Readings for 7th Sunday after Epiphany, February 24, 2019

• Genesis 45:3-11, 15  
• Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40  
• 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50  
• Luke 6:27-38

Difficult People, Pastor Fred

DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE.  That was the title of a flyer, for a continuing education.  
 
“This workshop,” it read, “is designed to provide strategies for co-existing with impossible people.  Nine specific kinds of difficult people will be defined, but the emphasis will be on ‘coping methods,’ for ‘dealing’ with each.  And they listed the 9 types: Super-agreeable’s, Indecisive Stallers, Negativists, Complainers, Know-it-alls, Silent unresponsive clams, Sherman tanks, Snipers, and Manipulators.  If any of these types are causing you problems, come to DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE!”  
 
We smile/laugh, because we know, all these people.  We probably even ARE some of them!  But what I really wish, is that we could find out what Luke says about these difficult people, from the point of view of Jesus’ words today, about loving our enemies, and then, what that has to do with telling the good news in our communities.
 
How do we deal with the difficult people in our lives?  When Luke was reporting Jesus words in his Sermon on the Plain, he was talking about a really specific problem between Christians, and non-Christians.  About Christians, a new group, outliers, trying to live in a whole new system called, the Realm of God here on earth.  And the non-Christians, who lived in the, ‘eye for an eye;’ ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,’ kind of a system.  Christians – a minority group at the time, not even a legal religion yet – were being abused, because their stance challenged non-Christians.
 
Our difficult people today, crop up in lots of different places.  In our own families.  Among our co-workers, or schoolmates.  In our faith community.  And with people we have authority over, or people who boss us.  How do we deal with these difficult people – the Sherman tanks and the snipers, the manipulators and the silent unresponsive clams – the ones who are in a position to hurt us and make our lives miserable?  Jesus doesn't have any fancy names for them, but pinpoints them as the ones who, hate us.  The ones who, curse us out.  The ones who, abuse us, physically and verbally.  The ones who steal from us, put the pressure on us by begging, or cheating, and connive us out of things we don't want to give.  The ungrateful, the wicked.  The ones who judge and condemn us.       
 
I’m interested to know, what the workshop leader’s advice is on ‘co-existing’ with, ‘dealing’ with, and ‘coping’ with, these people.  It would be interesting to see if there really is a way to win?!  To get your way with them?  To get them to stop bugging you?!  To cope with your feelings of dislike, and fear, and hatred, that they bring out in you, every time you have to face them.  Because what Jesus suggests is fairly radical.  And actually – I don't think that what Jesus suggests, will help us win, or get ahead, or even really, deal with these people.  What Jesus suggests, is that we don't even get involved with the game, as it is defined.  Jesus says to those of us who have come to listen: don't retaliate.  Don't participate!
 
Because we are made, children of God, and given the unique gifts of our own precious selves, loved by God – Jesus doesn't say, continue to let others sin against your spirit, and your body, in the things that matter.  Just because we don't retaliate, don't return evil for evil, doesn't mean to say we ought to hang around and get beaten up.  Sometimes, not retaliating, not participating, means, not staying around.  Walking away!
 
Sometimes it means turning the other cheek.  Can you imagine the audacity of doing that?  Beyond our general human resistance to situations of pain and discomfort – Can you imagine the effect of the surprise, of seeing the person you have just hurt, not angrily strike-back, or walk away crying, but instead silently offering that other cheek, or the shirt off their back?
 
But the important point is this, I think, no matter how it is accomplished – We can stop the never-ending cycle of oppression, hurt, greed, violence, only by refusing to participate in it.
 
Retaliation, winning, repaying evil for evil, doesn't stop the hurt.  Neither does allowing yourself to betray the preciousness, of the gift God has given you, of your own self, stop the hurt.
 
By refusing to participate in escalating the cycle of hate, thru getting-back, or setting things up to get your way – playing the, you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours – then the game is over, because you aren't playing it.
 
Jesus offers another way, a way of life that will stop the hurt – in which treating others with mutuality, realizing that we are all dependent on one another as children of God, working together as partners, being merciful, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you – will stop the hurt.
 
In this system – the Christ-like way – we treat others with the kind of love and respect that we have learned from God, in Jesus, who first loved us.  We don't help out, only when we have something to gain from it, because that isn't really help, as Jesus sees it.  In the Christian system, where it always seems like “nice guys finish last,” Jesus reminds us that it will be God that takes the measure, of the worth of our lives.  People may try to take our human dignity away from us, but since it is God who gives us, the preciousness of our own unique selves, that is something they cannot take away.  When we do unto others, we may not get back from them what we deserve, we may not get back the lovingkindness we have given.  But God will give us the measure we get back – and we know how abundant God has been, with the grace given to us, in Jesus!
 
