Seventh Sunday After The Epiphany / Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
Jesus desires that we seek to love our enemies.
Old Testament Lesson
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
You Shall Be Holy
These verses are selected from two chapters of miscellaneous instructions concerning what it means to be holy. The first two verses contain a general introduction: "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" (v. 2). The lectionary selection then jumps on to verses 9-18, which include these instructions. First, there is the command to leave part of the harvest unreaped, for the "poor and alien" gleaners (verses 9-10). Second, in verses 11-13a there is a recap of the commandments against stealing, lying, and taking the Lord's name in vain. Third, there are commandments against delaying the payment of wages (v.13b), abusing the deaf or the blind (v. 14), rendering unjust judgments (v. 15), slander (v. 16) and hating, taking vengeance or bearing a grudge against kinfolk (verses 17-18). This last verse contains the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself." Because of the way the New Testament uses the verse (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9), Christians are inclined to define the meaning of this teaching broadly, to include everyone. From this context, however, it is clear that the original Hebrew commandment refers only to one's own kinship circle.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
A Building Belonging To Christ
Picking up, once again, where the previous week's lection left off, Paul shifts his metaphor from the planting of seed to the construction of a building. Verses 12-15 are omitted from the lectionary selection, for no good reason (other than, perhaps, length); it is better to include them, to maintain continuity. Rather than speaking of Apollos and himself planting the seed, now the apostle talks of laying a foundation, on which others will subsequently build -- the foundation being Jesus Christ (verses 1012). One day, the strength of the subsequent layers of construction will be tested by fire (verses 13-15) -- evidently, a reference to persecution. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (v. 16). The "you," here, is a plural form -- making it clear that it is improper to use this verse as a proof-text for physical fitness, temperance, and the like (as some have done). Paul is talking about the church, here, not individual believers. Verses 18-23 are a recap of the argument in the earlier verses of this chapter, about wisdom, foolishness, and human leaders. The important thing, he tells the Corinthians, is that "you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God" (v. 23).
Gospel Lesson
Matthew 5:38-48
Turn The Other Cheek, Love Your Enemies
Having bypassed Jesus' prohibitions of remarriage after divorce (verses 31-32) and the swearing of oaths (verses 33-37), the lectionary moves on to some equally difficult material. There are two pericopes in this week's selection: one having to do with avoiding retaliation (verses 38-42) and the other with loving one's enemies (verses 43-48). The law of retaliation, from the Code of Hammurabi ("An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" -- verse 38) is deeply ingrained in human consciousness. Even the youngest child seems to understand, instinctively, that a justifiable response to an act of cruelty or violence is to inflict the same on the perpetrator. In some cultures, indeed, the principle of blood-feud or vendetta is common practice. Jesus, however, overturns all that. Turning the other cheek, handing over one's coat, going the second mile: all these are vivid examples of the difficult vocation of Christian peacemaking. To Jesus' original audience, those images surely called to mind the sort of thing that frequently happened to an oppressed people at the hands of an army of occupation. The last one -- about one person forcing another to carry a burden for a mile -- was a form of servitude that Roman soldiers were routinely permitted to inflict on the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. Verse 42, "Give to everyone who begs from you," is a difficult teaching in the modern, urban setting, in which panhandlers are typically strangers, rather than medicants well-known to the giver and dependent on an informal, local social-welfare system. The second pericope has to do with loving one's enemies. Jesus disapprovingly cites a saying, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy" that has no basis in the Hebrew scriptures (although the first part, about loving one's neighbor, is found in Leviticus 19:18 -- which also happens to be this week's first lesson). See also Matthew 19:19 and 22:39, in which Jesus reiterates the teaching about loving neighbors. Jesus -- as he does more vividly in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37 -- broadens the circle of neighbor to include not just kinfolk, and not just fellow citizens of the same country, but everyone.
Preaching Possibilities
A Christian leader who is growing in prominence in our country is Jim Wallis, leader of Washington, DC's Sojourners Community. Quite apart from his role in national politics, Wallis has for years been involved in urban ministry, living and working in an impoverished area of the nation's capital.
In one of his books, Jim tells of one day in the city that tested his resolve. It was the day he got mugged. Jim had just stepped out of his house when four teenagers rushed up out of nowhere and knocked him to the ground. He could hear them yelling, "Keep him down! Get his wallet!"
"I popped up quickly," Wallis writes, "which seemed to surprise them. Seeing no weapons flashed, I squared to face my attackers. This was the first chance we had to really see each other face-to-face. I saw that my assailants were just children -- three about fifteen, and one little one who couldn't have been more than thirteen....
