I was meeting someone for lunch on Friday and the television had Olympics coverage on. It was a bit surprising to me that they were talking about Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, advertising the in-depth coverage that was supposed to be airing at a time I wasn’t too concerned about. If you do a Google search there are articles about this month marking the 20th anniversary of the attack. All I could wonder was, “Why are we back to this? Do we just have a need for drama and conflict?” Sadly, I know the answer to that question. We do love drama and conflict, and not just the made up kind that comes in the form of movies and nighttime television. Not many of us have to deal with not-so-random knee attacks by jealous ice skating competitors, but we do deal with other attacks: personal insults, slights, things like that. Earlier in the morning I had been scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed and came across a meme that stated, “I love it when someone insults me. That means I don’t have to be nice anymore.” Since this was posted by one of my former parishioners, I thought about posting a snarky, but spiritually motivating comment about how Jesus would feel about that post, but I decided that holding my virtual tongue would be more charitable—and then I ended up using it as sermon fodder, so you can decide how charitable I’m really being…
Our passage this week has the single most challenging mandate given to the followers of Jesus, and yet it is perhaps the single most distinctive command/teaching that sets the followers of Jesus apart from anyone else.
“You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?”
“BAM!” says Emeril, right? (see last week’s post if you’re missing that one…)
Just as a refresher, let’s revisit the context statement for these particular words (from today’s passage.) Jesus says in earlier in Matthew chapter 5 that he has come “to make full, to complete, to put flesh to the words of the Law and the Prophets” and that unless the righteousness of his followers exceeds the that of the Scribes and Pharisees, there is no Kingdom of Heaven, there is no revelation of God’s Reigning on earth. So, “you have heard it said…but I say to you…” or “That may be the letter of the Law…but this is Spirit behind it.”
In the pericope this week, we have Jesus beginning with “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” which references the Jewish law of equitable retribution. Most scholarship agrees that rather that setting a “bar of retaliation” this law was intended to limit retaliation and ought to be read “only an eye for an eye…nothing more.” It was intended to prevent an escalation of force.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus takes the equitable retribution laws and gives us the fulfillment of it, turn the other cheek, give your cloak, walk an extra mile….love those who seek to do you harm and forgive those who have done you harm.
It is important to keep in mind that each of the examples Jesus uses have an explicit socio-political and historical context.
To be struck on your right cheek means that someone has back handed you (or used their left hand which is sometimes referred to in middle eastern cultures as the wiping hand) which is an insult or given to someone who is intended to be reminded that they are inferior to the giver of the backhanded strike (meaning a slave, a servant, or, sadly, even a child or a woman). If you were being sued for your coat, you were most likely indebted to someone much more powerful than you were and they were taking one of your two garments. And if you were forced to go one mile…well the only people who could force you to go one mile were Roman Soldiers and they were using you as forced labor.
Each one of these examples reminded followers of Jesus that they were not in positions of power or authority AND that even when they were treated as less than human—the response was not equitable retribution. Rather the response is a way of standing firm in our identity as Children of God.
Likewise, “enemy” for Jesus and for the disciples has a clear meaning: there were the families who were angry at the disciples for leaving all for the sake of following Jesus, for walking away from the family business, for abandoning loved ones. There were the religious leaders who cursed them for undermining the faith and for transgressing the Law. And, of course, there was Rome, and all of Rome’s occupying forces in the streets, and in the marketplaces, and in the Temple courtyard. When Jesus speaks of enemy he is not speaking of an abstract concept.
N.T. Wright, pastor and theologian, and retired Anglican Bishop says, “Jesus’ examples are only little sketches…to give you the idea. Whatever situation you’re in, you need to think it through…what would it mean to reflect God’s generous love despite the pressure and provocation, despite your own anger and frustration?” (Matthew for Everyone, page 52) Jesus’ examples aren't’ meant to limit the expression of what loving our enemy looks like or who our enemy may be.
I am sure you have heard about the Michael Dunn trial in Florida. Dunn was on trial for the death of Jordan Davis. He was convicted on three counts of attempted murder, but not for the actual death of Jordan Davis. On the heels of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, the Dunn acquittal had the media and social media spheres in an uproar. I saw countless Twitter posts about loving our neighbor, (and how the acquittal was a gross failure of justice and thereby a failure to love our neighbor, Jordan Davis), but the one that caught my eye and caused me to stop and ponder said, “I must remember, as hard as it may be, that Michael Dunn is also my neighbor.” Those we are quick to demonize--or dehumanize--with the label of enemy are precisely our neighbors.
“For if you love only those who are easy to love…how are you different from anyone else?” Daniel’s translation/paraphrase.
Wright also says, “The Sermon on the Mount isn’t just about us. If it was, we might admire it as a fine bit of idealism, but then we’d return to our normal lives. It’s about Jesus himself. This was the blueprint for his own life. He asks nothing of his followers that he hasn’t faced himself.” (Matthew… page 53)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way: “Here, in the Sermon on the Mount, we meet the word which sums up the whole of hit message, the word ‘love.’ Love is defined in uncompromising terms as the love of our enemies. Had Jesus only told us to love our brethren (sic), we might have misunderstood what he meant by love, but now he leaves us no doubt whatsoever as to his meaning.” (Cost of Discipleship, page 146)
One comedian, in speaking about Jesus’ command to care for the poor says that, If we aren’t going to do it, “either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” Sadly, the same goes for this. We’ve got to acknowledge that Jesus commands this and live it, or we have to admit that we just don’t want to do it, and then figure out what religion we actually follow.
But before you walk away…thinking you just don’t have the ability to love like Jesus does…listen to something else Bonhoeffer says, “The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over our enemies’ hatred. For then it is not the disciple’s own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there.” (Cost of Discipleship, page 150).
In the front of most church sanctuaries you will see the signs that point to where this “love” from the Sermon on the Mount springs from. There is, first and foremost, the cross. And then there is the altar where we celebrate the Eucharist. I can think of no other greater symbols of forgiveness and reconciliation than these, both of which sit before most Christian week after week, inviting us to remember that Jesus was born, lived, died and rose again to make us—who were once the enemies of God—into Children of God.
I do not expect that Jesus, when he said this, intended us to be able to master loving our enemies in a few short moments, or even that we would be able to do it under our own power or will. (I am not sure, however, why he said that his yoke was easy or his burden was light, especially when I am forced to give my anger and hatred over to his love…) But perhaps this is why, in many traditions, we are invited to “sup” with Jesus on a regular basis. The more frequently we encounter forgiveness, the more ready we are to offer it when it is required.
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