Matthew 26:57-68, 27:24-26
Lent 3
March 27, 2011
William G. Carter
So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
I can’t imagine that they meant what they said. The Jews of Jerusalem looked to the cross and said, “His blood be upon us and on our children.” Did they have any idea how people would regard those words for the next twenty centuries?
I had brunch last Sunday with Sam Levine. He is a studio musician in Nashville, in the buckle of the Bible Belt. He was raised a Jew but is now a Presbyterian, an elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church. I mentioned the scripture text that I would read today and he visibly flinched. It wasn’t so long ago that Christian kids threw stones at kids like Sam, because some Sunday School teacher told them that the Jews were Christ Killers. They got that from this text. “His blood be upon us and on our children.”
On Friday morning, John Conklin and I went over to pick up the painting that is now on loan in the narthex. Our church is borrowing it through Lent from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. After wrapping it carefully and loading it on a large rental truck, we were invited to lunch at the conference center where we were picking up the painting. Within a few minutes of sitting down, we were joined by a female rabbi who heard why we were there. She was very interested in learning what a group of Christians were going to do with a painting of Jesus crucified in a Jewish death camp.
“You know,” she said, “the relationship between Christians and Jews hasn’t been so hunky-dory. Just thought I’d ask.”
She has a right to be suspicious. Jewish people have been kicked around by most of the countries where they have lived. In the time of Jesus, they were kicked around in their own country. The Empire had stomped in with bloody boots. They set up battalions and plundered the commerce, all in the name of peace – Roman Peace. They maintained control through sheer brutality. Any Jew that got in the way was considered expendable. That’s what empires do – they roll over anybody who gets in the way.
Through the centuries, the Jewish people of God have had far more than their share of brutality. Ever since the ancient Pharoah who did not know Joseph, Jews have been the victims of abuse. So I expect the rabbi in New York and my friend Sam in Tennessee to be quite sensitive to how the Jewish people would be portrayed by a Christian congregation.
I think we have to hear our text with a similar sensitivity. We are playing with dynamite here.
Maybe you have heard it said that Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels. I don’t think that’s true. Luke is actually a cozier Gospel for Jews: there is high regard for the Jewish Temple, Jesus is described in terms of a Jewish prophet, and Luke is constantly alluding to the Jewish scriptures in the way he tells his stories.
By contrast, Matthew writes down his Gospel at a very painful time and place. The church was going through a bitter divorce from the synagogue. Christianity had begun as a small sect of Judaism, but the day had come when both affirmed irreconcilable differences. In 80 AD or so, the Jerusalem Temple had been demolished by the empire, and Judaism had to make its way without the central sanctuary of the faith. Congregations grew up around local synagogues. Rabbis took on a stronger role, replacing temple priests who were obsolete. With this, Judaism got nervous about those who believed the Messiah was Jesus.
At the same time, Christian congregations continued to gather non-Jewish believers. The church was slowly becoming an international movement. Christians decided to define themselves over against their Jewish grandparents. Matthew was writing in Syria, at Ground Zero for this major religious shift.
That’s probably why he remembers some of the things that he does. In Matthew’s Gospel, and only there, Jesus says, “I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets; I came to fulfill them.” Do you hear that? In Matthew, he hears Jesus say, “You have heard what the Jewish Law said, but I say something different to you…” Hear that? In Matthew, Jesus is very critical of the scribes, Pharisees, and the religious officials of his time.
In chapter 23, Jesus harangues endlessly against the hypocrites who say one thing and do another. He criticizes a religious system of heavy rules and ungracious legislation. He points an accusing finger at the nitpickers who always seem to bottom-feed in any religious community. Matthew never says Jesus is condemning the Jewish faith. But he does take on anybody who numbly follows the rules and forgets the graciousness of God that lies behind them. His Jesus says, “They strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (23:24)
The problem we have is that good Christian people have thought he was talking about all Jews everywhere. Not so! We can’t universalize a first century critique of a recurring ecumenical problem. Maybe you’ve noticed: Christian people can nitpick just like the people of any other faith. Sometimes they can put their brains on the shelf and function without their hearts. I am embarrassed at some of the mean-edged nonsense that some Christian pastors say when somebody points a TV camera in their direction. It seems the more extreme the position, the more play it gets on the news.
There is no place for hatred in the name of a Jesus who teaches us to love our enemies. There is no place for racism in the name of the Christ who says, “Blessed are the merciful and the peacemakers.” There is no possibility of moral superiority for those who hear their Master say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit and blessed are the meek.”
Nevertheless a lot of trouble got started by our text. Matthew takes a broad brush to paint the trial of Jesus. That is unfortunate and probably inaccurate. To quote him, he does say, “The people as a whole answered (Pontius Pilate), ‘his blood be upon us and our children.’” He says, “The people as a whole.” That cannot be. Historically that was not true. There were Jews who were very sympathetic to Jesus – there still are. To declare uncritically that they spoke with one voice would be to misunderstand how crowds work.
And as my rabbi friend says, “Have you ever known a group of Jews to agree on anything?” I responded, “I have never known a group of Presbyterians to agree on anything.” Even if the vote is unanimous, it is never unanimous. You never hear all of the opinions until you get out to the parking lot. Even if the majority is crying out for blood, there is always somebody in the crowd who does not agree. So we have to be cautious of universalizing the voice of the crowd.
Now, the account is clear: the chief priests and the whole religious council have it in for Jesus. They have grown annoyed at his teachings. They have paid off Judas to turn him in. By chapter 26, they have captured Jesus and roughed him up. They have even broken God’s commandments, particularly the ones that say, “Do not bear false witness, and do not lie!” Instead, they are skulking around, wondering out loud, “Surely there’s somebody here who would lie about Jesus.” To nobody’s surprise, a few such people speak up, twist the truth, and Jesus refuses to dignify their lies by making any response.
The condemnation of Jesus is a complicated matter. There are mixed motives, ambiguous feelings, divided hearts, jealous urges, even guilt and regret -- especially in Judas, his betrayer. We don’t make it any better by flattening the whole complicated mess and saying there’s only one way to perceive this.
Just take that self-inflicted curse, “His blood be upon us and our children.” They were painful words for generations of those children. Christianity began as a minority sect within the minority faith of Judaism. Some three or four hundred years later, the Roman Empire changed and became the Holy Roman Empire. With Christians on the throne, it was only a matter of time before the same unimaginative nitpicking began in those in charge.
In latter days, they read Matthew’s ancient report and flattened it out. The Jews supposedly said, ‘His blood be upon us and our children.” In some narrow minds, that justified pogroms, inquisitions, and exterminations. This is what Empire Status tends to do to insensitive people. They start using their God-given imaginations in most unholy ways. They convert trees into crosses. They turn showers into gas chambers. And they operate on the ambitious belief that they, not God, shall decide who is acceptable and who is not.
What did we lose in Hitler’s empire? Six million Jews, 75,000 disabled people, 500,000 Gypsies, 2.8 million Russian POWs, unnumbered thousands of homosexuals. Those are the ones we know about. Just like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the empire murdered in the name of God. It could happen again, unless we say no. For genocide never comes in the name of the biblical God, the God of Israel. It comes in the name of an unholy trinity of arrogance, abuse, and power.
So who killed Jesus? Who bears the responsibility for his death?
The religious leaders played their part – chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, whoever. None of them wanted Jesus around. They heard his criticism and wanted to silence his voice. But they had no authority for a capital execution, especially in an occupied country.
There is the empire’s governor, Pontius Pilate. He had the authority to decide for death. Historians say he probably exercised that right every day. But Matthew says Pilate wanted nothing to do with the matter. Even his wife came out of the shadows and said, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man; he’s giving me nightmares.” So Pilate asks for a bowl of water, washes his hands, and says, “I want nothing to do with this.” That is, until he gave the order. The empire always gives the order.
And then there’s the crowd: “His blood be upon us” – if, in fact, they actually said that. Clearly there were many people in that day could not welcome Jesus with an open heart. But before we dare to accuse one group or another, let’s confess our own thirst for blood. Violence is a human addiction, a spectator sport. The most civilized nations in the world pay money to watch grown brutes knock heads together, and then retire them when their brains are damaged. We bomb dictators who live far away. We continue wars even after they lose their purpose. We grow comfortably numb with our viciousness. We love blood – even if it’s God’s blood.
“His blood be upon us.” And it is. Upon all of us.
The sermon illustration that I have for you is the stirring painting in our narthex. While it remains here during the season of Lent, I invite you to spend some time before it. It is called “Christ at Auschwitz.” The man on the cross wears a yarmulke. He is humiliated as one in a death camp. A religious priest on the left looks away in willful ignorance. The nun on the right scowls at a naked Jew and misses what is really going on – she is straining her own gnat, so to speak, while swallowing the camel. And it corrects every flattened-out, anti-Semitic spin on the crucifixion. See this: Jesus was not so much crucified by his people; he is crucified among his people.
The Man on the cross is surrounded by people who are tattooed, abused, and condemned. He is in the middle of them all. And he remains with them until the human race decides that violence is not God’s way.
Not then. Not now. Not ever.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Why Are We Here?
Matthew 21:12-17
Lent 1
March 13, 2011
William G. Carter
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”
I can't hear this story without remembering Shirley Seibel. She was married to the minister of the church where I grew up, and she was known to have a bit of a temper.
Up until Shirley and her husband came to town, most of the minister's wives did the things that minister's wives were expected to do. They baked cookies and served tea. They played the piano and consoled their ruffled husbands. They stayed in the background. You realize, of course, that was back in the days before ministers were allowed to have husbands. In our community, Shirley was the first to break the mold. She refused to join the choir. She boldly announced, "I don't teach Sunday School." And if that wasn't enough, she publicly denounced the annual rummage sale in fellowship hall.
