Pulling Out the Weeds of Hate

I have never understood how the Bible can be used to justify hate. We were faced with it again this past week in the aftermath of the Orlando shootings -- and by Christian pastors, at that! This sermon is my response to those who use the Bible to justify their hatred for our GLBTQ brothers and sisters -- or for anyone else, for that matter!


Just a week ago, when our worship was focused on God’s grace, I asked for prayers for the victims of a shooting in Orlando, Florida. I didn’t know the details at that time; but now I do. We all do. A young man burst into the Pulse nightclub in the wee hours of last Sunday morning, murdered 50 people in cold blood, and wounded 53 others. I am horrified by yet one more mass shooting in our country; and so are most other people. Condolences to the family members of the victims and messages of encouragement to the survivors have poured in from all over the world. The National Council of Churches in Korea, for example, sent this message: “This incident is a horrific crime of terrorism based on groundless hatred. For the victims of this appalling violence and their families, and [for] those whose hearts are sick from this disaster, we pray along with the U.S. church and society that God's comfort and history of healing will be with them.”

But not everyone was horrified by those shootings. Last Sunday, even as I was preaching that God’s grace is given to everyone through Jesus Christ, Pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California was preaching this: “I think that [this massacre] helps society. I think Orlando, Florida is a little safer tonight. The tragedy is that more of [the nightclub patrons] didn’t die. I’m kind of upset that [the shooter] didn’t finish the job.” His sermon title, by the way, was “The Christian Response to the Orlando Murders.” Just a few hours later, another pastor, Steven Anderson from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona added his own thoughts. “Homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles,” he announced. “The Bible says in Leviticus 20:13 that homosexuals should be put to death. The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive.” If I was appalled by the massacre in the Pulse nightclub, I was sickened by the responses of these pastors who call themselves Christians. It is true that the vast majority of Christians have shown nothing but love and compassion for the victims of the nightclub shooting and for their families. Comments like these are, thankfully, in the minority. But the fact that they exist at all is a sobering reminder that the Bible is often used to sow the seeds of hatred that mature into the weeds of intolerance and violence. This morning, I want to start pulling out some of those weeds.

Let’s begin by asking whether the Bible allows us to hate anyone. Some parts of the Old Testament certainly come close to saying that, and we might as well admit it. Leviticus 20:13 clearly says, “If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.” And the Bible condemns other folks, too. “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation,” says Deuteronomy (23:3). That’s clear enough; Ammonites and Moabites are bums. It also says this: “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord” (23:1). No eunuchs are allowed in church – ever! They can’t even come through the doors. And Jeremiah reports that God’s wrath is directed towards a long list of foreign nations, among which is  the country of Uz (25:15-26). Oh, yes; those folks in Uz are absolutely detestable!

But it’s a funny thing about the Bible. You have to read all of it if you’re going to interpret it faithfully; because the voices that I’ve just mentioned aren’t the only ones there. Even though Deuteronomy condemns the Moabites, guess who turns out to be the great-grandmother of King David – you know, the one whose son Solomon built the Temple? Ruth. She was a Moabite. Hmmm. That puts things in a different light, doesn’t it? And even though Jeremiah says that God condemned the nation of Uz, you might remember the story of someone named Job. Job was from Uz; and Job was “blameless and upright.” In fact, according to the Old Testament, Job was the most righteous man who ever lived! Maybe we should think twice about hating all those Uzzites.

And let’s take a close look at the eunuchs – the ones who can’t come to church because they’re physically imperfect. God has something to say about that through the prophet Isaiah (56:5): “To [the eunuchs] I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.” Well, that’s quite a reversal! And the promise continues in the New Testament book of Acts. Who is one of the very first people to ask for baptism into the church of Jesus Christ? A eunuch; and an Ethiopian at that – a foreigner! After Phillip explains the Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah to that eunuch, he asks, “Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” Well, the “right answer” is “because Deuteronomy says you can’t!” But Phillip knows that the days of the new covenant are here; the one that God was talking about when he said through Jeremiah (31:31, 33): “The time is coming… when I will make a new covenant with [my people]… I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.” And Philip baptizes that eunuch without any hesitation at all.

