Luke 6: 27-38 - February 16, 2025

 

Before I say anything specific about the difficult words of today’s gospel reading, I want to say four things about the Jesus of my understanding:

·       Jesus Christ is love incarnate.  In his words and deeds, the cuddly ones and the challenging ones, we see what it is to be a person infused in God’s own love.

·       The way of Jesus is the way of peace; peace, understood through the Jewish concept of shalom which is typified by such words as harmony, wholeness, tranquility, dignity.

·       From his life experience, Jesus understands power, and I trust what he says about it; as a Jew living under Roman rule, he lived under oppression and in his path to the cross he experienced what happens when power is abused. In the face of all that, Jesus chooses the healing power of love.

·       The grace of Christ Jesus opens us to new life by the power of forgiveness, a forgiveness which still involves accountability, repentance and restitution.  

I lead with these four points, and will leave them on screen throughout today’s message, because they remind us of the loving heart of Jesus and the passion that Jesus has for those who have been mistreated.   I also recognize that in every congregation there are folks who live with the after-effects of trauma, and that needs to inform how I approach our reading from the gospel of Luke.  In leaving these words on screen about Jesus, our loving, empowering saviour, I hope that everything I say from here on in will be understood within the embrace of his abounding love.

Theologian Dale C. Allison wrote a book entitled, The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination.  That subtitle, “inspiring the moral imagination” is a great description of what Jesus was attempting to do in his very first sermon to his gathered disciples, his opportunity to set the tone for everything to come.   Rather than developing a new form of legalism, in which he defines rules for our lives and then punishes disobedience, Jesus assumes that those who came to him were yearning for something new, uplifting and life-changing. In answer to that yearning, Jesus engaged their imaginations: he invited them to imagine with him a new realm, the Kingdom or Kin-dom of God, a world made new where everything is answerable to love.  To spur their creativity, Jesus said,

“Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also”

Love and pray for your enemies, says Jesus – turn the other cheek.   These words may sound foolhardy, but these are not words of naivete, or a worldview through rose coloured glasses; they were spoken by one who knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of hatred.  As such, we can be confident that Jesus would never recommend a system that rewards the oppressor; Jesus would never tell someone who is already in a vulnerable position to do nothing to keep themselves safe.  Jesus, the Prince of Peace, a peace based in justice, wholeness and lovingkindness would have none of that. Yes, in the centuries since Jesus, overlords and abusers have coopted these words to further disempower those whom they mistreated, but the way of Jesus draws us away from elevating the power of hatred, proposing instead a sacred path of reconciling love.

Love and pray for your enemies; turn the other cheek. Hard words, yes, but let’s hold them not as a rulebook with a “do this or else” attached to them, but as words intended to inspire our moral imagination.  These are words in which Jesus invites us, in these days when each day brings new shapes of aggression from the new governing regime in the US, to envision our Church and our households as what Meg Wheatley calls “islands of sanity:” places where the human spirit can live and thrive, even in the midst of toxicity. Jesus invites us, not to ignore the danger or stay silent, but to reject the lure to respond to hatred with hatred, aggression with aggression, spite with spite. Friends, what would it be like, if we as individuals and as Church, could retain the fullness of love amidst this hot mess, even while standing firm against its dangers? 

Psychologist Carl Rogers, in the mid 1950s, developed the concept of “Unconditional Positive Regard”, in which I step away from my anger and judgmental feelings toward those who really push my buttons and choose, instead, to hold them in love. To me, this is the love that Jesus calls me to have for others, even those who have named me as enemy.  This doesn’t mean their words and actions go unchallenged, and I will never put myself into unsafe situations with them, ever, but it does push me to dig beneath my immediate knee-jerk emotional responses, and envision instead the core of my being interacting with the core of their being; an interaction which is respectful, fair-minded, even loving.  Whether it’s an infuriating public figure, or someone who has been your personal nemesis over the years, the goal is the same.  We’re not going to be on each other’s Christmas card lists, but Jesus invites us to choose a positive (or at least neutral) emotional response.  

