"'Contempt' or Kindness" - Epiphany 6A

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Saint Matthew 5:21-37 

The speaker pointed out that he believed “the biggest crisis facing our nation  . . .  is the crisis of contempt — the polarization that is tearing our society apart.”  Then he continued by giving an example from another occasion when he was addressing a partisan audience of fellow conservatives.

“My friends, you’ve heard a lot today that you’ve agreed with — and well you should. You’ve also heard a lot about the other side — political liberals — and how they are wrong. But I want to ask you to remember something: Political liberals are not stupid, and they’re not evil. They are simply Americans who disagree with you about public policy. And if you want to persuade them — which should be your goal — remember that no one has ever been insulted into agreement. You can only persuade with love.”

 After he had finished a member of the audience angrily approached.  “You’re wrong. Liberals are stupid and evil.”
  

At that moment, my thoughts went to … Seattle. That’s my hometown. While my own politics are conservative, Seattle is arguably the most politically liberal place in the United States. My father was a college professor; my mother was an artist. Professors and artists in Seattle … what do you think their politics were?

That lady after my speech wasn’t trying to hurt me. But when she said that liberals are stupid and evil, she was talking about my parents. I may have disagreed with my parents politically, but I can tell you they were neither stupid nor evil. They were good, Christian people, who raised me to follow Jesus. They also taught me to think for myself — which I did, at great inconvenience to them.

 The speaker concluded his remarks by suggesting that every member of his audience: “Ask God to give you the strength to do this hard thing — to go against human nature, to follow Jesus’ teaching and love your enemies. Ask God to remove political contempt from your heart. In your weakest moments, maybe even ask Him to help you fake it!”1

 On paper it looked like a great address that might have spoken to many in the nation if we had heard it.  We didn’t unless it was our habit to watch the entire coverage of The National Prayer Breakfast on C-Span. 
 
Everywhere else — on both the liberal and conservative cable news networks — there was nary a word spoken about Dr. Arthur Brooks’ remarks.
 
I think they got left out because they didn’t fit with our current national narrative of contempt for those who hold different political views from ours.  Whether we like it or not this narrative is recited to us over and over again on a daily basis and what it leads to is  enmity and strife rather than life and peace.

It is the same choice that Moses offered the people in his farewell address.  It is “a simple message: choose life and not death, but its simplicity was born through the complexities and adversities of forty years in the wilderness.  Here, simple does not mean easy.”2
 

Nor is it a slogan for some movement to be chanted in the streets or printed on a T-shirt.  ‘Choosing life” is a way of living that works toward bridging divides rather than deepening them.

What we know for certain is that anger and fear always leads to a  kind of death.

Political ideology feeds rancor. Drivers rage. Spouses demean. Bosses boss people. The nations rage too. Politicians show their fists. Hoping for good, we go after  . . .  the other political party, or we blame whomever for whatever. But there is a kind of accepted, expected anger in the world, in society, in all of us, and it’s the high god who’s commanding loyalty and devouring us all.3

Moses tells us to choose life and Jesus tells us how.
 
“Jesus is getting at the heart of [the laws] purpose: calling followers to obey God not out of duty but from a desire that stems from the very core of their being, their love.”4  It is almost as if Moses and Jesus are telling us that life, love and contempt cannot occupy the same space.
 
It’s like the Pauli exclusion principle in physics which says that more than one solid object cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  We cannot hold love and contempt for another person in our hearts and expect all to be well.  One path leads to life and the other leads to death.
 
In a very clever way Jesus is showing us how this spiritual death can enter into our lives, very sneakily, very cleverly.  He takes us beyond the commandments to show us their consequences. 
 
We know the commandments Jesus is talking about.  If you grew up a Lutheran and attended Confirmation classes, you memorized the commandments along with their meaning from Luther’s Small Catechism.  You “feared and loved” God enough to not break any of them  because you knew “it was certainly so” that if you did your life would be in a shambles. 
 
Jesus is showing us that “when God gives us commandments, God is not imposing rules for the sake of rules.  If we pay attention to what God means, we will see that everything God asks of us is for our best, for the good of others, and leads all to freedom.”5
 
The children of Israel were about to experience freedom as they entered the promised land but while they might possess it they would never enjoy it unless they made good choices. 
 
Jesus wanted his followers to find the same kind of freedom, too.  But that kind of freedom will never come if we hold each other in what Arthur Brooks called contempt.
 
It is so easy to point a finger.
 
We can think about segregation in the south and in the north.  It kept God’s children separated as some held others in contempt because of the color of their skin.  Both groups lost as each one’s freedom was limited their having to hold on to at least some level of contempt for the other.
 
Think of the term “bad hombres” and then think of all the “fine amigos” that you know.  Think of how your life would be limited if you held others in contempt because of their country of origin.
 
You can probably think of more of these comparisons than I can but my language is encumbered by my presence in the pulpit. 
 
Just think about all those times when a friend, or you heard yourself say something about another person or group that held them in contempt.  I can think back in moments in my life when I have done it and I cringe! 

This kind of behaviors, that kind of talk, not only tears us apart but rends the bonds of a civil society asunder.

Last week the amazingly bright and talented woman whom I am proud to call my pastor encouraged her congregation to do what I hope to encourage us to do today.  She said:

[I]t is time to be loudly kind, to be obnoxiously compassionate, to be irritatingly loving.  To say no to the corrosive power of contempt and to answer hatred with the strength of love. To stand up for each other. To refuse to return evil for evil and to say why that is. To have good courage and to proclaim that [courage] often  . . .  not only on Sundays when we are all together, but even more importantly in all of those other quiet, normal times and places in our lives during the week. So let us live fully and loudly and publicly as who we are, for God will use our witness. And our world will change. We will be changed.6

 Things can change if keep reminding ourselves and everybody we meet of the life and death choices that lie before us in our words and actions every day.  And, if we live out our lives in Christ’s love, we will be reminding ourselves and others that, instead of choosing contempt,  we have chosen life.
 
Thanks be to God who has given us the opportunity to make this so.  Amen.
 
__________

1. Arthur Brooks, “America’s Crisis of Contempt.” The Washington Post, February 7, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/07/arthur-brooks-national-prayer-breakfast-speech/?arc404=true.

2. Ken Evers-Hood, “Deuteronomy 30:15-20. Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 1 (Louisville: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2019): 244–46.

3. James C. Howell, “What Can We Say February 16. Epiphany 6th.” James Howell's Weekly Preaching Notions. Myers Park Presbyterian Church, January 1, 1970. http://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.

4. Maldonado. Perez Zaida “‘Connecting the Reading with the World.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 1 (Louisville: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2019): 255–57.

5. Michael Renninger, “Mawage.” Sermon.  A Sermon for Every Sunday.  www.sermonforeverysunday.com.  February 11, 2020. 

6. Shannon J.  Kerschner, “Adding and Shining.” Sermon.  Sunday Worship.  The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago.  February 9, 2020.