You see, in the end, the Bible doesn’t let us hate anybody, because the people who are condemned in one place are liable to be blessed in another! And when we get to the New Testament, it should be crystal clear that God’s people should have nothing to do with hate! Jesus hung out with “sinners,” people who were condemned by the religious establishment because they broke all kinds of Old Testament laws. He ate dinner with prostitutes. Why, Jesus even called a crooked businessman as one of his disciples. (That was Matthew, a tax collector.) And what was it Jesus said about hating your brother? Oh, that’s right… Jesus never said anything about hating other people. In fact, Jesus said that we should love our brother! The clearest statement about love in the whole Bible is this morning’s scripture reading (I John 4:7-12, 19-21): “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar! God has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

The Bible does not allow the seeds of hate to grow into the weeds of violence because it pulls them out itself. But the reality is that it is very easy for us to find verses here and there that condemn people we don’t like. Now, I don’t know any Moabites; and all the people from Uz are long gone. There aren’t many eunuchs around, either. But we are surrounded by members of the gay and lesbian community. We don’t always understand their behavior. Some people find them offensive. Many others are threatened by them. And so, the seeds of hate that lie buried in the Old Testament texts are ripe to grow into weeds of violence against the gay and lesbian community. And when they do, those weeds are liable to lead to a tragedy like the one at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

So here’s my take-home message for today; and I want to make it crystal clear. You are absolutely free to dislike gays or lesbians or transgender folks if they make you uncomfortable. Actually, you can dislike anybody you want to dislike! If you are offended by gays and by their behavior, that’s up to you. I am offended by some folks, too. And it’s your right to avoid their company and the places that they frequent. But, as a Christian, you may not hate them and then justify that hate by pulling out a scripture or two and claiming that God hates them, too. Those who claim that God hates a whole group of people are misusing the Scriptures to justify their own prejudice. Actually, if you hate anybody, the Scriptures can’t help you – you’re on your own. This morning, I invite you to join me in pulling out the weeds of hate that have grown so tall in our society. I encourage you to speak up on behalf of people who are vilified by others. Let’s join together in drowning out the voices of hate, and spread the good news of God’s love for everyone! “Let us love one another,” begs John in his letter, “for love comes from God.” To that, I can only echo, “Amen, and amen!”

Gospel 101

What is the good news of the gospel, anyway? Some people think that it is knowing the rules that we have to follow. But the good news doesn't have anything to do with rules! The good news of the gospel is that God loves and accepts us without any rules at all! Paul fought this legalism nearly 2000 years ago in the days of the early church. If you choose to read my sermon, you'll find out what that was all about -- and why the good news of the gospel is still good news!

Sometimes you have to get back to the basics. Basics are, after all, the foundation on which we build. No one can advance in any discipline, whether playing the piano or riding a bicycle, without first being proficient in the basics. That’s why Olympic ice skaters are required to perform basic figures like circles and figure-eights before they get to skate their flashy routines in front of the judges. Even when someone has advanced way beyond the beginner stage, it’s a good idea to periodically review those fundamentals. Otherwise, bad habits start to creep in; and pretty soon, those bad habits are taking over.

That’s just what happened to the churches in Galatia -- they forgot the basics. Oh, they began well enough. Paul started those churches by preaching the good news that God’s grace is for everyone; and there’s not a darn thing that you have to do to earn it. His message was the very same as that of today’s United Church of Christ: “Whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey, you’re welcome here!” They welcomed everyone to table fellowship, both saint and sinner, just as Jesus had. They accepted Jew and gentile alike with the love of Christ. They shared the grace that God had showed them first; the grace that welcomes all of us into loving community. They really intended to be faithful Christian congregations. But somewhere along the line, someone suggested that if gentiles were real Christians, they should start behaving like Jews. After all, the Jews were God’s people, and God had given them the law. Didn’t God still want his people to keep it? Well… maybe Christians didn’t have to keep the whole law. Maybe they just had to keep part of it. But surely they should be circumcised! Was that too much to ask?

Well, when Paul got wind of that, he was furious! (Galatians 2:15-21.) He realized that if we have to do anything to earn grace, then it isn’t grace any longer! Saying that gentiles had to be circumcised to be Christians put limits on God’s grace. The camel of legalism had begun to nose his way into the tent of grace. Paul knew exactly what would happen if somebody didn’t stop that camel right away. First the front feet would poke through the tent flap. Then the hump would wiggle through, followed by the rear end; and finally, the tail would follow swinging out behind. And that camel would be full of rules: a walking billboard of what we must do – and what we must not do – if we want to be acceptable to God. You know how those rules work! They say things like: If you want God to love you, you have to go to church every single week, give until it hurts, and sing in the church choir (even if you can’t carry a tune). You have to be unfailingly cheerful, kind and patient with everyone, and never, ever lose your temper. You can’t have a tattoo, ride a motorcycle, or cuss (even if you drop a can of peas on your bare foot). You have to dress a certain way, go to a certain church, and spend hours every week in prayer and meditation. All those rules – that great big camel full of rules – started with just a nose that said “circumcision.” And once that camel gets all the way into the tent, it’s not a very pleasant place anymore. Camels spit a lot. They drag their big dirty feet all over the clean floor. And they aren’t housebroken, so they drop camel piles wherever they feel like it. The tent of grace that was once so beautiful and welcoming ends up being a nasty, dirty, smelly tent of laws and obligations where no one wants to live.

