Psalm 26:1-8
Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you.
I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites; I hate the company of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked.
I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving and telling all your wondrous deeds.
O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides.
Sermon Text
Today we are talking about friendship, and specifically the way that the people we associate with can affect our own dispositions. There is a strange balance between living a life as a Christian that embraces all people as Christ did, and at the same time does not internalize the negative aspects of people who we live alongside. The Church has a tendency to run on two extremes when it comes to how a Christian should associate with people who, frankly, have bad habits and make bad decisions. There are levels to this, and while we only have a brief time today, I hope we can leave with some practical considerations for how we associate with one another.
To be a Christian means to be willing to love every person who we meet. We cannot privilege any person over another based on any aspect of their life. We are to “give when asked,” and to “go the extra mile,” for any and all people who we interact with.[1] That is a big responsibility, and one that naturally predisposes us to be taken advantage of. Sometimes, I say this with all seriousness, being a Christian requires that we let ourselves be taken advantage of. If someone comes to us, and we give them a twenty because they say they need it, and they ask under false pretenses, then so be it. In cases such as these, the onus upon us is to be generous rather than skeptical.
A transformation does happen, however, if we form relationships with people. The ultimate goal of a Christian is not just to give people things they ask for, or to only meet their physical needs. That is the work of charity organizations, and while part of our work is charitable giving – it is deeper than that. We are building communities and relationships, that is bigger than just handing things out. Those who have helped at the feeding program at First Church will tell you that if you serve there for any amount of time, you get to know the people who come for food. That relationship means a lot more than any bag of food could, it affirms the humanity of the people involved – the one serving and the one being served. The food pantry is the same, you learn people’s names and stories, and suddenly something new develops – a community born out of people who formerly just lived near each other.
The reality of communities is that they have people from all walks of life. There are those who have their lives incredibly together – who treat people well and act in all the ways you would hope someone would. There are those who are incredibly kind and incredibly unlucky, who have learned how to live but who have been handed every raw deal they possibly could have been. Others have everything, but are cruel or otherwise troubled. The final group has neither means nor virtue, those in need that are also unpleasant. The weird thing of life is that people from all walks, the just and the unjust, the rich and the poor, are worthy of dignity and love. It is how that plays out that makes things difficult.
Oftentimes the amount of leniency we are willing to give people for their conduct is proportional to how put together they appear. We will allow someone to be cruel, as long as they dress well, tithe appropriately, and say the right sorts of things. Someone who acts identically to some of the more well put together people among us but who is poor, who dresses in a way that betrays their economic status, they will receive far less mercy from us. Even a good person, if they present as poor will be treated significantly less well than any person of means. We can claim differently, but the first thing we see is how a person dresses, and the second thing we hear is how they speak. Both those can betray class markers that affect our willingness to associate with them regardless of conduct.
The thing we have to balance as Christians is our openness to all people, and our subconscious tendency to develop preferences. We also have to balance our openness to people in need with an understanding that we cannot be in relationships with people that take advantage of us perpetually. Remember earlier I said that sometimes being a Christian means we will be taken advantage of, but that changes when we go from simply providing help to people to living alongside people. Relationships have more to them than what I give you or you give me, I am not in any relationship for what I get out of them, it has to be person focused, not concerned with anything but treating each other well.
Our Psalm talks about rejecting different groups based on conduct: the “worthless,” the “hypocrite,” the “wicked.” We should not take this to mean we should never talk to people who do not do what they should. For one thing, we wouldn’t talk to many people, for another Jesus was willing to live alongside and love people long before they got their act together. No, instead we should understand a core truth – not everyone has to, or should be, our friend. I do not mean friend here as we often use it, to mean a person we like well enough to be around. I mean someone we share the deep parts of life with, who we pour out our heart to and find the same thing reciprocated. We will not adopt bad habits just by living alongside people, but we will if we allow intimacy beyond what is appropriate, to just anyone we wish to.
That will carry us much farther than anything else in terms of our living out a life of faith. If we realize that we owe all people dignity, that all people are part of our community, but do not allow them to influence us negatively – that can be powerful. When we are willing to distance ourselves from the person we know with money, but no mercy. When we are willing to embrace the poor and powerless who know more about holiness than we ever good. When we understand that no person is ever trapped where they currently are, and strive to excel in goodness no matter what we do – then we see our communities as transformative, and not just preserving of the status quo. We as a community can work together to grow, and it takes a willingness not to tolerate evil, even from people we quite like, and to celebrate virtue, even among people we might reject. Aspire toward what is right, in all things, and find your life transformed. – Amen.
[1] Matthew 5:41-42
Teach us to Number our Days 