As I consider “love your enemies”, I think I can get there. If I have to. I guess.   But when it comes to “turning the other cheek” well, that seems dangerous and an awful lot harder.  

One thing that needs to be dealt with in order to even engage these difficult words of Jesus, is the frequently quoted words of Deuteronomy 19, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”  In their historical context, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was a way for the Jewish Law to say, “when someone harms you, your retribution can only be equal to the wrong, you are not allowed to accelerate things by taking extra punishment”.  That may not sound progressive, but it was in its day: rather than upping the ante each time you were wronged, you could only get even, rather than increasing the violence by taking a punitive bonus.   Jesus then goes one step beyond Deuteronomy and invites us to imagine and co-create with him a world in which the cycle of violence ends.  We see moves in this direction in practices of restorative justice in parts of Canada, particularly in Indigenous settings, with a goal of rebuilt relationships, rather than punishment; this encourages me to believe that new ways are possible.  The non-violent pattern of Jesus is the way of the Kin-dom of God, the place where Shalom unfolds in all its beauty.    

As he moves us beyond retributive justice, Jesus is not intending that his followers just absorb suffering, and he is definitely not saying we just stand back as someone else is mistreated.  What Jesus draws his followers away from, is the easy slide into a life in which the thing that motivates us to get up in the morning, is lingering hatred.  In the words of Malachy McCourt, “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”  Jesus invites us to a new way of being, a much better future than that.

Resentment, getting even, allowing my anger to be satisfied, these are things Jesus calls us away from.  Jesus calls us to forgive one another, even as we rely on God’s forgiving grace in our lives, but this does not cancel the importance of accountability.  Years ago, I read a story by an evangelical Christian author, who told the story of her family being abandoned by her father when she was quite young, and the struggles that ensued.  Decades later, Dad came waltzing back into her life, seeking forgiveness.  Yes, she said to him, by the grace of Christ she forgave him; she released him from her anger, but she did not trust him or feel safe around him, and her forgiveness did not release him from accountability. Saying that she forgave him was one thing, but his saying sorry wasn’t going to change the life-altering changes that his wife and kids experienced when he walked out on them.  Even in the realm of “turn the other cheek,” my friends, there are boundaries.  Actions have consequences in our human relationships, even in a world of forgiveness.

Which brings me to a specific example which we’ve been dealing with behind the scenes in our worship planning. You may have noticed that we stopped using a sung Lord’s Prayer that was used here for many years, and are starting to test-drive some other versions with hopes of finding a new favourite. The reason for leaving the previous version and seeking a new one, is that four years ago it came to light that the composer of the previous musical setting had for decades sexually abused dozens of young women and girls, and his music workshops were a significant venue for this grooming.  As a result, we are joining with many congregations and his music publisher in not using his music. This both is to let the women who have brought these complaints – very few of whom have received apologies of any sort - know that they have been believed, and because each usage of this song puts a few pennies of royalty money into the perpetrator’s pockets.   So I ask myself: can I find it in myself to hold this man’s life in unconditional high regard? Yes.  Do I believe that his earnest confession will be heard by God? Yes.  But even with those two yes’s, are there consequences to his reprehensible actions? Also yes. The words of Jesus about love and forgiveness are not intended to give carte blanche to those who repeatedly make others’ lives a misery.

Throughout my words this morning, I hope the words on screen have helped to place the things I’ve been sharing within the things we know about Jesus:

•        Jesus Christ is love incarnate.

•        The way of Jesus is the way of peace.

•        Jesus knows how power works, and chooses the healing power of love.

•        The grace of Christ invites forgiveness…and accountability.

In his difficult invitation to love and pray for our enemies, and turn the other cheek, Jesus invites us to new life, a life with him in which we imagine the power of love surpassing all the hate-filled nonsense presently filling our world.  Jesus frees us, if we choose to accept the gift, from a baseline hatred which only perpetuates and intensifies the brokenness.  Christ Jesus invites us to engage our creative imaginations in the pursuit of new realm of shalom, to put away hatred and mean-spiritedness as we welcome his love-based ethic into our interactions. When we let love be our guide, we say yes to Christ’s glorious vision, and life truly comes alive.  May this be so, Amen.  

