THE TOUGHEST ASSIGNMENT OF AT,

March 8, 1992

8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Luke 6:27-33

"...Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those
who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."
-Luke 6:27-28 (NRSV)

We got in the cab at Clark ana Addison. It was a hot day.
The Cubs had blown a three-run lead in the top of the ninth.
Everybody was a little surly. Three blocks down Clark Street
traffic stopped for a parade. "No problem," our driver assured
us as he turned left down a long one-way street, only to stop
again at the end of the street for the same parade. "No
problem," he said, but this time he was upset and shared with us
his opinions about the folks who were parading. Up over the curb
~- U turn - back up the one-way street, the wrong way - horns
blaring.

Back on Clark Street, the driver of the cab beside us indi-
cated that he wanted to be in our lane: would we give way? Our
driver looked him in the eye - and ignored him; and when the
light changed, accelerated as if to punctuate his dismissal of
the other driver's request. At the next stop light, before we
quite understood what was happening there was a loud pounding on
the roof of the cab and at the driver's window was the passenger
from the other cab, face purple with rage and a few too many
Wrigley Field refreshments, screaming obscenities at our driver,
who again, rather coolly I thought, ignored him, looking straight
ahead, except for a simple, but rather eloquent hand gesture.
This prompted our guest to new heights of rage, including a
reference to our driver's ethnicity, which happened to be Taiwa-
nese. My mild bemusement started to become concern.

The light changed. But now our driver, pondering our
guest's closing statement, was visibly agitated. "Nobody talks
to me like that" he announced, "I have a black belt." He

Slammed on the brakes, jumped out onto Clark Street and beckoned
to the passenger in the cab behind us, invited him, and his
girlfriend and the other driver onto the street to resolve this

matter in a definitive way. It was time, obviously to do some-
thing. So I rolled down the window and entered the conversation
by announcing that the meter was running, and either he got in
and drove on or we were getting out. For some reason, it worked.
He dropped his hands, got back in and drove us home.

Aggression, retaliation, "Nobody says that to me," recipro-
cal disdain, assertiveness, pushiness. Urban survival skills, it

sometimes seems. You want to live in the city, you've got to be
tough and fast.

One time Jesus of Nazareth said:

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate
you, bless those who curse you, pray for those
who abuse you."

And it is no exaggeration to suggest that few of his words
trouble us more. For certain, there are few words of his
which have elicited more scholarly and literary attention.
Surely he didn't mean it! Surely someone heard it wrong! Surely
whatever meaning is here is metaphor, or allegory, or simile!
Surely he didn't mean to love your abuser.

Archibald Hunter, distinguished scholar of the New Testa-
ment, a generation ago spoke for most students: "Literal obedi-
ence to these instructions would only result in violence, robbery
and anarchy." [A Pattern for Life, p. 57]

And so there have been a variety of ways to interpret:

-He was engaging in hyperbole, for instance. His notion of
love for the enemy is so beyond anything human beings can do, it
serves actually to illustrate how profoundly we need God's help.

-Or, it is an ethic so strenuous, that the only way it can
be lived is apart from the world, in a monastery for instance.

-Or, it is the ethic of the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom
of the world. As a citizen in both, the individual must decide

when it is appropriate to hate an enemy and when it is necessary
to love him.

-Or, it is an ideal, a lofty, inspiring goal to which we
must aspire; an "impossible possibility," someone put it.

Roger Shinn of Union Seminary observes wryly that world
leaders have mostly wiped their feet on the notion. And the
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche put into words what many people
wonder about when he said that an ethic based on love for enemies
and doing good to people who are doing harm to you is an ethic
for the weak and cowardly and deserves contempt, not respect.

3/8/92

For four thousand years the human race has believed that
survival depends on a system of rules and related punishments
based on the notion of retribution. "An eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth." It's in the Code of Hammurabi and the date is the
20th century, B.C., 2,000 years before the common era, 500 years
before Moses. The provision in the Hammurabi Code, by the way,
is there to restrain ana regulate the natural propensity toward
retribution. "No more than eye for eye," that is to say.
When wrong is done, a debit appears on the ledger of society.
The offender must pay, make amends, punishment to suit the crime.

The ancient law of Israel commanded love for neighbor, which
meant fellow Israelite, but was as accommodating to hatred of the
enemy as anybody else's law. It's interesting how frequently it
shows up in the Psalter -

Psalm 29 ~ evildoers are doomed to destruction.

Psalm 94 - God will repay them for
their iniquity and wipe them out.

And even in the middle of one of the loveliest,
Psalm 139 - "Thou hast searched me

and known me...
O that you would kill. the

wicked...
T hate them with a perfect
hatred."

