Do I have to?

 Scripture Matthew 26:36-46. CEB.  

36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. He said to the disciples, “Stay here while I go and pray over there.” 37 When he took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, he began to feel sad and anxious. 38 Then he said to them, “I’m very sad. It’s as if I’m dying. Stay here and keep alert with me.” 39 Then he went a short distance farther and fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it’s possible, take this cup of suffering away from me. However—not what I want but what you want.”

40 He came back to the disciples and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you stay alert one hour with me? 41 Stay alert and pray so that you won’t give in to temptation. The spirit is eager, but the flesh is weak.” 42 A second time he went away and prayed, “My Father, if it’s not possible that this cup be taken away unless I drink it, then let it be what you want.”

43 Again he came and found them sleeping. Their eyes were heavy with sleep. 44 But he left them and again went and prayed the same words for the third time. 45 Then he came to his disciples and said to them, “Will you sleep and rest all night? Look, the time has come for the Human One to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Get up. Let’s go. Look, here comes my betrayer.”

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Good morning on this 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany.   If my weather app is accurate, it should be a really lovely morning, with rain cleansing the air and nourishing the earth.  All of our prayers for rain are being answered with “yes,” for which we are grateful.  

As we are still focused on prayer for the rest of January, I would ask everyone to pray for healing for our nation this week.  And for all the world, as the entire world deals with the coronavirus pandemic.  May the vaccines be distributed to all, and may effective treatments be found. 

I think most of us are pretty familiar with these words from the Gospel according to Matthew.   We usually hear them on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.  These are words that lead us directly into Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion.  We also usually hear about the lack of faithfulness by Peter, James and John, who kept falling asleep instead of keeping watch as Jesus asked them to.  Today, however, we are going to look more closely at what Jesus was praying.

Jesus knew from the beginning of his ministry that if whatever he preached and taught went in opposition to the Temple, chances were excellent that he would be arrested, or possibly even killed.  He knew his Scripture and the history of his people.  He knew how prophets, people who spoke unwelcome truth to power, were typically treated.  He knew also that if the leaders of the Temple could find anything indicating insurrection against Rome in his words, that his very life would be on the line.  Rome did not tolerate insurrection.   Just a few chapters earlier, when Peter tried to convince him to stay away from Jerusalem - because by this time ALL of Jesus’ followers knew the dangers - Jesus said “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”. (Matthew  16:23). He knew what was ahead if he continued on the road he was traveling.  He was ready.  He was able at that moment to say, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Jesus was also human and it is important for us to remember that.  As he grew closer to the inevitable end of his earthly ministry and his life, he kinda didn’t want to go.  He did not want to die, yet.  He especially didn’t want to die the kind of horrible death he would suffer at the hands of the Romans.  So he went aside from his disciples to pray by himself.  To speak privately with his Father about what was coming.

And when he prayed he said, “Do I have to?”

Three times he asked, “Do I have to?”

The first time he said: If it is possible, take this cup of suffering away.  However, not what I want, but what you want.

The second time he said: If it is not possible that this cup be taken away unless I drink it, then let it be what you want.

And then we are told . . he left them and again went and prayed the same words for the third time.

I’m pretty sure every one of us, at some point in our lives, has turned to another and said, “Do I have to?”  For example, when children are told to clean their room before they can do the thing, whatever the thing may be, Or worse, when they are told they have to take their little sister along with them to that thing, they might say, “Mooomm.  Do I have to?” Yes.  You do. 

Unlike children, however, Jesus followed up his “Do I have to?”  with “Not what I want, but what you want.” Not my will, but yours.   This is the most perfect prayer.

There are a number of stories in Scripture in which someone is told to do something they do not want to do.  Moses complained to God because he didn’t speak well so he thought someone else should lead the Hebrews out of Egypt.  Jonah ran away rather than speak to the people of Ninevah.  Lot tried to bargain with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Barak refused God’s direction to lead Israel’s army unless Deborah went along with them.  Each of them eventually did the thing God directed.  Each of them paid a price for their initial refusal.  It is painful to try to sidestep God’s will.  

