Sermon of the Week:
Why Reconciliation is Up There with Peace and Justice
A sermon preached for The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on February 20, 2022.
Hymns: I Sing the Mighty Power of God
and Guide my Feet
Keywords: Cooked Spinach, Sermon on the Plain, Joseph and his Brothers, Genesis 45, kintsugi, Reconciliation. #pcusa
Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Luke 6:27-38
and Genesis 45:1-15
Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-733469.
All rights reserved.
I realized about halfway through my sermon prep for today
That some people might accuse me of choosing to focus on the Genesis text
Because, one way you look at it, that’s the easy way out.
In reflecting about that other reading, the one that Erin read for us today,
Vaughn Crowe-Tipton noted, in his words
that people respond to that reading
In the same way that my children respond
to seeing cooked spinach on their plate at dinner.[i]
Now, now, don’t be like my grandmother,
who would have turned and looked at me
And said “come child, I LIKE cooked spinach.”
That’s not the point.
Instead, Crowe-Tipton continues,
No matter how much I explain the nutritional value,
no one around the table really wants to dig in….
Goodness, Jesus, who wants to love an enemy?
There’s more:
Some preachers have been known to fill stadiums
With people who want to hear sermons on “Three Easy Steps to Love”
and “Five Paths to a Better Life.”
If Jesus had preached either of those sermons, Crowe-Tipton says,
[on the Plain or] on the Mount,
Emperor Constantine would have been born into a Christian home
and baptized as a child.
Jesus focuses, however, on the real problem with nutrition;
there is a vast difference between what we want and what we need.
There’s a vast difference between what we want and what we need.
All who dare prepare a sermon with the ingredients Jesus offers
will do well to remember that tension.
///
So there you go.
You and I, we’ve been warned.
But he has a point, doesn’t he.
The life of discipleship has an edge, doesn’t it.
Grace isn’t cheap.
Things we read here are HARD
Forgiveness and Compassion for those who have hurt us and a bigger vision.
One of my friends on Twitter this week said:
I’ve come to realize that being an adult is coming to the understanding
That some people are just going to be mad at you….
and dealing with that reality constructively….
Here: Jesus is asking us to be adults in our faith, yes?
And when we think about it
There are things that God wants us to do that we’d prefer to not deal with.
We get this.
We don’t want to go to the doctor or the dentist
Or have to deal with the chores
Or approach our neighbor,
I mean the actual guy who lives next door neighbor
who doesn’t like you very much,
When his tree is encroaching over your powerline
and you have to do something about it….
Maybe I can just ignore it and it will go away….
Said no adulting person ever.
But. There are some things we really really would rather not do.
And so it is sometimes with these
ultimate values of the Kingdom of God.
Forgive. Lend. Pray. Give.
If it were easier, the Kingdom of God might be
much more obvious by now, I suppose.
But it’s not, and so we’re given the choice of going hungry or eating our spinach
Every now and then.
I think that makes people both admire the Gospels and run from it,
Don’t you?
Maybe in equal measure.
Here Jesus prescribes an ethic of generosity
for the faithful living in a hostile world.
Love your enemies, sure,
But bless and give to those who would curse and take.
Who doesn’t judge that kind of life imprudent, at the very least,
Sowing generosity where nothing is EXPECTED to grow.
Maybe it is that EXPECTATION that is at the heart of it,
It feels like folly,
Though I think God knows that that expectation is borne of experience,
At least much of the time.
We’ve known hurt.
Or we see people hurting others.
Worse, we know powerful people
use these very words of Jesus to oppress or take advantage of others:
hey you, yes you, turn your cheek
and take this backpack another mile…
You … forgive me, right?
our Lord would WANT you to do that.
Or we worry about our vulnerability falling flat on its face
Exposing ourselves to hurt and heartache.
And when you think about it that way,
A three-step sermon on “Easy Steps to Love”
Doesn’t sound all that bad, does it.
But that wasn’t Jesus’ sermon.
This was.
Sure, Jesus’ teachings have been ignored, co-opted, manipulated
But here they stand, nonetheless, still gnawing at us
With the simplicity and the clear-headed logic of our God:
But love your enemies, do good, and lend,
expecting nothing in return.
Your reward will be great,
and you will be children of the Most High;
for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked (too).
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged;
do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven;
give, and it will be given to you.
A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over,
will be put into your lap;
for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’
///
The way Luke tells the story, one reason to buy what Jesus is selling
Is because you’ll get something out of it.
Your reward will be great, he says,
even though he says that immediately after saying,
“do these things expecting nothing in return.”
You can see the confusion there.
Sure, some will say, correctly,
that Luke is distinguishing between expecting from your human counterpart
and expecting something from God,
well and good,
but there’s more going on here, of course.
