(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Making A Memorial”, originally shared on February 10, 2023. It was the 251st video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
What do impossible expectations have to do
with building a public memorial after a horrific local event? More than you
might think. Today, we’re going to find out.
We are now almost three weeks from the mass shooting on January 21st
in Monterey Park, where I’ve been serving part time and temporarily since last
June. It was an event that has been repeated dozens of times in communities all
over our country. Sally and I recorded a video of response and reflection near
some Happy Lunar New Year banners the first week, in front the Star Dance Studio,
the site of the murders, the week before last, and this week in front of the
growing memorial at the Monterey Park Civic Center, where I attended a vigil
two days after the shootings.
There have been calls for a
permanent memorial. You know there are going to be a lot of strongly held
opinions on what to construct!
How do we memorialize something
that was so traumatic and disheartening for a local community? I think that
there is something that we can learn from Jesus’ sermon on the mount, and it
begins by focusing on what points us to life.
Sally and I watched the
Grammy’s last Sunday, the awards ceremony of the National Academy of Recording
Arts and Sciences. There were many great performances and inspiring speeches.
There was also one cheap attention grab involving the devil and various
obscenities, and the subsequent mockery of Christian sensibilities. It worked.
It drew mainstream publicity and pearl-clutching responses.
My reaction? No one is beyond redemption. No
one. Except, maybe, those who think that they don’t need redemption.
That is the message of
reconciliation in the Bible text we’re going to look at today, in another
section from Jesus’ Sermon on The Mount, in Matthew 5:21-37,
It starts with verses 21-26,
21“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient
times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to
judgment.’ 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a
brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother
or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you
will be liable to the hell of fire. 23So when you are offering
your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has
something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar
and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer
your gift. 25Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you
are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the
judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26Truly
I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
We are reminded to remember
that we also were separated from God by our Sin, and were reconciled to God by
God’s grace, before we judge others.
The Christian practice of the
“Passing of the Peace” is based partially on these words. It’s not just a
friendly, “Hello.”
When we say “Peace be with you”
to one another, we are saying, “We’re good”, and that we are reconciled with
one another.
Those words are preceded by the
pastor saying to the whole congregation, “The peace of the Lord be with you
always,” and the congregation replying, “And also with you”.
We say that we recognize that
we are reconciled with one another because we are first reconciled to God by
Jesus Christ on the cross.
We have no fear of Sin, Death,
or the power of the forces that defy God.
We are made righteous by the
work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Nothing, not community trauma, not
unexpected evil, not even death, can take that away.
Everything we do is a response
to the love of God in Jesus Christ, not an attempt to earn it.
Last week, we mentioned the
Pharisees. They were laymen who devoted their lives to knowing God’s law and
keeping it. They were highly admired, and Jesus was always knocking heads with
them. Why?
It was because they had
confused the spirit of the Law with the letter of the Law.
It was because they believed
that keeping the letter of the Law made them righteous, and they looked at
anyone who was not keeping the letter of the Law as not righteous.
It was because their knowledge
of the Law led them to look for loopholes that would enable them to appear to
keep the Law, while not keeping it.
They were like the little boy
who went into the kitchen just before dinner and asked his mother if he could
have a piece of cake. “No,” she said. “You’ll spoil your appetite.”
The mother left the kitchen for
a minute, and when she came back she found her little boy eating cookies.”
“What are you doing?” she
asked.
“Eating cookies,” he said. “You
said that I couldn’t eat cake. But you didn’t say that I couldn’t eat cookies.”
The letter of the law was,
“Don’t eat the cake.” The spirit of it was, “You’ll spoil your appetite.”
The Pharisees had missed the
purpose of God’s Law.
Jesus continues making this
point with verses 27-32,
27“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not
commit adultery.’ 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at
a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If
your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better
for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into
hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off
and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for
your whole body to go into hell. 31“It was also said, ‘Whoever
divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32But
I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of
unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman
commits adultery.
Jesus said that questions concerning how to
keep the letter of the Law, or looking for loopholes in it, are entirely beside
the point.
Jesus is saying that our need isn’t learning
how to escape punishment by looking for loopholes. Our need is for knowing that
we have a Savior in Jesus Christ.
That knowledge is the greatest memorial gift
we can give to our community, because it doesn’t point backwards. It points to
our present life and to our future life. It points to life!
Even sinful thoughts that others don’t see
are still sin, Jesus says.
All have sinned and fallen short.
