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Showing posts with label MLK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MLK. Show all posts

Monday, January 17, 2022

The Beautiful Tune

Introduction
Last week, we started a message series about the Beautiful Church, Christ's physical presence on earth. I told you Jesus shared the most beautiful truths of God's love the world has ever known. Unfortunately, His followers have not always lived up to His ideals. 


We shared a little illustration last Sunday to demonstrate how we shouldn't judge Christ's message by the poor performance of some of His followers.  Did you see it?


In our day, we take for granted how comprehensively Jesus Christian message has influenced our world.  We take so much for granted.  Just consider one aspect–how Jesus teachings are found everywhere in our conversations. We get the following expressions directly from Jesus.  How often have you used one of these saying or heard them used by someone else?

Salt of the earth

City on a hill

Love thy neighbor

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Good Samaritan

Prodigal son

Blind leading the blind

A cross to bear

Pearls before swine

Do not let the left hand know what the right is doing

Judge not lest you be judged

A wolf in sheep's clothing

Cast the first stone

Eat, drink, and be merry

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s

Sign of the times

Go the extra mile

Shout it from the rooftops

Log in the eye

And many, many others

Whether or not a person is a Christian, these sayings are used so often people forget they came directly from Jesus.  And understand, these are not just used by English speakers, but also in French, Greek, Italian, German, Dutch, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Hungarian, and Russian.

Without Jesus, we wouldn’t have these expressions or the ideas they automatically conjure up in our thinking.


However, as colorful as these expressions of wisdom are, they are only minor notes in the main theme of Jesus’ beautiful tune.  What then is the core of Jesus’ tune?  It is love.


Matthew 22:34-40
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Love is the Greatest of All
Jesus teaching about love was revolutionary.  I can’t overstress this, because after 2,000 years we take for granted that love is the highest virtue.  One is tempted to think the world has always thought of love as Christians do.  This is not so.

Prior to Christ, the great civilization of the world did not venerate love like Jesus. Jesus lifted the commandments to love from the Jewish Torah, but these statements about love were buried among 613 religious laws and Jesus emphasized that we are to love not only our friends, but also our enemies.  Jews of his day were astounded at Jesus’ teachings about love. The main virtues for ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans did not include love.  They cherished ideals like wisdom, courage, self-discipline, and justice.  But there was no place among their greatest virtues for sacrificial love.

This is not to say that other great civilizations did not love, but their concept of  love was purely transactional.  A ruler might “love” his people, but it was only because doing so was in his best interest.  A ruler who loved his people and did good for them would earn the loyalty and support of his people.  Ultimately, this kind of love was an effort to “buy” support and honor from the people he ruled.  It was a transaction.  Even the love between a husband and wife in these ancient civilizations was primarily transactional.  Marriage was a contract more about what the husband and wife got out of the deal than about mutual, unconditional, sacrificial love for one another.

There was in ancient civilizations a concept of giving charity (in other words, a rich leader might pay to have a well dug for the community or to build an expensive temple), but these were done for the sake of getting honor and fame for the donor.  It was a transaction–a gift given in return for honor and fame.

But Jesus came along and said, “Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” He taught us to give our gifts in secret and don’t make a big deal out of it. Jesus said, “If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! 33 And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! 34 And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.  35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. 36 You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.”  (Luke 6:32-36)

Jesus was the first one to espouse universal, unconditional, sacrificial love.  It was revolutionary.  He said we should love this way because it is an imitation of God’s own character and we are made in God’s image and should love the way He loves.

Well, anybody can talk about love.  But these were more than just words for Christ. His mission on earth was to live out this unconditional, sacrificial love for all people. The ultimate expression of Jesus’ love was his death on the cross for the sins of the world. As Romans 5:8 says, “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

The love Jesus championed was ludicrous to almost everyone in the first century. Jesus’ own people, the Jews, who knew about God’s love from their own holy Scriptures, would never have thought to love their Roman overlords.  They wanted God to destroy their enemies. People in ancient times might be willing to sacrifice their lives for someone who was worthy—maybe to die for their family or for their country or a great leader–but no one would die for their enemies or for evil-doers.  And yet, Jesus chose to die for sinners.  Ultimately, the Christian message is that every person is a sinner and none of us are worthy of Christ’s sacrificial death, but He died for us anyway.  This was a whole new concept Jesus revealed to our world.  Through the centuries, it has reshaped everything about the way modern people view love and sacrifice and the sacred value of every human life.

