July 5, 2026 – The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Cal Calhoun

In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is a characteristic of our humanity, of our life together, as humans, that we seem to need an enemy to unite or rally a community. The Old Testament gives us the impression that this has been a characteristic of humanity, likely from the beginning of our existence.

In the Old Testament, we have the sacrifice of the scapegoat. All the sins, all the pain, all the fear of the community was placed on a goat, and it was led out into the wilderness and sent out on its own, presumably to perish in the wilderness, but in the process to take away all the sins, pains and fear of the community.

If we think about the times our nation was united, when there was strong resolve to succeed, much of it has been when we have had an enemy. There are some of us who can remember WWII. We knew who the enemy was. We sometimes forget that WWII was followed about 5 years later with the Korean War. About 10 years after the Korean War, we had the Vietnam War. When the Vietnam War was over, the administration, at the time, made the decision to make crime and criminals the target, the enemy, because we didn’t have a more obvious enemy we could easily point to. You see, if your enemy is formidable enough, fear becomes the motivator. The fear we share as a community can unite us. The sad part of this example is that this nation has more people incarcerated than any other nation, both in a real and per capita basis. If we had a lower crime rate than other developed countries, we could point to all this incarceration as a success. But that is not the case.

Twenty-five years ago, people may remember after 9/11 being a time when we seemed more unified as a nation, more on the same page. We knew who the enemy was and we directed all our efforts there, instead of fighting one another.

More recently, elements of our community have seemed to grab on to xenophobia, the fear of the other, the stranger, those who are different. Folks who are different by race, by culture, by gender or sexual orientation. Immigrants have been a recent target.

Our Old Testament reading makes clear we are to seek “justice for the orphan and the widow, and to love the stranger, providing them food and clothing. You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

We don’t have many Native Americans in our midst this morning, but aside from them, nearly every one of us has ancestors who were strangers in this land. Ancestors who choose to come here for a new life. For some, they came for economic opportunity. For many of our ancestors, it was religious freedom that brought them here: Puritans, Quakers, Roman Catholics, Huguenots, Moravians, just to name a few. For some of us, our ancestors were kidnapped, transported in ways we would consider inhumane for animals, and sold into slavery.  For the vast majority of us, however our ancestors got here, they were strangers in this land.

Our nation’s birthrate makes it clear we will need immigrants to sustain our economy. We all know those jobs for which we especially rely on immigrants. The jobs we generally don’t want to do. Should we allow criminals to immigrate? By no means! Should we have borders so porous we can’t control who comes in? By no means! But neither should we be demonizing hard working, law abiding, tax paying members of our communities. People who have been contributing members of our society, in some cases, for 20 years, are suddenly finding the extension of their legal stay here, like the renewal of a green card, slow, exceedingly more difficult, and expensive, as in $30,000 to renew after legal fees and the like.

All this brings us to this morning’s gospel. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

Love your enemies. That is not easy. But I am reminded of the end of WWII. The Marshall Plan said we would refrain from the mistakes after WWI and not impose reparations on the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy. Rather we would rebuild them and foster democratic ideals there. Since WWII, Germany and Japan have grown into 2 of the largest economies in the world and two of our closest allies.

Since then, our record hasn’t been as great. I remember in the ‘90’s Angola decided to declare itself communist. We responded by sending arms to Angola’s neighbors. Cuba sent teachers, doctors and nurses to Angola. Is it any wonder the people of Angola were drawn to communism? In 2015, a group from Good Sam made our first trip to the Diocese of Kondoa in Tanzania. The trip from Arusha to Kondoa took 6 hours on a road that was mostly not paved and had very few bridges. We would go down steep embankments to the river bed and cross rivers that way. In the rainy season this road would be impassable for days on end and then would be impassable because of the resulting erosion. There would need to be dirt work done to make is passable again. This is not some obscure rural road. This stretch is part of the Great Northern Road that crosses the continent from Capetown, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt and runs through the Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. Today, you can make the trip from Arusha to Kondoa in less than 2 hours on a 2-lane, paved highway built by the Chinese. Imagine the kind of difference this road makes in the region as people try to get goods from their farm to market or get to a clinic when they are sick, the efficiency we take for granted. How do you think Kondoans feel about the Chinese now?

What I hear Jesus saying in love your enemies, is that if we love our enemies, really love our enemies, we won’t have enemies. Jesus makes it pretty clear. We are called to love God, and to love all those God has made in God’s own image. That doesn’t leave anyone out.

What does that mean for a fear motivated nation that needs an enemy to feel unified? Maybe we need to figure out how to be motivated by love rather than fear? Isn’t that what following Jesus is about?

So who are your enemies? The Russians? The Iranians? I would point out that our issues there are with government leaders, not average people who only want you want, peace and enough prosperity to live comfortable lives. That’s what humans want. Part of our problem as a nation is that we have begun to see enemies within. Are Democrats enemies? Or Republicans? Immigrants? Wealthy people? Poor people?

Whoever you call enemy or stranger, if you claim to be a follower of Jesus, you must love them. You must pray for them. Is that a big ask? You bet it is. But, hopefully, no one ever told you following Jesus would be easy. It’s not.

As we celebrate 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there is much to celebrate. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

One reason to celebrate is that I believe that this statement is more true today than it was 250 years ago. Because 250 years ago, all men, didn’t include men of color, or men on the margins economically or socially, and it certainly didn’t include women. It would take another 150 years for women to earn the right to vote, and longer than that for us to create laws that forbid states from limiting the rights of people of color.

There is much to celebrate, and there is still much to do. Both for us as individuals following Jesus and for us as a nation. We must find a way to make love, rather than fear, the thing that unites us. Amen.

Year A  –  The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost  –   July 5, 2026   –   The Rev. Cal Calhoun