Genesis 12:1-9; Psalm 33:1-12; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 - 8 June 2008 - A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

Love Is Inconvenient

 

For some reason it hit me in a whole new way this week, why loving others or loving God or even loving yourself is so hard. It’s inconvenient. To love, we must inconvenience ourselves. Let me tell you what I mean.

 

There is a man who calls the church regularly for help with his rent. I’ll call him Fred. Fred has a reputation among all the churches of the area. He sometimes is the topic of conversation at clergy gatherings. “Oh, so Fred calls you, too? How do you handle it?” Fred has some kind of disability that prevents him from holding down a job. When he is especially anxious about making his rent, he has a stutter that is prominent. At other times, no stutter, or not much of one. There are weeks when Fred calls at least once a day. Kristy or Pahtyana will say, “It’s Fred. Do you want to talk to him?”

 

I’ve never met Fred. My relationship with Fred consists of dozens of phone conversations that I’ve had with him over the years. Fred is definitely living on the edge. He doesn’t like to go to the homeless shelter. Not surprising - he has gotten insulted and even beaten up there. He is always on the edge of being homeless. His normal abode is a hotel, where the manager has compassion for him, and gives him a reduced rate. He’s on a waiting list for low-cost housing. As far as I can tell, he spends most of his days calling churches from his hotel room. This is the focal point of his life. Some nights he has slept in parks or in hotel lobbies. Kristy and Pahtyana and I aren’t quite sure what to do with Fred. I write him a check from my discretionary fund once in a while. A lot of times I tell him I can’t give him any money. I talk to him on the phone. I pray for him. He keeps calling back. Depending on the day, either Kristy or Pahtyana or I might be heard letting out a sigh, or saying, “Not again!” or “Oh - I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS TODAY!” Dealing with Fred - trying to love Fred - is inconvenient.

 

JESUS IN GALILEE

I had the privilege a number of years ago of going to Israel. I loved the northern part, what they still call “The Galilee”. It appealed to my love of the outdoors, I suppose, especially the Sea of Galilee, which, of course, is a big lake. One morning I got up before sunrise and went down to the edge of the lake, and watched the birds fly over the lake and the day dawning. Another morning, the group of pastors that I was with sat on the top of a hillside, about where Jesus preached The Sermon on the Mount, and we took turns reading Matthew 5-7 together. As I listened to others read, I looked down the hillside, and out across the lake. As we continued to read, the sun broke through the clouds, and it was spine-tingling beautiful.

 

Jesus could have taken the path of least resistance. He could have stayed in his carpenter’s shop, made fine furniture for others, kept his interactions with people to a minimum, walked down to the shore of the beautiful lake each morning, or each evening, and enjoyed the silhouettes of the birds as they flew back and forth across the orange and yellow and pink sky, above the lake.

 

That could have been his life. Maybe this was his life for a while. But then he heard the call of God. And he made the transition. He gave up the life of being a carpenter who studied the scriptures and enjoyed the sunrises and sunsets over the lake. Oh, he still read the scriptures and found time to be alone with God, whether on a mountain or on the lakeshore. But he became someone whose focus was on other people - particularly other people who were in need. Jesus moved to a place where he was regularly inconvenienced.

 

It began with the call of the twelve. Do you know what kind of time and energy and commitment it takes to get to know twelve people really well, to listen to their hopes and dreams, to teach them what you know of God and life and purpose, to be there for them when they are hurting?

 

We hear one of those stories today. Jesus went up to a man called Matthew, who was at work, sitting at the tax booth. The tax booth! Here was a man collecting taxes for the Romans, who weren’t exactly popular. You know the background. Tax collectors had a reputation for overcharging, and lining their pockets with the extra. Jesus went up to this man, and said, “Follow me.” Probably because Jesus stopped and talked to him, and saw him in a way that no one else did, Matthew got up and followed. And Matthew invited a whole bunch of other folks over to his house, folks that other people described with contempt as “tax collectors and sinners”. They certainly were not people who kept the Jewish law. And Matthew said, “Come on, Jesus! Have dinner with us!” Jesus was in for it now. Love is inconvenient.

 

“Inconvenient” - not favorable to one’s comfort; difficult to do; causing trouble or bother. (Webster’s NewWorld Dictionary, Third College Edition)

 

When the Pharisees found out, they came to Jesus’ disciples. Not to Jesus, of course, because that would have taken too much courage. “Why does your teacher [they wouldn’t even say his name] eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But Jesus heard their question, and replied - directly - to them, “Those who are well have no need of physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means [and then he quoted Hosea], ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”

 

God desires love and compassion and mercy - love in action - not all our religious rituals. Oh, it’s fine to follow certain religious rituals that are mentioned in the law. But Jesus is saying, “Don’t neglect the weightier matters of the law - things like concrete acts of love and mercy, doing justice and taking risks of faith.”