In the Christian system, the radical way of dealing with impossible people that Jesus shares with us today, we can take risks in our relationships – go out on that shaky limb, that ‘loving your enemies’ takes you out on.  Because God will take care of others and give them their due, and because God will also care for us, we can take the risk to love even those who hate and hurt us.
 
There are a couple of reasons why this is a good way to live.  Luke, being a healer, a Physician, would be especially concerned that we know that, loving is more healthy than hating, and spending all your time thinking of ways to get back.  Kim always reminds me of the parishioner in the nursing home we had in Michigan, whose husband had left her with four young children during the Depression, and 60 years later, she spent her days in her room thinking about the cruelest things she could say to him if he would just walk in that door!  There is nothing more sickening –literally- than hating someone.  There's also a healthy freedom in realizing that our worth is not measured by the opinions of our detractors, but only by the gracious gift of love and forgiveness promised us, in Christ Jesus.  Knowing that it's all a gift of God, we can take the risk to let go of our rage, and anger, and need to strike back.
 
Have you ever prayed for those who have hurt you? You just can't feel the same sense of hatred for them again.  It changes your relationship already, just to put them in God's hands, to let God measure and ‘deal’ with the possible change.
 
I try to imagine what it would look like if we could live the life that Jesus portrays for us in this gospel today.  What would our communities and neighborhoods look like, if we tried to, love them?  Pray for them?  Do good to them?  What if we refused to play the game, and walked away and refused to participate?  What if we said, “No, I am a beloved child of God, and you will not hurt me that way.”  What if we silently turned the other cheek to our tormentors and confronted them with the pain, their abuse of us, is causing?  What if we left the judging and measuring, up to God, and started giving, with no thought to what we might get out of it, other than the pleasure of sharing our gifts?
 
I think people would start to notice!  I think things would change!  I think the good news of relationships built on mutuality, instead of someone being on top; of abundant gifts given by God and not earned by our own smarts; the good news of being called children of the most high, would start spreading like wildfire!  I think other people would ask us how we can be so strong, how we can let things go, and leave hurt and hatred behind.
 
We can be part of bringing-in that new system, that new way of being, that we call the realm and kingdom of God.  It can be difficult to leave behind, our thoughts of striking-back.  It's hard to expect, nothing in return.
 
But there are good reasons to try.  Our own health and wholeness.  And the example we set for others.  But the best reason of all is this:
that Jesus, in his love for us in coming to earth, dying, and rising again,
asks us, to be this way in the world. 

Readings for Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Feb 10, 2019

• Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13)  
• Psalm 138  
• 1 Corinthians 15:1-11  
• Luke 5:1-11

"New Deal," Pastor Fred
Then Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”  As if ‘fishing for people’ sounds any easier! 
 
The miracle of the large catch of fish that nearly sank their boats, was one thing.  But for Peter, and the readers of Luke’s gospel, not to mention all of us – transitioning that surprising catch, into fishing for people, is at least as daunting a task, if you think about it.
 
Another miracle happened this week, which is also a sign of a call, and a mission.  The miracle I’m thinking of, is the first legislation to seriously tackle climate change in the USA.  A bill called the, Green New Deal, was introduced simultaneously into the US House and Senate on Thursday. 
 
One of the provision’s, calls for transforming America to 100% renewable energy, away from fossil fuels, in 10 years, as a response to the latest UN report, that that’s all the time we have to make serious change.  So, I don’t know about you, but when I heard the Green New Deal announced, that send a chill up my spine!  In one form or another, I’ve been waiting for politicians to get their act together like this.  And not just since scientists have been warning us about global warming, not just since Al Gore’s, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ but ever since the late 1970’s actually, when President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation from the Oval Office about the Oil Crisis then, urging Americans to conserve energy, because basically, America’s insatiable appetite for oil had to be curbed, and because, dependency on Middle Eastern oil was a national security issue. 
 
As our family watched on TV we realized we had to do something.  And like millions of Americans, we learned to turn down our thermostats, turn off the lights we weren’t using, at home, at work, and at church, and to drive less. 
 
Unfortunately, Exon-Mobil, Shell, and all the rest, were not on board.  Even though we now know they understood global warming quite well, way back then, they chose to actively work against that fact.  Like the Tobacco Industry, they denied the truth to protect their bottom line.  The result – climate change – has pushed us – humans, who depend on earth’s eco-systems – to the brink of climate disaster.
 
