EASTER 3C – Acts 9:1-20; Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19 – 18 April 2010 – A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Love Conquers Hate and Betrayal

INTRODUCTION – Protest at Pomona High School?

My daughter, Hannah, came home from school about a week ago and said, “Dad, our teachers said that protesters are coming to Pomona later this month. These people protested at Matthew Shepard’s funeral and they protest at military funerals.”

I had a suspicion about who might be coming, because – if it was who I thought it was – I’d heard of this group before. “Who is coming?” Hannah replied, “The Phelps family. I think they are from Kansas. They go around the country protesting.” “Why are they coming to Pomona?” “Because they think Pomona is sympathetic toward gays.”

This group, it turns out, is the group that I had heard of before. They come from an independent church in Topeka called Westboro Baptist Church. They are not affiliated with, and have in fact, been rejected by all the mainstream Baptist denominations. Their leader is a disbarred attorney named Fred Phelps, now in his 80’s, and – according to the internet – of the 71 members of his church, 60 of them are related to Mr. Phelps.

If you go to their websites, which have absolutely awful names like Godhatesfags.com and GodhatesAmerica.com, about all you find is lists of the places where they will soon be picketing, and paragraphs and paragraphs that are totally filled with hate – hate for anyone who believes in tolerance, hate for Jews, hate for Roman Catholics and most Protestant denominations, too, hate for anyone, it seems, who doesn’t center their entire mission on targeting gays and anyone who is sympathetic to gays. Everything that goes wrong in the U.S., evidently, is due to the fact that we don’t come down hard enough on homosexuality. (I always wonder, when folks come down this hard on homosexuality, if there is some latent homosexuality just below the surface – in them – that has never been addressed. But in saying that, I digress.)

As someone who believes that these folks have totally missed the message of the Gospel, what should I do? I started by calling the principal of Pomona, and leaving a message for his secretary, telling him who I was and that I am an Episcopal priest, that Hannah had told me these crazy folks might be coming to Pomona, and offering him my support in any way that might be helpful. I got a nice call back from his secretary, basically thanking me and telling me that they were approaching this from a security point of view, and that they weren’t even sure if the protesters were coming. (Another nearby school, Standley Lake High School, is also on the protest list.)

And I kept thinking about how a group that calls itself Christian can be so filled with hate. It reminded me of another person, a long time ago, who was filled with religious zeal.
SAUL AND HIS CONVERSION

One of the all-time giants in Christianity was originally named Saul. Speaking of his time “in the flesh” – that is, before his conversion to life in the Spirit – he wrote, “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:4b-6)

This, of course, was Paul, writing years after his conversion on the road to Damascus, which we just heard about. Before he was Paul he was Saul, a man so convinced of his own righteousness that he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord”, and getting permission from the high priest to go to the synagogues in Damascus and spy on those who were there, to see if any of them might be followers of this Jesus, so he could bring them bound to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1-2)

But something happened on the way to Damascus. The Lord intervened in Saul’s life with a huge flash of light from heaven and a clear voice that said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” To which Paul could only respond, “Who are you, Lord?”

There’s a lot in that question of four words. A Pharisee, a man who undoubtedly knew the Hebrew scriptures backwards and forwards, a man who had been following all the laws – “blameless” under the law, as he said years later – is suddenly on the ground saying, “Who are you, Lord?”

And that, my friends, is really every man and woman – especially when we think we know everything about God, and have God all figured out.

How about Peter saying, “Lord, I will never deny you.” And then, before the cock crowed… you know the rest of the story.

And if you and I want to cry out, “I wish the Lord would wipe Fred Phelps and his other kooky, hate-filled, pseudo-Christian, self-righteous relatives off the face of the earth”… if you and I want to show up at the protest site and bare our teeth and get in a shouting match with these folks, then we don’t know who the Lord is, either.

WHO IS OUR LORD?