The rummage sale was quite an institution. For one weekend every October, the women's association took over fellowship hall. They put up tables and invited people to donate their used mammon. A couple of volunteers spent the better part of a day writing prices on little pieces of masking tape and sticking them to each item. Then on Friday and Saturday, they opened the doors and invited the community to buy Presbyterian leftovers.
Shirley thought it was awful, and she said so. "The church isn't supposed to get involved in the buying and selling of junk," she said to anybody who would listen. "That’s not why we are here. If we're not careful, Jesus is going to come down here and cleanse this temple." That was my first real contact with this Bible story; ever since, I've been a little bit nervous.
The usual way we understand the story of the cleansing of the temple is that Jesus is condemning the buying and selling of merchandise on religious turf. I don't know how you feel about it, but I get uneasy whenever money changes hands. Some churches sell books, tapes, or videos in the narthex. I heard about a church that sells hot lattes. Sometimes the kids sell hoagies and chocolates so they can go to a mission trip. That’s innocent enough until the money becomes more important than worship. This is a house of prayer, first and foremost. And that’s why we are hear.
The usual way to interpret this story from Matthew 21 begins there. We condemn any kind of commercialism within the church. We may be strangely silent about commercialism outside the church, but within the church, we don't want to see it.
I remember a children's Bible that I sold on eBay. There was a picture of today’s Bible scene. Beneath was a caption: "Jesus is chasing some people out of the church. They didn't come to church to love God and pray. No, they are selling things to get a lot of money and be rich."
Whether or not you agree with that perspective, I should probably remind you that most of the Jews in the time of Jesus would not have seen the issue in quite this way. Never mind that the temple and the church were two very different institutions. For the first century Jew, there was no split between "sacred" and "secular." They would never have said, "Prayer is sacred, but buying and selling is secular." Oh no, that's a modern construct. It is usually perpetuated by people who don't want to part with any of their money when they go to worship.
No, the Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Matthew has the authority to rule over all of life. As an act of God’s mercy, he healed the blind and the lame who came to him in the temple. They come to him, says Matthew. They come to him – even though the book of Leviticus was clear: “anybody who is blind or lame shall not come near God’s altar” (Lev. 21:18). But they come to Jesus – and he cures them. He has the authority of God to do that.
The children know this. They come to Jesus in the temple – even though children were widely expected to be never seen and never heard. They shout out the praises, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They name him as the Messiah, and the chief priests and scribes went ballistic. “Do you hear this?” they bellowed. Mere children, the weakest and littlest, dared to affirm Jesus. Jesus looked at the religious leaders and said, ‘Go and read your own Bible, Psalm 8 to be exact: “Out of the mouths of babes you have prepared praises.’” He could say, because he had the authority.
This Jesus, the man who drove out the temple merchants, was a rabble rouser with a purpose. He goes to God’s house to do a little housecleaning. And whenever we go to God’s house, we might have our own houses turned upside-down.
Shortly after he turns over the moneychanger's tables and shoos away all the doves, some people come up to trap him while he's in the temple. They say, "Teacher, should we pay taxes to Caesar?" He responds to that question with another question: "Anybody here got a quarter?" (One of them says, "Sure.") He asks, "Whose head is on the quarter?" Well, it's the emperor's head. So in our kind of thinking, we say, "Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give to Obama what belongs to Obama, and sometime next month, give to the IRS what belongs to the IRS. Then and only then, give to God what belongs to God; that is, the leftovers."
But the first-century Jew didn't see it that way. You give to God what belongs to God. And what belongs to God? Everything! "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." (Psalm 24:1) If you believe God is involved in everything, you have to recast your life so that God is served by everything, even that little silver idol with Caesar’s face on it.
That's why people went to the temple. They went to honor the God who is concerned about the whole of human life. The temple was the place where heaven touched earth. It was where people returned back to God something of what they received from God. If you receive a baby who opens your womb, you offer a sacrifice to say thank you. If you are cured of a disease by the Great Physician, you offered up an animal to express your gratitude. If you committed some sin, and wanted to atone for it, you could purchase an unblemished lamb as a sin offering.
In the ancient world, every good religion had a temple, and commercial activity was normal. Joachim Jeremias, the great Bible scholar, says the Jerusalem temple was the basis for the city's economy. If you wanted to offer up prayers to God, you had to have the right goods. Fortunately for most worshipers, the Jerusalem temple provided the very goods you needed in order to worship God. As one commentator puts it quite plainly, "If you're traveling all the way down from Galilee from three days away, do you really want to carry a couple of doves in a cage, where they might become sick or bruised or impure? Why not wait until you got there, and pick up what you needed at the temple?"
So why is Jesus so hot and bothered? He is not condemning the sacrificial system of Jerusalem. Otherwise he would be going after the high priest, who was authorized to do the sacrifices. No, he lets the theologians deal with that one after his death.
Rather, his attack is quite focused. He goes after the money changers. Do you know who they are? They are the street representatives of the Jerusalem financial district. They make a little money on every little sale, kind of like a legitimate tax collector who charges a little extra and skims off the top. According to the scholars, do you know who stood to benefit most from their sales? It wasn't the poorest of the poor; you can be sure of that. No, it was the priests' union. The whole religion was mandated by the priests, who stood to profit by their mandate. The poorest worshipers, the one who needed the most help, were the ones who gained the least.
Not only that, Jesus goes after the dove sellers. Not the lamb sellers, but the dove sellers. There was a difference. In the book of Leviticus, it says, "If you're going to offer a sacrifice, and you don't have enough money to buy a good lamb, you can buy a couple of doves as a poor person's offering." (Lev. 5:7, 12:8)
For what it's worth, that is how we know Jesus was born into a poor family. When he was dedicated in the temple, his parents offered a couple of doves as a sacrifice, because they were too poor to afford an unblemished lamb.
So why does Jesus go after the dove sellers? Because they exploit the poor. The whole system is requiring the poor to make religious sacrifices, and then charging them money to provide for the sacrifices. It was not only about profit; it was about exploitation. The religion of God the redeemer became more and more distant from those who needed it most.
So Jesus goes into the temple, and he throws out those who are buying and selling, and he casts out the money changers, and he stops anybody who gets in his way. If you know the Gospel of Matthew, you know what this is: it's an expression of his authority. He has the authority to cure the blind and the lame. He has authority to cast out the forces that oppress and demean human life. Now he goes right into the Jerusalem temple and throws out the money-changers. This Jesus is more than a reformer. He is a Savior, and he confronts any authority or any power that puts people down and keeps them down.
As a result, those who have a vested interest in the institution look for a way to kill him. It isn’t long before the chief priests and the scribes begin to plot against him.
The Bible wants us to know that Jesus comes to heal something more than ruffled feathers, broken fingernails, and bruised feelings. He comes to save the whole world. Jesus comes to attack the forces that hurt us and damage others. He is the Messiah of God, whom death cannot confine, whom illness cannot destroy. And he questions any form of religion where the rich and famous are honored and adored, while widows are plundered and people with basic human needs are thrown away.
"In fact," he said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! You sit on the seat of Moses, the great teacher, but you do not practice what you teach. You lay religious burdens on the shoulders of others, but you are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. You prance around in public, take the places of honor, and love to have everybody bow down in respect. You forgot that you were called to be servants, and exalt yourselves above everybody else.” (23:1-12)
I realize that's the way of the world. In our time, the gap between the mighty and the lowly continues to grow. The chasm between the few affluent nations of the world and the many, many poor nations continues to widen.
But listen to what Jesus goes on to say. "Do you see the big stones of this temple, which were constructed on the backs of the poor? Do you see these large buildings which are monuments to injustice? The day is coming when this entire oppressive machine will be pulled apart piece by piece. The day is coming when selfishness will be dismantled, greed will be dethroned. Not one stone will be left upon another." Tell me: is that good news? Or is that bad news? Depends on where you stand.
In the meantime, I do know this: anybody who talks like this could get themselves killed. Anybody who keeps standing up for justice is going to get crucified.
And if there's any justice in heaven, they will also be raised from the dead.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Lent 1
March 13, 2011
William G. Carter
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”
I can't hear this story without remembering Shirley Seibel. She was married to the minister of the church where I grew up, and she was known to have a bit of a temper.
Up until Shirley and her husband came to town, most of the minister's wives did the things that minister's wives were expected to do. They baked cookies and served tea. They played the piano and consoled their ruffled husbands. They stayed in the background. You realize, of course, that was back in the days before ministers were allowed to have husbands. In our community, Shirley was the first to break the mold. She refused to join the choir. She boldly announced, "I don't teach Sunday School." And if that wasn't enough, she publicly denounced the annual rummage sale in fellowship hall.
The rummage sale was quite an institution. For one weekend every October, the women's association took over fellowship hall. They put up tables and invited people to donate their used mammon. A couple of volunteers spent the better part of a day writing prices on little pieces of masking tape and sticking them to each item. Then on Friday and Saturday, they opened the doors and invited the community to buy Presbyterian leftovers.
Shirley thought it was awful, and she said so. "The church isn't supposed to get involved in the buying and selling of junk," she said to anybody who would listen. "That’s not why we are here. If we're not careful, Jesus is going to come down here and cleanse this temple." That was my first real contact with this Bible story; ever since, I've been a little bit nervous.
The usual way we understand the story of the cleansing of the temple is that Jesus is condemning the buying and selling of merchandise on religious turf. I don't know how you feel about it, but I get uneasy whenever money changes hands. Some churches sell books, tapes, or videos in the narthex. I heard about a church that sells hot lattes. Sometimes the kids sell hoagies and chocolates so they can go to a mission trip. That’s innocent enough until the money becomes more important than worship. This is a house of prayer, first and foremost. And that’s why we are hear.
