Epiphany 9
2 March 2025
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
- Gregory Pope
HELPING HEAL A DIVIDED WORLD
Micah 6.6-8. John 17.20-23. Romans 12.9-21
“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.6-8)
(Part of The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus) I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17.20-23)
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12.9-21)
If you truly love our country, no matter what side of the political aisle you sit on, or whether you roam around the political room, not really on one side or the other, your heart has to be breaking into pieces at the present division within our national family. All the hatred, animosity, partisanship, lies, and incivility threaten to tear us apart.
The words of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, written back in 1920, seem equally prophetic 100 years later:
Turning, turning in the widening gyre
the falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand.1
Destructive behaviors have created stark divisions that are tearing apart our national life, our family relationships, our cultural fabric, even the Body of Christ. Healing these divisions is not optional for our democracy. Healing is imperative for any hope of a sustainable future. Else the words of Yeats will be our national, even global, fate: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”
National healing will not come through the complete triumph of one side of our national divide over the other. There is wisdom and destructiveness on all sides. Jesus’ final prayer with his disciples in John 17 asked for one thing: that we his followers demonstrate such a profound unity that the world will come to believe that God loves them. So healing our divisions is an evangelical act!
In this time of deep divisiveness, the work of unity and the ministry of reconciliation is our distinct calling. Christians should always be seeking to build relationships across divides – it was the way of Jesus and it’s the only way to transform the world into a just and peaceful place.
I would agree with philosopher Paul Woodruff who says that Western culture has lost
reverence as a religious, social and political virtue.2 And that our greatest challenge is to cultivate conviction about what is right and true and good without becoming cruel or fanatical about what we hold to be right and true and good.
Irreverence abounds everywhere. It abounds in politics where power blinds officials to the common good and serves special interests instead, most often to the detriment of the poor. It abounds in religion when we claim that God supports our political views and we’re never willing to listen to the other side.
Reverence goes to the heart of our humanity. It is the capacity to respect all people because every human being is a person of worth and bears the image of God.
Woodruff says: “If you desire peace in the world, do not pray that everyone share your beliefs. That’s not going to happen. Pray instead that all may be reverent.”
This morning we do not have the time and I do not possess the wisdom to solve all the problems of our national divide. However, I think there is much helpful wisdom to be gained in listening to the prophet Micah and what he says are the three things God requires of us. We can think of these three things as extrapolations on the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor. They are three ways of saying and doing that can enable all of us to help the healing process in our nation. It’s not all that’s needed. The problems are deep and wide. But it’s a start.
So with conviction, compassion, reverence, and love for our country, Micah says that God requires us to raise our voices on behalf of justice, extend our hands in deeds of kindness, and walk with God and neighbor in the way of humility. Do Justice. Love Kindness. Walk Humbly. These three virtues can go a long way in healing our divided nation. And we can begin to practice these virtues here in this place among ourselves as a witness to our community of the God who is seeking to reconcile the world.
Micah says that God requires us to do justice. And biblical justice most often has to do with defending the most vulnerable in our society: the widow and the orphan, the sick and the poor. There is a false peace and a cowardly kindness that leads us to quietly hide in our homes and just say “God is in control and everything will work itself out.”
In 1867 John Stuart Mill said: “Let not any one pacify [their] conscience by the delusion that [they] can do no harm if [they] take no part and form no opinion. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” One hundred years later Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
There comes a time, says the writer of Ecclesiastes, when we have to speak and act, times when injustice is running rampant and the poor and vulnerable are being trampled. So: Be a voice for the voiceless. Act on behalf of the powerless. Stand against oppression. Do Justice.
And Love Kindness. Sometimes our response to injustice must be loud and bold without being cruel and violent. Whenever possible, it is best to respond in kindness. The Bible says it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. Perhaps our kindness can lead to a change of heart in others. The late Glen Campbell used to sing:
You’ve got to try a little kindness
Yes, show a little kindness
Just shine your light for everyone to see
And if you try a little kindness
Then you’ll overlook the blindness
of narrow-minded people
on the narrow-minded streets.3
Do Justice. Love Kindness. And Walk Humbly With God. Humility reminds us that we are not the all-knowing God and that we cannot fully understand the eternal God. And walking humbly with God inevitably leads to walking humbly with one another. Healing division anywhere begins with humility. Paul wrote to the Philippians (2.1-5): Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. To the Ephesians (4.2-3) he wrote: With all humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love, make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Humility says: “I don’t know everything.”
Humility says: “I might be wrong. You may be right.”
Humility says: “I don’t understand your position but I’m willing to listen and learn.”
Humility says: “I may be part of the problem.”
Humility says: “I’m sorry.”
