We Receive what we Give

February 20, 2022 Luke 6:27-38 Year C 7th Sunday after Epiphany We Receive what we Give Opening Song Welcome (Don’t print) The command to “love your neighbor as yourself” means not only to love them as much as you love yourself, but to love them as if they are your self. We don’t live according to the flesh, our “self” defined by and confined to our physical bodies, but according to the Spirit: even though we appear in separate bodies we are all one, in one spirit. You and your neighbor are part of the same body. To love our neighbor is to love ourselves. Call to Worship (Luke 6) Come and learn the ways of life. We have come to follow Jesus. Love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you. We have come to follow Jesus. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who persecute you. We have come to follow Jesus. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We have come to follow Jesus. Come and learn the ways of life. Opening Prayer (Luke 6) Inexhaustible source of love and life, be with us in our time of worship as we seek the love it takes to walk in the ways of your Son. Help us love our enemies and bless those who wrong us, for we cannot do so alone. Teach us the joy of treating others with all the same respect and goodness with which we hope to be treated. May our every word and deed make known that we are your beloved children and vessels of your love. Amen. (B.J. Beu) Stewardship Moment Moment for Stewardship (from Luke 6) What difficult teachings we have from Jesus! Have you heard this: “Do to others as you would have them do to you?” For some congregations, this Sunday we focus on the work of the Week of Compassion, the Christian Church organization which reaches around the world, across the whole year. Can you imagine what it would mean for us to be faced with the destruction of our church building and our homes? What would we want others to do for us? Can you imagine what a challenge it would be for drought to make it impossible for us to grow food across our whole country? What would we want others to do for us? Your gifts provide the means by which we engage in ministry here and around the world. Let’s see what happens when we respond with compassion and generosity, even in the face of life-threatening challenges With gratitude, let us do to/for others as we would have them do to/for us! Prayer of Thanksgiving Mighty God, you brought all of creation into being and saw it was good. You sent Jesus to show humanity the Way of Love. Thank you for opening our hearts and our hands as we seek to do to others as we would have them do to us. Let these gifts be the measure we give because we yearn to remain in love. AMEN (From The Center for Faith and Giving) Passing the Peace of Christ (Luke 6) Let us be known as children of the Most High by sharing our love with all as we pass the peace of Christ. (B.J. Beu) Scripture Luke 6:27-38 Common English Bible Behaving as God’s children 27 “But I say to you who are willing to hear: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well. If someone takes your coat, don’t withhold your shirt either. 30 Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them. 31 Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for he is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. 36 Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate. 37 “Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good portion—packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing—will fall into your lap. The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in return.” Sermon – We receive what we give Home Economics was one of my favorite classes in jr high school. I would love learning about baking techniques and then baking cakes and other goodies in the middle of the day. Of course we learned that when you are baking with flour that you don’t pack it down to measure it our your measurments will be off. And yet when you are using brown sugar, you want to pack it down and level it off with a knife. And then I would go home and tell my mother all that I learned in class. When it was my turn to bake something at home, I would reach for the measuring cups and spoons and she would yell at me. She said that in real life cooking you don’t use measuring cups, you learn to measure by eye to know the right amount. Of course the key to old style cooking is just that – you have to know the right amount to put it for it to be effective. Today I use a combination of both old ways and new ways – I still depend on my measuring cup. Did you know that the Bible talks a lot about measuring cups and other measuring tools. There are over 30 references in the old testament alone to God’s measurements. Apparently God loves to bake. Our scripture for today ends by saying A good portion – packed down, firmly shaken and over flowing – will fall into your lap. The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in return. God bakes using the old fashion measurments – God is not so concerned about what the measuring cup says – but what the heart says. It is said that the most important ingredient to any meal is love- We have been learning that love is the most important ingredient for our faith, our decisions, our lifestyle. Luke 6 is called the sermon on a level plain (as opposed to the sermon on the mount). Jesus is face to face with the people and with their problems. He tells them about God. Today we come in the middle of that conversation, the lectionary divides chapter 6 into three parts. Last week we would have heard the beatitudes, and if there were 8 Sundays in ephiphany, we would have heard the end of the chapter. In our scripture today Jesus encourages us to go beyond the morality in the old testament. A big concern for the Hebrew bible were balanced and fair measurements. The people depended on fair measurements when they bought grain and other things to the market to live off