The usual way to interpret this story from Matthew 21 begins there. We condemn any kind of commercialism within the church. We may be strangely silent about commercialism outside the church, but within the church, we don't want to see it.
I remember a children's Bible that I sold on eBay. There was a picture of today’s Bible scene. Beneath was a caption: "Jesus is chasing some people out of the church. They didn't come to church to love God and pray. No, they are selling things to get a lot of money and be rich."
Whether or not you agree with that perspective, I should probably remind you that most of the Jews in the time of Jesus would not have seen the issue in quite this way. Never mind that the temple and the church were two very different institutions. For the first century Jew, there was no split between "sacred" and "secular." They would never have said, "Prayer is sacred, but buying and selling is secular." Oh no, that's a modern construct. It is usually perpetuated by people who don't want to part with any of their money when they go to worship.
No, the Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Matthew has the authority to rule over all of life. As an act of God’s mercy, he healed the blind and the lame who came to him in the temple. They come to him, says Matthew. They come to him – even though the book of Leviticus was clear: “anybody who is blind or lame shall not come near God’s altar” (Lev. 21:18). But they come to Jesus – and he cures them. He has the authority of God to do that.
The children know this. They come to Jesus in the temple – even though children were widely expected to be never seen and never heard. They shout out the praises, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” They name him as the Messiah, and the chief priests and scribes went ballistic. “Do you hear this?” they bellowed. Mere children, the weakest and littlest, dared to affirm Jesus. Jesus looked at the religious leaders and said, ‘Go and read your own Bible, Psalm 8 to be exact: “Out of the mouths of babes you have prepared praises.’” He could say, because he had the authority.
This Jesus, the man who drove out the temple merchants, was a rabble rouser with a purpose. He goes to God’s house to do a little housecleaning. And whenever we go to God’s house, we might have our own houses turned upside-down.
Shortly after he turns over the moneychanger's tables and shoos away all the doves, some people come up to trap him while he's in the temple. They say, "Teacher, should we pay taxes to Caesar?" He responds to that question with another question: "Anybody here got a quarter?" (One of them says, "Sure.") He asks, "Whose head is on the quarter?" Well, it's the emperor's head. So in our kind of thinking, we say, "Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give to Obama what belongs to Obama, and sometime next month, give to the IRS what belongs to the IRS. Then and only then, give to God what belongs to God; that is, the leftovers."
But the first-century Jew didn't see it that way. You give to God what belongs to God. And what belongs to God? Everything! "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." (Psalm 24:1) If you believe God is involved in everything, you have to recast your life so that God is served by everything, even that little silver idol with Caesar’s face on it.
That's why people went to the temple. They went to honor the God who is concerned about the whole of human life. The temple was the place where heaven touched earth. It was where people returned back to God something of what they received from God. If you receive a baby who opens your womb, you offer a sacrifice to say thank you. If you are cured of a disease by the Great Physician, you offered up an animal to express your gratitude. If you committed some sin, and wanted to atone for it, you could purchase an unblemished lamb as a sin offering.
In the ancient world, every good religion had a temple, and commercial activity was normal. Joachim Jeremias, the great Bible scholar, says the Jerusalem temple was the basis for the city's economy. If you wanted to offer up prayers to God, you had to have the right goods. Fortunately for most worshipers, the Jerusalem temple provided the very goods you needed in order to worship God. As one commentator puts it quite plainly, "If you're traveling all the way down from Galilee from three days away, do you really want to carry a couple of doves in a cage, where they might become sick or bruised or impure? Why not wait until you got there, and pick up what you needed at the temple?"
So why is Jesus so hot and bothered? He is not condemning the sacrificial system of Jerusalem. Otherwise he would be going after the high priest, who was authorized to do the sacrifices. No, he lets the theologians deal with that one after his death.
Rather, his attack is quite focused. He goes after the money changers. Do you know who they are? They are the street representatives of the Jerusalem financial district. They make a little money on every little sale, kind of like a legitimate tax collector who charges a little extra and skims off the top. According to the scholars, do you know who stood to benefit most from their sales? It wasn't the poorest of the poor; you can be sure of that. No, it was the priests' union. The whole religion was mandated by the priests, who stood to profit by their mandate. The poorest worshipers, the one who needed the most help, were the ones who gained the least.
Not only that, Jesus goes after the dove sellers. Not the lamb sellers, but the dove sellers. There was a difference. In the book of Leviticus, it says, "If you're going to offer a sacrifice, and you don't have enough money to buy a good lamb, you can buy a couple of doves as a poor person's offering." (Lev. 5:7, 12:8)
For what it's worth, that is how we know Jesus was born into a poor family. When he was dedicated in the temple, his parents offered a couple of doves as a sacrifice, because they were too poor to afford an unblemished lamb.
So why does Jesus go after the dove sellers? Because they exploit the poor. The whole system is requiring the poor to make religious sacrifices, and then charging them money to provide for the sacrifices. It was not only about profit; it was about exploitation. The religion of God the redeemer became more and more distant from those who needed it most.
So Jesus goes into the temple, and he throws out those who are buying and selling, and he casts out the money changers, and he stops anybody who gets in his way. If you know the Gospel of Matthew, you know what this is: it's an expression of his authority. He has the authority to cure the blind and the lame. He has authority to cast out the forces that oppress and demean human life. Now he goes right into the Jerusalem temple and throws out the money-changers. This Jesus is more than a reformer. He is a Savior, and he confronts any authority or any power that puts people down and keeps them down.
As a result, those who have a vested interest in the institution look for a way to kill him. It isn’t long before the chief priests and the scribes begin to plot against him.
The Bible wants us to know that Jesus comes to heal something more than ruffled feathers, broken fingernails, and bruised feelings. He comes to save the whole world. Jesus comes to attack the forces that hurt us and damage others. He is the Messiah of God, whom death cannot confine, whom illness cannot destroy. And he questions any form of religion where the rich and famous are honored and adored, while widows are plundered and people with basic human needs are thrown away.
"In fact," he said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! You sit on the seat of Moses, the great teacher, but you do not practice what you teach. You lay religious burdens on the shoulders of others, but you are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. You prance around in public, take the places of honor, and love to have everybody bow down in respect. You forgot that you were called to be servants, and exalt yourselves above everybody else.” (23:1-12)
I realize that's the way of the world. In our time, the gap between the mighty and the lowly continues to grow. The chasm between the few affluent nations of the world and the many, many poor nations continues to widen.
But listen to what Jesus goes on to say. "Do you see the big stones of this temple, which were constructed on the backs of the poor? Do you see these large buildings which are monuments to injustice? The day is coming when this entire oppressive machine will be pulled apart piece by piece. The day is coming when selfishness will be dismantled, greed will be dethroned. Not one stone will be left upon another." Tell me: is that good news? Or is that bad news? Depends on where you stand.
In the meantime, I do know this: anybody who talks like this could get themselves killed. Anybody who keeps standing up for justice is going to get crucified.
And if there's any justice in heaven, they will also be raised from the dead.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Specks, Logs, and Really Poor Acting
Matthew 7:1-5, 7:15-20, 7:21-23
Epiphany 8 (A)
March 6, 2011
William G. Carter
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
Hypocrisy. We know it when we see it.
The Wall Street Journal quoted a congressman. I had to read it twice to make sure I got it right. In the midst of a debate, he stood to address the House of Representatives. Here's what he said: "Never before have I heard such ill-informed, wimpy, back-stabbing drivel as that just uttered by my respected colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Ohio."
Hypocrisy. We know it when we see it.
Maybe you heard about the church leader who was asked to speak to a Junior High Sunday School class. The teacher wanted him to talk about the positive aspects of being a Christian: how does your faith determine your business decisions, how does faith help to set your family priorities -- that sort of thing. Unfortunately the man was a bit pompous. Within a few minutes he was droning on about how wonderful he was. Some kids began to lose attention.
In an effort to keep their attention, suddenly he stopped, pointed at one kid, and said, "Do you know why people call me a Christian?" The startled teenager sat up and said, "Is it because they don't know you?"
Hypocrisy. We know what it looks like. We know what it sounds like. And we cheer when Jesus turns to teach against it. That's what Jesus is doing in the passage we heard this morning.
There are a number of independent teachings in our scripture text. Each little block of instruction could be treated separately. The thread that stitches them together is hypocrisy, that nearly fatal condition of acting like somebody you're not.
• Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye and ignore the log in your own eye?
• Beware of false prophets, who dress like sheep but are hungry as wolves.
• You will know them by the fruit they produce. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?
• You say, "Lordy, Lordy," but you don't do what I tell you.
At least nineteen times, twelve of which are in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus takes on people whom he calls hypocrites. The Greek word is taken from the acting stage. "Hupocrites" are actors or actresses. They put on a show, supposedly for the benefit of others. They wear costumes and masks, so that their appearance does not reflect who they really are. There is a difference between their outward appearance on stage and who they actually are when nobody but God is looking.
According to one wry definition, hypocrites are those "who, professing virtues that they do not respect, secure the advantage of seeming to be what they despise." They appear to be something other than what they actually are.
"Let me take that speck out of your eye." Let me take care of you. Let me point something out to you. All the while they totally ignore their own inability to see clear. On the surface, it sounds like they want to care; but something else is usually going on behind the mask.
As somebody points out, this kind of hypocrisy is all the more unpleasant "because an apparent act of kindness (taking a speck of dirt from somebody's eye) is made the means of inflating our own ego." That is, it looks like you are trying to help somebody, when actually you're trying to feel better about yourself. You exalt yourself by pointing out something deficient about your neighbor. Then you try to help them in their weakness from your position of superiority. "Here," you say with transparent deference, "let me give you a hand. Let me help you get that speck out of your eye."
