Sermon for Epiphany 6 – Luke 6:17-26

Have you ever been bullied? Was it when you were a kid? What did they do to you? Call you names? Push you around? Was it worse? I hear you. I got bullied a lot as a kid. We lived in a small town, I was a nerd, I had a fabulous case of acne, no athletic ability, no social skills, everyone else figured out I was gay before I did, so I had a lot going for me. Good times! Now, it was hell at the time, but I’ve been blessed with time and distance and about 20 years of therapy, so I can laugh about it a little bit. Like the time they hung me on the flagpole in front of the school. You know how it’s got that hook for tying the flag rope? I was waiting for the bus with my backpack on, so they picked me up and hung me on the hook by the loop on my backpack. Oh, if we only had cell phones and Instragram back then. I could have gone viral! Of course, there are other memories I still can’t laugh at, but let’s leave it at that for now.

So, being bullied can teach you a few things. You definitely learn that people can be pretty cruel and amazingly creative. Maybe you learn to be tough or even vindictive – get them before they get you. But how many bullies were once bullied themselves? It doesn’t just come out of nowhere. It’s a cycle of violence. Maybe you just stop trusting people, so no one can take advantage of you anymore. Maybe you learn some really bad coping skills, like substance abuse or self-harm. Or stand-up comedy. It all boils down to survival, right? It’s a hard world. There’s a pecking order and we all know what rolls downhill. So it’s not surprising that we don’t often step in when we see bullying, because God knows what we’re going to bring upon ourselves. We’re just thankful someone else is taking the abuse for us for a change so maybe we can get through today. I’ll confess to that, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. But you know, it’s hard to say what’s the worst part of being bullied – is it the violence, the shame, or the powerlessness?