This isn’t a lesson in pragmatism,
In what will get you further in life,
In how to win.
Jesus is talking about what life is like in the Kingdom of God
The world God is building all around us
The World Jesus came to herald,
that world where human is reconciled to human
While the human is reconciled to God.
The Kingdom of God doesn’t work on a transactional basis.
You don’t buy your way in with enough in your bank account
Or a long enough list of the good things you’ve done…
I mean, God wants to build a house
big enough for everyone to have their very own room
A table with a place set and a chair ready for each and for all.
Here in this world
we don’t understand that.
Not in a world of enemies and foes and hurt and heartache
This world where we have terrible things done to us and
Where we do terrible things to others.
We can’t, really.
And moreso:
Why would anyone actually do these things
that are part of the Kingdom of God
if doing it didn’t result in a spot on the nice list?
Well, you can see why Vaughn Crowe-Tipton
recommends preaching on something a wee bit easier
Preacher, if you know what’s good for ya…
///
That’s not fair to him. He doesn’t recommend that,
He just says that many a preacher, and many a sermon listener, are tempted.
And he’s right. I’m tempted sometimes.
But, of course, many people do in fact seek to follow God on this way of Jesus
Even if it is hard, and inscrutable, sometimes.
Even if it asks from us an Adult faith.
I’m not here to tell you that the Kingdom of God
is like having to eat your spinach.
Again, who would want that.
I’m more here to tell you that building the Kingdom of God
is going to require some of that.
The Spinach is not what the Kingdom of God is all about,
But it IS part of the structure that helps us SEE and UNDERSTAND
What God is doing, it helps us get to the Kingdom,
So we can catch a glimpse,
Just a glimpse,
Of what lies ahead for you and for me….
///
One of my seminary professors liked to talk about three-legged stools a lot.
There are a lot of triplets in Holy Scripture, so that makes sense…
And not just the trinity, Creator God, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit
But there are the greatest gifts, too, says Paul:
Faith Hope and Love, these three. That’s a three-legged stool.
One of the other triplets that this theology professor talked about
Was the combination of Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation.
Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation
a three-legged stool in Christian Thought.
What did she mean by that?
Well, if you can imagine a three-legged stool
Three legs and a round seat,
Holding you up just so, balancing you while you sit on it…
Remove any one of the legs, and you’ll fall straight over.
Each element is essential.
Each one of the three are absolutely important
And they work together in such a way that they make the whole,
even as you can understand each part, each leg, individually.
Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation
The three-legged Stool of the Kingdom of God.
Now, my wife Brook has heard me talk about this three-legged stool thing a lot
And she rolls her eyes at me
Because she says that no one has a three-legged stool any more
And she’s probably right
But I’m at a loss to find a better image for you than this one
To describe how important each part is:
Peace is the fullness of life that God intends for all of us
The absence of conflict and the presence of calm and order.
Justice is when things are set right, when harm is rectified
When those who cause harm atone and repair the damage
And when those harmed find recompense
It is a state of affairs where those with need find it met
And where equity prevails.
Reconciliation is the act of bringing rivals back to harmony
Where the lines of us vs them no longer matter.
We cannot have actual reconciliation without Peace and Justice.
Just like we cannot have true Peace without Justice or Reconciliation
And Justice is incomplete without Peace and Reconciliation.
All three matter, are essential, to God’s work.
And when you look, you’ll see these three concepts
weaving throughout the Bible
Helping guide us toward the Kingdom of God.
You see Jesus seriously concerned with each individually,
and all of them together.
Turn the other cheek.
Go the extra mile.
Pray not just for your peeps, but for your enemies.
These are acts of reconciliation.
Efforts at breaking our secular cycles of vengeance
and enmity toward one another.
They have to be understood not just through the goal of Peace
But also through the lens of Justice
Which is why the abuser who tells the abused to turn the other cheek
Must be confronted….
Which is what Jesus did, all the time.
Jesus’ sermon on the plain
is about seeking reconciliation with your enemies
Caring for their humanity, their welfare,
While also insisting on your own, I will add.
The only peace is one where we BOTH have a seat at God’s table,
Not just you, and not just me.
We will only get there when there’s Gods’ Justice,
And when Reconciliation gives
God’s Justice and God’s peace
aim and direction.
///
I had intended to primarily preach on this Genesis passage today
But here I am
almost done with the sermon
And I’ve not even gotten there yet.
Every time I return to this story about Joseph
It makes me want to weep.
There is so much heartache behind the scenes.
I mentioned some of it earlier
But the moment captured in this chapter
Is what any film director or any novelist or songwriter would yearn for
Because it is so full, so powerful.
