Answering to a Higher Authority

The Church of St. Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

February 24, 2019

Year C: The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Luke 6:27-38

Answering to a Higher Authority

            I must be starting to get old, because when I look back on my childhood it seems so different from what kids experience today – it almost feels like a whole different world.

            As I’ve mentioned to you before, I grew up down in Country Village where, in the 1970s, there were lots of young families, lots of kids around my age.

            There were no personal computers yet and video games were just beginning, so, in the good weather all of us, even a kind of bookish kid like me, would spend a lot of time outside, playing in the middle of the street, interrupted only by the occasional cry of  “Car! Car!” that shooed us to the sidewalk for a minute.

            We played and we rode our bikes, all under the eyes of many of our mothers who watched us from the kitchen window, often while talking on the phone.

            Although a fight would break out every now and then and there were some cranky older neighbors who complained about the noise or objected to us crossing onto their property, for the most part it was a pretty happy and peaceful way to grow up.

            But, of course, we couldn’t be outside all the time, so the other main activity was watching TV – watching the handful of channels that were available back then – during the day watching repeats of old shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

            So, there was a lot of I Love Lucy, The Munsters, The Addams Family, Lost in Space, The Brady Bunch, and on, and on.

            But there weren’t just the shows – there were also the commercials.

            Nowadays, some of us have devices or streaming services that allow us to fast-forward through commercials or skip them entirely, but back then there was no escape and through repetition they became at least as memorable as the shows themselves – which was, of course, the whole point.

            So, back then I probably had no idea what indigestion was, but I knew that the “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” of Alka-Seltzer would offer “oh what a relief.”

            I objected to some of the midweek suppers my mother put on the table because I knew full well, just like everybody else, that “Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day!”

            And, I also knew that not all hot dogs were created equal – and I knew this important fact thanks to a memorable commercial for Hebrew National.

            It was a simple set-up: we see Uncle Sam holding a hot dog in his hand and then an announcer points out that the government allows hot dog makers to use frozen beef and fillers and byproducts and other unappetizing things, but Hebrew National doesn’t do any of that because…

            “We answer to higher authority.”

            The camera pans upward, above Uncle Sam to the clouds, and left unsaid is that this “higher authority” is God.

            The point was that, unlike Oscar Meyer and the rest, Hebrew National follows the Jewish dietary laws - it keeps kosher.

            And, although the commercial is a little silly (though effective – I remember it clear as day forty years later), it does point to a truth.

            Since they first came to understand that they had a special relationship with God, that they had a covenant with God, the Jewish people have understood themselves as being under a Higher Authority, held to a different standard than the other people around them.

            Like all of us, they sometimes fall short, but for thousands of years they’ve understood they are to treat other people as they themselves would want to be treated – that they were to welcome the stranger into their land – that they were to treat animals humanely – that the command for Sabbath rest was not just for Jewish men and women but also for foreigners, for slaves, and even for the beasts of burden.

            Jesus was born into this culture and grew up with this understanding – that he and his people answered to a “Higher Authority” – and, through him, we his followers are also now answerable to God.

            But, Jesus builds on this Jewish understanding, asking – requiring – even more than any of the great prophets and teachers who came before him.

            We are not just to respect and be decent to our enemies – we are to love them.

            We are not just to be peaceful – we are to offer our other cheek to be struck.

            We are not just to be generous – we are to give to everyone who asks of us.

            We are not to judge – never to condemn.

            We are to forgive, no matter what.

            This is some of Jesus’ most difficult teaching – and it raises challenges and even some dangers, doesn’t it?

            I can imagine the crowd around Jesus scratching their heads wondering how in the world anyone could do this.

            Actually, I don’t have to imagine it because, as I pondered these words, I was scratching my own head, wondering how anybody could do this, wondering what in the world to say about these most challenging commands.

            And, as I’ve thought about it, I think maybe for that first crowd and for us today, these hard teachings most of all remind us just how fallen the world is – how broken we are – how far we are from the way things were meant to be – how the Kingdom of God has not yet fully arrived.

            The truth is we can’t yet fully live into these commands because, as we seem to be reminded every single day, in our fallen world there are some people who abuse others – there are some people who must be stopped from hurting other people – there are people who are treated like doormats or far worse, and that is surely not what God wants.

            The truth is we can’t yet fully live into these commands because in our broken humanity there are a few who have so much and many who have so little and if we give to every outstretched hand we will find ourselves destitute and with our own hands outstretched – and that is surely not what God wants.

            The Kingdom of God has not yet fully arrived.

            But, that does not let us off the hook.

            We are not allowed to simply shrug and say, “Oh well, this is the way it has to be, so let’s ignore or forget about what Jesus has to say.”

            A certain hot dog maker didn’t give into the temptation of saying “Well, since everybody else is using coloring and additives, I guess that’s the way it has to be, so let’s give up our standards and offer a cheaper product like everybody else.”

In the same way, we shouldn’t give into the temptation of saying that our broken world and fallen humanity will always be broken and fallen and that’s just how it’s going to be.

            No.

            We are children of God and we answer to a Higher Authority.

            And, you know, people today are way more interested in what’s in their food than we were back in the 70s.

            Change is possible.

            Now, I’m not saying that’s because of Hebrew National franks, but I do know that the more we are loving and generous and merciful – the more we are like God – then, with God’s help, the world becomes more like what it was always meant to be.

            The more we are loving and generous and merciful then there will be fewer enemies and more friends – there will be fewer people who have to beg with outstretched hands – there will be less judgment and more forgiveness – and there might even be more kids able to play outside in their own neighborhoods, without a care in the world.

            We still have a long way to go, and we’re going to fall short a lot of the time, but if we follow the way of Jesus, if we answer to the Higher Authority, then the Kingdom of God draws ever closer.

            Amen.