Choosing Love in a Cruel World
Second Reading
A READING FROM THE LETTER OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbour as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
ROMANS 13:8-14
Gospel
THE HOLY GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
Jesus said, "If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."
MATTHEW 18:15-20
Sermon: The Rev. Dr. Maryann Amor
This past week Netflix premiered a documentary about Raygun. If you don’t know who that is, she is the woman break dancing in the video we just watched. Raygun represented Australia at the 2024 Olympics, where break dancing debuted as an Olympic sport. When her final opportunity to dance came, Raygun performed the moves we just saw, and almost immediately people started reacting online.
While some people commended her for the creativity of her dance, the overwhelming response was negative. People called her all kinds of names, said she was an embarrassment to Australia and to the Olympics, described her as ridiculous and incompetent. More than 54,000 people signed a petition calling for her to be disqualified.
And what was even worse was the criticism of her as a person. People moved from Raygun performed terribly to Raygun is a terrible person. Raygun said afterward that she had hoped to bring people joy through her dance, but that she hadn’t realized her performance would “open the door to so much hate.” She described the response as devastating.
What Raygun’s experience shows us is just how different our world is today from the world even ten or fifteen years ago. A person can do one thing — dance, make a mistake, say the wrong thing, have something happen to them — and suddenly it ends up online, where thousands or millions of people can comment on it.
And social media makes it incredibly easy for people to say things that they might never say to someone's face. We can hide behind a screen, a username, or the distance that technology gives us. We can criticize, mock, shame and even attack another person without ever having to look them in the eye. This is why cyberbullying has become such a serious issue. It is why we hear stories of people being harassed, humiliated and attacked online.
Now, technology itself isn't the problem, social media isn't inherently evil. But technology has given us the ability to affect one another in both good and bad ways. And what is most unnerving is that we don't know what the world will look like when children like Macey, who we will baptise today, are grown up. We don't know what new technologies will exist, or what new ways people will find to hurt one another.
Now I know this is a depressing way to begin a sermon on a joyful day like today. But I begin here because in the face of all I have described, hope is not lost. In fact, we baptise Macey because of hope. We baptise her because, despite the terrible things people do to each other, we believe that God is at work in this world, and that God is at work through God's people. We see this clearly in two of our readings today.
Both Paul and Jesus speak about how we need to live with one another. And while their words were written almost 2,000 years ago, they still speak clearly to the world we live in now.
Paul says: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” He then goes on to say that love fulfills the law. The commandments tell us not to commit adultery, not to murder, not to steal, not to covet what belongs to someone else. Paul takes all of this and brings it back to love. If I truly love my neighbour, I cannot treat them as though they don't matter. I cannot use them for my own benefit. I cannot deliberately humiliate them. I cannot hide behind a screen and say something cruel simply because I can. Love changes the way we treat other people.
And then Jesus takes this even further. In the Gospel, Jesus talks about what happens when there is conflict between people. And notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say: Talk about them to everyone else. Put it on Facebook. Get everyone on your side. Walk away and pretend nothing happened. Instead, Jesus says: go and talk to them. Deal with the problem directly. Give the other person an opportunity to listen and respond. Give the relationship an opportunity to be repaired. And if that doesn't work, bring others into the conversation, not to publicly shame someone, but to seek reconciliation.
At the heart of all of this is love. Love means caring enough about another person and the relationship to try to make things right. And then Jesus says something incredible: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” When Christians gather in Christ's name, when we are genuinely seeking to live according to Christ's way of love, Christ is present among us.
Our world has changed so much since Paul’s and Jesus’s time, but human beings haven’t changed at all. We still have the same capacity to hurt one another that we had 2,000 years ago, we just have new ways of doing it today.
And what has also not changed is our capacity to love and this is why we baptise Macey. Baptism is an act of hope. We are placing our hope in God and we are also making a promise about the kind of community we want to be.
Macey will grow up in a world that we cannot control. We cannot protect her from every hurt. We cannot control what people will say about her. We cannot know what challenges she will face. But we can promise that she will have a church family who will remind her that she is loved by God.
And we can promise that we will try to be the kind of people who show that love to her — and to one another.
Today we are not simply welcoming Macey into the Christian faith. We are reminding ourselves of what it means to be Christian.
We are people who choose love when cruelty would be easier. We are people who seek reconciliation rather than humiliation. We are people who refuse to turn another person's mistake or odd dance moves into an excuse to destroy them. We are people who remember that behind every screen name, every mistake, every awkward moment, every failure, every person we disagree with, there is a human being who is loved by God.
And today, as we baptise Macey, we pray that she will grow up surrounded by people who know that love — and who will show it to her, and to one another, every single day. Amen.
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