It's How we React

​“It Is How We React”
Monday, July 1, 2019
Written by
Rev. Tony Romaine
“It Is How We React” 
My grandfather, whom I call Poppy, has always been my hero.  And one story that I carry with me always is of one day when we were playing catch.  I was pitching the baseball to him and for whatever reason that day I was really off; I could not throw a strike to save my life.  After many pitches, he called “Time,” just like a catcher would during a game and started walking toward me.  I was bummed, I thought to myself, “I am disappointing my hero, I am letting him down, I am letting myself down, and now I am going to get told all the things I did wrong.”
          But when he got to me he said, “So after the game should we get pepperoni or sausage pizza?”  I was taken aback and said, “What?!”  He said, “Yeah, I always wondered what they talked about when they got to the mound during baseball games, so I just thought perhaps they really didn’t talk about anything but what they were going to do after the game!  Stop worrying so much and just throw it to the glove like you know you can…you’ll get it!”
 
It Is How We React
 
See, it is how we react that defines how people will see us.  In our short pericope, our short Gospel narrative today, Jesus has literally, according to the Greek, set his face upon Jerusalem and is so focused that he wants to get straight there as quickly as possible.  To do this, Jesus needs to travel through Samaria and so James and John envoy ahead and hope to make preparations for Jesus to journey through a Samaritan village.
However, things being as they are, the Samaritan village knows he is headed to Jerusalem and that means he is not a Samaritan, and so, they do not allow Jesus and his entourage to travel through the village.  James and John being angered by this want to pray to God to bring fire from heaven and destroy the village for their refusal.  But Jesus rebukes them and they move onto another village.  In some ancient versions of this Gospel passage, when Jesus rebukes James and John he also says, “You do not know what spirit you are of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy the lives of human beings but to save them.”
Either way, Jesus does not allow the disciples to bring fire down upon a village and destroy them, even if they refused to welcome him, even if they were Samaritans, even if they were not kind in their response…Jesus’ response was forgiveness and let’s move on.
It is how we react that makes the difference, that demonstrates to people how we should live, that reminds people perhaps how they should live, it is how we react that can even save lives.  But before we get into the meat of the topic today, it behooves us to take a little side trip to understand our verb for today; react.  React comes from the medieval Latin verb reagere which means “to do again,” or something is “done again.”  Thus, what comes down to us to be known as a reaction is a literal re-doing of some act or thing.
Perhaps some of you are thinking, “This is great Pastor Tony, we already know what react means.”  But I am hyper-focusing us because it is in thinking of reacting as an action done again where the heart of our message for today, the heart of our Gospel passage for today lies.  When we respond to an action against us, an action in the world, any type of action; by reacting we are getting a chance to do something again in a different way!  We can re-do the action and turn it on its head!
Take our passage from Luke today.  According to any standards of the day, according to the idea that Jerusalem and Samaria were enemies, according to basic principles of hospitality, did the disciples and Jesus have a “right” to be angry with the Samaritan village and call down fire upon, sure.  But instead, Jesus re-purposes this action against him and does not repay malice with malice, but rather, moves on and carries forward his mission of love.
So now comes the part where we get involved.  I hear questions from people all the time about church growth and how can we make our church stronger and why are we losing people in the broader church and our local community.  And one of my responses to these questions has directly to do with our message today; this generation of believers who are being quantified as spiritual but not religious, are self-describing themselves this way because they are tired of the hypocrisy that organized religion all too often presents to the world. 
In other words, we are losing generations of believers because we have failed to believe ourselves!  Let me say that again, because this is important: We are losing people in the pews, because we ourselves have been unfaithful to our Faith.  We who preach the Gospel of love on Sundays do not react with love the other six days of the week.  We who worship the Lord on Sundays do not love our neighbor the rest of the week.  We who come and ask for God to be present in our lives on Sundays, do not respond and react when God tries to work through us for justice in the world.  And when the Samaritans of this world see that we do not “practice what we preach,” they will not allow us into their village.
It is How we React!
So how do we re-do this action and allow for the Spirit of God to not destroy human lives but save them?  It is only when we think about how we would want to be loved fully as God’s creation that we can begin to understand how we must react to our world.  Paul lays this out for us in his letter to Galatia that we heard from Amanda earlier:

1. We must bear one another’s burdens and in this way we will fulfill the law of Christ…what law is that? To love our neighbor as ourselves.
2. We who are taught the word must share all good things with our teacher…Jesus is our teacher, when will the world share in love with our teacher?
3. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, you reap what you sow. 
4. Whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those of the family of faith

More specifically these four points represent to us how we should react:

1. If we are to believe that we are of value, all of us here; if we are to believe that we are creations of God; then we must also see that value, that creation in the face of our enemy, in the face of a stranger, in the face of a criminal, in the face of that Samaritan which refuses us, in the face of…
2. If we want peace and love and joy in the world it has to begin with us who are taught how this looks by the Great Teacher, Jesus Christ himself, Amen?!  How is the world going to know unless we who have the Scripture teach the world what Jesus’ love is all about?  How is the world going to love unless we emanate love through action and purpose?
3. We reap what we sow.  When we turn a blind eye to the immigration crisis at our southern border, when we speak hate against our kindred Christians who are LGBTQ, when we demonize those of other religions because they are not Christian, when we allow for homelessness, poverty, and starvation to occur in our communities because we are afraid of taxes, when we disregard and dehumanize people of different races, genders, or creeds…what seeds are we sowing?  What do we expect to reap in terms of church membership when the seeds we sow are ones of hypocrisy to Jesus’ love?
4. Re-Act, Re-Imagine, Re-Love all God’s people…and especially the family of faith!  We are the ones who actually need the most help in Galatia, in the United States, in MN, in Little Falls, wherever we live.  We who are of the faith need the most help because we are the ones who get too comfortable and forget that God’s love through Christ is something we must share. 

It is how we react
See, we are all too often just like this Samaritan village.  We refuse Jesus Christ and turn him away.  We say to ourselves, “Not on purpose, we would never do that, no.”  But when we refuse to help people who are trying to save their families and their lives by crossing into the United States, whether legally or illegally, we are closing our village to Jesus.  When we see or hear hate spit at people who are different and we do not speak up or say anything or do anything to respond or prevent it; we are closing our village to Jesus.  When we vote for people who will give us more money, more “security,” more of what we want at the cost of other people’s lives we are closing our village to Jesus.  And when we sing and pray and preach on Sunday, and then lock ourselves in tight out of perceived fear of our world, we are closing our village to Jesus.
And the more we remained closed…the more people are going to go to another village, until soon, the history books will refer to Christianity as a movement of the past.
It is how we react
So here’s the hope…we have the ability re-do the course of history.  We here no matter if we are 1, 10, or 100 can change the world by reacting and doing what Jesus taught us to do; love!  Sure, we can react the way the world expects us to, we can walk up to that kid who is hanging his head because he knows he can do better, be better, throw better; we can demonize him and destroy him, make him think he is worthless…or we can react the exact opposite this world thinks we should.  We can offer the love and hope of Jesus; for after all, Jesus did this for us.  Despite all of our closing of ourselves to Jesus, to God, we are still forgiven, we are still freed, we are still alive today for a purpose! 
People in the world are starving for our beloved community.  Jesus is coming again and is on his way to our village.  The question is, how will we react when he comes?  When Jesus comes in the face of an immigrant, in the face of someone who is gay, lesbian, or trans, in the face of someone who is African, Asian, Mexican, in the face of someone who is homeless, or just the face of someone lost and needing a home…how will we react?  When we came to this community, needing a home, looking for God, longing for a people who would love us for who we are…what did we receive?  How did people react to us?
Jesus is coming and longs to be with us; the question is: Will we receive Jesus into our village?  I certainly hope so, Amen