I used to ask my confirmation students, when
teaching about Sin, “How would you like to have a TV screen over your head that
showed what you were thinking all day?” No? We all sin, even when others think
we don’t. God sees the heart.
We all need redemption. We all need to be
reconciled to God. We all need a savior. And all who receive Jesus in faith
have one.
This is so important that Jesus uses the
common middle eastern rhetorical device of showing that a statement is
extremely important by using extreme examples. Otherwise, there would be a lot
of one-eyed, one-handed people in this world. We all need redemption. We all
need to be reconciled to God. We all need a savior. And all who receive Jesus
in faith have one.
There was a controversy in Jesus’ day over
the circumstances under which a divorce was acceptable under God’s Law. The
experts taught everything from “She burned my toast,” to “She had an affair.”
In any case, only men could get a divorce, except under very specific
circumstances. Jesus said that it’s not about finding loopholes. We all need
redemption. We all need to be reconciled to God. We all need a savior. And all
who receive Jesus in faith have one, and live in response to the gift we have
been given in Jesus Christ.
Jesus gives one more set of teachings to
make this point, in verses 33-37,
33“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of
ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have
made to the Lord.’ 34But I say to you, Do not swear at all,
either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the
earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the
great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot
make one hair white or black. 37Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or
‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.
Jesus makes the Law even harder
to keep than the Pharisees did, in order to turn our hearts away from
self-righteousness and toward trust in God.
My two brothers and my sister and I had a
sibling Zoom call the other day with a nephew who is working on a family
history. Out subject for that call was what we remembered about our
grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides of our family.
A story one of my brothers told that I had
forgotten, if I ever knew it, came up when we were talking about my paternal
grandmother’s church quilting group.
The group met every Saturday morning in her
and my grandfather’s home.
One time, a women approached her and asked
if the group would make a quilt for her. She would be happy to pay for it.
My grandmother said that the group really
only did quilts for the church .
The woman persisted and finally my
grandmother said that she would personally make one for the woman. My brother
said that he didn’t know if there was any money paid, but the quilt was made.
And that would have been the end of the story.
Except that, not long after, the County Fair
was held in our town, and there were contests for things like making pickles,
and pies, and pictures. And quilts.
The woman had entered the quilt that my
grandmother made as if it were one that the woman had made herself. And she won
a blue ribbon!
And my grandmother saw it.
How would you have handled that?
That story reminded me of a popular
Evangelical writer and preacher who was at a conference where a pastor had
delivered one of his published sermons as if it were his own. Afterwards, the
writer/preacher approached the pastor and said, “I liked your sermon. But I
liked it better when I preached it myself.” 😊
How can we escape Sin? We cannot. But the
Good News that we have to share is that God brings us out of the sin of our
past. We have a Savior who makes all things new! The Christian life then
follows in living that new life. We memorialize that newness of life by living
it, and by telling others about everything that God has done for us!
I understand that there’s a football game on
TV this coming Sunday. I’ve heard that it’s “The Superbowl”, though it can’t be
a super bowl if the Green Bay Packers aren’t playing. At least, that’s
my standard for a Super Bowl. 😊
What is the standard for reconciliation with
God?
I once heard Nicky Gumbel, the founder of
the international Alpha Course for making disciples, describe this by asking
his audience to look at a wall and imagine the worst person they could think of
at the bottom of the wall and the best person they could think of at the top of
the wall. “Now,” he asked, “Where on that wall would you put yourself?” Most
people, he said, put themselves somewhere in the middle. Then he said, “The
problem is that God’s standard isn’t the top of the wall. God’s standard is the
sky.”
Who can reach that standard? No one. No one
but Jesus. And because he gave his life on the cross, we can live with him
forever. We who have been reborn from death to life in baptism and by the gift
of faith bring a message of hope and redemption to those we know who are living
in a disheartened world.
The local memorial to be associated with an
event that has been so traumatic and disheartening for us is us. It is lives
lived for the reason they were created, for a living relationship with the one
true living God..
That is true for us, it is true for our
communities, and it is true for our churches.
I believe that God gives every part of the
Church, everything we need to accomplish everything God has called on us to do.
What has God called, equipped, and sent us to do? That is our only question?
How will we accomplish it? Jesus is our answer.
We need redemption. We need to be reconciled
to God. We need a savior. And all who receive Him have one in Jesus Christ, and
sharing our stories of faith in the transformational power of God is how we
make a lasting memorial to life here in Monterey Park and throughout the world.
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