The Cry of 'No H8'-III
Pastor Marty Monday, October 16, 2017 at 5:51PM Luke 6:32-36. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 15, 2017.
As the news exploded several weeks ago about the film producer Harvey Weinstein, we have had a new example of the hypocrisy that often parades in full view in this world. He was supposed to be a great champion of women’s rights and all along many knew that he was using his power to trample the hearts and minds of young women. Yet, most said nothing, and some even enabled him all the while decrying these things in the lives of people that they did not like. For whatever reasons Harvey Weinstein has gone from a protected status to persona non grata, it is safe to say that Hollywood is riddled with many more like him. It is not just Hollywood and it is not just sexual abuse. The system of this world is riddled with hypocrisy. No matter how loudly this world touts the principles of love and compassion, we must always recognize the human tendency to overlook the sins of those we like and highlight the sins of those we do not. Whenever you lift the rug, you find all manner of evils that have been swept under it by the perpetrators and by those who are in their good graces.
Now some may scoff at the words of Jesus to love your enemies. However, if you need a good reason to accept his wisdom, you only need to hear his heart on the subject and then honestly look at the world around you and inside of you. So we pick up where we left off two weeks ago in Luke chapter 6.
Only Loving Those Who Love You
After telling us to love our enemies, Jesus gives us the reasons for doing so. In verses 32-34 Jesus lists three actions that are really just three ways of saying the same thing: loving, doing good, and lending. As we move through this I will use the action of love to focus all of them, since it is the key virtue and the argument can be made that the other two are just facets or ways of loving. In the passage about love we are told that “even sinners love those who love them.” Something that may seem shocking to people is the fact that Jesus uses a verb form of the famous Greek term Agape (unconditional love). Thus sinners have agape for those who give them agape. The idea that we can unconditionally love those who unconditionally love us is itself a logical mess. It is self-canceling. Yes, people do it. But Jesus is pointing out this is not really agape love, in fact it is not really loving others. Similarly, his point is that sinners do good to those who do good to them. Also, sinners lend money to those from whom they will get the same back. Such a virtue is no virtue at all. It is simply a form of moral indirect action in which people actually love themselves. It is not moral to build feedback loops that give us what we want. We should love people regardless of what they do to us because it is the right thing to do.
Now Jesus prefaces each of these by saying that to do such things is no credit to the person because even sinners do that. Now, on one level, we can see that Jesus is calling us to do something that sticks out from the world around us. Our righteousness must exceed the “righteousness” of those around us who are not living for God. In fact, much of our love in life is done in situations where we are receiving some of it back, sometimes more and sometimes less, but always some. Jesus is not saying that it is bad to be loved back. However, he is pointing out that the motivation of most is that they only love those who love them (from their judgment). But, notice such a love is of no value to God. We might believe it has some relative value to us as humans. But such a selfish love does not truly help people. It only allows us to continue down a destructive road of self-love.
As I said earlier it is illogical to say that you unconditionally love those who unconditionally love you because there actually is a condition. This is the mantra of the world today and of our own heart if we allow it to be. “As long as you unconditionally accept me, I will unconditionally accept you.” However, there will always be conditions that change with the passing fads of time. In the past Christians were told that they needed to be more accepting of adulterers, and then it was homosexuals. Today the vice de jour is transgender people and the idea of fluid gender. You see, yesterday you were accepted if you accepted X, and then X+1, but today it is X+2. Unless you get on the right side of this ever changing line then none of your previous “love and acceptance” matter. This is utter hypocrisy. Our modern age loves to pillory and castigate the generations that have gone on before us, as if we have attained a far higher virtuous plane. Have we really? To our credit, we can say that society has gained some wonderful things and gotten rid of some horrible things. But we haven’t become more virtuous as a people. It is just no longer in style or socially acceptable to have slaves, or to be rich at the expense of your workers, or to abuse women. Yet these things happen all day long and are often covered up by people who project a pristine moral image. So have we really become more loving than previous generations? I do not believe so. In fact, 1 Timothy 3:1-5 says, “Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.” He is saying that on one hand they will be unloving, but on the other hand they will love pleasure, money and themselves very much. To the degree that we love ourselves, we are unable to love others. Why don’t we take some time to go over some hypocritical situations that look godly on the outside, but deny the power of true godliness (which is repentance from sin).
Examples of Hypocrisy
At this point I will give credit to Nicholas Senze, Director of Faith Formation at St. Vincent dePaul Catholic Church in Arlington, Texas, for some of the illustrations to follow. He has an article online called The Hypocrisy of the Modern World, with CrisisMagazine.com.
