different. 

One pastor has described verse 38, “An eye for an eye,” as business as usual.  Then Matthew reports Christ offering a zig to that zag.  In my words, Christ says something like this, “knock off the negative backbiting and infighting, and start to love on each other, especially the folks who you hate.”  So maybe I would title my sermon, “Business as Unusual.”

In my work as a Conference Superintendent over the last four years, I can tell you the one thing we need more of in the church today is love for each other.  Perhaps my path takes me into places where there is more conflict and division in the church than is normal, but I doubt it.  Pastors are being controlled and abused while congregations are being micromanaged and marginalized.  I have begun calling the church a violent place to hang out these days, however, we must find a way to become non-violent.  The church of the future will not sustain this level of attack and pain.  Unfortunately, this all feels like business as usual for a large part of the church.  The world should know us by our love, but that is just not the case these days regardless of how many times we sing the song.  Our actions define us, always have.

If I were preaching in the local church here are a couple things I would need to be sure I visited in preparing the sermon this week.  The first is our Bishops Trimble being arrested at the White House on Monday for his non-violent stand against immigration deportation of almost 2 million souls.  I would throw this out as a way of doing business unusually.  No matter how you come down on the immigration issue, we can all agree we must stop pulling families apart.  The Second is the Olympics.  Everyone has been watching them, so they provide a ready and steady sermon illustration stream for which just about everyone has knowledge. Point out the amazing stuff that is not business as usual, and then point out what makes you cringe and for which we wish we had a redo button.  Where do you see the golden rule and where do you just see rules?  How can we push through business as usual and get to the unusual business of grace and love for one another? 

And finally from the book, Native American Wisdom, these words to consider on leadership from the Constitution of the Five Nations.  “With endless patience you shall carry out your duty, and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people.  Neither anger nor fury shall lodge in your mind, and all your words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation.”

If I Were Preaching this Week

If I were preaching this week I would be looking at the Gospel lectionary from Matthew.  The Beatitudes, Chapter 5 all the way to Chapter 7, provide some deep and profound words for us to chew on.  Last week I was struck how the initial, “Blessed are,” sayings are fully inclusive.  They gather us all into one body.  We all experience grief.  We all experience loss, abundance, and hunger.  We find ourselves in relationship without regard to any human agenda potentially sorting us into competitive camps. 

As I pondered the reading for this Sunday, I was wondering where that kind of radical relationship outlined last week might lead.  As I looked closer I found the same guiding thought leading me to the same conclusion.  We all are together in the same boat.  We all lose our saltiness at times.  We all walk in darkness at times.  We all deal with anger.  We all deal with lust and saying things which we regret.  We are in this together, like it or not.  God may not care to view a bunch of selfies.  Rather God might prefer to see a family portrait.

When we deal with our sin and our loss together, then we can also deal with our love and our new life in Christ together.  We were never built to go it alone.  The preceding passage to the Beatitudes finds Jesus calling the disciples together, and then ministering to the crowds.  No mention of individual preference or personal salvation in this reading.  We are invited to be in the boat, in the crowd, along with every other human being. 

Oh my goodness, in this society where even the church is crowned triumphant as it offers individual care, individual praise, and individual spiritual self-differentiation, here is different path.  Matthew is shouting that it is not about me.  Life is not about getting my needs met, or my agenda massaged.  Life is about walking with the crowd, dealing with the reality of finding ourselves in the midst of the fullness of human expression. Life abundant happens with us, all of us, together.  There is no other way.  Feel free to use these thoughts if they are helpful if you are preaching this week.