Embodying Loving-kindness: Sermon for Proper 6A, 2nd Sunday after Pentecost

What would it be like if compassion rather than suspicion was the primary lens through which we looked at strangers? I’ve been thinking about that question a lot over these last trwo weeks as we have seen protests ion the st4eets, partly over the fact that some people are looked at with more suspicion than others, merely because of the color of their skin. I’ll be honest: I’ve been thinking about that longer than just these last two weeks. 

One of the things that just wore me down so much at the start of this pandemic was the way some people responded by hoarding necessities: milk, toilet paper, hand sanitizer. At one of the grocery stores near my house, they had to post a guard to enforce the plea to only buy two gallons of milk at a time after a woman tried to buy ten despite the signs all over the dairy department. When asked to put eight of them back at the checkout counter, she allegedly became so enraged, screaming that the milk was for “HER FAMILY” that the police had to be called. Meanwhile all around her in the checkout lines were people who had families too, and many of whom who needed milk, too. She looked at the people around her and saw them as competition, not as people with needs equal to, and perhaps even greater, than her own. 

It’s easy to make caring for ourselves and our loved ones a priority. It’s in our best interests, after all. Far more difficult is responding to those we do not know with the same consideration, compassion, and provision we make for our loved ones. 

This kind of scarcity-based thinking lurks in our society all the time—but crises can make it worse. Even if that crisis is just a predicted inch of snowfall, suddenly it’s all like the literal Hunger Games in the dairy department. And yet, the next time I went into that grocery store I noticed something even more important: the way it seemed so many people had determined to go another direction. I watched a young mother with a baby on her hip reaching up on a shelf to get one of the last packs of toilet paper for an elderly person in a scooter. I saw people with baskets filled giving way so that a person with only a few items could go ahead of them. I witnessed a man slipping 20-dollar bills to cashiers to thank them for their help in helping us all buy what we needed as we transitioned to sheltering in place. 

In our reading from Genesis today, we see Abraham as an exemplar of hospitality, generosity, and thinking about others. When approached by strangers, Abraham drops what he is doing to welcome them, to offer rest, refreshment, and nourishment to them. The rabbinic tradition holds that Abraham was exemplary in this regard, and that his generosity to others flowed out of is unity with God and God’s will. 

In the stories told in Jewish midrash—which are collections of imaginative explanations and extensions of sacred texts—the rabbis go further. Abraham’s hospitality is more than mere welcoming of stranger, they say, but is instead a sign of his powerful unity with God so that he embodies one of God’s key characteristics: chesed, or “loving-kindness.” The rabbis teach that this kind of open-hearted embrace of the other, especially if that other is more vulnerable than you, is one of the pillars that supports the world itself. Chesed is about cultivating a character of love, generosity, charity, and service that comes from allowing God to work within us and align ourselves with the divine spark, or breath, that God planted within us from our very beginnings. (1)

Now it turns out that Abraham was offering hospitality to God Godself. And yet he didn’t know that. And in return, those strangers demonstrated to Abraham that his and Sarah’s own needs were seen and lovingly, generously addressed by God. When Abraham and Sarah respond to the wondrous predictions of the strangers with disbelief, and even bitter laughter, they are brought up short by this question: “Is anything too marvelous for God?” 

It seems wise to remember that, if we take seriously God’s creating power alive and moving in the world even now, we would see the wonders of God’s handiwork and love all around us. In our scriptures, this hospitality that Abraham embodied was referenced in Hebrews 13:1-2: “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Opening our eyes to that possibility—that strangers are angels among us, that we are stronger when we let compassion rather than anger and woundedness rule our lives-- also helps us to endure these challenging times, that God sees our needs, and even more, offers us a way through that leaves us grateful and blessed. 

That same compassion and generosity lies at the root of Jesus sending out his disciples to heal and preach to the lost and hurting around them. The twelve who are initially selected receive a new name: apostles, which means “sent.” They are instructed to go only among the common people of Israel—this is exactly the community for whom Matthew is writing. 

Jesus has compassion and empathy on the common people because he sees their needs, like Abraham did as those strangers approached, and is determined to fulfill their need for comfort and help, much like sheep who have no shepherd to watch over them. It doesn’t matter if their needs are not his, or if he himself had ever experienced the same struggles they faced. He saw that they were sheep without a shepherd—and called his disciples to go out in compassion and empathy too. To live a grace-filled life, especially because they themselves had received grace. 

