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?

So, all this to set the stage for Jesus’ sermon. The golden rule. Do to others as you would have them do to you. That’s got to be one of the best-known verses in all of scripture. Who doesn’t teach their kids to treat others the way they want to be treated? Which is not to say they listen, but we teach it all the same. It’s the gospel of nice. Be nice to others so they’ll be nice to you. After all, Jesus obviously wants us to be thoughtful and generous neighbors. But here’s the thing. Christians aren’t exactly experts on the golden rule. Sure, sometimes we’re good neighbors, except when we’re not, like businesses that turn away customers in the name of Jesus because they don’t want to condone a certain “lifestyle”. Now, we can debate whether or not that’s neighborly. But I suspect we can all agree that we also know non-Christians who are better neighbors than us. Point being, you don’t have to be Christian to live the golden rule or preach the gospel of nice. It’s good business and good community. This isn’t news. Jesus knows he doesn’t have to teach us that. So what IS Jesus actually trying to teach us?

Well, it’s in all the controversial stuff Jesus says beforehand. “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Wow, that’s a tall order. Maybe by a miracle of faith we can learn to forgive and move on, but it’s a stretch to think that’ll stop a serial abuser from finding another victim. But Jesus isn’t done. Next he says if anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other. Now, a lot of people think this is Jesus speaking out against retribution. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Or that it’s a way to bring shame on the abuser, but right now they’re tipped over the edge into violence and I doubt they’re thinking about their reputation or anything else at all. And there’s nothing good about two bloody cheeks. Anyway, Jesus keeps going. If anyone takes away your coat, don’t withhold your shirt. If anyone takes your goods, don’t ask for them. What sense does it make to just let others steal your basic necessities? Jesus isn’t talking about “stand your ground”. He’s talking about complete inaction in the face of evil. What sense does any of this make? Who could live like this? What ever happened to the God of justice?

Well, here’s the thing. Jesus isn’t telling us what to do or not do. Jesus isn’t condoning abuse or evil. What Jesus is doing is taking us to the point where the golden rule finally breaks down for us, and we all have that point. It’s when we’re no longer capable of doing to others as we’d have them do to us. It’s the impossible choice between survival or death, and the truth is that they’re both fatal.

But, the good news is that Jesus isn’t just talking about us. He’s also talking about himself, and we know the choice he made. The Son of God could have stopped his abusers, he could have wielded divine power, but he didn’t. He willingly went to the cross, to suffer and die, for our sake. He binds all of our impossible choices, our sin, our death upon his own body, just so that he can bind the power of his resurrection to our bodies. Because he doesn’t just want us to survive, but thrive in the light of new creation. And he brings this new creation into being right here and now by his word of forgiveness for victims and abusers alike. At the end of the day, forgiveness is the only way we can know that there really is another way, a beloved community of love and justice breaking into the midst of this broken world, and nothing can defeat that.

See, we know we don’t have any idea how to love or bless or pray for our enemies. But Jesus knows, and so he sends us the power of his own Spirit to draw the word out of our own mouths in spite of ourselves. After all, it’s not shame or threat or punishment that redeems a bully. We know about Pharaoh and his hardened heart. No, they need that change of heart that can only come from outside, from the Jesus that we all bear to the world as witnesses. By faith we trust Jesus to set to work on bullies so that we might be free to hear and see all those who suffer in our midst, to bind their wounds and bear their burdens. To be strong for them when they can’t be strong for themselves, and only because we’ve been in their shoes. God knows suffering is hard and embarrassing, but God surely transforms it into the kind of compassion and mercy that changes other people’s lives.

Not that it’s easy or happens when we want it to. God has a strange way of working in the world. Sometimes God even uses Facebook, so maybe it’s not completely useless. I recently received a message out of the blue from someone I went to school with. Let’s just say we weren’t friends. And it’s his repentance. More like a repentance bomb in a way. It’s not the first time either. It’s been like 30 years since those days. How do you respond to something like that? I suspect I won’t know today or tomorrow. Maybe next week, who knows. But here’s what I do know. Jesus will give the word to speak, and no one is beyond the reach of the God who always gets what God wants. Thanks be to God.