Jesus’ prayer began with “Do I have to?” and ended with “Your will, not mine, be done.”  We are not told whether God spoke to Jesus during this prayer time, but I do know that sometimes no answer is THE answer.  Jesus knew what was ahead on his path, and maybe he hoped that he wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the end, but he knew what he had been called to do. He knew he would pick up the cross that was before him.

In 1517 Martin Luther tacked 95 theses or statements for discussion on the door to the cathedral in Wittenberg.  He had issues with a number of practices and theological understandings in the Roman Catholic Church.  His teachings - like justification by faith - did not go over well.  The pope excommunicated him for heresy.  Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire declared him an outlaw.  At the trial where he was asked to recant his teachings, he said “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”  God’s will, not his.

Martin Luther King, Jr. really didn’t want to be one of those activist ministers.  The pastor right before him at Ebenezer Baptist Church had been fired for his activism.  But he agreed to help with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  He got a call one night, threatening his life.  He sat at the kitchen table having coffee and prayed “God, do I have to do this?” And in his heart he heard these words, “Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever."  Three days later his house was bombed.  It did not stop him.  There would more threats, beatings, arrests . . . he knew where his path would inevitably lead.  He continued to choose God’s will, not his own right up to his final day.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told my story here before. . . how I started going to church after being away for 25 years and how after a few months I was sitting in a jail cell telling the women there that they didn’t have to keep coming back to jail if they would just stop using drugs and alcohol, when I heard a voice in my mind say, “You need to be doing this for me.”  I said to God, “Do I have to? I do not want to do this.” A year later I was at Chapman University on my path to the ordained ministry.  My path hasn’t taken me any terrible places like it did for Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr., -except maybe student loans - but it wasn’t what I had planned to do with my life. It wasn’t what I wanted.  But God’s will, not mine. . . 

Someone once asked me how I knew whether a certain choice was God’s will.  I responded that as far as I could tell the thing that was harder to do was almost always God’s will.  If one choice was harder than the other AND I didn’t want to do it, it was pretty much a given that it was God’s will.  It would have been easy for Jesus to turn away and return to Galilee.  Martin Luther would have loved to avoid excommunication.  Martin Luther King, Jr. only ever wanted to be a preacher and pastor like his father.  All I ever wanted to be was a secretary.

When we pray “Your will be done, not mine” we are praying the perfect prayer.  It makes no demands.  It does not bargain or make excuses.  We lay out whatever is going on in our lives, whatever choices lie before us, as part of the conversation with God, and even if part of that conversation is “Do I have to?” the end part, the “Your will not mine” part is perfect.  

Do we have to?  Yes.  Yes, we have to.  We have to seek God’s will and follow it.  We can be pretty sure it’s God’s will if it serves God’s people, and not our ego or greed or lust for power. We can be pretty sure it is God’s will if it embodies God’s love of humanity, justice for all persons, compassion for all persons, and mercy.  We can be pretty sure it is God’s will if it is a harder of the choices.  

We have decisions to make all the time - big ones and small ones.  Shall I take on another job? The extra money will be helpful.  Sleep is over rated.  Shall I add another class to my schedule this semester? I’d love to finish up this semester.   Shall I take the job that pays more, or the one that helps people more?  Shall I sleep in, or attend worship on YouTube when it premieres?  Shall I prepare a nice healthy dinner or call for a pizza?  (OK, I’m pretty sure God would prefer that I have pizza.)

Our discipleship challenge this week, then, is to simply pray for God’s will to be done in our lives, in each of our choices.  No demands, no bargaining, no excuses, no running away, no telling God what the “right” answer would be.  When we have a choice to make, and it becomes clear that one choice is almost certainly God’s will, let us then make that choice.  Let us choose to be God’s servants in every way.

Do you know what you are doing?

 

Scripture.  Luke 23:33-34.  The Message

When they got to the place called Skull Hill, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.

Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Dividing up his clothes, they threw dice for them.

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Good morning!  It is the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany -  the time in between the end of the Christmas Season and the beginning of Lent.  Ash Wednesday is only one month away - February 17th.  But there is a lot going on in these next weeks. There will be a congregational meeting on Zoom January 31st.  Members of First Christian Church in Selma will be receiving copies of the new slate of officers and the proposed budget for 2021 in the next couple of days, which you should mail (or email) back with your vote no later than January 28th.    