References cited/consulted:

Allison, Dale C. The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination.  NYC: Crossroad, 1999.

Anderson, Amy Rees. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyanderson/2015/04/07/resentment-is-like-taking-poison-and-waiting-for-the-other-person-to-die/

Government of Canada. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/gladue/p4.html

Palmer, Rodney A. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5292&context=pubs

Ravitzky, Aviezer. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shalom/

Rousselle, Christine. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248588/new-allegations-against-david-haas-prompt-top-music-publisher-to-sever-ties-with-hymn-composer

Wheatley, Margaret. https://margaretwheatley.com/books/restoring-sanity/

Wikipedia. “Unconditional Positive Regard » https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_positive_regard#:~:text=Unconditional%20positive%20regard%2C%20a%20concept,context%20of%20client%2Dcentred%20therapy.

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

Luke 6: 17-26 - February 9, 2025

Later today, the Super Bowl’s Lombardi  will be awarded, and regardless of which team wins, Kansas City or Philadelphia, in the post-game interviews it is virtually guaranteed that players will point heavenward and give thanks to God and Jesus for the blessings that allowed them to play well and achieve this goal.

At one level, I get this and even admire it: it’s great to live with a sense of gratitude, and to interpret one’s accomplishments and high points as blessings from God.  No, I don’t think God gives one thought to who wins a sporting events, only to the health of its participants; but if we understand God as our source and destination, it makes sense that the ecstatic moment of victory would be perceived as a “God Moment.”

What’s funny, though, is that when he had a forum to name the places and people where God’s blessings are most easily found, Jesus came up with a very different list of those who are considered especially blessed by God: the poor, the hungry, those who grieve, those who are reviled on Christ’s account. Our reading this morning, from Luke, remembers it as the Sermon on the Plain, while the gospel of Matthew remembers it as the Sermon on the Mount, but whatever the topography, both sermons begins with similar core lists of those who experience the presence of God in all its fullness: the poor, the hungry, the grief-stricken, the reviled.   Matthew’s version (5:1-11) adds the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the righteous and the peacemakers to this the list of the blessed.

What Jesus says here is nothing short of counter-cultural in his day - and ours. This isn’t, “Blessed are you when you win the championship, blessed are you when your stocks triple in value, blessed are you when your social media page has the most followers” and it most definitely is not, “blessed are you when you try to bully your neighbours into submission”.  No, the list of blessed ones spoken by Jesus, as remembered by Luke, is this: 

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹ “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
²² “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. ²³ Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets”.

Although Matthew’s list of the beatitudes is more familiar and beautiful in its prose, I appreciate how direct the words are in Luke’s gospel.  In Luke, Jesus isn’t just speaking about “those people out there in the world somewhere who are blessed” in the distant, third-person way remembered by Matthew.  No, in Luke, Jesus looks directly at his audience and says, “YOU are blessed: You, who are poor, hungry, bereaved, reviled.  You, YOU are blessed by God’s holy presence in your hard times and when things improve.  And they WILL improve. God is with you in your tears and God is still with you when you are released from your suffering. God will rejoice, even dance with you when things get better”.

ALL of this, I find so hopeful and so necessary in the deeply strange days in which we live.  Jesus, well-acquainted with mean-spirited leadership, stands in complete solidarity with those whose lives are made miserable, either by the circumstances of their lives or the specific actions of those who hold power over them.  While I don’t want to wallow in the weirdness we Canadians are experiencing, I cannot step into the pulpit and ignore what’s going on in: not just the tariffs being dangled over our heads, not just the disrespect of suggesting that Canada is nothing more than the 51^st state-in-waiting, but even more so it’s the targeting of entire populations of people that is so evil: women, immigrants, people of colour, people of diverse sexual expression, all singled out and summarily blamed, mocked and dismissed (or as Jesus put it, hated and excluded and reviled and defamed). Things are broken in so many ways right now, in much of the world, not just here; and as followers of Jesus we can’t just ignore that.  

