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| The shrine above Abraham's tomb in Hebron. |
A Epiphany 7 – February 23, 2014
Text: Matthew 5:38-48
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
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Grace and peace be with you, from
God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
On our recent trip to the Holy
Land, one of the many places we visited was the city of Hebron. Hebron’s
importance lies mainly with its connection to the patriarchs and matriarchs,
including Abraham, who bought a cave there[1] to
serve as his family burial plot (so to speak). And there in Hebron, underneath
a building which houses a mosque and a synagogue – divided from one another by
walls and bulletproof glass – lie the graves of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and
Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah.
The city itself is a divided city –
without going into too much detail here, suffice to say that the Palestinians
and Israelis live with this division in a somewhat tenuous peace. There are
many restrictions on who can travel where within the city – restrictions that
have all but shut down the commerce – which is in many ways the heartbeat, the
life of Middle Eastern culture - in certain areas of Hebron.
On the day we traveled to Hebron,
we took with us a native of that city, someone who, by virtue of his
Palestinian heritage, is not allowed to travel all the way down a street upon
which his family once owned a market. If he tries to travel all the way down
this street, his way is barred by young soldiers holding huge guns.
If I hadn’t been standing there
myself, watching the man being turned away by the soldiers, I’m not sure I
would’ve believed it. What do you mean, he can’t just walk down the street?
After he was turned away, we turned
away from the growing number of soldiers collecting in the street and we went
back through one small checkpoint, past the tombs of our forefathers and
foremothers. This was followed by another, larger checkpoint, where the guards
waved us through and the tall, metal turnstiles spun around. We huffed and
puffed our way back up the steep hills to our bus and tried to put the whole
unpleasant affair behind us.
At dinner each night, we had a
group conversation about our day to process the day’s events. At dinner that
night, it became apparent that our group had been unable to put the
unpleasantness behind us because we kept talking about our guide and the fact
that he can’t simply walk down the street, and the young soldiers with their
big guns. What we encountered that day is a city that is training people to
become enemies with their neighbors.
My comments to our group that night
went something like this:
I won’t speak for everyone here,
but – for myself - I don’t really know what it’s like to live alongside an
enemy. In Austin, we had this neighbor behind us who had these two annoying
little dogs – dogs that would bark incessantly at the slightest bit of noise.
We’d unlock the back door, and when the dogs heard the dead bolt click in the
door, they’d start barking. If the wind blew, they’d bark. Their owner refused
to do anything with his dogs – he refused even to see their barking as a
problem. But – as much as he made me angry and frustrated me – he wasn’t my
enemy.
Back to Hebron - to live in a place
that is so divided – so torn apart by strife and fear – to live as enemies with
the people across the street – literally! – well, that is the sort of
environment that makes Jesus’ words today about loving our enemies even harder
to stomach.
Love our enemies, Jesus? Are you
kidding? You must be kidding. It would be so much easier if we could just
remove them – so that I don’t have to try to love someone whom I have been
taught to hate from the very beginning of my life. And to try to love someone
who has been taught to hate me from the very beginning of their life.
And that is the hard part about
being a beloved one of God. As beloved ones of God, we are called by God to do
the hard thing of loving our enemies. Any old yahoo can love a friend, Jesus
says, that’s easy. But we are called to love the very ones whom we want to hate,
and we are called to love the ones who hate us, even.
And then, just to up the ante a
little, Jesus ends today’s lesson by giving us one more admonition: “Be
perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
It’s really enough for me to want
to throw up my hands, give up, and walk away from it all. Because I know I
can’t be perfect – and I certainly can’t be perfect as my heavenly Father is
perfect – he’s – well – he’s perfect! Except that the word translated here as
“perfect” means something closer to being whole or complete.
We met many on our trip for whom trying
to live alongside an actual enemy is an actual reality. But in spite of their
enemies – and in spite of a society that teaches them to be enemies one to
another - there are many who are committed to ways of peace. We met many who
have seen that violence and hatred actually rip away at us and at our humanity –
they make us less than complete. We met many who are actively trying to teach
others to choose peace over violence and love over hatred. It is not the easy
way at all – but they are committed to the hard work of loving their enemies
and praying for those who persecute them.
So, what’s the take-away? I will
not speak for you, but I still don’t know what it’s like to live alongside or
across the street from an enemy. Our neighbors are pretty quiet and friendly.
And I don’t really want to make enemies of them, just so I can have enemies to
love.
So, the take-away for me is the
hope in the stories of people who are committed to finding peace: the hope that
hatred isn’t going to get ratcheted up and up and up – spinning out of control
in a never-ending cycle. In finding hope in the most unlikely of circumstances,
I am myself am led to seek peace – to pursue peace – all the more in my own
life.
These encounters also cause me to
think about who I am trained to think of as being my enemy – or who I want to
consider an enemy because of how they treat me. And then, looking at Jesus’
words today, I am led once again on pathways of peace – pathways of loving my
neighbor and praying for my enemies. These are not easy pathways to take, but
it is the path I am called to take as one who is baptized and beloved of God.
Let us all, therefore, seek peace,
and pursue it, and let us remember with hope those who are doing the same, all
over the world.
Amen.
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