This paradigm shift cannot be overstated. Jesus is the reason our world values love today. Whether or not you are a Christian or even believe God exists, Jesus changed humanity forever for the better.  And Jesus did not do it alone.

Jesus birthed the idea of God’s unconditional, universal, sacrificial love and died on a cross to prove it. However, it was the Church Jesus commissioned–people who believed in Him, followed Him, and dedicated their lives to His mission–who convinced the majority of the world, against all odds, that Jesus’ way of love is the best way of all.

I know the Church has played many sour notes throughout history, and people have often misunderstood or purposefully misused  Jesus’ teachings for their own selfish gain.  But contrary to the picture an unbelieving, anti-Christian world paints, the Church has gotten it right more than it has gotten it wrong. And when the Church has been true to Jesus’ Beautiful Tune, we have pushed the world to be a much better place. And many in the Church–just like our Lord–gave up their lives in the effort. History is colored with the blood of martyrs–some named, but most unknown–who gave their lives to advance the cause of Christ and teach people His love.

You can say what you want about the Church, but if you cherish the greatest virtue in the modern world, one of the things you ought to say is: “Thank you.”

Martin Luther King
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, a day to remember and honor this great civil rights leader.  Everyone knows what King did, but don’t forget he was the Rev. Martin Luther King. MLK was a Christian.  He was even named after the great 16th century Church reformer, Martin Luther. King’s conviction to fight for the equal treatment of black people was firmly rooted in his Christian faith that said all people are created equally in the image of God, and we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we are to love our neighbor as ourself.

In one of King’s famous sermons, “Loving Your Enemies, he preached at Dexter Baptist Church:
“Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.  Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing. And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.”

King’s commitment to Christ’s unconditional, universal, sacrificial love was so complete, he suffered beatings, imprisonment, and ultimately lost his life in service to our Lord, Jesus Christ.

If you remove from history Christ and His Church, you do not have a Martin Luther King, Jr. You do not have a motivation for non-violent resistance that leads to dramatic social change. You do not have the civil rights movement. You do not have the abolition of slavery. You do not have equal rights for all people or equality for women. You do not even have America, a land where we believe
“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

What other essential virtues of our world today would be missing were it not for Christ and His Church boldly proclaiming for the last 2,000 years: “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself”?

Conclusion
Now I want to close by saying there is much more work to do. We have not yet realized the fullness of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth. We who are Christians, who follow Jesus as Lord, have much work to do. And our work may include suffering. So let us pray for courage and determination. Let us pray for God’s love to fill us,
because the kind of love we need to do Christ’s work is not in us naturally. And let us pray for more laborers to join us in the vineyard, because the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

And I call out to you–you who are listening to me right now, but are still not part of Christ’s Church. Perhaps you feel, today, Christ calling to you saying: “Come, follow me!” And so I join His invitation.  Will you join with me? Will you join with all the faithful followers of Christ from every place and every generations who have fought the good fight to share Christ’s transforming love with the world. I hope you will.

Closing Prayer from Martin Luther King, Jr. “Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas. Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our atomic civilization. Grant that all men will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems—the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem—let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus. Give us this strong determination. In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray. Amen.”


Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Arguing with Jesus About Nonviolence

