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The great Christian theologian
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Reinhold Niebuhr once warned us preachers.
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He said, you may be able to attain
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in your congregation certain minimum standards of morality
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through the language of command but not much.
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Filling the air with should, and ought and must
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doesn't get very far, no.
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The truly great moral motivation, said Nieburh,
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depends not upon push but upon the gentle pull.
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You cannot compel people toward morality,
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Niebuhr said, they must be enticed.
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And the great Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard
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seemed to agree when he said to us preachers,
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you cannot speak directly to your congregations
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for direct speech only builds up people's defenses.
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No, you have to go in, as it were,
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through the back door, indirectly, subtly.
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That is the highest form
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of Christian communication, indirect discourse.
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And yet there are moments when Jesus,
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who spent a lot of his communication doing it indirectly.
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There are times when even Jesus
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spoke with disarming directness.
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It seems to me that our gospel lesson for this
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the 6th Sunday of Easter is one of those occasions.
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Jesus, speaking to his people says,
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"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.
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"Abide in my love.
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"If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love
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"just as I have kept my father's commandments
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"and abide in his love.
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"I've said these things to you
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"so that my joy may be in you.
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"And that your joy may be complete.
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"This is my command.
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"That you love one another as I have loved you.
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"No one has greater love than this
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"to lay down one's life for one's friends.
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"You are my friends if you do what I command you.
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"I do not call you servants any longer
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"because the servant does not know what the master is doing
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"but I've called you friends because I've made known to you
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"everything that I have heard from my father.
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"You did not choose me, I chose you.
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"And I appointed you to go bare fruit, fruit that will last,
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"so that the Father will give you
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"whatever you ask him in my name.
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"I am giving you these commands
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"so that you may love one another."
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This is the word of the Lord.
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Thanks be to God.
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A reporter was interviewing an old man,
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a grandfather, his grandson the day earlier
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had been murdered in a robbery of the family grocery store.
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The old man was obviously in intense grief.
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And the reporter asked the grandfather,
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what would you like to see done to the killers of your son?
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What would help you in your sense of justice?
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Would you like revenge?
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And the old man answered, no.
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And the reporter said, well it's true we don't yet
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know who the killers of your grandson were.
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And the old man said, no, it's not that.
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It's that I'm a Christian and I have to love.
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Now you know that sometimes Jesus
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makes hints or suggestions.
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You know that Jesus' primary mode of teaching
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was through narrative, through indirect story.
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We would come to Jesus and we would ask him
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a perfectly straight forward direct question like,
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what is the kingdom of God like?
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And you know usually Jesus
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never responds with a direct answer.
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He'll tell a little story.
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Oh the Kingdom of God, it's like a man that had two sons
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and the younger of the son said to the father,
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you know, indirect, subtle.
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But in today's gospel the case is different.
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Here, Jesus commands to love.
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Oh, I know that much of the time when Jesus speaks,
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his words, they're obtuse.
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They're difficult to understand.
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You need someone like me to explain them to you.
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Someone who's spent a lifetime, you know,
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learning the Greek, and learning Near Eastern culture
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and helping to unpack these subtle words.
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But this morning the case is different.
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Here, Jesus commands to love.
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I know that contemporary life can be complicated.
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It's hard to know what the Christian thing
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to do is in every circumstance.
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They're always, even among sincere Christians,
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they're invariably a variety of opinions
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about what ought to be done but here Jesus simply commands.
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He commands us to love one another.
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Now to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus,
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means that there are some things
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which are just not optional.
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If you're a member of the Sierra Club
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you can't be someone who believes
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in occasionally setting a forest fire.
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On the other hand, if you're a Boy Scout,
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you have to be someone willing to build a campfire.
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These things are just not optional.
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It goes with the territory.
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A while back we were having a discussion
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here in the chapel basement about volunteerism at Duke.
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And we were discussing possible motivations
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for people to volunteer.
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And people said, our students have a desire to pay back
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something into the community.
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Our students realize that Durham
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is a place with lots of needs
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and through their volunteer work
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they can make things go better in Durham.
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And I remember, we came along to the Rabbi,
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Joe Blair, and Rabbi said,
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"Jews don't have a motivation for volunteerism.
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"All we have is an obligation.
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"A Jew is obligated to perform
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"works of love and charity to others.
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"It's not optional."
