WEBVTT 00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:07.854 I have spent the last couple of days over at a Walk to Emmaus. 00:00:07.854 --> 00:00:12.330 Do we have any Walk to Emmaus crew here? 00:00:12.330 --> 00:00:15.365 It's kind of a Christian revival movement. 00:00:15.365 --> 00:00:18.152 Yeah, me and Leroy, any others? 00:00:18.152 --> 00:00:20.227 Oh okay, Candy's walked to Emmaus. 00:00:20.227 --> 00:00:23.225 All right, there's a few of you out there, all right, decaloris. 00:00:23.225 --> 00:00:30.047 So anyway, I'm a little tired, not a lot tired, but a little bit tired. 00:00:30.047 --> 00:00:36.192 Good experience, though I'm appreciative of my friend Boyd who got me connected to all of it. 00:00:36.192 --> 00:00:39.728 But I start the journey here. 00:00:39.728 --> 00:00:41.206 I'll recontinue our journey here. 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:51.290 We've been talking about this better life that our vision statement has been talking about Setting a course to a better life. 00:00:51.290 --> 00:00:54.348 Who and where do we want to be? 00:00:54.348 --> 00:01:03.127 And we switched a couple weeks back to the front part of the mission statement Setting course. 00:01:03.127 --> 00:01:08.010 What are we doing to get to the place where we want to be? 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:11.543 And we continue here in Luke. 00:01:11.543 --> 00:01:14.250 This is the Sermon on the Plain. 00:01:14.250 --> 00:01:26.653 If you remember, last week, we have Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, where he's on the mountain and he's preaching down, coming from God, message delivered from on high, whereas Luke's version he's on the plane. 00:01:26.653 --> 00:01:32.671 He's, even with those that he is preaching to, trying to make those connections. 00:01:32.671 --> 00:01:43.245 And so, as we continue that journey through this summary of what Jesus was really trying to teach about how we're supposed to live, how we're supposed to behave. 00:01:43.826 --> 00:01:54.013 I have to confess, in my journey this week, I landed in a different spot than I thought I was going to land. 00:01:54.013 --> 00:01:59.472 I got hung up on the very beginning of the passage. 00:01:59.472 --> 00:02:03.079 Do you remember what it said right at the very beginning? 00:02:03.079 --> 00:02:07.831 But I say to you that listen. 00:02:07.831 --> 00:02:15.028 But I say to you that listen, isn't that an interesting way to start? 00:02:15.028 --> 00:02:17.828 Because to me it sounds just maybe a little bit cynical. 00:02:17.828 --> 00:02:33.801 Right, I say to you that listen, whatever percentage of you that are actually hearing what I'm saying, this is who I'm talking to at this point. 00:02:33.801 --> 00:02:36.830 You know to me, in some ways, it makes sense if you know the message that he's delivering at this time. 00:02:36.830 --> 00:02:45.693 It is a difficult lesson, these are difficult things to be asking of human beings, and so we shouldn't maybe be fully surprised. 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:57.663 I think, if the passage was a dialogue instead of a monologue, every other verse would be the phrase yeah, but Right, listen to this, are you ready? 00:02:57.663 --> 00:03:03.302 But I say to you that listen, right, listen to this, are you ready? 00:03:03.302 --> 00:03:16.747 But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you yeah, but Bless those who curse you. 00:03:16.747 --> 00:03:27.431 Pray for those who abuse you yeah, but If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. 00:03:27.431 --> 00:03:37.254 Oh, yeah, but from anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt. 00:03:37.254 --> 00:03:44.609 Yeah, but give to everyone who begs from you. 00:03:44.609 --> 00:03:48.275 And if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 00:03:48.275 --> 00:03:55.730 Yeah, but do to others as you would have them do to you. 00:03:55.730 --> 00:03:57.694 Can we say it together? 