Sermon — February 23, 2025
Michael Fenn
One thing you all may have gleaned about me after a year and a half together is that I am quite artsy and craftsy. I partly get this love of arts and crafts from camp–where one can spend long languid days making friendship bracelets and tie-dyeing. The other parts of camp are appealing too: swimming in the lake, doing the climb tower, archery. Though there is one part of camp that I am wary of–both as a child and as an adult.
That would be any kind of competitive team sport–dodgeball, capture the flag, basketball, you name it. A few things are almost guaranteed to occur: you get a bunch of 9-15 year old boys who sign up, and then almost inevitably you will have a lot of 9-15 year old boys who are extremely angry and sad and disappointed. Cabinmates who were once friends are deeply at odds over accusations of cheating, younger campers feel betrayed by older campers who greatly outmatch their physical skill. Many of these animosities dissolve quite quickly, others fade with some time, and yet others become deep seated for the remainder of these children’s time at camp.
To me, the core problem seems to be that, in each of these games, there must be a winner. With every other activity, there is a built in sense of togetherness and camaraderie–archery gets people to cheer each other on; you often find campers helping each other figure out how to make friendship bracelets; campers regularly encourage each other at the climb tower. There is no winner at friendship bracelets, nor does any one person “win” at the climb tower at another’s expense.
I feel a brief digression may be in order. I am not, on principle, opposed to team sports. I know I am preaching to a congregation that is upwards of 50% hockey lovers? or parents of hockey lovers, or just likely has a team sport they enjoy rooting for. I think team sports are incredibly important for childhood development, it is particularly important to learn how to lose with grace. However, at camp, unlike with regular team sports, a camper now has to live alongside the group of people who just beat them at dodgeball–which can get, as I’ve said, oddly personal at times.
I think the issue with these scenarios at camp points to bigger tendency in our society: we love winning. I am taking a broad view of “winning” here. I would say the feeling of “winning” can take many forms in our day to day lives–revenge, one-up-man-ship, smugness, generally getting to feel superior to someone else–are all different kinds of winning. I might point to feeling smug in class when someone else asks a question that was clearly in the reading they did not do-feels like winning; overhearing a couple fighting on the subway and thinking I am sure glad that is not me-seems like winning; or even when Carrie Underwood destroyed her cheating boyfriend’s car in her hit song “Before He Cheats”–she definitely “won” that interaction. Or better yet, and maybe more locally, the feeling of shoveling out a parking space, and then keying someone’s car when they park in it–feels good to win (though I am sure nobody in this room knows about that instance of winning).
These things might be justifiable, but that isn’t really the point. Sure, it is a natural drive in our culture to want to be the best, or have the best for ourselves and loved ones. We enjoy when we are not the butt of the joke, or when we did the work someone else didn’t do, and other examples abound of moments where we feel justifiably smug or correctly righteous. However, our Gospel has another thing to say about this prevailing attitude.
Our Gospel story today is actually a continuation of what we read last week. In our reading last week, we got a new vision for the world through Luke’s version of the beatitudes–blessings for those who are poor, hungry, sad and hated and woes to those who are rich, full, well-liked, and laughing. We get a new vision for how the world might be, and this vision continues into this week’s reading. In this week’s gospel we get some words about how we might begin to live that out in our lives right now.
However, it is tempting, but would be a misreading to think that these instructions we get in today’s gospel lesson can be treated as some kind of to-do list. It would be a mistake to think that we can complete this list of nice things and then sit back, content at a moral life well-lived. Sure, these are good things to strive for–but to treat them as a checklist misses the wider point of the teaching. The message that this is a deeper change to our disposition in the world, a disposition that calls us away from this attitude of “winning”, judgement, and condemnation.
Just as it would be a misreading to think that this is a to-do list. It would be a further misreading to read it as a to-do list by which God will measure us. The clue is right there in the text. We are not merciful, forgiving, and generous because it will make us great people. We are inspired to try and live out these ideals because that is the nature of God, and we are called to emulate that attitude in our own lives. We are called to be merciful because Our Father in heaven is merciful.
Even so, these are not easy actions to take. It is incredibly difficult to forgive. It is hard to be incredibly generous with whatever wealth we may or may not have. It is difficult to not return violence for violence; or get passive-aggressive for perceived slights. It is difficult to feel okay with not “winning”. More than a series of difficult actions, it can feel like an overwhelming task to do these things in a world that feels, day by day, increasingly unkind, aggressive, and unforgiving. It is hard to have mercy in a world that, oftentimes, seems to mock mercy.
Back in 1948, C.S. Lewis had a helpful response when asked about a different daunting and gigantic facet of life–the newly invented atomic bomb. When asked by someone what they should do, now that society was permanently at risk of destruction from this new and terrible weapon. He says,
“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb–when it comes–find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.”
Obviously, in today’s gospel lesson, we are not talking atomic bombs–we are talking about showing generosity and being merciful. But I think the advice can still apply. Instead of a world newly beset by the anxieties of the atomic bomb, we must wrestle with how we are supposed to–essentially–continue to be kind in a world where it is easier, encouraged, and sometimes applauded to be unkind. We must struggle not with the atomic bomb, but with the fact that we are encouraged, to use my earlier illustration, in many small and big ways to “win” in life through so many different means.
I think the advice of C.S. Lewis applies in two ways. The first way: we must not gather together to think about the unkindness of the world, until such unkindness comes knocking on our door (again). The second, applies to how we are meant to go about living: I think the answer might be quite normal–do sensible and human things: forgive the person who cut you off in traffic, remember to bring in clothes for the community clothes closet, chat to your friends over a pint and a game of darts, do not judge the people on the subway, pray, teach, listen to music.
The key to living out our gospel from this week that C.S. Lewis illuminates is that in the face of the big harshness of the world, we often can do only the sensible human things within our own reach. Just as most of us do not have the time and skill to contend with the atomic bomb, we also do not have the time and skill to deconstruct the hostility and meanness of our society. However, each of us has the time and power within our lives to do “sensible and human things”. I ask you this week to find a “sensible and human” way to pull back from the desire to condemn. I ask you to find a “sensible and human” way to forgive those who may need forgiving. I ask you to find a sensible and human way in which you can refrain from judgement.
We do this not because we strive for perfection, we do this because we seek to be merciful like our Father in heaven is merciful. We do this because we know our Father in heaven is merciful, and full of love, and I preach to you all in the name of that One who loves us first.