No Retaliation

a Sermon for Epiphany 7A
Text: Matthew 5:38-48

GOD of Hope and Wonder, you give us the tools of great change and the opportunity to make the choice. Help us to see your ways for us as the right choice. Amen.

Retaliation and escalation
Jesus begins the gospel with a familiar phrase: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'” Now, I know that you know where this comes from and what it is about; I am just reminding you. To do that, we’ll have to go back thousands of years, long before Jesus and even the Torah (from where this phrase comes). Long before all of this, there was a different law of the land. A law, unwritten, but understood universally:

If you do something to me, I do something to you.

It is as simple as that. OK, not just as simple as that, because we didn’t just retaliate, we had to do more: we had to teach them a lesson. They had to know that they shouldn’t have done it, and won’t do it again. So if they hit you, you maimed them.

If you do something to me, I do something bigger to you.

Sometimes that lesson wasn’t actually for them, but for other people. So if someone stole your goat from you, you would kill them. You had to show what happens when someone messes with you. If they insulted your wife, you killed them, and their wife. If they went after your kids, you killed them, their wife, and their kids: you wiped the whole family from the face of the earth. That was just what you did.

Besides, they were clearly evil people, anyway.

You can see how this thinking has persisted throughout history. Look at mafia movies:

“Eh! He disrespected me, so I shot him in the head!”

And every week (I guarantee it) there is at least one movie at the theater that encourages over-retaliation. At least one movie that glorifies vengeance. The first one that came to my mind was from a few years ago: Taken with Liam Neeson; a movie in which a man’s daughter is kidnapped, and he proceeds to kill all the people involved in the kidnapping. And we want him to! We watch him get his bloody vengeance and we don’t want to see him show any mercy! He has a movie out this week, Unknown, which appears to have a similar vengeance plot.

Enshrining Evil
There seems to be something in us: something that wants to seek vengeance, to retaliate violently. Something that is in us at a truly base level. Which is why it was so remarkable that GOD would instruct the people with this teaching: “An eye for an eye,” because he tells them not to over-retaliate, to not teach people lessons. If someone steals your goat, you steal it back—you don’t burn his house down or anything else.

But, Jesus recognizes the problem: it actually enshrines violence. It makes retaliation OK, and He isn’t OK with that. Because we love vengeance, so we seek out the most “appropriate” retaliations. If someone messes with us a certain way, we desire to mess with them back—to hurt them in the very way they hurt us.

In the immediately preceding passage, Jesus makes a similar claim about oaths. He says that when you swear an oath, when you pinkie-swear with someone, you are saying that you will be honest and not steal or you will do what you say you will do. At the same time, you also communicate that the rest of the time, you don’t have to be honest. You communicate that it is OK to lie and cheat and steal all the rest of the time. So don’t swear any oath. GOD sees you—even inside your head—and knows when you lie or cheat or steal, so be a person who never lies and cheats and steals and you will never need an oath.

Oaths enshrine evil just as “an eye for an eye” enshrines violence.

Jesus’s way: The Love Revolution
Jesus offers us a different way. But for some reason, we don’t understand it. It has to do with our reptilian brains—the oldest part of our brain—that is hardwired with two options in response to adversity: fight or flight. Either we retaliate, or we run away. This is also the way of the world. The part we’ve inherited from thousands of years ago that yearns for violence. The part that says that the most preferable option is to fight back. That good people fight and cowards run away.

So when we hear Jesus say “But I say to you Do not resist an evildoer,” we hear that as cowardly—as encouraging us to run away. We have to make it fit in that ancient paradigm: it is either one or the other: we have two square pegs and two square holes. And the peg Jesus hands us is round.

To make sense of this, Jesus gives us these three, very visual examples of this third way; and we might mistake them because they are so different from the world:

In the first he says, If somebody hits you on the cheek, offer him the other. Look at this: this is what turning your cheek looks like. You are giving them another shot. That is not running away and that is not retaliating.

Then he says, If somebody sues you for your coat, give them your cloak as well. Imagine the courtroom scene. You are the defendant and the charges are being read and you stand up, and start taking your clothes off. You just take them all off, including your shoes, and you ball them up and walk them to the other desk and you hand them over. Then you walk back and sit down. That is not running away and that is not retaliating.