We know it when we see it.
Ever notice? When somebody criticizes us, the criticism usually has as much to do with them than it has to do with us. Sometimes they are flinging their baggage at you rather than carry it themselves.
A man recently went through some personal difficulties. He said, "When I went through my divorce, the people who gave me the hardest time were people who came from their own troubled households. On the other hand, the people who saved my life were those who knew what it was like to go through something like that, and they helped me come through it alive."
Jesus says: "Take the log out of your eye. And keep your grubby fingers out of other people's eyes, until you deal with your own blind spots."
It reminds me of the day when Snoopy was sitting on the roof of his dog house. Charlie Brown comes up and says, "I hear you're writing a book on theology. I hope you have a good title." Snoopy replied, "I have the perfect title." Then he leaned over his typewriter and typed, "Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?"
That's the question to ask ourselves if we are ever going to get rid of the lumber yard in our own eyelashes. Jesus uses this ridiculous image to score his point. All of us have no problem turning to another person and seeing their faults. All of us have a lot of problems owning up to our own shortcomings and faults. And it's difficult to get a proper perspective.
In his commentary on Matthew, Tom Long says there are two transformations that have to occur if we are ever going to be useful to God or anybody else. First, you have to find the wrong in yourself before turning the spotlight on anybody else. You have to face what you spend your whole life avoiding about yourself. Only then, says Long, can you move from self-righteousness to compassion. The good news is that those who deal with their own blindspots can be helpful to others. Before you put on a mask and play the role of somebody superior, you take a good, long, honest look at yourself.
A number of years ago, novelist Frederick Buechner dared to tell the story of a day in his own life. He began the book by saying,
I am a part-time novelist who happens also to be a part-time Christian because part of the time seems to be the most I can manage to live out my faith: Christian part of the time when certain things seem real and important to me and the rest of the time not Christian in any sense that I can believe matters much to Christ or anybody else . . . From time to time I find a kind of heroism momentarily possible - a seeing, doing, telling of Christly truth - but most of the time I am indistinguishable from the rest of the herd that jostles and snuffles at the great trough of life. Part-time novelist, Christian, pig.
His honesty is refreshing. Religious people face the endless temptation of thinking they are better than they are. Just when we think we're getting somewhere, just when we think we're actually making some spiritual progress, the truth slices like a two-edged sword. And if you don't have a sense of humor about your own foibles, you can drive yourself over the edge. One thing I've noticed about true-blue hypocrites -- they are incapable of laughing at themselves.
They ought to know better. Life has a way of unrolling so that all things are revealed. Jesus says, "Look at the results!" Good trees bear good fruit, bad trees have rotten fruit. Build a house on solid ground, and it will survive every storm. Build on a shaky foundation, and sooner or later it will fall apart.
So today we are called upon to get it together: to seek out the truth about ourselves and to trust God to do something positive with what we discover. Jesus has a lot to say to hypocrites, probably because he knows that hypocrites are the only people who can ever pay any attention to him. There isn't a person here who is anything close to what he or she professes.
Through this text, the Risen Lord calls us to move toward a unity of word and deed, a consistency of intention and accomplishment, an integrity between what is seen and what is hidden. It is so easy to mislead ourselves. One evidence of our sin is that we can construct a view of the world that ignores the obstructions of our own making.
All of us do this. God knows we are not the people that we want others to see. There is always a shadow between our intentions and our accomplishments. But God has sent Jesus Christ to save us from our own poor records of achievement. Jesus never had a log in his eye, but he was nailed to a great big piece of timber. On the cross, he has taken away every sin. In his mercy, every speck and blemish has already been removed. Thanks to Jesus, we have been freed to serve God without needing to feel inadequate. All we have to do is trust that it's true.
Along the way, we learn how to love and laugh and take ourselves a bit less seriously. Like my friend Lois. She was working on the stewardship committee in her church one year. (Actually I think she was the stewardship committee that year!) As she prepared for a congregational mailing, she noted all the people who had drifted away from the life of the church. Then she picked up the phone and began to call them. "We've been missing you in all kinds of ways. Why don't you come back next Sunday?"
She called one man and got nowhere. The next week, she called him again with the same result. The following week she tried again. Finally he said, "Don't you get it? I'm not going to that church. There are too many hypocrites in the congregation."
Lois laughed, and she said, "Yeah, you're right. We have a church full of hypocrites. And we always have room for one more." At the other end of the phone, there was shocked silence. Then the man began to laugh. The next week he was sitting in a pew. After that, he was back almost every Sunday. Most of the time he had a smile on his face.
That's a picture of the gospel working itself out through us. None of us measure up to the righteousness of God, but all of us are held up by the mercy of God. And each one of us must work through that mercy, admitting the moments when we could not see, when we did not act, when we turned out to be something less than we were created to be. This morning Jesus is saying, in effect, "Before you point any fingers at anybody else, first take a long look in the mirror. Stand there and keep looking, until you know that you stand only by the grace and good humor of God." Only then are you of any use to others.
So give it up. Cut out your criticism of others and be humble. Stop reading other peoples' situations through your lens, and start paying attention to the places where your own life has gone out of focus. Refuse to stand on the shifting sands of self-affirmation. Stand firm, instead, on Christ the Rock, who has enough mercy and forgiveness for all of us hypocrites.
It reminds me of a beatitude. I don’t know if Jesus ever said it, but it’s the kind of beatitude that he should have said if he didn’t. The beatitude goes like this: blessed are you when you can laugh at yourself, for your laughter is God's opportunity.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Epiphany 8 (A)
March 6, 2011
William G. Carter
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
Hypocrisy. We know it when we see it.
The Wall Street Journal quoted a congressman. I had to read it twice to make sure I got it right. In the midst of a debate, he stood to address the House of Representatives. Here's what he said: "Never before have I heard such ill-informed, wimpy, back-stabbing drivel as that just uttered by my respected colleague, the distinguished gentleman from Ohio."
Hypocrisy. We know it when we see it.
Maybe you heard about the church leader who was asked to speak to a Junior High Sunday School class. The teacher wanted him to talk about the positive aspects of being a Christian: how does your faith determine your business decisions, how does faith help to set your family priorities -- that sort of thing. Unfortunately the man was a bit pompous. Within a few minutes he was droning on about how wonderful he was. Some kids began to lose attention.
In an effort to keep their attention, suddenly he stopped, pointed at one kid, and said, "Do you know why people call me a Christian?" The startled teenager sat up and said, "Is it because they don't know you?"
Hypocrisy. We know what it looks like. We know what it sounds like. And we cheer when Jesus turns to teach against it. That's what Jesus is doing in the passage we heard this morning.
There are a number of independent teachings in our scripture text. Each little block of instruction could be treated separately. The thread that stitches them together is hypocrisy, that nearly fatal condition of acting like somebody you're not.
• Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye and ignore the log in your own eye?
• Beware of false prophets, who dress like sheep but are hungry as wolves.
• You will know them by the fruit they produce. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?
• You say, "Lordy, Lordy," but you don't do what I tell you.
At least nineteen times, twelve of which are in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus takes on people whom he calls hypocrites. The Greek word is taken from the acting stage. "Hupocrites" are actors or actresses. They put on a show, supposedly for the benefit of others. They wear costumes and masks, so that their appearance does not reflect who they really are. There is a difference between their outward appearance on stage and who they actually are when nobody but God is looking.
According to one wry definition, hypocrites are those "who, professing virtues that they do not respect, secure the advantage of seeming to be what they despise." They appear to be something other than what they actually are.
"Let me take that speck out of your eye." Let me take care of you. Let me point something out to you. All the while they totally ignore their own inability to see clear. On the surface, it sounds like they want to care; but something else is usually going on behind the mask.
As somebody points out, this kind of hypocrisy is all the more unpleasant "because an apparent act of kindness (taking a speck of dirt from somebody's eye) is made the means of inflating our own ego." That is, it looks like you are trying to help somebody, when actually you're trying to feel better about yourself. You exalt yourself by pointing out something deficient about your neighbor. Then you try to help them in their weakness from your position of superiority. "Here," you say with transparent deference, "let me give you a hand. Let me help you get that speck out of your eye."
We know it when we see it.
Ever notice? When somebody criticizes us, the criticism usually has as much to do with them than it has to do with us. Sometimes they are flinging their baggage at you rather than carry it themselves.
A man recently went through some personal difficulties. He said, "When I went through my divorce, the people who gave me the hardest time were people who came from their own troubled households. On the other hand, the people who saved my life were those who knew what it was like to go through something like that, and they helped me come through it alive."
Jesus says: "Take the log out of your eye. And keep your grubby fingers out of other people's eyes, until you deal with your own blind spots."
It reminds me of the day when Snoopy was sitting on the roof of his dog house. Charlie Brown comes up and says, "I hear you're writing a book on theology. I hope you have a good title." Snoopy replied, "I have the perfect title." Then he leaned over his typewriter and typed, "Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?"
That's the question to ask ourselves if we are ever going to get rid of the lumber yard in our own eyelashes. Jesus uses this ridiculous image to score his point. All of us have no problem turning to another person and seeing their faults. All of us have a lot of problems owning up to our own shortcomings and faults. And it's difficult to get a proper perspective.
In his commentary on Matthew, Tom Long says there are two transformations that have to occur if we are ever going to be useful to God or anybody else. First, you have to find the wrong in yourself before turning the spotlight on anybody else. You have to face what you spend your whole life avoiding about yourself. Only then, says Long, can you move from self-righteousness to compassion. The good news is that those who deal with their own blindspots can be helpful to others. Before you put on a mask and play the role of somebody superior, you take a good, long, honest look at yourself.