Sometimes the zealous love for God somehow becomes hatred
for other human beings. Discovered in the writings and manuals
of the Dead Sea Qumra Community is this -

"love all that he has elected and ‘hate all that he
has cast aside... love all the sons of light and
hate all the sons of darkness. [see Eduard
Schweitzer, The Good News According to Matthew]

Hatred for the enemy, retaliation for an offense, just
retribution; together they constitute one of the oldest human
traditions. Sociologists tell us that many societies define
themselves in terms of the enemy whom everybody hates and that
once the enemy disappears societies often don't know who they are
anymore. it is also a way, sociologists tell us, to avoid ac~
knowledging ana@ discussing internal problems in depth. Facism
always needs someone on which to focus its hatred. With the
collapse of Communism some commentators are seeing the West with
no one to hate and with a major identity crisis.

3/8/92

And internally, isn't it ironic that we really do seem to.
understand what is behind the epidemic of crime and street
violence. But our fear paralyzes us, and so we turn again to our
4,000-year-old remedy - revenge, “eye for an eye," capital pun-
ishment, which no one seriously argues deters crime, but which
certainly does make us feel better about ourselves apparently.

And so, was it not one of his most courageous moments,
perhaps one of his most profound, when he said:

"Love your enemy, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse
you."

Was it not one of his bravest moments when he named what we
know in our hearts to be true, but do not ordinarily have the
courage or creativity to live out, namely that revenge and retal-
iation and retribution constitute, in terms of history and human

relations, the most colossal of failures, the greatest of all
lies?

The truth is - it doesn't work. It doesn't make things
better. It doesn't heal and create new possibilities. "An eye
for an eye," someone observed, merely leaves two people blind.
Hate breeds hate. The Fascists have always known it. Neo-Nazis
know it. The Ku Klux Klan knows it. Mussolini simply asked for
it - "that cold, conscious, implacable hate, hate in every home,
which is indispensable for victory." [see Roger Shinn,The Sermon
on the Mount, p. 46]

We have come too far to afford it any longer. The New York
Times this morning reports that there are 200,000,000 privately
owned guns in this country. Sales of handguns are down slightly;
manufacturers are planning a new marketing initiative. And so
there is a certain tragic inevitability about life in the ghetto.
Hatred. plus an automatic weapon or a hand gun, produces dead
people. Lost Boys, Anna Quindlen called them {New York Times,
3/1/92). Kahlil Sumpter, 15, shot Ian Moore, 17, and Tyrone
Sinkler, 16, on the second floor hallway of Thomas Jefferson High
School in New York last week and no one seems to know why, except
he had a "beef" with them and a gun and the three of them live in
a culture which celebrates and ornaments and sexualizes and sings
about. and captures on film and even protects the right to pur-
chase the gun to do what he did. They "disliked" each other. So
the result of the oldest human tradition around is no longer an
eye for an eye. It's a life - death - for wearing your baseball
cap wrong.

So maybe it's time to listen to the brave, lonely rabbi,
when he says, "love your enemy and pray for those who abuse you."
Maybe it's time to entertain the heretofore outrageous notion
that Jesus, with his "love your neighbor" is the realist, the

3/8/92

only pragmatist around, and that the utopians, the really silly
idealists, are those who continue to hold onto retaliation,
revenge, hate your enemy. Get even, give them what they deserve.

There is a short detour which we must explore. This love he
urges us to have for our enemy, our abuser, is not indulgence.

The word "abuser" itself has come to have a terrible new
meaning, a behavior pattern which our society is finally acknowl-
edging - spouse abuse, child abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse,
sexual abuse - harm done years ago which lives in the human
heart in destructive and painful ways. And the worst of it has
been the notion that the abused was at fault, did something
wrong, deserved it, asked for it. Worst of all, sometimes that
idea, that submission to abuse, has been related to these words
of Jesus.

So let us be very clear - abuse must never be tolerated
passively. To love your enemy and bless your abuser will mean to
find a way to end the abusive behavior. ,

The relevant point, which we are coming to understand, is
that the residue of anger and hatred left in the life of the
abused, must be healed before life becomes whole again.

This love he urges us to have for our enemy. is not soft. It
is not indulgence. It is one of the best words in our vocabulary
- Agape - "unabashed good will, love which seeks nothing in
return," the love of God, actually, operating in human lives, a
bit of the incarnation, actually.

Be glad he didn't say "like your enemies," Martin Luther
King, Jr. wrote ina Georgia jail cell. "How can you like someone
who is threatening your children and bombing your home?"
[Strength to Love, p. 44]

So don't define this love for our enemy he wants us to have
on the basis of your love for your beloved which is called out of
us by their sweetness, or into which we fall, delightfully,
involuntarily. That's Philia and Eros - thank God. Agape isn't
feeling - it is your will, your heart and soul and mind working
hard, focusing, channeling something of God's love into life's
most difficult and potentially damaging situations.

