When Emily was a teenager, I remember having to watch one movie over and over and over again. It was called “10 Things I Hate About You,” and oddly enough it was a love story. After the 1000th showing in my living room, I had way more than 10 things I hated about that movie. In reality, the young lady didn’t hate any of the things that she said she hated, and it should have been named, “10 Things I Love About You.” She really didn’t hate the guy at all. Surprise, right?
What do you hate? Nothing? Good. I really don’t hate much of anything either, but I thought I would make a list of things I hate anyway, and I am not sure if there are 10 of these or not. So here they are: I hate paper cuts. I hate orange barrels along busy interstates. I hate Windows Vista. I hate weekends where it rains all weekend. I hate it when the good die young. I hate long lines at Walmart. And while we are at it, I hate the parking lot at Walmart. I hate Kentucky Basketball. But to think about it, this last season I wasn’t too crazy about Razorback Basketball either. I hate LSU. Everything about it. I hate voice mail and those automated answering systems where you have to punch numbers and are not allowed to speak to a real person. I hate my addiction to my cell phone. I hate giving myself a Humira injection in my stomach every other week. I hate going to the revenue office to renew my driver’s license. I hate haggling with car salesman. I hate reality TV. I hate rip-offs. I hate vandalism. I hate telemarketing. I hate Fox News. I hate the fact that I can watch the Weather Channel for hours and be happy about it. I hate my backyard. I hate talking about important things over the telephone. Well, that is about it. And most of those things I really don’t hate, I am simply frustrated with and want to avoid them or not deal with them. Hate is a very strong word, and a very hard word. I guess you could say I hate Hate.
It is obvious to us all that we live in a world where it is all too easy to hate, and unbelievably much of it is doled out in God’s name. I personally think it blasphemy to hate in the name of the God of Love. That is why I was stunned at the news story this past week from Associated Baptist Press by Bob Allen that read thusly:
Hate-crimes legislation passed April 29 in the U.S. House of Representatives drew mixed reviews in the religious community. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, H.R. 1913, which passed the Democratic-controlled House by a vote of 249 to 175, would provide federal assistance to prosecute hate crimes. It also would add sexual orientation and gender identity to current classes protected against hate crimes, including race, religion and national origin. Many religious conservatives oppose the measure, saying it could be used to stifle free speech. Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, called it “an irresponsible piece of legislation” that “puts Christians and many other religious groups in the government’s crosshairs.” “While we should never condone acts of violence against anyone, for whatever reason, including whether or not that person is a homosexual, this bill proposes to prosecute someone based on their belief about homosexuality and therefore makes religious belief a germane issue in this debate,” Duke said in Baptist Press. “Anyone who holds a religiously based belief about homosexuality is immediately suspect of engaging in a hate crime if a homosexual is involved, even if the person was unaware that the victim was a homosexual.” Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, called it “anti-Christian” legislation that could allow a pastor’s sermon against homosexuality to be prosecuted as hate speech. The American Family Association said that since the bill doesn’t define sexual orientation, it could be interpreted to protect 30 practices including incest and pedophilia. Progressive evangelicals including Jim Wallis of Sojourners, mega-church pastor Joel Hunter and Derrick Harkins, pastor of Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, meanwhile, called the measure both moral and necessary. David Gushee, distinguished university professor at Mercer University and a columnist for Associated Baptist Press, said he supports the bill “because its aim is to protect the dignity and basic human rights of all Americans, and especially those Americans whose perceived ‘differentness’ makes them vulnerable to physical attacks motivated by bias, hatred and fear.” Gushee said he believes the bill “poses no threat whatsoever to any free speech right for religious communities or their leaders” and its passage would “make for a safer and more secure environment in which we and all of our fellow Americans can live our lives.” “For me, the case for this bill is settled with these words from Jesus,” Gushee said. “As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” Sens. Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy introduced a companion measure in the Senate April 28, titled the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, after a young gay man fatally beaten in 1998. If the bill passes both houses of Congress, President Obama is expected to sign it. The House and Senate both passed similar legislation in 2007, but under threat of veto by President Bush failed to agree on a final version. (ABP, April 30, 2009, Bob Allen)
I find these religious objections appalling and believe them to be immoral, considering that the FBI reported 7,722 hate crimes in 2006, involving 9,080 offenses reported by more than 2105 law enforcement entities. The FBI report analysis details that 51.8% of these were racially motivated, 18.9% were religiously motivated, 15.5% resulted from sexual orientation bias, 12.7% from ethnicity biases, and 1% were from disability bias for heaven’s sake. There were 1597 crimes based on religious bias, anti-Semitism lives in this country, and 1415 hate crimes against homosexuals, and many of the crimes in all categories were religiously motivated. It boggles my mind that this is so, it is hard to believe. Even harder to believe that the religious are complacent or speechless in light of such crimes of hatred, and it is unconscionable that any group would oppose legislation that would punish those who hate in any way shape or form. And if your sermon could be construed as a hate crime, you need to rethink what God is telling you to preach about and you should really read our text today from 1John.
