Multiply Love

2-24-19 

Grace and peace to you from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

We made it. We are at the end of the time after Epiphany, at the end of our Season of Baptism. Next week is Transfiguration Sunday, or aka Day-Glo Jesus Sunday, and the week after that starts Lent! Between last Epiphany and Today we covered a lot of ground, haven’t week? Let’s see if we all remember way back to January, and all of our letters… B = Born From Above…. A = Affirmed …. P = Empowered…. T = Trust… I = Inspired….. S = Serve….

Very good! And today we finish with M = which is for Multiply! BY the way, in the back of the bulletin each week, did anyone find where the letters where listed every week, including the one that Sunday?... It was buried like a little seed for you to discover. And today, that seed has grown and now blooms in our last word in BAPTISM, multiply.

Not a word you usually hear in a sermon, at least not mine. How many of you loved doing math in school? How many of you hated it? I was one of those kids who was good at math, but I didn’t enjoy it. But for many kids – and adults still – math is scary. Apparently, it’s more common than you think for a story making the news when a kid calls 911 over his math homework.  

Math seems like magic – it seems like: you get it, or you don’t. There are rules that we follow but we don’t always understand them. On an NPR segment about math that I heard in the car recently, Alex Stern from WHYY shared how her dad helped her learn the multiplication times table. He had flashcards, and together they would sit on the couch and practice. The one’s that she solved correctly, she didn’t have to practice, but the ones she struggled with went into a “let’s do it again” pile.

Not many of us face times tables or flash cards every day… but I think that most of us are familiar with another kind of multiplication. This one happens during many of our interactions with one another – strangers, family, friends, co-workers, people at church. I’m talking about one-upmanship.

We’ve all been in a situation where we have shared sad news with a “friend,” and they have responded with “Oh, well, you think THAT’S bad? Let me tell you about….”  Or you share some good news, and this person has to share something that is EVEN BETTER.

We’ve all be in situations where we feel like someone has hurt us in some way, and all we want to do is make them feel the same as WE feel… and maybe we also want them to feel a little bit worse. Not only have we all seen this happen on a personal scale, but we see it play out across the world daily in the news – one group of people harms another, communication breaks down, and the tension and violence of the situation escalates… or you could say, multiplies.

A friend told me about a study where human participants are (gently) pushed by a robot, then the humans are asked to push the robots back with the same amount of force THEY felt. And, without exception, the people pushed back on the robots with about 10% more force than was actually used on THEM. That means, if I push you, and you push me back with what you THINK is “getting even” with me, it will really be 10% harder….and then I will push back with 10% more… and the spiral of violence gets out of control. In other words, getting even is never actually getting even.

Kindness begets kindness, violence begetting violence. How do we get over this gut instinct of ours, our reflex to mirror back what has been done to us? psychologists call “mirroring” or “complimentary behavior.” This is the script that we are far more familiar with – you’re mean, so I’m mean back.  Sometimes, though, the script DOES get flipped, and someone responds to harm with kindness, and that feels like a miracle.

In another podcast, I heard the story of a man with a gun who interrupted a dinner party demanding money from the guests. Instead, they offered him a glass of wine and cheese, and after eating, the would-be thief asked for a hug, said he was sorry, and left.

Amazing, right? Or is it?

What Jesus is proposing in his continuation his Sermon on the Plain, would be categorized by these same psychologists as “non-complimentary behavior.” And it’s extremely hard to do. In this part of his sermon, Jesus “ups the ante” for people who would follow him - Don’t just mirror the good that you have received – flip the script on hostility, break the cycle of escalating violence, multiply love instead of hate. This is a new and uncomfortable kind of ethics Jesus is proposing, and we tend to resist it.

It's a nice thought... but it's not enough
to "just get along."

I seem captions on Facebook all the time that say things like, “I don't care [who you are]. If you're nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Simple as that!” That sure sounds nice, but it is not actually revolutionary or loving. It’s actually perpetuating behavior we already are prone to – the mirroring thing - and Jesus here is making it very clear that this is NOT ENOUGH. Jesus does not say, wait for someone to be nice to do in order to be nice back. Instead, he says “DO unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Do “nice” FIRST. Respond with love.

But at the same time, not very many of us are going to find ourselves at a dinner party about to be robbed at gunpoint. We might not ever face someone demanding our coat. But some of us HAVE been cursed at, abused, harmed physically and emotionally. Some of us have been taken advantage of. Does this give a pass to everyone who has done us harm?

The preachers throughout the ages who have said so are wrong. Love is not enabling. Forgiveness is not being a doormat. Sometimes “non-complimentary behavior” is not passivity, but to leave a situation, or to ask for help.

Jesus is speaking primarily to people who have some agency in these situations – they have a coat and a shirt to give. They have goods to lend. If they are getting slapped, in Jesus’s time, turning the cheek to the others side was a demand to be slapped as an equal with the open palm, rather than the back of the hand, as was used for women and slaves.

But what does Jesus say about those who ARE powerless? What does Jesus have to say to those who are women, children, slaves, servants… people who have NO power in any situation? Jesus says that they deserve love, non-judgement, and help from people who DO have something to give, with no expectation of return. Because we ALL deserve love, non-judgment, and help when we need it.

Jesus charged his disciples with the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, to “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” And so, his disciples, few in number, preached and taught and healed and baptized in a world filled with the never-ending cycles of hate and fear…. And we are the results of how this kingdom is multiplied in the face of these odds, by our very presence. And so, we too are commissioned in OUR baptisms to do the same. To share the radical ethics of God’s kingdom, to break the cycle of escalating violence and hate, to plant the seeds of the Gospel wherever we go, and to the expand the Family of God beyond these walls.

As one of my pastor friend reflected, after she also heard the story of the gunman and the dinner party: "Love looks like inviting our enemies to join the celebration, handing them a glass of wine (or a cup of grape juice) and a hunk of bread, saying 'This is Christ's body and blood, broken and poured out for you.'"

This is Kingdom Math we’re called to do: Water plus a promise equals baptism. 

Bread and wine equal the presence of Jesus.

We are 100% sinner and 100% saint at the same time. 

we subtract our egos and add love to the world, divide our sorrows and multiply our communities of faith. Thanks be to God. Amen.