A number of years ago, novelist Frederick Buechner dared to tell the story of a day in his own life. He began the book by saying,
I am a part-time novelist who happens also to be a part-time Christian because part of the time seems to be the most I can manage to live out my faith: Christian part of the time when certain things seem real and important to me and the rest of the time not Christian in any sense that I can believe matters much to Christ or anybody else . . . From time to time I find a kind of heroism momentarily possible - a seeing, doing, telling of Christly truth - but most of the time I am indistinguishable from the rest of the herd that jostles and snuffles at the great trough of life. Part-time novelist, Christian, pig.
His honesty is refreshing. Religious people face the endless temptation of thinking they are better than they are. Just when we think we're getting somewhere, just when we think we're actually making some spiritual progress, the truth slices like a two-edged sword. And if you don't have a sense of humor about your own foibles, you can drive yourself over the edge. One thing I've noticed about true-blue hypocrites -- they are incapable of laughing at themselves.
They ought to know better. Life has a way of unrolling so that all things are revealed. Jesus says, "Look at the results!" Good trees bear good fruit, bad trees have rotten fruit. Build a house on solid ground, and it will survive every storm. Build on a shaky foundation, and sooner or later it will fall apart.
So today we are called upon to get it together: to seek out the truth about ourselves and to trust God to do something positive with what we discover. Jesus has a lot to say to hypocrites, probably because he knows that hypocrites are the only people who can ever pay any attention to him. There isn't a person here who is anything close to what he or she professes.
Through this text, the Risen Lord calls us to move toward a unity of word and deed, a consistency of intention and accomplishment, an integrity between what is seen and what is hidden. It is so easy to mislead ourselves. One evidence of our sin is that we can construct a view of the world that ignores the obstructions of our own making.
All of us do this. God knows we are not the people that we want others to see. There is always a shadow between our intentions and our accomplishments. But God has sent Jesus Christ to save us from our own poor records of achievement. Jesus never had a log in his eye, but he was nailed to a great big piece of timber. On the cross, he has taken away every sin. In his mercy, every speck and blemish has already been removed. Thanks to Jesus, we have been freed to serve God without needing to feel inadequate. All we have to do is trust that it's true.
Along the way, we learn how to love and laugh and take ourselves a bit less seriously. Like my friend Lois. She was working on the stewardship committee in her church one year. (Actually I think she was the stewardship committee that year!) As she prepared for a congregational mailing, she noted all the people who had drifted away from the life of the church. Then she picked up the phone and began to call them. "We've been missing you in all kinds of ways. Why don't you come back next Sunday?"
She called one man and got nowhere. The next week, she called him again with the same result. The following week she tried again. Finally he said, "Don't you get it? I'm not going to that church. There are too many hypocrites in the congregation."
Lois laughed, and she said, "Yeah, you're right. We have a church full of hypocrites. And we always have room for one more." At the other end of the phone, there was shocked silence. Then the man began to laugh. The next week he was sitting in a pew. After that, he was back almost every Sunday. Most of the time he had a smile on his face.
That's a picture of the gospel working itself out through us. None of us measure up to the righteousness of God, but all of us are held up by the mercy of God. And each one of us must work through that mercy, admitting the moments when we could not see, when we did not act, when we turned out to be something less than we were created to be. This morning Jesus is saying, in effect, "Before you point any fingers at anybody else, first take a long look in the mirror. Stand there and keep looking, until you know that you stand only by the grace and good humor of God." Only then are you of any use to others.
So give it up. Cut out your criticism of others and be humble. Stop reading other peoples' situations through your lens, and start paying attention to the places where your own life has gone out of focus. Refuse to stand on the shifting sands of self-affirmation. Stand firm, instead, on Christ the Rock, who has enough mercy and forgiveness for all of us hypocrites.
It reminds me of a beatitude. I don’t know if Jesus ever said it, but it’s the kind of beatitude that he should have said if he didn’t. The beatitude goes like this: blessed are you when you can laugh at yourself, for your laughter is God's opportunity.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Enough for Today
Matthew 6:24-34
Ordinary 8
February 27, 2010
William G. Carter
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?"
This is one of those Bible passages that sounds so attractive and strikes us as so unrealistic. It begins so peacefully: look at the birds of the air, consider the lilies of the field. As a nature lover, I've always enjoyed such invitations. Take a good look at the world around you. Take notice of the peace at the heart of God's creation.
Maybe that's why we like the 23rd Psalm. Not only is God portrayed as the Good Shepherd of Ezekiel 34, He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.
Such peaceful restoration is so appealing to us. It's comforting to know the world is in good hands. Everybody will be OK. Don't you worry about a thing. This is the promise of God's providence. God provides what the world needs.
It’s a beautiful vision. It’s difficult to keep it in focus.
Not so many weeks ago, I was driving down toward Elmhurst. I love how the mountains fold in together. It’s a beautiful stretch of land. But you can guess what happened: the black clouds ripped open and all the white stuffing started to fall. In a matter of minutes the road was covered. The wind was whipping furiously. The Road Warrior tires on my car began to spin. I started worrying about my safety.
The cell phone started to ring. I reached for it and then thought otherwise. Some foolhardy soul decided to pass me, and swerved. He almost took me out. My pulse was pounding. The adrenaline was giving me a spontaneous high. I was really terrified that I might go off the road, or even worse, that I would have to spend the rest of a very short life in a mountain ditch near Elmhurst.
Now, Jesus can say, "Stop being anxious," but he never drove through a winter storm in the mountains on shaky tires. Surely I can stand here today and say, "God was with me somehow, as I was driving through that storm." But frankly, if I had the choice, I would have preferred to be sitting at a spa in green pastures, by the still waters, getting my soul restored.
Christ’s invitation is so appealing: consider the lilies, look at the birds. But we get so easily distracted. Or we turn aside because of whatever else is laying heavy on our minds. Either way, anxiety creeps in. Anxiety is a constant companion that never leaves us alone.
Jesus says, "Don't be anxious. Don't get worried about anything. Have no fear of life or death. Trust God, and let go of everything else." Easier said than done.
He points to nature as his sermon illustration. The birds of the air don't worry about anything. He gazes at the lilies of the field and quips, Ever notice how they don't fret about their appearance? Why do we worry so much? And why do we worry about such little things?
I don't know, but we certainly do worry. Let's see a show of hands: how many of you have had to wait up until a really late hour for one of your kids to get home? How many of you are still waiting?
I used to get so angry when I would come home from college, and go out until the wee hours, and when I sneaked back into my parents' house, my mom would be sitting in the Lazy Boy chair with a cold cup of coffee, waiting up for me. I could hear dad snoring upstairs when I was still in the driveway, but mom would stay up and worry. "Is he OK? Is he lying in a ditch somewhere? Is he wearing clean underwear?" It made me angry, and Mom said, "Just wait until you have kids of your own."
Well, I don't know what the problem is. I'm not going to let my girls date until they are eighty-seven years old. I'm worried about them.
Jesus says, “Cancel your ongoing subscription to anxiety. Chill out and look at the birds." It sounds so peaceful, but we have to remember that Jesus got killed for talking like this. He spoke not only to affirm life under God's protective custody, but to confront the prevailing views of how to run a world.
Peter Gomes, the preacher at Harvard University's Memorial Church, tells about preaching at the commencement for an exclusive girl's school in New York City. He says,
"Many of the brightest and the best of the girls went on to elite colleges, and soon thereafter would make their way into the expanding stratosphere of the establishment once reserved for their brothers. They were able, aggressive, and entitled young women on the threshold of conquering the world, and I rejoiced in their achievement, was happy to celebrate with them, and wished them well."
For that occasion, Gomes based his sermon on the sixth chapter of Matthew where Jesus asks, "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Therefore, do not be anxious about your life." It seemed like an appropriate message for the audience, and all the graduates smiled upon him.
During the reception, however, one of the parents went up to Gomes with "fire in his eyes and ice in his voice." He told the preacher that, frankly, his sermon was full of nonsense. Peter said, "The message didn't originate with me; it came from Jesus." The parent looked at him and said, "It's still nonsense." As the man went on to explain,
"It was anxiety that got my daughter into this school, it was anxiety that kept her here, it was anxiety that got her into Yale, it will be anxiety that will keep her there, and it will be anxiety that will get her a good job. You are selling nonsense."
Like Peter Gomes, we know a lot of people like that prep school father. Some of them have been our teachers. Others have been trusted friends. A few may be members of our extended family. What binds them together is the consistent message by which they live. The message goes something like this:
• If you want to get ahead in the world, you have to carry a lot of anxiety with you.
• If you want to be successful, you have scramble get up the ladder.
• If you want the good life, you must work without ceasing and bear the burden of much stress.
• In short, anxiety is good. It is both a good motivator and a necessary companion for anybody who wants to get ahead.
We know a lot of people who believe that kind of stuff. Maybe you are one of them. In these words from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is striving to puncture our eternal illusion that life is ours to manage and control. He pushes us to look beyond ourselves and see God.
Have you ever considered how much time we spend thinking about ourselves? Did you ever realize how much emotional energy we burn up by pondering our own circumstances, fretting over other people, worrying about the bank balance?
In his commentary on this passage, Tom Long points out that Jesus is trying to get us to trust God. He's not telling to dig in and try harder. He's not saying, "Listen, you need to go for it, reach for it, scramble for it, work for it."
Look at the birds of the air. They are constantly flitting around, looking for food, and they find it. There is a necessary striving in life; you have to go looking for things. But it's there. That's the point. What we need has been provided.
As a practical consequence of these words, I went out and bought a lot of bird seed recently. It began to dawn on me that God provides and maybe God needs to provide through me. Sometimes we need to participate in the work of providence, especially if we've been given the resources.