00:03:57.694 --> 00:04:05.264 Yeah, but these are rough, these are big asks, these are hard to do. 00:04:05.664 --> 00:04:16.362 I might even argue that they are counter-instinctual to our very being to do these things that Jesus is asking us to do, instructing us to do. 00:04:16.362 --> 00:04:20.172 They go against what we're naturally inclined to do. 00:04:20.172 --> 00:04:23.043 If someone hits you in the face, you don't go. 00:04:23.043 --> 00:04:24.387 How about this one? 00:04:24.387 --> 00:04:32.028 That's just not what our beings are given to do, right? 00:04:32.028 --> 00:04:39.944 If we say to love those who hate us, it feels like we're condoning that, we're enabling that. 00:04:39.944 --> 00:04:56.750 To love those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who abuse us, it feels like we're saying it's okay to keep doing that to us, even if we aren't saying it to convince ourselves. 00:04:56.750 --> 00:05:02.829 We feel like we're leaving the door open for the other person to continue to do that. 00:05:02.829 --> 00:05:04.766 Give them the other cheek. 00:05:04.766 --> 00:05:09.610 Well, why not my house and my car as well? 00:05:09.610 --> 00:05:11.305 Thank you for hitting me. 00:05:11.305 --> 00:05:12.744 Here's all my stuff. 00:05:12.744 --> 00:05:14.410 Right. 00:05:14.410 --> 00:05:18.029 Then, luke, he's got to pile on even further. 00:05:18.029 --> 00:05:21.865 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? 00:05:21.865 --> 00:05:26.648 Well, it's easy to love the ones who love you, is it not? 00:05:26.648 --> 00:05:28.172 Usually? 00:05:28.172 --> 00:05:35.288 For even sinners love those who love them. 00:05:35.288 --> 00:05:39.370 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? 00:05:39.370 --> 00:05:41.026 Again, that's easy. 00:05:41.026 --> 00:05:43.807 That's American economics right there. 00:05:43.807 --> 00:05:45.204 They did good to you. 00:05:45.204 --> 00:05:46.168 You do good back. 00:05:46.168 --> 00:05:50.250 Even sinners do that. 00:05:50.250 --> 00:05:55.872 So Jesus doesn't lighten up on it in any way. 00:05:58.601 --> 00:06:07.129 I think there's a genuine fear in play here, a fear of opening the door to further damage, further hurt. 00:06:07.129 --> 00:06:12.865 But I also think there's a power dynamic that's in play there. 00:06:12.865 --> 00:06:14.928 Why we wrestle with it? 00:06:14.928 --> 00:06:22.125 Maybe all it is is this power to keep them from doing it again. 00:06:22.125 --> 00:06:25.072 Still, it's a power thing. 00:06:25.072 --> 00:06:29.428 Nonetheless, we can't afford to give ground here. 00:06:29.428 --> 00:06:31.946 It makes us vulnerable. 00:06:31.946 --> 00:06:36.605 It's a power we want to have hand. 00:06:36.605 --> 00:06:42.031 Do you remember the Seinfeld episode To have hand? 00:06:42.031 --> 00:06:44.685 Oh, you don't watch Seinfeld. 00:06:44.685 --> 00:06:49.603 How do you go to sleep at night. 00:06:49.603 --> 00:06:54.076 That's the last thing I'm watching every night with seinfeld, george costanza. 00:06:54.076 --> 00:06:58.867 He's the neurotic friend you know that's in a lot of these sitcoms, right, and? 00:06:58.867 --> 00:07:04.028 And he's attributing all of his lack of successful relationships. 00:07:04.028 --> 00:07:05.372 And you know all of this. 00:07:05.372 --> 00:07:09.127 Not being able to keep a partner is because he doesn't have power. 00:07:09.127 --> 00:07:11.086 He doesn't have hand. 00:07:11.086 --> 00:07:12.204 He needs hand. 00:07:12.204 --> 00:07:15.862 It's about power. 00:07:15.862 --> 00:07:22.399 In many ways, I wanted to think about this power just a little bit. 00:07:23.029 --> 00:07:25.175 Anybody watching hockey on Thursday night? 00:07:25.175 --> 00:07:29.415 Yeah, okay, good, we've got a few of us. 00:07:29.415 --> 00:07:31.649 A few of us were watching hockey. 00:07:31.649 --> 00:07:33.192 It was the big. 00:07:33.192 --> 00:07:41.259 Instead of the National Hockey League All-Star Game, they did a 14-tournament, country against country. 00:07:41.259 --> 00:07:59.785 The countries who had the most players in the NHL played against each other, and sure enough, because Canada and the US tend to have the most players, it came down to Thursday night best against best, usa versus Canada. 