"ReMuddling" February 23, 2014

Leviticus 19: 1-2 & 9-18 Matthew 5:38-48 In the 1960s, my parents were able to buy a car, different from ever before or since. They were able to custom order a new car, the first time they ever had a new car, direct from the factory. They were able to choose the make, model and color, though we always had Ford station wagons; as well as the color interior, which was either black, brown or white; and design features, though at the time the choices were: whether to have an AM Radio or AM/FM, and whether to have power windows or manual. There are those among us who have been able to build the house of their dreams with everything exactly as intended, in the location they desired, and who had the forethought and imagination to design every element 50 years ahead of its time. The majority however, bought houses that belonged to others before us. While I am certain that in the 1940s having a utilitarian avocado green bathroom indoors was everyone's desire; while someone in the 1970s intentionally changed bathtub to lilac purple against the avocado green commode and Formica walls, we have remodeled their re-modelings. A year after we moved in, someone commented upon what they named as Vietnam flashback wallpaper in the kitchen, we painted over this a neutral yellow. We have been told, one of the previous owners had expanded the house, by building a kitchen on the back, without having secured a building permit in advance. For which the family were required to connect the addition to the barn behind the house, which they did, on the second floor, but then the barn needed to be demolished, meaning that these second story bedrooms were cantilevered in space. When we correct the corrections of others, those renovations are described as “re-muddling.” When describing this church, I would confess to having “pride” that we tried to correct the problems that had been created while maintaining the aura of this holy place. Years ago, the main entry to the Church looked like an outhouse attached to the building. Immediately as you entered was the choir room. When we went to take out the walls, we discovered that inside the plaster wall, was pass-through window and kitchen sink, still plumbed, so if a squirrel had managed to turn the knob water would have been running inside the wall. At one point, what had become the choir room, had been the church kitchen. What today is the kitchenette had been an exit to the Stables where you left your horse and carriage and took off your boots before entering the Sanctuary of God. In this renovation, the architect's design had been to have an immense open stair, much like Tivia in Fiddler In The Roof, with one long staircase just going up and one even longer going down. However, during construction, we learned that there was a major support beam and load-bearing wall, which required that this center-piece of the design be hidden inside a stairwell enclosure. Re-muddling. As a Preacher, addressing many different individuals in differing circumstances, we often paint images with large brushstrokes, allowing each to fill in the details of their lives and relationship. In this way to name “Thou shalt not steal” as opposed to saying “You should not have been crawling through the window into that room at the Sherwood Inn.” But often, when speaking in generalities, there have been those who make knee-jerk corrections based on what they believed to be specifics. The difficulty then being when we have to correct corrections, which were not as intended, conversation and understanding truly are muddled, and re-muddling becomes confused. Such is the case with this morning's Biblical passages. Regardless of what was meant by the world being created in six days... regardless of whether humanity was God's final creation, or first among creations with power to name and have dominion over each... we were created by God to love God, to be in need of community and love of one another, and to have responsibility for this garden of Eden, this Promised Land. That is our purpose, our prime directive. However, when Israel left Egypt having only known life as slaves of Pharaoh and needing to have laws to direct our relationships in the wilderness, God gave to Moses the 10 Commandments. Instead of worshiping Pharaoh, or pyramids or statues, our covenant was to love and worship God. Instead of being bought and sold by masters, with personal identity as slaves and property, we were to love and respect our parents. We were commanded to not lie, cheat, steal, murder, commit adultery or covet. For forty years, the people struggled against their nature and experience, sinning and abandoning God, while in the wilderness, where there was only God and the nation. Then Moses who had been the only one to speak face to face with God for us died; and the Nation entered into the land of the Canaanites. The challenge became what it means to be a holy people, set apart as precious and sacred to God, when living amid other cultures, other peoples. The Laws of Leviticus defined what it means to be a holy people in the world; and for the tribe of Levi, the Priests, what it means to be leaders, to be holy among a holy people, in the world. Then to become a Monarchy, and Empire. Eventually to be carried off in bondage to Babylon, forced to live as a marginalized oppressed people in a foreign empire and still cling to who were are in