LAKEWOOD UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
2601 54th Avenue South St. Petersburg, FL 33712
On land originally inhabited by the Tocabaga
727-867-7961
lakewooducc.org
lakewooducc@gmail.com
Date: Oct. 22, 2023
Scripture Lessons: Exodus 33:12-23 and Matthew 22:34-40
Sermon: Intertwining Love
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
Thou shalt not kill. We all know this commandment. One of the 10 given to Moses on Mount Sinai. One of the rules for the newly forming Hebrew community that was to be a blessing to the world entire. One of the commandments that some want to see posted in public places, on government owned land, to help the people of this country become a Godly people.
Thou shalt not kill. And yet, we do kill. Armies and military operations kill. Terrorists kill. Freedom fighters kill. Mass murders kill. Abusers kill. Parents kill. Children kill. Teens kill. Husbands kill. Wives kill. Lovers kill. Enemies kill. And the state kills. Capital punishment, state sponsored killing, just like in Jesus’ day only then it was by crucifixion.
I grew up during the moratorium on the death penalty. It was not part of my formational reality. Of course it had been outlawed. It is a flawed punishment. It does more harm than good. It is expensive. And it makes killers of us all. And yet that time of a semblance of sanity in our civic life came to an end.
Some years ago, I was called up to jury duty and was considered as a juror for a capital trial. I was horrified. I thought if I am on the jury and the vote is for the death penalty, I will wake up every day for the rest of my life knowing I had a hand in killing someone. Oh no. I couldn’t do it. Interestingly, of the 60 or so people considered for the jury, 4 of us outed ourselves as opponents of the death penalty. I for moral and religious reasons; another older woman for religious reasons; and two middle aged, white male lawyers who both said because the system is imperfect. I’m still not over being called up for that jury. I hope I never am.
Lakewood Church has become involved in efforts to stop the death penalty here in Florida because several members have a passion for this cause. So I have become involved in various ways including supporting the work of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, FADP. Earlier this month, in the days ahead of yet another execution in Florida, there was a letter sent out by FADP about the person to be killed. Warning: It’s hard to listen to. Here’s what was said about Michael Zack, a 54 year old white man:
“We are executing infant Michael, who grew in his alcoholic mother’s womb and was born prematurely after her car accident. His military father left shortly after his birth, and his mother’s next husband was sadistically abusive toward Michael and his sisters.
“We are executing three-year-old Michael, who had to be hospitalized after he drank a bottle of vodka and overdosed on the drugs his stepfather fed him. His stepfather threw him against walls, kicked him with spurred boots, and tried to drown him.
“We are executing pre-teen Michael, who was so traumatized from the abuse that he wet his bed nightly through middle school. This only singled him out for more punishment – his stepfather forced him to wear his urine-soaked sheet around his neck, heated a spoon until it was red hot, and held it against Michael’s genitals.
“The trauma in the Zack family didn’t end there. When Michael was 11, his mother was murdered with an axe. Both Michael and his sister were then sent to a psychiatric hospital in Louisiana, and Michael was later sent to foster care, where he was further abused.” [https://www.fadp.org/floridas-sixth-execution-set/]
I have to tell you, after I read all of that, I had to step away from my computer and just wash the dishes, something ordinary, mindless, to calm down.
As I reflect on the life of Michael Zack, may he rest in peace, it seems like he grew up in a life devoid of love. There seems to be no love in his life from birth. And you can’t become a healthy adult with no love in your life as you grow up.
Today we heard about the Jewish and Christian commandments around love. These commandments come from the Torah, from Jewish scripture. Love. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. And later Jesus adds, Love your enemy. Why this emphasis on love? Because it is as necessary to life as air and water and food. Jesus has come to bring abundant life, and to live abundantly, there must be love.
I think there are many ways that we may learn of and practice love in the course of our lives. We may first learn love from parents or family. We learn to love through friendship. The giving and receiving of love. Learning to navigate disagreements. Learning to forgive. This is all part of the process of learning to love.
We learn love through romantic relationships with partners and spouses perhaps going deeper into the trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation; part of a truly loving relationship.