"The boys backed up a little when they saw I was bigger than they had expected. I'm a strong believer in nonviolence but have learned that being a weight lifter often helps in these potential conflict situations! The one who had hit me moved into a boxing stance while the others circled. The little guy began attempting some ineffectual karate kicks, which I assumed he had seen on television.
"I decided to confront them, not intending to hurt them, but only to fend them off. Instinctively, I began to scold these lost young souls. I told them just to stop it, to stop terrorizing people, to stop such violent behavior in our neighborhood. Finally, I shouted at them, 'I'm a pastor!' And I told them if they wanted to try to beat up and rob a pastor, they should come ahead and take their best shot.... I knew that invoking the authority of the church in the street is hardly a sure thing these days, when our churches often have such little involvement there.
"Whatever it was that changed their minds, the youthful muggers turned and ran. 'Get back here,' I shouted after them -- then instantly realized it probably wasn't a good thing to say at that moment. But then something unusual happened.
"The littlest kid, who couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall, turned back and looked at me as he ran away. With a sad face and voice the young karate kicker said, 'Pastor, ask God for a blessing for me.'
"He and his friends had just assaulted me. The little one had tried so hard to be one of the big tough guys. Yet he knew he needed a blessing. The young boy knew he was in trouble. I think they all did."
The story Jim tells is a common-enough one these days in our troubled urban neighborhoods. There are more muggings each day in our major cities than the newspapers are interested in covering. What's so intriguing about this incident is that it offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a boy who, just barely a teenager, is risking his future happiness -- and even his life -- assaulting people.
His parting comment reveals two opposing tendencies that are at war within him. There's a desire for goodness versus a craving for wealth. There's the innocence of childhood versus the hard cynicism of the streets. There's a fundamental love for God -- learned at the knee of a grandmother, perhaps, who knows? -- versus the terrifying fear that the devil just may be stronger.
His comment, in short, renders him a three-dimensional figure. This boy cannot be summed up under the hard, simplistic label, "enemy." He is a neighbor, however misguided he may be.
One can only hope that someday, somehow, this teenage mugger from the mean streets of Washington will find a community of people who will serve him better than his three friends, the ones who taught him how to make money with his fists.
His story is a vivid reminder of Jesus' difficult teaching in Matthew 5:44, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." In the set-up for the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" What this story does for us is ask the question, "Who is my enemy?"
In this case, "my enemy" is a young, impressionable boy, probably from a less-than-ideal family situation, who feels so trapped in his ghetto neighborhood that he thinks street violence is the only means of survival. Within his heart -- which is admittedly, in the process of being hardened by life on the mean streets -- there is a soft spot, a spot that has been touched by God.
Is it any different with any of our enemies? The person who has injured us with hard, judgmental words, the business competitor who appears ruthless, the boss who seems so arbitrary and demanding, and the person down the street who is prone to gossip -- whatever their circumstances, surely all these children of God have a story to tell.
Loving enemies is one of the most difficult, risky, gut-wrenching things we can do as Christians. Yet, there is nothing we can do, as disciples that is dearer to the heart of our master.
Prayer For The Day
Help us to remember, God,
when we think of our enemies,
that there was a time when we, ourselves
were enemies to you:
rebels,
sinners,
bitter, fearful people,
fleeing from the thing we most desire,
which is your transforming love.
When we picture those faces
that call forth anger, hatred, or fear,
may we learn to see them through the eyes of Jesus.
We ask it in his name. Amen.
To Illustrate
There is a fable about two old monks, living together in a crumbling monastery, deep in the desert. Many years ago, when they joined the community as young men, the two of them had taken vows of absolute poverty, resolving to get by with only the simplest of possessions. The austere discipline had proven difficult at first, but in time the two mastered their desires, and found great happiness.
One day, the two brothers got curious about all the arguments and disagreements they heard others outside their desert community were having. They decided, as an experiment, that maybe they should try having an argument like the rest of the human race. One monk asked the other how to do it.
"I don't know," said the other. "Maybe I should put something out on the floor and say, 'It's mine.' Then you can say, 'No, it's mine,' and then we can argue about it."
It sounded like a plan. So, the first monk reached for a soup bowl and placed it in the middle of the floor. "That's mine!" he declared.
The other monk looked at his brother in the faith, and then he smiled. "All right, you can have it."
And that was the end of their argument.
***
Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.
-- Antisthenes (Greek philosopher)
***
You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.
