Say What?

Say, What?

Matthew 5:43-48

Lent is a time for spiritual discipline.  Some people give things up for Lent:  chocolate, alcohol, swearing, meat.  Some people take things on for Lent:  going to special services at church; intentionally praying every day; picking a person in need and focussing on being there for them as an act of service.  Somewhat in the tradition of New Year’s resolutions, the potential is there for a lot of disappointed, cranky, sugar-withdrawal driven people to be colliding with one another.  To the degree that these practices remind us that we can make choices about what we do and don’t do and that some of those choices can involve real sacrifice and discomfort, maybe these practices are good things.

This morning, though, I want to suggest looking at spiritual discipline in our lives in “micro” terms.  I want to break a day down not to hours or even minutes or maybe even a whole second.  I want us to come to grips with the fact that our faith is often lived or not lived in the blink of an eye.  Let me see if an example or two will help make my point.

So, I was out walking my dog in Open Lands this week.  (Shocker, huh?)  The birds have started migrating back now.  It’s one of my favorite times in the year.  While I was on vacation, the cardinals arrived.  Since I’ve been back, the hawks have begun working the fields again.  Just in the last few days, the robins have arrived in full force.  And, on Tuesday, I saw my first bluebird of the new year.  

I was just soaking all this in when I rounded a corner and saw an older guy walking a black Lab.  (I know that some of you are thinking, “What, were you looking in a mirror?”  Stop that!)  It’s always an interesting moment to run into people out there.  Most of the time, the other person is one of the regulars.  We know each other.  The dogs know each other. The dogs, not the people, sniff each other.  All will be well.  This time, though, I didn’t know the guy or the dog.

This can get complicated.  I’ve had people I didn’t know yell at me if I had my dog on a leash.  I’ve had other people yell at me for not having my dog on a leash.  I’ve had people who smile and are super pleasant.  I’ve had people who look terrified and refuse to make eye contact of any kind.  You just never know.  

This week, this stranger approached me.  The dogs started sniffing each other.  The man got ready to say something.  Here’s what he said, “So, have you climbed Mt. Fuji?” “Say, What?”  I was prepared for, “Nice day!”  I wouldn’t have been too caught off guard by, “Aren’t black Labs the best?”  I would have been ready for the leash/no leash debate.  However, I was totally unprepared for, “Have you climbed Mt. Fuji?”

This is the first challenge of life’s little micro moments.  The “rubber hits the road” when someone says or does something totally unexpected.  Of course, before we can even consciously think anything, we are already processing all sorts of clues:  are there any signals that this person is threatening; will they connect with me; what does how they are dressed and how they carry themselves communicate.  So, the surprising moment always happens in a context where we’ve already made all sorts of judgments.  If what the other person says or does fits those early judgments, we’re good to go.  However, sometimes, we just get blindsided.

“So, have you climbed Mt. Fuji?”  It would be easy to react reflexively:  “I don’t get it;” “And your point is;” “I’ve got to tell you…that’s the weirdest thing anyone has said to me in a while.”  All of those comments would quickly put the discomfort of the moment back on that other person.  They would also clearly put that other person on the defensive.  As an alternative, I could pretend that I didn’t hear them and walk on and either leave them feeling ignored or dismissed.  Here’s the thing that it takes discipline to do:  wait—just wait.  Take a deep breath.  Hold on for a second and see if what’s happening makes more sense.

I waited.  (Trust me…I don’t always manage to do this.)  I probably succeeded this time because I didn’t feel threatened or afraid.  I was just curious.  That’s when the man explained.  “I noticed your walking stick.  (I’ve walked with one through the winters since my knee replacements.)  My son has a beautiful walking stick that he got when he climbed Mt. Fuji.  I thought maybe that’s where yours came from, too.”  “No, I said, “Mine’s from Lake Forest Hardware but what a cool tradition!”  We parted and felt connected.  What was odd or awkward or mysterious was understood.  I waited…

We have choices but those choices are made in real time.  What we have to do sometimes is buy some time for things to become clearer, to discover some option other than the most reflexive or defensive or aggressive response that arises by reflex.  Sometimes, the difference between me being the best me that I can be and me being me at my worst is a moment to gain perspective.

