[Propertalk] [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Epiphany 2C (Part 1)

[Joe Parrish]

Forwarded: (Part 1 of 2)



-----Original Message-----
From: Judy <judy_boli at ecunet.org>
To: Propertalk <propertalk.topic at ecunet.org>
Sent: Sat, Jan 16, 2016 9:45 pm
Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Epiphany 2C (Part 1)



Dear Friends,
 
This Sunday’s sermon is entitled ““Terrible Times- Don’t Waste Them!” or “God can take your mess and make it into your message.” (Joel Osteen) or “Don’t let evil defeat you, but defeat evil with good.” and deals with concepts from The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s teaching and practice.  It’s a yearly repeat sermon.  Here it is:
 
I’m sure you remember 9-11.  My thinking about the presence of evil in the world and how we deal with it as God’s people got serious after watching those awful events. I’ve shared the teachings in this sermon with you at least every year since then.  We have our own difficult, painful times- in fact, some of us are living through them right now.  We just buried Michelle Albert- 42 years old.  I taught her in Sunday school. She didn’t have health insurance and let breast cancer get ahead of her, finally metastasizing into her lungs.  Flint is struggling with lead in their water, endangering the intellect of children.  We have members struggling with cancer and other illnesses. We have families working to cope with the death of loved ones.  We have people with money problems, moving problems, life problems, relationship problems, etc.  In other words- join the human race.  This kind of pain is part of the human condition.  St. Paul has advice for us when we face situations like these.  In Romans 12: 19 he says, “Don’t let evil defeat you, but defeat evil with good.”  I know how devoted you are to your Lord, so I’m sure that this is how you intend to live your life.  Me too.  The problem is, in frustrating, confusing times like these- how do you know how to defeat evil with good?  We’d be glad to do as God wants, but how do we know what that is?  For me, one of the blessings of having lived through pain and suffering (as well as wonderful times) is the chance to think through and refine my own personal theology of evil based on scripture, and especially on Gospel.  I’d like to share it with you again this morning.  As you may remember, I see five basic principles in our dealing with evil.
 
FIRST PRINCIPLE: We mustn’t delude ourselves about the power of the enemy. Some years ago, I asked our Sunday school youngsters to tell me what Satan looked like.  You know what they said: a little man in a red jump suit with a tail, a pitchfork, fire coming out of his fingernails (too many video games!), and horns- either red or black- couldn’t decide which.  Wouldn’t that be nice- if we could always recognize him and his greatest desire was to get us to swear or tell a lie- don’t we all wish it were that simple.  The devil (or Satan) is just the name we give “the evil powers of this world that seek to corrupt and destroy the creatures of God”- i.e. US!  (“Book of Common Prayer”- Service of Holy Baptism, p. 302)  Satan’s purpose is to close our open minds; turn our loving hearts into cold, hateful hearts of stone; make us suspicious of everyone and everything; divide us; enslave us by fear; and diminish our spirit. 
 
SECOND PRINCIPLE: Evil is highly contagious- look how evil spreads, worse than smallpox or tuberculosis.  At the checkout line, a lady said, “I just can’t see why they (the terrorists) hate us so!”  I know.  Among other reasons, one of them goes back to the Jewish holocaust in World War II.  When the war was over, our side- the winning side- officially established a homeland for the Jews in Palestine and empowered them to become a nation.  I have to be suspicious that one of the reasons this happened was plain and simple anti-Semitism....they didn’t want all those Jewish people in their land.  I remember, as a little girl growing up in Detroit, seeing ad after ad in the classified section of the Detroit News: “Apartment for rent- no pets, no children, no Jews.”  The problem of giving them a homeland in Palestine was that someone else already lived there- the Palestinians.  The Jews said God promised the land to them through their ancestor Abraham (God did, but the Palestinians are also Abraham’s descendants.)  The Palestinians said it was their land; hatred festered; and Satan sowed the seed for the poisonous harvest that after all these years we are now reaping.  Unfortunately, it’s not just God’s Kingdom that can start with a mustard seed and grow into a mighty tree- if we water and inflame the hatred, Satan’s can also. Unless we take preventative measures, what we sow is what we get
 
THIRD PRINCIPLE: Jesus’ teachings, especially those in the sermon on the mount, are the vaccination against being destroyed when evil is thrown at us.  I was talking to a Bible teacher- definitely someone who should know better, who said he thought we should just go in and bomb the you-know-what out of any nation that allows terrorists to live within their borders.  He justified his opinion by saying that the Bible is full of war- just look at the Old Testament.  True, but Jesus came to fulfill the old covenant.  The Old Testament was written for the people of God when they were just beginning their journey.  “An eye for an eye” was a necessity to limit violence- so a whole family couldn’t be wiped out for the sin of one member.  You don’t give a toddler and a fifty-five year old grandmother or grandfather the same rules.  Jesus said he had come to fulfill the law.  In fact, he said, “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I tell you- love (i.e. want what is best for) your enemy.”  Remember, he’s not talking about love- a feeling, but love- an action, a choice.  St. Paul reminds us that God says: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” 
 
FOURTH PRINCIPLE: Looked at through God’s eyes, the power for who wins this round- God or Satan, is not in the hands of the evil person or group, even though they think and act as if they are in charge.  Power is in the hands of the VICTIM.  It is the victim who allows God to take charge of the encounter.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that.  Why?  Because it is the victim who determines the response to the evil.  Satan can do nothing if the victim responds as a Christian and refuses to spread anger and hate, but instead works to solve the initial problem that the devil used to start the whole evil mess.  Look how this principle works.  Since Satan counts on being able to spread his evil by using one evil person (or a group of evil people) to get something going, he must pick his person carefully.  The more negatives emotionally and physically this person or group can cause the better.  The first incident only gets the ball going.  The power for good or evil is in the hands of the victim. Look- if an evil person throws a ball of nasty garbage at me, I have a choice.  If I can’t dodge it, the instinctual human choice is to catch it and start throwing it back, letting it splatter at everyone within range.    In fact, I might even miss and get a whole lot of innocent people.  What happens next?  Those on the other side do the same.  Before long, following our natural tendencies, we are all a filthy stinking mess.  However, we are not called to follow our natural tendencies- we are much more than the highest biological entity on this planet.  We are called to be children of God, and there is a better way.  Instead, we might catch the nasty ball and hold it until we figure out how to dispose of it with a minimum of damage- I might even use it to fertilize our church garden. thus taking care of the problem, but not spreading the filth.  If we are strong enough, courageous enough, have enough Spirit power, the contamination stops before it corrupts us or spreads to anybody else.
(Continued in Part 2)


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20160117/d851b6cf/attachment.htm>