-- Anne Lamott
***
There is a story about a German Lutheran pastor, known as Pastor Holmer. He was director of a church-owned retirement home in the secluded village of Lobetal. Back in the late 1980s, after the fall of the communist regime, church officials approached him with an unusual request. Erich Honecker, the despised, former Communist leader of East Germany, had just been discharged from a state-run hospital, where he had been recuperating from cancer surgery. He had been imprisoned, awaiting trial for treason, but a court had ruled him too sick to remain behind bars.
No one wanted him. This, after all, was the man who had ruled East Germany with an iron fist and had been responsible for the deaths of many thousands in the dungeons operated by his secret police. The government officials wanted to know if Pastor Holmer would be willing to accommodate Erich Honecker in his retirement home.
This request put Pastor Holmer in a moral dilemma. Yes, his institution existed to serve the needs of the poor and outcast. Yet, there was a waiting list. It would not be fair to move anyone -- even a person so unusual as Erich Honecker -- to the top of the list. So, Pastor Holmer did the only thing he could think of. After consulting with his wife, he invited Erich Honecker into his own home.
He began to receive hate mail and even bomb threats. Longtime financial supporters of his ministry in Lobetal threatened to cut off future gifts. But Pastor Holmer refused to back down. In a letter to the editor of a prominent East German newspaper, he wrote, "In Lobetal, there is a sculpture of Jesus inviting people to himself and crying out, 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' We have been commanded by our Lord Jesus to follow him and to receive all those who are weary and heavy laden, in spirit and in body, but especially the homeless. What Jesus asked his disciples to do is equally binding on us."
***
To those who hate us we shall say, "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.... Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at midnight and beat us and leave us for half-dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer."
-- Martin Luther King Jr., from a sermon, "Love Your Enemies"
***
Jim Wallis writes that when the South African government canceled a political rally against apartheid, Desmond Tutu led a worship service in St. George's Cathedral. The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying guns and bayonets, ready to close it down. Bishop Tutu began to speak of the evils of the apartheid system -- how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fail. He pointed a finger at the police who were there to record his words: "You may be powerful -- very powerful -- but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost."
Then, in a moment of unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with glee. "Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side."
The crowd roared, the police melted away, and the people began to dance. Don't go away, Paul says. Put on your armor and dance. I am inviting you to join the winning side.
-- John Ortberg in The Christian Century, August 9, 2003, p. 17
***
The price of hating other human beings is loving one's self less.
-- Eldridge Cleaver
Jesus desires that we seek to love our enemies.
Old Testament Lesson
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
You Shall Be Holy
These verses are selected from two chapters of miscellaneous instructions concerning what it means to be holy. The first two verses contain a general introduction: "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" (v. 2). The lectionary selection then jumps on to verses 9-18, which include these instructions. First, there is the command to leave part of the harvest unreaped, for the "poor and alien" gleaners (verses 9-10). Second, in verses 11-13a there is a recap of the commandments against stealing, lying, and taking the Lord's name in vain. Third, there are commandments against delaying the payment of wages (v.13b), abusing the deaf or the blind (v. 14), rendering unjust judgments (v. 15), slander (v. 16) and hating, taking vengeance or bearing a grudge against kinfolk (verses 17-18). This last verse contains the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself." Because of the way the New Testament uses the verse (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9), Christians are inclined to define the meaning of this teaching broadly, to include everyone. From this context, however, it is clear that the original Hebrew commandment refers only to one's own kinship circle.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
A Building Belonging To Christ
Picking up, once again, where the previous week's lection left off, Paul shifts his metaphor from the planting of seed to the construction of a building. Verses 12-15 are omitted from the lectionary selection, for no good reason (other than, perhaps, length); it is better to include them, to maintain continuity. Rather than speaking of Apollos and himself planting the seed, now the apostle talks of laying a foundation, on which others will subsequently build -- the foundation being Jesus Christ (verses 1012). One day, the strength of the subsequent layers of construction will be tested by fire (verses 13-15) -- evidently, a reference to persecution. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (v. 16). The "you," here, is a plural form -- making it clear that it is improper to use this verse as a proof-text for physical fitness, temperance, and the like (as some have done). Paul is talking about the church, here, not individual believers. Verses 18-23 are a recap of the argument in the earlier verses of this chapter, about wisdom, foolishness, and human leaders. The important thing, he tells the Corinthians, is that "you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God" (v. 23).
