Beautiful Sermon

My friend Larry shared this sermon he wrote with me and I asked his permission if I could share it with you. He said yes so please take a moment to read this beautiful message. You can check out more of his thoughtful insights at his blog  http://onlyconnectnow.blogspot.com/
We are all human so naturally we will have moments (or even years) of anger and resentment. The thought of forgiving people, (even ourselves) who have deeply hurt us seems sometimes an impossible feat. But like yoga, (and even medicine!), it takes a devoted practice to start learning how to forgive. Read my friend Larry's sermon and give it a try. What have you got to lose? Except carrying around negative feelings that don't do anything except make us feel badly in so many ways. Hmmmmm, why not. Thank you Larry.




Good Morning!

I am delighted to be back here at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. It is always wonderful to sit in this beautiful sanctuary and it is a real honor to come with an invitation to fill in for my good friend Pastor Bill. I remember having breakfast with Bill last summer when he said right out of the clear blue, “Would you be willing to give a sermon some time at the church?” To which I replied, “What do you have in mind?” and without hesitating he said, “August 23rd is what I have in mind.” Well I did give the sermon last August and after another meal with Bill a few weeks ago I find myself back here again at his request.

Last time when I was here I spoke about how we are all connected and how we all share the common tread of our humanness. Today I was inspired by the scripture reading to talk about Anger and Resentments. A subject that sadly, I know a great deal about.

I love today’s scripture reading. Luke offers some beautiful insights to lead a long and happy life.
He starts off by inviting us to “love our enemies” a very tall order indeed. Historically I have gotten too caught up in my righteous indignation or worse, my anger and resentments to ever consider the idea of loving those that have wronged me.

I was always certain they owed me an apology instead of considering that I might apologize to them for holding these thoughts.

We think that by giving people our worst thoughts, our worst words, our worst actions or the silent treatment that we are hurting them, but the truth is we are hurting ourselves far more. There are many methods for dealing with this problem and one of the very best is a meditation practiced by Buddhists.

In their meditation practice they silently send kind and loving thoughts, firstly, to those they know and love most dearly, secondly, to those they barely know or are complete strangers to and lastly to those who they despise or have anger and resentments towards.

This practice develops a kind and loving attitude towards all people and is one way I have learned to lessen my anger and resentments and hopefully to lead a longer and happier life.

I cannot achieve this healthy, happy life by holding anger and resentments towards others. When I have looked closely at anger and resentments I have come to realize that they are very poisonous. And……this poison has proven to be the most harmful to me.

Anger and resentments are self-induced poison. Like the Buddhist meditation practice of sending kind and loving thoughts to those we hold resentments towards, Luke offers a similar cure. In today’s scripture Luke tells us “…to love our enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.”

This lesson for me came late in life. I was 52 years old when I began changing my story. The story about what a difficult childhood I had and what a sorry, wretched father I had. You could easily detect the anger and resentments that I was holding towards him and it didn’t take much to ascertain how the pain from this poison was eating me up and slowly killing me. By finally realizing this I was able to see how all my bad feelings weren’t hurting him, after all, he’d been dead for many years, but they were making my life and the lives of those around me miserable. Imagine that, I was quite literally making my own life miserable and the lives of those around me miserable, all the while trying to blame it on others, my difficult childhood, and my father. The problem the whole time was directly in front of me. The problem was staring me right in the face. The problem was in the mirror. Finally, and with much relief, I came to realize that the solution could be found in the same place.

Instead of sending angry and resentful thoughts out into this world, I began a practice of sending kind and loving thoughts out into this world. More specifically, I began sending kind and loving thoughts to those I had the most difficulty with and high on that list was my father. Slowly but surely my life has changed. I am happier and healthier. To those around me I have become someone to share a life with. I am no longer stuck in the grip of self-induced pain and---most wonderfully---I have experienced what Luke goes on to say will happen as a result of loving my enemies. He writes:

“Then your rewards will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.”

Well my rewards are unbelievably great and I’ve come to think of myself as a son of the Most High.
My rewards are unbelievably great and far too numerous to share with you now. But…I would like to share one very important reward with you----I am happy---and---I am in love with my father again; my father who resides in me, my father who raised me and the father I’ve become to my own children.

This is a gift of unbelievable magnitude. Luke knew it and Luke tried to share it with us. “Do not judge,” he wrote, “and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.” These beautiful, simple words had been available to me for half a century. They are the absolute medicine and the cure for what had ailed me for so long. After years of frustration and poisonous thoughts I am finally beginning to understand the truth of Luke’s words.
Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.

Two summers ago I was sitting on the beach re-reading The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. This timeless classic, written sometime around 160 AD, has been one of my bibles. I remember reading these words, which very well could have been influenced by the words of Luke: “Discard the thought of injury and the words ‘I have been injured’ are gone; discard the words ‘I have been injured,’ and the injury is gone.”

I felt so injured for so long and now, having discarded the words and the thoughts of injury, my anger and resentments have been lifted. They have been lifted and replaced with kind and loving words and thoughts, for my father, for those around me and for myself.

All great teachers over the centuries have written about the power of love. They have offered their thoughts to cures for anger and resentments. Most notably these have included the practice of loving kindness.

Luke’s simple advice, were it to be taken-up by all, would surely change the world. To love our enemies, to love those who have wronged us, to love those who we hold anger and resentments towards.

The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote:

Love all of God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly, more and more every day. And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding, universal love.

My favorite quote on this subject, one Luke would most assuredly have agreed with, comes from Mahatma Gandhi who wrote these very simple, very direct, very unambiguous words:

Love is the strongest force the world possesses.

Today this force is alive and well in me. It is a very strong force. It is not so strong that I don’t fall prey to anger and resentments, however. But when I find these anger and resentments boiling up in me I try and turn to those that I hold them against and offer an apology. I apologize for holding these thoughts. I tell the other person that I don’t want to hold these thoughts, that these thoughts are poison and I don’t want any poison in me or my thoughts, I only want to share a kind and loving attitude towards this person and I ask them for forgiveness for harboring such thoughts.
By giving this loving force to others it is given to me.

Just as Luke wrote in today’s scripture:

“Give and it will be given to you.

A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”