We are still in the grip of the pandemic.  Public Health Officials fear it will get worse over the next month.  Please, stay home if you can, only go out if you must, wash your hands, wear your mask.  And pray for everyone, but especially this week for those who have lost loved ones.

We continue our series on prayer with this very short bit of scripture about praying for others.   We should note that this is not simply about praying that other people who have done wrong might be forgiven, but praying specifically for people who do not know that there is anything wrong with what they are doing or saying - who simply have no idea.

There’s a scene in the movie “Spider-man: Homecoming”  when Spider-man takes some kind of alien weapon away from a bad guy - the Vulture - clearly intending to fire it.  The Vulture says “You are messing with things you don’t understand.”  Even though he did not know what he was doing, Spider-man fires the weapon anyway, cutting the Staten Island Ferry in half and putting hundreds of people at risk.  Luckily this was just a movie.  But it really is not all that unusual for people to act or speak when they haven’t a clue about the consequences.

The Roman soldiers followed their orders to execute Jesus, along with two other criminals, then engaged in what was then perfectly acceptable behavior for executioners by dividing up his belongings.  So far as they knew, they were executing the leader of a potential rebellion against Rome, a high crime.  He wasn’t the first rebel leader to be crucified and he wouldn’t be the last.  They did not know that the man they nailed to the cross that day was more than just another rebel, but the son of God.  They really had no idea what they were doing, what would come about as a result of these events.  So Jesus prayed for them, right at the end, while enduring intense pain, saying, “Father, forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing.” 

Now, there are stories - totally fictitious - about Romans involved with the execution of Jesus later realizing what they have done and living with overwhelming guilt for their actions for the rest of their lives.  This is the premise behind the 1953 classic Christian film “The Robe” which some of you may have seen.  If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it on Amazon Prime or any of several other streaming platforms.  The story is total fiction but it makes an important point about feelings of guilt.   

At some point in our lives we may find ourselves feeling guilty about something that is in no way our fault.  This is fairly common in the children of divorced parents, who frequently believe incorrectly that the divorce is all their fault.  We may experience guilt if we had words with someone who died before we could reconcile.  Sometimes we feel guilty over saying or doing something mean years and years ago, only to find out eventually that the person to whom we were unkind doesn’t even remember the incident - and we wasted all those years feeling terrible. 

People in 12 Step Programs have to deal with guilt and consequences.  We often come into recovery believing “I didn’t hurt anyone but me when I was loaded” but, after some  self examination start saying “OMG. I was a terrible horrible person.  I can never forgive myself for what I did to this person, or what I said to that one.  There is nothing good about me.  Nothing.”  Neither of those things is true.  However, very often we didn’t realize we had done something hurtful until we got to take a sober look back over our lives.  Then comes the guilt. Then comes the self castigation.  Then comes the desire to somehow make up for the wrongs that we have done.   And then we live with that guilt until eventually someone will ask, “Have you forgiven yourself?”

Say what?  

Yeah.  Have you forgiven yourself?  

I can’t possibly.  I am a terrible person.  

Do you believe God has forgiven you?  

Yes.  

Then, if God can forgive you, why won’t you forgive yourself?  Are you better than God?  Well, darn.

Self forgiveness for past wrongs is important, especially in the cases where we didn’t understand that what we were doing was causing pain.  Unlike the Roman executioner in the movie, we are not to wallow in guilt, but allow ourselves to admit our wrong doing - even though we may not have realized we were doing anything wrong - and resolve to go forward armed with this new knowledge.

Or, as Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better.  Then when you know better, do better.”

At my parents’ dinner table I learned every conceivable name for any group you can think of - Black, Jewish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, American Indian, Hispanic, German, French, Protestant, even Irish and Catholic - and we were Irish and Catholic.  My father didn’t limit his use of racist slurs to any particular group.  There are a great number of those words that we don’t use any more.  NOT because of political correctness, but because those words are hurtful.  Their use is intended to make us feel superior to the one we are talking about. They are intended to divide us and anything that leads to division is sinful.  But until we knew better . . . 

