Luke 13:31-35

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Well, as many of you know, I am in my fourth and final year at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. And, I must admit, calling prominent leaders a “fox” or any other derogatory term, like Jesus did in today's Gospel, isn’t something I’ve been taught to do. There haven’t been any classes on casting out demons, or on upending temple tables. And you’ll be happy to know that we’re actually taught to love and respect those with whom we disagree.

But not Jesus ... not exactly, at least. No matter how many times I read through the Gospels, I’m usually taken aback at how blunt Jesus is. In fact, today’s Gospel follows the passage where Jesus tells those with him that, though they ate and drank with him, they will fail to sit at the heavenly banquet with him.

So Jesus can be uncomfortably blunt—and I often have trouble with that. I also have trouble with the seemingly opposite ideas of justice and mercy that pervade the Gospels. In today’s passage, Jesus is compelled to “call out” those who are not of God—those who don’t act justly, whether they be Herod Antipas or the people of Jerusalem who would crucify him. Yet, his whole mission on earth is to forgive and even die for those same people.

Jesus, in this reading today, not only says that his mission is above earthly rule and that even Herod’s evil intentions cannot stop that—he also laments for the city and people of Jerusalem, saying, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wing, and you were not willing!” Jesus was in this world, with all of its pain and injustice, but he also was trying not to be assimilated by the world. All of this makes me think: How did Jesus balance the mercy for which he was sent with the justice to be given to those who abused power and hurt the innocent? ... Think about this with me again: How did Jesus balance the mercy for which he was sent with the justice to be given to those who abused power and hurt and killed the innocent?

Lately I have been thinking about these themes, justice and mercy. I came across a blog I wrote a few years ago where I pondered the contradicting aspects of justice and mercy as found at the end of the book of Micah. You probably know that passage: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” -- Micah 6:8.

It’s a well-known little pronouncement that kind of summarizes God’s will for everyone. And, at first glance, it seems pretty simple and direct. But to act justly and to love mercy can’t be so simple, can they? Seeking justice invokes thoughts of punishment and accountability. Mercy, on the other hand, invokes thoughts of compassion and forgiveness. They seem like they’re on opposite ends of the “how-we-ought-to-live” spectrum, don’t they?

So how do we balance these very different commands of God ... and how did Jesus balance them as he moved toward his inevitable death in Jerusalem?

You would think that, of the two, acting justly might be the more difficult. Acting justly means doing things like going to the Statehouse to advocate for laws that will support those on the margins, and speaking out against the many injustices in our world. But I think it might be harder to love mercy. To care about people you don’t even know. Or people completely different than you and I. Like the immigrant. Like the Muslim. Like the homeless. Like the transgender man or woman.

Justice and mercy. We’re called to both and sometimes it’s hard to know what that looks like. Loving those who are hard to love ... forgiving your spouse and children, or forgiving yourself for how you have acted all too often ... speaking up when that co-worker makes an uneducated comment about “those people” (fill in the blank with who “those people” are).

In a moment, I’m going to show a clip from the movie, 12 Angry Men, the 1957 film starring Henry Fonda as the famous Juror Number 8. I want to show you a part of this film because it’s the best modern-day example I know of finding that balance of acting justly and loving mercy. If you haven’t seen the film, the premise is that a Hispanic teenage boy has been convicted of killing his father. Twelve male jurors are sent into a room to deliberate the boy’s guilt or innocence. Eleven of the men promptly decide that the boy is guilty. Henry Fonda plays the lone, dissenting voice that votes not-guilty, if only to allow some time for discussion before quickly sending the boy off to a death sentence. Juror Number 8, played by Fonda, is a great example of both acting justly and loving mercy—of caring about the truth while holding compassion as one’s highest value.

[listen above for movie clip audio]

I love the line at the end of that clip, “Hey this isn’t Sunday, we don’t need a sermon.” Well, perhaps we all need a sermon when it comes to treating people with both justice and mercy. Because it’s not easy. The Christian faith isn’t easy, and in the life and death of Jesus we see how uneasy it is. To be the lone, dissenting voice that refuses to push people away out of the fear of not knowing them, or not understanding them. To be the one who loves the people whose Facebook posts make you cringe. To stay in dialogue with people, and not to gather with only those “like us.” I think this movie is a poignant example of what it looks like—what it means—to stand alone against people and ideas that are not “of God,” that are not “of love,” while still being a compassionate human being. Even in Jesus’s lament in today’s Gospel we can find, ultimately, a word of promise and hope, a message of mercy—even to those who would reject and kill him.

So what does it look like to act justly and to love mercy? I think it looks like traveling 1,700 miles to Fondwa, Haiti. I think it looks like caring for people who live in places like Haiti, where necessities like food, home, and sanitation are lacking, if they exist at all. I think it looks like speaking out against the things not “of God” in our world—racism, sexism, prejudice, greed, hate, abuse of power—while still making love and forgiveness our highest goal. I think it looks like loving those who are not easily lovable. To do all of this is not easy, and it means living in a continual tension. Today I invite you to live in that tension with me.

Amen.

Wednesdays in Lent we are exploring thefaith practice called FAITH5 – a nightly routine in which families gather to SHARE highs and lows, READ scripture, TALK about how scripture informs their lives, PRAY for one another, and BLESS each other.