 

HEALING

 

The next story in our Gospel today is of a leader of the synagogue coming to Jesus. This man knelt before Jesus and told him that his daughter had just died. Imagine all that he was feeling! And he has the faith to come to Jesus and say to him, “... but come lay your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus went with the man. I don’t know what else Jesus had scheduled that day.

 

But he went. Love is inconvenient.

 

And along the way, he was interrupted by a woman who touched the fringe of his cloak. Have you ever set out to do the next thing you had planned to do, and been interrupted? She had great faith, too. “If I only touch the fringe of his cloak, I will be made well.” And Jesus felt something, and turned - turned with the faithful-but-anxious father there beside him - and said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly twelve years of bleeding came to an end. What if Jesus had not turned and faced the woman? What if he had thought, “No, I’m not dealing with this interruption!” What then? But he did stop and turn and interact with the woman.

 

He continued on to the leader’s house. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, writes at this point that Jesus encountered “the gossips looking for a story and the neighbors bringing in casseroles.” He said to them, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” We are told that they laughed at him. But he did get the crowd to leave. He went inside and touched the girl’s hand, and the girl got up.

 

It turned out to be a very good thing that Jesus inconvenienced himself, and gave up his place in the carpenter’s shop.

 

EXAMPLES OF INCONVENIENCE

You and I have some familiarity with how inconvenient love can be.

 

Have you ever driven your child to the emergency room on the weekend, maybe even in the middle of the night?

 

Have you ever had a misunderstanding with a friend, and part of you wished you didn’t have to deal with it, but you knew - for the good of that friendship - that you needed to be the one to bring it up?

 

Have you ever stayed up way past your normal bedtime, because you brought up some difficult issue with your spouse that needed to be talked about, and the conversation took a while?

 

Have you ever felt so strongly about something going on in your neighborhood, or in our country, that you have shown up for a meeting on a Thursday night at 7 pm, when you would have much rather stayed home and put your feet up, because you had already handled three mini-crises at home that week, and put out two fires at work?

 

Perhaps you signed up to work at the Homeless Shelter, and you were enjoying a non-hurried Sunday afternoon, relaxing with some good music and conversation with your family. Maybe you just finished a nice walk around the neighborhood, and it’s 3 pm, and you thought to yourself, “I wish I didn’t have to drive to the shelter and cook tonight.” But despite all those thoughts, you got in your car and you did it anyway.

 

Love, my friends, is inconvenient.

 

ARE WE TIRED OF BEING INCONVENIENCED?

 

Sometimes I wonder if we - and I include myself in that “we” - want to be inconvenienced anymore.

 

They say that on a national level, this is the most unpopular war since Vietnam. And yet almost none of us are on the streets protesting.

 

A number of couples are saying, “This isn’t working anymore”, when they hit a particularly hard place in their marriage, and they file for divorce.

 

Do you have a “Fred” in your life? Maybe it’s someone who you have more than a phone-call relationship with, but still, the person is just plain difficult to deal with.

 

Are we tempted to say, more often than not, “I don’t want to be inconvenienced”?

 

GOD’S INVITATION

 

Here’s another way to look at it. Every single one of us is potentially difficult to deal with. And yet God keeps issuing us invitations. God calls Abraham, “Go. I have plans for you. I know it may not be convenient. But I want to make of you a great nation. In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

 

Jesus calls the twelve, and ultimately, he calls each of us. God takes the time to be involved with us. God is so willing to be inconvenienced that gave up the idea of communicating from a distance, and took on human form to be with us. And when that God took on human form, he made a special point to be with all the people that the good, clean, upright people didn’t really want to be with. And then he ate with them! He got to know them, and formed community with them, and they became much more than they ever had been before, because God was willing to be inconvenienced.

 

Jesus has called us to follow, and the calling, more than anything, is a call to love. It’s a call to be inconvenienced. The next time you or I feel put out... the next time you and I think to ourselves, “Oh, man, I really wish I didn’t have to deal with this right now!”, perhaps we can remember that we are the beneficiaries of a God who sought us and who keeps seeking us out, of a God who chooses to hang out with us, of a God who loves us and accepts us and challenges us. This God knows that our religious rituals can only take us so far. This God knows that if we are going to be truly transformed, we must learn how to be with others - through all the ups and downs and inconveniences - and learn how to love.

 

This God says to us, “Learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”