of. What’s fair was important for the Hebrews and it is a concern for all of us as well. We all know the law of retribution – an eye for an eye. For us Christians it is a bad thing, but at the time it was intended to be a good thing. Undo violence was prohibited – if someome robbed you, you were not justified in setting their house on fire. You did to them what they did to you – no more, no less. That was what was fair. In life you always made sure that your measurments were balanced that was God’s law. God is a god of justice. Jesus points out that Gid is indeed the God of justice. But Jesus teaches us that God is also the God of mercy. Justice and mercy go hand in hand – they are opposites of the same coin. Our scripture starts our with the word but – yes God want justice, But I say to those who are listening that you are called to take justice one step further – and love, do good, bless and pray. The advice that Jesus gives us:Love your enemies, do good to those who have you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you, turn the other cheek, share with those who don’t have and do unto others as you would want done to you. There is a scene in the movie ghandi where the british occupation soldiers are about to break up a demonstration for Indian independence with billy clubs, but the resistance keeps coming. The soldiers run into the crowd and the people do nothing, they let the soldiers hit them and bloody them the soldiers keep attacking and the resistors do nothing. Finally the soldiers stop and start to cry at the harm they are causing. Mohandas Ghandi was not a Christian, but he followed the ways of Jesus very closely. They were turning the other cheek as Jesus told them to. The soldiers had no choice but to stop and to show love. Love is the main ingredient of our faith. I think that we all know that there are people who are hard tolove, there are situations that are hard to deal with. Love Your Enemies Former Boston Red Sox Hall-of-Fame third baseman Wade Boggs hated Yankee Stadium. Not because of the Yankees; they never gave him that much trouble but because of a fan. That's right: one fan. The guy had a box seat close to the field, and when the Red Sox were in town he would torment Boggs by shouting obscenities and insults. It's hard to imagine one fan getting under a player's skin, but this guy had the recipe. One day as Boggs was warming up, the fan began his routine, yelling, ‘Boggs, you stink’ and variations on that theme. Boggs had enough. He walked directly over to the man, who was sitting in the stands...and said, ‘Hey fella, are you the guy who's always yelling at me? The man said, ‘Yeah, it's me. What are you going to do about it?’ Wade took a new baseball out of his pocket, autographed it, tossed it to the man, and went back to the field to his pre-game routine. The man never yelled at Boggs again; in fact, he became one of Wade's biggest fans at Yankee Stadium. Love your enemies. It might change them, and we know it will change you. Phil Thrailkill, Loving Like God Loves It is love that changes us. The bible points out that revenge should be turned into retribution, but Jesus tells us that retribution should turn into restoration restoration stops the cycle in its tracks, Love turns and enemy into a friend. When that doesn’t work – Romans 12 offers some good advice. Romans 12:17-21 New International Version 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[a] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. At the end of the day – we all have to answer to God. Justice and mercy are coming to all of us. Who Are My Enemies? I have asked myself this week, "Who are my enemies, and who do I feel justified in putting outside my circle of concern?" I have found the words of Thomas Merton most helpful: “Do not be too quick,” he wrote, “to assume that your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you were capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy. "Do not be too quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears you because he can find nothing in you of God's love and God's kindness and God's patience and mercy and understanding of the weakness of men. "Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God. For it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and sensuality and selfishness that have killed his faith.” In other words, who I label as enemy may say more about me than about them. Phil Thrailkill, Loving Like God Loves Jesus calls us to love others just as God loves us – we have all heard it said do unto others as you would have others do unto us – Jesus says do unto others as God has done to you. The Fourth Wise Man The story is told of the fourth wise man who had followed the Star announcing the birth of Jesus. He, too, went to Bethlehem with a gift for the Savior. His gift was that of precious jewels to give to Jesus. On his way to Bethlehem he found a man who had been beaten and robbed by thieves and left to die. The wise man took the injured man to an inn and paid for his care with one of the jewels that had been meant for Jesus. When he finally arrived in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph had fled to Egypt with Jesus. He found that Herod and his soldiers were killing children and that Mary and Joseph had escaped with Jesus. The wise man saw a soldier preparing to kill one of the children of Bethlehem and so he bribed him with another jewel to save the child's life. The child's mother was relieved and very grateful. The wise man went on to Egypt in pursuit of Jesus and his parents. However, while in Egypt the wise man became ill and a kind but poor woman nursed him back to health. On one occasion he found this woman crying and soon discovered why. Her son had been forced to join the army and now this woman was very distraught. The wise man was so grateful to this woman for all she had done that he used his last jewel and bought her son out of the