July 1, 2018
Matthew 5:43-48; Hebrews 11:8-16
Sometimes, you hear people saying we’re
living in America’s most divisive moment right now. I’m certainly not happy with the way we’re
talking to each other, but I don’t think today quite measures up to 1856. In that year, the issue of the day was
something literally very close to home for us here in Kansas City.
On the floor of the United States Senate,
Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts and a
leader of the abolition wing
of the new Republican Party, rose to speak about the admission of Kansas to the
Union and whether Kansas should be slave or free. Arguing against his colleague, Senator Andrew
Butler of South Carolina, who was present in the room, Sumner charged Butler
with having taken a metaphorical mistress, and I quote: “a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always
lovely to him; [a mistress,] though polluted in the sight of the world, is
chaste in his sight. I mean,” said
Sumner, “the harlot, Slavery.”1
And we think today’s rhetoric
is divisive.
 |
| Rep. Preston Brooks caning Sen. Charles Sumner, 1856 |
But with Sumner’s speech, the
dysfunctional drama had only just begun.
Congressman Preston Brooks, fellow South Carolinian and friend of
Senator Butler, came into the Senate chamber at the end of business that
day. He walked up to Sumner, still sitting
at his Senate desk, and Brooks began beating him over the head with his metal-topped
cane. Brooks beat him until Sumner bled
profusely and had to be carried out. His
assault complete, Brooks himself simply walked calmly out of the Senate
chamber. Both men became celebrities and
heroes to people on their respective sides.
Appallingly, a censure resolution against Brooks failed, and he won
re-election. Brooks died soon thereafter,
at 37 years of age,2 but the stage for Civil War was being set.
Onto that stage came Abraham Lincoln, a
minority president whose election in 1860 triggered the secession of the
Southern states, seven of which had already left before Lincoln took office. As Lincoln came to Washington in early 1861
for his inauguration, he understood his work as being even greater than George
Washington’s – not the work of creating, but the work of reconciling, his
nation. He was tasked with holding together
the fabric the founders had stitched, even as it was actively rending. Most of Lincoln’s inaugural address was an
argument for calm deliberation rather than hasty action, appealing to the small
remaining center and arguing for legislation to “adjust … all our present
difficulty.”3
But for his ending, Lincoln offered hope
for reconciliation even in the face of secession. He tried to remind the 30,000 people gathered
there4 how much greater were the forces unifying them than dividing
them. He said, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may
have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone,
all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”5 Of course, Lincoln’s beautiful call fell on
the deaf ears of both sides; and five weeks later, South Carolina fired on Fort
Sumter.
Today, we’re not waging the Civil
War. Instead, we’re waging the War of
Incivility. Last week, a Democratic member
of Congress called on people to harass cabinet members in public establishments
and tell them they aren’t welcome. A
restaurant owner in Virginia told an administration official she wasn’t welcome
to dine there.6 A billboard recently
went up on a Texas highway telling liberals to leave the state.7 Really?
That’s what we’ve come to?
So, what do we hear from our Lord and
Savior about all this, as we celebrate our nation’s birthday? Let’s look at the Gospel reading for the
feast of Independence Day. This passage
comes in the middle of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, part of a string of
teachings where Jesus is redefining “what everybody knows” about how they’re
supposed to live faithfully. Over and
over, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said…,” and then he redefines the
conventional wisdom on topics like violence, adultery, divorce, swearing oaths,
and retribution. Then, at the end of
this section, Jesus takes the furthest step – redefining the conventional
wisdom about how we’re supposed to treat our enemies.
So, what would that conventional wisdom have
been? Probably not so different from our
own. Even Scripture can take us down the
wrong path: Psalm 139 says, “O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that
the bloodthirsty would depart from me….
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? … I
hate them with a perfect hatred, I count them my enemies.” (139:19,21-22) That may be Scripture, but it’s probably not
great material for the next Youth Group t-shirt. So, Jesus teaches, you’ve heard that this was
said. But I say to you, “Love your
enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
Pesky Savior. That’s not what we wanted to hear. Righteous indignation is so much more satisfying.
But wait – this teaching gets even harder
when you dig into Jesus words. First of
all, love in this sense isn’t some warm and fuzzy feeling; love is action. It’s about how we treat one another,
regardless of how we feel. And that’s not
all. Here’s our lesson in Greek for the
day. There are three different Greek
words in the New Testament translated in English as “love.” One of them is stergo. It means to have a
benevolent interest in someone, to wish someone well. That’s not the word for love Jesus uses
here. The second is phileo, which means to like someone a lot, to consider someone a
friend, a brother, a sister. That’s not
the word for love that Jesus uses here. The
third is agapao, whose noun form is agapé.
