Sermons
June 21, 2026 (Proper 7)
The snake is still there.
Matthew 5:38-48
The Iowa caucuses, for my party, at least, are sort of fun. (The other party’s caucus, I’m told, is a whole lot more controlled, but ours tends to be quite a bit more free-wheeling and chaotic.) We gather at our designated place on the designated night, and the first thing that happens is some of the local party leaders make a few speeches, then give instructions on what we’re to do. Then supporters of candidate “A” go to one room, and candidate “B”’s supporters go to another one, and so on until all the candidates’ supporters are separated out into their places.
Once they’re together, each group counts noses. A candidate has to have a certain percentage of the total number of people there in order to be “viable.” If the candidate doesn’t have that many supporters, those supporters have to go join other groups. At that point some wheeling and dealing happens. The viable candidates’ folks go to the non-viable candidates’ folks and try to get them to change their support, and oftentimes they promise something in return.
I was one of the last holdouts for my preferred candidate, and in order to get me to move to another group, they made me a delegate to the district caucuses, which happened several weeks later.
At that meeting, the delegates not only chose their preferred candidate to recommend to the state convention, but we also shared and voted on specific provisions to put in the state party platform. So I grabbed a piece of paper and hand-wrote a resolution, which went before the delegates for a vote.
My resolution spoke of how campaigns had gotten out of hand in their negativity, focusing on what has been called “the politics of personal destruction,” in which candidates’ ads and speeches and such called their opponents every name in the book, and opposition research found every skeleton in every candidate’s closet going back to their college days and paraded them in front of voters. It’s ugly, and it’s dirty, and it leaves the impression that everybody seeking public office is an absolute scumbag. I’m sure it contributes to the commonly-expressed opinion that “they’re all greedy, self-serving, and out of touch with the way real people live.”
I proposed that our party commit to campaigning positively, focusing on policy differences and not trying to destroy our opponents with unsavory labels and dredging up mistakes long since owned up to and corrected.
You probably won’t be at all surprised to know that my proposal was voted down.
People said, “It isn’t realistic.”
“The other side is negative, and we have to match their energy or they will roll over us.”
“Personal attacks work; why would we take an effective weapon out of our arsenal?”
This was over twenty years ago. How much more so is this the case now? Even leaders who say they’re Christian don’t always take the high road in political campaigns.
But political campaigns aren’t necessarily real life. What isn’t realistic in a campaign might work just fine in other settings, right?
Well, I don’t know.
Jesus’ instructions about how to deal with people who mistreat us seem awfully unrealistic. We might even say they leave us looking pretty weak.
Turn the other cheek when someone hits us? Really?
If somebody asks for our coat, strip ourselves naked and give them everything? Seriously?
Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? And not just imprecatory prayer—“Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock,” as the psalmist prays regarding the Babylonians who had just destroyed their Temple and dragged them off into exile[1]—loving, seeking-the-best-for-them prayer?
When someone does us wrong, we want them punished. We want them to have to suffer. And until that happens, we want to be able to nurse our hurt feelings and pride, to carry our grudges as badges of honor, to keep going out into the yard, as Fred Craddock put it, and turning over the rock to see if the snake is still there.
We want to build walls around ourselves and harden our hearts, and not let anyone hurt us ever again.
It’s human nature. We want to protect ourselves, and we certainly don’t intend to let somebody harm us a second time.
What Jesus is asking of us runs counter to everything we see as keeping us safe.
Looking at the original context doesn’t help a whole lot.
Jesus was speaking to people who lived in lands taken over by the Roman Empire. The way the Romans treated their subject peoples ran the gamut from benign neglect to outright cruelty—and it was hard to know which treatment you were going to get at any given time. Even if they mostly left a people alone, they tended to cripple them with outrageous taxes and tributes. And if there was even a whisper of rebellion, the military might of the empire came down with full force.
When the Gospels were first put together, that military might had come down on Judea and Jerusalem following the so-called “Great Revolt” that began in 66 ce. The city of Jerusalem and its temple had been destroyed—and the temple has not been rebuilt to this very day.