It sure seems to me that many Christians are motivated by hatred. God Hates Fags, God Hates Goths, God Hates America, God hates divorce, and God hates sinners are just a few of the things that pop up on the net when we search “God Hates.”
Our Lectionary text today counters the evil of hate with the earmarks of the Christian, which is love, period. 1 John has a lot to say about love in our Lectionary verses today. He describes the love that the Christian has, and it is none less than the love that God has for us, blending the concepts of phileo (our love for our brothers and sister) and agape (the love of God) if you will. I have oft believed that all kinds of love had more things in common than not, and whatever nuances of meaning differentiates the kinds of love are not as powerful as those things that make love “love” whatever form it is in. Those three Greek words for love, eros, phileo, and agape are more similar than different, and are even interchangeable at times. Apples are different from oranges, but there is no denying that they both are inextricably bound together in the fruit family.
John’s message is plain, it’s simple, it’s not complicated theology, it’s not rocket science, but it is straight forward: Love one another. And he describes this love in a couple of ways just in case we are clueless, or unless we confuse what he means here. He says love is to be sacrificial, in v. 16, that it is what Jesus did for us in laying down his life for us. He expects us to be willing to do the same. He further says that it is sacrificial by giving to those who have a need when we see them in need. If we refuse to do so, we are not loving like he commands us to love. Love is more than lip service John would say; in fact he says love is not love until it is shown by its actions, by its deeds.
Now this simplistic view of the commandment of God is best explained away. After all, who wants to take a bullet for a brother, or give sacrificially to those we see in need? That’s why we have social agencies, community and government resources and even church funds so that those folk can be taken care of, and we won’t be bothered or inconvenienced by their need. We of course want to do the right thing, but we want to remove ourselves from the personal investment part quicker than changing the TV channel off one of those starving children in Africa shows that always seem to come on when you’re having dinner sitting on the couch.
You see, the truth is that most of us have very simple needs when it comes to our faith. We need to worship in the way that we enjoy or the way that is meaningful to us, and personal preference is the only thing that really matters when it comes down to worship. I mean if you don’t like a beautiful pipe organ in a sacred space and the best preaching in town (except of course for the ministers reading this sermon by email) then go somewhere else, because that is what we offer in terms of worship. But whatever we offer isn’t intrinsically better than what anyone else offers, it is your personal preference. I too like on occasion to worship in a feel good place where you can put your brain in park and sit back and watch the show. I really do. But If I did it all the time, I would eventually walk out the back door and start to worship only nature, because even the most entertaining church pales in comparison to other entertainment options I might pursue. I mean Joel draws 30,000 a week, but there are high schools in Houston that draw more than that every Friday night for football. And you can get your mad out in football almost as good as at church.
But we have other needs. We also have the need to socialize with like-minded people, to fellowship with people cut from the same cloth value wise. We have the need to have our consciences cleared by doing a good deed or two, by faithful service to our church as an institution, and by an occasional whipping by the sermon, to get our toes good and stepped on, because we all need our guilt assuaged. But other than that, most of us don’t want to leave our comfort zone, we don’t want to walk down unfamiliar streets, we only want to feel good, be encouraged and have a little hope which to deal with the difficulties of life. And that is not too much to ask for, is it?