army. Now he had nothing to offer Jesus. Thirty years had passed and the wise man thought that he should return to his home. On his journey when he was passing through Jerusalem it was the day that Jesus was to be crucified. Upon learning this he stood with the crowd hoping that he still might see Jesus. As he stood waiting to see Jesus, a tile from a nearby roof fell and landed on the wise man's head and killed him. Some might argue that his life was a failure because he never brought his gifts to Jesus. Yet, because he believed in Jesus as God's anointed, he was transported to heaven. There in heaven he finally saw Jesus. Jesus was on his throne and wearing a crown. The wise man could barely believe his eyes when he saw the crown of Jesus. For there in the center of the crown were the three jewels he had given to help others. "When we do it to the least we do it unto Jesus." Source: Stuart Robertson, Balanced Burdens (London: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited), p. 142." John R. Steward, Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, CSS Publishing Lima, Ohio Ephesians 3:17-19 New International Version 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. God’s love for us is immeasurable and beyond our understanding. How measurable is your love for others? Prayer O Holy One, as you spoke your creative Word in the beginning, as you spoke through prophets and teachers, as you spoke through evangelists and apostles, so you still speak to us today. You speak to us words of invitation to live into your abundant mercy. You speak to us inviting us to seek your thoughts and live your love. You speak to us inviting us to delight in your grace freely give to us and all creation. Be with our congregation, O God. Continue to blend our voices and weave our lives together in ways beautiful, faithful, profound, and holy. May all we say and do as disciples of Jesus Christ, who alone is the head of our church, be an offering of praise and thanksgiving for your steadfast love. Amen Brian Coulter and Michael Washchevski) Lord’s Prayer Song Hymn of Promise UMH 707 Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook Jesus calls us to live as his faithful disciples: to love our enemies, to do good expecting nothing in return, offering mercy and forgiveness to others just as God is merciful and forgives. Friends, live into our high calling in Jesus Christ. And go with the blessing of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen. (Brian Coulter and Michael Washchevski) Community Time Benediction God of love, you have loved us perfectly. Fill us and guide us with your Spirit, that we may perfectly love and serve you, and love others—even our enemies—as ourselves. By your grace may be love one another ass you have loved us, and be merciful as you are merciful. We pray in the name and the unity and the companionship of Jesus. Amen. (From Unfolding Light) Children’s Sermon Prepare: Ideally this works best as a little skit. You can set up something with another worship leader, or with one of the children. You can also try to just set it up to happen as you go! The idea is that the other person takes something from you and walks away. It can be almost anything, your cup of coffee, a pencil, your Bible, anything! You can work out what the goal of them taking it was – it could be because they don’t have a Bible, or that they needed something to write with, or that they were just trying to have fun and didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You decide. Set your skit in motion as the children gather! Have the other person in the skit walk up to you and take whatever they were set up to take from you. Say something like, “Hey! What are you doing? That’s mine!” They should respond with something typically bully-ish, like, “Well it’s mine now!” OK – wait a minute . . . I read something about this very situation in the Bible! Even though they just took something from me I should treat them with love. I think it’s today’s Gospel reading! Let me look . . . yes, Jesus says that we should love our enemies, we should treat other people as we would want them to treat us. Ok, that’s super not easy in this case. I need that back and they were just really mean to me. I don’t want to be loving! And I would never just walk up and grab something from someone, so why should I have to be nice back? I have a hard time with this, too. Jesus is asking a lot of us. It’s hard to be loving when we don’t feel loved in return. It’s hard to be caring when we are afraid we will be hurt. It’s hard to give up the things that we like and care about because someone else might need them more. And it gets even harder! Being loving and caring doesn’t mean you should put yourself in danger of getting hurt, and it doesn’t mean that you should just let people take anything they want from you. Because when you think about how you would want to be treated, you would probably want to know if what you did hurt someone else’s feelings, right? This is one of those really hard stories from Jesus. It was difficult for the disciples to understand, and it’s still difficult for us! So (turn to the person who took you stuff), I don’t think that you really wanted to be mean to me. Is there some reason that you took that? Is there something that you need? (let the story play out the way you decided when you set it up) Loving God, you give us some many good things, and so often we forget that the people around us are part of those good things! Teach us to be loving, especially to the people who are the hardest to love. Amen. God Loves you no matter what! Make a “ways to be loving” list. Even better if this is part of a congregational idea to think about being loving as a church in the community. Ask people for ideas about how to care for the neighborhood, or for a park, or for the people in your town, etc. Additional Illustrations Going Beyond Duty: The Second Mile Shortly