By Rev.
Charles J. Tomlin, D.Min.
Flat
Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Year C:
Proper 15, 13th Sunday After Pentecost, August, 14th 2016
A despondent
woman was walking along the beach when she saw a bottle on the sand. She picked it up and pulled out the
cork. Whoosh! A big puff of smoke appeared.
"You have released me from my
prison."
the genie told her. "To
show my thanks, I grant you three wishes.
But take care, for with each wish, your husband will receive double of
whatever you request."
"Why?" the woman asked. "That
bum left me for another woman."
"That=s
how it is written,"
replied the genie. The woman
shrugged and then asked for a million dollars.
There was a flash of light, and the million dollars appeared at her
feet. At the same instant, in a far-off
place, her wayward husband looked down to see twice the amount at his feet.
"And what is your second wish?"
"Genie, I want the world's
most expensive diamond necklace." Another flash of light, and the woman was
holding the precious treasure. And in
that distant place, her husband was looking for a gem broker to buy his latest
bonanza.
"Genie, is it really true that
my husband has two million dollars and more jewels than I do, and that he gets
double of whatever I wish for?"
The genie said it was indeed
true.
"OK, genie, I=m
ready for my last wish," the woman said.
"Scare me half to death."
We laugh about death
wishes. But have you thought
about how prevalent they are in
our language and culture? Even our most
common, everyday speech betrays us. "I
sure hope that Carolina slaughters Duke this year?" "That=s
a killer car." "Climbing those stairs was
murder." "I could kill you for that." I've
even heard preachers say, "If we only had a few more
funerals, this church would grow."
Our culture has been nicknamed
a "culture of death"
due to the fact that media, magazine,
children's
games and toys, even our common speech, are permeated with images of violence,
murder and death. I challenge you to
watch T.V. for one evening without finding a channel depicting excessive
violence and murder. Besides our
obsession with death, we are the first
generation with the power to destroy all human life on the planet earth
hundreds of times over and we have our choice of weapons, nuclear blast or
nerve gas.
More than ever before in the history of humanity, life and death are in our power. This is made clear in that some of the most
potent political issues of today are matters of life and death: abortion,
capital punishment, euthanasia, and genetic manipulation. Also, with the breaking of the genetic code, we
have even greater potential to manipulate and manufacture life or death. Will we as a human race decide for using
these powers for good or for evil? Life
and death are literally, in our hands
YOU'VE HEARD IT SAID…
In today's
text, Jesus echoed the sixth commandment when he said: "You've
heard that the law of Moses says,"Do not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to
judgment." Moses gave us God's
law to help us use our human knowledge and power for good and not for evil, for
life and not for death. Without respect
and reverence for life, humans would have little chance of survival. Because we are among the most vulnerable
creatures, but also having the greatest potential for good or evil, we must counter
our tendency toward death. This sixth
command is the most obvious necessity: “Don’t murder!”
Remember in the Garden of Eden,
how God told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, they would
surely die? Well, we all know what happened
next. They could not resist to choose
the forbidden fruit of death over life, and people
have been doing it ever since; people hurt each other, they
hurt themselves, people don't exercise enough, people eat
too much, people don't
take care of themselves, people don't take care of their
relationships, their own souls or their bodies.
People do all kinds of destructive
things, crazy things, even life threatening things to each other. There is an almost obsessive wish for death
and destruction that permeates the human condition to put us all at risk. Streets are not safe. Businesses and factories are not safe. The schools are no longer safe. Neither are the churches and our homes. Without respect and reverence for life,
without upholding this sixth commandment, no one is safe, anywhere, anyplace or
anytime.
Theologian James Cone once
categorized the basic forms of
violence that threaten human life today.
Violence between races;
vividly revealed the constant oppression of minorities throughout human history. Violence
against women;that age old most subtle exploitation which has throughout most most of human
history refused to give women equal rights.
Violence against children;
the use and abuse of children, who because of adult or parental failure and
irresponsibility will never have a chance to live a normal life. And finally, he mentions Violence of the rich against the poor;
the terrible reality that the rich get richer at the expense of keeping
the poor, poor.
But it is not, Jesus implies, that violence is just out there,
but that it is in our ‘hearts’ and can be found in our ‘own back yard’. This was made painfully real to me when I
once read how a family in my own community (an upscale middle-class community),
made national headline news when they left their children alone at a hotel
while they went to a NASCAR race in Florida.
Several years ago in a small North
Carolina town, a young, attractive, middle class woman and her son were
locked up in an out-building like animals for weeks after the Father had beat
them so badly he could not look at them without feeling guilt. After escaping, the mother and child came to
a church seeking sanctuary and counsel, hoping for redemption. The mother told the local pastor, "I
want help for my son so that he will not turn all this pain and hurt into hate
and violence like his Father."