The only problem with this kind of faith is that John would say that it is dying or already dead. I don’t think John would care how well we sing, how often we assemble, how nice our clothes are, how much money we give, or how many classes we teach or how many committees we serve on. He would say that we are dying or have never translated from death to life if we are missing one key ingredient in our lives and in our churches and that is this: love. And not just love, but love as he defines it for us in this text. Sacrificial love, giving love, the love of God Almighty fleshed out through us in human experience. Because the only way anyone else can experience the true love of God, the love that was supremely demonstrated on the cross some 2000 years later is to experience it through us. That is the only way people can know God’s kind of love, through other people. Wow. What a privilege. What a responsibility. What a rush.
And this kind of love is tough when we understand what it requires. It requires us to love our enemies, to see everyone as our neighbor and our brother and our sister. It has to be backed up with action; it has to be serious to the point of death. It has to be giving not taking. It has to be other centered not self-serving. That is the Christian message in a nutshell. It is this kind of love that revolutionized the world that altered history to be His story. It’s not about the churches that we are building around this town, it’s not about the programs we offer, it’s not about the members we proselytize–it is about love. That is the good news of Jesus Christ, that while we were unlovable, while we were sinners, while we didn’t deserve any favor, God chose to love us anyway for the sake of loving us. And his love made us all rich, and his love spared our lives eternally. In fact, John says in verse 14, it is the only thing that is stronger than death. It is the thing that makes us truthfully alive.
This kind of love is hard my friends, it may be impossible much of the time. But there is nothing more important to us or to our church or to our world. It is a love that heals, it is a love that forgives, it is a love that grows, and it is a love that initiates. It is a love that improves others lives and their situations, it is a love that can alter our most stubborn habits and addictions, and can curb our most persistent sins. It is a love that liberates us from the bondage of fear and guilt and shame and remorse. It is the vehicle that cures our grief’s and fuels our hopes. It is the love that gives us life.
AND, there is nothing more needed or important in our lives and in our churches. But it is sadly all too often missing, and church is reduced to resorting to smoke screens and mirrors to propagate the faith, and resultantly get bent out of shape if they believe that the government will prosecute them for preaching against homosexuals. After all, if you can’t hate in God’s name, where can you hate?
Friends, how can we love when we are arrogant? How can we love when we point the finger at brothers and sisters who are struggling or are weaker than us? How can we love when we are holier than thou? How can we love and be intolerant, inpatient, with others? How can we love and separate ourselves from those who honestly want to worship and serve God? How can we love when we discriminate against women or against those with a different sexual orientation, or those who have made choices that we disagree with or do not understand?
Well, we love them we say, or we like them and we just don’t love their actions we say. I am here to say this morning that we are to model God’s kind of love and that we put conditions on it that He would not own. Because the truth is we all were unacceptable, and he loved us enough to die for us, and that is a pretty powerful love. God’s love is not to be defined by our prejudices and plain old hatreds. Not ever. Get that kind of thinking out of his house.
Because in the end, the key to the Christian life is not just knowledge, secrets, beliefs, doctrine, dogma, or being right– the key is in this text. A text that is not deep philosophy. A text that is not Systematic Theology. A text that is often overlooked. This text is a simple text, but the quintessential one for the Christian. It is a radical text, maybe the most revolutionary thing that has ever been said. We are Christian for one and only one purpose, to love. That means spreading the love of God through our lives and through our actions. That is the only thing that can truly change the world. The world will not be changed through preaching, through worship, through missions, through outreach, through programming, through doctrine or theology, but only through love, period. Love, God’s kind of love is the answer to every societal ill, it is what we are hungry for in our own lives and relationships, and it is the manifesto of a people who serve a living, resurrected God. Do you know what God really hates? God hates hate. And he hates it enough to die on a cross to put an end to it, and that is the Good News of the gospel of the Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God! Amen.