Fathers and Love is Love.

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Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who loves you and the whole world.

It’s been a rough week. There was another mass shooting on US soil, with the highest death toll in modern US history. 49 people were killed in a bar in Orlando and the same amount also injured. It’s also a year last Friday from when the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina occurred where 9 people were killed at a black church. We have asked again and again, why does something like this occur so often. And in these instances in particular we ask, is it because of how someone was labeled? How some parts of our culture see a certain group of other people? Is it a situation that ignited because of hate speech and rhetoric we see so often in the media and from public figures?

I want to read the letter that Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton wrote on Monday:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

"So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them." Genesis 1:27

We are killing ourselves. We believe that all people are created in God's image. All of humanity bears a family resemblance. Those murdered in Orlando were not abstract "others," they are us. But somehow, in the mind of a deeply disturbed gunman, the LGBTQ community was severed from our common humanity. This separation led to the death of 49 and the wounding of 54 of us.

We live in an increasingly divided and polarized society. Too often we sort ourselves into like-minded groups and sort others out. It is a short distance from division to demonization. Yesterday, we witnessed the tragic consequences of this.

There is another way. In Christ God has reconciled the world to God's self. Jesus lived among us sharing our humanity. Jesus died for us to restore our humanity. God invites us into this reconciling work. This must be our witness as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The perpetrator of this hate crime did not come out of nowhere. He was shaped by our culture of division, which itself has been misshapen by the manipulation of our fears. That is not who we are. St. Paul wrote, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ" (II Corinthians 5:17-20).

Our work begins now. We need to examine ourselves, individually and as a church, to acknowledge the ways we have divided and have been divided. We must stand with people who have been "othered". We must speak peace and reconciliation into the cacophony of hatred and division. We must live the truth that all people are created in God's image.

 This morning your churchwide staff came together to mourn and to pray. We prayed for those killed in Orlando and remembered the Charleston Nine killed only a year ago. We prayed for the family of the shooter, for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and for our Muslim brothers and sisters who now face the threat of retaliation. And we prayed that the Prince of Peace will bring us to the day when we stop killing ourselves.

Your sister in Christ,

Elizabeth A. Eaton
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

In our passage today from Galatians we read: There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Paul’s world tried to label everyone, you are from here so you are this, you are from there so you are that. You are owned by that person so you are a slave, you are free, you are a female so you can’t do that. Everything meant something, and usually meant that you were excluded. 

We do the same. You’re Arab, You’re European, You’re Christian, you’re Jewish, you're Muslim, you’re Gay or Lesbian, You’re Straight, You’re Trans, You’re white, you’re black, you’re female, you’re male, you’re too young, you're too old. 

We cannot continue to divide like this, we have to be able to see the common humanity of the “other,” we have to see that they are also beloved by God. Whether they’ve heard that God loves them or not yet, whether they’ve been baptized or not, they are all created as beloved images of God, and we must see them as such.

We are called to see unity, we are called to see each other’s humanity in the midst of the world trying to label us, and people acting in anger towards those labels. We must announce to the world that divides that we are all one in Christ Jesus as Galatians says,  and we must share the news that God welcomes all in and not use our Christianity to exclude and outcast. In God, we are all sisters and brothers, we are all loved by the one who created us. That is how we share the message of Christ.

Last week we talked about starting by seeing Christ in us. We don’t start with ourselves, we start with Christ. When we do start with ourselves, we divide, hate builds and 49 people die. 

We must start with Christ. Christ, who reached out to the outcast, who welcomed in the sinner, who walked with those who were non-jewish, different from himself, and brought them in. Who calls us to turn the other cheek. And then we must use our voices in this world to lift up those who are outcast, those who are “othered.” If we stand for the ideals of a free nation, and know that we belong to Christ, saved through his work on the cross, then we must be active in the world in doing Christ’s work, so that all may be free to live, and all may know of the love of God for them and the whole world.

It’s Father’s day today, a day when we lift up Father’s and what they have done for us in our lives, all the things they have taught us, all that they have given us.

I saw a quote from Jimmy Fallon, host of the Tonight Show, in regards to the shooting in Orlando. “I, as a new father, am thinking, ‘What do I tell my kids? What do I tell them about this? What can we learn from this? What if my kids are gay? What do I tell them?’” --Jimmy Fallon

Whether you’re a new father, or a well experience father, or a father figure, 

Tell them that they are loved. By you, by God, by their neighbor. Tell them that love is love is love is love. That who you love should not impact whether it is ok to kill you. People may disagree about the nature of sin and salvation on this topic, but who you are should not impact how you are treated and whether you are allowed to live.

Tell your sons and daughters to know that Christ is in them, that Christ is who identifies them first and foremost, that what the world throws at them is powerless to harm them.

Tell them that they belong to Christ and all that that involves, standing up for the powerless, caring for the sick and grieving, helping the needy. 

Tell them that in their baptism Christ has claimed them, washed them clean, and sent them out into the world to make it a better place. 

Tell them to see the humanity in everyone, see that everyone is a beloved child of God, a person created in God’s own image. 

Tell them to see that first, and tell them to tell their kids, and maybe we won’t have to deal with another Orlando, another Charleston, another Newtown.

Let us pray,

God of peace, show us that we belong to you, that all belong to you, that we are all brothers and sisters in a common humanity created in your image, and all are worthy of life and love. Help us to see that we sin, that we label, that we cause hate to grow. Help us to then turn to peace, to love. We need you so much, especially in times like this, so be with us, and help us to move forward to a day when all of God’s children can live in peace. Amen.