Our businesses, political parties, universities, media, and even religious groups create ideological “echo chambers” that simultaneously declare a commitment to diversity and open dialogue, all the while silencing any who contradict our biases with honest discussion, even to the point of firing or casting out those who do so. Everything is nice as long as you toe a particular line. But if you don’t the claws come out. They are a fuzzy bunny one second and a salivating werewolf the next.
As a Christian florist in Washington State is drug through a lengthy and costly public trial for not doing the flowers for a same-sex wedding, there is no similar public outcry or government charge (where are you Attorney General Bob Ferguson) when Christians are kicked out of a Seattle coffee shop and denied service. This was not done because they were proselytizing on the premises, but because they had been seen handing out leaflets against abortion in the local area. Hypocrisy.
We often talk about defending the helpless and tout our virtue to the heavens. Yet, we are silent and enabling when it comes to a human pregnancy. We will spend gobs of money to travel around the world to stop female circumcision and yet can’t get out of bed when babies in the womb are being slaughtered across the street. How can such a disparity exist? It does because it is socially acceptable to chop up a baby in the womb, suck its body parts out, and throw them in the trash bin (unless of course there is money to be had). In Roe V. Wade the court based its decision upon its inability to answer the question, “When does life begin?” Now that we have an avalanche of evidence of when life begins, still the silence is deafening. In fact now we talk about when one actually becomes a person and has personhood.
But, it gets worse. This thing that isn’t a person yet, however, does have a sexual orientation, all the while its gender is still fluid. Our illogical statements are never resolved. But are just left to hang there as a tribute to our hypocrisy.
We cry wolf about the violence of those on the opposite side of the political spectrum, while remaining silent or even encouraging (wink, wink) of violence of those who fight our enemies.
We are told to curb the appetites of food to the point of either banning or taxing to death certain foods. We are all to be Spartan athletes in training, so to speak. But, speak of curbing sexual appetites, and you will be called all manner of expletives, and told to “get the government out of my bedroom/womb.”
Now from a Christian standpoint we must be honest about one thing. If we define hypocrisy as not living up to the ideals that you profess to have, then we are all guilty because of the weakness of human desire. Even Mother Theresa fell short of her own ideals at times. The Christian should never pretend sinlessness, but rather rely upon repentance and forgiveness. The problem with the world is not sin, but rather a hard heart towards repentance. Hypocrisy is at its worse when it allows itself to do one thing, while forbidding it to another. We see this everywhere in our “virtuous” society. In fact the case can be made that while we are making the outward structures of our society look more “godly,” we are powerless to fight the onslaught of inner desires that are destroying our nation.
As we go back to our passage, we are told in verse 34 that if we love our enemies, do good to them, and lend without expecting anything in return, then we will be Sons of the Most High. The obvious reality is that if we do not do these things, but instead follow the lemming path of the world around us, then we are not Sons of the Most High. Instead we take on the image of a different father, who is the god of this world, Satan. Christians must not only follow Jesus in word, but also in deed. This involves rejecting the “love” of this world (as it models and defines), and a “love” for this world (the inner seduction towards its systems). God does not quash all objectors and withhold from the wicked all good things. All around us we see the goodness of God coming to the righteous and the wicked alike. This is not proof that God likes what they are doing, though it feels that way at times. It is only proof that God is love. However, there is a day of judgment. Though God is kind, He must eventually judge. Thus, He has given us this life to live and then the judgment. In His mercy, He lets us all enjoy the good of life and also suffer that has been created by people. Christians must love others regardless of what they do, because we are making a choice of who we want to be our father. Who do I want to become like? We can do so knowing that God will make all things right. To love your enemy is not to approve of what they do, but rather, to trust that God will deal with them justly. It is not to pretend that what they do is okay, but rather, to speak the truth in love (for their good rather than for their bad). We must relinquish the desire to control others, and instead control ourselves from the inside out.
I have skipped over the fact that Jesus says that those who listen to Him and love their enemies will be deserving of great reward. So will I trade great reward from God for the trinkets that I can get from people in this life? Harvey Weinstein promised to make young women famous if they would only satisfy his perverted desires. He also bullied those who rejected his advances. This is not love. Everyone who is picking up stones to pound Harvey Weinstein, should take a hard long look in the mirror. He is a man who has lived a life of loving himself alone, and no one else. Is that you? Is that me? Are you only loving those who love you back? Isn't that simply loving yourself by extension? We cannot live by the world’s ethic and find great reward. Only those who turn from the wisdom of the world and follow the wisdom of Jesus will find such.