Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 14
September 10, 2006
W. Gregory Pope
THE TRIUMPH OF MERCY: THE CHURCH AND AIDS
James 2:1-17
It was the summer of 1981. The Center for Disease Control reported in their weekly newsletter that five young homosexual men in Los Angeles were stricken with a highly unusual and lethal lung disease. In September of that same year investigators in New York City reported eight cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, in young homosexual men. Such were the beginnings of a new disease in America and is now, twenty-five years later, a worldwide pandemic.
What was once called “gay cancer” is now called AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It is no longer a gay disease. In fact, it’s primary mode of transmission is among heterosexual persons.
A disease that is twenty-five years old sometimes becomes “old news.” And though much progress has been made in prolonging the life expectancy of those who contract HIV and keeping it from developing into full-blown AIDS, AIDS is still a powerful killing force in our world.
How are we called to be church in the face of such a pandemic?
Scripture offers many images that are often used to associate with persons who live with AIDS. There is the leper who was considered unclean and was treated as an untouchable social outcast. And yet Jesus touched and welcomed them. There is the woman caught in adultery whose sin has been found out. And the woman who came to anoint Jesus’ feet with her perfume, a woman who was obviously a sexual sinner. And yet Jesus said to both women, “Your sins are forgiven,” lifting them from their shame, restoring them with God’s grace.
I think the best biblical image for persons living with AIDS is found in the opening pages of scripture: a human being created in the image of God. Persons living with AIDS are persons just like you and me -- created in the image of God in need of the love and grace of God embodied in a community of faith.
Our text today from the letter of James warns us against treating one human being differently than another human being and calls us to reveal our faith in works of mercy toward those who need help, whoever they are, whatever they’ve done.
1. James says one of the ways in which we show favoritism is by making distinctions among those people we would prefer to be members of our congregation (James 5:1-7).
Two people walk into the sanctuary. One is a handsome man and his family. We’ve read about him in the newspaper. He has agreed to pay for the painting of the Kennedy bridge. A man walking in right behind him smells like he’s spent the week outside, which he has. We’ve read about him too in the newspaper. Homeless people like him are driving down the value of homes and land when they sleep outside nearby. We keep our distance, afraid he’s going to ask us for money. We point him toward a seat in the balcony. But the wealthy Kennedy bridge painter we lead to a seat toward the front. We’re so glad as tax payers we will not have to pay to paint the bridge again. We make sure we greet him and pass the peace of Christ to his family. And of course, we make sure he meets the pastor. He could be such an asset to our church. Welcome the rich man. Shun the poor man.
Most people living with AIDS are poor. Most of them cannot work. Many do not have health insurance and cannot afford the medications necessary to help them. Scripture makes it clear: God is on the side of the poor. If we are to be on God’s side, we must stand with the poor. When we show favoritism toward the wealthy and the well, we dishonor the poor and the sick.
2. Simply put: When we show favoritism we sin (James 5:9-12).
People often contract AIDS through unwise sinful behavior. Though it shouldn’t matter how they got it, the fact AIDS is most often transmitted through sexual behavior or drug use has often given the church an excuse to exclude them. But James makes the point that in our exclusion, in our partial treatment toward the wealthy and the well, we sin.
And we do not have the right to decide which sins are worse than others. James says if we fail at one point of God’s law, we become accountable for all of it. We are no better than others just because they committed a sin we consider to be worse than our own. We are no better than others just because we haven’t been given the chance to live out our sexual fantasies, or if lived out not found out by others, resulting in a deadly disease. We are no better than others just because our greed is considered good for the economy though it keeps others living in poverty. We cannot play the game of whose sin is worse. We are all sinners in need of the grace of God.
3. Our calling is to “fulfill the royal law,” as James puts it (James 5:8).
And the royal law is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said, along with loving God with all that we are, it’s the most important law of all. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That includes: Your poor neighbor and your rich neighbor. Your gay neighbor and your straight neighbor. Your Muslim neighbor and your Jewish neighbor. Your Republican neighbor and your Democrat neighbor. Your fundamentalist neighbor and your liberal neighbor. Your black neighbor and your white neighbor. Your Hispanic neighbor and your Latino neighbor. Your nice neighbor and your nuisance neighbor. Your healthy neighbor and your neighbor with AIDS. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
4. That means, to use the gracious phrase from James that I think I only recognized recently: “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 5:13).
In words similar to those of Jesus, James says, “Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy.” When James warns us against merciless judgment and when Jesus tells us not to judge, they do not mean we should never discern right and wrong and never hold people accountable for wrong deeds. They mean we not to judge in order to condemn. Only Christ can condemn and he has chosen not to. “For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but that through him the world might be saved,” wrote John. And Paul proclaimed: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Neither can there be condemnation in the community of Christ, the church. In the church, mercy must triumph over judgment.
But it has often been the case in the all-too-human church that judgment has triumphed over mercy. Especially toward persons living with AIDS.
Jimmy Allen, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor and leader in the 1970's and 80's received a phone call back in September 1985 from his son, Scott. "Dad, a blood bank called a few days ago to tell us that the blood Lydia (his son's wife) received when Matthew was born was contaminated with a virus.” “Virus? What kind of virus?” “AIDS. Lydia tested positive. Bryan (the youngest son) and Matthew tested positive, too. I tested negative.” Allen's daughter-in-law and two precious grandchildren had AIDS.