Violence and hate which result in abuse or murder happen anywhere and everywhere. This is not violence found only in the big city, but this about hate and anger that can build in every human heart. Our potential to hate and to hurt, is part of a complex cycle of violence that is not yet broken. Stop and think about it. In most every drug abuse case, in most ever child abuse case, in most ever spouse abuse case, most every assault, murder or domestic abuse case; the violent aggressor is a victim who has become angry; angry enough to hurt someone else because they are sick and tired of being hurt themselves. On national T.V. some years ago, they were interviewing a young girl who was involved in a street gang. She was asked why she, especially as a young teenage girl, had chosen to take part in a lifestyle of crime and violence. "Well," she responded, "Where I grew up had one of two choices: either you became the victim or the victimizer. I decided that I was going to be the victimizer." If you were given her circumstances which would you have become?
Moses was given important insight
when he made a law against human violence a major concern of true
religion. The Bible itself is a book filled with the awful human truth
of human aggression and violence. Cain
becomes jealous and kills his brother Abel.
Joseph's
brothers kidnap him an leave him in a hole to die. Judah rapes his sister Tamar. Moses himself murdered an Egyptian in a fit of
rage. Joshua kills thousands of innocent
people as a part of what he called, “Holy
War”. Samson killed Philistines for
sport and ended up a victim of his own violent nature. Saul had only slain thousands, but David, the
hero, had slain ten thousand. The cycle
of hate and violence never ends—and it continues today with radical Islam
slaying thousands in the ‘name’ of Allah.
Sometimes, what makes the Bible (Our Bible) difficult to
understand or interpret, is that sometimes we read that it seemed like God
wanted certain people dead. It seems
that God wanted Israel to slaughter its enemies, instead of love them. It seems that God wanted the women and
children murdered. It is said that God
demanded "eye
for eye",
and "tooth,
for tooth." To a people not yet fully redeemed from
their own violent nature, even God appears hateful, angry and an encourager of
the continual cycle of violence. But it
is exactly against this kind of negative reading that Jesus now says, "You have heard it said...." Stop! Think!
Trust me! This
is how people used to see things: People have looked at life and God from lesser
viewpoints, they have interpreted wrongly what God had in mind, so you now need
to look again at what God is really about.
God once spoke the ultimate truth through Moses, "Do
not murder,"
but the murdering has continued—and even in the name of God. To break the violent cycle deep within human
nature, and in religion itself, something else must be said.
BUT
I SAY UNTO YOU.
Jesus came to bring us a
greater understanding of this sixth commandment. He came to say a word against all our human
hate and violent death. Jesus came tell
us why jealous Cains keep on killing
innocent Abels, why poor whites in the south wanted blacks to remain
powerless and enslaved, why Hilter persuaded so Germans to turn against their
Jewish brothers and sisters, why so many why children are killing other
children in our culture, why teenagers can become their own biggest threat, and
why some adults end living up in an endless cycle of hate and violence
themselves.
Jesus knows why people
continue the violence and hate. He
does not say the devil made us do it, society makes us do it, or others have
made us do it, but he says, just like he said about Adultery, that everything
violent, hateful, and hurtful comes from within
Our own hearts. He says that people
who become the victimizers in our worldC those who hurt, hate and
kill are victims themselves who hurt because they haven’t been healed. Because they still have anger in their hearts
that has not been healed, they end up hurting others—and will finally destroy
themselves. This is why Jesus said, AI
say, if you are angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you say to your friend, "You
idiot!"....
or you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell." Jesus says that behind all this hate, this violence and
the powerful and subtle death wish in our culture is an inner anger: an anger still unresolved in
the human heart. Violent people, hateful
people are angry because they are still hurting people themselves, who will
hurt others because haven’t been healed in their own heart.
I don't
have to look any further than my own family tree to discover how right Jesus
is. My grandfather died young.
It was a painful thing for my Father's family of seven children to
have to grow up without a Father during the depression. My Father was twelve and his oldest brother
who then had to become the man of the family was only 16. He had to grow up too fast. Then came World War II. There was inner pain. There was struggle. There was anger built up in his heart. My uncle had a difficult life and later it
got worse. He had a son who was a victim
of polio. My uncle began to drink away
his troubles. One day, my cousin, with
polio weakened hands, took a gun and put three bullets into his own Father's
stomach. The anger and the pain went
unhealed, and finally judgment day came.
This hidden, often unnoticed anger can be anywhere. Even among the religious and the
righteous. There was a family I was knew
were more negative than positive. It
didn't
seem to matter what the church decided to do, they were "again it". When the church doors where open to new
people or new ideas, you got this feeling that they were like vultures waiting
for someone to stumble so they could pounce.