And Matthew has Jesus tell people to love their enemies? He tells us that if the empire smacks us across one side of our face, we’re just supposed to turn around and let them hit the other side, too? He instructs us to be “perfect” just as God is “perfect”?!
It looks like what he means is for us to have perfect, selfless, stubborn love even for those who want to destroy us. Is he out of his mind?
We sure wouldn’t be the first people to think so: even his own family wondered about him sometimes.[2]
Now some people who hurt us might deserve some sympathy. As is sometimes said, “Hurting people hurt people.” When we are in pain or our lives are a mess, sometimes we lash out. In that kind of case, a loving response might be called for.
But sometimes it’s not that people are lashing out from their own pain; some people, it seems, are just mean. Do they deserve our sympathy? Or more to the point, does it do anybody any good for us to show them kindness? Or will they just take it as permission to keep doing damage?
I need to make a couple things clear.
First, I don’t think Jesus intends to require us to maintain intimate relationships with people who abuse us. I’ve heard horror stories about pastors who are untrained in counseling but do it anyway telling battered spouses that they must not divorce their abusers. Pastors like that, in my opinion, have blood on their hands.
We can love our enemies and pray for those who mistreat us, ask God for the best for them, from a distance.
And second, sometimes letting go of a grudge is for our benefit as much as, if not more than, for the benefit of the person who hurt us. If you keep going out there and turning over that rock to see if the snake is still there, eventually that snake is liable to bite you. Just leave the snake alone.
In Romans, when Paul reiterates what Jesus says here, he adds something to it. Bless those who persecute you, he says. Leave vengeance to God, he says. Give your enemies something to eat if they’re hungry, or a cup of cold water if they’re thirsty, “for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.”[3] Paul didn’t make this up himself; he’s quoting Proverbs 25:21-22.
Neither Jesus nor Paul, nor the author of Proverbs, intend for us to see being kind to an enemy as a way of punishing them. Remember how, when God called Isaiah to speak God’s words to the people, and Isaiah objected because he was “a man of unclean lips…[living] among a people of unclean lips,” an angel touched his lips with a burning coal and declared him to be cleansed.[4] The figurative burning coals that are heaped on our enemies’ head when we show them kindness aren’t to hurt them, but possibly to cleanse the evil from their hearts and minds.
Does it work?
Years ago, when Fred Phelps was still living, he sent his “church” and their hateful, near-pornographic signs to a United Church of Christ congregation somewhere back east. The congregation had been warned that the Westboro folks were coming, and they were struggling to decide how to respond. Some wanted to make their own signs and organize a counter-demonstration. Others wanted to file some kind of restraining order to keep Fred’s crew away. Others thought they should close the church and stay home that day.
They prayed and they talked, and they talked and they prayed, but nobody could agree on what to do. They still hadn’t decided when the day came for the Westboro people to show up.
Westboro knows how to react if the target of their demonstration decides to fight back. They provoke the counter-protestors until they finally lash out, and then sue them into oblivion. That’s how Westboro Baptist “Church” supported itself and its vile activities.[5]
What this UCC congregation did, they had no idea what to do with.
It turned out to be a very hot day when Fred’s bunch set up on their property. And immediately the church staff knew what they should do. They filled pitchers with ice water, grabbed some cups, and went out to offer the demonstrators a cold drink.
I don’t know how many of them actually accepted the cups of cold water. What I do know is that they almost immediately packed up their disgusting signs and left.
Did any of them see the error of their ways because the object of their hatred offered them a drink of water on a hot day? Who knows? But they shut up and went home.
They couldn’t do any damage there, because that UCC church responded with kindness, and kindness is the one thing they do not understand.
If someone has hurt you, you don’t necessarily have to let them do it again, but it just might do your heart good if you refuse to let bitterness take root there, pray for them instead of plotting vengeance, respond with kindness wherever you can—even if it has to be done from a distance. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect: perfect in love and kindness even when we have not deserved it.
[1] Psalm 137:
[2] Mark 3:21
[3] Romans 12:14-21
[4] Isaiah 6:5-7
[5] Westboro Baptist “Church” (using the term loosely, of course) is still around; Fred’s daughter is now in charge. But they don’t get as much press as they used to get.