Well, those who know me
really well will say anything but coffee unless I’m bringing a cup of joe to my
husband Tim. Tea possibly, chai latte or
London fog, white hot chocolate, just about anything but not coffee. Why?
Because what I put in my coffee mug is what will come spilling out.
So too, what will come
spilling out of my mouth may be any number of things. Since I’m a Canadian, an apology. “Sorry,” I will say, even if the person
jostling my arm was the instigator of the spill.
If I’m at home and it’s
been a long day, and Tim backs into me when I don’t expect it, there may be
something far different than “sorry” spilling from my lips. And if the coffee mug drops, splashing boiling
beverage all over me then shatters to a million pieces, especially if it’s a
favorite mug from a beloved aunt who has long since left this earth, well, even
I don’t want to hear the words spilling out of my lips. And if it’s been a really bad week, with a
funeral that shouldn’t have happened to someone too young or too close, well,
there just might be tears involved on top of it all, and a real honest to
goodness grief burst!
What comes pouring out
can be quite situational, and quite human.
Being human is a messy business, with emotions that hit us when we least
expect it, sometimes right between the eyes, sometimes right in the
stomach. We find anger flaring up,
resentment, frustration, jealousy, envy.
We pray, God, fill us
good guys with good things, we’re on the right side, reward us please, and
punish the evil doers. Dry up their bank
accounts, impound their trucks, put their kids in the foster care system,
confiscate their weapons, and lock them up where they can’t threaten us anymore. That too is human. But thoughts like these can fill us up with
evil emotions.
Scripture says “Be
still before God and wait patiently. Do
not fret because some prosper in evil schemes.”
Easy to say, hard to do, especially when our nightly news is full of
disturbing images of police in body armor, collections of guns being discovered
horded by protestors, of politicians scolding each other, of racist flags, of
children being taught to blockade legitimate traffic between two
countries. Be still before God, wait
patiently. Even harder, let go of anger,
and recognize the damage fretting can do to the human soul. Trust in God instead of imperfect, messy
humanity. One of the reasons I believe
so many people were entrenched in Ottawa is because they put all their trust in
themselves and no one else. If the
election brought in a government that they don’t like, they don’t trust the
rest of Canadian voters. If the medical
community brought in restrictions that they don’t want, they sneer at the very
people trying to keep them alive. If the
scientists make discoveries they don’t understand, they call them names and
view them as part of a mass conspiracy.
If the media tries to communicate what the voters, the medical
researchers and the scientists are discovering and they find it confusing, they
turn to other sources that stoke their anger.
They only believe in themselves and the hope that they will get their
own way.
They do not have hope
in ideals, in principles, in due process or in the Golden Rule. Do to others as you would have them do to you
is not where they are at. I suspect that
they would not respond pleasantly if someone moved into their homes and started
blaring air horns 24/7 for weeks on end.
Luke’s passage has
Jesus recognizing that not everyone will be able to hear his words. “I say to you that hear me”, or in other
versions, “you that are still listening”, means that he too knew the messiness
of what Jeremiah called the deceitful human heart. Jesus knew that what he was teaching was so
hard that folks were tuning out. He had
just told them about the beatitudes, the Blessed are those who the world think
are cursed, and that was a conversation stopper for most of them. Then he threw a real zinger at them. "Love your enemies, and do good to those who
hate you." Well, that is so against what
human nature wants to do, that it would tune out a lot of his listeners. No way would good Jewish people want to hear
that they were to be loving to the Roman soldiers that oppressed them, the tax
collectors that robbed them, the schemers and power brokers that bullied
them. But that is exactly what Jesus was
trying to teach them. And with his ‘Turn
the other cheek’, he was laying the groundwork for nonviolent resistance. As one internet pundit wrote, "Let me be very clear. This was not a call to grit our teeth and be
nice to bullies, to stay in abusive relationships or to be quiet in the face of
injustice." This was a call to make sure
everyone could see the bullying for what it was, and by standing up to them to
offer the other cheek, or giving them your shirt as well as your coat, was to
show to everyone around that they were doing this shameful behavior but you
still kept your dignity intact. But how
does that play out in real life, Jesus?
A good example is the
Greensboro sit in back in February of 1960,
where young black college students prepared themselves to go to a Woolworth’s
lunch counter and sit there until they were served lunch. They knew it wouldn’t be easy. They practiced so that no matter what
violence was thrown at them, they would stay calm and not retaliate. They would not punch back, they would not
fight, they would not bring in guns or weapons or horns or hot tubs or flags,
they would just sit until they were offered a menu. Four young college students sat waiting for
food that did not come. The next day they
were back, and the news spread to other colleges in the Southern US. At one point there were 300 students at that
lunch counter, and it became one of the cornerstones of the Civil Rights
Movement. Segregation ended although the
racism never did. But that Woolworths
counter now houses the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, which includes
the lunch counter where the Greensboro Four sat.
Coffee was served to
anyone who wanted it, and tea and probably some iced teas and sodas. And eventually the love that they had for
their cause and for justice and equal rights for all spilled out on everyone
around them.
What are you putting in
your coffee mug? What are you putting in
your heart and mind? Are you able to
hear Jesus teach you to love your enemies and do good to those who hate you? It’s not easy, of course, but I trust that
this is what God is calling us to do.
Not to love the angry actions of the people who are hurting others by
their noisy protests, but to look at them for the stunted shrubs in a dry
desert, for the hopeless people that they are who don’t know how to trust in
anyone but themselves. Who put anger in
their coffee cups and don’t drink anything other than that. And to fill up our own coffee cups with
stillness before God so that when the difficult times come and we are jostled
by life, what will spill out will be peace and hope and compassion for all who
struggle through these difficult times.