Here’s another example.  One time when I really struggle is when I feel endangered in my car.  It happened the other day.  I’m driving on 176 and a car rushes up behind me and absolutely sits on my bumper.  Is he going to pass me?  Is he going to notice in a minute when I turn on my signal to turn left?  What if he just rams into me?  Typically, this is a moment when I am in danger of losing my religion and my mind and my self.  Instead, though, this time, it suddenly dawned on me:  “He’s in a hurry.  I’m going to let him go.”  So, I just pulled over to the shoulder and let him go around me.  It reminded me of my days in Japan learning Aikido:  if someone takes a swing at you, you just catch their hand and help them keep going in the direction that they seem to want to go.  Let the car pass and be done with it.  Don’t hate him.  Don’t do stuff yourself that you’ll later regret and hate.

I don’t want to belabor the point but I do want to point out that this understanding is what’s at the very heart of our text this morning:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  As if it is not enough that Jesus, last week, called the disciples to leave the comforts of home behind, now he’s talking “crazy talk.”  Who loves their enemies?  Who prays for those who make your life difficult?  That’s not our natural instinct.  That’s not how people are tuned.

Apparently, the problematic answer is that this is precisely how Jesus wants his followers to behave—namely, differently than everyone else.  (As my mother used to say, “I don’t care about everyone else.  I care about you.)  It is Jesus’ expectation that we are going to choose differently, that we are going to overcome desires for revenge, that we are going to break the chain of events that seems to always happen when I am afraid and I attack you out of fear and you are afraid and you attack me back.  Jesus actually expects us to be better than that. 

 Understand, Jesus is talking to us about the person right in front of us, not some theoretical enemy.  Here is a moment.  In this moment, the person in front of you is frightening you.  You feel in danger, for whatever reason.  They look different than you.  They come from a different place.  They think differently than you think.  Or, in my case, they have an entirely different understanding of what they proper distance is to allow between cars on a highway.  Whatever your justification might be, the last thing you would ever do if the choice were up to you is love that person.  I want to get away from them.  I want to pretend they don’t exist.  I want to say terrible things about them in the comfort of my own head.  Maybe I would even like to hurt them back.

If the first hard truth is that Jesus is going to call us to go where we don’t want to go then the second hard truth is that Jesus is going to ask us to do stuff that we really don’t want to do.  He’s going to ask us to forgive people that we don’t want to forgive.  He’s going to ask us to show mercy to someone whom we are sure deserves every ounce of payback that we can deliver.  He’s going to ask us to love someone whom we are sure is entirely unlovable.  And, if we balk, he may find some way to remind us just how unforgivable or undeserving of mercy or unlovable that we ourselves might be.  Jesus says, “So what if you love the people you consider lovable.  Anyone can do that.  What about the people whom it is tough to love?”

The only chance we will have to come close to loving like this is if we are taking life one moment at a time and paying attention to the person who is right there in front of us.  Then, we have to remember to pause…to wait…to breathe.  What would it take for me to take a punch…literally or emotionally…and not punch back?  It would take, at least in part, an insight into what it’s going to cost me to throw that punch or deliver that emotional blow.  When I forget to breathe and forget I have a choice about how I respond, I give away the power that was mine to decide who I will be:  “Here is the worst person that I’ve run into.  I think I’ll let them decide what’s right.”  What a terrible decision!  I can’t give them that power!  The loving thing to do is show them a way out of this darkness.

The other thing that taking a moment to breathe might help me remember is that this person is also a child of God.  Imagine the pain that they must have endured to become this person instead.  Imagine how much they must long to be free of the pain which brought them to be this way.  If I can breathe, if I can wait…I might actually be able to discover empathy, even for someone who is making my life exponentially more difficult.

“You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’” Jesus tells us what we don’t want to hear.  He challenges us to be better than our worst reflexes.  He invites us to take a moment to discover love.