“Now it’s interesting when it says ‘Love your enemies’ in the text that ‘love your enemy’ is not necessarily excusing them. It does acknowledge that there are enemies. There are those who shall oppose us in such a way that we feel as though we must go to war. And another piece about this text that is interesting to me is the way in which — because I said earlier it says ‘love your enemies’ and then it says ‘turn the other cheek’ — that’s in there too, and oftentimes is used as a way to justify women being subjected to the arbitrary violence of men, workers to be subjected to certain kinds of abuse, as though that articulates some deep form of Christian authenticity. But the great Walter Wink reminds us in his book “Jesus as a Human,” he reminds us that in that era if you slapped someone who you considered an underling you would use your backhand. And so if you turned your other cheek that meant someone had to slap you with an open hand, and that was a sign that you were their peer.”

Sermon by Osagyefo Sekou at 11:15 a.m. on Sunday, January 17, 2021. Readings: Genesis 37:17b–20, a reading from the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Luke 6:27–36.

View the entire Sunday Morning Live (or whatever portion you’d like) for January 17, 2021 on YouTube at https://youtu.be/W6uPrTPaCUI. Follow along with the service leaflet here: https://allsaints-pas.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/210117StreamingLit1115am.pdf.

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