Gospel Lesson
Matthew 5:38-48
Turn The Other Cheek, Love Your Enemies
Having bypassed Jesus' prohibitions of remarriage after divorce (verses 31-32) and the swearing of oaths (verses 33-37), the lectionary moves on to some equally difficult material. There are two pericopes in this week's selection: one having to do with avoiding retaliation (verses 38-42) and the other with loving one's enemies (verses 43-48). The law of retaliation, from the Code of Hammurabi ("An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" -- verse 38) is deeply ingrained in human consciousness. Even the youngest child seems to understand, instinctively, that a justifiable response to an act of cruelty or violence is to inflict the same on the perpetrator. In some cultures, indeed, the principle of blood-feud or vendetta is common practice. Jesus, however, overturns all that. Turning the other cheek, handing over one's coat, going the second mile: all these are vivid examples of the difficult vocation of Christian peacemaking. To Jesus' original audience, those images surely called to mind the sort of thing that frequently happened to an oppressed people at the hands of an army of occupation. The last one -- about one person forcing another to carry a burden for a mile -- was a form of servitude that Roman soldiers were routinely permitted to inflict on the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. Verse 42, "Give to everyone who begs from you," is a difficult teaching in the modern, urban setting, in which panhandlers are typically strangers, rather than medicants well-known to the giver and dependent on an informal, local social-welfare system. The second pericope has to do with loving one's enemies. Jesus disapprovingly cites a saying, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy" that has no basis in the Hebrew scriptures (although the first part, about loving one's neighbor, is found in Leviticus 19:18 -- which also happens to be this week's first lesson). See also Matthew 19:19 and 22:39, in which Jesus reiterates the teaching about loving neighbors. Jesus -- as he does more vividly in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37 -- broadens the circle of neighbor to include not just kinfolk, and not just fellow citizens of the same country, but everyone.
Preaching Possibilities
A Christian leader who is growing in prominence in our country is Jim Wallis, leader of Washington, DC's Sojourners Community. Quite apart from his role in national politics, Wallis has for years been involved in urban ministry, living and working in an impoverished area of the nation's capital.
In one of his books, Jim tells of one day in the city that tested his resolve. It was the day he got mugged. Jim had just stepped out of his house when four teenagers rushed up out of nowhere and knocked him to the ground. He could hear them yelling, "Keep him down! Get his wallet!"
"I popped up quickly," Wallis writes, "which seemed to surprise them. Seeing no weapons flashed, I squared to face my attackers. This was the first chance we had to really see each other face-to-face. I saw that my assailants were just children -- three about fifteen, and one little one who couldn't have been more than thirteen....
"The boys backed up a little when they saw I was bigger than they had expected. I'm a strong believer in nonviolence but have learned that being a weight lifter often helps in these potential conflict situations! The one who had hit me moved into a boxing stance while the others circled. The little guy began attempting some ineffectual karate kicks, which I assumed he had seen on television.
"I decided to confront them, not intending to hurt them, but only to fend them off. Instinctively, I began to scold these lost young souls. I told them just to stop it, to stop terrorizing people, to stop such violent behavior in our neighborhood. Finally, I shouted at them, 'I'm a pastor!' And I told them if they wanted to try to beat up and rob a pastor, they should come ahead and take their best shot.... I knew that invoking the authority of the church in the street is hardly a sure thing these days, when our churches often have such little involvement there.
"Whatever it was that changed their minds, the youthful muggers turned and ran. 'Get back here,' I shouted after them -- then instantly realized it probably wasn't a good thing to say at that moment. But then something unusual happened.
"The littlest kid, who couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall, turned back and looked at me as he ran away. With a sad face and voice the young karate kicker said, 'Pastor, ask God for a blessing for me.'
"He and his friends had just assaulted me. The little one had tried so hard to be one of the big tough guys. Yet he knew he needed a blessing. The young boy knew he was in trouble. I think they all did."
The story Jim tells is a common-enough one these days in our troubled urban neighborhoods. There are more muggings each day in our major cities than the newspapers are interested in covering. What's so intriguing about this incident is that it offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a boy who, just barely a teenager, is risking his future happiness -- and even his life -- assaulting people.
His parting comment reveals two opposing tendencies that are at war within him. There's a desire for goodness versus a craving for wealth. There's the innocence of childhood versus the hard cynicism of the streets. There's a fundamental love for God -- learned at the knee of a grandmother, perhaps, who knows? -- versus the terrifying fear that the devil just may be stronger.
His comment, in short, renders him a three-dimensional figure. This boy cannot be summed up under the hard, simplistic label, "enemy." He is a neighbor, however misguided he may be.
One can only hope that someday, somehow, this teenage mugger from the mean streets of Washington will find a community of people who will serve him better than his three friends, the ones who taught him how to make money with his fists.
His story is a vivid reminder of Jesus' difficult teaching in Matthew 5:44, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." In the set-up for the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" What this story does for us is ask the question, "Who is my enemy?"
