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Sermon - March 4th, 2007
Reverse Divine Psychology
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Luke 13:31-35, Romans 12:9-21
It was a mess in Rome that inspired Paul to write what he did and it was a mess in Jerusalem that inspired Jesus to lament. Sometimes I believe that we humans thrive on conflict! We say we believe in the power of goodness, at least until someone crosses us.
In the twelfth chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Paul is preaching his version of the sermon on the mount. In twelve short verses, he gives thirty instructions. All of them meant to put some flesh on the bones of Christ’s one commandment of love. Because the Church in Rome was splitting apart in at least two different ways. Inside the church was the conflict between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. Outside the church was the conflict between the Christians and the pagans. They said they believed that God was love; but it was retaliation that they fell back on time and time again. We know how it is.
This is wrong, we tell ourselves. I am in a lot of pain. I didn’t deserve this. Someone should pay for this. If I don’t stop him, who will? Isn’t God a God of justice? Don’t I have the right to make them pay for what they did?
That is how it usually works. Then the lawsuit is filed, the insult is returned, the line is drawn, the cold war begins, and so does the stony silence and clenched teeth. It is as if something deep inside us believes that we will be annihilated if we do not fight back. And what we have is a vicious cycle of violence. Until someone comes along to show us a different way.
Barbara Brown Taylor tells this story about her nephew Will’s first birthday party. He was a chubby and bald little boy, typical only child, used to being the center of attention, not spoiled because he didn’t know yet how to manipulate love for his own ends. He just thought that everyone was loved the way he was, and he gave his love away as fast as he got it.
At the birthday party were Will’s parents, aunts, grandparents, godparents, and the godparent’s seven year old son, Jason. Near the end of the celebration, Will began this twirling dance as every one circled around him and watched. Then, suddenly Jason burst through the circle, put both of his hands of Will’s chest, and shoved. Will fell hard to the floor. He looked utterly surprised because no one had ever hurt him before, and he didn’t know what to do. Then he opened his mouth and cried loudly until his mother hugged him and helped him to his feet. The first thing that Will did after that was to totter over to Jason. He knew Jason was at the bottom of this thing even though he didn’t know exactly what the thing was. So he did what he had always done. He put his arms around Jason and lay his head against that mean little boy’s body.
Now, Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest, teacher and writer. She said, “At that moment all my Christian conviction went right out the door. I will buy a BB gun for his next birthday!” That’s what she was thinking. “Iron knuckles. A karate video for toddlers.” It was very painful for her to think how her sweet nephew would have to learn to defend himself or eat dust on the playground with some bully’s foot on the back of his head.
Only according to Paul and Jesus, what Will did was right and what Barbara Brown Taylor was thinking was wrong. “Do no repay anyone evil for evil,” Paul wrote, “but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” What Will did that day was put an end to the meanness in that room. What Barbara Brown Taylor felt like doing would only have multiplied it.
Now, I know that Paul’s advice and the witness of Jesus are ideas that are idealistic, impractical, and dangerous to one’s health, but here it is: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
All I know is that Paul and Jesus and many others before and after them had incredible faith in the power of love, faith that most of us either do not share or are not eager to test. They seem to understand that the real enemy is not whoever pushes us down in the middle of our dance but whatever it is inside of us that wants to leap up and push back. Evil is never satisfied with controlling one side of a situation. Its goal is to infect everyone involved—the victim along with the bully, the plaintiff along with the defendant, the offended along with the offender. When everyone has his or her fists in the air and there is a loaded gun in every household, then the enemy will have won, because the whole point is to recruit the good guys by making them believe they are stopping the bad guys.
Jesus laments because this is what he is facing in Jerusalem. “Oh how I have wanted to gather Jerusalem’s children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” Jesus cried as he walked toward the city. Paul says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Because the moment you curse them, you join them, and however good it may feel at the moment, it is still a surrender. The only way to conquer evil is to absorb it, Paul says. Take it into yourself, as Jesus did and disarm it. Neutralize its acid. Serve as a charcoal filter for its smog. Suck it up, put a straitjacket on it, and turn it over to God, so that when you breathe out again the air is pure.
It is an incredible, bold and daring challenge! Paul knew that very few of us would accept it unless there was something in it for us. So Paul added a little bonus near the end. “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Great, Paul! Nice! Convince us to care for our enemies by telling us how much it will hurt them if we do! To tell the truth, I don’t understand that crazy sentence. Martin Luther thought it meant that those who are converted by love “burn against themselves,” once they have discovered what they have been missing. What I know is that the first half of the sentence renders the second half harmless. People who come upon their enemies in a weakened state and who resist the temptation to take advantage of them—who help them instead, giving those who have hurt them food and drink—those people are already out of danger. By the time they have packed up the picnic basket and filled the thermos with pink lemonade, they will have forgotten about the burning coal part. Abraham Lincoln said, “Do I not conquer my enemy by making him my friend.”
Now, there is nothing sentimental or the least bit easy about any of this. There is not even a guarantee that it will work, but one thing is for sure: When we repay evil with evil, evil is all there is, in bigger and more toxic piles. The only way to reverse the process is to behave in totally unexpected ways—blessing the persecutor, feeding the enemy, embracing the bully—breaking the vicious cycle by refusing to participate in it any more.
That is what love is, Paul said. It is not a warm, fuzzy feeling between like-minded friends but the plain old imitation of Jesus the Christ, who took all the meanness of the world and ran it through the filter of his own body; repaying evil with good, blame with pardon, death with life. I call that divine reverse psychology. It worked once and it can work again, whenever God can find someone willing to give it a try. Amen.