Kind to the ungrateful and the wicked

 For my four years at Knox College, the academic term in September always started with a retreat. Faculty and students would gather at Crieff Hill just outside of Guelph for a weekend of fellowship, orientation, worship and shenanigans. And one feature that was key to the whole event (at least in my time) was the screening - at some point of the weekend - of Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

Now for those of you who don’t know or appreciate mid-century British humour, I’ll sum up. The film tells the story of Brian, a man whose birth coincides with the birth of one Jesus of Nazareth. There is an early case of mistaken identity to set the scene (Brian’s mother is neither gentle, meek or mild.) and then the focus is on the next time the two lives intersect - on the very fringes of the crowd listening to the sermon on the mount.

Through the story there are a group of zealots who call themselves ‘The People’s Front of Judea’ ‘who long for their freedom from Roman tyranny. Brian is entangled with this group, and winds up arrested, tried and crucified. Sort of.

It is satire, social commentary and good fun.

In the midst of this good fun, a scene sticks out in my memory that seems strangely appropriate, given the state of things and the gospel appointed for this morning.

The People’s Front of Judea are having a secret meeting. The goal is to ‘kidnap Pilate’s wife and force him to “dismantle the entire apparatus of the Roman Imperialist State” If Pilate refuses, the outlook for his wife is grim - but it’s only fair, they argue, because the Romans have taken everything from them… for generations.

“They’ve bled us dry” says Reg (the leader) “and what have they ever given us in return. After an uncomfortable silence, the gathered conspirators begin listing some of the things that Romans did wherever they went… creating the infrastructure of conquest; some of which has endured for 2000 years.  

Poor Reg - he’s got a point to make:

“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

The lesson here is not that the Roman’s weren’t so bad after all. Roman rule was great if you were Roman (and wealthy) and misery for nearly everyone else. To take up last week’s theme, the good and bad are often co-mingled. reality is complicated, and either-or solutions don’t often fit our problems very well. The terror of Roman oppression left much of Europe with marvels of Roman engineering, and it can be difficult to reconcile those kinds of things. Either or solutions aren’t very satisfactory.

Jesus doesn’t often propose ‘either-or’ solutions. He reimagines those binaries, and asks us to think more broadly about the complex nature of human existence and the over-arching mystery that is divine grace. That’s where our lectionary has been taking us these last, tumultuous weeks – like it or not.

The love your enemies thing – that’s hard right now. Because our (so-called) enemies are so much like us. Never in my lifetime has there been so much vitriol traded between and among Canadians – within communities – within families. And within the community of God-fearing, Jesus-following people.

And Jesus speaks to all of us today: ‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?

Good question, Jesus – a question meant to have us thinking at least twice before we let someone ‘have it’ on-line. It’s harder, but not impossible, to be intentionally hateful in person, but the same question haunts us either way.

What credit, if you love the crowd that thinks like you and spurn the rest? What good is accomplished by longing for a time when no one disagrees? Either-or thinking will tear this country apart quicker than COVID – quicker than anything.

So, what’s the answer to your good questions, Jesus? What on earth must we do to faithfully follow your path?

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return”

Aw, come on, Jesus – that’s not right! A price must be paid. Wrongs must be righted! We need to know who wins and who loses.

No. Just no. score-keeping is for sporting events. We are invited to act differently.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

The screaming and score-keeping; the merciless barrage of claims that feed the news headlines these days; these things have nothing to do with anything but our own justification. No one wants to be wrong – and in the bargain, everyone pays a terrible price. The punishment for this particular human endeavor is the shattering of relationships and the mis-guided dream of ‘a society where no one argues,’ which is the ultimate form of oppression.

Jesus lived in a time of considerable conflict. The Romans were relentless innovators and relentlessly oppressive. And Jesus response was not to ‘storm the palace’ to demand change. Jesus’ response was a plea for mercy, for love, for the kind of world that God imagines we should inhabit.

God - who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked – loves our enemies, you can count on it.

Jesus – whose only resistance was silence at his own trial (in the presence of one who might have released him) – loves our enemies – no doubt.

If we really want to follow Jesus, the path forward is difficult, but miserably clear:

‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’