Enemy Fare

Scripture: 2 Kings 6: 8-23, Romans 5: 6-11

Sermon: Enemy Fare

Preached: May 16, 2004 pm communion service, Woodlawn 2004-05-13

2 Kings 6: 8-23

Once when the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he took counsel with his officers. He said, ‘At such and such a place shall be my camp.’⁹But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, ‘Take care not to pass this place, because the Arameans are going down there.’ ¹⁰The king of Israel sent word to the place of which the man of God spoke. More than once or twice he warned such a place so that it was on the alert.

11 The mind of the king of Aram was greatly perturbed because of this; he called his officers and said to them, ‘Now tell me who among us sides with the king of Israel?’ ¹²Then one of his officers said, ‘No one, my lord king. It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.’ ¹³He said, ‘Go and find where he is; I will send and seize him.’ He was told, ‘He is in Dothan.’ ¹⁴So he sent horses and chariots there and a great army; they came by night, and surrounded the city.

15 When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. His servant said, ‘Alas, master! What shall we do?’ ¹⁶He replied, ‘Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.’ ¹⁷Then Elisha prayed: ‘O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. ¹⁸When the Arameanscame down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said, ‘Strike this people, please, with blindness.’ So he struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked. ¹⁹Elisha said to them, ‘This is not the way, and this is not the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.’ And he led them to Samaria.

20 As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, ‘O Lord, open the eyes of these men so that they may see.’ The Lord opened their eyes, and they saw that they were inside Samaria. ²¹When the king of Israel saw them he said to Elisha, ‘Father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?’ ²²He answered, ‘No! Did you capture with your sword and your bow those whom you want to kill? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink; and let them go to their master.’ ²³So he prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master. And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

This has not been a good week.

The news of our treatment of Iraqi detainees

and prisoners left me sick and angry.

The news of the Iraqi treatment and execution of an American hostage (Nick

Berg) also left me sick and angry.

And then, bringing the misery of the world closer to home, our daughter’s seventh grade class was near Martin Luther King Park on Tuesday. They heard a shot. Then they heard a crash. A van slammed into a parked car. Someone had been shot, then the injured person had an accident. She and her class were shaken. The next day, on page 1 of Section B of the Press, we read that this was a drive by shooting. We read that the victim, a 25 year old man, had died of gunshot wounds.

This has not been a very good week.

A week of lying in bed, worried about the world,

angry at the world,

afraid of the world

— a week of feeling rather helpless and at times, even hopeless.

In a way it is no wonder that there are so many “revenge” movies in theaters recently.

Whether it is “Kill Bill 2” or “The Punisher” or “Man on Firet” These are only a few recent examples of this genre:

Movies in which terrible things are committed by terrible people.

Movies in which a good person decides to take a stand against evil.

Movies in which this good person is willing to do whatever it takes to

make things right.

I confess, I have not seen any of the three movies I just mentioned, but the NPR movie reviewer David Edelstien recently described his disturbance at their sudden rise in popularity. His review focused on “Man on Fire” starring Denzel Washington. It is the story of a young girl who is kidnapped, and her bodyguard, Denzel Washington, who seeks revenge. The movie has clear bad guys and a clear good guy. The bad guys are the kidnappers. The good guy is the “Man on Fire” character played by Denzel Washington, a Bible-quoting avenger who seems to live by the maxim, “The ends justify the means.”

According to Edelstien, the terrifying thing is that the “means” Denzel Washington uses look disturbingly like the images we have been seeing from the prisons of Iraq. When this body-guard turned avenger is asked, “What about mercy and forgiveness” he responds,

“Forgiveness is between them and God.

It’s my job to arrange for the meeting.”

Somehow, I know in my heart such movies are the wrong school to go to when trying to sort out our own feelings of despair, anger, and fear.

SCHOOL OF ELISHA

Tonight I would like to go to another school.

I would like to visit the school of Elisha.

Elisha lived in turbulent times.

It was a time of rampant evil.

It was a time of frequent turmoil and famine.

It was a time of war: the Israelites were fighting the Arameans.

The Arameans were no angels. They were constantly raiding Israel.

There were constant border skirmishes.

Into this turbulent and tough context we have Elisha.

The amazing thing about Elisha is his ability to

find life in the midst of death

food in the midst of famine

fnd in this story, mercy, in the midst of misery.

It starts somewhat oddly. Elisha is serving as the CIA of the king of Israel. Elisha has inside information and knows the troop movements of the Arameans. What is surprising is that Elisha’s information does not seem to be used to obliterate the Arameans, simply to avoid them.

There are different parts of this story.

There are the inspiring acts of spiritual sight when Elisha says to his servant:

“Do not be afraid.

Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

Then Elisha shows him the hills filled with horses and chariots of fire.

There is the inspiring miracle of spiritual blindness when the Arameans are suddenly led,

like lambs, to the heart of their enemy’s capital city, Samaria.

But what I would like to focus on is the end of this story.

The enemy army has its eyes opened, and they are suddenly powerless before the forces of Israel.

The King of Israel is giddy with glee.

“Shall I kill them, father? Shall I kill them?”

Elisha’s response is truly amazing:

“Would you kill men you have captured with your own sword or

bow?”