In this case, "my enemy" is a young, impressionable boy, probably from a less-than-ideal family situation, who feels so trapped in his ghetto neighborhood that he thinks street violence is the only means of survival. Within his heart -- which is admittedly, in the process of being hardened by life on the mean streets -- there is a soft spot, a spot that has been touched by God.
Is it any different with any of our enemies? The person who has injured us with hard, judgmental words, the business competitor who appears ruthless, the boss who seems so arbitrary and demanding, and the person down the street who is prone to gossip -- whatever their circumstances, surely all these children of God have a story to tell.
Loving enemies is one of the most difficult, risky, gut-wrenching things we can do as Christians. Yet, there is nothing we can do, as disciples that is dearer to the heart of our master.
Prayer For The Day
Help us to remember, God,
when we think of our enemies,
that there was a time when we, ourselves
were enemies to you:
rebels,
sinners,
bitter, fearful people,
fleeing from the thing we most desire,
which is your transforming love.
When we picture those faces
that call forth anger, hatred, or fear,
may we learn to see them through the eyes of Jesus.
We ask it in his name. Amen.
To Illustrate
There is a fable about two old monks, living together in a crumbling monastery, deep in the desert. Many years ago, when they joined the community as young men, the two of them had taken vows of absolute poverty, resolving to get by with only the simplest of possessions. The austere discipline had proven difficult at first, but in time the two mastered their desires, and found great happiness.
One day, the two brothers got curious about all the arguments and disagreements they heard others outside their desert community were having. They decided, as an experiment, that maybe they should try having an argument like the rest of the human race. One monk asked the other how to do it.
"I don't know," said the other. "Maybe I should put something out on the floor and say, 'It's mine.' Then you can say, 'No, it's mine,' and then we can argue about it."
It sounded like a plan. So, the first monk reached for a soup bowl and placed it in the middle of the floor. "That's mine!" he declared.
The other monk looked at his brother in the faith, and then he smiled. "All right, you can have it."
And that was the end of their argument.
***
Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.
-- Antisthenes (Greek philosopher)
***
You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.
-- Anne Lamott
***
There is a story about a German Lutheran pastor, known as Pastor Holmer. He was director of a church-owned retirement home in the secluded village of Lobetal. Back in the late 1980s, after the fall of the communist regime, church officials approached him with an unusual request. Erich Honecker, the despised, former Communist leader of East Germany, had just been discharged from a state-run hospital, where he had been recuperating from cancer surgery. He had been imprisoned, awaiting trial for treason, but a court had ruled him too sick to remain behind bars.
No one wanted him. This, after all, was the man who had ruled East Germany with an iron fist and had been responsible for the deaths of many thousands in the dungeons operated by his secret police. The government officials wanted to know if Pastor Holmer would be willing to accommodate Erich Honecker in his retirement home.
This request put Pastor Holmer in a moral dilemma. Yes, his institution existed to serve the needs of the poor and outcast. Yet, there was a waiting list. It would not be fair to move anyone -- even a person so unusual as Erich Honecker -- to the top of the list. So, Pastor Holmer did the only thing he could think of. After consulting with his wife, he invited Erich Honecker into his own home.
He began to receive hate mail and even bomb threats. Longtime financial supporters of his ministry in Lobetal threatened to cut off future gifts. But Pastor Holmer refused to back down. In a letter to the editor of a prominent East German newspaper, he wrote, "In Lobetal, there is a sculpture of Jesus inviting people to himself and crying out, 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' We have been commanded by our Lord Jesus to follow him and to receive all those who are weary and heavy laden, in spirit and in body, but especially the homeless. What Jesus asked his disciples to do is equally binding on us."
***
To those who hate us we shall say, "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.... Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at midnight and beat us and leave us for half-dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer."
-- Martin Luther King Jr., from a sermon, "Love Your Enemies"
***
Jim Wallis writes that when the South African government canceled a political rally against apartheid, Desmond Tutu led a worship service in St. George's Cathedral. The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying guns and bayonets, ready to close it down. Bishop Tutu began to speak of the evils of the apartheid system -- how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fail. He pointed a finger at the police who were there to record his words: "You may be powerful -- very powerful -- but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost."
Then, in a moment of unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with glee. "Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side."
The crowd roared, the police melted away, and the people began to dance. Don't go away, Paul says. Put on your armor and dance. I am inviting you to join the winning side.
-- John Ortberg in The Christian Century, August 9, 2003, p. 17
***
The price of hating other human beings is loving one's self less.
-- Eldridge Cleaver