The third one is awesome—but we screw it up so badly. We misunderstand it. Jesus says, If someone forces you to walk a mile, walk a second one. We hear that phrase, go the extra mile as if it were the ultimate do-gooderism. Good job! You did a little extra! That Protestant Work Ethic thing really suits you! But here is what Jesus is really saying. A Roman soldier would come across a Jewish peasant force him to carry something like 120 pounds of gear. And if the peasant valued his life, he would do it. Now, the image hits home at the important juncture at the end of that mile. Imagine the soldier, chuckling with his buddies about this guy carrying his stuff. He turns to the peasant and says:

“We’re here. I’ll take my stuff back.”

And the peasant responds:

“Actually, I want to keep walking. I’m good.”

This isn’t weak-kneed flubberings and it isn’t work a little harder, either. It is a different kind of option.

Jesus wants us to get that this is a love revolution.

We’ve been reading The Secret Message of Jesus each Sunday, and last week we covered the idea that violent revolution is not revolutionary. That overthrowing a violent regime with a violent revolution is just perpetuating a cycle of violence: it is replacing violence with violence. And more, it enshrines a cycle of violence. Our own revolution enshrined a culture of violence for us. It told us that it is acceptable and there are times to fight fire with fire.

That is the way of the world. Not the way of Jesus.

Jesus encourages us to fight fire with water. To violence, love is the water.

It Begins Here
This whole arc, Matthew 5, the first third of the Sermon on the Mount builds from the Beatitudes to this moment. We learn that we are to be and live a certain way, not act a certain way. We are to love. When Jesus says to love your enemies, I think he really intends to say that when we have a love revolution, there are no enemies. Everyone gets loved.

In the last year, we’ve seen bitterness and anger at St. Paul’s.
That is the way of the world, not the way of Jesus.
Anonymous letters, backbiting, potshots from the peanut gallery, back room conversations about people and their families.
That is the way of the world, not the way of Jesus.
People have even used our youth as weapons.
That is the way of the world, not the way of Jesus.

This ends today.

When St. Paul’s is on track, it is the epicenter of the love revolution. We might track evil in, like mud on our shoes. Just tap your shoe, and knock it off. This is a new place, not of this world. Something new.

Here and now—we love. We are a new creation built on love.

Destroying Dogma

a Sermon for Epiphany 5A
Text: Matthew 5:13-20

GOD of Hope and Wonder, we think we’re doing your will when we create an ethical framework for our lives, for our church, and for our society. Help us to overcome our hubris . Amen.

Liberty and Freedom
This morning’s collect used two words we love deeply: liberty and freedom. There’s something about those words, isn’t there? Liberty. Freedom. Ooh! It’s in our bones—our ethnic heritage, our social groupings, our society at-large. It’s everywhere. Maybe our brains like liberty and hearts like freedom. It does something to us. We’re seeing a living example right now in Egypt and Tunisia. We can only hope and pray that they continue to seek liberty and freedom, and avoid the comfort of authoritarianism.

But the point is that we love these words: liberty and freedom. Let’s say them together. Out loud. If you are reading this in a Barnes & Noble Café, just say it out loud, anyway! Liberty. Freedom. Liberty! Freedom! Liberty!!! Freedom!!!!

Ah! Don’t you feel better?

Our gospel, on the other hand, uses a word that doesn’t excite us the same way: Law. Well, maybe the lawyers in the room (and the Pharisees) are allowed to get excited about the word. It is their vocation, after all.

Law.

It just doesn’t have the same feel, does it? Freedom is, well, freeing…while Law feels more restrictive. In fact, we often talk about it as the opposite of freedom and liberty, but we know, deep-down, that it is essential to liberty. Our country was founded on laws; laws that enshrined and created freedom. And yet, we feel restricted by them anyway.

This gospel has Jesus answer an unspoken question about the Law: “Jesus, why do you hate it?” A more charitable and authentic question might be better phrased “Jesus, why do you keep breaking the Law? Aren’t you supposed to uphold it?” Jesus’s response is actually quite surprising. He says “I don’t hate it: I love it! I love every letter of it.”

The Law
This is an important statement because we need to step back from our 21st Century American understanding of the word "law". The Hebrew word we translate as The Law is Torah. We know this word, because it is also the name of the first five books of the Hebrew Scripture. When Jesus or the Pharisees talk about The Law, they aren’t simply talking about a legal code established centuries earlier, they are talking about these books of the Bible. They are speaking about the story of GOD’s relationship with humanity. Some Hebrew scholars encourage us to speak not of TL: The Law, but of The Way. Sound familiar?

