THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
Year A
February 16, 2014
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37
Pastor David Tryggestad
Concordia Evangelical
Lutheran Church
Duluth, Minnesota
“I’m reaching out spiritually!”
I was enjoying some solitude at the Y last week, the only
person in the sauna. The man walked in, walked up to me, and spread his arms
wide as if he were embracing the entire world. “I’m reaching out spiritually!”
I know the man, and we’ve had conversations about faith and
life in the past. He’s a member of another mainline congregation in town. He
went on to say that someone had suggested he become involved in another
congregation of a different theological persuasion, and he attended a service
recently. I took “I’m reaching out spiritually” to mean that he was becoming
more ecumenical in his outlook.
But that wasn’t the case. He repeated, “I’m reaching out
spiritually.” But then he added, “It’s either that or die!” He was referring to
reaching out to those with whom he has been estranged, those with whom he has
been at odds, those who have had something against him.
“I’m reaching out spiritually. It’s either that or die!”
Now to go back around 150 years: Our protagonist is a
pre-adolescent boy who lands in the gracious hospitality of a respectable,
well-to-do family. The youngest of many children is a boy about the same age,
named Buck—Buck Grangerford. Buck has just returned home having had a close
encounter with a young man from another family, a family with the name of
Shepherdson. Shots had been fired.
“Did you want to kill him, Buck?”
“Well, I bet I did.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Him? He never done nothing to me.”
“Well, then, what did you want to
kill him for?”
“Why nothing—only it’s on account of
the feud.”
“What’s a feud?”
“Why, where was you raised? Don’t
you know what a feud is?”
“Never heard of it before—tell me
about it.”
“Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this
way. A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s
brother kills him; then the other brothers,
on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in—and by-and-by everybody’s killed off, and there
ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.”
“Has this one been going on long,
Buck?”
“Well I should reckon! It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along there. There
was trouble ’bout something and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the suit went
agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit—which he
would naturally do, or course. Anybody would.”
“What was the trouble about,
Buck?”—land?”
“I reckon maybe—I don’t know.”
“Well, who done the shooting?—was it
a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?”
“Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.”
“Don’t anybody know?”
“Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and
some of the other old folks; but they don’t know, now, what the row was about
in the first place.”
“Has there been many killed, Buck?”
“Yes—right smart chance of funerals.
But they don’t always kill. Pa’s got a few buck-shot in him; but he don’t mind
it ’cuz he don’t weight much anyway. Bob’s been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom’s been
hurt once or twice.”
“Has anybody been killed this year,
Buck?”
“Yes, we got one and they got one.
’Bout three months ago, my cousin Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through
the woods, on t’other side of the river, and he didn’t have no weapon with him,
which was blame’ foolishness . . .”[1]
Not long after Bud narrates the story about the long-running
feud, we find both the feuding families and their kin in church on Sunday
morning:
Next Sunday we all went to church,
about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did
Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall.
The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—all about
brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good
sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to
say about faith, and good works, and free grace, and preforeordestination, and
I don’t now what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays
I had run across yet.
It seems the feud between the Grangerfords and the
Shepherdsons might have gone on and on for a very long time. But something
happened that brought everything to a head. It was reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, whose tragic
circumstances bring two feuding families together at the end. In this case,
lovely 20-year-old Sophia Grangerford runs off with a young Shepherdson, the
one Buck had encountered, and both families bring out all their guns.
Buck’s father and both surviving brothers are shot and
killed. Our protagonist is hiding in a tree near the river as the shooting continues
and is a witness to some of it. He sees his friend, Buck, shot dead, along with
Buck’s young cousin, Joe. Now all the males in the family are gone. Our
protagonist continues:
When I got down out of the tree, I
crept along down the river bank and piece, and found the two bodies laying in
the edge of the water, and tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I
covered up their faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when
I was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.
The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons all took their guns to
church. They listened to sermons about brotherly love. They talked about the
sermon and about faith and about good works and about grace. But they never put
their guns away.
The story is from a long time ago. We’re more sophisticated
now. We don’t bring our guns to church and set them between our knees or prop
them up against the pew.
But do we bear other
weapons? Do we carry our resentments, our differences, along with us? Are we
very different from the church in Corinth
to whom the Apostle Paul is appealing in our Second Lesson? Paul wants to treat
the Corinthians as adults, mature in their faith, but they insist on holding fast
to their divisions. Thus Paul admonishes them, “For as long as there is
jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving
according to human inclinations?”
I wonder if my friend at the Y is on to something. “I’m
reaching out spiritually. It’s either that or die!” He knows that, in the
flesh, he holds his resentments, his grudges, his hostilities. He knows that,
on his own, under his own power, is it not able to bridge the chasms, to break
down the walls of hostility. He knows that it is a matter for the power of the
Holy Spirit.
“I’m reaching out spiritually. It’s either that or die!”
Is that any different from what Moses is presenting to his
people in our First Lesson?: “. . . I have set before you life and death,
blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live . .
.”
We have a tradition of sharing the peace before receiving
the offering. This is not a time for casual conversation. Rather, it is a time
for reconciliation, to practice peacemaking, and to actually be about
peacemaking. Jesus says to us:
“So when you are offering your gift
at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against
you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your
brother or sister, and then come and otter your fits.”
Let’s take our cue from the man at the Y: “I’m reaching out
spiritually. It’s either that or die!”
Thanks be to God!
No comments:
Post a Comment