This is the weekend we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   His dream was that a day would come when the color of one’s skin would make no difference in how anyone was treated.  His dream was the building of the Beloved Community, a place where there would be no Greek or Jew, no free or slave, no male or female - a time when we believe in our hearts that all persons are created equal.  A time of reconciliation.  Clearly, we are not there yet.

Reconciliation requires justice. You cannot achieve reconciliation by simply ignoring what has gone before.  We cannot work toward justice without knowing what we have done wrong.  Scripture tells us “Before judgment comes, examine yourself; and at the time of scrutiny you will find forgiveness.” (Sirach 18:20 NRSV)  Once we have learned what we did wrong, once we know better, we can do better.  We can no longer claim innocence through ignorance. We can move forward from that sin and make amends by teaching others what we have learned.  By working toward justice in this way, reconciliation can be accomplished. The world can be changed.  

It is hard to ask God to forgive the person who has hurt me even if I am aware that they did not know what they were doing.  Especially if they don’t appear contrite.  But if they truly didn’t know any better - like the Roman soldiers - forgiveness is necessary.  For them, but also for ourselves if we are holding resentments against them for their words or actions.  When we have reached that point we can ask God to forgive them for the  unintended hurt.  The model Jesus holds up for us here is that of a person who holds no bitterness toward those who are causing him injury, who asks that God also recognize their innocence in this matter.  

God forgives all of us, because God loves all of us.  The challenge is for us to forgive others for harm they have done to us, and to forgive ourselves for the harm we have done to others - knowingly or not.  

Forgive us, Father, for we don’t always know what we are doing.  We believe we are doing the right things.  We are doing what we have been told to do, what we have been taught to do, what is right in the eyes of our particular community.  May we examine ourselves, seeking any wrongs we did not recognize before, so that all your children may be reconciled in you, and all divisions healed, through your son Jesus, the Christ.  

Pray for who?

When folks watched our worship service on Sunday they heard me say that I was recording the message two weeks in advance, hoping no big news would occur before January 10th that I would normally address on Sunday.   Because God guides us even when we don’t know we need to be guided, I had selected a passage telling us to pray for those who hurt or harass us.   As it turns out, there was a huge news event, and God had prompted me to choose exactly the right passage for the day. Thanks be to God.

Scripture.  Matthew 5:43-48.   CEB.

You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you 45 so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.

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Good morning!   Today I am doing something very very scary.  I am recording this message two weeks in advance!  Why is this scary, you ask?  Because there have been way too many occasions when things happened in the world that completely changed what I had been planning to preach - often on a Saturday. So I am praying that no big earth shattering news event will happen between today - the day after Christmas - and January 10th when you watch it.  Why am I doing this scary thing, you ask?  Because we are giving Jordan time off after all the incredible amazing work he has done for this whole last nine months but especially during the Christmas Season.  Talk about above and beyond!  In order for him to have this week off we had to record all the parts of today’s worship by December 30 (when I will be enjoying my after-Christmas hibernation).  So here we go.  

This morning we continue our month long focus on prayer.  

Now, I realize that this love your enemy passage generally leads to a message about loving even people you don’t like - feeding them and not killing them and stuff.   But then there is that pesky phrase, “Pray for those who harass you.”  Like, bullies? Internet trolls?  The mean girls at school (or work)? 

Y’know.  Jesus keeps asking us to do all this hard stuff.  Love your enemy.  Pray for those who harass you.  How in the world are we supposed to do these things with any sort of sincerity?  

And there’s another pesky phrase.  “How in the world are we supposed to do that?”  Well, we are not supposed to conform ourselves to the world, so that means that this is one of those places where we must stand aside from what the world tells us is the accepted thing to do.  It is so unusual for us to want good things for our enemy, for those who have hurt or harassed us, that when, for example, a family asks for mercy for the murderer of their child, it makes headlines.  

As Jesus says, if you only love those who love you or only greet your brothers and sisters, how is that different from everyone else?  It is what the Gentiles do. It is what the world does.  The world says “You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” Jesus says we need to  be different.  We need to love even our enemy, even the one who wishes us harm.  We need to want the best for everyone, regardless of our relationship with them.  Praying for them is the beginning of love.

