Sermon for August 31, 2008

I remember that the 1970's was a decade that to many of us stood out as being unique and unlike the decade before and the decade that came after. The war in Vietnam was still happening, the Beatles had come to an end, and the counter culture was present and making itself known in different ways. Television programs were a reflection of what we were living and our culture and so we have classics like Rowan and Martin's Laugh In and Flip Wilson. In the 1970's pot was being smoked more openly and drug abuse was becoming a problem. And in the 1970's there was an emphasis on being different and if someone was different, then that was to be good and alright and accepted. There was a need expressed of people who wanted to be different and unlike others and they did not want being different to create a problem. Putting words around that need, an expression came into vogue and the expression was "I am doing my own thing" and "just do your own thing". When asked about what doing my own thing was about, it was often expressed in terms of being different and out of the ordinary and not the norm and so it was seen through an attitude and then action and then appearance. Long hair, love beads, bell bottom jeans were part of being different and just doing one's own thing. Isn't it interesting that some of the folks of the 1970's maybe thought that for the first time in history people were speaking out about being different...doing their own thing! St. Paul...the same St. Paul of two-thousand years past also spoke about being different but he did not add on the jargon of the 1970's which was 'do your own thing'. In the second reading for this Sunday, St. Paul wrote words that surely must have been so foreign and appeared to come right off the wall. He said "let love be genuine" and while that was not too foreign he then went on to say "bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them...do not repay anyone evil for evil...live peaceably with all. Beloved never avenge yourselves...if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink..." This morning I wish to speak more about what St. Paul was saying and what the implications are of what he was saying.