Jesus taught, and we know, that hatred is as harmful to the
one who hates as it is to the one hated, perhaps more so. But
does it work? May I suggest that the answer is so clear and so
overwhelmingly positive that we often cannot see it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. knew the raw power of love to change
hearts and nations. Said he:

3/8/92

We. shall ‘match: your capacity to inflict suffering
with our capacity to endure suffering. Do to us
What you will, and. we will continue to.love you.
J< Throw us cin: Jail and we shall ‘still. ‘love’ you,
“Send: your hooded perpetrators of violence into our
community at the midnight hour and beat us and
~) leave us half dead, “and we shall ‘still love you.
~-.But be assured: that we will: wear you ‘down by: “our...
Capacity to suffer. one day we shall win. freedom
~ but not only® for ourselves. “we shall win “you: in
“Ehe process. Me Top. git. Pp. 49)

aoe “In his: ‘second Inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln Said
“these: words: EON te :

“mWith malice toward none: with charity for all,
let us strive to finish the work we are in: ‘to
“bind up the nation's’ wounds: to care for him who
shall have borne, the battle."

ones “How. could he talk like that, a woman: asked, about. people who
os hated him? “And he said, “"Do- E not destroy my enemies _when. rt make
ooehen. my friends?" Ee

oP: Does it. work? Did you see: the. interview in the. front of
Time Magazine last week on "The: Cantor and the: Klansman?"
~ [2/27/92] Larry .Trapp, Klan. Grand Dragon, took it on himself to
-harass-and. ultimately drive from the community of” Lincoln, Ne-

- braska,.: Michael Weisser, a Jew, a -CGantor at his Synagogue.
Weisser received threatening phone calls and anti-Semitic hate
; mail. He Knew..where it was coming from.- He was afraid, but he
“responded ° very differently. - He’ started to call his. tormentor,
~ got on his answering: machine aftér the anti- -Semitic diatribe
Trapp. had recorded and offered to take Trapp, who is confined. to
a wheel chair, to the grocery store. He. kept at it, Kept leaving

-messages. = Finally,’ the Klansman called him back, identifying
himself and. said, "What do -you want? . You're harassing me... :

Finally. he called: Weisser and said, "T. want fo" get out of this
and rT don' t know how." : ms ES PRESS

Weisser: said, wry bring dinner” and we'll talk. me His wife

brought along as silver ring as a peace offering. ‘When. ‘they met

. face-to-face ‘finally, Klansman and. Cantor, parry Trapp. burst into
po bearsee : eee i Ly

“Does. it work? Well, sometimes. ‘Sometimes’ a “Martin ‘Luther
King, dr. is so persuasive, the oppressed are actually: inspired
- to love their oppressor and to pray for their abusers. and things
Change. But that's not. the: point actually...

3/8/92,

The point is the healing and wholeness of the would-be
disciples. The beneficiaries are not those who are no longer
hated, but the ones who no longer live life out of their anger,
rage, resentment, vengeance. What always changes is the heart
and soul and life of the one who stops hating, the one who may
have every reason to hate and get even. What changes is what
Jesus said would change.

"Love your enemies... and you will be children of
the most high."

You will be God's child, that's all, not in name, but in
actuality.

It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another prisoner with every
reason to hate his tormentors ~ in his case the Nazis - who saw
most clearly that this command to love the enemy is about the
mystery of grace finally.

He wrote:

"Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need
it." {The Cost of Discipleship, p. 133}

So - be God's child when you are offended, tormented, don't
respond in vengeance. Act in love toward that person who is your
nemesis. Forgive your abuser. Don't overlook, or dismiss as
unimportant, or accept as appropriate, your abuser. Stop aliow-
ing what happened to you in the past to continue shaping your
future. But forgive him/her. Love your enemy. And be God's
child ~ which is your reward.

It is Lent again, and where this journey ends is not at the
bar of justice, where appropriate punishment is meted out, but at
a cross, the most eloquent symbol of hatred, hatred between
people - divided by race, religion, class - and the deeper ani-
mosity between human beings and God. Please do know again that
we are, each of us, under that cross with its outstretched arms;
each of us in some way not deserving to be there, not worthy of
that love; please know, standing there in the human community
beneath his cross, that there is only one way, and one truth, and
one light in the darkness; and it is the one who took upon him-
self the whole world's hatred and said:

"Love your enemies

Do good to those who hate you

Bless those who curse you

Pray for those who abuse you."
Jesus, our crucified Christ.

Amen.

3/8/92