May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight
O Lord our strength and our redeemer.
Amen.
For the past few weeks, our son John has been working on his second grade living museum
project and a lot of you were involved in that as well.
He was assigned Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League Baseball
in the modern era.
Though Robinson is certainly celebrated today, he was not well received when he entered the
league, not even by his own teammates and fans.
The Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch, Ricky, recruited Robinson in the late 1940s.
Ricky was looking for the right person to break the color barrier, someone who could
withstand racist insults and physical aggression.
Before signing Robinson, Ricky wanted to test his resolve.
When Robinson claimed that he had the strength to fight back, Ricky replied, I need you to
have the strength not to fight back.
This echoes what Jesus says today, turn the other cheek.
Likewise, nonviolence was key to the civil rights movement in this country.
What if Robinson had fought back?
What if John Lewis had encouraged the Selma foot soldiers to retaliate on Bloody Sunday?
Robinson would have probably been expelled from Major League Baseball and the voting
rights movement would have suffered a setback.
It's sort of like in sports, the second guy to fight back gets the flag.
When we resist fighting back in the face of evil, the truth is exposed, and how did I
write that?
And this truth is exposed, which can generate sympathy and compassion to help the movement
forward.
On Calvary, even the centurion saw the injustice, the Roman centurion saw the injustice of Christ's
death.
At the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, America witnessed the brutality against
African Americans, and when racial insults and physical violence was perpetrated against
Robinson, the world or the baseball community saw the error of their ways.
In all three cases, the truth was revealed, and sympathy and compassion generated a path
toward justice and peace.
Fighting back would have delayed the integration of baseball and the voting rights movement.
God would have eventually ensured their success, but the struggle, the struggle for justice
would have lasted longer.
The Bible repeatedly shows us God's faithfulness despite our human failure, and in the end,
God's way will prevail with or without us.
Those opposing Robinson wanted him to fight back so that they could justify kicking him
out of the league.
Before we point the finger, we should also acknowledge how we sometimes look for our
enemy to make a mistake and ignore their good qualities in order to justify our hatred of
them.
Today's Old Testament lesson invites us to consider what would have happened if Joseph
had refused to forgive his brothers.
God was building a people to reflect his light and his love in a dark and world full of hatred,
but a famine threatens Jacob's family and the future tribes of Israel.
If they perish, God's work would be set back once again.
His brothers, who had sold him into slavery, were forced to beg for food in Egypt.
When they unknowingly faced Joseph, they have two choices, or Joseph has two choices, to
seek revenge, to let them die, or to forgive them.
And he chose the latter, he forgave.
As someone once said, forgiveness is what love looks like in an imperfect world, and
God knows we live in an imperfect world.
Through forgiveness, Israel's story is allowed to continue.
Just as African-American story and Major League Baseball are allowed to continue because of
Robinson's forbearance, and likewise the forbearance of those in the Civil Rights Movement.
Now, forgiving, letting go of grudges, turning the other cheek is easier said than done.
Anyone who has been wronged, which is all of us, understands this.
And if you're struggling to forgive or let go, know this, you are not alone.
You are a human being, and it is our nature as humans to seek justice through retaliation.
Jesus' call for justice is executed through love of enemy, doing good to those who hate
us and turning the other cheek.
A biblical commentator compares today's gospel lesson to a child being served a plate of
spinach.
It's good for us, but it doesn't taste very good.
Even if we swallow Jesus' teachings, we may not like them.
The gospel afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted, loving our enemies, blessing
those who curse us, and doing good to those who hate us are not worldly virtues.
The world encourages retaliation to rain down fire upon the enemy, to slander the enemy.
But at best, fighting back only delays evil's return.
At worst, it makes things worse.
We often fuel conflict rather than seek peace.
In contrast, the kingdom of heaven has a different set of virtues, loving our enemy, doing good
to those who hate us, blessing our persecutors, which all seek to break the cycle that perpetuate
hatred and vengeance.
They transform evil into good and create space for renewal.
These virtues are most clearly displayed on the cross when Jesus prays, Father, forgive
them for they do not know what they do.
This may seem unfair, but it really is the only way forward in this imperfect world.
None of us would be here today without forgiveness from parents, siblings, spouses, friends,
children, co-workers, even our enemies, and most of all from God and Christ.
However, forgiveness does not always mean restored relationships, at least not in this
life.
It simply means a release from the power that sin holds over us.
Sometimes forgiveness leads to reconciliation.
Other times it brings freedom from a toxic relationship.
Either way, forgiveness makes a path forward.
Without forgiveness, we remain prisoners of our own grudges, blaming our enemies for our
suffering.
Jesus died on the cross to set us free, not just from our sins, but from the sins of others.
He died so that we might be free to love, free to do good, free to bless even the enemy.
He died so that we might, in Christ, we are neither victims nor villains, but victors
over sin and death.
These forces no longer get to tell us what to do.
Instead, God's call to love and forgive get to tell us what to do.
Practicing forgiveness and loving our enemies is not something that happens overnight.
These are gifts from Christ, what St. Paul might call gifts of the Spirit or fruits of
the Spirit.
They grow in us as we follow Jesus and worship God Almighty.
Jesus' Sermon on the Plain, which we're reading from right now, addresses the question, how
do I know if I'm really following Jesus, if I'm doing this right?
Well, the answer is if our lives bear the fruit of the Spirit, if our lives seek to
love our enemy, to do good for those who hate us, if we have the strength not to fight back,
if we can turn the other cheek.
Now all these things might sound passive, but this doesn't mean that we are allowing
injustice to go unchecked.
Would you call Jesus' call for forgiveness on the cross passive?
No, it changes the world.
Turning the other cheek is an act of strength and reveals the truth.
It is a response from someone who knows that hatred will not win, that hatred is temporary,
but love endures.
It is a response from someone who trusts in Christ's victory over sin and death.
Jesus is not addressing victims in today's lesson, but his disciples who've just been
told in the Beatitudes that they possess the riches of God's grace.
They are the privileged ones.
Jesus is giving them and us a new perspective, showing that love and forgiveness are the
way forward.
This path is forged through Christ's death and resurrection, a way that we as humans
would not naturally choose.
We would try to go above or around or under our problems, only to find ourselves right
back where we started.
In Christ, we are not victims of a hateful world, yet we are victors in a world that
does not yet know that it is loved.
And this should inspire us, as Thomas Merton said, to love without questioning whether
someone is worthy of that love.
It should inspire us to love without expecting anything in return, to love for the sake of
Christ, the one who died because of and for his enemies.
He loves us even while we are still sinners, while we are still his enemies.
As victors in Christ, we see that our enemies act from a place of fear and not strength.
And in Christ, we embrace a truth that the only way forward is found in the strength
not to fight back.
And it is in the wake of this strength that Christ's forgiveness and in compassion have
the power to transform a world of hate into a world of love.
Amen.