00:08:01.372 --> 00:08:03.480 Are you ready for my confession? 00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:18.559 Canada, are you ready for my confession? 00:08:18.559 --> 00:08:19.261 I was rooting for Canada. 00:08:19.261 --> 00:08:20.944 All right, I'm not alone. 00:08:20.944 --> 00:08:22.567 Those Canadians are good people. 00:08:22.567 --> 00:08:23.389 They're nice folk up there. 00:08:23.389 --> 00:08:23.649 Am I right? 00:08:23.649 --> 00:08:27.785 Those Canadians you meet good people? 00:08:27.785 --> 00:08:30.343 I married a Canadian, a Canadian who didn't know the game was on. 00:08:30.343 --> 00:08:32.998 Mind you Right? 00:08:32.998 --> 00:08:39.399 Isn't Nancy Bonds like the nicest person you've ever met. 00:08:39.399 --> 00:08:48.595 Right, she's a true Canadian and Tim's kind of honorary Canadian, am I right? 00:08:48.595 --> 00:08:49.857 He's like super nice. 00:08:49.857 --> 00:08:56.015 I'm a pastor, I'm supposed to be nice, but you're paying me to be nice. 00:08:56.015 --> 00:09:00.298 He just does it because he's a good guy, right? 00:09:00.298 --> 00:09:03.376 Canada I'm going to root for Canada here. 00:09:03.376 --> 00:09:04.969 That know, that was a little bit what was going on. 00:09:04.969 --> 00:09:10.822 But also in my head I'm like there's some nationalism going on in our country. 00:09:10.822 --> 00:09:15.642 That gets me a little bit concerned, a little anxious. 00:09:15.642 --> 00:09:20.980 Do we really need another thing to be overconfident about? 00:09:20.980 --> 00:09:22.563 I don't know. 00:09:22.730 --> 00:09:33.703 Sometimes, my Christian brothers and sisters, you know we're wanting to assert our Christian authority over society and I get nervous about that. 00:09:33.703 --> 00:09:35.751 It feels problematic to me. 00:09:35.751 --> 00:09:39.696 Right, could we mandate Christian love? 00:09:39.696 --> 00:09:42.197 God didn't mandate Christian love. 00:09:42.197 --> 00:09:44.780 God didn't mandate Christian love. 00:09:44.780 --> 00:09:53.333 God sent Jesus down and tried to persuade, convince, to show what it looked like. 00:09:53.333 --> 00:09:54.957 That's how God worked. 00:09:54.957 --> 00:09:57.823 Even God really didn't try to mandate it. 00:09:57.823 --> 00:10:07.173 I'm not even sure we would all agree all us, the body of faith, would we agree on what Christian love is and what it looks like. 00:10:07.173 --> 00:10:08.996 It's rough. 00:10:09.096 --> 00:10:18.926 So when we start trying to assert ourselves into that conversation and mandate it all, it feels like it's a problematic power at its best. 00:10:18.926 --> 00:10:29.024 I don't know that we want to be in a position where we are deciding how others are going to philosophize, theologize their lives. 00:10:29.024 --> 00:10:32.519 I think we're in the convincing business. 00:10:32.519 --> 00:10:35.097 We're in the heart business. 00:10:35.097 --> 00:10:40.316 They're going to decide because of how we treat them, not because we've mandated it, mandated it. 00:10:40.316 --> 00:10:49.046 But you can see how this power thing kind of plays out, maybe a little bit. 00:10:49.046 --> 00:10:59.654 It plays out in the scripture, obviously, when we look at the things that Jesus is instructing us to do. 00:10:59.654 --> 00:11:05.462 If we were to take the opposite right, it would be giving hate for hate, curse for curse. 00:11:05.462 --> 00:11:12.519 With those who hate us, we're going to hate them even more and we get into this dynamic. 00:11:12.519 --> 00:11:30.886 I'm going to presume that enough hate is going to lead to some actions that live out that hate and then there's probably likely some end to that, even a victor of some sort that wins this whole dynamic. 00:11:32.951 --> 00:11:34.934 Do we have any rap fans in the room today? 00:11:34.934 --> 00:11:36.758 I'm guessing. 00:11:36.758 --> 00:11:38.881 All right, steve, all right? 00:11:38.881 --> 00:11:40.163 Did Kendrick win? 00:11:40.163 --> 00:11:44.339 I think he won pretty convincingly. 