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And maybe, likewise, a disciple of Jesus
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is someone who is required in every situation of life
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as best God gives us the ability to respond
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to that situation in the name of Jesus,
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as Jesus would respond.
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Now there may be certain responses,
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which in the world's eyes make sense,
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or which can be justified by reference to,
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well look, everyone else is doing it
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or I am just one person, what could I do anyway,
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those sorts of rational.
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But Christians are those who, through baptism,
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have signed on, have publicly committed themselves
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to obey Jesus and in today's gospel, Jesus commands to love.
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I expect when you were growing up
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your mother said to you, my mother certainly said to me,
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things like, now, if you will be nice to other people,
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other people will be nice to you.
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That's an ethic called utilitarianism.
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If you do certain things,
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certain things will be done to you.
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You do this, you'll get this.
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That is one ethical point of view.
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You do good things in order to win friends
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and influences people, in order for life to go better,
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in order for Durham to be a better place in which to live.
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Christians are not utilitarians.
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We don't know if when we love other people
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they might love us back.
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We don't know if these actions
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will make Durham a better place to live or not.
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We do certain things because it's commanded.
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Jesus commands us to love.
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And I know that it's not always easy to know
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what the loving thing to do in a certain situation may be.
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Sometimes the love we're called to exercise
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is a kind of tough love as we sometimes say.
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Sometimes when you love somebody
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and you call them to account for their behavior,
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'cause you gotta love somebody
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to care enough about them to call them to account.
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Sometimes that hurts the other person.
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Sometimes they take it wrong.
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And yet, we're commanded to love.
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And as your preacher, I got to admit,
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I don't resonate to scripture like this.
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Those of you who have heard me before
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you know I like a kind of, I like a story I can work with
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and I can tell other stories
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and I can kind of do like Kierkegaard urged us to do.
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I can come in the back door,
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I don't have to come straight on to you
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and get all your defenses up
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and all your sensitivities and everything.
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I can come in, you know, in the back door
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and by the time the sermon ends I've had you.
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And you don't know you've been had
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until it's too late to do anything about it.
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I like that kind of approach.
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But today the case is different.
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Jesus simply commands us to love.
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He reminds us.
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Your discipleship wasn't your idea, it was my idea.
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You didn't choose me, I chose you.
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I died for you and love and now, I command you to love.
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Erich Honecker was the despised,
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ruthless ruler of East Germany.
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Destroying his country through his communism,
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resulting in the deaths of many.
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When Honecker was finally deposed,
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he was booted out of his luxury villa.
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He was set out without a dime.
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There was a little Lutheran pastor
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who invited Erick Honecker to come into his parsonage
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and there live there with him and his wife and family.
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He gave him food, he gave him money.
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This is a particularly surprising act
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considering that Honecker had so persecuted
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the Lutheran Church in East Germany.
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A lot of people in the pastor's church didn't like it.
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He received some vile phone calls.
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People dropped out of the church.
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But when a reporter in Germany asked him,
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why in the world would you do something like this
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with this sworn enemy, Erick Honecker?
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The preacher just simply quoted scripture,
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"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself
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"through Christ and has given us
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"the ministry of reconciliation.
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"We are ambassadors for Christ.
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"God is making his appeal through us.
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"We entreat you on behalf of Christ.
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"Be reconciled."
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See?
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It's in the imperative mood.
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It's a command.
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Be reconciled.
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And let's be honest there are times
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when we reassure ourselves, saying,
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oh, the contemporary world, it's such a complex place.
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There are so many ethical challenges that come our way
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that our grandparents didn't have to face.
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The Bible, it's such a difficult book.
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And Jesus, the things he says are sometimes so obtuse,
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I mean, who can understand it?
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And this may be one
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of our most effective defense mechanisms.
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It's like today Jesus cuts through all that
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and gets down to just saying,
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look, it's a command, you can understand it.
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You're commanded to love.
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John Dominic Crossan is the author of a number
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of provocative books about Jesus.
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He is a participant in the infamous Jesus seminar
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and recently he was interviewed
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in the Christian Century magazine
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and the interviewer was asking him
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about his research on Jesus and at the end of the interview
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Crossan turns it back upon himself
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and he imagines that he's being interviewed
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not by a newspaper reporter but by Jesus himself.
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And Jesus says to John Dominic Crossan,
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this biblical scholar, Dominic, I've read your book.