faith, who we are to God. Then as a Nation subject to the Greeks, eventually to the Romans. Today in a computerized world of universal education with representative government, technology and accepted laws of commerce, how do we live in relationship to God, to family, neighbors, strangers, enemies and the world? At some point, oral laws were surrounded by culture and custom and tradition, and also this Word of God was changed from oral tradition to written and translated in differing language and cultures over thousands of years. Preaching becomes re-muddling. Jesus began this section of the Sermon on the Mount with “You have heard it said an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth.” Except what the Laws of Leviticus meant in an Eye for an Eye and Tooth for a Tooth, did not guarantee retribution and a justice of recompense. The Law of God did not prescribe that if someone causes you to loose a tooth or to be blinded in one eye that you were required to take their life, or destroy their family. Instead, this was a law of limited retribution. That if someone caused you to be blinded in one eye, or to lose a tooth, and if you could not forgive them without equalization, the maximum retribution you could exact was the same loss you had received. Many of us have avoided reading the Book of Leviticus. We know that Leviticus contains Laws and we would rather trust the Grace of the New Testament... Except Jesus claimed he had not come to change the Law, but to reveal and fulfill the Law. For the first people of faith what comes through following the Law is forgiveness and Blessing from God. So avoiding the Law of Leviticus, means that we have avoided forgiveness and blessing. This particular section of Leviticus deals with money and love of neighbor. Oddly, throughout Scripture where there are reference to money, there are also references to love of others, as if the two go together. For many of us, money has become an extension of our ego. We buy a car or a coat or suit to project who we are, who we want others to see us as. We become slaves to mortgages, worshiping our houses and educations and degrees, as if our debts defined us! When the Leviticus Law regarding money was that our identity includes how we treat our neighbor. There is an interpretation behind this juxtaposition, that had come between the Old Testament and the New, that because Israel was not to marry the Canaanites, and had routinely adopted cultural practices and idol worship from other cultures for which Israel was punished, they were to hate their enemies. There was no Law to Love your Neighbor and Hate your Enemy. But also, this is more than teaching The Golden Rule to treat others as you desire to be treated. In order to hate, we must create a straw-man image of our enemy. Not who they are as part of their family. Not who we both are in God's world. In order to hate, we create a universe where I am at the center and everything revolves around me. My enemy is therefore everything I reject, everything I want to be angry at. My enemy is a mirror of part of myself. The only way in which I can actually forgive and love myself, is to forgive and accept and love the enemy by reorienting my universe to have God at the center and to choose to accept my enemy and myself as being in relationship. When we hate, we cause destruction to ourselves more than simply projecting an action or behavior. Choosing to hate does not cause harm to the other. In order to hate, you have to take into yourself bitterness and anger and resentment. These fester and ulcerate in bile until the hate cannot be suppressed and are spewed out upon the one we name as enemy. Hate is not something we do to another person. Hate causes a change in us, hate must be internalized and swallowed until it can be externalized from within. Instead, Jesus instructs his disciples/us that to be Christian means more than coping with what comes. Being Christian means intentionally acting to love, to have compassion and understanding for the other, trying to change the circumstance rather than swallowing the bitterness. Because our purpose as we were created was to love. Our purpose was to be part of the lives of one another. Our purpose was to care and to provide for Creation. The real issue is not what it means to hate, but rather what it means to love, to devote yourself without restraint, without measuring the cost. If oppression is about forcing another to do what you want, then to respond in love is about what I have to do to re-frame and undercut that force. So if the other demands I carry their burden a mile, I do so gladly and walk along beside them a second mile. We have been seduced by a culture of competition to believe that God's Creation has limited resources. In a Culture of Competition, there can only be one winner, everyone else loses. The last two weeks, throughout the Olympics, something amazing has taken place. Tragically our culture has dictated that what is fed to us in coverage is who wins, and when competitors have minor failures to cause them not to be THE WINNER. But the wonder of the Olympics, is all the Nations who send competitors whose only goal is tio be part of the race. They are Olympians, NOT because they received the Gold; they are among the Olympians because they worked and lived and sacrificed to be part of the competition, knowing they would not be first but they would be Olympians.