00:11:44.339 --> 00:11:48.264 Kendrick and Drake this is the big rap battle of the last decade. 00:11:48.264 --> 00:11:49.710 I think it's been going on a long time. 00:11:49.710 --> 00:11:58.621 When you get to be in the Super Bowl halftime show and you have done all of your shots at the other guy in front of the world. 00:11:58.621 --> 00:12:00.355 He won. 00:12:00.355 --> 00:12:02.254 He wins the war. 00:12:02.254 --> 00:12:05.859 Drake ought to just quit and move on. 00:12:05.899 --> 00:12:07.101 Look how relevant I am. 00:12:07.101 --> 00:12:16.124 Is it relevant when there are only two other people who even know who I'm talking about? 00:12:16.124 --> 00:12:30.557 I guess relevant is relative, in other words, but yeah, maybe we even get to the point where somebody actually won the battle, maybe you won the battle. 00:12:30.557 --> 00:12:36.426 Now you get to assert yourself, your will, your view. 00:12:36.426 --> 00:12:40.975 But what's the nature of that power? 00:12:40.975 --> 00:12:48.639 It would be hard to call it permanent, right, it's not really a permanent power. 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:53.259 You didn't come to some shared agreement about how the future was going to lay out. 00:12:53.259 --> 00:12:56.921 You just got the other person or people to step back. 00:12:56.921 --> 00:13:11.322 The power would last, presumably until it was gone, until you didn't win, or maybe somebody else wins and won over the power. 00:13:12.250 --> 00:13:23.349 In any case, it's just a temporary power that you were able to amass, certainly not a divine power, right? 00:13:23.349 --> 00:13:32.038 Not anything that was sacred, steeped in the eternal, something that makes things better. 00:13:32.038 --> 00:13:43.284 See, I think Jesus, he's trying to invite us with this invitation, this instruction that feels so difficult, feels so counterintuitive. 00:13:43.284 --> 00:13:54.686 He's trying to get us into this new realm of understanding how the world works and I want to reiterate, how this world works, not some other world. 00:13:54.686 --> 00:14:02.039 God wanted to build the kingdom here and in this there is a deeper power. 00:14:02.039 --> 00:14:11.764 Not just a power that allows us to feel like we won, feel like we were right, feel like we were the truth. 00:14:11.764 --> 00:14:31.860 It's actually a real power that comes with healing, that comes with growth, that comes with the capacity to allow everyone to bloom into the creature that God wants each and every one of us to be from our very birth, that God wanted us to be. 00:14:31.860 --> 00:14:35.320 It's not a power that overpowers or conquers. 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:42.621 It's a power that wins over, that builds bridges, that leads to healing. 00:14:42.621 --> 00:14:49.875 It's not an absolute power that overcomes everybody and mandates everything. 00:14:49.875 --> 00:14:53.857 Fall in line, you turn that other cheek. 00:14:53.857 --> 00:14:59.783 There is no guarantee you aren't going to get hit again. 00:14:59.783 --> 00:15:17.062 Not everybody is open to this different realm that Jesus is inviting us to, but by doing so, in some ways, we've shed a different light, a new way of doing things, onto the situation, onto the conflict. 00:15:17.062 --> 00:15:33.116 The hope is that something in their heart, something that God put in their heart, might open up a little bit awaken, just a little bit Awaken, just a little bit, but I'm not going to linger there. 00:15:33.811 --> 00:15:39.919 I sat there thinking, oh, we've been preaching this sermon because it is so difficult for 2,000 years. 00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:45.142 You've probably heard this sermon many, many times. 00:15:45.142 --> 00:15:48.139 We've been wrestling with it for forever. 00:15:48.139 --> 00:15:54.052 Maybe the real question for us is are we going to trust it? 00:15:54.052 --> 00:16:04.313 Are we going to trust this teaching that Jesus gives to us, this teaching that also appears in Matthew? 