Matthew 5:38-48
Ordinary Time 7A
February 19, 2017
Fondren Presbyterian Church
Dr. Robert Wm Lowry
After the Democratic National
Convention in 2000 when Al Gore selected CT Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running
mate, ABC News ran a story vaguely implying that it might be tricky for an
Orthodox Jew to serve as Vice-President.
The story
did not echo the “Hotline to the Vatican” kind of scare tactics unleashed on
Kennedy in 1960, but the question was raised in this and other news stories, “How
will an Orthodox Jew who observes Torah laws deal with an emergency on the
Sabbath?” In other words, if he is
forbidden from operating anything mechanical- he walks to the capitol and takes
the stairs on the Sabbath- how will he manage to retaliate against an enemy or
deal with a phone call to a foreign leader during a crisis?
Unlike the
fears of past Catholic candidates that their faith would mean control from a
far away Pope, the concern with Lieberman was that he was so religiously devout
that his beliefs might interfere with him taking us to war.
A
politician so devoted to the demands of his faith, he would be unable to take
us to war.
Those words
have, to my knowledge, never been uttered about a Christian candidate for President
or Vice President not Anglican George Washington, not Presbyterian Woodrow
Wilson, not even Quaker Richard
Nixon. Never has the world been worried
that they might take too seriously Jesus’ words…
“You
have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But
I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right
cheek, turn the other also.”
When was
the last time you got a sideways look
when someone heard that you were a Christian and worried that you might be a
little to attached to that justice, fairness, equality, righteousness,
peacemaking, cheek-turning, pray for your enemies stuff?
Why doesn’t
the world- the powers and principalities of the world- fear us?
I mean when you read the gospel, it
is pretty scary stuff if your business is maintaining power through force,
dishonesty, intimidation, or any of the other tools of power wielded so freely
in our culture.
In fact,
the forces of power in the world are more often than not the mirror opposite of
what the gospel calls us to believe, do, and be.
The dangerous proposition that is
the gospel of Christ is an equal opportunity critic of the powers and
principalities. So much so that the
gospel message itself has been the target of thinkers on both the left and the
right.
Ayn Rand,
darling of the Tea Party wrote, “If any civilization is to survive, it is the
morality of altruism which men must reject.”
And then
there’s Karl Marx, father of communism, who said, “The social principles of
Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submissiveness and
humbleness.”[i]
The powers
and principalities of the world of all philosophical stripes know a threat then
they see it and the gospel is a threat.
And a community filled with gospel people is absolutely deadly.
So why
doesn’t the world fear us?
Or at least
fear us as much as they fear Joe Lieberman?
One answer,
a pretty simple answer really, is that we are realists. We read the words and we hear the words and
we even sit through preaching on the words, but in the end we live in the REAL
world and the trained indifference of our hearing filters out all of that
idealistic falderal. Yes, yes, loving
our enemies is a good idea but in Jesus day enemies did not wear suicide vests
or fly airplanes into office towers or order drone strikes on civilian
populations.
There are
enemies and then there are ENEMIES and in our day and age we are living with
the latter. And that excuses us from the
letter of this command, we tell ourselves.
And, if we
are honest, there is some truth to that.
Ours is a time vastly different than Jesus’. As powerful as they were, I doubt that all
the Caesar’s horsemen and all the Caesars’ men could do much to push
international politics today.
This and so
many other of Jesus’ admonitions in the gospels read like good ideas whose
place is in the idealistic context of the church and not out in the real world
where we need real world solutions to real world problems and not pie in the
sky theology.
Standing
here in the relative safety of this pulpit it is tempting to jump on that
bandwagon to simply dismiss those reactions to Jesus’ message as just so much
unfaithful drivel. It is easy and
tempting to take that pervasive realism in church and culture, set it up as a
straw man, topple it, and then proceed to beat the hell out of everyone with
this gospel story.
But the
truth is that when it comes to constructing a strategy for living in this real
world there is something to that ultra-realistic view of Jesus’ words if we
hear them as ways to succeed in the realities of our world.
Turn the
other cheek, give more than you are asked, go the extra mile, and love your
enemies are not very good strategies for getting ahead in this world. In fact, they are probably the four most
important ingredients to being a doormat in this world!
So it is no
wonder that the powers and principalities so readily reject Jesus and this
fools errand of a model for living in the REAL world; no wonder the world
doesn’t fear followers of this message that is, by every metric cherished by
the world, weak, foolish, and destined to fail.
This is not
how to get ahead in the real world.
And that is
exactly the point.
Contrary to
the Rev. Good Hair TV preachers, the gospel is not a recipe for success and prospering
your life in this world. Rather than
revealing a better way to win at the game, Jesus rejects the game all together
and shows us in its place a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
What Jesus
proposes here is a whole new way of living that is contrary to the rules and
the goals of the world. In these words
is the start of a counterculture- a revolution rooted in community that rejects
the limitations and assumptions of the “real world” by introducing a whole new
reality; the kingdom of God.
So what is
the formula for this new reality- this kingdom reality?
First, we
have to reorient our relationships from adversity to community.
We have to
stop seeing the other as the target of justice- you took my eye, I will take
yours- and adopt a posture of forgiveness, forbearance, and reconciliation.
Notice that when Jesus says “turn
the other cheek” there is no implication that it is going to be struck
too! We read that into the text. What Jesus commands is not about offering
your other cheek so it too may be slapped, but giving your neighbor the benefit
of the doubt that it will not be.