Oh, yes; Paul knew how things would end up; and his knickers were really in a twist when he wrote that letter to the Galatians. They were starting to think that they were acceptable to God by following a rule; and he wanted to nip that idea in the bud! The good news of the gospel is that we are already acceptable to God because of the grace that God gives us so generously. And through that grace, Jesus moves into our lives. “The life that you see me living is not mine,” says Paul, “It is lived through trust in the Son of God who gave himself for me.”

That, my friends, is Gospel 101. That is the foundation on which we can build our lives. That’s the good news that Jesus proclaimed, that Paul preached, and that we should be preaching, too! No one has to make himself or herself acceptable to God, because we already are acceptable! Grace has made us acceptable, no matter who we are or what we have done in our lives. God’s grace is for the people who have worked hard for forty years, raised their kids to be honest, productive members of society, and never once cheated on their income taxes; and God’s grace is for the homeless bum who lives in a box under the freeway overpass and drinks himself to sleep every night. God’s grace is for church-going folks, and for people who don’t know the difference between a pew and a powder room. God’s grace is for Billy the Kid as well as for Billy Graham. “If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping,” says Paul, “then Christ did not need to die.” Christ died for everyone, not just for the people who follow the rules. God’s grace is for you; and God’s grace is for me. It is a gift wrapped in the most exquisite paper, priceless beyond measure, and given to every single one of us. Rules don’t determine our eternal fate; God’s grace does. And that, my friends, is the good news – and it’s the best news that anyone ever preached!

A Time for Everything

What gifts has God given you throughout your life? At every stage of our lives, God offers us gifts; and I believe that they are more valuable than all the physical comforts on which we frequently focus when we count our blessings. I list 5 of them in this sermon. Curious? Read it and find out which 5 I have identified!

Has anybody here ever said, “I wish that I were younger,” or “I wish that I were older”? I’ll confess that I have! When I was a child, I couldn’t wait to get older so that I could do the things that my parents said I would be able to do “when I was older.” Then I became a teenager, and I couldn’t wait to grow into an adult so that I would have the freedom to do what I wanted to do. When I was a young adult, I wanted to be older so that I would have the money to do all those things that I wanted to do, but couldn’t afford yet. Now that I’m a – well, let’s call it a “mature adult” – I’m looking forward to retiring so that I have the time to do all those things that I still want to do. And I imagine that when I’m an older adult, I will yearn for the carefree days of youth when I had the energy to do all those things that I want to do! Does this sound familiar to any of you? I imagine that it does. But if we spend our lives yearning for a time in the future or a time in the past, we risk missing what we have right now! The text from Ecclesiastes that you just heard (3:1-8) can be a wake-up call when we start yearning for what was or for what might be. God in God’s wisdom, says Ecclesiastes, has appointed a time for everything. But what happens, I think, is that we start to focus on what we don’t have – freedom, money, time, or energy – and we miss the gifts that God offers us in each period of our lives. And there are gifts that come to us as we move through our lives. For a moment, let’s focus not on the limitations of our lives, but on the blessings.

For starters, God gives to each child the gift of enthusiasm. Have you ever watched a child running towards a playground to swing or slide or climb on the monkey bars? Sure, you have; we all have! I have yet to see a child at a playground exclaiming, “Bor-ring!” No, they head for the slide like we head for the bank when we deposit our income tax refund! And if children are doing something that they enjoy, they are enthusiastic no matter how many times they have done it! My grandson Tanner loves to go to the Newport Aquarium. We have yearly passes to the Aquarium, so we go frequently. Each time we go, he exclaims, “I can’t wait to walk through the tunnel and see the sharks!” What a gift that enthusiasm is, not only to him, but to all of us who are with him.

To young adults, God has given the gift of optimism. Most young people see the world as their oyster; and they can’t wait to get at life! They are convinced that they can change the world for the better if they only work hard enough; and thank God for that! We need those young adults to remind us that we have the power to affect things! I’ll bet that you’ve never heard a pessimistic college graduation speech! Why, as you look out over the sea of mortar boards, the optimism is so deep that you can practically swim in it! In his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs told the graduates this: “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” That’s optimism in a nutshell. You can do it; and you will do it!