00:16:04.313 --> 00:16:10.083 This teaching we're pretty convinced was a core message that Jesus brought? 00:16:10.083 --> 00:16:11.051 Are we going to trust it? 00:16:11.051 --> 00:16:16.763 I told you I was at the walk to Emmaus. 00:16:17.323 --> 00:16:22.413 It's kind of a faith revitalization weekend kind of thing. 00:16:22.413 --> 00:16:40.682 It's been really powerful for a lot of people in this world and I was doing the talk on obstacles to grace, things that get in the way of us understanding and believing and living out God's unconditional love for us. 00:16:40.682 --> 00:16:46.302 And as I got to the end, I ended up asking this very same question. 00:16:46.302 --> 00:16:52.580 We know that Jesus describes and models for us a new way of living life. 00:16:52.580 --> 00:16:56.479 Are you going to trust it? 00:16:56.479 --> 00:17:01.140 Are you going to trust that it leads to something better? 00:17:01.140 --> 00:17:05.798 Are you going to trust that it leads to an enriching of your relationships? 00:17:05.798 --> 00:17:10.430 Are you going to trust that it's going to build the body of faith in this world. 00:17:10.430 --> 00:17:25.461 Are you going to trust that it's something that enables others to fully bloom Bloom into being able to offer all that God is hoping they will offer to this world? 00:17:26.230 --> 00:17:42.344 Maybe Luke has it right here, opening with Jesus saying to those who will listen, because that group that he's preaching to it often doesn't include us. 00:17:42.344 --> 00:17:51.044 We don't always believe in this fully, this new way of living, of looking at the world. 00:17:51.044 --> 00:17:58.679 We make other choices, we don't always trust, we don't always listen. 00:17:58.679 --> 00:18:12.882 But it's in that, the humility, the humility it takes to do what he's teaching here, that we come to find God's fullness in ourselves. 00:18:12.882 --> 00:18:21.884 God's abundance in ourselves comes as we are able to live out that sacrificial love for others. 00:18:21.884 --> 00:18:36.203 When we can redirect ourselves to that sacrificial relationship that Jesus modeled, we get a taste of what Jesus knows to be very, very true about life. 00:18:36.203 --> 00:18:45.160 We get to know the part of life that is sacred, that is divine, that is full of life's abundance. 00:18:45.160 --> 00:19:00.243 God calls us to this humility, not that we might defer to the world, but that we might understand the beauty that comes and the strength that comes from that humility. 00:19:03.550 --> 00:19:08.462 Now I can tell you that sometimes life does humble us. 00:19:08.462 --> 00:19:30.344 Sometimes life takes us where we really don't want to go, and my guess is, all of you have a story about being in that space, Life leading you to difficulty, to challenge, to questions with no answer. 00:19:30.344 --> 00:19:32.156 Sometimes life does that for you. 00:19:32.156 --> 00:19:49.262 To me, the irony of that is it can be a gift in the way it humbles us, in the way it opens us to a new way of understanding the world, a new way of understanding its challenges, its pains. 00:19:49.262 --> 00:19:58.084 It's a counterintuitive gift of sorts we don't ask for this gift for sure but it can have its value. 00:19:58.084 --> 00:20:03.296 This is a way that God often works through us. 00:20:03.998 --> 00:20:08.204 You guys are going to receive a gift this morning. 00:20:08.204 --> 00:20:09.270 You guys are going to receive a gift this morning. 00:20:09.270 --> 00:20:14.258 Lois Jackson has walked the journey with this church for a long time. 00:20:14.258 --> 00:20:49.990 We haven't seen her in a bit, but she has a gift from God that she shares her music and she's going to be singing a song that I think lives into that reality, a song about how, when life can bring a lot of hurt, a lot of pain, it also can bring an awareness of God and awareness of God's love, and I invite you to listen for that message She'll be singing during our offertory, during our offertory. 00:20:49.990 --> 00:20:55.904 So, with that, I'll invite you to prepare yourself for that and say Amen, amen.