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And he says, well good, Jesus, what'd you think?
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And Jesus says, it's such a big book, it is so long.
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And Crossan says, oh but yes,
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but contemporary scholarship has made such advances
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in our understanding of you.
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And putting you in the proper context
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and all the sociological dynamics involved in your work.
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And Jesus says, yes, but Dominic,
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your book is like five times longer
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than all the Gospels put together.
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And he says, but Jesus, we've just learned so much
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and I research about you and I wanted
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to share that research and I wanted.
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And then Jesus says, all right Dominic,
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now that you've learned so much about me,
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are you now ready to follow me?
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And Crossan says, well I don't know
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that I have the courage for that
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but don't you think it's important that,
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don't you think it's something
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that I've at least clarified the nature of your demands.
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And the last thing Jesus says is,
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Dominic, no that's not much.
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I have to admit that as a preacher
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some of my artistic gymnastics in a sermon,
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some of my intellectual subtleties
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are in service to protecting you from the demands of Jesus.
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That's odd for me to say 'cause you'd think a preacher
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would be somebody who would help you meet Jesus.
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And that's why you're here this morning.
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You're here because you want to come close to God.
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And in the sermon is where you get things explained,
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and set out for you and you get close to God.
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But I'll tell you, to be honest,
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there's as much time spent in most sermons
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keeping you away from God.
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Taking some outrageous command of Jesus
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and explaining it, and nuancing it,
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and massaging it and working with it
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until by the end you feel okay.
286
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But this Sunday the case is different.
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He commands us to love.
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And that's a challenge.
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Last year I preached a sermon on forgiveness.
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I preached a sermon on forgiveness
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and I looked at forgiveness
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from a number of different angles.
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And people were filing out of church afterwards,
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this woman comes up to me,
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and she says directly to me, she asks,
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do you mean that I as a Christian am supposed
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to forgive my ex-husband who abused me for 15 years?
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Am I to forgive him?
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And I immediately moved into my non-defensive defensiveness
300
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and said, oh well, of course this has to be contextualized
301
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and I know that there are different circumstances
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and circumstances make a difference
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and I've only got 20 minutes, okay?
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I can't say everything that needs to be said
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but I do feel that it does seem like, at least,
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that Jesus demands that we forgive.
307
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And she said, thank you, just checking.
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(congregation laughing)
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Who gave me the right to protect you from Jesus?
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You've probably heard me tell,
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on my way out of my last parish one afternoon,
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I'd had a hard day, I was ready to go home.
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I had to rush home, get a bite to eat,
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come back for a night meeting.
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And I looked out the front door
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and there loping down the sidewalk
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was this forlorn character carrying a bag and I sighed.
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I thought to myself, this is what I get
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for having a church close to a highway.
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These people come by once or twice a week.
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They're always headed south.
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They've always got some sad story they wanna tell you
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about how they're down on their luck and everything.
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But the end of the story is always the same,
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can you give me $25 in cash?
326
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And I sighed.
327
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And I determined right then I would meet him on the sidewalk
328
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and I would get to the end of this
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and I'd give him what I had.
330
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I reached in my pocket, I had $15.
331
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He walked up to me and said, hey, are you the pastor here?
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Yes, I said.
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He said, well I'm wondering if you'd be able
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to help somebody.
335
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And I said, yes, well all right look, here I've got $15.
336
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That's all I've got.
337
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And you can have that but that's it.
338
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And I handed him the $15.
339
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He looked at it and without
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a single remark or acknowledgment
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he sullenly poked it in his pocket and he turned around.
342
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And he headed back out toward the highway
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and I turned around to lock the door of the church.
344
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And then, after walking a few steps,
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he wheeled around and he said to me,
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look, I guess you think I'm supposed to be grateful
347
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'cause you give me this money.
348
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And I said, well now that you mention it,
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a little gratitude, a mere thank you wouldn't be bad.
350
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He said, well I'm not gonna thank you
351
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and you wanna know why?
352
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And I said, why?
353
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And he pointed up there and he said,
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because he commanded you to do it.
355
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And he turned around and walked out.
356
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On the way home I thought to myself,
357
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the nerve of these people.
358
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I thought to myself, this is the kind of gratitude.
359
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I thought to myself, he was right.
360
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(congregation chuckling)