Again, short version:
There is Joseph, standing in the Egyptian court
The hand of the king
After time and time again falling about as far as you can fall
Having been sold out by his flesh and blood
His siblings who wanted him dead
And they would tell you, yes, it is true
But he felt so pompous as a kid, so blessed, you know,
Like he had “it,” he had everything he needed
And they were going to have to work so hard
And yes they were jealous and saw an opportunity to rid themselves of him
To win
And they took it.
Joseph was gone,
And they, somehow, lived their lives
And Joseph, somehow, lived his.
They worked as a family—sans Joseph—back home with Father Jacob.
They worked hard to try to survive.
Joseph became a slave, worked manual labor,
Was placed behind bars, somehow had his gifts recognized
And not only worked his way up
But somehow found a way
To re-engineer the entire Egyptian economy
So that they stored a lot of their extra food…
An act that saved not just the Egyptians
But all the nations around them.
Joseph’s father and brothers lived in one of those nations,
And his brothers come to him, hat in hand, desperate for help.
He wasn’t known by Joseph then.
He had adopted an Egyptian Name
Looked the part.
They had no idea it was their brother
Had they even thought about him once
these, what, thirteen years?
He was as good as dead to them.
But Joseph knew. He knew.
And he now had the opportunity for vengeance.
He controlled the power of the Egyptian State.
He controlled the grain storage.
Now was his chance to do to them what they had done to him.
Throw them in jail. Make them slaves.
Eye for an eye…that’s the custom, you have heard it said…
Joseph sends everyone away.
And he says, in his best Darth Vader voice: I am your Brother.
Sorry, no, that’s not what my notes say,
Darth Vader. Sorry. Wrong illustration,
although Star Wars as a story of reconciliation
Is a really interesting take.
Maybe we’ll do that next time we look at this text.
He tells them: I am your Brother Joseph.
And they look at him and they say,
uh, sorry, what? say that again.
I am your brother.
Do not be afraid.
(Why would they be afraid?
Well, wouldn’t you, if the brother you sold into slavery
Is standing there in front of you, the hand of the king,
holding your literal life in their hands?)
Do not be afraid,
Because I see something in all of this that is good
That is God making right the things that were wrong
That is God piecing our lives back together again
That is God making sure that people live and thrive.
Go get my father. Come here. Let’s make amends.
And there is this moment where you can feel everyone
holding their collective breath,
and then the most healing, wonderful exhale…..a sigh of relief
and there are hugs and tears and
well, reconciliation.
This is not primarily a story about peace, per se
Or a story about justice necessarily.
This is a story about reconciliation
Where what was broken was mended
Not perfectly, so that you can’t see the seam any more,
It’s more like kintsugi,
Which is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold
So you can see the flaws, where they add to the beauty of the object
And where what was once broken, in tatters,
Is whole again, useful, alive.
The Kingdom of God is only possible if our brokenness is made whole again,
And part of our brokenness is communal.
It is how we are relating with one another,
And not just the people we like,
the people in our circles,
But with everyone, strangers, acquaintances, contestants, enemies.
And we cannot pursue Peace and Justice
Without also wanting to make right the relationships we have with others,
Even those who have disrupted the peace
And who have committed acts of injustice.
The goal, in the end, is reconciliation.
In a way, that’s what salvation is:
Our reconciliation with God, and our reconciliation with one another.
///
The confessions of our church put it this way:
God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ
and the mission of reconciliation to which Christ has called his church
are the heart of the gospel in any age.[ii]
This isn’t easy work,
And I’m the first to admit that I’m a failure at it sometimes.
It is much, much harder than eating your spinach.
This work is only possible because God is doing it.
I’m convinced of that.
But I have seen it.
People who are at war with themselves have found ways to find calm.
People who have been long enemies have found paths to peace.
Justice is important there;
it helps keep peace from being used by the powerful and the wrong
for their own ends.
But when it happens, reconciliation is God’s work.
Not all fissures will be mended in this world.
Maybe God will have to do that in the life to come.
How that will work, I don’t know.
That gets beyond my pay grade, unfortunately.
But I do have hope, ultimate hope, that God is working on this for all of us.
And that hug, those tears, that Joseph shares with his brothers….
That right there is the Kingdom of God.
Not the spinach. The Spinach isn’t the kingdom.
It’s those hugs and those tears and the healing they bring.
And if it takes eating spinach and binding my wounds up with gold
And being reminded to pray for my enemies to get THERE
Then I’m all for it, with the help of God.
So may we, dear friends,
Keep a space in our hearts for reconciliation
And be the kind of people that never give up on bringing people together…
For God reconciled the world through Jesus Christ
And maybe God can do the same for you and for me.
In fact, I believe God can, and I believe God will.
May it be so.
Amen.
Cover Image: Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash
[i] Found in David L Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors, Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville, Kentucky; Westminster John Knox, 2009), “Homelitical Perspective” (pp. 381-385)
[ii] The Confession of 1967. 9.06
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