Kin-dom Economy
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC February 20, 2022, the seventh Sunday after Epiphany. “Shine On!” series.
Text: Luke 6:27-38
Even after all this time,the sun never says to the earth,“You owe me.”Look what happenswith a love like that:it lights the whole sky.”
This poem attributed to the Sufi poet Hafiz is a beautiful illustration of what Jesus says in our Gospel for today. Again and again, Jesus names things that, according to the world, would expect or require a certain “payback.” In the world, if someone hurts you, hurt them back. If someone speaks ill of you, you give your version of a smear campaign right back. If your property is taken, take it back. The worldly relational economy is tit for tat, an eye for an eye, an economy of gifts only on loan, always with fine print, an economy of debts to be paid and always with interest.
But, as Pastor Kelly pointed out last week, in Jesus’ sermon “on the plain” what Jesus says is directly counter to worldly expectations. Not only does he teach not to seek “pay back” for harm. He says love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Like the sun who never says to the earth, “you owe me…” This is a whole different economy. This is a Kin-dom economy.
These provocative teachings of Jesus can easily get twisted. And “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” have been used to encourage persons in abusive relationships to stay and continue to take the blows. That is not the point and it must always be spoken aloud when these verses are shared in public. Jesus isn’t saying that to be a good Christian you have to be a doormat for abusers or remain in a life-threatening relationship. Jesus is teaching an ethic of love based on the love of God for us. This ethic of love calls upon each of us to claim their own sacred worth, voice, dignity, and agency such that we know we deserve to be treated with gentleness and care; AND, when we’ve been hurt, to not “go low” by retaliating in kind. But to “go high,” maintain dignity, and choose not to return evil for evil, hate for hate, or violence for violence.
It’s also easy to twist these teachings of Jesus such that we focus on the “reward” that’s promised. Upon quick review, it may sound like Jesus is saying that if you don’t judge other people, they won’t judge you; or if you don’t condemn others, they won’t condemn you; or if you give, without expecting anything in return, you’ll get it all back because you’ve been so good. But let’s be serious. You can hold your tongue, work hard to be gracious toward others, give generously of yourself and your resources to other people and they can turn around and betray, hurt, and judge you. Sometimes others might do unto you as you’ve done unto them. But so often in the world, it’s harm that gets reciprocated. Mercy, generosity, and kindness, aren’t as regularly given back. So what do we do with that?
Notice in verses 35 and 36 that the reward isn’t coming from other people. The reward comes from the grace of God present and active in you. The reward for following the teaching of Jesus is that you aren’t living beneath your dignity. Or, said positively, the reward is that by allowing the love, generosity, and mercy of God to be manifest in your life, you are reflecting God, you are being merciful as your Mother/Father is merciful, you are living as the child of the Most High that you are.
This is among the powerful insights Howard Thurman illuminates in his book, Jesus and the Disinherited. Thurman is painfully aware of the ways that Christian teachings about heaven, forgiveness, love and the like can sound like a call for Black Americans and others with their backs against the wall to stay there, to forgive their oppressors 70-times-7, and wait for liberation in the great by and by. But Thurman is insistent that Jesus’ teaching is “a technique of survival for the oppressed” and calls for “a radical change in th
