Yelling at the TV (Reflections on Easter 5, Year C 2022)

 

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34) 

If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (Acts 11:17)

 Oh, brother. It’s election time again and the airwaves are filling up with the over-played, obnoxious, slogan-spouting, brain-numbing video ordure that is the American political commercial. I was watching the tube last night and actually found myself yelling back at the image on the screen—as if the guy could really hear me. My wife hates it when I do this, and I can’t say I blame her. I’m really pretty intolerable. 

What got me riled up was this particular snippet of a grouchy-looking old white guy telling me to vote for his candidate because, “we have to save this country.” I started to yell back, “Save it from what? Just what exactly do you consider the existential threat, Sir? Pro-choice activists? Gun control? Immigration? Affirmative action? Or are you just trying to make America safe again for old white bigots like yourself?” 

But now as I think about it, my screeds at the TV screen—quite aside from the annoyance they cause my Bride—are not only wasted energy but really manifestations of my own selfish disobedience to the will and Word of God. I recognize that I luxuriate in identifying the other—someone for whom I can give myself permission to feel contempt. As much as I may feel morally superior in rejecting a policy, I have no right at all to reject another person made no less in the image of God than am I (Besides, for all I know the old white dude on the TV screen might not even be a supporter of the candidate. He could just be an out of work actor who needed the gig!). 

In the gospel lesson for Easter 5, year C (John 13:31-35) we hear again Jesus’ commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. So how does Jesus love? In the context of the passage he’s just lowered himself to do the dirty work of a servant and washed the feet of the disciples he knows don’t understand him and will desert him. He’s given bread to the man he knows is going to betray him, and he’s spoken lovingly to the man he knows is going to deny him. His love does not reflect their actions, it only reflects his care for them as people. 

In the First Lesson (Acts 11:1-18) Peter will be questioned and criticized for hanging out with the wrong people. Good church folks won’t want to have anything to do with someone who hung around and ate with their sworn enemies—the non-Jewish foreigners who had come to take over their land and make them pay taxes to a foreign emperor. By their standards, Peter shouldn’t even be inside the house of a Roman Gentile. But old Peter, who had his feet washed by his rabbi and who had been forgiven for denying him, has grown to love people in a whole different way. It’s not about who they are or what they believe or what they’ve done. It’s just love because Jesus told him to love. 

I always found the story of Peter and Cornelius amusing because Peter is so quick to give the wrong answer when God sends him a vision. I guess the analogy between unclean foods and unclean people was just a little too complex for this simple fisherman. He doesn’t get it at first. He’s proud that he’s kept kosher. God has to show him the vision of the tablecloth three times and finally gives up on this knucklehead. But: when Peter actually encounters the flesh-and-blood Gentiles who are hungering for God’s word of grace, he finally understands. It’s the personal relationship that changes his mind. Cornelius and his household are no longer “the other.” They become people to him. Real people, and they have the same wants and needs as he has. 

It's easy even for church folk to demonize people they don’t understand. Back in the early ‘80’s Julie, the organist of my home congregation, came out as a lesbian. Although no formal request was ever, to my knowledge, made, she suddenly felt unwelcome in the congregation where she’d grown up. She tendered her resignation and left the church with a rather bitter taste in her mouth. She and I remained friends. Sometime later, I had a conversation about this with my mom, a lady of rather traditional and conservative views. I was a bit surprised to find that Mom had very tender feelings toward my gay friend. “It couldn’t be easy for her,” she said. Mother had thought the matter over and concluded that she liked Julie when she thought she was straight, and she saw no reason not to like her when she knew she was gay. Julie was still Julie. 

Jesus makes a pretty big demand on us when he tells us to love the way he’s loved. He’s asking us to give up our sense of indignation and moral superiority and see one another as God sees us. That’s hard. Really hard. But not impossible. Jesus also tells us we’ll receive what we pray for in his name. Perhaps the ability to love other sinners might be a good request to make. 

For me, at least, it’s a better use of  my time than yelling at the TV. 

God’s peace, my friend.