The response seems odd. There have been a number of scholars who think a word must be missing. Elisha must have meant to say, “Would you kill men you have not captured.” But Elisha’s unexpected words carry more punch. The implication is, “Is this how you treat prisoners, whether you have captured them or not?”

Look to other passages, like 2 Chronicles 28, and you will see Israel mistreating its prisoners. The result is that the Lord is displeased. In that passage, the prophet Oded brings a warning from the Lord, and Israel finally does what should be done:

they clothe the naked prisoners,

feed the hungry ones,

put balm on the injured ones,

and then allow them all to return home.

In a similar fashion, the enemies in our passage are treated with surprising mercy, love, and care.

They are given something to drink and something to eat.

They are given a feast.

And then they are allowed to go home.

Amazing grace.

JESUS and ENEMIES

The amazing thing about Jesus is that he takes what is best of the Old Testament and intensifies it. He takes this merciful impulse and makes it a way of life.

He says in Luke 6: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you….. “ and in case we forgot, a few verses later, he says the same thing, “But love your enemies, do good to them…”

And Jesus ends that part of his talk with, “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

This is our code of conduct.

This is the high ethical bar for Christians.

This is how we are to handle all our enemies,

whoever that enemy may be:

Muslims who may try kill us;

or bleeding-heart Democrats who infuriate

us with their out-of-touch-with-reality views;

or hawkish Republicans who we blame for

getting us in this Iraq mess in the first place.

This is how we are to handle anyone with whom we disagree,

with whom we fight

– this is how we are to handle all our enemies,

near and far.

The one thing about this injunction of Jesus that we can perhaps handle is that it still leaves us in the rather comfortable position of deciding who the enemy is.

It still leaves us in the position of the good person, and we get to decide who the bad person is.

So when Jesus says, “Love your enemies” we get to decide who the enemy is.

We get to decide who we have to try be “nice” to.

PAUL and ENEMIES

The passage in Romans 5 is different.

In that passage we do not get to decide for ourselves who the enemy is.

We do not get to decide.

In Romans 5, the scary thing is that we are the ones at war with God.

We are the ones hostile to God.

We are the ones who are the enemies.

In a series of three increasingly intense statements, Paul first says,

While we were still powerless, Christ died for us.

Then, he writes, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And then lastly, he writes while we were still enemies, Christ died for

us.

This is one of the hardest things for Christians to swallow.

We always want to assume that we are on God’s side,

or at least that God is on our side.

But Paul bluntly says (and he knows what he is talking about from personal

experience), in the great cosmic conflict,

we are not on the side of God.

We are hostile to God.

We are enemies of God.

We may be powerless, we may be weak, but we are still enemies.

As Karl Barth once put it, “Look at the face of a criminal,

and you will see what God sees when he looks at us.”

So what does God do with us, his enemies?

What God does is he makes peace with us in the only way possible.

He sends his Son to us –

and while we were still sinners, while we were still

enemies – this Son dies a criminal’s death, an enemy’s death, for us so

that we might have peace with God.

And then what does God do?

He provides his enemies, that is, he provides you and me, with a feast.

He provides us with the food and drink of peace

That is this bread and this wine,

That is the body and blood of his Son

LOVING ENEMIES

This is what makes the Christian faith so incredibly difficult.

When we see the face of an enemy, whoever that enemy may be,

we are called to remember how God the Father sees our face,

the face of his enemy;

and we are called to remember how God the Father treats this enemy,

not as you and I deserve, but according to grace and mercy and love.

And then we are called to remember that we are commissioned to do likewise.

CONCLUSION

In Wendell Berry’s novel, Jayber Crow, the main character is Jayber, the only barber in the small town of Port William Kentucky. Jayber cuts the hair of all the men and boys in town. His barbershop is a place of social gathering. He gets along well with most of the folk in town, except one – Troy Chatham. Troy is the kind of farmer Jayber dislikes – an agri-businessman who thinks bigger is always better, and is ready to exploit anything to squeeze out another dollar. But Jayber has a deeper reason for not liking Troy. Troy is married to Mattie, a woman whom Jayber has secretly pined after and adored from afar for years.

The setting for the book is in the late 60’s. The Vietnam War and the protests surrounding it are at their peak. The nation is divided between those supporting the war and those protesting it. One evening, Troy starts up about how much he hates all those war protesters.

“They ought to round up every one of them *&^^%^ and put them right in front of those Viet Cong, and then, whoever killed who, it would be all to the good.” Troy proclaimed.

The barbershop grew quiet. No one knew what to say.

Then Jayber stopped cutting hair, looked at Troy and said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.”

Troy jerked his head up and widened his eyes and said, “Where did you get that crap?”

“Jesus Christ” Jayber said.

And Troy said, “Oh”.

Then Jayber muses to himself, “It would have been a great moment in the history of Christianity, except that I did not love Troy.”

Loving the Troy’s of our life – those who hurt us, mistreat us, who belittle us, who disagree with us, who fight with us — is hard, so very hard. And it is tempting and so much easier to go to the movies instead.

But we have come here?

We have come here to be reminded that we are God’s enemies.

But while we are still God’s enemies,

God loves us, he sent his Son to die for us,

And he feeds us, his enemies, this feast

– to eat this bread and drink from this cup.

May we, in eating this bread and drinking this cup,

remember what loving ones enemies really looks like.

Amen