We can’t ignore it, but neither can it defeat us. For amidst that brokenness, amidst the seeds of chaos so generously sown, we seek rootedness and solid footing and confident hope, we seek good news, and we find all these as we gather in the name of Jesus.  Looking directly at those seeking his path of new life Jesus says “don’t you believe it when the power of Empire tries to demean you or unsettle you or threaten you. You who are impoverished, you who are hungry, you who have cause to weep, you who are being rounded up and sent off, you are held in the very heart of God.  You are beloved. You are BLESSED.”  

There are times when the Church is told to “stay in its lane”, and in his words of power Jesus defines “our lane.”  As those who hold the responsibility to be Christ’s hands and feet and heart and voice in the world, we are to stay informed, to identify who is most besieged and stand in loving and rugged solidarity with them; and when we are among those being targeted, when we are the ones losing sleep with worry, we are to recognize God’s sturdy, loving presence within us and around us and between us.

While Matthew only lists blessings, this morning’s reading from Luke goes on beyond the list of blessings to list a short list of woes:

““woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
²⁵ “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶ “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

For the most part, the ministry of Jesus either speaks of making things tangibly better for people who suffer, doing things here on earth to release them from economic, political or religious the power of illness, or fear, or violence.  Jesus speaks about the new realm to come, the Kin-dom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, but he actually speaks very little about “heaven” in the way we understand it.  In this list of woes following the list of blessings, though, we clearly hear implications not only for life here on earth, but eternal consequences. To those who are under the pressures of life, Jesus speaks of blessedness and better days to come, here and eternally.  But tor those who are on the upper side of things pressing down, the message is also clear: enjoy your privilege now, because you’ll be singing a different tune in the hereafter.  

As much as I want to turn this into a simple binary, with me standing confidently on the “blessed” side of this and some broadly sinister “them” , the bad guys, receiving the woes, we all know that life isn’t that simple.  I hear the words of Jesus about those whose lives are typified by comfort and ease, and I feel the sting. My own comfort, my own privilege demands that I repent of some of my behaviours and attitudes, and the grace of Christ makes it possible to change. In our United Church Creed, we name Jesus as “our judge and our hope” and that is so true in these words of blessings and woes and what we do about those in a world filled with injustice.   

In his transformational work, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey’s second and third habits are “start with the end in mind” and “put first things first.”  To me, that’s also the intent of what Jesus is saying here, in listing both the blessings and the woes.  Jesus, in his person, in his words, in his deeds, and, yes, in his death and resurrection, reminds us that the end goal is the same as the present goal -  to live a life fully intertwined with the heart of God, a life of depth and meaning that will transcend even the power of death.   In saying that the poor, the hungry, the bereaved and the reviled are blessed, Jesus is not recommending these as conditions to aim toward, but he is saying that when you are in those places, you can be confident of God’s loving care and you are likely to rely upon it.  When life is hard, God in Christ holds you close, opening you to something better and brighter and more life-affirming.  When we, as Church, are present to people in their suffering, raising a voice where a voice needs raising, we are close to the heart of God.  When we acknowledge both our privileges and our hurts as we imagine the future of the Church, when we seek repentance and reconciliation, we also come close to the heart of God.   We “put first things first” and “start with the end in mind” when we acknowledge that life with God STARTS NOW and has no end.  Jesus sets the priorities, and empowers us with love.  

With that in mind I end with a quote from one of my favourite progressive Christian bloggers, Debie Thomas: “I think what Jesus is saying in this Gospel is that I have something to learn about discipleship that my [comfortable] life circumstances will not teach me. Something to grasp about the beauty, glory, and freedom of the Christian life that I will never grasp until God becomes my everything, my all, my go-to, my starting place, and my ending place. Something to humbly admit about the limitations of my privilege. Something to recognize about the radical counter-intuitiveness of God’s priorities and promises….  Something to gain from the humility that says, ‘Those people I think I'm superior to in every way?  They have everything to teach me.’” 