And what Jesus seems to be dealing with are two groupings or understandings of ethical behavior:

1. Torah: The overarching sense of community and connectedness and relationship with GOD. This means the truths found in Scripture, the story, relationship, and agreed upon authority.
2. Pharisaic Law: The ethical framework that expounds on Torah. This is about relating the truth of Torah to the world and present conditions.

• Example: The Torah speaks of keeping the Sabbath day and making it Holy.
• The Pharisees began listing all of the types of things that constituted work on the Sabbath:

The Pharisees know that Jim Bob is kind of an idiot, so they believe he needs things spelled out for him. So they take the teaching and they say we need to make sure Jim Bob doesn’t do anything like “work” on the Sabbath. It talks about not going into the field, but Jim Bob makes stuff, so he shouldn't do that. He also shouldn’t cook or clean or go shopping or sell stuff or…on and on.

Jesus goes and stomps all over the Pharisaic Law, essentially saying “That isn’t Torah, that’s man’s law.”

We have a similar structure today, in the church:

1. Doctrine: The overarching law is called doctrine: This is made up of scriptural-based faith statements and mutually agreed principals.
2. Dogma: The ethical framework that is based on doctrine is called dogma. These are the localized ethics created by humans.

• Example: One doctrine is that Jesus was a human for a prescribed time in history.
• One dogma is the Roman Catholic’s ruling against the use of birth control.

We see Jesus trample on the dogmas of his day, and I think, would encourage us to do the same. But the point isn’t to be obstinate: but to direct our attention to the doctrine, The Law, The Way, Torah.

The Point
By now, you are no doubt wondering what the point is.

You are all very smart and astutely noticed that this is still Matthew 5, and comes immediately after the Beatitudes; that this is still the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

Now notice that Jesus is talking about “entering the Kingdom of Heaven” in last verse. This is the fourth mentioning of the Kingdom of Heaven in just 20 verses. Last week we learned that the poor of spirit and the persecuted will possess the kingdom: “Blessed are the poor of spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” And we also learned that the Kingdom is in the present—that the Children of God are blessed peacemakers.

The reason Jesus doesn’t create an ethical framework or subset of laws like the Pharisees, or give us a laundry list of dogma to obey is because we are called to live and be a certain way, not behave a certain way. We are called to love generously and indiscriminately, not prescribe who gets love. We are called to single out who needs our love most and give it to them instead of punishing them further. We are called to live in the Kingdom now, forgiving each other, loving each other.

Jesus names the least in the kingdom: the scribes and the Pharisees. When we obsess about each other's behavior—we are the least. When we demand adherence to laws we’ve made—we are the least. When we hold grudges and insult one another in the name of Jesus—we are the least in the Kingdom.

I don’t know about you, but I refuse to strive for least.

Crazy Glory / Crazy Love

a Sermon for Easter 5C
Text: John 13:31-35

GOD of Hope and Wonder, we thank you for Jesus, the incarnation, and the love that he shared with the disciples. Help us to realize that same love you have for us. Amen.

We have a gospel this morning from Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus died. Kind of a strange thing for our lectionary to jump backwards, and stranger still to jump to one of Jesus’s final moments; a moment of Jesus foretelling his own death and departure. We tell ourselves that this is Eastertide: the time when we revel in the risen Christ! We shout “Alleluia!” and praise his name. And to go back to this dark day seems…inappropriate.

We often think about time as following a line, meaning events that happen are relegated to the past and there are only two ways to go: forward and backward. Or, for us to deal with events in our recent past, we have to stop time so that we can give all of our attention to the event, abandoning that forward momentum that is inherent to this view of time.

We sometimes recast the time line as a circle, as we find ourselves repeating past behaviors or missed opportunities. Then the scientists in the room get involved and imagine that time isn’t a line or a circle, but a spiral in which we do the same things again, but they’re different each time as we circle up. Or perhaps time is a Möbius strip in an infinite loop—not a circle, which is replaying the old pattern, but a picture of infinity that is both the same and perpetually different. All of these ideas are interesting and share some insights about the nature of time that force us to address the parts that make up time: past, present, and future.