We learn love by helping others, our neighbors, even people we do not know. We find ourselves stirred by the sufferings of others. By compassion. This impulse comes from our common humanity. And we find ourselves wanting to help someone or make life better for someone else. And this is an expression of love. A way of learning love through our impulse to help another.
And maybe we are stirred to help another because we have learned healthy self love. And so we appreciate the sacredness of another person, another life. In the course of our lives, we may come to realize that love and care for ourselves is an affirmation of the sacredness of life and of the power and agency that we have been given. Our self love can lead us to act with love toward others.
We can learn self love by being loved by others. This can help us to appreciate our worth. The love and care that others show to us can help us to realize that we also need to take care of ourselves.
We also may learn healthy self love through our Christian spiritual teachings and practices, through prayer and worship. We come to know that we are beloved and so can learn to love ourselves and others.
I do want to pause for a moment to reflect on the concept of self love. Love your neighbor as yourself. The premise here is that we know ourselves to be beloved of God. So as God loves us, we know ourselves as beloved children of God and we love others as God loves us and others. But it seems to me, much of what is seen as self love around us today is not that kind of love. It’s more self indulgence than self love. We hear messages like show yourself love by adorning yourself with a piece of expensive jewelry. You’re worth it. Or buy yourself an expensive outfit. Show off who you are. Or reward yourself with that fancy new car. You deserve it. Or tone your body to perfection so that it is worth loving. True self love is not tied to body image or frivolous consumption that fuels the engines of capitalism.
Authentic self love involves tending to the body and spirit in ways that foster true health and are life giving. And sometimes that might mean putting yourself all out for someone you can’t stand. You won’t see an ad about that.
When we truly love ourselves, we appreciate how gifted we are – what has been given to us. And we are generous with how we love others. We expect nothing in return. There is no fear or perfectionism involved. We’re all flawed and we all make mistakes. Love is not based on performance. When we truly love ourselves, then we love others because we recognize their belovedness as we honor our own. So we are not going to hurt our neighbor or someone else. We are not going to do harm. We would not harm ourselves, so we will not harm another.
Now, how else might we come to experience and learn of love? Maybe is it through quiet, through prayer, meditation, time in nature, that we come to experience ourselves as a part of a bigger reality that we can describe as infinite, unconditional love. To look at the natural world around us, how beloved we must be to have been given this paradise as a home.
And here I am going to mention another way that we may come to experience and learn of love, though it is not specifically mentioned in our sacred texts. Maybe we find love through, here goes, a pet. It’s is no surprise to me that people are turning to therapy dogs and pets for solace and comfort and love. We just got a new dog. Anna is a three year old Newfoundland who was re-homed to us by her breeder in Fort Myers who is a friend of ours. Mickey is a 60 something year old force of a woman with a long gray pony tail down her back and tattered clothes who weighs less than her dogs. When I went to pick up Anna about a month ago, Mickey knelt down in front of Anna and said to her, in a very reverential tone, as if she were praying, “Thank you for living with me and for being my dog. Now you are going to live with Kim and Jeff and your job is to bring them love and joy.” So we may come to learn of love through our experiences with animals and pets.
Sidebar – Anna is doing a great job!
We may wonder where the capacity to love comes from and we may come to name the source of love God. And in all of this loving, in our faith tradition, we see God. For we say that God is love. So all love then is a manifestation of God, Spirit, the One, Creator, however you may think of this essential force and name it.
And in our experiences of love we may find that there is something more to reality than we knew. A mysterious intimate force that draws us to another. Maybe an impulse that comes from within us that we learn to name as the image of God. Maybe an experience of God leads us to love. Maybe an experience of love leads us to God.
I think we can come to love of self, God, and neighbor in many different ways, all life giving and intertwined and mutually empowering. Love in one zone leads to love in another. Love seems to expand. To infect. To multiply. To creep and ooze from one area and relationship to another – from a friend to a stranger to Creation to yourself to God – and permeate all.
