Sermon for Sunday, January 25, 2015
LIGHTWEIGHTS
Psalm 62
Whenever I am bored with or annoyed by the antics of the political landscape and the circus that
surrounds it, I usually say to my wife, Renita: “Come on, let’s watch some real politics.” In our
house, this has become code for “It’s time to watch The West Wing again.” It is an older show
about the ins-and-outs of life in the White House. Yet regardless of one’s political persuasion, the
crisp writing and superb acting makes for entertaining television. The other night—which means I
am bored with politics, yet again—we watched an episode in which Toby Ziegler, the White
House communications director, devises a new campaign strategy with the president. “You are
smart. You are a heavyweight, Mr. President. Make your campaign about being smart, about
being a heavyweight.”
Had the Psalmist been sitting at the same table in the same meeting, she could not have disagreed
more. “You are a lightweight, Mr. President,” she would have interjected. One of my favorite
translations of the Psalms puts it like this: “Mortals are but a breath, nothing but a mirage. Set
them on the scales, they prove lighter than mist.” Mist is lighter than light. If we were trying to
weigh it, it would not even register on a digital scale. And that is how much you and I weigh, the
Psalmist says. That is what you and I are in the Psalmist’s eyes: lightweights.
But a “lightweight” is not what or who we want to be. Like The West Wing’s fictional president,
Josiah Bartlett, we want to be heavyweights, too. We want to be in charge, have power. Or we
want to be in charge of our own lives, at least, if we cannot be in charge of anything else. We
want our voices to be heard. We want our lives to matter. And it is important that our lives
matter. All of them. It is important for us to understand that every human life is sacred because
every human life is created by God. Regardless whether we are black or white or brown or shades
of any of these colors, regardless whether we are Jews or Christians or Muslims, regardless of our
mental or physical abilities, regardless of our political persuasions, regardless of … your life is
sacred, my life is sacred, every human life is! In other words, whether or not our lives matter to
anyone else, they do matter to God!
What does not have any weight in God’s eyes, the Psalmist asserts, are things like extortion, fraud,
making money for money’s sake, desiring power to lord it over others, taking pleasure in
spreading lies and watching people fall. What has no weight in God’s eyes is justifying killing in
God’ name or ridiculing people of faith for having faith in the first place, or ridiculing others for
not believing anything. What has no weight in God’s eyes is belittling others so we can feel better
about ourselves. That is the behavior and mindset, which, according to the Psalmist, is worth less
than mist dissipating like a shallow breath.
The story of Jonah serves as a case in point here. Not once but twice God sends the prophet into
Nineveh, a foil for all that is opposed to God’s good purposes. The Ninevites and the prophet
alike consider themselves as “somebody,” as heavyweights, if you will. However, it is not God’s
prophet who ends up on top, but the people who engaged in all the acts against which the Psalmist
decries. They end up with God’s blessing and mercy because they recognize who they are
compared to God, creator and sustainer of the universe. They recognize that they are lightweights.
They submit and surrender their lives to God. They turn from their misguided ways and turn
toward God. And for that, God forgives them. And as for Jonah, the believer, God’s
spokesperson? Well, he is, shall we say, “a work in progress.”
We hear echoes of the Jonah story in today’s gospel text. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom
of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news.” These are the first words Jesus
speaks after his baptism. “The good news people,” Jesus says, “is that you do not need to pretend
to be heavyweights. Let all that posturing go and proclaim and reclaim your allegiance to God.
Just follow me and I will teach you how it’s done. I will teach you what it means to show others
that their lives, that each life, matters to God.”
All three texts we have heard, read, and sung today have this common thread, this common
theme—the only way of living that is hope-full, the only way for us to be delivered from
oppression and for service, the only way to be saved, is the acknowledgment that “power belongs
to God, and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.”
Perhaps that is why there is so much chaos in this world and in our own lives. The word
“submission” and “surrender” are not high on anybody’s list anymore. We have come too
accustomed to digging in our heels, regardless of the circumstance, and have made Bruce
Springsteen’s lyrics our battle cry, “No retreat baby, no surrender!” And where has it gotten us?
Our communities are in shambles, our families broken, our nation divided, the church, our
denomination reeling. Last Monday, we commemorated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and we need
to hear his words again. We need to hear them again because he understood that he was not a
heavyweight. He knew he could only stand up because he understood that he first had to stand
down, and stand under … God.
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,” Dr. King said, “begetting the
very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you
may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you
may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it
goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night
already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate: only love can do that.” Or using the words of the Psalmist, “On God rests my
deliverance and my honor. My refuge is in God.”
The Psalmists and the prophets, both ancient and contemporary, knew that we are called to submit
and surrender to God in joyful obedience. “Come and follow me,” says Jesus. “In surrendering
your life, you will find true life. In submitting your life to God, you will find what all human
beings have longed and searched for since time immemorial: you will find shalom, peace and
wholeness.” It is no coincidence that the root of the words for submission and peace is the same
in every Semitic language: shalom, salaam.
So as it turns out, God really is the one and only heavyweight … which means, we are not. We
are light of weight because God carries all the burdens which are too heavy for us. And that,
indeed, is good news. May God’s peace be with you, shalom, salaam aleikum.
Rev. Dieter U. Heinzl, Ph.D.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church (USA), St. Louis, MO
January 25, 2015