Jesus, Nonviolence, and Self-Defense
Luke 6:27-36

Introduction
            I have always been fascinated with martial arts.  When I was only 6 years old, I begged my mom to let me sign up for a judo class that advertised to kids at my school.  My mom—who is very submissive and nonviolent—would not let me join the class.  She didn’t like any kind of fighting and she didn’t want her son participating in something she considered too violent.  However, the allure of martial arts never faded for me and I watched martial arts movies and tried to teach myself the moves from books I checked out of the library.  When I was 10, my mom finally relented and allowed me to join a martial arts class with some friends.  My friends dropped out after only a few months, but I was hooked and became a lifelong martial artist.
            It's 30 years later and my love and appreciation of martial arts and self-defense have never faded—even after I became a pastor.  In fact, based on some things I learned in seminary about the positive effects of martial arts, I even developed a Christian Martial Arts program that combined elements of martial arts with prayer, community service, and scripture memorization.  I taught my own martial arts classes for 7 years.  Even though I am a 2nd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, I am currently learning a new martial art called Jiu-jitsu and I love it!
            People are sometimes puzzled by a pastor who has so much interested in punching, kicking, and choking people.  I mean, isn’t Christianity a nonviolent religion?  I got a few questions about it from the Board of Ordained Ministry when they interviewed me to see if I was fit to be a United Methodist minister.  “Do you like fighting?” they asked.  “Absolutely not!” I replied, “but I love sparring.”  Sparring is practice fighting.  Although I detest fighting, I really like to spar in a friendly setting.  The same is true of verbal confrontations for me.  I love to debate, but I can’t stand to argue.  I can spar with someone (or debate someone) and then give them a genuine hug full of love and mutual respect afterwards.  I may even love and respect them more because of it.  I do not like to fight.  However, if I am forced to fight—either physically or verbally—I am quite confident in my ability.
            How do I justify my love of martial arts and resolve to defend myself given Jesus teachings and life of nonviolence?  I often find myself thrust into an awkward position—arguing with Jesus about the subject of self-defense.  Actually, I am not really arguing with Jesus; I am arguing with the way people misunderstand or misuse what Jesus said.  Let’s look at one of the passages where Jesus urges a nonviolent response.

Luke 6:27-36
27 “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. 30 Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. 31 Do to others as you would like them to do to you.

32 “If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! 33 And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! 34 And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.

35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. 36 You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate. 
 
General Interpretations
Christ’s teaching and exemplary example of nonviolence are extraordinary.  Jesus wisely understood that given the socio-political-religious conditions of his time, the best way to change his world forever was through a nonviolent, peaceful revolution.  This was God’s plan of salvation and Jesus willingly drank from the cup God handed him.  By not resisting the Roman authorities and willingly dying on the cross, Jesus affected salvation for all humanity for all time.  Jesus astonishing sacrifice sparked a social and moral revolution that changed the world forever.
Following Christ’s nonviolent example, other notable leaders have made significant changes to better our world.  Mahatma Gandhi led India to win independence from the British Empire through nonviolent resistance.  Martin Luther King, Jr. helped transform civil rights in the United States through nonviolent protest.  So, we can certainly see that Jesus’ revolutionary teachings to “turn the other cheek” and to “love your enemies” are powerful weapons indeed.
Many Christian pacifists[i] interpret Jesus’ teaching to mean it is always wrong to injure other humans, no matter the circumstance.  They would argue that even self-defense is wrong.  If Jesus was willing to lay down his life—even for his enemies—we should do likewise.
On the surface, complete Christian Pacifism may seem reasonable and many who take a simplistic view if Christ’s example accept this conclusion without much thought.  However, this simplistic view is not the whole of Jesus teachings or actions.  To make my point, I would draw your attention to other examples of Jesus teachings and actions.
First of all, there is the story of Jesus and the money changers.  The story is found in all four of the Gospels—Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 2.  In the story, Jesus enters the holy Temple in Jerusalem and violently flips over the money changers tables and drives them out of the Temple with a whip because they were cheating people and dishonoring God’s house.  This is not exactly the gentle, peaceful Jesus of our nonviolent dreams.
Second, when Jesus enraged the people of Nazareth with his preaching at their synagogue in Luke 4, a mob tried to push him off a cliff.  However, Jesus did not allow them to hurt him.  Luke 4:30 says, Jesus “...passed right through the crowd and went on his way.”
Third, when Jesus was on trial before the Sanhedrin (John 18:22-23), one of the high priest’s guards slapped Jesus across the face.  Interestingly, Jesus does not “turn the other cheek” and passively invite the guard slap him again.  Jesus doesn’t strike back with fists, but rather he fights back with words.  Jesus defends himself saying, “If I said anything wrong, you must prove it. But if I’m speaking the truth, why are you beating me?”[ii]
Let me give you one more example.  Luke 22:31-38 tells the story of how Jesus predicted Peter would deny him.  You remember this story.  Peter is adamantly professing his eternal loyalty to Jesus even in the face of death and Jesus says, “Peter before the rooster crows in the morning, you will deny me three times.”  Well, embedded in this story is a strange instruction from Jesus to his disciples.  Let me read it to you straight from the Bible.
Luke 22:35-36 – Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you out to preach the Good News and you did not have money, a traveler’s bag, or an extra pair of sandals, did you need anything?”  “No,” they replied.  “But now,” he said, “take your money and a traveler’s bag. And if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one!”
The implication here is that in the past the disciples were able to move about the country safely due to the goodwill of the people.  But Jesus is about to be arrested and executed and his followers are going to be in danger everywhere they go.  Even traveling will be treacherous.  The disciples will need a sword for self-defense.  Since we know Jesus is not encouraging military aggression—his plan is to allow the religious leaders to arrest and crucify him—Jesus must be telling his disciples to purchase swords for self-defense.  What!?!  That doesn’t seem like the peaceful, pacifist Jesus I was taught about as a kid!
In fact, the passage from Luke 6:27-36 where Jesus says, “Turn the other cheek” is not about nonviolence at all.  It is about receiving personal insult.  Slapping someone in the face was considered a great insult to Jews of Jesus day.  So Jesus is not talking about a grave, life threatening danger when he said “turn the other cheek”.  Jesus is saying, set your ego aside—even if you are in the right.  Love your enemies.  Bless those who curse you.  If someone insults you and slaps you in the face, love them the way God loved you when you were His enemy.  Show extravagant love by going the extra mile and turning the other cheek. 

