Luke 9.54

Peace be to you and grace from him who freed us from our sins.

My dad told the story of waking up one summer night in middle age, hearing what sounded to his ears like beautiful music.  Clop-clop, clop-clop, clop-clop. In his mind he was a ten year old again sleeping in the hot attic of his home on the West Side of Cleveland.  And from the window he was listening to the sound of horses’ hooves clopping against the pavers as the man and his wagon came down the street delivering ice to the houses.

Then suddenly he was aware that he was no ten year old boy in Cleveland sleeping in his attic, but a grown man sleeping next to his wife in Richfield, Minnesota.  And the sound he was listening to wasn’t the ice man outside but the family dog downstairs lapping from her water bowl.

Lost in a familiar place.  It can happen easily in the dark.  But not only there.  I don’t know this for a fact but I suspect those who smoke do so not because they don’t know smoking causes cancer or emphysema or heart disease.  They know.  It’s the Tobacco Companies who don’t know.  Well actually they do know but their lawyers have advised them to not acknowledge it.  People smoke because they have developed a sophisticated logic which makes it possible to deny the facts and believe that one cigarette can’t possibly do much harm.  It’s just what we humans do.  We stick with the familiar even when it is deadly.  That’s because going out into the unknown, stopping smoking for example would really be unfamiliar.  And the unfamiliar is always scary and unpredictable and oh so uncomfortable.  Until we make it the new familiar.  We have proverbs that say as much.  “The devil on your back is better than the devil you haven’t met.”

In the Gospel today the disciples get themselves lost in a familiar place.  By this time they have been with Jesus three years.  They have heard all about the Kingdom of God with the parables of the wise and foolish virgins, those who have been good stewards of their master’s resources and those who have squandered it, those who have been invited to the King’s wedding feast and those who’ve distained the invitation.  The disciples have witnessed sight given back to those who were blind, the ability to walk and run and dance returned to those who were lame, loved ones receiving back into their arms, alive and well, those who once were dead. 

But when the Samaritans reject Jesus, Brothers James and John stand ready to call down fire and brimstone from heaven.  Evidently the two believed they had the power to scorch the city. What they really were doing reverting to a very human fallback position: seeking revenge and retribution with righteous indignation. It’s astounding but they had been with Jesus this long and they still hadn’t the foggiest notion of what God’s Kingdom is all about.  Ah, yes.  That grace thing is hard to grasp.

Now as much fun as it would be we are not going to bash John and James today.  Our calling fire and brimstone down on their heads wouldn’t make us very different from them. So think of our culture and think of the times we hear the Christian tradition in the news.  So often it is in ways that make us hang our head in shame because what we’re listening to is such pathetic witness to God’s Kingdom of love.  Actually, I have a dear and long time friend, a colleague who grew up Lutheran but now considers himself Neo Pagan.  He says it’s a much gentler religion.  He says the very sound of the name “Christian” has come to feel abusive to his ears.  I have to agree with him.  All too often Christians deserve the judgment.  It’s embarrassing but true. Just about every time something egregious comes up it is because the zealous are consumed with what is right and what is wrong, what they think is right and what they think is wrong.  We’re listening to it happening this morning in Loring Park with the Protestor who wants to set a few things right.

There’s no way around this. Dealing only with right and wrong language is the domain of Satan.  Remember originally Satan was the heavenly District Attorney.  He was the Prosecutor who kept track of wrongs and insisted the penalty be paid.  People who are busy keeping spiritual score never seem to get around to the discussion of what is good, what is better and what is best.  Must I point out that Jesus never told the story of the Right Samaritan or described the Right Shepherd?  It is the Good Samaritan and the Good Shepherd.  That is because “good” language is God language.  Good language is Gospel language.

So if goodness on behalf of those we don’t think deserve it rubs us the wrong way, we really aren’t much different than James and John.  Whatever shall we do? 

Saint Paul sheds surprising light.  In Galatians, the Apostle describes a list of things which might in our society no longer be considered wrong.  But that doesn’t make them good.  You’d almost think he was reading from the headlines of the Pioneer Press.  In fact, it’s a list of things that do violence to community.  That’s community as in “the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion (community) of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” I know Paul’s list starts with fornication but he includes equally things like enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions and party spirit.  Oh, that’s right. Also envy, drunkenness and carousing.  You see, all those come from the position of “It’s my right…..”

Paul gives us a second list which is not a list of the Holy Spirit but the fruits, the harvest, the results of the investment of the Holy Spirit.  Each and every item on that list has to do with grace and being about what is good. “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.”  Such as these are always in the employ of building up the community to which we belong. This community in particular. But also all the communities of which we are part - the neighbors on our block, our cities, and the counties and the states and the county and the world in which we live. We call this the Good News.

Like those “Sons of Thunder” John and James, it is easy to get lost in familiar places.  We do it all the time when we think our anger towards those who do not see it our way is justified.  We do it every time we rationalize resentment towards those who haven’t earned it the hard way like we have. We do it every time we get snotty with those whose politics differ from ours.  We do it every time we get defensive or fearful in the face of those who believe or articulate their faith differently than we do.

But when we are guided by God’s love we don’t get lost in familiar places, measuring our living in terms of our rights and other’s wrongs.  Because we have been brought into the light, we encourage one another to seek what is Good just like the God we have been shown in Jesus Christ.

Friends, it simply is time to claim the name of Christianity back.  It is high time we lift being Christian out of the gutter and stop using it as the high ground from which we can hate or demean or limit or bully or otherwise refuse to love anyone.  Life is not a matter of right or wrong. Hatred is never right.  Love does not hold hands with violence.  And fear is nothing but the opposite of the Gospel. It’s goodness that begets life. It is always to this that Jesus redirected his disciples.  Their number now includes us too.   

Oh look at that.  It’s time already.  To review then, is it the dog lapping water in the middle of the night or is it the horse clomping down the brick streets bringing ice to the West Side of Cleveland? To a musician’s ears it just might be. 

But when it comes to it, we are all musicians.  Our ears have been tuned to hear the beautiful music of grace.  We listen to the melody of the Spirit and its song of rich and fruitful gifts.  We sing of this love to one another when we are hopeful and happy.  And when we are grieving and forget.  It’s the hymn we, together, sing to the world, to whoever will hear.  We sing it because I was first sung to us.  What is the hymn?  In the words of our Psalm, “You are my Lord, my good above all others.”

So then we don’t have to equate religion with being right.  Our good Lord has shown us a much better way.