Ok, fine.  So we have to pray for them.  A friend of mine was told to pray for a person who had caused him quite a bit of trouble.  “No problem”, he said.  The next day he reported that his prayer for her had been that she might go to heaven.  Tonight.   *sigh*  This is not exactly the intent of “pray for the one who hurt you.”  So he was told to try again, but this time to pray that she receive all the good things he wanted in his life.  Not the muscle car.  But serenity, peace of mind, love, compassion . . . all of those good things.  Even if he had to pray through gritted teeth, he needed to pray for her to get all of these good things.  The time would come when that prayer became easier - he wouldn’t have to force the words out.  He would begin to mean what he was saying.  And eventually he would stop considering her an enemy, having healed himself and learned better how to love.  Having tried this myself, I know that it works.

We can certainly use this practice of praying for those with whom we disagree in our current national situation.  There are disagreements over wearing masks and getting the vaccine and whether or not the pandemic is real.  There are disagreements over the security of our recent elections. Those who hold differing positions on these issues can get very angry, even confrontational.  An important part of this praying for the one who harassed you thing is that we do not get to impose our own desires for that person in our prayers.  So we pray for those with whom we disagree, not that they come over to our way of thinking, and suddenly embrace our own beliefs and positions on these issues, but rather for them to receive the good things we desire, perhaps an open mind and willingness to listen.  We will receive these things, and more often than not that will help us see our opponent in a very different light.  

But what if someone has really hurt us - a stalker, an attacker, an abusive partner?  What then?  How do we pray for that person?   This is difficult - really difficult.  For the longest time, when I thought of my abuser, my rapist there was no willingness to forgive or pray for them to have anything good happen in their lives.  For years, if a male person moved too suddenly or picked up anything they could hit me with, I would duck or move away as quickly as I could to get out of range.  Panic attacks were easily triggered.  Pray for them to receive good things? . . .  I don’t think so.  And yet, once I was able to, once I started praying for them to receive peace of mind and other spiritual gifts I began to heal.  And forgive.  And to truly want good things to happen in their lives.  I began to love, even my abuser, even my rapist.

In his Christmas homily the Roman Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem said:  “Love is the only path to salvation.  We are all connected to and responsible for each other.”  He preached these words at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the city of David. To get to Bethlehem from Jerusalem he had to go through a wall dotted with gun turrets, and guarded by soldiers.  Israel calls the wall a separation barrier against terrorism.  Palestinians call it a racial segregation or apartheid wall.  To preach love in Bethlehem, the Patriarch had to go through that wall, stop at the checkpoints, and show his passport. 

There is little love lost between Israel and Palestine.  They have been at odds, even sometimes at war, with each other since Israel was declared a nation in 1948.  But in Bethlehem, the city of David, a predominantly Muslim town behind that separation barrier, Muslims, Jews and Christians live and work side by side in relative harmony. In Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace was born, peace prevails most of the time.  Acceptance and unity prevail, most of the time.  God’s love prevails, most of the time.

Jesus said, “just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.”  We must let our love and compassion fall upon all persons, and not limit ourselves to loving only those we like, or those who are like us.   Because that is how the world is.  And WE are not to conform to the ways of the world. Just as God “makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous” so too must we pour out our prayers, and shine the light of Christ’s love on even those who have caused us harm.

The practice of praying for the one who has hurt or harassed us leads to love for everyone.  The practice of praying good things for others leads to acceptance of the other, and to unity of purpose.  And that is how God would have us live - loving one another, loving our neighbor, loving our enemy, doing for others as we would like others to do for us - reconciling all God’s children with one another and with God.  That is our purpose in carrying the Good News of God’s forgiveness, love and grace as we have been commanded to do by Jesus, the Christ, our Lord and Savior.

It’s easy enough, as Jesus said, to pray for our friends and neighbors and siblings.  It is harder, much harder, to pray for our enemies, for people we disagree with, and for people who have hurt us.  Let us take that as our discipleship challenge this week - to pray for the people we don’t want to pray for, that they might know all the good that we wish for ourselves.  In this way  let us bring unity and acceptance of the other into our hearts and into God’s world.