Consider the lilies of the field. Here today, gone tomorrow. They are beautiful in their time, not because they worked at it or worried about it. They were beautiful because that's how they were created. God said, "Let there be lilies," and then God said, "Look how pretty they are!" From the time they were seeds in the ground, all the lilies had great potential in their genetic formation. With a proper amount of nurture, sunshine, and rain, their beauty breaks forth. They don't need any makeup. They don't hustle around trying to prove anything. They are beautiful because God made them that way.
As somebody once reminded me, "We don't put a ribbon in a young girl's hair to make her pretty. We put a ribbon in her hair because she is pretty."
Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. In the Greek language, these are strong, energetic verbs. Look, really look! Pay very close attention. We spend so much energy striving, working, hovering, as if that's going to improve anything. But the birds and the lilies live in a different world, "a world where God provides freely and lavishly, a world where anxiety plays no part, where worry is not a reality. Jesus invites us to allow our imaginations to enter such a world, to compare this world with the world in which we must live out our lives."
All of this, I think, prepares us for providence. If our hearts are open, we see God gives us a beautiful world, continues to provide whatever is essential, and promises to complete and fulfill all life through no authority of our own. God provides. And God is so securely in charge, so powerfully in control, that even God can kick back and keep the Sabbath.
Look at the birds of the air. Stop and really look, and look behind them to a God who provides in secret. In the words of John Calvin,
When the light of divine providence has once shone upon godly (people), they are then relieved and set free not only from the extreme anxiety and fear that was pressing them before, but from every care.... Ignorance of providence is the ultimate misery; the highest blessedness lies in knowing it.
This is the blessed truth: God provides what we need. We pray for daily bread and God is under no obligation to give us cake. We receive the bread we need, with enough to share. That may be how God provides for others – by giving to them through us.
We are reaching the point where the preacher must stop and the poet takes over, and then we are left to decide where and how we are going to live. The poet, in this case, is Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer, and the poem is called, "The Wild Geese." He’s riding through the woods one day, and it strikes him how much has been provided:
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Ordinary 8
February 27, 2010
William G. Carter
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?"
This is one of those Bible passages that sounds so attractive and strikes us as so unrealistic. It begins so peacefully: look at the birds of the air, consider the lilies of the field. As a nature lover, I've always enjoyed such invitations. Take a good look at the world around you. Take notice of the peace at the heart of God's creation.
Maybe that's why we like the 23rd Psalm. Not only is God portrayed as the Good Shepherd of Ezekiel 34, He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.
Such peaceful restoration is so appealing to us. It's comforting to know the world is in good hands. Everybody will be OK. Don't you worry about a thing. This is the promise of God's providence. God provides what the world needs.
It’s a beautiful vision. It’s difficult to keep it in focus.
Not so many weeks ago, I was driving down toward Elmhurst. I love how the mountains fold in together. It’s a beautiful stretch of land. But you can guess what happened: the black clouds ripped open and all the white stuffing started to fall. In a matter of minutes the road was covered. The wind was whipping furiously. The Road Warrior tires on my car began to spin. I started worrying about my safety.
The cell phone started to ring. I reached for it and then thought otherwise. Some foolhardy soul decided to pass me, and swerved. He almost took me out. My pulse was pounding. The adrenaline was giving me a spontaneous high. I was really terrified that I might go off the road, or even worse, that I would have to spend the rest of a very short life in a mountain ditch near Elmhurst.
Now, Jesus can say, "Stop being anxious," but he never drove through a winter storm in the mountains on shaky tires. Surely I can stand here today and say, "God was with me somehow, as I was driving through that storm." But frankly, if I had the choice, I would have preferred to be sitting at a spa in green pastures, by the still waters, getting my soul restored.
Christ’s invitation is so appealing: consider the lilies, look at the birds. But we get so easily distracted. Or we turn aside because of whatever else is laying heavy on our minds. Either way, anxiety creeps in. Anxiety is a constant companion that never leaves us alone.
Jesus says, "Don't be anxious. Don't get worried about anything. Have no fear of life or death. Trust God, and let go of everything else." Easier said than done.
He points to nature as his sermon illustration. The birds of the air don't worry about anything. He gazes at the lilies of the field and quips, Ever notice how they don't fret about their appearance? Why do we worry so much? And why do we worry about such little things?
I don't know, but we certainly do worry. Let's see a show of hands: how many of you have had to wait up until a really late hour for one of your kids to get home? How many of you are still waiting?
I used to get so angry when I would come home from college, and go out until the wee hours, and when I sneaked back into my parents' house, my mom would be sitting in the Lazy Boy chair with a cold cup of coffee, waiting up for me. I could hear dad snoring upstairs when I was still in the driveway, but mom would stay up and worry. "Is he OK? Is he lying in a ditch somewhere? Is he wearing clean underwear?" It made me angry, and Mom said, "Just wait until you have kids of your own."
Well, I don't know what the problem is. I'm not going to let my girls date until they are eighty-seven years old. I'm worried about them.
Jesus says, “Cancel your ongoing subscription to anxiety. Chill out and look at the birds." It sounds so peaceful, but we have to remember that Jesus got killed for talking like this. He spoke not only to affirm life under God's protective custody, but to confront the prevailing views of how to run a world.
Peter Gomes, the preacher at Harvard University's Memorial Church, tells about preaching at the commencement for an exclusive girl's school in New York City. He says,
"Many of the brightest and the best of the girls went on to elite colleges, and soon thereafter would make their way into the expanding stratosphere of the establishment once reserved for their brothers. They were able, aggressive, and entitled young women on the threshold of conquering the world, and I rejoiced in their achievement, was happy to celebrate with them, and wished them well."
For that occasion, Gomes based his sermon on the sixth chapter of Matthew where Jesus asks, "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Therefore, do not be anxious about your life." It seemed like an appropriate message for the audience, and all the graduates smiled upon him.
During the reception, however, one of the parents went up to Gomes with "fire in his eyes and ice in his voice." He told the preacher that, frankly, his sermon was full of nonsense. Peter said, "The message didn't originate with me; it came from Jesus." The parent looked at him and said, "It's still nonsense." As the man went on to explain,
"It was anxiety that got my daughter into this school, it was anxiety that kept her here, it was anxiety that got her into Yale, it will be anxiety that will keep her there, and it will be anxiety that will get her a good job. You are selling nonsense."
Like Peter Gomes, we know a lot of people like that prep school father. Some of them have been our teachers. Others have been trusted friends. A few may be members of our extended family. What binds them together is the consistent message by which they live. The message goes something like this:
• If you want to get ahead in the world, you have to carry a lot of anxiety with you.
• If you want to be successful, you have scramble get up the ladder.
• If you want the good life, you must work without ceasing and bear the burden of much stress.
• In short, anxiety is good. It is both a good motivator and a necessary companion for anybody who wants to get ahead.
We know a lot of people who believe that kind of stuff. Maybe you are one of them. In these words from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is striving to puncture our eternal illusion that life is ours to manage and control. He pushes us to look beyond ourselves and see God.
Have you ever considered how much time we spend thinking about ourselves? Did you ever realize how much emotional energy we burn up by pondering our own circumstances, fretting over other people, worrying about the bank balance?
In his commentary on this passage, Tom Long points out that Jesus is trying to get us to trust God. He's not telling to dig in and try harder. He's not saying, "Listen, you need to go for it, reach for it, scramble for it, work for it."
Look at the birds of the air. They are constantly flitting around, looking for food, and they find it. There is a necessary striving in life; you have to go looking for things. But it's there. That's the point. What we need has been provided.
As a practical consequence of these words, I went out and bought a lot of bird seed recently. It began to dawn on me that God provides and maybe God needs to provide through me. Sometimes we need to participate in the work of providence, especially if we've been given the resources.
Consider the lilies of the field. Here today, gone tomorrow. They are beautiful in their time, not because they worked at it or worried about it. They were beautiful because that's how they were created. God said, "Let there be lilies," and then God said, "Look how pretty they are!" From the time they were seeds in the ground, all the lilies had great potential in their genetic formation. With a proper amount of nurture, sunshine, and rain, their beauty breaks forth. They don't need any makeup. They don't hustle around trying to prove anything. They are beautiful because God made them that way.
As somebody once reminded me, "We don't put a ribbon in a young girl's hair to make her pretty. We put a ribbon in her hair because she is pretty."
Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. In the Greek language, these are strong, energetic verbs. Look, really look! Pay very close attention. We spend so much energy striving, working, hovering, as if that's going to improve anything. But the birds and the lilies live in a different world, "a world where God provides freely and lavishly, a world where anxiety plays no part, where worry is not a reality. Jesus invites us to allow our imaginations to enter such a world, to compare this world with the world in which we must live out our lives."
All of this, I think, prepares us for providence. If our hearts are open, we see God gives us a beautiful world, continues to provide whatever is essential, and promises to complete and fulfill all life through no authority of our own. God provides. And God is so securely in charge, so powerfully in control, that even God can kick back and keep the Sabbath.
Look at the birds of the air. Stop and really look, and look behind them to a God who provides in secret. In the words of John Calvin,
When the light of divine providence has once shone upon godly (people), they are then relieved and set free not only from the extreme anxiety and fear that was pressing them before, but from every care.... Ignorance of providence is the ultimate misery; the highest blessedness lies in knowing it.
This is the blessed truth: God provides what we need. We pray for daily bread and God is under no obligation to give us cake. We receive the bread we need, with enough to share. That may be how God provides for others – by giving to them through us.