Diana Butler Bass put it beautifully when she wrote: “With the help of others, each one of us can mend the fault lines in our own lives and lend our hands to repair the world.”4
The healing of divisions will only come by humbly and patiently listening to our differences and a commitment to live united in the midst of them with none of us getting exactly what we want.
Do Justice. Love Kindness. Walk Humbly. These three virtues embody a reverent life.
Reverence in our day may require a refusal to use labels for people and ideas. Because if we can label an idea or a person as liberal or conservative, socialist or communist then we can more easily dismiss that person or that idea without prayerfully listening for any truth in what they may have to say. Maybe we could begin this Lenten season challenging ourselves to give up the use of labels and reverently listen to one another.
I try to make it a habit to read at least one book a year written by someone I know I disagree with. I do so in order to try and grow up, to try to diminish my own arrogance and sense of rightness, to try and understand another perspective, and to see where God may want to change my mind. And I’m here to tell you: It’s ain’t a fun read! But it is a necessary read if I’m going to live in community and in a nation with people who are different than me.
The reverent life of Justice, Kindness, and Humility is, I believe, the beginning of how we answer the final prayer of Jesus on the final night of his life “that we all may be one.” This is how we join God’s mission in the world to to reconcile and unite all things and all people. In his letter to the Ephesians (1.9-10, 2.15) Paul made crystal clear the purpose of God in the world to which we are often blind. He says: God has made known to us the mystery of God’s will . . . to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. Christ has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.
So what do you say we stop listening to people who sow the seeds of division and hatred, and instead seek to be a people who are first and foremost, citizens of God’s kingdom that encompasses all the world and second, citizens of a particular nation, who embody these wise, healing, uniting words of Paul to the Romans to:
Let your love be genuine.
Hate what is evil.
(Not “who” is evil but “what” is evil)
Hold fast to what is good.
Serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope.
Be patient in suffering.
Persevere in prayer.
Love one another with mutual affection.
Outdo one another in showing honor.
Extend hospitality to strangers.
Bless those who persecute you.
Bless and do not curse them.
Live in harmony with one another.
Do not claim to be wiser than you are.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil,
but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
And so far as it depends on you,
live peaceably with all.
Or if you prefer to simplify, make Colossians 3.12 your guiding light and governing principle. A simple verse which says to us all,
Clothe yourselves with
compassion,
kindness,
humility,
meekness and
patience.
I conclude this morning with a beautiful and reverent story from Chuck Poole, a native son of Macon and former pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ here in Macon. He tells the story of two men in his Mississippi congregation who were very different from one another.
Chuck was still at First Baptist Washington DC having just been called to pastor Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi. The phone rang and the voice on the other end said, “Reverend Poole, this is Rubel Phillips. My wife, Margaret, and I are going to be in Washington next week, and we would like to meet you. We’re members of Northminster, and are looking forward to your coming to join us.”
So they met for lunch, during which Rubel said, “I guess you’ve gotten to know George Purvis on the Pastor Search Committee. I just want you to know that I’m the most conservative member you have and George is the most liberal. We cancel each other’s vote, no matter the subject. In fact,” Rubel concluded, “George’s only hope at the pearly gates is that I go first and put in a good word for him.” To which his wife Margaret replied, “Rubel, dear, I doubt George Purvis is going to need any help from anybody getting into heaven, least of all you.”
Chuck said that once he arrived in Jackson, he learned that Rubel’s characterization of his differences with George was only slightly exaggerated. “But more importantly,” he said, “I learned how deeply and truly those two, so different from one another, loved and respected one another.
George and Rubel died within two weeks of one another. Not long before their deaths,” Chuck said, “I sat by Rubel’s bed, holding his hand and said, “Rubel, George Purvis is not well.” Upon which Rubel turned his face to the window, gazed into the sky and said through a great and glistening tear, “George Purvis. Finest man I ever knew.”
I can’t be sure but I think that’s the kind of church you want to belong to, and I think that’s the kind of America you want to live in. One that says “No” to the careless speech and cruel behavior that demonizes and dehumanizes those with whom we disagree and says “Yes” to justice and kindness, humility and reverence, and the desire to understand. It is certainly the kind of church I want to pastor and the kind of nation I want to live in. As far as it depends on us, the people of Vineville Baptist Church, may it be so. And who knows? With humility, reverence, kindness, and hope in the providence of God, the center may just hold.
_____________________________
- William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming,” The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Digireads.com. Publishing. 2018, 145.
- Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. Oxford University Press, 2001.
- Glen Campbell, “Try a Little Kindness,” 1970.
- Diana Butler Bass, “Why Heal Our Divides? We Need to Heal Ourselves,” in How to Heal Our Divides: A Practical Guide, compiled, edited, and published by Brian Allain and Adam Thomas, 2021, 16.