The corridors at the school were really long for a smallish built boy of 15. So long in fact that a bully could see you coming from a mile away. It was scary walking down them and the boy used to hold his head down so as to avoid eye contact. He didn’t want any attention from these guys, they never hit him, but they sure made him hurt like hell.

He was a Christian and he lived two lives. He was really involved in the youth group. Loved to do skits and play in the band. But at school, he didn’t really fit in. he had some friends, but they were the odd balls. One of his mates was nicknamed Igor, and after a few months he spurned igor because of the pressure from everyone else. Be cool or be cut down. This was the key message of the peers at school.

It’s not that you would become part of the cool club if you started to pick on people, no that was too exclusive, instead what would happen is that you might make the cool people laugh. He did that one day, and remembers to this day how it felt : that one laugh said for a brief moment that he was ok. He was not so bad after all.

But the complexity of these relationships was relentless in weighing up his co-efficient of coolness. Forcing him to make choices over who he would be friends with and who he wouldn’t. he would never get close enough to anyone in case he had to dispose of them.

But he always had the standard people to pick on. There was the guy who was probably gay. He was camp and enjoyed ballroom dancing, new Zealand champion actually, but let’s face it, they thought he was gay and they couldn’t handle that difference. So they teased him for it.

And another guy in art class who had this incredible talent for putting himself in positions where he would just look stupid. He was just so confident. Present his art for the whole class to see and our standard comment for crap art was, “very expressive”. He later went on to be a second in such great tv series as Hercules, really thinking that his big break was just around the corner.

At the time of the insults and put downs, the smallish boy didn’t think about the long term impact he was having on these people. He just wanted to protect himself. He wanted to be ok in the eyes of the cool people.

The low self-esteem fed him and he became ugly.

But not at church. There he would pray and sing and play in the band. There he would prophesy and be spiritual and have the good answers to the questions. He was passionate, unreserved, daring, confident. At school he was a shadow of himself.

The corridor was long and the cool kids were standing at the other end of it. The smallish boy was just trying to get to the next class and was running a bit late.

The cool kids saw him and started to plot. They were talking about sex. The sleaziest one of them looked at the boy and said, “you’re a virgin aren’t you?” and smirked.

The smallish boy bottomed out inside. He was caught. He felt he couldn’t admit this because obviously it wasn’t cool, he knew if he had even one conquest story to relate he would’ve never been teased again. But nope. So in the pressure of the moment he blurted out a little too confidently: “yes I am and proud of it too”. His gut fell to the floor and nearly tripped him up. Every part of his body betrayed the fact that he wasn’t actually proud of it at all. The simple fact was that there had never been any opportunity for him to get laid, not even ugly chicks liked him. Actually that wasn’t true, “chainsaw viv” liked him…but she was called that because it looked like someone had taken a chainsaw to her head. Even though that wasn’t true either, but it made him and his other youth group mates feel better about themselves to put her down.

Meanwhile, the virgin thing. Everything about him chastised his brain for coming up with that comment, his eyes flinched when they saw the jeers and shaking heads; his ears folded when they heard the laughter; his back felt extraordinarily vulnerable to the blades thrown into it by their staring after he had walked by.

And as he turned out of the corridor and into the quad, he hated them more than they despised him.

What a strange economy there is in esteem. It’s so Darwinian. Survival of the fittest. It’s got that whole black hole of Calcutta thing going on. You may recall the story from the 1800’s of the little room where 60 prisoners were put in for a night during the Indian summer. By the morning 23 we left standing because the rest had died from exhaustion. People scrambled for air to the only window. Trampling on the dead or dying to get there. Who stood? The strongest. Self esteem in our society is like that too. Success drives us to drive others underfoot. Even those who are crushed will try to crush others.

Bitter divorcees hating men together over some white cask wine and a fag. Coughing each insult at their ex-partners who have hurt them catastrophically, but gives them the viewpoint that they have the right to belittle any man who has even mildly inconvenienced them.

Factory workers, rallying around at smoko and talking about how the company should be run, and the injustice of being made to work weekends (which they strangely do anyway).

The retail workers who have no rights but complain to anyone but management about it. On one hand it’s easier to not rock the boat, but on another hand, it just feels better to not confront, because then you can’t run the risk of being wrong. Easy eh?

Is it called venting or simply backstabbing.

How do I know this? I’ve been there and done it. And yep, even in churches. All this Darwinian monologue takes place. No surprised looks out there? I didn’t think so. We all do this. We all get caught up in this.

And then we read Psalms about enemies…

Psalm 3:

A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom. O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me;

many are saying to me, “There is no help for you in God.” Selah

But you, O LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.

I cry aloud to the LORD, and he answers me from his holy hill. Selah

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the LORD sustains me. I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

Rise up, O LORD! Deliver me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.

Deliverance belongs to the LORD; may your blessing be on your people! Selah

And we feel vindicated by this as our esteem is validated through victimisation (good use of v’s). we take on the poor me, and turn people into enemies because then we’ve got a righteous cause to follow and we can fall into the arms of God on our side saying “Go get ‘em God!” as though he were our very own pit bull terrier that was pretrained for this very purpose. “Savage God who opened up the ground to swallow the unrighteous, condemn my enemies!”

It’s right there in the bible.

Enemies? Really? Who here has enemies like the king of a nation that occupies some of the nicest, most fertile land in the middle east and also supplies one of the main trade routes between three continents? Who here has to make pacts on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people, to keep peace with neighbours that will take you over, and will kill you, and will celebrate that fact, and will say that their defeat of your nation is also a defeat of your God, well, they might tell you that before they slit your throat.

Enemies? There are people around us that we don’t like. Who are out to make us miserable, who will be mean to us, disrespect us, even condition our environment or interactions with them so that we can’t move.

