To watch the sermon click here.
Have you ever found yourself in one of those conversations, maybe at a dinner party, maybe with a colleague, maybe with a family member, or a dude on a plane… where they are a little hostile toward Christianity?
They say something like, “Christianity is so violent. Look at the Crusades.” Or maybe they take the tack of contempt: “How can anyone live as a doormat always turning the other cheek?”
One of the strangest things about Christianity is that people attack it for being too much, in completely the opposite ways.
Christianity is accused of being too peaceful and at the very same time too violent. Too meek and too militant. Too ascetic and too indulgent. Too heavenly minded and too worldly oriented.
This is not new. This has been happening from the very beginning.
In the early Roman world, Christians were criticized for being too peaceful. They refused military service. They would not swear allegiance to Caesar. They prayed for their enemies.
And then, centuries later, came the Crusades. I think you’ve heard of those.
And Scripture is not helpful. It seems to allow for the tension. Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” and “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.”
Christianity is accused of being too meek, look at the martyrs. And too militant look at the conquistadors. And, again, scripture is not helpful. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” And also, “Fight the good fight of faith.”
The accusations continue. The Desert Fathers were criticized for hating their bodies, denying what was natural: food, sex, and Sunday football.
And then there is the Vatican, and red silk slippered Popes.
And, again, scripture is not helpful. It holds the extremes. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves.” And also, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Again and again, Christianity is accused, from its earliest days to today, of being too much in the opposite direction. This insight is not mine. It comes from G. K. Chesterton, who noticed something important:
When a thing is attacked from both sides, it is often because it is standing at the center.
Christianity does not fail because it holds extreme positions. It succeeds because it can hold them all, in the tension.
This brings us to today’s Gospel: when John the Baptist sees Jesus he does not say: “Behold the lion.” He does not say: “Behold the judge, or warrior, or winner.” He says: “Behold the Lamb.”
A lamb is gentle. A lamb is vulnerable. A lamb does not dominate.
And yet, this Lamb beat the devil in the desert, not by force, but by faithfulness. This Lamb refused the shortcut to power, refused the temptation for the spectacular, refused the seduction of control. This Lamb does not seize authority. This Lamb channels it.
Which is why Jesus had the capacity to walk toward suffering, rather than away from it; to absorb violence without returning it; to carry the weight of the world, without being crushed by it.
This is power without coercion. This is authority without fear. This is victory without retribution. This is what the center looks like.
Christianity is not contradictory. It is comprehensive. It refuses to collapse human life into one virtue. It refuses to let one good swallow all others. It holds apparently opposing truths together without dissolving them.
And that refusal places Christianity in direct conflict with the spirit of our age, with the powers and principalities. Because the world around us is constantly pressing us to do the very thing the Gospel will not do: simplify, choose a side, demonize the other.
The recent fatal shooting of Renée Nicole Good by an I.C.E. agent in Minneapolis bears this out.
I heard David Brooks on the PBS Newshour share his experience after the shooting, and while it doesn’t mean his is the definitive reality, it is indicative of our times. Brooks said that 100% of the emails he received after this shooting reflected the sender’s political affiliation.
All of the Republicans concluded the officer was under attack and acted in self-defense. While all of the Democrats saw an unarmed woman who posed no clear danger and was murdered by excess force.
This is a tragedy of cosmic proportion. These are two humans caught in the swirl of the powers and principalities of politics in America. Fueled by the fog of fear and in a split second everything changed. Renée Nicole Good will never again tuck her three children into bed. And this will forever be one of the worst days in the life of the ICE agent, no matter the story he tells; it will haunt his dreams, it will scar his heart, it will follow him to the grave.
And yet, now, one side sees a villain and the other side sees a hero, where what we all should see is a tragedy of cosmic proportions. Here’s the irony: belief is driving perspective rather than truth.
The lie lives in the binary, the truth at the center… where love lives. And it is love, only love, that will save the world.
By naming this tragedy in Minneapolis, I know I run a real risk of stopping you from hearing me as your minds wander into arguments, nuance, and judgment; because that is what we are trained to do. It is the reflex of this age.
And while it may feel normal, it is not neutral, and it is not harmless.
So I’m asking something specific of you right now, for a few minutes, resist getting pulled into your own internal reaction, stay present with me, because what I am attempting to do in this sermon is not solve a political problem, but name a spiritual one. How do we live together as people of faith in an unstable and polarized nation?
Christianity has something to say about this, because we’ve been here before. Again and again, in moments of upheaval and division, the Church has served as a steady presence, grounded and secure, refusing to be pulled to the edges.
The work before us, then, is not to win. It is to learn how to stand steady, sturdy at the center without fear; without being manipulated; without breaking relationship. It takes practice. It takes time. It may take more than one sermon. But if we do not learn how to live from the center, the center will not hold.
So the question becomes how? How do we do this?
It begins with covenants, commitments to ground us; or more precisely, to set our boundaries. Boundaries, like any good fence, are built before we put the sheep in them. Which means, and this is my invitation to you this morning, we must decide in advance how we are going to act, before action is required.
We must decide in advance what our yeses are going to be, and what our nos are going to be as filtered through the person of Jesus. What would Jesus’s yeses be, what would Jesus’s nos be in the context of my life or your life as a spouse, a warrior, a communicator, a person of prayer, a parent, a healer, a protester, an engineer, an artist, a musician, a politician.
The lines we are to draw in partnership with Jesus are meant to trace the unique contours of our heart. The lines, the yeses and nos, set a boundary in which God’s love is meant to reside, inside, fully and completely, with no room for anything else. Just love. Only love.
Heart boundaries that fence in anything other than this love distort truth and deepen separation and isolation. Heart boundaries that protect fear, resentment, or control instead of this love lead toward idolatry and give strength to the powers and principalities, leaving us as pawns and, more often than not, with broken hearts.
Here’s the thing – the more closely each of us is connected to Jesus, in our own unique way, the more our yeses and nos begin to overlap.
And when we realize this – someone who at first seems to hold a radically different perspective or come from a very different context becomes someone we grow curious about; someone we want to understand, to know the contours of their heart.
Incidentally, that is exactly the reason we created RELATA.
Worship, what we are doing right now, is the mysterious, metaphysical playground that sits at the center – because no matter how differently we have drawn our lines, no matter the contours of our hearts, no matter the particular calling and context of our lives, we have all chosen this morning to step into the universal contours of God’s heart, together. This is, after all, the boundary we seek through the liturgy we celebrate.
And as we sit here together, it is important to remember that your yeses and your nos are uniquely yours, and not the filter through which to judge others. And when Jesus is the mediator through which we live out our covenants, we see, inevitably and inextricably, how they overlap with our neighbors.
So, live faithfully, not at the edges, not in the binary, but at the center. The center shaped not by fear, but by the Lamb of God. Gentle. Vulnerable. Refusing domination – curious, tender, compassionate. And yet strong enough to take away the sin of the world, to turn the world upside down… Or shall I say – right side up.
Christianity is not contradictory. It is comprehensive. And when we live from that center, We, each in our own way, become the quiet, steady, powerful presence this nation so desperately needs.