Love of God. Love of neighbor. Love of self. It all works together. Really I think love of self is the most complicated. Sometimes in pastoral counseling, someone talks about their issues and you can see that they are at the root of their own problems and they have the power to change the situation. So sometimes I’ll ask, “If a friend came to you and told you about this, what you are describing to me, what would you advise your friend?” Almost every time, they know exactly what should be done, what is best, how things should be handled, what is needed. This is kind of like transposing ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ to ‘love yourself as your neighbor.’ And we pretty much know what to do.
We have the gospels that tell us of Jesus and how he is constantly loving people. Let’s notice that his loving is prayer powered – he is often going off by himself to pray. To center his spirit. Let’s also notice how Jesus loves – he never gives anyone a fancy gift. In the story we heard last week about paying taxes to Caesar, remember, he does not have even one coin. Jesus is constantly sharing life giving love and he never gives an extravagant gift that glitters. He gives nothing with strings attached. He gives nothing to get something in return or to have someone beholden to him. That is not love. That’s manipulation and power play and self interest. And we are not loving ourselves, others, or God when we become part of those kinds of dynamics.
Love is the greatest force for good, for healing, for peace that there is. And however love comes into our lives, from God, from family, from neighbors, from enemies, from strangers, from within, from pets, from nature, it will spread, and it will be life giving. And there is nothing that can, in an ultimate way, over power love.
So we have a story of Jesus calling out from the cross, ‘Forgive them, Abba, they don’t know what they are doing.’ Why is love so important? Why is love – of God, of self, of neighbor, and of enemy – the heart not only of our faith but of our life as human beings? Because love is stronger than any force we know. It has a transformative power that is unmatched. Love even sways the heart of God away from punishment and wrath toward a wayward people to compassion and continued support as we heard from Exodus today.
We began with the story of the early life of Michael Zack who was executed here in Florida on Tuesday October 3. Yes, he violated the commandment: Thou shalt not kill. He was responsible for the murders of two women in 1996 and 1997. He, too, was a victim – of fetal alcohol syndrome that left him cognitively, practically, and socially impaired. And while in his early life Zack did not know love, we hear of the transformative, life giving power of love in Zack’s final statement before he was killed. We listen to his words and hear the power of love:
“Twenty-seven years ago, I was an alcoholic and a drug addict. I did things that have hurt a lot of people—not only the victims and their families and friends, but my own family and friends as well. I have woken up every single day since then filled with remorse and a wish to make my time here on earth mean something more than the worst thing I ever did.
“When I got to death row, I substituted drugs and alcohol for happiness and positive relationships. I am so grateful to the guys on the row who took the time to teach me how to read and write. They changed my life forever because their love and support allowed me to have pen pals and friends all over the world. John, Susan, Maria, Anna, and David—I treasure you and the unconditional love you have shared with me all these years. The ability to read and write also led me to my beloved wife and soulmate, Ann-Kristin. I will love her for eternity.
“I make no excuses. I lay no blame. But how I wish that I could have a second chance, to live out my days in prison and continue to do all I can to make a difference in this world. To all my brothers on death row, please continue to help each other. Give each other hope and peace. Keep sharing the love and acceptance that you all showed a hillbilly from Kentucky.
“To all the lawyers, counselors, social workers, and volunteers who are working so hard to fix the juvenile justice and child welfare system in this country, I hope my story will inspire you to make a difference in a child’s life. You have the power to save another child from my fate. Your work is so important, and I love you.
“To all the drug and alcohol treatment counselors and family and friends of people who, like me, suffer from addiction: Never give up! I hope you understand how much you are appreciated and loved. Someone like you could have changed my life twenty-seven years ago when I was screaming out for help.
“To Brother Dale and Susan, God bless you, and thank you for being such a blessing to me.
“To Linda, Dawn, Stacy, Jessica, Amanda, and Diana, thank you for everything you have done for me all these years. You fought for me until my last breath, and I love you.
“And finally, to Governor DeSantis and the Clemency Board: I love you. I forgive you. I pray for you. Michael Zack ###”
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/188udKAhnrmPRMpHQ6cPAm3i3Ll2A34Xn/view]
And they asked Jesus, what is the greatest commandment. And he said, To love. Amen.
A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 