Yep, there are people like that, but don’t appeal to the psalms for God’s justice to be meted out there. I’ll bet that most of our ‘enemies’ do not want to kill us, nor do they want to harm ‘us’ in any real sense.

Let me explain that.

I think in this social Darwinism, people are not really treated as people. There’s nothing personal in being threatened by someone. I’m not sure how satisfied people are if they put someone down, I suspect any good feeling doesn’t come from making someone feel bad, but rather about making themselves feel better by comparison. So the people being put down are actually representations of something else, they’re not people as such, they are objects to subdue. You have to be quite vindictive to really get pleasure out of hurting someone.

I think at school this is the heart of the problem of bullying and teasing. I think it’s rare for anyone to be getting pleasure out of putting someone down. I think they’re getting pleasure from building themselves up, of having someone underneath them, of reordering the strata of their place in society. But this doesn’t change the simple fact that sticks and stones will break my bones and words will disempower me. It’s true.

I dread to think of what happened to igor, or the ballroom dancer or mr interesting art. But I don’t believe that I would’ve done what I did if I’d known that they were hurt by it just like I was. Whenever they showed visible signs of pain I would distance myself from their pain and use it as an opportunity to prop myself up.

I’m hoping here, that the message will be coming clear. Loving people? It means that we need to actually start acknowledging them as people.

Paul Tillich has had a profound impact on me recently. His writing about God was the starting point for this series. In the same book he talked about the similarities between social and religious movements. I like what he has to say about how movements will succeed.

In order for them to succeed movements need to demonise a group of people. I use the word demonise in the non-spiritual sense. The Nazi’s had to demonise the Jews, the Germans had to rally around a cause where people could be subdued. Destiny Church: and I’m being careful here, is successful, I think, because it has demonised the gay community and the government. Without these two things, it wouldn’t have made a mark.

Traditionally the church and Pharisees have demonised sinners, i.e. those who are unbelievers. We target them as people who need to be saved from hell. Now there is truth in this, but instead of being people they can become targets of evangelism. And their darkest transformations into light, become useful anecdotes for us to share with each other : and let’s face it, we can look very good sharing some of these stories.

We can demonise things too. Drugs, alcohol, sex before marriage, swearing or even the way people dress. At the youth pastors conference recently, one of the guys shared how he had a Friday night outreach to the skaters/ they came to the church car park that was kitted out with all the ramps and half pipes, music competitions. 200 of them at one time. So a couple of them decide to go the church on a Sunday morning dressed as they do. Dressed up, if you like, feeling cool and comfortable with their pants low-riding yaddy yadda, and a lady comes up to them and tells them that their dress code is unacceptable for the house of God. Needless to say, and quite sadly, the skateboard event plummeted because of this and was dissolved around 6 months later.

The lady had demonised anyone who did not match her (might I add not God’s) expectations of appropriateness.

We can demonise people over doctrines too. Like I do with the prosperity doctrine. And I regret this about myself. But I’ve historically written the entire person and their faith off because of their ideas about blessing. i’m sure many of us demonise people and things. And often there is good reason to have issues, but demonisation makes them more than just things to be cautious of, it makes us rally against them. It can be a source of pride.

People who leave youth groups or churches because they feel judged for making mistakes with sex, or getting drunk, or smoking dope. I know people like this, and that’s why I don’t preach against them that much. Because I do not want these things to be the very structure we hang our faiths on. These things are not reasons to leave church and faith! What do we do as a faith community to make people feel like leaving us after mistakes like this?

Now, what does Jesus say about all this. Well, no surprise here but Jesus turns it all upside down.

Luke 6:27-38.

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.

Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

“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. 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.”

Break into groups there.

How do you feel about this text? What do you make of it.

There’s one obvious thing that comes out of an event like hurricane Katrina : our the virtue of the affluent society is such a façade. It’s false security. When recounting the horrors of the superdome in New Orleans, when anarchy broke out in the city, it started a tide of aggression that was difficult to stem and is possibly more profound than the devastation of the hurricane itself. On one very basic level we can come to terms with death from a disaster. But the death of a teenage girl at the hands of a rapist in the assumed safety of the aftermath, and then his brutal demise from the mob justice, just show how thin our veneer of peace really is. These are not deaths that are easy to come to terms with. These deaths expose our brokenness that we run from. We run to our security of possessions, land, family. But they are sand foundations, so fragile. I won’t be naïve enough to say that Jesus is the answer to those questions that we have about this disaster: even though in a theoretical sense I believe it wholeheartedly but the pragmatist in me says that the task is too great for us. Yet, how much would the aftermath been different if everyone had listened to those words of Jesus?

Consider this. How could these words be communicated to this world that would benefit so much from them? Through us. The credibility of the words of Jesus to those out there, hangs on Christians and their actions. It hangs on me and on you.

I’ve heard many people tell me that they don’t need God recently. And I accept that as how they feel. And in a middle class church, why would they need him? Especially where we don’t build a faith around the four traditional pillars of prohibiting smoking, drinking, fornicating and swearing. So without being able to measure our need for God against these pillars then where does God fit in?

Let me say this. If our faith is our own and individual thing, then we won’t need God except when things don’t go so well. Most of our crises are quite insignificant in the scheme of things aren’t they. And these things can cause great despair. But there is nothing quite so compelling towards us loving God as when we actually reach out into this world and treat people better. That’s where we need God. Because there is the risk. There’s no risk in praying that we’ll pass our exams. But there is risk in praying for wisdom as we talk with someone and serve them. Prayer for strength to love them, to be kind to those who persecute us, or that we just don’t like. Tell me you don’t need God for that. If we find ourselves saying that we don’t need God, then I suggest our faith is way too safe.

Who will you treat differently?

We began the service by singing about being servants in this world.