Hate the Sin

Propers: The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 22), A.D. 2017 A

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Now that right there is a tall order.

We are often tempted to feel as though evil is ascendant, as though wickedness were winning. We turn on the news and find ourselves inundated by crises in North Korea, Yemen, Afghanistan, and the South China Sea, by political polarization and ideological extremism, by scandals in our government and disasters in our land. Not to mention our personal struggles with work, family, health, debt.

We are tempted to throw up our hands in exasperation, or surrender; to retreat from a difficult world with its difficult demands. Evil, chaos, pain—what can we do in the face of such challenges? How can we have hope in a world that runs on an engine of despair?

Or worse, we are tempted not to give up, but to fight fire with fire, to overcome evil with self-righteous indignation. We are tempted to hate, to despise, to revile those whom we view as ignorant or selfish or stupid or cruel. We tell our opponents that they are on the wrong side of history (which is a sure sign that we haven’t read any) or that there is no place for such people in our society. Zero tolerance! You’re not just disagreeing with me; you’re fighting against the zeitgeist!

And we fall into this so easily because these are our natural stress responses, our knee-jerk reactions to threat: fight or flight! Either roll over, or come out swinging! But Jesus will countenance neither. He has no patience for the passive, our cowardice and our sloth; He demands of us so very much more. But neither will He abide by violence, by hatred and divisions and campaigns of terror. That’s what His disciples wanted, after all: Peter and Judas alike expected Jesus to liberate the oppressed and overthrow the oppressors with an iron rod. And when Jesus wouldn’t do that—when He wouldn’t fight like we wanted Him to fight—Peter rebuked Him and Judas betrayed Him. Yet His ways are not our ways; His thoughts are not like our thoughts.

It may be Paul’s epistle, but they’re clearly Jesus’ words: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Find the Third Way, the path between savagery and surrender, which is neither fight nor flight but greater than them both. Stand up to evil with good, stand up to lies with truth, like Gandhi, like King, like all those great and heroic leaders who brought freedom and justice to ally and enemy alike by embracing Jesus’ Way of selfless, strong, and active love.

So how do we do that—love the sinner, hate the sin? How do we live in such a way that we resist evil without resorting to evil ourselves?

We can start by giving. Not just with money, mind you, but money is a good place to start. The Houston Food Bank can feed 150 victims of Hurricane Harvey on one $50 donation. Our own Lutheran Disaster Relief, rated more effective even than the Red Cross, will also direct our donations to those most in need. Next summer our youth are scheduled to head down to Houston for the National Lutheran Youth Gathering, and I guarantee you we’ll be putting strong hands to good work, just as we did in New Orleans after Katrina. Black, White, young, old, Right, Left, it didn’t matter. When our hands were deep in that muck and mud we were doing God’s own work together.

Listening is another way to work wonders—person to person, yes, but also reading points of view radically different from our own. Listening and engaging with people from other political parties, who disagree with us, wherever we may stand, on issues of homosexuality or abortion or universal healthcare. Listening not just to rebut and rebuke, not just waiting for our turn to speak, but listening out of respect and love, recognizing that the Image of God within us transcends not only race and class and gender and creed but transcends sin as well. We can love people who are wrong. I’m not convinced that there’s anyone else to love.

Love is such a strange and many-splendored thing. We strive so hard to find it, to gain it, but it doesn’t work that way. We only find love by giving it, giving of ourselves, for someone else—for a neighbor or a stranger or that family member who just drives us insane. (You know who I’m talking about.) We treat love as though it were gold or diamonds to be dug out and hoarded, but it’s not that at all. Love is a fire. Try to clutch it, try to cover it, and it will die. But share it, spread it, give it all away—and it will only grow. Soon you can’t stop it.

I’m not being sentimental. Love is not a sentiment. Love is not the same as feeling in love. Love is a choice, an act of will, to put the good of someone else before our own. Love is to serve rather than being served, as Christ Himself came to serve. Love is something you do. So do something.

It doesn’t matter how many horrors they parade across the evening news: when you read to a child, or walk a dog, or plant a tree, or cook a meal for those you love, you know the truth. Evil is not ascendant. Wickedness will not win. No matter what challenges come, what trials arise, the victory is already won in Christ Jesus, who has conquered death and hell, and opened the Kingdom of God to all who believe. What is left for us, then, other than to stand for what’s right, to love always mercy, and to walk humbly with our God?

Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.

“I have told you these things,” sayeth the Lord, “so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage—I have conquered the world.”

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.