Epiphany 7C
February 20, 2022
Good Shepherd, Wells, MN
Luke 6.27-38
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful … for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
Jesus has some challenging words for us today, but I have some caveats before I reflect with you on what they might mean for us. First, Jesus is not tolerating abusive situations nor is he telling us that we need to stay in them. We are not to be doormats for people to walk on. Second, Jesus is not saying that we should let injustices go and turn our backs on oppression. In fact, in some ways Jesus is saying the opposite, that we need to stand up to the “way of the world,” but that we need to do it with countercultural radical love that takes sin seriously.
Today I want to reflect on why Jesus is advocating for this radical love but I want to do so from a personal perspective. Walt Kelly drew a cartoon strip called “Pogo” that ran from 1948-1975. “Pogo” was set in the Okefenokee Swamp and it featured an opossum named Pogo. In one famous strip, Pogo is walking through the swamp with his porcupine friend Porkypine, and both are complaining about their hurt feet. The last panel shows why they have had trouble walking. There is garbage strewn through the swamp, making it look like a junkyard. In what is now an iconic line, Pogo observed, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Jesus says some radical things about loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us, showing mercy, not expecting anything in return, and the measure we receive will be the measure we get. To riff on another story in Luke, we might ask, “Who is our enemy?” We might be surprised at the same one that Pogo discerned: “It is us.” What do I mean that the enemy is us? I think Jesus is challenging us to consider what happens to us when we don’t love, forgive, show mercy, do good and expect nothing in return. In her book, Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott writes that withholding forgiveness from someone is like drinking rat poison and then expecting the rat to die. In other words, hurting others in kind hurts us in return, maybe more so.
Many of you know I went to Gustavus Adolphus College. One of Gustavus’ symbols is three crowns, arranged in a triangular shape. Not surprisingly, they used to make a lapel pin with the three crowns symbol. One day, I was talking with someone from Gustavus who was wearing that pin and I commented on it. Unbeknown to me, the tradition was that if you were wearing that pin and someone commented on it, you were to take it off and pin it on the commenter. Much to my embarrassment, the person did so and I now have that pin. Aside from the embarrassment, here’s the even yuckier part: I never wear the pin anymore because I don’t want to give it up when someone comments on it. I’m drinking rat poison.
I fear for our society, how what should be civil discourse is becoming more uncivilized. It’s not just on social media, where people intentionally troll others with the goal of stirring up hate and discord. School board and city council meetings have turned into free-for-alls, TV is filled with smack talk. It even happens in our churches where pastors are leaving ministry in record numbers. Yet, even as I despair the fraying fabric of our society, I wonder what it is doing to our inner life. Every time I think about clinging to that three crowns pin, every time I react inappropriately to the driver of a car, every time I want to write a blistering Facebook post, I drink more rat poison and my inner life diminishes.
In the early 1600s, Shakespeare wrote the play Measure for Measure, quoting from Jesus’ sermon in today’s gospel reading. The title has a double meaning. First, a despicable character who was meting out a deadly “measure” to another character finds himself on the receiving end of a similar “measure.” It was going to be “tit for tat” and the character was going to “get it.” But before that can happen, a different “measure” was given to the despicable person, this one a measure of forgiveness and mercy. Shakespeare, through his characters, understood which “measure for measure” is life-giving and which are not. Do we drink the rat poison or not?
This is not easy and none of us gets it perfectly. Even Joseph in our Genesis reading, who forgives his brothers and is able to see God working through the misery they inflicted upon him, toys with them first. If he doesn’t drink the rat poison he sips it from time to time. Yet ultimately and fortunately, Joseph knows that God is present through the worst life throws at us and works for his purposes. Furthermore, God gives us strength to forgo the rat poison by eating and drinking something better. As you come to the table of Holy Communion today, receive that strength in the full measure of God’s mercy and grace. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful … for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. Amen.
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