Sunday, July 10, 2016

Sermon Audio: Leviticus 19:9-18, July 10, 2016

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on July 10, 2016 at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Leviticus 19:9-18. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Sermon Text: Leviticus 19:9-18, July 10, 2016


Passage: Leviticus 19:9-18
Liturgical week: Proper 10

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from the third book of Moses, Leviticus, the 19th chapter:
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. 
Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,
     Some of you may remember what it was like back during the time that the Civil Rights movement really picked up speed.  Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks.  I wasn’t alive back then, but I imagine that the country felt a lot like it does right now.  Two young black men shot, and it seems to me, unjustifiably, by the police.  Police members targeted for death during a peaceful demonstration by snipers.  This really has been going on for years, but the feeling of restlessness, of the need for justice, of the need for change, has become palpable in just the last few months.  You can feel it in the air.

     Racism is an evil that the devil has brought into this world to separate us.  Black versus white, White versus Latino, Trump versus the World, Planned Parenthood versus African-Americans.  We love, because of our sinful hearts, to find the differences in people, exaggerate them, and all so that we can feel better about ourselves, protect ourselves, protect what we think is our way of life.

     But, today, the evil of racism pervades our culture, and it has for centuries.  We have the opportunity now to stand up and say, “No more of this.”  We have the opportunity to teach our children, our grandchildren, our friends and family, that racism deserves just as much opportunity to exist as abortion, which is to say, it doesn’t at all.