Grounded in Love

 Grounded in Love

Matthew 22:34-40[1]

I’ve mentioned before that one of the challenges we face these days is that there are so many people who believe they can live their lives without any need for God. The fact is that this isn’t a new development. It started over two hundred years ago, in the age known as the “Enlightenment.” For centuries the church had focused so exclusively on God as the only “true” reality that it stifled most of what we would see as a healthy appreciation of what it means to be human. That may be hard for us to grasp because the shift that took place then has become the foundation for our way of life. Most of what we occupy ourselves with these days focuses on some facet of human life. It’s hard for us to imagine that being any different.

To some extent that shift was a good thing. The repressive policies of the church in the Middle Ages made God out to be someone to be feared, not loved. We needed to rediscover a healthy appreciation of who we are as human beings. Unfortunately, as with many good efforts to effect change, the shift of attention from the creator to the creature as the measure for how to live opened the “pandora’s box” of problems we’re dealing with now. In a very real sense, what we are seeing today is the unintended result of well-meaning efforts by thinkers like Immanuel Kant to locate our motivation for living within ourselves. And the result is that we live in a time when generations of people exclude God from their lives altogether.

We’ve all heard the rationalization: “Church people are all hypocrites. I can be a good and kind person without the church.” It’s true that those of us in the church fail to live up to the faith we profess much more frequently than we would care to admit. And it’s also true that there are people in the world who have become good and kind human beings without any significant influence from organized religion or even a belief in God. I would say, however, that in my experience that is the exception. For many people, what they call “love” is motivated by what they can get out of it, not by what they can give. In my experience, for us to become truly loving human beings, our love has to be grounded in God’s love.

I think that’s one of the lessons from the interaction between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders in our Gospel reading for today. At the end of a debate that the religious leaders had been carrying on with Jesus, hoping to make a fool out of him in front of the people who followed him, one Torah scholar asks him which of God’s commands was “great,” or most important. The first part of Jesus’ answer would have come as no surprise to anyone present. The commandment Jesus identified as the “first” came from the Shema, which was and still is the heart of the Jewish faith (Deut 6:5): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). What may have been surprising to those who were questioning Jesus is the fact that he added a “second” commandment that he said was “like” the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39; Lev 19:18). It’s very likely Jesus was the first one to bring these two commands together and link them to one another in this way.

These days, we assume they go together. Since the time of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago, we’ve been taught that the command to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” summarizes the first part of the Ten Commandments. And we’ve been taught that the command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” summarizes the second part. And I would say this is consistent with the general framework of faith in the Bible: everything begins with God’s love for us. We who have the joy of experiencing God’s unconditional and irrevocable love for us respond by loving God with all our hearts. And we demonstrate our love for God by the love we show others, treating them with respect, fairness, and kindness. For those of us who have been raised in biblical faith, this is the bedrock of our lives: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Unfortunately, in practice it’s not as simple as that. So much of life these days revolves around “self.” In fact, many people write an orientation toward “self” into these two “great” commandments. The line goes something like this: “You can’t love someone else unless you love yourself, so ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ means you should love yourself first.” While it’s true that we can only give love to the extent that we have a healthy sense of self, that is most definitely not what Jesus was talking about here. And in practice, while I know this point of view is well-meaning, and there is some truth to it, I’m afraid that all too often it becomes just another excuse for making our lives all about getting what we want.

That’s not what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about a way of life that involves caring for the “least of these,” even (and especially) when it means going out of your way or stepping outside your “comfort zones.” If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve actually done that, you know that it takes more than a “healthy sense of yourself” to motivate you to make the sacrifices it takes. Most of us in this culture have very little firsthand experience with helping people living in the crushing poverty that oppresses so many people in this world every day. Those who do have such experience know that it involves exposing yourself to disease, unsafe drinking water, the danger of theft or even kidnapping, not to mention the exhausting pace of trying to do all you can for so many needy people in a relatively short time.

“Loving yourself first” can’t motivate you to love others like that. Only God’s love for us can do that. I’ll be the first one to admit that the church is an imperfect place to learn about God’s love. And the way some churches operate can leave you wondering whether God is loving at all. But churches full of flawed but caring people are the places where most of us come to experience God’s unconditional and irrevocable love for us. In my experience, only God’s love has the power to motivate, and keep on motivating us, to love the people around us in the way that Jesus modeled for us. And not just the people who are like us, but all the people around us. Particularly the ones who are difficult to love. And even more so those who push us outside our sense of safety or comfort. We need a way of life that’s grounded in God’s love for us to be able to love other people the way Jesus taught us to love.

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[1] © 2023 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 10/29/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Choosing Peace

 Choosing Peace

Philippians 4:4-13[1]

If you’re a person who follows the news, you know that the times in which we are living can make it hard to find our way to personal peace. Just the wars that are going on in the world right now are troubling enough. The war in Ukraine is moving toward a third year. And now, we have a conflict in the Middle East that threatens to engulf several nations. At the same time, the people of Afghanistan live under the constant threat of violence. When you add Iraq, Ethiopia, Sudan, Myanmar, Mexico, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Colombia, and about 10 other countries where there are conflicts that have each inflicted thousands of deaths, it becomes a bit overwhelming. I think we might understand why so many people are frightened by the current state of the world. Or at the very least troubled.