When Jesus
upends the assumptions of this world, he rejects the notion that we are living
zero-sum lives where your gain means my loss and the one who dies with the most
toys wins.
In this
short passage of just 69 Greek words, Jesus gives 6 separate commands on how to
relate to another person. One after the
other, Jesus uses these admonitions to lay the foundation for reconciliation
and community; a new reality founded not on the limitations of the world but
the boundlessness of God.
But what
kind of community?
What kind of community is Christ
calling us to embrace in this new reality of the kingdom of God?
In our
moment in history, this second part of Jesus call to community is perhaps one
of the most radical pieces of the gospel.
“You
have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.’ 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your
Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if
you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax
collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers
and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do
the same?
I heard a
politician being interviewed one day and the interviewer asked him where he got
his news and he listed several news sources including the Wall Street Journal
and Fox News. The anchor was visibly
surprised. He looked incredulously at
the politician and said, “but you’re a Democrat!” To which the politician replied,
“exactly. I already know what I think.”
As the
experts have unpacked the last Presidential election one of the themes that is
emerging is the impact of the “echo chamber.”
More than in recent years, we seem to be withdrawing into communities of
strict commonality where our diversity of opinion and outlook is reduced to the
lowest common denominator. There are
news sources for liberals and conservatives, social media like Facebook and
Twitter follow your likes and dislikes to know which news stories to put in
your daily feed; there are even online dating sites now that let users filter
potential partners based on political views!
We have
become so adept at parsing our neighbors and pigeon holing one another that we
have reached a point in a rapidly diversifying world that our lives are less
diverse each and every day.
We have
gone from us vs. them to us vs. them vs. them vs. them with ever shrinking
circles defining who is in and who is out and our civil discourse has become so
bellicose that we have trouble seeing any of them as deserving of the time much
less our friendship, care, community, or prayer.
Jesus takes
this moment in human history and turns it entirely upside down. Notice that Jesus does not encourage us to
become more diverse in our circle of friends and neighbors.
Diversity within the boundaries of communities
we define is not the point.
The point
is to get rid of the boundaries all together; to tear down and stop building
the walls that parcel us off one from the other. We are called to create and live in
communities defined by being no more discriminate than the sunshine or the rain;
to let our goodwill fall on the world the way the rain does on the earth.
Jesus calls
us to a true community of the whole human family.
That this
text comes up in the lectionary as we are in the middle of a national debate on
immigration and the politics and policy of refugee admittance to this country
is, I think, as much if not more a function of providence as coincidence. Like most of you, I have personal opinions on
what our national policy should be but I have no expertise to claim in
international relations, national security, or immigration policy.
What I can
offer is the observation that from the earliest stories of the Israelites to the
modern story of the church, God’s people have been called and commanded to care
for the immigrant in their midst.
Welcoming the stranger is at the heart of our call to community in
Christ and care for neighbor is an indispensible element in our Christian faith
which is based on the gospel of Jesus Christ and not the realpolitik of the day.
This call hospitality and community
is not a negotiable part of the gospel and any church, community, society, or
nation that fails to be mindful about and demonstrate care for the stranger,
the immigrant, the refugee in their midst stands afoul of the calling of
Christ.
The place
of the church in the world is standing directly in the path of a culture of
fear of the other and division among peoples as we proclaim loudly and without
ceasing that ours is a God whose love falls like the rain; covering and
nurturing all the earth.
Those last
words of our text today, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is
perfect,” may sound like a charge too great to achieve. When used in this context the Greek word telos, which can certainly be translated
as “perfect” might fairly be rendered “whole.”
The telos to which Christ
calls us is not the perfection of flawlessness but the perfection of wholeness
of completeness. We are made whole and
given all that we need to relentlessly give voice in the world to the promise
and vision of the Kingdom of God.
Imagine
that! A church relentless in its
proclamation:
of the
dignity of all people;
the
boundlessness of God’s love;
the promise
of God’s kingdom;
the
eternity of God’s love;
and the
call to all creation to holy community defined by how wide it reaches rather
than by whom it excludes.
That is a
church to make the powers and principalities tremble; a church for the forces
of division and dehumanization to fear.
Leonard
Bernstein, when he debuted his modern mass, said that in his opinion the most
dangerous words in any language are, “let us pray.” When we utter those words we acknowledge the
one who calls us to prayer and prayerful living and we declare in the face of
the world our faith in the one who is greater than the world.
Those are
the first words of our resistance to the world.
When we pray, not only for those we
love, but also for those God loves;
those who have done us well and
those who have done us ill;
when we pray even the prayers that
hurt to say, we begin our active resistance to the powers and principalities
that would divide God’s children and we take the first steps toward the holy
community of Christ.
When we
pray, we begin a revolution of wholeness in a broken world.
So…let us
pray.
God of boundless grace, you have called us
to cross every human border and boundary so we may begin to realize your holy
community of promise. Give us ears to
hear your word above the din of the world and eyes to see
your children beyond the interests of our own lives. As the hymn writer said, grand us wisdom,
grant us courage, for the living of this and every day. Let the holy revolution of your promise begin
here in our hearts. Amen.
[i] As
happens so often, Dr. David Lose provided invaluable insight to the text and
offered this observation about Rand and Marx in a Working Preacher post from
2014.
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