after the battles ended the American Revolution, but before the peace had been negotiated, George Washington was with his troops in Newburgh, New York. But they began to grow very restless because they hadn't been paid. Washington had begged the Continental Congress to do what they said they would do and pay the soldiers, but they refused. Well, some of the officers began to organize a rebellion. They talked about marching on Philadelphia, which was at that time the seat of the reigning national government, and overthrowing that government and letting the army rule the nation. With the fate of America in the balance, George Washington made a surprise appearance before these officers. After praising them for their service and thanking them for their sacrifice, he pulled from his pocket a copy of a speech that he wished to read. But then he fumbled with a paper and finally reached for a set of reading glasses-glasses those men had never seen him wear before. Washington made this simple statement: "I have already grown grey in the service of my country, and now I am going blind." Historian Richard Norton Smith wrote: "Instantly rebellion melted into tears. It was a galvanizing moment, and the rebellion..." and the rebellion was put down because they had seen before them a second miler. Becoming a Christian is one thing; being a Christian is another one. Every chance you get for the glory of Jesus, for the goodness of others, and because of the grace of God, go the second mile. James Merritt, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com _____________________________ Mark Twain once said, "The rain is famous for falling on the just and unjust alike, but if I had the management of such affairs, I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust outdoors, I would drown him." Mark Twain A minister, Woody Garvin, spent his first years in ministry working among the Native Americans on the Hoopa Reservation in northern California. He tells the story of two young men who grew up in his congregation. Gerald Marshall was reared by his mother, Marie, a single parent. Gerald was somewhat retarded mentally, but he did all right. He worked at the post office as the night custodian, and served as a leader in the little reservation church. Pliny Doud was the other young man. His father, George, was also a single parent, and had raised Pliny. Pliny drifted away from the church. He started drinking heavily, and fell in with a rough crowd. One night, he and his friends decided to have some fun. They went to the post office to harass Gerald Marshall, the night custodian. But things did not go well. Gerald became confused, and began to resist. One thing led to another. Pushing turned to hitting. When it was all over, Gerald was lying on the floor. He didn't move. The other boys ran. When someone finally found Gerald lying on the floor, he was dead. Both the Marshall family and the Doud family had been members of the little reservation church. Both families left the church after the murder. Sometime later, Marie Marshall, Gerald's mother, began to attend church again. So did George Doud, the father of the boy who had killed Marie's son. One day, George came late to church and searched for a place to sit. The little church was nearly full. There was only one seat available. It was right next to Marie Marshall. So George sat down. It was Communion Sunday. Woody Garvin, the pastor, wondered what would happen when the communion elements were passed. What he saw was this: When the bread was passed, George Doud handed Marie Marshall the bread and said, "The love of Christ be with you!" And Marie responded, "And also with you!" When he handed her the cup, he said, "The peace of Christ be with you!" And she replied, "And also with you!" Christ always challenges us. He always calls us to be better than we are. He loves us too much to leave us the way we are. Sometimes he asks the impossible. But then he makes it possible. Richard Niell Donovan, Peacemaking What We Grab Also Grabs Us Once there was an eagle which hovered over a lake and suddenly swooped down and caught a two-foot long fish in its talons. Slowly, the bird rose with its ten pound catch, but when it reached about 1,000 feet, it began to descend, until it splashed into the water. Later, both the bird and fish were found dead. Apparently the fish was too heavy for the eagle, but it could not let go, for its talons were embedded in the flesh of the fish. The truth is that what we grab, grabs us. When we grab alcohol, drugs, or sex, it grabs us and brings us down to death. John Brokhoff, Old Truths For New Times, CSS Publishing Company, Inc God Can Take Our Anger A father went to see his little daughter who was in critical condition in St. Catherine's Children's Hospital next to the church. A friend made her a birthday cake with decorative icing. Before going to the hospital, he stepped into the church to pray for his daughter and went off leaving the cake in a pew. When he got to the hospital, he found the child near death. Shortly after she died, he went back to the church and picked up the cake. On the front steps he paused and looked up at a statue of a cross-crowned Christ. He took the cake out of the box, balanced it in the palm of his hand, and then with all his strength, he threw the cake into the face of Jesus. It was his way of saying, "Take that, Jesus, for letting my child die!" It was an experience and expression of anger with one he thought was unjust. It may be all right to be mad at God because God is big enough to take it. Our outburst of anger is good for us in that it expresses our despair and frustration. In time hopefully the frustration will turn to faith. Later, we may get an eternal perspective in what we considered an injustice. In God's providence, today's temporary loss may be a permanent gain, for God is good and God is just. John Brokhoff, Old Truths For New Times, CSS Publishing Company