I think time is more like an art museum. The museum is often set up in chronological order, so those looking for progress can see how artists built on and expanded on what came before them. Paintings are often grouped by style or movement so that those looking at behaviors and a social view can see the influence of peers on one another or to dwell on particular movements that affect them personally. There’s a reason people are drawn to the Impressionists. Those interested in the history of humanity can look at the subjects of the art and learn about what was most important to the people of the time and recognize what is different in each room. And those learning to appreciate art can walk from gallery to gallery, finding inspiration, confusion, and surprise in each one, finding virtue in art from every era. For me, the real reason time is like an art museum is that we all walk in with our own values and we decide for ourselves what is the greatest moment and who the most talented artists are or were. We have access to our history and our future at any moment without having to relive it—we just need to have the ability to see those moments with integrity in light of the now.

It is in that spirit that we find this moment, in light of the crucifixion and resurrection. One of my favorite plays is The Betrayal by Harold Pinter, about a couple’s relationship told in reverse order from ending to beginning, and the audience is haunted by each event in light of the events that came later. We learn about the troubles and then the decision that led them there. It is powerful and teaches in a way wholly different than if it were told in chronological order. This morning, we learn about Jesus’s death and resurrection through one of Jesus’s final moments. We shout “Alleluiah!” not just because Jesus is risen, but because of all of those things that Jesus told us and all of the things we learn and know and even for the mysteries that continue to go unanswered. In other words, for us to shout “Alleluiah!” without the cross is to degrade Jesus’s sacrifice.

For John, the cross—that moment—is Jesus’s finest hour. In Matthew and Luke, we focus on the resurrection as the expression of victory over death, but for John, it’s the cross. This may seem strange to us—that some horrific moment could be Jesus’s moment of glory, but to John, this is the victory. As Jesus is a king without an army and a conqueror without a sword, his victory over Rome comes in being executed by them. This is Jesus’s finest moment, his moment of greatest glory. In fact, on the cross, he is even raised up.

So it comes as strange that in today’s gospel, Jesus says “Now the Son of Man has been glorified,” since the glorification is to come on the cross. John’s twisted sense of glory comes as Judas betrays him, as Jesus prepares his followers for the days ahead, and as Jesus gives them the greatest lesson of their coming ministry. This is Jesus glorified.

How alien that glorification seems, even now. Almost two thousand years of Christian history and we still have trouble with glory, with seeing Jesus’s glory in death, seeing the expression of glory in sacrifice, in being lesser servants. We still want our earthly glory with fancy shoes and watches, and prominence in our community, and a bank account full of cash. But Jesus’s glory is humble and humiliating. Jesus’s glory is in being betrayed by a close friend, stripped naked, abused, and killed.

But Jesus’s mission isn’t only about this strange glory, but about love. We might hear his instruction: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” as a restatement of previous teaching, but this one is new and for them. Thomas Troeger translates the passage this way: “I have loved you in order that you also love one another.” Removing the “should” removes the duty and reveals Jesus’s relationship to the love. Pushing it further, Scott Hoezee points out that our translation misses the power in that small word “as”. In the Greek, the word kathos, translated as “as”, isn’t meant to say that we imitate Jesus, but carries the connotation of the love actually coming from Jesus. “I have loved you so you can love.”

Our place isn’t to love, but to be loved. To allow Jesus’s love in…and you know what; it might come right out of us. And what comes out of us is reflective of the love we receive from Him. See, the badge we wear, the uniform we’re in that says “Christian” [or if we’re in sweat pants, its across our butt] isn’t bought at a good Christian store or from a Christian music festival or from a St. Paul’s gift shop, and it isn’t even something that we can pick out in certain colors or styles [like Christian / est. 30 on it]. It isn’t something that your friends or your parents can give to you for your birthday or Christmas. It isn’t even something you can hope for. It comes from within you because it was put there from the outside. The uniform is your love—love that’s yours because it was Jesus’s and he gave it to you. Love. Love that is felt in your heart and in your soul because you are worth loving. Because you are beautiful. You are loved. So love.

Jesus’s love isn’t bigger than your love and isn’t the love of Hallmark cards or Lifetime movies, but a strange and crazy love that says “I win when he thinks he’s won.” It’s a crazy/weird love. It’s about feeling love to express love. It’s about giving love to people that want it and to those who don’t want it or don’t deserve it. It’s a love that angers our puritanical side and confuses our permissive side. It’s a love that isn’t human, but divine: not merely bigger—but different and awesome.

May we all feel GOD’s love, accept it, and allow it to transform us, sharing its strangeness and brilliance with all those who need it most. Amen.