This is God’s love for us, the love Jesus shows in giving himself for
us, the love of foot-washing and healing and sacrifice. And yes, this
is the word for love that Jesus uses here.
It hardly seems fair. I mean, on our own, maybe we could get to the
point of treating our enemies with benevolent interest – and honestly, in our
national discourse, that would be a huge improvement. But agapé? How do we do that?
Well, we do it the hard way because that’s
the only way. We do it by being present
with our enemy, relating to our enemy, knowing our enemy – not through someone
else’s talking points but over a beer.
And then, we’re supposed to go even one step further, Jesus says. Once we know our enemy, we pray for him. And mean it.
Now, I doubt that many of us here would
consider someone else in this church an enemy.
But I’ll tell you: If you take it seriously, church life is pretty
darned good training for the self-giving love Jesus is talking about here –
especially when we do it intentionally.
Last Sunday, we began a discussion of Scripture, interpretation, and
immigration, and there were a couple of moments when things got a little
heated. One person said one thing, and
another person heard something slightly different, and some anger rose. For those of us who don’t love conflict,
those moments can make us stop short.
But we can’t let them make us stop talking. So, we picked up the conversation again this Sunday. People there certainly disagreed with each
other, but I believe in our ability, led by the Holy Spirit, to disagree
without dividing. In fact, I believe in
our ability, led by the Holy Spirit, to disagree and begin healing. And that’s the work of reconciliation. That’s the work of the better angels of our
nature.
And I think we’re called to move that work
forward. So, this conversation about
Scripture, interpretation, and immigration won’t be our last gathering like
this. I think we need something
regularly, maybe monthly, where we can practice reconciliation by loving one
another even as we disagree. It’s a
chance for us to build our muscles as reconcilers, and it’s a chance to offer a
haven of sanity and blessing in a divided culture. It’s a chance to let our better angels
rise.
What’s most important about this call
we’ve heard is that neither Lincoln nor Jesus was talking just to the “good”
people or the “important” people. They
were both talking to us all. Lincoln may
not have been a Christian exactly, but he understood the mystery that sin
dwells alongside the beauty of being made in God’s image. Lincoln knew we all wallow in depths of
darkness, and we soar to heights of light.
He was calling on the better angels within each of us, and within the
character of our nation. He was calling
on the senator from Massachusetts and
the congressman from South Carolina; the small farmer in New York and the
slave-holder in Missouri; the ironworker in Pennsylvania and the blacksmith in
Mississippi.
Today, the same truth holds. It’s not just the leaders of our political
parties who’ve got to figure out how to listen to each other, in order to lift
our nation out of the muck and into functional governance. It’s us.
We’ve got to turn off the cable news and choose not to react to the
daily outrages of social media. We’ve
got to love each other enough to speak with each other, and listen to each
other, and pray with each other, and pray for
each other – and mean it. As it is for
individuals, so it is for nations: When
we love, we thrive. When we disdain, we
suffer. When we reject, we wither. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,”
as both Jesus (Mark 3:25) and Lincoln8 said.
“Love your enemies, and pray for those who
persecute you.” Living that way is how
we’ll find what we seek, our “better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews
11:16). It’s the holy choice to which the
better angels of our nature still guide us.
So, as we head back out into our divided land, back out into our nation
of indignation, ask yourself: How can I change the conventional wisdom? Whose voice do I need to hear? For whom do
I need to pray? What enemy is Jesus
calling me to love?
1.
United
States Senate. “The Caning of Charles
Sumner.” Available at: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm. Accessed June 29, 2018.
2.
United
States Senate, “Caning.”
3.
Lincoln,
Abraham. “First Inaugural Address, March
4, 1861, Washington, D.C..” Available
at: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/1inaug.htm. Accessed June 29, 2018.
4.
Kaplan,
Fred. Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer.
New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
325.
5.
Lincoln,
“First Inaugural.”
6.
Gomez,
Luis. “Zero tolerance? Maxine Waters says Trump cabinet ‘not welcome
anymore, anywhere,’ sparking backlash.” San Diego Union Tribune, June 25,
2018. Available at: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-democrats-republicans-balk-at-maxine-waters-remarks-about-trump-supporters-20180625-htmlstory.html. Accessed June 29, 2018.
7.
Shannon,
Joel. “Texas billboard that tells
‘liberals’ to keep driving will come down.”
USA Today, June 20, 2018. Available at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/20/texas-billboard-tells-liberals-keep-driving/716756002/. Accessed June 29, 2018.
8.
Lincoln,
Abraham. “House Divided Speech,
Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.”
Available at: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm. Accessed June 29, 2018.
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