"Love: Now and Forever"

February 15, 2009
Black History Month

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe

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A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

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Love. Now and forever.

All of us seek something that can last forever. Anything of value, in our imagination and understanding, is something that lasts forever. Whether it is something tangible, like a diamond, or the love of your life, something that lasts forever is what we search for in life.

We seek things that will last forever perhaps because of our temporal nature of life. As we get older we are more aware of the fact that nothing lasts forever. So, we seek things – tangible and intangible – that could last forever. Look at all the commercials and advertisements. Anywhere from “Built Tough” to “Forever in Blue Jeans” we see the human longing for things that will last a long time.

A leper came to Jesus and begged him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” “If you choose, Jesus, you can heal me from my physical illness that burdens my whole being,” the leper pleaded with Jesus. “If you will, Jesus, you can lift me from the neglect, the isolation, the degradations, and the humiliations I live through each and every day, that has lasted forever,” the leper appealed to Jesus.

Have you ever had such an experience that has burdened your whole being? Where the angry stares of neighbours and strangers seemed to burn into you? Where your presence seemed to bring out the worst in people? When your physicality defined and confined you from being less than your whole self? When the searing pain of existence seemed to last forever?

A few weeks ago my friend, Glenn, and I went to see the movie, Gran Torino. We both like Clint Eastwood. And we both love Ford Gran Torinos, one of the most recognizable cars of our youth from the 1970s TV series, “Starsky & Hutch.” “Zebra Three” was the radio call sign for them as they tore through the streets of “Bay City” in Starsky’s two-door red Ford Gran Torino.

As a movie, Gran Torino has a remarkably diverse ethnicity of people. Each and every ethnic stereotype is pushed to the extreme limit. Walt Kowalski, the main character, played by Clint Eastwood, is a Polish American retired auto worker who lives with the demons of the Korean War. His barber is Italian. They are both macho men who can only talk to each other with offensive name calling and crude jokes. The taxi driver is Sikh. The tailor looks Lebanese.

You see African American youth and Hispanic American youth in the ghetto portrayed as stereotypical thug wannabees. Kowalski’s children and the White working class neighbours have all moved out of the neighbourhood as the Hmong Americans move in. The Hmong youth are no exception – they also form gangs to belong and to defend themselves from other gangs. Everyone seems to be stuck in typical racial-ethnic stereotypes. Everyone seems to be afraid of one another. Everyone seems to have grudges against one another.

Everything changes when Walter Kowalski begins to interact with Thao and his feisty sister, Sue Vang Lor, his Hmong neighbours. The relationship that begins with Thao trying to steal Walt Kowalski’s 1972 Gran Torino, in the end, transforms all three of them. Three strangers from vastly different backgrounds learn to love and embrace one another.

Walt Kowalski is gradually transformed into a loving surrogate father to the two young people. Then, in the end, Kowalski offers his own life for the lives of his Hmong American neighbours. Thao and Sue Vang Lor’s lives are “cleansed” with Kowalski’s ultimate sacrifice.

Walt Kowalski, a grumpy old man living the nightmares of the past, ultimately chooses love – his “now and forever” – and becomes the Christ figure for his neighbours.

“If you choose, you can make me clean,” the leper said to Jesus. “I do choose. Be made clean!” Jesus proclaimed. The leper was healed and cleansed of the illness and became the message – God’s healing love. The leper who thought he was lost from God’s love and compassion was found by Jesus’ healing.

“If you choose, you can become love, now and forever,” Walt Kowalski heard a voice within himself. “I do choose. Let me be the Christ figure for my neighbour and lay my life for them,” was the embodiment of Walt Kowalski’s love for his neighbour. A man who was once lost from his own life and from the lives of his children and his neighbours was found by his new neighbours’ healing presence. He was once blind to his neighbours’ humanity but was able to see how compassion could bring out his humanity even from a tortured past.

The moment of healing became “now and forever” for the leper. He became the message of Jesus’ healing and God’s eternal love for all of us. The moment of self sacrifice of Walt Kowalski became the message of how humanity can leap across the chasm of prejudices and hatred when people reach out to one another with compassion.

As we celebrate “Black History Month” in our worship service, we remember how racial prejudices and hatred have blinded us all from our humanity and God’s compassion. We remember how God’s generous gifts of faith helped peoples of African descent move beyond enslavement, injustice, and degradation to stand tall with dignity.

This is what Rev. James Lawson, known as the “militant non-violent preacher,” wrote as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Statement of Purpose on May 14, 1960 during the “Civil Rights” struggles for African Americans and other ethnic minorities in the United Staes.

“Love is the central motif of nonviolence. Love is the force by which God binds humanity to God and with one another. Such love goes to the extreme; it remains loving and forgiving even in the midst of hostility. It matches the capacity of evil to inflict suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil, all the while persisting in love.” [i]

We acknowledge the continuing angry glares that burn up possibilities of forming genuine relationships with one another. We acknowledge how skin colours continue to define and confine us from cherishing one another as neighbours in this global village. We acknowledge that sticks and stones will break bones and that names do hurt. And that sticks and stones and name callings hurt all of us in the end.

In our remembering of the dis-ease of and segregations of our Black sisters and brothers, we hear the voice of Jesus, “I do choose. Be made clean!” “I do choose. Be made clean of the hatred toward you. You are and you have always been loved by God.”

In our acknowledging of the malady of the continuing racial prejudices and hatred within us and in our society, we hear the voice of the leper, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” “If you choose, Jesus, you can make us clean of the illness of prejudices and hatred within us and within our society.” “If we choose, we can be healed of the malady that blinds us from seeing our neighbours as members of God’s family – our family.”

Love calls us to become the love, now and forever, for our neighbours. Love heals us to become the love, now and forever. Love reminds us to choose love, now and forever.

Amen.

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[i] Rev. James Lawson, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Statement of Purpose, May 14, 1960. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsncc.htm.