A Sermon by The Rev. Frank Kirkpatrick: August 14, 2016 (Proper 15, Year C)
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August 14, 2016
Trinity Hartford
The Rev. Dr. Frank G. Kirkpatrick
Proper 15, Year C
Isaiah 5:1-7
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
Late in the year of 1776, in defense of the American Revolution against the tyranny of Great Britain, Thomas Paine wrote:
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
In these words, Paine was in his own way echoing the words of Jesus in this morning’s gospel. Both men are reflecting on the divisions that occur when really important things are at stake and when one must make a choice as to what one truly believes and what principles one will adhere to even if that choice will exacerbate divisions between people who make different fundamental choices. We often think of Jesus as the ultimate peace-maker, the one who will heal divisions and discord, the Jesus who smooths over difference and disagreement. Thinking of Jesus in this way doesn’t adequately prepare us for the shock we feel at his words in the gospel we’ve just heard: not only does he acknowledge division among people, even within a single family, but he says even more provocatively that he intends it: Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
What are we to do with this statement? I’m afraid the best I can do in explaining it is simply to acknowledge that when issues of fundamental rock-bottom importance, such as justice, love, and the restoration of our human nature are at stake, then it makes a real and significant difference where you think ultimate truth lies and what you are prepared to do about it. Perhaps the ultimate scandal of the Christian faith in an age of relativism is its claim that it sees and has accepted the truth underlying all of creation. To be sure, we must never forget that that truth is always seen imperfectly through a glass darkly and the treasure it reveals is filtered through fallible human vessels all of which will distort the truth to some extent. In fact, the dilemma of the Christian faith is that it must reconcile its conviction that it has seen the truth at the heart of reality and, at the same time, admit that how it conveys and acts upon its vision of the truth is often marked by the very arrogance and intolerance that create the wounds that beset those who have been kept from the fullness and restoration of who God created them to be.
But what is the truth the Christian faith at its best claims to see and with humility to proclaim? It is the truth that only love, compassion, mercy, and justice reflect the true heart of God, and the heart of God is the bedrock of true reality. If this is the truth of reality then we should be willing to proclaim it and act upon it, no matter how many differing claims to truth others might propose. We should have the audacity to proclaim that the abiding and overriding truth is that, in the end, after all that has been said and done, only love trumps hate, callousness, fear, and injustice.
The irony is that it is also true that in proclaiming the truth of love we will upset those who believe something different, who hold to a different view of truth. Proclaiming the truth of love can be contentious and cause, as Jesus saw, divisions among people. Many will take offense at the assertion of the supremacy of love because it contradicts their claim that only the exercise of coercive power in pursuit of one’s self interest and the intent to exercise domination over others is the real truth about the world. Power over others, whether military, political, economic, physical, or psychological, when it is used for the advancement of one’s ego, becomes an instrument of exclusion, denigration, and humiliation of those who threaten one’s own inflated sense of self. It tramples on the bonds of communion and interrelationship that the Christian vision sees as the truth of human nature. Its victims are demeaned as losers and regarded as worthless. It feeds on fear of loss which can only be assuaged by defeating those who are regarded as threats to one’s self-exaltation. This exercise of power is real and increasingly prevalent.
Nevertheless, it should evoke in those of us who share the basic values of the Abrahamic religions, a clear and explicit rebuttal. It should encourage us to claim that this use of the power of exclusion and domination is perverse and contrary to the will of God and the truth of reality. And that claim should be uttered out loud, proclaimed with force and conviction by those who see a different truth at the heart of reality, a truth grounded in the reality of God and expressed through love and compassion, through inclusion in the community of all who find wholeness and restoration in the love of God and each other. When two fundamentally different views of truth are at stake there will be division. Peace-making between them can occur only when the reality of their difference is acknowledged and owned by both parties. We do no favor to the truth of God by refusing to confront its difference from opposing claims or pretending it doesn’t matter.
If we truly believe that God showed us the truth of who we really are through the crucifixion, then we must not be afraid to witness to that truth by making ourselves vulnerable to the divisions that mark our public discourse. Vulnerability to loss and defeat, even humiliation by those who propound a muscular, dominating, and demeaning form of power should not make us retreat from the conflict of ideas that reflects the struggle for truth today. Thomas Paine reminds us that this is not a time for the summer soldier or the sunshine patriot who retreats when the going gets rough. The tyranny of dangerous ideas and ideologies, like hell, is not easily defeated. But, as Paine goes on to say, “the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”
When people argue for the truth of coercive power as the means by which others can be rendered worthless because they are of a certain color, or ethnicity, or religion, or sexual orientation, we should not shy away from openly contesting those claims. We should not retreat from boldly proclaiming our counter-truth: the truth of the supremacy of love.
Nor should we be cowed by the claim that expressing our counter-truth is a form of religious intolerance or an attempt to impose our values on others. There is a sense in which that criticism is valid: we should be intolerant of intolerance based on fear; we should be willing to run the risk that urging people to live by and in love is the only way that we can all be what God has created us to be even if we offend people who don’t accept our view. We gain nothing for the truth if we hide behind the fear that our vision of the truth might upset others. We cannot combat the falseness of the view that dictatorial power used to belittle and dominate others is the only good power, without asserting its falseness and untruth. This is the sense, I believe, that Jesus intended when he said he came to bring division. The real truth about who we are created to be cannot be fully revealed unless false views of the truth are exposed and condemned for the worthless claims that they really are. Exercising power for the purposes of self-aggrandizement and the demeaning of others will never bring true restoration of the healthy soul, nor peace, nor self-fulfillment. Exercising power for the purposes of justice, mercy, and compassion toward others is the truth. Living in love may be seen by some as intolerant because it is proclaiming one truth above all others. And we should admit that it is intolerant of ideologies that sanction abuse and injustice. But this is an intolerance we should be prepared, in all humility, to live by and if necessary to die for. It is better to be defeated by a false view of the ultimate truth than to have refrained from acting on what we take to be the true view. If we are wrong and love turns out not to be the ultimate reality then it is better to have lived and died by love than to have cowered behind fear and hate because we don’t want to upset the hatemongers.