Of course, we don’t stay young forever. But as we age, we perfect a set of skills. We learn how to do all kinds of things well! Let’s call it the gift of proficiency. Some of us learn how to craft wood, while others learn how to craft words into books or sermons. Some of us learn how to manage a household, while others learn how to manage an office. Some of us learn how to tame kindergarteners, while others learn how to tame columns of figures. And every single one of those skills, as well as all the others in our skill set, is a gift of God! Although it may take us years to perfect them (and let’s not compare ourselves to Mozart, who was composing music at the age of 5), they are gifts that we can use for the good of others and for our own satisfaction.

As we move through adulthood, we come to what I call the “slow-down years.” I’m there now. We’re still using our skills – and by now, we have quite a few – but we’re not moving quite as quickly as we once were. Some folks are looking towards retirement and the slower pace that it can bring. We start to notice aches and pains that we didn’t seem to have last week; and we can’t get as much accomplished in a day as we used to. But a gift comes with all that – the gift of courage. Oh, it’s not the kind of courage that we see on TV, where people face criminals or even zombies! No, this is the courage to live day in and day out in the face of difficulties. And by the slow-down years, we’ve all had quite a few! We’ve said goodbye to friends or family members. We’ve dealt with financial problems, or with jobs that are less than ideal. We may be living with continuing health problems – our own or that of a family member. But through it all, we have learned how to stand up to a life that is frequently unfair, to look it in the eye, and to say to its face, “I will not give up!” Do you remember the movie Rocky? Do you remember what Rocky looked like after he had fought with Apollo Creed? He was battered and bloodied, eyes blackened, with bruises everywhere – and he refused to give up. That’s the kind of courage that I’m talking about – the courage that refuses to give up no matter what happens.

Finally, we come to the “golden years” (although I’m not so sure that they are always golden). It’s the time when we’re called “elderly,” or sometimes simply “older.” I choose to call them “the culmination years,” because they are the result of all that has happened to us during the rest of our lives. What gift could those years possibly bring? While society’s gifts to older adults come in the form of hearing aids and bifocals and Meals on Wheels; God offers a much more valuable gift. God offers wisdom. Now, anyone can accumulate knowledge. But wisdom is not only having knowledge; it is understanding how to apply that knowledge. Wisdom is only acquired by living many years and experiencing all kinds of different things. Wisdom listens patiently and lovingly to a distraught teenager who has just been rejected from her college of choice and who thinks the world is about to end. Wisdom mentors a young man who is just getting his feet wet in his new job, and isn’t quite sure how to get along with his co-workers. Wisdom not only knows what to say; wisdom knows when and how to say it. And the wisest among us are the older adults who have lived and learned and listened: to others, to their own inner voices, and to God.

Now, life isn’t the same for all of us, of course; and so, not all of us will live out these stages quite in the same way. We are all unique individuals. We were all brought up in different ways; we have all had different life experiences; and we all live in different environments. But we all face the same quandary: how to progress through our lives not only accepting the new gifts that God offers us, but also holding on to the gifts that we have already been given! We all know people who have lost their childlike enthusiasm for life. Their life drags on with terrible sameness, one grim, grey day after another. Nothing, for them, is exciting enough to care about. And certainly we know people who have lost the optimism of their youth! The world is beyond redemption; it’s going to hell in a handbasket. Just ask them; they’ll tell you! The fullness of life that God offers us is the integration of all the gifts that we receive during our lives: enthusiasm, optimism, proficiency, courage, and wisdom.

But how in the world can we do that? The answer is that we have to help one another. When older and younger come together in community, they offer one another their gifts. The enthusiasm of childhood is contagious, and those of us who are older can reclaim it. The optimism of youth reminds us that God has promised to work with us in making the world a better place; and that Jesus has already redeemed it. The courage and wisdom of older adults can a model for younger folks who are facing new experiences in their lives. And all of us can use our skills to make the world a more peaceful and fulfilling place.

God gives us amazing gifts during our lives; far more than the physical comforts that we so often focus on. Jesus has redeemed us and continues to redeem us from all the traps that would keep us from being less than what God created us to be. And the Spirit fills us and guides us and empowers us to live life joyfully, creatively, and lovingly. Yes, there is a time for everything. May we accept God’s gifts with gratitude, and move ahead into the future with anticipation. The best may, indeed, be yet to come!