Courage and Humility
Luke 6:39-45
February 27, 2022
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhcJwFOfX7A
A mother went to a famous spiritual teacher for help with her son. "My son has horrible eating habits," she said. "He will listen to you if you tell him to stop eating foods with so much sugar." The Teacher listened sympathetically. "I ask that you come back next week and ask me again."
The mother agreed and returned seven days later. "My son’s problem continues," she said. "I am concerned about his health. He rarely eats any fruit or vegetables.
Please, won’t you talk to him about the danger of eating too much sugar?"
"Please, come back and see me in a week," the Teacher said simply. Though the mother was disappointed, she left and returned one week later. Once again she made her plea. This time the Teacher agreed to talk with her son.
When the conversation was done, the mother thanked the Teacher. " I am grateful that you took the time to talk to my son, but I don’t understand why it took three requests for you to do so."
The Teacher looked at the woman and said, "I didn’t realize how hard it would be for me to give up sugar."
We are at the end of our reading of the Sermon on the Plain. Today’s reading begins with a concern for teaching and learning, with the responsibilities and pitfalls of each. Those who would teach others are encouraged to maintain humility
You cannot teach what you do not know, and no one knows everything, so the wise teacher may take three weeks (or more) to learn something themselves before attempting to instruct others.
The sermon is sort of a tag-team effort by Jesus and Luke. Jesus taught the principles of this sermon over and over again as he roamed through Galilee. Luke gathered together what he thought were the most important pieces and compiled them into one sermon here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. We can surmise that because Mark and Matthew also include some of the same teachings, but they describe them in other contexts in Jesus’ ministry. In this sermon, Jesus is speaking to the crowds in general, but also specifically to those who will carry on his ministry. Luke writes his gospel about 50 years after Jesus’s lifetime and he is careful to preserve Jesus’ teachings especially for those who will convey them to the next generation.
That well-known saying about taking the log out of your own eye so that you can see to remove the speck from someone else’s eye is true, but also supposed to be funny. Many of us have a tendency to exaggerate the faults of other people and minimize our own. Jesus turns that around and invites us to laugh at our selves, so that we don’t fall into the trap of thinking we have it all together.
Jesus warns that the blind should not lead the blind. It’s an unfortunate metaphor from a time that was less aware of ableism. What he means is that an uninformed teacher can easily lead astray an uninformed student. People who would lead others have a responsibility to attend to themselves, to intentionally examine and know themselves, because we are teaching matters of truth and spirit.
Larry and John are both well-respected, mature teachers in their church. One time, they led a church retreat together. Larry happens to be physically blind. He lost his sight before he was 10. One evening he and John went for a walk, just the two of them. As they moved away from the lights of the retreat center, it got darker and darker until John could not see a thing. Larry asked if John would trust him to guide them. John agreed.
Larry upped the ante and asked if they could start with a trust fall. Would John fall backwards and trust Larry to catch him? John did fall and Larry did catch him. Then they continued on the walk with Larry in the lead, and contrary to Jesus’ prediction, they did not fall into a pit. [1] Larry was used to navigating safely without the use of his sight.
This story illustrates the dangers of taking things too literally. It also manages to illustrate Jesus’ point. You want your leader to be someone who knows the terrain, someone who has been down the path that you’re on now. And in John’s case, when he needed to get home safely in the dark, Larry knew things John didn’t. John had the humility to recognize that Larry was his best guide and the courage to trust him.
Jesus says that trees are known by their fruit. What is on the inside of a person (their thoughts and goals and motivations) will likely be revealed by their speech and actions. This is a standard for everyone – the quality of our discipleship is measured by integrity between what is internal and what is external. It is also a warning to be careful about the teachers we follow. If someone claims to be following Jesus, claims to be teaching others how to love like Jesus loved, but the outcome of their beliefs is shame and anger and division, then we are wise to question those beliefs.
If we would truly follow Jesus, then just listening is not enough. He ends the sermon with the stress that those who follow him faithfully will hear his words and act on them.
We build our lives on the foundation of his teachings. We remember from the last few weeks that those teachings include God’s complete disregard for human categories of worthiness and Jesus’ dismantling of social hierarchies to bring everyone to a level place. We might remember his hard teachings about loving enemies and facing persecution.
Spiritual formation occurs when we know those things and we practice them. We have the humility to recognize our inadequacies, the log in our eye, and the courage to act anyway.
