Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 • Psalm 119:33-40 • 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23 • Matthew 5:38-48
Well if we thought Jesus was laying it on thick last week, he lays it on even more thick this week! Last week we heard Jesus interpret the importance of honoring the commandments in ways that give honor to our relationships, rather than purely observing them for their own sake—not so easy! This week Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount with an even more challenging demand. I encourage you to listen for what is challenging as you listen to this week’s passage.
[Jesus said to the disciples:] "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.”
Did you hear it? Holy cow… “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (5:48) Talk about setting the bar high! However when we look more closely at that word “perfect”, it doesn’t mean perfect in the sense of “getting it right 100% of the time” or “without error”. In Greek that word for perfect is telos, meaning something more like bringing something to its intended completion, goal or purpose. Jesus challenges us to do all these very hard, difficult things—not retaliate violence with violence, turn the other cheek, share rather than hoard, go the extra mile for someone, and love our enemies—Jesus doesn’t ask us to do these things in order that we might become perfect and therefore receive God’s blessing. Jesus invites us to live out our God-given identity as God’s children precisely because he names us as blessed...exactly what he did at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount—blessing us as the salt and light of the world.
But why is it so hard to live out love rather than hate—to live as that salt and light that God claims us as? For Bud Welch, whose 23-year-old daughter Julie died in the bombing of the Oaklahoma City Federal Building in April 1995, what kept weighing him down with hatred towards his perpetrators was the crushing weight that no one else knew what he was going through.
· Story sounds so heroic and impossible, but it was a long process of years that allowed Bud to forgive the bomber, Tim McVeigh
· Went to Tim McVeigh’s father’s house
· Making chit-chat, sees Tim’s high school graduation picture
· Bud: “God, that’s a good-looking kid.” Mr. McVeigh: tears flow.
· Bud’s realization: another father who had “lost” his child
· Immediate experience of compassion that went a long way towards his eventual forgiveness of McVeigh several years later
· In the end the cost of holding on to his anger was too high; something had to change
· Quote from Bud: “As I walked away from the house I realized that until that moment I had walked alone, but now a tremendous weight had lifted from my shoulders. I had found someone who was a bigger victim of the Oklahoma bombing than I was, because while I can speak in front of thousands of people and say wonderful things about [my daughter] Julie, if Bill McVeigh meets a stranger he probably doesn't even say he had a son. About a year before [his] execution I found it in my heart to forgive Tim McVeigh. It was a release for me rather than for him.” (http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2008/revenge_forgiveness/particulars.shtml)
What keeps us from living as God’s salt and light…as people who love rather than hate, who embrace rather than protect…is different for everyone. For Bud it was isolation. But what is it for you: a past disappointment, a hurt that still haunts, an old grudge, a wound, resentment, a painful memory that we can’t face?
Today I’d like to invite us to do something a little different. I’d like us to think for a moment about what is on a small insert in your bulletin today: “Write down one thing – one fear, one memory, one hurt, one resentment – that keeps you from embracing and becoming the person God wishes you to be.” Think about it for a moment, and then turn to a neighbor you did not come to church with today, and talk about what you wrote down. Only we know for ourselves what those things are. Then turn and share what it is that is so hard about following Jesus’ way of love and forgiveness. After we share, I then invite you put these slips in the offering plate today…so we might offer up not just our treasure to God but also our tragedy, asking God to redeem both. [discussion]
Whatever it is that we just wrote down and talked about…whatever we ask God to redeem today as it is put here on the altar…Jesus puts it to death. Jesus stops the cycle that keeps us locked up from living as God intends us to. One thing I know for many of us, is that the tape that plays in our head when fear… I talked about this with a few people who came to an Adult Education about centering prayer a few weeks ago. Well Jesus’ story, a story of accomplishing the goal of defeating what keeps us from our callings as God’s children—his story takes away the power of that tape of fear, that tape of violence, that tape of self-hatred. Jesus plays a new tape in us…and speaks a new voice in us that stops the cycle…not so that we can call ourselves good…but so that we can be free. Bud didn’t forgive Tim McVeigh so he could call himself good; he did it to be free from that weight he carried around on his shoulders.
I also invite you today to tear off the blessing that’s on your little insert that says, “You are God’s beloved child. Be what you have been called.” I encourage you to read it this week when you find it particularly hard to follow Jesus’ way of love, of turning the other cheek, of praying for those who persecute you. When you’re finding that hard, pull this out and remember: “You are God’s beloved child. Be what you have been called.” Jesus has put the power of violence and hatred to an end. Just maybe, going forward from today, we can get busy living as God truly intends us to live. Amen.
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