These were sheep without a shepherd. To be a sheep without a shepherd was to have no leader to act to protect you. To be a sheep without a shepherd was to be vulnerable to being harmed or even killed. To be a sheep without a shepherd was to be “harassed and helpless.” And worse, among the people of Israel, there are wolves lurking among the sheep. They are those who collaborate with the forces of empire against the concerns of their own people. They are those who dehumanize the poor, the sick, the needy, the oppressed, and then justify the sacrifice of these people upon the altar of profit. Those who deny they have any obligation to either sinners or strangers, all the while forgetting the ways in which we all fall under those same labels at one time or another. 

And that’s where I think we are today, too. Far too many people keep wanting to dress that wolf up in sheep’s clothing. Far too many people want to be fans of Jesus, rather than disciples. 

I grew up hearing how important it was to accept Jesus as your “personal Savior,” to have a “personal relationship” with Jesus. Those disciples we hear of in this Sunday’s gospel certainly have that kind of relationship with Jesus. And what is the next step? Jesus sends them out into the world, giving them the power to heal others, warning them that their faithfulness will not come without risk, cost, or danger. 

That relationship with Jesus involves sharing in his relationship with others too. In other words, it is not enough to have a personal relationship with Jesus—unless we allow Jesus to transform our hearts so that we have a passion and a mission for the sake of others, we have nothing. It’s not enough to believe we are assured of going to heaven if we support people who make lives for too many of our kindred hell on earth. 

It’s at this point that we see that everything Jesus did, he did out of compassion and empathy for those who had nothing, those who were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd. 

And so, we who have received grace upon grace, mercy upon mercy, are sent out, just as Abraham was by God long before Genesis chapter 18. The gospel that we are called to proclaim, just like those apostles is a simple one: The kingdom of heaven is near! And it may not feel like it—then or now. But it’s when things are the bleakest that the good news is most necessary. 

That good news is this: the power to cure the sick and cast out demons is how the kingdom is announced to the world. This tired old world that is tired of isolation even as people insist on their own rights over the care of those around them. We may no longer believe in “demons,” but as we’ve discussed previously, demons don’t have to have pointy horns and pitchforks. Demons are those things that destroy our relationships with each other, and the power that can overcome our modern demons is the power of love, the power of empathy, the power of community in action. And they are just as real and just as destructive as any monster or zombie. 

Our modern demons are too many to list, but include things we have seen tearing us apart in just the last several weeks: selfishness, contempt for our neighbors and their well-being, racism, exploitation of the poor, white supremacy, violence, fear of others and fear of strangers. 

Jesus’s gospel commands us to open our hearts to God with everything we are, but also commands that we be willing to open ours hearts to each other --especially those in categories we might like to declare as “less-than.” Jesus’s gospels demands that we leave the judging to God, and just love each other—but not some pale, passive love but rather love in action, love that risks everything and holds nothing back. And that upends a lot of our notions of justice and especially retribution. By maintaining social distancing, by continuing to wash our hands, by continuing to wear masks to protect those around us, we are proclaiming the gospel as loudly as any street-corner preacher. 

This time in which we live right now is a time of great anxiety, beset still by a global pandemic and a global awakening to the structures of racism that too many people have overlooked if they didn’t think it affected them personally. By the way, it does. No one’s life is untouched by the wounds that racism and prejudice and violence and contempt for the lives of others inflicts upon society. But this anxiety can also lead us toward admitting the brokenness in many of our relationships with each other, and to rely upon God’s help to urge us to action. That’s ultimately the point of faith. Faith is not a magic inoculation against struggle. Faith is a transformative power that urges us to loving-kindness and hope. This is a time when faith is called for. Not faith as a possession or a talisman, but faith as a goad to action grounded in love.

As Biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman writes, “Faith is not a reasonable act which fits into the normal scheme of life and perception. The promise of the gospel is not a conventional piece of wisdom that is easily accommodated to everything else. Embrace of this radical gospel requires shattering and discontinuity.” (2) 

We have an opportunity to use this time to name the things in our society that did not serve us well, and we can start with those demons of division that leave us fearful and convinced that there is not enough. Let’s seize it and not grow weary. In a spirit of loving-kindness, let’s work through this upheaval to a better future, to deeper discipleship, to lovingkindness that opens our hearts to empathy and shared commitment to real justice, which is the only true foundation for lasting peace and healing. 

 Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am online service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, on June 14, 2020.

Readings:
Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)Psalm 116:1, 10-17Romans 5:1-8Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)

Citations/Sources:
1) Elinoar Bareket, "Chesed: a Reciprocal Covenant," at https://www.thetorah.com/article/chesed-a-reciprocal-covenant, and Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 2460-2500 of 9976, kindle edition.
2) Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching, p. 157.