We are reaching the point where the preacher must stop and the poet takes over, and then we are left to decide where and how we are going to live. The poet, in this case, is Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer, and the poem is called, "The Wild Geese." He’s riding through the woods one day, and it strikes him how much has been provided:
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Extraordinary Absurdity
Matthew 5:38-48
Ordinary 7
February 20, 2011
William G. Carter
‘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; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so 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. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
In case there was any question, the word is out. Jesus really said, "Instead of hitting somebody back, turn the other cheek. If someone forces you to walk a mile, go a second mile. When someone takes you to court and demands your coat, give your cloak as well." It's summed up in what Jesus says about how we should treat our adversaries. Jesus said, "Love them! Love your enemies!"
I don't need to tell you that his teaching is absurd. It certainly didn't make sense when I was six years old. I was in love with a beautiful blue-eyed girl. Her name was Kathy. A classmate named Darryl was also enamored with her. Unfortunately Darryl had a big brother named Mike.
One day I descended from the school bus and came face to face with Darryl and Mike. "Stay away from Kathy," Darryl said. "Says who?" "Says me!" Darryl said. With that, he motioned to his brother Mike, who swung and struck me on one cheek. I turned as he struck me on the other cheek. Needless to say, at that moment I was not overwhelmed with warm fuzzy feelings for Darryl and Mike. Love my enemies? At the foot of a school bus, that teaching was ridiculous.
I have a friend who teaches a high school Sunday School class. Not long ago, she stopped by McDonald's for a late supper. She was two bites into her hamburger, she said, when the local high school wrestling team came in. They were on their way home from a regional tournament. My friend knew one of the wrestlers from Sunday School. "How did you do?" she asked.
The kid grinned. "I showed my opponent a thing or two." "Remember, Andy," my friend said with a smile, "Jesus says to love your enemies."
"Are you serious?" Andy replied. "I rubbed my enemy's nose into the mat!" Love our enemies? Apparently that particular teaching of Jesus doesn't always apply in the high school gymnasium. Some think it is silly.
An eighty-year-old woman says the teaching seems out of place in a nursing home. One day she said, "Reverend, I hate my roommate. She takes my things. Last week, she took my nightgown. Then she took two dollars from my dresser drawer. Then she took the remote control for my television. I told her to stop stealing my belongings. She told me to shut up. I don't know what I should do, Reverend. I hate my roommate."
As a pastor, I said something that pastors usually say. "Look, Minnie," I said, "you're going to have to forgive your roommate."
"Forgive her?" she cried. "Why should I forgive her? I hate her. I wish she would die and leave me alone." "But Minnie," I replied, "you're going to have to learn how to love her."
"Phooey!" she said. "I'm going to get even." I was curious. How does the resident of a nursing home get even? "Minnie," I said, "what do you plan to do?"
She said, "Tonight, when my roommate is sleeping, I'm treating her to some of her own medicine. I'm going to steal her false teeth!" Love our enemies? In the nursing home, like anywhere else, these words seem absurd.
Of all the hard teachings of Jesus, this teaching may be the hardest. It comes, as you know, from the Sermon on the Mount. As Matthew tells the story, Jesus is a great teacher who instructs us in the ways of God's "higher righteousness." Jesus is a new Moses who climbs a mountain to teach a new law to guide and shape the life of God's people. It is not enough for Matthew's Jesus to take people as they are. He urges them to take bold steps. You have heard it said, "Be good," but Jesus the teacher said, "Be better than good!" Go one better. Act extraordinary. Live a life appropriate to your baptisms.
Nowhere are his demands more obvious than in his teachings about enemies. Jesus teaches us to take the initiative in moving beyond revenge and retaliation. He expects us to do something more than take "an eye for an eye."
The rabbis had taught the rule of taking "an eye for an eye" as a way of limiting retaliation and establishing fair treatment. If someone pokes you in the eye, don't cut off that person's left ear. That would be unfair. Rather you are entitled to poke that person in the eye and no more. If someone drives down the street and accidentally runs over your cat, they shall replace a cat with a cat.
If someone steals your false teeth at midnight . . . Well, you get the point.
If you are a victim, you can expect fair compensation and no more. It is unjust to demand more than what your enemy has taken from you.
Some time back there was a hepatitis scare at a Mexican restaurant in the Allentown area. Someone wanted to sue the restaurant for twenty thousand dollars because he thought he had hepatitis after eating a fifteen dollar meal. He never contracted the disease. Yet he still wanted to sue because of "undue mental anguish." Never mind that the restaurant had enough mental anguish of its own! According to the rabbis, the lawsuit was unjust. The man was entitled only to another fifteen dollar meal. No more, no less.
That was the law: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a meal for a meal. The law stood for centuries before anybody ever wrote it down. It balanced the legal system.
Yet Jesus pushed the matter to another dimension. The issue, he said, is never compensation or legal damages. Neither is it retaliation or revenge. For the Christian, the issue is love that is expressed without distinction.
So Jesus taught them, saying, "Whenever someone hurts you, your hurt must not become the basis for how you treat them. Take the initiative to love your oppressor." To drive the point home, he offered three test cases.
Test case number one: "If someone slaps you on the right cheek, you take control by loving that person. Don't flee or fight. Take control by giving another cheek to slap. Stand there in love."
Test case number two: "If people drag you into court to sue you for your coat, take the initiative! Actively love them in return. Give them your nightgown as well!"
Test case number three: "If a Roman soldier says, `Hey peasant, carry my pack a mile!' take control of the situation, but not through violence. In love, carry that soldier's pack two miles."
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself," Jesus taught. The way our neighbors treat us should not determine how we treat our neighbors. Christ calls us to act out of love which makes no distinctions between "enemy" and "friend." That is the ethical demand of the gospel.
Granted, it doesn't make always "make sense." Jesus is speaking from the context of God's Kingdom, the coming realm where there shall be neither lawyer nor lawsuit. The reign of God is not a society governed by "might makes right" and "management by superiority." It is a totally new order to the universe, divinely ruled with mercy, forgiveness, and sacrificial love. We need a radical conversion simply to see such a world. Scripture knows this. The Sermon on the Mount portrays Jesus as the great teacher of God's reign on earth. But remember: this teacher was murdered. And why was Jesus killed if he merely taught what everybody already knows?
Love your enemies? In the coming reign of God, perhaps. But in the sovereignties in which we live, such a teaching sounds and looks absurd.
So what shall we do with this teaching?
I don't know about you, but whenever I encounter something difficult, the best way I know to handle it is to look for something even more difficult. Then the first thing doesn't bother me so much. It shrivels in insignificance.
So if you're troubled by Jesus' teaching to love enemies, let me tell you something even more absurd: that God makes no distinctions, that God carries no grudges, that God loves everybody and not merely a few, that God is impartial, that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, that God sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Now that is the greatest absurdity of all.
Think of it:
• that in God's sight, the man who has spent a lifetime in a wheelchair is every bit as significant to the ballet dancer who enchants audiences around the world.
• that the prisoner on death row who is accused of murdering his children is loved by God every bit as much as a Supreme Court judge.
• that a dyslexic student who keeps failing spelling tests is no better or worse than the woman in an academic robe who receives her third Ph.D.
• that the toothless transient who slept last night beneath a bridge is as valuable to God as the family who brunches today at the Radisson.
• that the part-time convenience store clerk who taps numbers into a cash register is loved by God every bit as much as the corporate exec who owns three yachts.
• that, to the Ruler of the Universe, Democrats and Republicans are loved absolutely the same.
Can you believe it? Jesus says it's true. God is not partial. God makes no distinctions. God makes the sun to shine on those who are evil and those who are good. Or as Jesus puts it in Luke's gospel, God is kind even to the ungrateful and the selfish.
When it comes to showing love, says Jesus, God loves perfectly and without partiality. God sends rain on the just and unjust.
Once in a while we get a vision of such abundant mercy. Not the whole thing, of course, but a glimpse of the breadth of God's love. And if you see it, you never forget it. In the words of one of my Christian Education professors, “Once you wise up, you never wise down.”
I went to graduate school in a high-rent town of New Jersey. It’s a place where a lot of people want to live because it’s expensive and prestigious, but it’s also a town where people try to distinguish themselves in every possible way.
One day, the price of stamps went up. With important letters to mail, I trudged across town to the post office. Halfway there, the clouds burst open. I had no umbrella. I was drenched. As I opened the doors to the post office, I saw a great crowd of people who had come with the same idea. We were all sopping wet. Yet with an awesome storm billowing outside, we each chose to wait in line for stamps.
As I waited, I looked around in amazement. In front of me was a young urban professional, a wet tweed jacket over his blue button-down shirt. Next to him was a fraternity brother from the college with the word "hangover" spelled in his eyes with blood red letters. A slender woman with a briefcase stood next to a grunting construction worker who had tracked mud across the floor. An aerobics instructor wiped perspiration from her brow with the sleeve of a maroon sweatshirt. An unemployed accountant held his future in six manila envelopes of resumes. An elderly woman stood next to a young girl with braces and zits. Behind them was a man whose beard was bigger than the infant in his arms. At the end of the line were a couple of basketball players with girlfriends clinging to them like socks coming out of a clothes dryer.
It was a menagerie, a rag-tag bunch, gathered together while the storm raged outside. There were no rules about who belonged and who didn't belong. We were all there to buy stamps, clutching envelopes, packages, postcards, and dollar bills, all of us dripping wet. For the moment, despite our diversity, all distinctions between us did not matter.
In short, it was a vision of God’s kingdom. We were people equally soaked and sheltered from the same rain God sent from heaven. We had been loved equally as God's children.