Resisting Evil
            There is no doubt that Jesus’ nonviolent approach has brought about remarkable change in situations where change seemed completely impossible.  However, to teach that Jesus advocated pacifism in every situation is just not accurate.  To passively allow someone to break into your house and harm you or your family because “Jesus said so,” is a total misunderstanding of what Jesus said and did.  Theologians J. P. Moreland and Norman Geisler say that "to permit murder when one could have prevented it is morally wrong. To allow a rape when one could have hindered it is an evil. To watch an act of cruelty to children without trying to intervene is morally inexcusable. In brief, not resisting evil is an evil of omission, and an evil of omission can be just as evil as an evil of commission. Any man who refuses to protect his wife and children against a violent intruder fails them morally."[iii]
            I do not believe Jesus wants us to sacrifice our health or safety to someone who threatens us.  Nor do I believe Jesus would ask a nation to refuse to fight to defend the safety of its citizens.  You have the God-given right to defend yourself and I encourage everyone to learn how.  And thankfully, we live in a country where the constitution guarantees our right to keep and bear arms so we have an extra tool available to defend ourselves (God help us) if we ever need to.
            What I have learned in my life—what I have taught many people—is fighting should be the very last resort.  Sometimes however—and very rarely—fighting is the only solution.  Physical violence is a very short term solution.  It usually leads to more problems than it solves.  However, sometimes it is the only course to take.  And if you find yourself in a situation where you must fight for your life or limb, then fight with all your might and know that God is on your side.
            At the same time, there are occasions when the best course of action is nonviolence.  Sometimes, God calls us—like He called Jesus—to endure suffering for His glory.  Such times when we choose to refrain from fighting are not a sign of weakness at all.  Rather, they require great courage and resolve to suffer harm for a purpose greater than our own personal safety.  I pray that you will have such a close relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit that should you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to refrain from fighting and suffer abuse for the sake of Christ, you will clearly know it and have the strength and courage to be faithful.   

Conclusion
In closing, I would like to point out how great was the love of Christ that caused him to willingly lay down his life for us on the cross.  The sacrifice was made greater by the fact that Jesus could have saved himself.  You see, no one could take Jesus' life from him unless he willingly surrendered it.  Jesus could have called down an army of 10,000 angels to come save him and destroy the world because it offended him.  This was totally within his power to do and he would have been completely justified to do it.  Yet, Jesus’ great love for you and me—though we absolutely didn’t deserve it—and his wisdom to know what was needed to save our souls and change our world forever compelled Jesus to suffer abuse, be nailed to the cross, and remain there until he died.  His act would have been amazing enough had he been unable to prevent it.  Yet it is even more extraordinary precisely because Jesus could have avoided it and chose not to for your sake.
How would you respond to such an amazing love as this?  Close your eyes and reflect on the love of Christ for a moment.  You see, Jesus was nailed to the cross, but it wasn’t the nails that held him there.  It was his love for you that kept him on the cross until he died to pay the price for your mistakes and wrongdoings.  Do you understand that?  Now what are you going to do about it?
I would suggest that you decide this day, to commit your life to him, to love him the way he loves you, and to love the people of this world—good and bad—because Jesus loves them too.


[i] For more a more, see this great article - http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/qselfdefense.html
[ii] John 18:23
[iii] The Life and Death Debate: Moral Issues for Our Time, by Dr. Norman Geisler and JP Moreland, Greenwood Publishing, 1990.