Debie concludes, “Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, sad, and expendable. Why? Because you have everything to look forward to. Because the Kingdom of God is yours… Lord, help me to sit with woe, and learn the meaning of blessing.” Amen.   

References cited:

Borg, Marcus. Speaking Christian: why Christian words have lost their power and how they can be restored. SF: HarperRow, 2012. (pages 46-51)

Covey, Steven.  The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, accessed at https://www.franklincovey.com/

Thomas, Debie. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2089-blessings-and-woes

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

Luke 5: 1-11 - February 2, 2025

“Zebedee looks around at the nets still to be mended, no sons to help with the work, his remaining employees staring at him wondering what to do next. ‘It looks like they’re gone, lads” he says to the rest of the crew. ‘We’ll all need to do a bit more until I can take on more help.’

“He blames himself.  Zebedee inherited a boat and the love of fishing from his own father, and he has built it into something. [But] things have always been hard with those boys, James and John. They did not love fishing in the way that he did.  So their departure all of a sudden with Jesus could not be called a complete surprise.

“Zebedee likes Jesus. A young man with morals and strength of character, and he loves the things Jesus says about God. He loves what he says about justice for the poor. Zebedee’s sons listen, too, along with their friend Simon. Zebedee noticed they were working harder, were more pleasant to be with, and he finally had the relationship he’s always wanted with his sons, sons who, he believed, could be real business partners with him. The sons who were turning into moral and just men.

“Then, one day, this day, Jesus came and said, ‘It’s time. Let’s go.’  And they just followed him. They left Zebedee with kisses but no tears. They seemed so happy and excited, and very, very gone.

“Why were they so eager to go? Did he not appreciate them enough? And what about his own spiritual life? Even at his age, wouldn’t he love to go have this spiritual adventure? He couldn’t get up and leave even if he wanted to. He has responsibilities—the boat, his home, his wife, his other sons and daughters, not to mention his customers and the poor widows in the community, who rely on the unsold fish he gives them at the end of the day. Who would feed them all if he left?

“The next day Zebedee fishes, then he sits at the dock with the workers, mending nets and talking. He misses his sons so much his chest aches, he envies their new adventure, yet his own call continues. He is here at home, mending, fishing, feeding. His sons were called to go with Jesus; Zebedee is called to stay behind: to pray, to work, to love, to do.”

This story, adapted from a story by Melissa Bane Sevier, imagines both the backstory and consequences of Luke’s account of the calling of Simon Peter and his partners in fishing, the sons of Zebedee, James and John.  And indeed, every time we hear the call of Jesus, there is a call to something but also a call away from something.  And while Luke focuses on the excitement of the venture for those who were willing to drop everything and follow, and the possibility of an abundant catch in the name of Jesus, there is always in the background a Zebedee, an empty boat, nets that will need to be mended by someone else.  And as we consider our call to discipleship, this rightly gives us pause.

I am so thankful to my friend, Melissa, for retelling the story in a way that helps me see with Zebedee’s eyes. You see, Zebedee is a “stayer” while I come from a long line of “leavers” – people who have left the family home to pursue new opportunities.  My grandfather left the family farm in Lambton County, Ontario 110 years ago to pursue a call to Ministry; my parents moved our family west to Regina in 1964, never to return to Ontario except for visits; Shannon and I left Saskatchewan for good in 1994 when we came to Alberta and now BC; and by the time they were in their early 20s, all three of our children had moved on. Many of you have made moves far more dramatic than this, perhaps even when you moved to the South Okanagan.  With each of those moves away, we have left, but there have been folks who have stayed behind, who have felt the pain of separation without going anywhere.  Each decision has its own set of costs and benefits, as we embrace a call to stay, or a call to leave.

What might that mean for us, in our time and place?  What is the call that Christ has for your life, and does it feel mostly like a call toward something, or a call away from something, or a call to dig in where you are and go deeper?