Unfortunately, the history of the world is a history of violence and war. Indeed, there was a time when warfare was so common that it was simply expected that a young man would define his character by going off to war! It was a rite of passage! And many of those wars were not fought on some faraway battlefield across oceans. Rather, they were fought among the people. That’s still the reality with most of the wars going on today. They take place in the cities and towns and villages where innocent people become casualties. If you add up all the fatalities just in the last couple of years, it reaches the hundreds of thousands. And most of these wars have stretched on for decades, many of them for more than fifty years!

It’s hard for me to imagine entire generations of people growing up and living their whole lives in a state of war. I can’t begin to understand what that must be like for them. I don’t know about you, but I find that life in the relative safety of this country feels stressful enough. To be sure, we have threats at home as well. Our grandchildren are growing up with the specter of school shootings hanging over them. We all live with the knowledge that we cannot anticipate where the next mass shooting will happen. When you think too much about all of this, you may wonder whether “peace” is even a choice we can make.

But the truth of the matter for all of us, whether we’re talking about those of us who live in this country, or those who live in the midst of an active war, is that we all choose how we are going to respond to what is happening in our lives. Granted, there are some situations where we have more choice than others. As I mentioned last week, many of us may allow fear to control our reactions, and we don’t take the time to respond to the challenges of life with wisdom, faith, or courage. What we may not be able to see is that we are choosing that response. And we may not be able to see that we also have the ability to choose differently. We all can choose peace, no matter what we may be facing in life. The question is how to do that.

I believe our lesson from St. Paul gives us some practical help with that. What we should remember is that the people he was writing to in the church at Philippi faced many dangers because of their faith in Christ. Some of them had been thrown out of their families. Others had lost their livelihood, because they would no longer sacrifice to the Greek gods that were patron deities of their trade unions. Many found themselves at times at the mercy of mob violence—beaten and humiliated, and sometimes they lost their lives. These were people who knew danger quite well.

We should also remember that St. Paul himself experienced threats, even threats against his life! In his various letters he recounts his life as a Christian Apostle and it definitely was not a storybook life. Paul lists all that he had been through for the sake of Christ and the churches he served: he was flogged to the brink of death five times, pelted with stones and left for dead, shipwrecked three times, spending a night and a day adrift on the open sea, not to mention spending many a sleepless night in prison, hungry, and cold (2 Cor. 11:23-27). His life was one that was far from safe: as he said it himself, he experienced “danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea” (2 Cor. 11:26).

When I think about what the first Christians had to go through because of their faith, it makes me wonder how they were able to endure it all. In part, St. Paul answers that question with his call not to give in to fear, but to turn to God as our source of peace. And the promise he makes is a familiar one: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). I think that’s where the battle with fear is won or lost—in our hearts and our minds. We need to feel safe in our hearts and we need to be able to think of our lives as secure. And St. Paul promises that we find that safety and security in God alone.

He goes on to assure us that “the God of peace will be with you” (Phil. 4:9). It’s a wonderful promise that may sometimes get overlooked because of the previous one. But it’s just as important for our ability to choose peace in our lives. Promising that “the God of peace will be with you” is something of a loaded statement. Speaking about the “God of peace” can be a description of God’s character: He is the God who embodies peace. It can also say something about the end result of God’s work in our world: He is the God who is working toward peace that extends to everyone. But, perhaps most importantly for this context, “the God of peace” can describe how God relates to us: He is the God who gives us peace. And Paul says that it is this God who is constantly with us, providing us with an anchor for our souls and a foundation upon which to build our lives.

I don’t believe we can rely on the circumstances of our lives as the source for our peace. At least, that’s been my experience. There will be times when life may seem fairly calm. In those times it’s relatively easy to find peace. But the challenge is finding peace when life is anything but calm. We need something more stable to help us face the fear and uncertainty of those times. For most of us, our fear isn’t about the threat of violence or war. Rather our fear comes from other threats: the loss of livelihood, the loss of family, the loss of health, the loss of home. Because the “God of peace” is always with us, we can always choose to respond to what is happening in our lives by looking to God to supply the “peace that surpasses all understanding.” In part, I believe that means recognizing that there are some aspects of life that we cannot control. We can’t control wars that are taking place around the world. We can’t control the violence that is overflowing our cities and towns. We can’t even control the most basic circumstances of our own lives. What we can do is to trust that our lives are always in God’s hands, and that regardless of what may happen to us in this life, there is no safer place for us to be. I would say that’s at least the first step toward choosing peace.