I wanted to understand their anger and resentment. Why was so much anger and negativity built up? One day I came upon the family secret. Many years before the community had looked
down upon this family. There was some
kind of “Scarlett Letter” in their past, that they now turned into a need
for perfectionism that became so rigid that dealt
with their own hurt by now causing pain to everyone else.
Most tragically, when hurt remains unresolved, unhealed, the
anger does go outward toward others, but it turns inward. Anger in the heart does not always end up in a Rambo
type rage toward another person.
Unresolved anger can be repressed and suppressed until we end up
self-destructive. I had a friend in High
School whom I had been in church with in Statesville. He was easy going, good
looking, nice guy who was also a rising star basketball player and good student
with a true Christianity personality. After
I went off to college and he was finishing his final year in high school,
tragically, his parents divorced. That
was rare in those days and was not supposed to happen in a Christian
family. It was told to me that after his
parent's
divorced, my friend turned the anger inward, and blamed himself. He was hurt and he was angry. He was so angry in his heart that he went out
and took his own life.
With all the struggles of life that we must endure, it is
possible for any of us to become walking time-bombs of anger. Our angry age shows up in everything from
violent expressions in movies, road rage, to increased violence among
children. Because pain is everywhere,
none of us are exempt from the potential of being hurt by or hurting others
with violence. While I consider myself
to have grown up in wonderfully safe, Christian environment, yet while
undergoing psychological testing as I was preparing for Christian ministry, the
psychologist told me that on the test results I showed evidence of unresolved
anger in my heart. I couldn't
believe it. Me? An
angry person? Well I do remember that
bully who picked on me in school until I leveled him. I do remember when I was a late bloomer in
sports and was chosen last in elementary school? I also remember the time, during harvest
festival that I raised enough money to become King of the School, but was out
foxed by a kid who cheated. Well, yes, I have been angry. I remember being in a fight with a guy
stronger than me and throwing sand in his eyes because I didn’t him to have the
advantage. I remember the time one of
my friends called me the dirtiest fighter.
I remember the time when I joined some other guys in vandalizing public
property. I remember that, yes, I have
been hurt and I have had anger in my heart, and I have also hurt others too.
But the truth is, we've all been victims. Doesn't the Bible say that we are
all victims of sin. Being a sinner is
not something we asked for, but its something we are born into and are not fully
responsible. Just by being born, we are
given a ‘raw deal’. The serpent still
sets us up. We are all victims and we
all can also become victimizers of others and of ourselves.
GO
AND BE RECONCILED.
This is why Jesus’ word about the sixth commandment is not "Do you have anger in your
heart?" Of course we all do and Jesus knows it. Jesus shows us our own anger, even at God,
but it is not to condemn us, but to reveal God’s love and to help us find
deliverance from our own self-destructiveness.
Jesus tells the person whose been hurt, or who is carrying around anger
in their heart to "Go,
be reconciled to that person...." Even while you are at church,
worshiping and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you,
leave....go....be reconciled. "Come
to terms quickly with your enemy before it is too late.... Make
peace! Settle matters! Be reconciled!
Do you remember that Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling
with man at the Jabbok River? This
wrestling match went on all night long.
It reflected Jacob’s own long struggle with hurt and hate. For you see, even Jacob's
name meant supplanter,
or deceiver. He had been hurt, had hurt,
and was still hurting people. He was a
victimizer. It all started when he fell
victim to a sibling rivalry induced by his mother. Because of the rivalry, after cheating his
brother of the birthright, Jacob had to leave home. Living in a distant land, he met a woman, a
distant cousin Rachel, and wanted to marry her.
Instead, just like he had deceived his brother, now his uncle deceived him
into taking her less desirable sister Leah.
He had to work 7 more years to have the wife he really wanted. He finally revenged his uncle, by becoming
more successful in the livestock business.
But this too backfired into a major family feud so that Jacob had to
leave town again.
Do you see that the struggle by the River Jabbok is more than
geographic, but it's
spiritual and emotional territory. It's
the river that separates the tragic land of his past with struggle to have a
future. It's
the land, we might call, "no
where else to go." On one side of the river lived his warring
uncle, Laban. On the other side of the
river he was about to meet his older and stronger brother Esau, from whom he had
cheated the bright-right. Now, Jacob is
tried, so tired of hurting and being hurt.
He's
longing for healing only God can give. Only by
taking his struggle to God, can he release his heart from this cycle of anger
and hate. Jacob will not let God go
until he gets the healing and blessing only God can give.
No comments :
Post a Comment