The parable at the end of the sermon uses the metaphor of a storm. The storm reveals the strength of the foundation. It is one thing to talk about loving enemies during peace-time; another thing altogether when war breaks out. It is one thing to speak of blessings when all is going well; the real test comes in crisis or calamity.
Like you, I have watched the news from Ukraine this week with deep concern but also with admiration for the courage of the Ukrainian people. I have learned some things about Baptists in Ukraine. Protestants make up about 2% of the population and Baptists fall within that 2%, but Ukraine has the largest concentration of Baptists in Europe.
In 2014, when Russia occupied some western areas of Ukraine, Baptist churches in those areas were officially declared terrorist organizations as was the Baptist Union of Ukraine. The Baptist Hymnal was outlawed as extremist material. More than 40 churches were forced to shut down or go into hiding.
In spite of that persecution, over the last 5 years, Baptists poured $2 million dollars into aid relief and community development in those disputed territories. While being labelled terrorists, they planted 25 new churches in those areas.
In the last few weeks, Baptist churches across the country have stocked up on food and supplies and gasoline. They have prepared to be centers of refuge in the chaos and confusion of war. Pastors are not fleeing, but are determined to care for those in need around them.[2] Blessed are those who hear Jesus’ words and act on them. God grant them wisdom and courage for the living of these days.
Anthony Ray Hinton was in Albany this week and several of us got to hear him speak. When he was 29 years old, Mr. Hinton was convicted for crimes he did not commit. The structural racism that sent him to death row was evident at every level, from the arresting officers to the negligence of his attorney to the judges who refused to hear the merits of his case. It was not subtle. It was blatant. He spent 30 years on death row until the US Supreme Court finally overturned his conviction.
I cannot think of a person who demonstrates more faithful courage and humility than Mr. Hinton. After he had been in prison for many years, a lawyer offered to try to get a plea deal. In this deal, the state of Alabama would reduce his sentence to life without parole in exchange for a guilty plea. Facing execution, Mr. Hinton said that he could never say that he did something he did not do. He would not lie, would not be false to himself, even to save his life. That’s courage.
He has a story to tell and he tells it over and over again. It is a story of unmitigated, intentional injustice and abuse of power. And yet, he does not tell the story with the arrogance of one who has been there and knows it all. He tells it courageously and openly.
He describes the victory of having finally won his release, but also the trauma that he carries from 30 years in captivity. After his release, he couldn’t sleep in a regular bed. He spent the first two nights on a bathroom floor, sleeping on a bath mat because the bathroom was more like the size of his cell. In a recent interview, he said that he now has a king-sized bed, but he still sleeps with his knees up in a fetal position. He still wakes at 2:45 every morning because for 30 years, breakfast was at 3:00 a.m.[3] He says that people think he is fine, but he is not. That’s humility.
While he was in prison, he formed relationships with others on Death Row – on 54 occasions, someone was marched past his cell to the execution chamber. One of them was Henry. Henry was a lifelong racist, a card-carrying member of the Klan. He was the last person executed in Alabama for lynching a black man. He committed that crime at age 19, following orders from his father.
Mr. Hinton became friends with Henry. The man locked up simply because of the color of skin chose to be friends with someone who would have killed him for being black. He said that to survive there, he had to become family with those in prison around him and they had to become family with him. It didn’t matter who you were or what you had done when you all lived a few feet away from an electric chair. Can you imagine? I cannot.
On the day of his death, it was Mr. Hinton that Henry wanted to accompany him, to bear witness. Of course, that was not allowed. Before his execution, Henry made a statement. His last words were “All of my life, my father, my mother, my community, taught me to hate. The very people that they taught me to hate are the very people that taught me how to love. And tonight, as I leave this world, I leave knowing what love feels like.”[4]
One of the things that Mr. Hinton says about that is “God allowed me to go to prison . . . God allowed me to go to prison, so that I could teach Henry how to love.”
In solidarity with Jesus, may we be found in such good company as those in Ukraine, as Anthony Ray Hinton. May God grant to us wisdom and trust, courage, and humility for the living of our days. Amen.
[1] https://liturgy.slu.edu/8OrdC022722/reflections_foley.html
[2] https://christiancitizen.us/what-does-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-mean-for-religious-minorities/?fbclid=IwAR1OOie7xaBVk5VonU2K_MHF9gK0snACUv7QsIOyv15xyMVOQxa7DJSPFCY