Sermon Audio 5/3/2015 Fifth Sunday after Easter B

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

1 John 4:7-21

After celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus over Holy Week and Easter, and after recent events in Baltimore sparked by the death of Freddie Gray, we remember this important fact. We don't get to talk about Jesus without talking about state-sponsored violence.

Based on responses from the congregation, as well as my own impressions, I think this sermon was important enough that I will also share my prepared text below. Of course, the actual sermon as preached varied from the text, and each is its own entity. Unlike most of my sermons I believe there is value in sharing this text alongside the audio of the preached sermon. 

I'd also like to link to an important source for my reflections, as I quoted two of the essays at this link in the sermon. Preaching Reflections of Freddie Gray and Baltimore

Listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall." 

LINK to podcast audio

Prepared text:

I said last week that in this season of Easter, we always begin with the good news: Jesus died and rose again for us, to forgive our sin and set us free to love God and love one another. And that’s true, and it is in the light of this gospel that I remind you of this next fact: We don’t get to talk about Jesus without talking about violence.

See, I have friends in Baltimore, and I keep up with the news, and today the good news of God’s love for us in Jesus compels me to speak, of violence in Baltimore. To speak the name of Freddie Gray, who suffered fatal injuries in a police van and later died.

So, specifically: we don’t get to talk about Jesus without talking about state-sponsored violence. Jesus was arrested, and beaten, and tortured, and executed, all under the guise of the law. The local authorities worked with the Romans, the foreign occupational force, to have Jesus killed. This happened in Jerusalem, during Passover, when the streets were flooded with thousands of faithful Jews – including Jesus and his followers – and also the streets were lined with Roman soldiers whose swords and shields were an ever-present threat to keep the peace. Like heavily-armed riot police surrounding high school kids at the mall, which is what happened on Monday, when riots and violence broke out in Baltimore.

Now I have a lot of respect for police officers: they have a very difficult job, and work very hard. In fact, I had a very pleasant, professional encounter with a police officer just last night: (picked up Sarah’s car from the tire place at midnight, didn’t notice the automatic lights had been turned off, and a sheriff’s deputy stopped me and told me to turn my lights on. It was great. I genuinely enjoy encountering police officers doing their jobs well. It gives me real, honest civic pride.

This week the police in Baltimore have sought to keep the peace, and in many cases have done an admirable job. And yet, as my old friend Prof. Ingrid Lilly pointed out this week, the prophet Ezekiel had something to say about peace. This first lesson was not in the lectionary, in fact never comes up in the lectionary, so listen again. “Thus says the Lord God, Alas for the senseless prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. You have not gone up into the breaches, or repaired a wall for the house of Israel.” When the city is breached, when walls are falling down, you go and fix those walls. That’s the responsible thing to do. When society is breaking apart, when violence and chaos threaten school children and CVS stores and prisoners in police vans, it’s time to show up and work for the restoration of society.

Ezekiel goes on “because they have misled my people, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it.” Misleading God’s people is not acceptable, Ezekiel says. If so-called “peace” is really just a public way to hide the violence in the shadows, then that “peace” is a lie. Whitewashing the walls – pretending everything is fine, is a lie, condemned by the prophet. Whitewashing the long history of race-based violence against African-Americans in Baltimore and the rest of America is a lie, condemned by the truth that God’s love is not just for the powerful but for the powerless, the outcast, the prisoner.

I don’t know if you saw or heard about last year’s Baltimore Sun expose highlighting decades of systemic brutality and abuse of power by the police in Baltimore. It’s a powerful, heartbreaking story. From pregnant women to children to an 87-year-old woman to a family dog, police have hurt people again and again with few or no consequences. Do not cry out for peace if that peace is a lie covering up decades of systemic abuse of a historically vulnerable minority group.

Again, we need to talk about this because this is how Jesus died. Because Jesus died in a society every bit as messed up and complicated and violent as ours. Jesus died because the people in charge ruled by fear, and so fear came to rule the people in charge. They were so afraid of a man who cast out demons and healed the sick and fed the hungry and dined with sinners. They were so afraid of a man who broke the law, by talking with foreigners forgetting to wash his hands and working on the Sabbath. They were afraid of the man who actually started an actual riot when he threw the money-changers from the temple and turned over their tables and drove out their animals with a whip. Honestly, it’s no wonder that Jesus got arrested, and what’s important is what happened after he was arrested.

And. And if fear was the sin that led to Jesus’ death, and if fear is what plagues us today, then let us turn to First John, my favorite letter short of Romans: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” Famous preacher William Sloane Coffin said, “The opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is fear.”

To clarify: fear is sin, but not in the usual way. It’s not “I’m sinning by being fearful.” It’s “My fear drives me to do sinful, selfish things.” Or, often fear marks the fact that we are being sinned against, that we are living under a condition of sin. For example: Racism is a state of sin that we all live in: racism makes white people live in fear of young black men, or anyone else who looks different, and racism makes people of color fear that the police exist not to serve and protect them, but to serve white people and protect white people FROM people of color. Fear shows us where sin exists, even if the fear itself is a rational human response.

And into this mess, into this messy world of fear and sin and death, through First John the word of God breaks like the dawn: God is love. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;” “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” “The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” When we ignore decades of systemic violence, and then wonder why a riot breaks out, then we have failed to love our brothers and sisters.

And we do fail, and God forgives us and gives us another chance. “We love because he first loved us.” Remember we began with the good news: yes, Jesus died on the cross of state-sponsored violence, AND Jesus rose again to destroy the power of death, because God’s love for ALL of God’s children is stronger than any death, any fear, any racism, any sin.

Prof. John Nunes writes: “even believers can forget quickly the ultimate death we’ve already died, with Jesus, from which we’re raised as martyrs, confident, risking freely every other death in pursuit of both peace and justice.” Because of the gospel and for the sake of the gospel we live as if peace and justice really are God’s intention for our world. So listen to the voices speaking truth about the violence on the streets of Baltimore. Listen well, and then speak honestly about Jesus’ violent death and about Jesus’ glorious resurrection and about the power of God who is love “to loose the bonds of injustice… to let the oppressed go free.” “Beloved, let us love one another.” Truly love one another. Amen.