Love the Porcupines, a sermon based on Genesis 45: 3-11, 15 and Luke 6: 27-38, preached on February 23, 2025

I’ve always believed that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who dip their French fries into their ketchup, and those who squeeze ketchup all over their French fries. Jesus also believed that there were two kinds of people: neighbors and enemies, and He commands us to love them both. That’s a tall order. It’s hard enough to love your neighbors, but everyone does that, Jesus says. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Well, that’s a good point. Our neighbor Dan McCloud, a couple weeks ago, he was driving out to County Farm Road to take his glass to be recycled. He offered to take ours as well, which was so kind. I’m thankful, but every time I drive out to County Farm Road, I do the same. He carries my glass to the glass recycling center, and I return that favor. Before too much longer, things will change. Thanks to Jim Sommerville, we’re going before the City Council tomorrow night to place our own glass recycling bin in our church parking lot, and I suspect that we’ll be heroes to our entire community who have grown tired of driving out to County Farm Road. Even the Mayor told me that he’s tired of driving so far, but what credit is it to us to be kind to our neighbors? Even sinners love those who love them. Love your enemies, Jesus said. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Why? I have a friend who works for the federal government. Anyone else have a friend who works for the federal government? Is your friend as scared as my friend that he might lose his job? Whenever people are angry and afraid, the world divides into two kinds of people: friends and enemies. Love your enemies, Jesus said, and some have done it. Have you seen Les Misérables? I hadn’t seen it before last week. It was mentioned on my favorite TV show of all time, Ted Lasso, so last week I watched it. In this play-turned-movie, the main character, Jean Valjean, is out on parole. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Upon release, he must present his papers, which state that he’s a criminal, so no one will hire him. No innkeeper will host him. He falls asleep in a cemetery where a bishop takes him in. To repay the bishop for his kindness, Jean Valjean steals the silver from the bishop’s church. Caught red-handed on the run, he’s dragged by the police to kneel before the bishop with his bag full of the church’s silver. Expecting condemnation, he’s surprised to hear the bishop say, “I tried to give him the silver candle sticks as well, but he left before I could. All this silver I gave him freely. Release this man. He’s done nothing wrong.” Love your enemies, Jesus said. Why? Because such love as this changed Jean Valjean’s life. Divine love is the only force that can change your enemy into your friend. Divine love is not so much concerned with fairness as it is with mercy. Divine love is patient. It is kind. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Divine love does not delight in evil but always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Think with me about God’s divine love and consider with me the very essence of who God is. How has God been at work in your life? When have you felt His mercy? We read about it in our first Scripture lesson, which is the conclusion of one of the truly great narratives. The narrative begins when the boy Joseph was thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers. Do you know the story? Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice wrote a musical about it. It was on Broadway. But just as the book is better than the movie, so also the Scripture lesson is better than the Broadway play. This narrative that unfolds in the book of Genesis begins with a little brother, Joseph, Daddy’s favorite, who, by his brothers, is thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and is locked behind bars in Egypt, but because he can interpret dreams, he ends up the Pharoah’s right-hand man. While he advises Pharoah and accumulates grain for the Egyptian Empire, his brothers and their families face famine. Desperate for food, they go to Egypt, begging for grain before the throne of the one who controls the granaries of the Pharoah. My how the tables have turned. As his brothers kneel before him, Joseph finally had the chance to get revenge. Can you imagine how many times he thought of it? From the bottom of the pit they threw him in, he swore he’d get even if they ever let him out. Then, bound in chains on that slaver’s caravan, he plotted retribution. On those cold nights in his cell, he was warmed by the thought that payback would rain down on the brothers who put him there, only as he looked down on them from his throne, saw the gaunt looks on their hungry faces, the thought came to him, “You threw me into a pit, sold me into slavery, so that I ended up imprisoned in Egypt, but had you not done that, I would be just as hungry as you are now. God put me here. God sent me before you to preserve life.” Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” Why? Because they deserve love? Why should we bless those who persecute us? Because they deserve our blessing? Such love makes no sense to those of us who follow the social contract. A social contract is this agreement. It’s not necessarily a formal agreement. It can be nothing more than a handshake or a nod, and it works like this: If I take my neighbor’s glass to the recycling center then he’ll likely offer to take my glass to the recycling center. If my neighbor Jamie blows the leaves off part of my yard, then I’m going to blow leaves off part of his yard. There are these social contracts. The few people who don’t abide by them are called sociopaths. They’re like the people who put ketchup all over their French fries. No, seriously, some people just take. They never return favors, but most people do. Even sinners, Jesus says, love people who love them. They return generosity with generosity. That’s a social contract. We’re used to that. We give favors to those who do us favors. But love your enemies, Jesus says. Why? Because our lives are not governed by the social contract. Our lives are not governed by a human contract, but by divine love and divine mercy. Jesus is saying, “Give to your enemy expecting to receive nothing in return, for you’ve already received everything from God.” Don’t forgive expecting to receive forgiveness. Just forgive because you’ve already been forgiven. Consider God’s abundant mercy, so don’t just invite people over for dinner who invite you over for dinner. Instead, consider the feast we are invited to in the Kingdom of Heaven. Can anything compare to the glory about to be revealed to us as the children of God? Notice what God has done and consider what God has promised. I think about His mercy today as I watch a cycle of revenge unfold before my eyes. Russia invades Ukraine. Terrorists from Palestine commit atrocities in Israel, so Israel strikes back until there is nothing left in Palestine. These cycles go on and on and on, for the dark deeds of our enemies fill our bodies with rage. We long to return evil with evil. To stop the cycle, Jesus says, “Lift up your eyes to consider, not what your enemy has done, but what God has done,” and what has God done? What has God done for you, in your life? Consider His mercy and His blessing especially amid affliction, for people are mean. Last Thursday, I sat down at a table. One I sat down with asked me if I’d gotten a haircut. Hearing the question and noticing my lack of hair, another asked me, “Which one did you have cut?” My friends, there’s a great story in the Bible about the Prophet Elijah who calls a bear to maul a group of boys who call him “old bald head.” I can relate to that thirst for vengeance. It’s not my fault I’ve lost my hair, yet while I may have so few hairs that my Creator will have no trouble numbering them all, I will never be able to count all my blessings, so will I fume in anger or buy my neighbor another round? You know which is better for your heart, and you know which response reflects the divine love and mercy of our God. Don’t lose yourself in getting even. Get lost in counting your blessings, for the blessings of God are not just a little, but a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. That’s what will be put in your lap, for the measure you give, that will be the measure you get back. You see, it’s not the social contract that matters most, but the divine contract that has made all the difference in our lives. It’s God’s mercy that defines us. That’s what the bishop taught Jean Valjean. That’s what Joseph realized as he looked down on his brothers, and that’s what Jesus always knew, but that is also what this world is always forgetting. That God gives. God forgives. God provides. God suspends judgement. Consider these things and share with your enemies out of the abundance of what God has provided. Now, somebody said, “Pastor, my enemy doesn’t deserve it.” Somebody said, “I’m not going to give them that. They’ve taken too much. They’ve done too much evil,” and I say to you, “Harboring hate in your heart is like drinking from a bottle of poison and hoping that your enemy is going to die.” Hate is doing harm to your heart. Hate is doing harm to the heart of our nation. Hate is too great a burden to bear, so I choose love. That’s a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was beaten, imprisoned, slandered, criticized, and maligned, but trusted in the dream of a new heaven and a new earth where all God’s people lay down their grudges to love one another as brothers and sisters. My friends, we are living in scary times, and fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. It was Yoda who said that in one of the Star Wars movies, and he was right about where hate will take us, while love will lift your soul towards Heaven. Love your enemies. Do good and lend expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Amen.

The Fisherman, a sermon based on Isaiah 6: 1-8 and Luke 5: 1-11, preached on February 9, 2025

It’s hard to imagine Jesus recruiting His first disciples, considering how the Church has grown since this moment by the Lake of Gennesaret. At last count, in 2020, there were 2.4 billion professing Christians in the world. That’s more than 25% of the world’s population. We just baptized another one, Adeline Elizabeth Garcia. This room is full of His disciples. In just the city of Soel, Korea there are as many Presbyterians as there are in the entire United States of America, so while today, our world is full of His disciples, as we read this Gospel lesson, we are asked to imagine Jesus trying to recruit the first one. How did He do it? Where did He go? How did He start? Last Monday, at the funeral of Dr. Clem Doxey, who founded what became the largest dermatology practice in the state of Georgia, Dr. Bob Harper, who became his friend and colleague, told the story of Clem coming to Marietta and trying to recruit his first patients. Having few patients to care for in his new office, he spent time at Kennestone Hospital asking doctors to please refer to him some sick people. Today, we stand in line for our appointments at that same practice, but it started slow, and this is how it is for most everything in the beginning. The ministry of Jesus begins, and it wasn’t much different. Jesus wasn’t born having followers. He had to go out and find them. To do so, He didn’t stand in some grand pulpit like this one, waiting for disciples to come to Him. No, He went out into the world. Standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, He saw two boats there at the shore. The fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore, so that He could preach from the boat. Our daughter Lily helped me to notice the significance of this detail of our Gospel lesson. Our daughters are preacher’s kids, so they’re a little different. We were discussing this Gospel lesson over the dinner table last Thursday night. Lily told me that she remembered a sermon preached on this same Gospel lesson by Sadie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame. When she preached on this Gospel lesson, she wisely observes that Jesus steps onto Simon’s boat and preached from there. Then Sadie Robertson asked, “What boat are you preaching from?” Jesus didn’t need some grand pulpit like this one to proclaim the Gospel. He went out into the world and preached the Gospel from Simon’s boat. What boat are you preaching from? If you have a desk job and know the Good News, then you can preach the Gospel from right where you are, and it serves the Kingdom for you to preach from your boat or your desk or your neighborhood walking group, for it’s out there where the people are who need to hear what is said within these walls. Jesus went out into the world looking for sinners to save. In the same way, Dr. Doxey went into the hospital looking for sick people to heal, but when Simon Peter saw the catch of fish that Jesus provided, he fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” I can’t get over this part of our Gospel lesson, yet this is the way it always happens. Maybe this is the way it always is. If you remember our first Scripture lesson, which tells the account of the prophet’s call to ministry, when God comes to speak to Isaiah, Isaiah is so amazed by the glory of God and amazed by his own sinfulness in comparison to God’s glory that he says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” I think about this because Jesus the Savior came to earth not looking perfect people. No more did He come looking for perfect people than Dr. Doxey was searching for perfect skin, yet Simon said to Jesus after Jesus provided him a catch of fish so large that their nets began to break, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” This is the power of shame. I read in a book about Alcoholics Anonymous that guilt and shame are different. Feeling guilty can be OK. Guilt tells us when we’ve made a mistake and provides the motivation we need to make it right again. Shame is more destructive, for while guilt tells me “I’ve made a mistake,” shame tells me, “I am a mistake.” This is another lesson that the Church needs to learn from AA, for it’s been said that “AA is to shame as a hot knife is to butter.” Reading our Gospel lesson and hearing the call of Isaiah, I realize that the Church should be no different than AA, for when we reveal to Him our brokenness, we are saved, only sometimes the Church makes such vulnerability even more difficult than it already is. Denominations will literally look at the demographic breakdown of neighborhoods before they’ll consider building a new church, looking at things like rates of college diplomas, value of homes, and median income, as though building the Church of Jesus Christ were no different than franchising the Publix grocery store chain. Now, I love Publix, but our call is not to sell fancy produce to rich people. The Great Physician came to heal the sick. As His disciples, our target is the lost and the lame, the blind and the hopeless, the poor and the afflicted, and