So, at times when we want to rush to judgment, at times when I can feel the hate in me begin to bubble up to the surface, it is undoubtedly time to open up our Bibles again – not to just our four or five favorite verses – but to the whole thing, including the parts that make us squirm, and ask anew, “Who is our Lord?”

Our Lord is the one, according to the Gospel writers, who regularly ate with tax collectors and sinners.

Our Lord is the one who said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

Our Lord is the one who said, “You have heard it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evil-doer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also… and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile… You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? (Matthew 5:38-39, 43-46)

Our Lord is the one who reserved his harshest words for the educated, religious folks who did their very best to follow all the commandments, yet looked down their noses at those who fell short. Our Lord called them hypocrites. (Matthew 23:1-36) Our Lord is the one who called out everyone who harshly judged their neighbors, saying that those who acted in this way were trying to take a speck out of their neighbor’s eye while having a log in their own eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

As we have been reminded of recently, our Lord said from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) And that happened when absolutely no one had confessed anything or asked for forgiveness.

Our Lord is the one who appeared for the third time to his disciples, after he was raised from the dead, and this particular time he had breakfast on the beach with seven of them. Yes, he broke bread and ate fish with those same men who had run away from him in his time of greatest need, and to Simon Peter, who had denied him three times, out of concern for saving his own skin, he asked him three times:
Do you love me more than these?
Do you love me?
Do you love me? (John 21:15-17)

And each time that Simon Peter answered “yes”, including the third time, when Peter felt hurt and anguish and all those other feelings that come up when you and I know that we have let down our Lord, ourselves, or someone else that is extremely important to us…each time Jesus said basically the same thing, “Feed my sheep.”

In other words, our Lord is the one who says, “If you love me, then you will love others, just as I have loved you.”

You notice that in all of the stories that we have of our Lord, and in all the words that he is recorded to have said, there is no hate. He was angry at times. He was disappointed or frustrated with the disciples at times. He even showed some impatience at times, but never hate. There is a reason for that. Jesus stayed intimately connected to the love of his Father. And love conquers hate.
LOVE CONQUERS ALL

Love conquers so many things – all the biggest things, in fact. Love conquers hate. Love conquers betrayal. Love conquers self-righteousness. Love conquers feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. Love even conquers death, and ushers in new life. Love has the power to convert and to transform.

Look what happened to Saul, who became Paul. Look what happened to Peter, who denied our Lord three times. Look what happened to all those disciples who ran away from Jesus when he was arrested and crucified.

You know what? That same power of love in our Lord can transform you and me, so that we learn to love and pray for our enemies. That same power of love in our Lord can transform Fred Phelps and every single member of Westboro Baptist Church.

LOVING AND PRAYING FOR OURSELVES AND OUR ENEMIES

Perhaps there is a connection between those conversions and transformations waiting to happen, and our love and prayers. Perhaps as we pray for our own ongoing conversion and transformation, our Lord – the same Lord who converted Saul on the road to Damascus, the same Lord who forgave and empowered Simon Peter, the same Lord who forgives and loves and empowers you and me – perhaps that same Lord wants us to love Fred Phelps and all his followers. And though we may not know how to love exactly as our Lord would have us love, it begins with us praying for Mr. Phelps and all his followers. There is no “perhaps” about that.

I can get on their websites and rant and rave and feel sick to my stomach, and wish evil upon all of them, but that is what any garden-variety sinner would do. No, our Lord is definitely calling us to something different. The risen Christ is calling us to a whole new way of living, and offering us – in the process – a whole new life. Let us embrace that life, and pray for ourselves, and pray for Mr. Phelps and all his followers. Let us pray.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, I recognize that there is hate and sickness in me – the same kind of hate and sickness that is in Mr. Phelps and his fellow church members. We all need healing, Lord. We all need to be converted by your love. We all are in deep need of being transformed by your love. There is no hate in you, Lord, and for that we are eternally grateful. You said that you came not to judge the world, but to save the world. For that, too, we are all eternally grateful. We remember that wonderful prayer in our Prayer Book as we pray for our enemies and for ourselves.

“O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 816)