It could be, that the call for your life is like call of Zebedee: the call to stay, while change is all around you.  Perhaps it dates to a big change in your employment, or the ending of a primary relationship, or when you retired; perhaps you are recently or not-so-recently bereaved, or impacted by chronic health concerns; whatever it is, you may be the one left with the task of figuring out what life has for you where you are.  Jesus spoke about the Kin-dom of God as something that was “near” or “at hand”– in one sense, already within arm’s reach where you are. Parker Palmer writes, (pp.114-115): “in silence and solitude, alone with the [Holy One]… God’s promise of abundance comes to us not as future possibility but as a present reality.”  As we go deep with God, even amidst experiences of emptiness, or loneliness, or loss due to change, we have opportunities to rediscover the One who has loved us since the beginning and listen for hints as to who we are to be amidst these new realities.

It could also be, that the calling to us is shaped more like the calling that Jesus issued to his first disciples: a calling away, a calling toward.  Jesus had good news to share, and knew that he could not possibly share it all on his own, so he enlisted helpers from all walks of life.   While many of us recoil at the notion of “evangelism,” perhaps recalling wild-eyed efforts to rescue us from the fires of hell, the reality is that the life-affirming message of Jesus Christ is not heard often enough these days. We need to be “Jesus people” once again, to proclaim the good news by acts of courage and kindness done in Christ’s name.  We need to embrace the notion that the abundance described by Luke may still be possible!  From my experience, people who associate Church with judgmentalism and anti-scientific narrowness, are often amazed when they actually hear of the openness and sophistication of Christ’s teachings, the courage of how he lived it out, and the way his followers are called to have a broad, inclusive, reconciling, justice-seeking love in response to his calling on our lives.   The more we embrace and live out the love of Christ Jesus, the more the world will know and benefit from his unbridled love.

During an interim time, we have three questions before us:  who are we? Who are our neighbours? And, what is God calling us to?  So what about that third question, what might we being called toward, or away from, or what are we to do more of? Are there actions or involvements that you have been mulling, callings that have been pestering you lately?  Or are there wonderings in your heart and mind, such as “I wonder why our Church doesn’t do…?” or “I wonder if we have the capacity as a Church to…?”  Are there older versions of Church life that we need to let go of, in order for new ways of being to arise?  Or are there specific needs in these south Okanagan communities that we could more actively engage?

Rather than giving today’s sermon a nice, neat ending, all wrapped up and tied with a bow, by putting forward an answer to these questions, it is more wise and more faithful to leave these as open questions.  If these kinds of wonderings about our calling as a faith community are bubbling within you, Shannon and I invite you to write them down and share them with us and with the Transition Team.  At coffee time today, you will find a sheet of paper for that purpose: if you’ve got something to share right away, please write it down & leave your page in the basket provided; if you need to mull on this a bit, take the sheet home and bring it to Church next Sunday, or give it to a member of the transition team! (Anita, Nancy and Cathie - Osoyoos, Doreen, Anna and Heather - Oliver).  And as we consider those things we are called to do and be, please know that some of what we are called to are things we are already doing. As we gather this information from you, we do so with hopes of new ideas, but also invite you to name any efforts we are already undertaking that make the good news of Jesus Christ real for us and others.

To all of you: the “leavers” and the “stayers,” the planners and the doers, the ones who give us roots and the ones who give us wings: know that the loving call of Christ is a call to you, and to us as congregations, to embody love and life and light where you are and, perhaps, in new places or in new ways.  It is also a call to unexpected sources of abundance, for hanging out with Jesus does tend to have surprising results!  What an exciting possibility, and what good people to have with you on the journey.  Thanks be to God, Amen.

References cited:

Bane Sevier, Melissa.  “Left Behind,” a posting on her “Contemplative Viewfinder” blog: https://melissabanesevier.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/left-behind/ (NOTE: the italicized portions are edits from Melissa’s original story)

Palmer, Parker. The Promise of Paradox.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980.

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge