Welcome to Christ the Servant’s Pride Prayer Service 2022. The past couple of years have been really rough for everyone, especially for those of us in the queer community. Although we have seen signs of hope and progress, we are in the midst of a deep and brutal backlash against the strides we have made. From “Don’t Say Gay” laws to laws banning trans children from playing on the proper sports team to bathroom bills to laws making it harder for trans people to change paperwork to fit their true genders, there has been a full-on legal assault on queer people. In the face of all of this hatred and bigotry, it can be all too easy to fall into bitterness, hatred, and a desire for revenge. But there is another path we can choose.
In the reading we read tonight, we heard how God desires us to react when faced with evil. We are not to react with evil, we should not “repay evil with evil.” As verse 21 says, “Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by doing good.” This doesn’t mean that we should just lie there while evil is happening, it doesn’t mean that we should just let evil happen. It means that we need to show people love even if they are not doing the same to us.
We are called to proclaim when evil is taking place, we are called to confront it and we are called to do what we can to protect others. But confronting evil doesn’t mean that we need to be evil ourselves. While there is such a thing as holy anger, there is a difference between confronting evil and using anger to promote justice and allowing anger to overtake you and use you.
What we must always remember is that there is a person who is spouting bigotry and hatred. And as a person, they are worthy of a certain level of love and respect. We don’t need to agree with them, but we do need to love them because they are people and all people are worthy of love and respect. It isn’t easy, believe me, I know. It is really, really hard sometimes because our inclination as humans is to strike back and strike back hard. We want to make other people hurt after they have hurt us or after they have hurt those we love. But we are called to do things differently. We are called to do our best to share God’s Love with all people, especially those who we may feel don’t deserve it.
Another place we see this is in the Beatitudes. There we see Jesus’ Love ethic in action. We see Jesus taking the world and its hierarchies and turning them on their head. We see Jesus blessing those who are disadvantaged, those who have been mistreated, and those who are outcast. Tonight’s reading is an extension of this Love ethic. This call to reflect the Love that God has for us to the whole world to see is a radical reunderstanding of the world. Rather than following the rules and understandings that the world has laid out, we need to embody the Love of God for the world.
Another place we see this idea? The Parable of the Good Samaritan. This famous parable is about a man who takes care of someone who is a member of a group that his people are enemies with. The question Jesus answers with this parable is “Who is my neighbor?” and the answer is everyone. Anyone who is human is our neighbor and is someone we need to care about and who we need to love. I’m not saying that if we just love people, we will magically change their hearts and we don’t love other people for our own sakes. We love people because God asks it of us and we do it because they are worthy of love because they exist. Whether that person is the immigrant coming for asylum, the trans child who is trying to just live their life, the person suffering from food or housing insecurity, or the bigot who is trying to take away others’ rights, they are all worthy of love simply because they exist.
When we say that God Loves all people, we mean that She Loves all people. All means all. It is not for us to try and limit God’s Love anymore than it is up to fundamentalist Christians to do it. God’s Love is freely given to all people simply because they are people. As I said, I know this is not easy, in fact it is something I personally often really struggle with. Giving into anger can feel cathartic and can often be the path of least resistance. But focusing on the humanity of the person you are talking to? That can be really, really hard, particularly when they don’t treat you as a person.
So go forth, confront evil and spread God’s Love to the whole world. Be a beacon of light for the world to see. Embody the Love of God and Their Holy Anger. Work for justice and peace with love.
No comments:
Post a Comment