In 1985 because of all the fear, shame, and misunderstanding attached to AIDS the family would need to keep it a secret. Allen has written of this ordeal in his book The Burden of a Secret, which I encourage you to read. He tells how his son, Scott, on staff at a church, shared the news with the pastor, asking for help and guidance. The next morning there was a letter on Scott’s desk accepting Scott’s resignation, a resignation he never offered. They moved to Texas where Scott’s parents lived, searching for a church home, but not one church would receive them. They could not find a spiritual community to call home. They were shunned from the church when they needed the church the most. Scott no longer holds to the Christian faith, but has turned to Eastern religions. And they had contracted the virus through no fault of their own. (Jimmy Allen, The Burden of a Secret -- A Story of Truth and Mercy in the Face of AIDS, Moorings, 1995)
Often, the primary message you hear from the church concerning AIDS is that it is God's judgment, a curse sent from God because of their behavior. The message is as recent as September 11th five years ago. It’s as recent as Katrina one year ago. Judgment’s triumph over mercy.
But you know people get lung cancer often from smoking, and people get heart disease often from poor eating habits, yet we do not look at them in their illness and say, “You're getting what you deserve. This is God's judgment on your lifestyle.” We do it with AIDS because we elevate sexual sins above other sins. But we must not categorize sins nor condemn people in their illness, even an illness due to choices they have made.
Jesus did not approve of behavior that harmed the self or harmed others. He called sin sin. In the face of such behavior, what he often said was, “Your sins are forgiven; go and sin no more.” He loves us all, sinners everyone. And our sins are legion, are they not?
In addition to our shared sinful existence, we love and accept persons living with AIDS because it is central to our identity as the people of God upon whom God has poured out God’s Spirit.
Our Sunday School lesson for today from the second chapter of Acts tells of the Spirit being poured out on all flesh. Robert Wall comments that there is no discrimination that divides the community; all receive God’s Spirit, enabling all to speak as prophets.” (Anthony Robinson and Robert Wall, Called to be Church, Eerdmans 2006, 55)
Persons living with AIDS, facing their mortality, enduring the cruelty of the church, can speak to us as prophets full of God’s Spirit, telling us the truth about who we are and making us face up to the people God has called us to be. Persons who are dying will preach as if something is at stake.
Wall also suggests that the “gift of the Holy Spirit” given to us at our baptism, along with forgiveness, “inspires a way of living together that evokes “the good will of all the people.” (Robinson and Wall, 60).
If we would be a congregation where mercy triumphed over judgment regarding persons living with AIDS, we could become a congregation whose way of life together evokes the good will of the people in our community as we embody the non-judgmental love of God in this place.
Anthony Robinson says that the signs and wonders in the book of Acts cause “enough perplexity and astonishment to get people opened up and receptive” to the Spirit of God (Robinson and Wall, 62).
Could our love and acceptance of people living with AIDS cause enough perplexity and astonishment to get people opened up and receptive” to the Spirit of God in our city?
It is also central to our identity that we be a people of grace and truth. We are called to embody a grace without judgment, and to teach the truth about sexual responsibility. The high standard of the church is that full sexual expression should be experienced in the context of a lifelong covenant relationship called marriage. This is the standard. We will love and accept those who have missed the mark, who have failed the standard, but we will still teach it and lift it high.
To be a people of grace and truth - that is our calling in this age. And we need them both. Because we can’t bear the truth without grace. And grace is not real without the truth.
We are here to teach high moral standards and deep, deep forgiveness. Grace and truth. If we pull it off, it’s because we follow a God who is a God of grace and truth, whose righteousness is great and his mercy even greater, whose grace is greater than our sin.
Let us also remember that the real issues for the person with AIDS are spiritual issues: How do I live with my mortality? How can I find peace and communion with God? How can I make the most of my days? As the church we can walk with them through those issues.
But first, as a church we have a choice to make: whether we're going to condemn or whether we're going to love, whether we’re going to judge or whether we’re going to show mercy. I’m talking about an acceptance that is deeper than approval or disapproval. Because we can accept whether we approve or not. I’m speaking of a compassion that's deeper than agreement or disagreement. We’re either going to judge or we're going to love. We can't do them both at the same time.
And so, as a loving compassionate church, are we willing to say to persons living with AIDS, “There’s mercy for you here in this place. There has been enough mercy for all of us with all of our sin. There’s enough mercy here for you too. We will not judge you. We don’t care how you got the disease. You don’t need to tell us. We don't need to know. You may tell us, but you don’t need to tell us. We only care that you are sick and in need of love and grace. And as the body of Christ we are here with love and grace for you and for your family. We’ll take you to the doctor or the grocery store. If your family has disowned you, you are welcome at our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ll celebrate your birthday with you. We will pray for you, and we will walk with you in the way of Jesus in your illness and in your health, in your good days and in your bad days, in your living and in your dying.” We can determine whether or not people with AIDS die in agony or community.
5. So let us remember: Our compassionate action toward those in need is the ultimate test of our faith in Christ (James 5:14-17).
James offers a helpful corrective to the notion that “being saved” and “being a Christian” is all about what you believe in your mind or even in your heart. James says, “If your belief doesn’t issue forth in action, it is useless; your faith is dead.”
It’s not enough that to believe the poor should be helped. It’s not enough to have compassion in our hearts for the sick, including those with AIDS. Our faith and belief must result in action, in supplying bodily needs for people without food, shelter, clothing, and medicine.
As you leave worship this morning, you will be given the opportunity to donate money toward the AIDS Walk here in Louisville two weeks from today. Also on the back of your AIDS insert you are given information on how you can help in specific ways: You can volunteer by taking AIDS clients to the doctor’s office, picking up and delivering food, offering a listening ear. There is also a list of items you can bring that are safe and helpful for persons living with AIDS. So why don’t we, in two weeks, on the day of the AIDS Walk, bring to worship some of those items that we can then share. Will you do that?
It all boils down to this: Do you believe God loves those who are dying with AIDS? Do you believe that the person with AIDS is the neighbor Christ calls you to love? Then do something about it. The power of redeeming love and healing grace are in your hands.
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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