“Instead of hating the people you think are
war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the
causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed
- but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”
― Thomas Merton
____________________________________________________
No poems to day.
Just a little piece from the draft of my sermon for this Sunday
The passages I am addressing are tough ones…. Love
your enemy. Be generous to the
takers. You know, the stuff so many
American Christians are more than willing to ignore while they look down their
noses at most of the world (Do I sound a little pissed? I am)
It strikes me that there are a couple of
perspectives we must have if we are to come anywhere close to the “perfection”
Jesus calls for in Matthew 5:38-48 (read it, please)
First we need an understanding of our own deep
capacity for doing what is wrong. We can
never do what this passage says, if we are looking at others from a perspective
of righteousness. My mother used to look
at people who were behaving badly and say quite simply, “well that’s a real
gem”. We have to recognize that we all
have a shadow side. We all have the
capacity for wrong, even evil. And we
have to be able to say, as we look at the one we are angry with, the one who
disgusts us… the one we want to judge…
That could be me… perhaps, in some ways… that has
been me…. Maybe even, that is me!
I guess you can say we have to understand the
profound connection we have with the other at this point of vulnerability….We
are all “real gems”, in my mother’s vernacular
You know the statement, there, but for the grace
of God go I…. No! that won’t work here.
It assume we are better. To
follow this commandment we have to say, there BY the grace of God, go I.”
Did you get that statement? There goes a person
who is a messed up and has done things wrong, but who is loved by God… and I am
a person who is messed up and has done things wrong, and is loved by God. They by the grace of God go I. We are alike, that person, and I. At some deep profound level, we are the same.
Maybe I have a different struggle
Maybe the way I have wounded another is
different….
But that person, with whom I am angry, that person
who has become, one way or another my enemy, that person is me
So that is one thing we need to be able to do… see
our own capacity to be destructive, hurtful.
The other thing we have to do is just as
important… and perhaps more difficult.
We have to see the other person’s capacity for good… We have to develop
a new way of seeing the other person
This is where we move beyond our respect for our
common capacity for error
And move to our common capacity for good.
This is where the sacred in us begins to see, to
appreciate, to believe in, the sacred in the other
So, we need to look for the good in our
enemy. As Mr. Rogers used to say,
"Have you ever noticed that the very same people who are bad
sometimes, are the very same people who
are good sometimes?" There's an
element of evil in the best of us and an element of good in the worst of
us. When you look for the good in
others, it helps you find the positive and not fall into the trap of labeling
others as totally worthless, as having no good in them.
Martin Luther King put it this way: "When you
come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within
him what religion calls, 'the image of God,' you begin to love him in spite of
everything else … (so) find the center of goodness and place your attention
there, and you will take a new attitude."
In this day of polarization. In this time when many who call themselves “Christian”
are using positions of power to oppress, minimize, crush, destroy…. I give up,
the verbs are endless…. people who are struggling, we need to be people who go
down a different path. The path of
acceptance, inclusion, and forgiveness
And, we need to act, and talk, accordingly
No comments:
Post a Comment