Losing to Find
“Losing to Find”
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, October 20, 2019
Jeremiah 31:27-34 Psalm 121 Luke 18:1-8
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
Wouldn’t Christian unity be nice? There are so many varieties of Christians around the world. There is a group, called The World Council of Churches, which is dedicated to the search for Christian unity. There are 350 member churches representing over 500 million Christians from more than 110 countries on all continents. The Presbyterian Church (USA) is one of those member churches. Every eight years, the World Council of Churches has an Assembly, and the 11th gathering will be in 2021 in Karlsruhe, Germany, which is in southern Germany near Stuttgart. This is only the third time an Assembly has been held in Europe, the last one was in 1968.
In that city, on the (Karlsruhe) Opera House, there are large letters citing the first article of the German Basic Law, saying, “Human Dignity is Inviolable.” Inviolable, meaning sacred, unbreakable, unchallengeable, and firm. Germany has gone down a long and difficult road to get to the point of learning this about human dignity. Two world wars, other conflicts, the Reformation; a very dynamic history has led to this proclamation and recognition in the German Basic Law. But what is law based on? Justice? Rules? Order? A desire to get along or prevent abuses of power? What’s so Basic about law?
The World Council of Churches Assembly gathering doesn’t just happen in 2021. Lots prior of planning goes into that sort of event, and a planning committee met in Cyprus in January this year. At that meeting, the World Council of Churches General Secretary, the Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit gave a speech on the theme of the upcoming assembly. The theme is: “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.”
This might sound like an obvious theme for a church meeting, “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity.” But let’s apply that theme to politics, to justice, to conflicts, and posturing for power. How does Christ’s love shape our world? As we read this morning about an unjust judge and a widow struggling for justice against an opponent, we need to ask, what is justice based on in the world, not only in biblical stories like this one, but in the experience of today’s world, with all the complications of post-modern life?
Tveit says, “It is both timely and necessary to consider carefully the vital role of love as a moral imperative. Law and rights are means to establish social order and resolve conflicts of interest and power peacefully. Love, on the other hand, is a fundamental value, guiding modes of behavior that establish a reliable framework and basis for the recognition of rights and dignity of everyone in the community. The affirmation of justice and freedom based on love […] has critical importance in the struggle for liberation from structural injustice and oppression.
That’s what the woman in this story is facing. Structural injustice. She is a widow and has very few, if any, rights. She has an opponent, someone who she’s struggling against. She is nagging, thankfully, because even the judge is unjust and has no respect for God or other people, which means the judge is dominated by egocentric concerns and she is bothering him. His actions and attitudes are based on selfishness, even his decision to grant justice isn’t to help the woman, but to relieve his own discomfort caused by his annoyance created through his ego limitations against the woman’s persistence.
Notice all these characters in this story have no name. She’s a widow, she has an opponent, and he’s a judge. Having no name is not an oversight, but intentionally shows a quality involved in the dynamic of structural injustice. As Tveit says, “Structural injustice leaves no space for loving relationships, but favors and imposes exploitative and anonymous patterns of exchange. […] All too often […] there is the tendency to limit and reserve the gifts of rights and love just to one’s own community and not extend them to others.” By not having names, we see the exploitation as one human being tries to control and manipulate another human being, and it seems to flow in both directions in this story. People are viewed by role and are seen as objects, not subjects, not fully human with dignity.
In Jeremiah we hear God promising the people a new covenant. Through the prophet, God says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” and “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” Too often the Church takes this type of chosen identity in exclusive ways. But love is calling us as a global community to cross over self-imposed boundaries. All creatures have dignity, and God’s people are not blessed in a selfish way, but to bless the world, through awareness of love.
Tveit concludes with this thought: “Motivated by our faith and guided by the moral imperative of love, we struggle for structural change and laws in favor of marginalized and excluded people and the suffering creation. […] Even if our unity is imperfect, it has dimensions driven by the love of Christ for us and for all humankind and for the whole creation.” (https://www.oikoumene.org/en/press-centre/news/wcc-general-secretary-reflects-on-the-ecumenical-movement-of-love).
Does unity mean we all agree? Does it negate struggle? Does it protect us from pain? Does it prevent injustice? Not likely. But unity is grounded in love, and being grounded in God’s love, written in our hearts, changes life’s mix. We’re reminded of a James Finley’s quote about the basis of unity, which is a larger love. He says, “Stabilized in love, we are grounded in the courage that empowers us to touch the hurting places. Prior to being grounded in love, we think we are nothing but the small self that things happen to. We are afraid to go near the hurting place because we absolutize the relative. But if we are absolutely grounded in the absolute love of God that protects us from nothing, even as it sustains us in all things, it grounds us to face all things with courage and tenderness.” (https://cac.org/exploring-the-mystics-with-james-finley-weekly-summary-2017-10-14/).
“God’s love protects us from nothing, even as it sustains us in all things.” This is the experience of our larger Self, our truer Self, our grounded in Christ Self, our God in and on our hearts Self.
As we look around the world and seek the unity of the larger Church, the sincere expressions of God’s people, the inherent dignity of humanity and all creatures, may we open our hearts to a vision of love. May we come alongside the Psalmist who knows that “help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” May we fall deeper into love, trusting “The LORD will keep our going out and our coming in from this time on and forevermore.” (Psalm 121). As we allow God to change our hearts, as we live into our calling and identity as human beings endowed with dignity, may we humbly glorify the living Christ, NOW, even as forever. Amen.