yet church youth groups try to recruit the popular kids as though recruiting people for the church were just like recruiting players for a football team. My friends, when Clem Doxey went looking to build his dermatology practice, he was looking for people who suffered with skin cancer and melanoma. When you go out into this world and you find your boat to preach from, don’t try to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the people with perfect skin, but the people with broken hearts. I began this sermon saying that there are 2.4 billion professing Christians in this world. That’s true, but it’s also true that there are more than 800,000 people here in Cobb County, and more than half of them have no religious affiliation. Some of you remember the days when everyone in your neighborhood, or it seemed like everyone in your neighborhood, went to church on Sunday morning. I don’t remember that. That time in human history was already ending when I was growing up. The only business I knew of that was closed on Sunday was Chick-fil-A, and by the time I was old enough to buy beer, I could buy it any day of the week I wanted. The world outside our doors is not as full of disciples as many remember it being. For many, today, Sunday, is a day for playing soccer and going to Home Depot, and the way I hear people talk about Christianity these days, they’re describing a religion that barely resembles what I read in the Bible, for people suffer from a level of Biblical illiteracy that’s reaching epidemic proportions. But don’t let me get self-righteous here. That’s not what the world needs. The world is cloaked in shame. Many out there would respond to the Gospel the same way Simon did: with shame and misunderstanding, and while some have said that our religion is under assault, if we take that mindset, if we go out into the world defensive and braced for attack, then how will we comfort those who are just as full of shame as Simon Peter was? My friends, today let us take this account of the calling of the first disciple as an example for us, for the world is full of sick people who are suffering. Full of people who are isolated and alone. Full of people who are hopeless and distracted. Full of people who are anxious and afraid. So full of people who are hurting that rates of suicide in our community have risen by 14% in the last year. My friends, when Simon Peter revealed his brokenness to Jesus, Jesus stepped towards him. Jesus gave him a new name, a new identity, a new calling, a new purpose, yet when the church hears of brokenness, do we not too often step away? There’s a story that so broke my heart that even though I read it 15 years ago, I still remember it vividly. It’s a story that Bishop Gene Robinson told when he was interviewed by GQ magazine. I used to subscribe to GQ magazine, which explains why I’m so fashionable. Well, when the good Bishop was telling his life story to this journalist, he remembered how present the church was on the day he was married to the woman who became his wife. On their wedding day, the church was there in full force, celebrating that happy day, but on the day they were divorced, no one was there. There were no flowers. There was no reception. There was no music, nor singing, nor presents, nor words of encouragement, and as he looked back on it, he reflected that he needed the Church far more when he was going through his divorce than he did on his wedding day. My friends, when we step away from broken people, we do not bear in our actions the image of Jesus Christ. We do when we step towards them. You may have read this, but you need to know it because it’s miraculous. As we’ve been more and more involved in the Cobb County Jail, we’ve become more and more aware of the realities that the men and women who work there and who are incarcerated there face. We started with livestreaming our worship service, then after one of our members felt called to serve as a chaplain in the jail, he made us aware of the bare shelves of the jail library. You filled those shelves, and now hundreds of books are checked out every week. Then, more recently you were made aware of those men and women who are released from jail and are handed the clothes they were arrested in as they reenter society. If they were arrested in July but are released in January, that means they’re walking out of the jail in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Those outfits are not warm enough for the winter, not to mention how those clothes carry the shameful memories of what happened the last time they were worn. My friends, when the call went out to provide the jail with seasonally appropriate clothing, you so fulfilled the call that after just a couple weeks, the jail has already said, “No more. We have enough. We have no more room to put these clothes!” I’m so thankful to be a witness to such an act of love. I’m so thankful for the way you have stepped towards the imprisoned. If there is a Simon Peter among those who you have clothed, I expect that by the grace of God, our world will be transformed by the ministry of that new disciple of Jesus Christ. May it be so. Amen.