Needed to Attempt the Impossible

Needed to Attempt the Impossible

A sermon delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson

February 24, 2019

at Bethany Presbyterian Church, Zuni, Virginia

Luke 6: 27-38

Genesis 45: 1-8

Let us pray,

Help us to see despite our eyes

Help us to think outside our minds

Help us to be more than our lives

            For your eyes show us the way

            Your mind knows the truth

            Your being is the life.

Amen. 

Always believed in pushing people to be more

Teacher as a Coach

As a pastor

Always preaching about the next rung, pushing further

Often forget to thank

To make sure folks know how much their work is appreciated,

To make sure folks know that I know that I stand and we stand on the backs of amazing effort by amazing people, especially in this church.

OBX P. Martinez – compliment his church. . . I should do that more

But as soon as you get to comfortable, you get back to Jesus and he is preaching the impossible

And its time to push some more

Because this is the impossible. . .

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

³⁷ “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

I put the famous quote from GK Chesterton in the bulletin

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

                        - G.K. Chesterton from What’s Wrong with the World

Christian nation? What would that even really look like?

Don Quixote

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

I have the painting hanging in my office to remind me

But Dostoyevski – The Idiot

Could you even imagine a person who lived up to this standard posed here. . .

Think about all of them without shaving off their edges to make them palatable

That’s what we do right, Jesus didn’t really mean that. . .

Love your enemies

Love them. . .

Your enemies

And what is an enemy?

Someone who seeks to stop you from doing what you want to do?

Love them. . . doesn’t mean pretend they’re not your enemy and tolerate them no

Love them

Love someone who is seeking to stop you from doing what you want to do

Would that mean sacrificing its accomplishing? I don’t want to do that. . .

Do good to those who hate you. . .

Doing good.. . . and they hate you

What is it like to have someone hate you. . . that person that cuts eyes at you

Maggie Simpson with the unibrow baby

Do good to that guy

Bless those who curse you – what does it mean to curse and bless someone?

See shaving off the edges would be the old Bless his heart routine

Pray for those who mistreat you – pray for what for their health? For their success? For them to stop mistreating you. . .that’s just praying for yourself with them as a subject. . .

Slapping and the turning the other cheek. . .who does that?

Taking coat and giving the shirt. . . no we lock all the doors, and make a bunch of rules to make sure that it never happens again, not only that we separate them from us, and then when they are safely behind bars, we don’t trust anyone else either. . .

Give to those who ask. . . . without a checklist to make sure they are worthy? Without a plan in place to make sure they aren’t a scammer?

And if someone takes . . . don’t ask for it back. . . but give it, and give more, and don’t lock the doors and trust the next guy who comes along too. . . even afterwards.

Do to others as you would have them do to you. . . not so they will, not because they did, not if they did, in case they might. . . no do to others regardless of what they might do, just because. . .

Do not judge, do not condemn, forgive, give, measure for measure

What would that person look like?

What would that nation look like?

What would that church look like?

But no Jesus couldn’t mean that. . . so we shave the edges off to “be nice”

Be nice

Don’t make waves

Stay in your lane

Be kind

Being mean is bad

But it robs it. . . because what good is that. . . it’s impossible it’s a crazy standard

What if we took him by his word. . . ?

What if we thought that this is what is required of us

What Jesus means when he says. . . if you love me keep my commandments?

What if these are those commandments?

What if we are held to a higher standard? Like he says we are in the middle paragraph

If  you love those who love you

If you do good to those who are good to you

If you lend and expect rpayment

What credit is that. . . more is expected. . . . always. . . more

How would we begin?

What would be needed?

Look at Old Testament – Joseph

45 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. ² And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

³ Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! ⁵ And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. ⁶ For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping.⁷ But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

⁸ “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

To have internalized the message from last week. . . .

To know that each moment is a blessing, given especially from God. .

And that means all those people have been given to you by God.