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2023. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 10/15/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Stumbling

 Stumbling

Matthew 21:33-46[1]

These days it’s hard to separate “enemies” from friends who disagree with us. It seems like every issue that we can disagree on sets us against each other. It’s too easy for us all to get upset and even outright angry over a simple matter of disagreement. I don’t know, but I wonder if the reason for this is that we’re all afraid. The world we live in has changed dramatically. And the speed at which it continues to change is one that can take your breath away. Life seems to keep getting harder and more confusing. When we’re living under that kind of stress, our “radar” gets stuck in “danger” mode. When that happens, it’s hard for us to separate “enemies” from friends who disagree with us.

I think part of the reason for this is when we are stuck in “danger” mode, our fear dictates our response to everything. We don’t really take the time to sort through whatever we may be dealing with in order to come up with the appropriate response. We simply react. What’s more, we’ve gotten pretty good at coming up with “reasons” to justify our fears and the reactions they fuel. And the result is that, instead of taking enough time to listen to those who disagree with us to understand where they’re coming from, we simply “paint” them as “enemies.” Breaking down the world into “enemies” and “allies” is at least part of what creates the polarization we are living with in these days. We dump people into “all or nothing” categories to feel safer about our world.

I wouldn’t say that Jesus was “dumping” people into all or nothing categories in our Gospel lesson. But it is a disturbing one. Jesus tells a parable about tenant farmers working in a vineyard who refuse to pay the landlord his share of the harvest. When he sends servants to collect, they beat them, and kill others. When he sends his son, they throw him out of the vineyard and kill him, too. And the point is to confront the Jewish religious leaders for rejecting Jesus, just as Jewish religious leaders had rejected the prophets God sent them for generations. And the result, from Matthew’s perspective, is that the kingdom of God was to be taken away from the Jewish people and given to others. Looking back at this parable from the history of Jesus’ death and resurrection can see that’s what’s going on here.

Unfortunately, through the centuries, people in the church have used passages like this to “paint” all Jewish people as “enemies.” In fact, they were labeled “Christ killers” for centuries. And as a result, they were persecuted and hounded from town to town, city to city, and nation to nation. The sad truth, however, is that this reflects more the human tendency to mark certain people as “enemies” than it did Jesus’ teaching. Many of the Jewish people in that day became believers. Thousands of them did! Not even all the Jewish religious leaders were “enemies” of the church. Two of the most prominent leaders, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, objected to the way the high council was proceeding in Jesus’ trial, and they were among those who tended to Jesus’ body after his death. And in the book of Acts we learn of former Pharisees who had become believers (Acts 15:5).

I think the way this story has been (mis)used in the history of the church provides us with a caution against “painting” people with broad strokes. This not only applies to people who follow other religious traditions, but basically to everyone. There’s not a single one of us who has a legitimate claim to judge anyone. We simply do not know the whole story about anyone we try to make out to be an “enemy.” More than that, there’s only one judge whom we all must face, and that’s Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Perhaps the most practical consideration here is that we cannot judge because all of us share in the weaknesses and flaws that define us as human beings.

In this approach to our lesson for today I’m actually taking my cue from John Calvin. In his commentary on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he also views this parable as a confrontation of the Jewish religious leaders, who were originally appointed by God, because they used their office to tear down what they were called to build up. But Calvin also recognizes that all people are still subject to the same temptations that led the Jewish religious leaders to betray their calling. And so he urges the people of his day to take this parable as a “useful warning” that we seek to be diligent about serving our Lord “in true godliness” so that our work may “yield fruit.”[2] I would say that’s a warning from which we can all benefit.

But the truth of the matter is not only that we are all subject to the same temptations. We also all stumble from time to time. Some of what we heard from our Scripture lessons for today might lead us to that there’s no room for that kind of thing. Some of what Jesus taught might lead us to think that there’s no room for stumbling if we want to follow him. In the Sermon on the Mount he said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). And as we heard from our Gospel lesson last week, at another time Jesus said, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk 9:62). If we follow John Calvin’s line of thinking that those who fall to human temptations might forfeit our calling, it doesn’t sound like there’s much room there for stumbling.

And yet, we’re all subject to human temptations. And we all stumble from time to time. We might think that means that we’ve forfeited any claim to God’s love. I would think all of us would agree we cannot possibly live up to the demand to be “perfect.” And if “looking back” makes you unfit for the kingdom of God, then nobody is “fit.” Nobody is “worthy.” Perhaps that’s the point. We can never deserve the gift of God’s amazing grace, mercy, and love. But if it’s really true that God’s love for us never fails, and that God’s love is unconditional for everyone, then stumbling doesn’t have to mean that we have somehow forfeited our calling to follow Jesus. We all stumble from time to time, and God’s love is such that he continues to reach out to us even when we fall short. Especially when we stumble. At the end of the day, our service to Christ isn’t about whether or not we are “fit” or “deserving,” but rather it’s about the fact that God chooses to accomplish his work in this world through flawed and fallible people like you and me. For me, that’s an encouragement. It reminds me that God still carries out his work even when I stumble, and even when I fall. And I think that’s true for us all: we can still keep serving Christ even when we stumble!

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[1] © 2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 10/8/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol 3:35-38.