I naively thought that maybe Big Oil was just trying to hang on as long as possible before leading the conversion to renewables.  But no, they seem to want to extract every last drop of oil first, which we now know, will be way too late. 
 
Now, it’s life and death.  1.5 to 2 degrees warming will be disastrous.  We can feel it already at almost 1 degree warming.  Seasons are shifting.  The extinction rate of microbes, plants, and animals is increasing exponentially.  Weather at the poles has already changed, more drastically.  Alaskan natives have lost their way of life for fishing and hunting, as avalanches of melting ice, frozen for eons, wash away, and seas rise, extinguishing islands, even threatening Florida and the eastern seaboard.  Hurricanes, tornadoes, rain storms, wildfires, and the polar vortex, are not caused by global warming, but have become more extreme, causing property damage insurance companies have a hard time keeping up with, and families and businesses are being left behind.  The poor, that Jesus calls us to liberate, are even more adversely affected.
 
Now, we have roughly a decade, to turn around, and make significant change.  If we don’t, what is happening already, will be small potatoes compared to what is coming.  As a people of faith, who believe God created this world for us, and entrusted it to our care, this change in its Stewardship, is a religious imperative, a call to arms. 
 
I’ve been waiting for decades for someone to take it seriously, and I know you have too.  The Green New Deal legislation is named after the New Deal of the 1930’s.  A time when the country pulled together to save a nation drowning in the Great Depression.  It also reminds me, when President Kennedy announced in 1961, before a special joint session of Congress, the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade.  There were nay-sayers in both eras, and even those, who like Big Oil, actively worked against The New Deal and Mission to the moon. 
 
But The Green New Deal, if it has the backing of the majority of Americans who say they want to see change, could work – like those challenges of the 30’s and the 60’s did.
 
Last week, in Luke chapter 4, we heard Jesus deliver his New Deal, his vision for change, for God’s world.  He announced his game-changer in his hometown of Nazareth, a small backwater.  And used a passage he picked himself from the scroll of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 
 
This week, Jesus has moved on to the Sea of Galilee, to call the first of his 12 disciples, the Apostles, to be the first leaders to implement his New Deal.  Jesus does, what he always will do, as he goes from town to town – though not always from a boat!  He preaches Good News to the poor, releases those captive by a greedy and deceitful world, and he does it with the power of God. 
 
On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, there are so many crowding around him to hear his message, that he asks Peter if he could step into his fishing boat to get a better perspective, and, to sit down to teach. 
 
In order to demonstrate what he meant, he told Peter to cast his nets out on the deep side of the boat for a catch.  Now, Peter is a seasoned fisherman.  He had just come in from a long night’s work in which they had a bad day, catching nada, nothing, as he tells Jesus.  Throwing the nets in again seemed futile to Peter, and a whole lot of extra work.  Sometimes you just have to be realistic – and Peter was anxious to clean and repair the nets for work tomorrow, and head home for some well needed rest.  But sitting in the boat with him, Simon can’t refuse.  Calling Jesus Master, Peter consents to do as he asks, if he really wants him to. 
 
“When they had done this,” Luke says, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. And they signaled their partners in the other boat, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, to come and help them.  And they filled both boats, so that they began to sink!”
 
And Luke tells us, Peter’s response was to fall down at Jesus’ knees, asking for forgiveness, for doubting, in the great catch of fish.  Peter just didn’t believe it could happen.  Was that standing in the way?  As always, Peter brings out our own human reactions, those ways that we too, find it hard to believe, having been disappointed so many times. 
Jesus tells Peter, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”  Forgiveness is readily at hand.  But Peter may not comprehend in the moment, just what he’s got himself into!  Fishing for people may not be any easier!  In fact, I’m pretty sure, we too at Unity, are starting to comprehend, how it’s a much more involved task! 
 
Jesus’ followers – wherever he goes – will continue to, be amazed, and also, doubt him – sometimes even stand in his way.  And, as we know, when action is most needed, when his New Deal, the Good News of the kingdom of God, is most on the line, Peter and all the rest will deny and desert him, as he gives his life on the cross to change the world. 
 
So, we know how human it is to run from the change God calls us to.  No doubt, the Green New Deal is going to be a heavy lift.  Since it was announced, we have already seen smart and trusted, wise and likeable leaders, express great reservations in the Green New Deal.  But it’s been like that, since forever! 
 
Jesus calls us from our everyday lives, of ‘business as usual,’ and our reasoned good intentions, to leave our boats on the shore, and follow a bold new vision.  Entering the kingdom of God is the only thing that can save us and keep us from drowning.  It’s not that hard, when we acknowledge our brokenness, and step into in the new reality of the Messiah, who shows us the fresh new waters of life.