"Sharing Highs and Lows" –
a Lenten message by Jesse Keljo

When Pastor Aaron let me know that I would be speaking about the sharing of highs and lows, my thoughts immediately went to my daughter’s current favorite movie: Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out. It is the story of an eleven year old girl named Riley who has moved with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco with the twist being that we experience most of this story through her personified emotions of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust (my daughter’s favorite). In particular, it focuses on the key (and often overlooked) role that Sadness plays in our lives. None of the emotions appreciate Sadness. They just want Riley to be happy, which is understandable but ultimately destructive. In the end, they must work together for Riley to be a well-adjusted person.

Sharing highs and lows together between parents and children is tremendously important. Children need to see that their parents go through ups and downs, and children need to practice looking for and articulating the good and bad things in their lives as well as a safe place to do it. However, the benefits are not relegated to children; adults need practice sharing our highs and lows too.

Our culture likes to pretend that we should always be happy. At the beginning of Inside Out, Riley’s Core Memories (the ones that make Riley unique and create her personality) are all happy ones as are many of her other memories.

The problem with this is life is a series of highs and lows of varying severity. Much of the time, we experience anthill highs and golf divot lows, but then come the occasional Everest highs and the Marianas Trench lows. How can we handle (or even enjoy) our highs well with no context for what lows can be and their place in our lives? More importantly, how can we possibly handle the inevitable tragedies that will come when deny their existence?

We often don’t help each other by immediately throwing a positive spin on life’s disappointments and difficulties. When my uncle, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, died suddenly and unexpectedly, I remember someone saying, “well, at least he doesn’t have to hear the voices anymore.” I will never forget how much that upset my mom and that she wanted to say to that person that he would much rather be alive, voices and all. My uncle loved his family and music and smiled and laughed a lot. I am sure he suffered too. And maybe there are situations where death is a blessing. However, we need to be careful here because one could start to think: you are either happy or maybe you’re just better off dead.

Life can resemble an earthquake where massive highs and lows can come on suddenly. Recognizing and sharing our day-to-day highs and lows (the anthills and golf divots) help us face the cataclysmic events that come up: by showing us the role God plays in all of this. Picture God’s Grace like a sine curve that carries us through our highs and lows. It lifts us up to our highs, and never lets us drown in our lows while still giving us the holy opportunity to grieve, to weep, to mourn. God is the axis, the constant thread, between the highs and lows – a thread we need to hold onto in our highs so we remember to rejoice with God and remember and praise the One who lifted us up, otherwise we run the risk of thinking we did it ourselves and grow self-satisfied. And it is a thread we need to hold onto in our lows so that we remember that God weeps and grieves beside us and has not and will never forsake us. Sharing highs and lows lets us tap into this river of grace flowing through our lives. Sharing highs and lows allows us to experience the cosmic poise of true Joy that is a culmination of all of the highs and lows we have experienced and processed so far.

Last summer I read Timothy Keller’s book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering. I didn’t want to read it, but I felt I had avoided thinking about pain and suffering much at all in my life and didn’t want to avoid it any longer. In this book, he shares a number of true stories of suffering and God’s presence through it, and one story in particular stood out to me.

A woman, a medical professional, finds out that her mother is dying so she goes to be with her in her last days. Her mother is suffering mightily, but the only words that leave her lips are God’s Word, Bible verses and passages she knew so well and believed in so deeply in her heart that they were all she could think of in her deepest suffering and pain. The woman thinks to herself, “I want this kind of faith. A faith where, when the worst is happening, my first words are God’s Word.”

Then there is the biblical story of Joseph. He was shielded from lows in his life and was being utterly spoiled and ruined by his father. Joseph was on his way to being an overly proud young man. His brothers sold him into slavery. Then his master throws him in jail after being accused of a crime he didn't commit. God is with Joseph through all this as a Constant, helping him through these trying times. Years and years pass. Then Joseph is entrusted with everything in Egypt, and, with God’s help, is able to save his family and keep God’s People from being wiped from the face of the earth. After the highs of the first part of his life followed by years of terrible lows, Joseph has the context he needs to see that God meant all the bad that happened to him for good. Again, Joseph had to experience lows over many years to be able to get any kind of context for them, and it may be the same for us. We need to hold that thread.

And then let’s return to the film Inside Out. In Inside Out, after trying to be happy for her parents’ sake after moving, Riley finally breaks down in tears and confesses how sad she is about leaving Minnesota and how much she misses it. Her parents get down with her and tell her what they miss about Minnesota and that they are not mad about how Riley feels about moving. Sadness helped Riley have this emotional breakthrough, and, after the parents wrap Riley in their arms for a hug, Sadness brings Joy over and a melded Joy/Sadness Core memory is created.

Sharing our highs and lows helps us create these melded experiences that, again, help us cultivate true Joy, a deep, cosmic kind of poise that is informed by joy and sadness coming together at the same time. We are often Riley, trying to be happy in all circumstances when God is like Riley’s parents, who will never be angry with us for bringing our sorrows to Him and who holds our very hearts and souls in His arms whether we are surrounded by loved ones or alone.

Sharing highs and lows is just the start. It’s step one. We need to bring in God’s Word for context, step two. We need to talk and process all of this, step three. We need to pray and bring it all before God and grow that relationship, step four. We need to bless each other and God as we go through life together, step five. But, to paraphrase Zig Ziglar, those who never take step one, will never take step two. I encourage you to take that first step or maybe even that leap if you are feeling skeptical.

Gather your family or trusted friends or coworkers together and each take a turn sharing the high and the low for the day. Be present and listen to one another, no interruptions and no judging. God is there through it all, and He is ready for you to find Him and hold on tight.

"Tension Between Justice and Mercy" – Luke 13:31-35

FAITH5 - Sharing Highs and Lows