Some people think that’s a pipe dream. They believe we will never live to see a world that looks as open and inclusive as that post office. But through the grace of a God, that strange new world is already here. The kingdom of God has come in the words and works of Jesus. Do you know where the kingdom comes? It is present wherever anybody believes that God loves everybody.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
Ordinary 7
February 20, 2011
William G. Carter
‘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; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so 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. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
In case there was any question, the word is out. Jesus really said, "Instead of hitting somebody back, turn the other cheek. If someone forces you to walk a mile, go a second mile. When someone takes you to court and demands your coat, give your cloak as well." It's summed up in what Jesus says about how we should treat our adversaries. Jesus said, "Love them! Love your enemies!"
I don't need to tell you that his teaching is absurd. It certainly didn't make sense when I was six years old. I was in love with a beautiful blue-eyed girl. Her name was Kathy. A classmate named Darryl was also enamored with her. Unfortunately Darryl had a big brother named Mike.
One day I descended from the school bus and came face to face with Darryl and Mike. "Stay away from Kathy," Darryl said. "Says who?" "Says me!" Darryl said. With that, he motioned to his brother Mike, who swung and struck me on one cheek. I turned as he struck me on the other cheek. Needless to say, at that moment I was not overwhelmed with warm fuzzy feelings for Darryl and Mike. Love my enemies? At the foot of a school bus, that teaching was ridiculous.
I have a friend who teaches a high school Sunday School class. Not long ago, she stopped by McDonald's for a late supper. She was two bites into her hamburger, she said, when the local high school wrestling team came in. They were on their way home from a regional tournament. My friend knew one of the wrestlers from Sunday School. "How did you do?" she asked.
The kid grinned. "I showed my opponent a thing or two." "Remember, Andy," my friend said with a smile, "Jesus says to love your enemies."
"Are you serious?" Andy replied. "I rubbed my enemy's nose into the mat!" Love our enemies? Apparently that particular teaching of Jesus doesn't always apply in the high school gymnasium. Some think it is silly.
An eighty-year-old woman says the teaching seems out of place in a nursing home. One day she said, "Reverend, I hate my roommate. She takes my things. Last week, she took my nightgown. Then she took two dollars from my dresser drawer. Then she took the remote control for my television. I told her to stop stealing my belongings. She told me to shut up. I don't know what I should do, Reverend. I hate my roommate."
As a pastor, I said something that pastors usually say. "Look, Minnie," I said, "you're going to have to forgive your roommate."
"Forgive her?" she cried. "Why should I forgive her? I hate her. I wish she would die and leave me alone." "But Minnie," I replied, "you're going to have to learn how to love her."
"Phooey!" she said. "I'm going to get even." I was curious. How does the resident of a nursing home get even? "Minnie," I said, "what do you plan to do?"
She said, "Tonight, when my roommate is sleeping, I'm treating her to some of her own medicine. I'm going to steal her false teeth!" Love our enemies? In the nursing home, like anywhere else, these words seem absurd.
Of all the hard teachings of Jesus, this teaching may be the hardest. It comes, as you know, from the Sermon on the Mount. As Matthew tells the story, Jesus is a great teacher who instructs us in the ways of God's "higher righteousness." Jesus is a new Moses who climbs a mountain to teach a new law to guide and shape the life of God's people. It is not enough for Matthew's Jesus to take people as they are. He urges them to take bold steps. You have heard it said, "Be good," but Jesus the teacher said, "Be better than good!" Go one better. Act extraordinary. Live a life appropriate to your baptisms.
Nowhere are his demands more obvious than in his teachings about enemies. Jesus teaches us to take the initiative in moving beyond revenge and retaliation. He expects us to do something more than take "an eye for an eye."
The rabbis had taught the rule of taking "an eye for an eye" as a way of limiting retaliation and establishing fair treatment. If someone pokes you in the eye, don't cut off that person's left ear. That would be unfair. Rather you are entitled to poke that person in the eye and no more. If someone drives down the street and accidentally runs over your cat, they shall replace a cat with a cat.
If someone steals your false teeth at midnight . . . Well, you get the point.
If you are a victim, you can expect fair compensation and no more. It is unjust to demand more than what your enemy has taken from you.
Some time back there was a hepatitis scare at a Mexican restaurant in the Allentown area. Someone wanted to sue the restaurant for twenty thousand dollars because he thought he had hepatitis after eating a fifteen dollar meal. He never contracted the disease. Yet he still wanted to sue because of "undue mental anguish." Never mind that the restaurant had enough mental anguish of its own! According to the rabbis, the lawsuit was unjust. The man was entitled only to another fifteen dollar meal. No more, no less.
That was the law: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a meal for a meal. The law stood for centuries before anybody ever wrote it down. It balanced the legal system.
Yet Jesus pushed the matter to another dimension. The issue, he said, is never compensation or legal damages. Neither is it retaliation or revenge. For the Christian, the issue is love that is expressed without distinction.
So Jesus taught them, saying, "Whenever someone hurts you, your hurt must not become the basis for how you treat them. Take the initiative to love your oppressor." To drive the point home, he offered three test cases.
Test case number one: "If someone slaps you on the right cheek, you take control by loving that person. Don't flee or fight. Take control by giving another cheek to slap. Stand there in love."
Test case number two: "If people drag you into court to sue you for your coat, take the initiative! Actively love them in return. Give them your nightgown as well!"
Test case number three: "If a Roman soldier says, `Hey peasant, carry my pack a mile!' take control of the situation, but not through violence. In love, carry that soldier's pack two miles."
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself," Jesus taught. The way our neighbors treat us should not determine how we treat our neighbors. Christ calls us to act out of love which makes no distinctions between "enemy" and "friend." That is the ethical demand of the gospel.
Granted, it doesn't make always "make sense." Jesus is speaking from the context of God's Kingdom, the coming realm where there shall be neither lawyer nor lawsuit. The reign of God is not a society governed by "might makes right" and "management by superiority." It is a totally new order to the universe, divinely ruled with mercy, forgiveness, and sacrificial love. We need a radical conversion simply to see such a world. Scripture knows this. The Sermon on the Mount portrays Jesus as the great teacher of God's reign on earth. But remember: this teacher was murdered. And why was Jesus killed if he merely taught what everybody already knows?
Love your enemies? In the coming reign of God, perhaps. But in the sovereignties in which we live, such a teaching sounds and looks absurd.
So what shall we do with this teaching?
I don't know about you, but whenever I encounter something difficult, the best way I know to handle it is to look for something even more difficult. Then the first thing doesn't bother me so much. It shrivels in insignificance.
So if you're troubled by Jesus' teaching to love enemies, let me tell you something even more absurd: that God makes no distinctions, that God carries no grudges, that God loves everybody and not merely a few, that God is impartial, that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, that God sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Now that is the greatest absurdity of all.
Think of it:
• that in God's sight, the man who has spent a lifetime in a wheelchair is every bit as significant to the ballet dancer who enchants audiences around the world.
• that the prisoner on death row who is accused of murdering his children is loved by God every bit as much as a Supreme Court judge.
• that a dyslexic student who keeps failing spelling tests is no better or worse than the woman in an academic robe who receives her third Ph.D.
• that the toothless transient who slept last night beneath a bridge is as valuable to God as the family who brunches today at the Radisson.
• that the part-time convenience store clerk who taps numbers into a cash register is loved by God every bit as much as the corporate exec who owns three yachts.
• that, to the Ruler of the Universe, Democrats and Republicans are loved absolutely the same.
Can you believe it? Jesus says it's true. God is not partial. God makes no distinctions. God makes the sun to shine on those who are evil and those who are good. Or as Jesus puts it in Luke's gospel, God is kind even to the ungrateful and the selfish.
When it comes to showing love, says Jesus, God loves perfectly and without partiality. God sends rain on the just and unjust.
Once in a while we get a vision of such abundant mercy. Not the whole thing, of course, but a glimpse of the breadth of God's love. And if you see it, you never forget it. In the words of one of my Christian Education professors, “Once you wise up, you never wise down.”
I went to graduate school in a high-rent town of New Jersey. It’s a place where a lot of people want to live because it’s expensive and prestigious, but it’s also a town where people try to distinguish themselves in every possible way.
One day, the price of stamps went up. With important letters to mail, I trudged across town to the post office. Halfway there, the clouds burst open. I had no umbrella. I was drenched. As I opened the doors to the post office, I saw a great crowd of people who had come with the same idea. We were all sopping wet. Yet with an awesome storm billowing outside, we each chose to wait in line for stamps.
As I waited, I looked around in amazement. In front of me was a young urban professional, a wet tweed jacket over his blue button-down shirt. Next to him was a fraternity brother from the college with the word "hangover" spelled in his eyes with blood red letters. A slender woman with a briefcase stood next to a grunting construction worker who had tracked mud across the floor. An aerobics instructor wiped perspiration from her brow with the sleeve of a maroon sweatshirt. An unemployed accountant held his future in six manila envelopes of resumes. An elderly woman stood next to a young girl with braces and zits. Behind them was a man whose beard was bigger than the infant in his arms. At the end of the line were a couple of basketball players with girlfriends clinging to them like socks coming out of a clothes dryer.
It was a menagerie, a rag-tag bunch, gathered together while the storm raged outside. There were no rules about who belonged and who didn't belong. We were all there to buy stamps, clutching envelopes, packages, postcards, and dollar bills, all of us dripping wet. For the moment, despite our diversity, all distinctions between us did not matter.
In short, it was a vision of God’s kingdom. We were people equally soaked and sheltered from the same rain God sent from heaven. We had been loved equally as God's children.
Some people think that’s a pipe dream. They believe we will never live to see a world that looks as open and inclusive as that post office. But through the grace of a God, that strange new world is already here. The kingdom of God has come in the words and works of Jesus. Do you know where the kingdom comes? It is present wherever anybody believes that God loves everybody.
(c) William G. Carter
All rights reserved
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