The Primacy of Human ReIationships
Sermon
FROM ANTICIPATION TO TRANSFIGURATION
Sermons For Advent, Christmas, & Epiphany
People being properly related to one another was important to Jesus. He spoke with great clarity about the primacy of human relationships. He wanted good relationships to be maintained. The re-establishment of broken relationships was a central concern. According to his teaching a person who was not properly related to others could not be properly related to God. People loving God by loving each other was of ultimate significance.
We are living in a society which does not stress the primary importance of human relationships. Other things are more important than the ultimate significance of people being properly joined to one another.
For many people "the bottom line" is more crucial. "What is the bottom line?" is commonly asked about almost every concern. For college students, the bottom line is the grade posted at the termination of the semester. For business people, the bottom line is the final figure in the profit and loss column. For athletic teams, the bottom line is the number posted on the scoreboard when the final second of the game ticks away. For church officials, the bottom line is how much money has been raised and how many members have been received.
In Pat Conroy's book, The Prince of Tides, there is a character who yearns to have one of her recipes printed in the most prominent cookbook in the city of Colleton, South Carolina. She does everything in her power to get her pet recipe in Colleton's premiere cookbook. She experiments with various food combinations. She presents herself to those people who will make the decision about which recipes will and will not be accepted. For her, getting a recipe in the fashionable cookbook was the bottom line. Her validity as a worthwhile person depended on seeing her name in that book.
When I was in high school, I worked in my uncle's plumbing shop. Every plumber and helper in that plumbing company did greasy, filthy work except for Raymond Brigance. Raymond did what we called "inside work." He went from house to house repairing sink faucets and fixing toilet tanks. His work did not require many tools and not many parts. Raymond was never called upon to dig a ditch, clean a sewer, repair water lines, install a hot water tank, or put in drain lines. His work was ordered, predictable, and clean. Every single plumber at Hill Services wanted Raymond's job. Getting Raymond's job was the bottom line for those plumbers whose work was forever in the sludge. Raymond's job was, for them, the symbol of success and the top of the ladder.
Today's Gospel lesson speaks about the bottom line in the teachings of Jesus. The bottom line, for Jesus, was the "tending to" and the maintenance of strong relationships among people. His teaching about swearing clearly illustrates the primacy of personal relationships. Jesus said that his followers should not swear falsely. Nor should they swear at all. They should not swear by something as high as heaven, as common-place as the earth, or as spectacular as the city of Jerusalem. Swearing will not change things. It will not change our physical characteristics like the color of our hair. "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil," taught Jesus.
Disciples of Jesus should have an integrity of character that does not need the scaffolding of an oath to persuade others of her or his truthfulness. Disciples do not need super-structure to support their words. Truth, for the disciple, does not need to call in outside help. The disciple who tries to live by the standards of "over-abundant" righteousness does not need any props for truth-telling. This was "bottom line" talk for Jesus.
And, there was a reason that Jesus spoke about the importance of integrity. It is almost impossible to be related to one another when truth is absent. Sound human relationships can only be built on the foundation of truthfulness. Not telling the truth destroys human relationships. It is difficult to have a good relationship with a person who is perceived as not telling the truth. Likewise, it is difficult for others to live with us if we are perceived as not "ringing true."
Truthfulness, as a bottom-line way of life, is facing hard times today. The keynote speaker at the National Democratic Convention said, "they [the Republicans] have lied to us." The Republican response said that the Democrats were dishonest in their presentation of the way things are. Both parties had assumed that the other political faction had lied. Political parties cannot live in correct relationship to each other if it is passively assumed that each lies to the other. Countries cannot be properly related to each other if both assume that the other is lying. Dubbing Russia an "Evil Empire" does not foster truth among nations. Labeling the U.S.A. an "Imperialist Aggressor" does not add a plank to the foundation of truth.
This notion about truth being the glue for national and international relationships also holds true in the area of personal relationships. In my almost thirty years as a pastor, I have officiated at hundreds of funerals. Most, though not all, of these funerals have called for a homily, a time to proclaim the Christian faith in the face of death. In many of these homilies, I have spoken about the values to which the life of the deceased had witnessed. In some of these services of death and resurrection, I have not been able to say that the person, while living, practiced a life of integrity. When I have not been able to say that one thing, one of the most important things that could be said has gone unsaid. No higher compliment can come to a person than to say that he or she spoke and lived the truth as he or she understood it.
Which is more important: to say that a person earned and spent a fortune, or to say that a person needed no scaffolding for truth-telling? To say that a person climbed to the top of his or her profession or to say that integrity was practiced? To say that a person hit a home run every time he or she got up to bat, or to say that he or she was a person who knew how to say "yes" and "no"?
Surely, there is at least one person here today who knows the importance of being honest, but who has a difficult time being a truthful person in the "everydayness" of life. All of us know how difficult it is to quietly and humbly tell the truth. Deciding to risk telling the truth is one thing; living that out in the concreteness of daily life is another. How often simple truthfulness breaks against the rock of everyday mundane existence! The slow, endless, lapping of the waves does more to turn rocks to sand than the fury of the occasional storm. Not speaking and living the truth, in things both large and small, can grind us up into people who cannot be trusted and on whom others cannot depend.
But, it is not easy to humbly follow the admonition of Jesus to say "yes" and "no". It is not easy because we believe that not being truthful will gain us some advantage in life. It is not easy because speaking the truth will, in some situations, bring opposition and rejection. It is not easy because truth is often slippery, error is subtle, and there is a human appetite for illusion. It is not easy because we have to decide with less than perfect knowledge. But, nothing should be of higher value to the Christian than to see the triumph of truth. We should pray passionately that it will prevail. And, we are called by Jesus to love it more than our own prestige or sense of security. Christianity teaches that to love the truth and to love God are one and the same. It is so crucial that none of us wants to see truth overcome by our hands. Without it, relationships are broken; and we, as individuals, are compromised. But it was a bottom line for Jesus, and so it should be for those of us who follow after his way.
In May of 1988, sixteen-year-old Matt Turner was unceremoniously yanked out of the Tennessee state high school tennis tournament by his dad. That put-a-foot down stand by a parent was so stunning that it drew national attention. The story appeared in USA Today and was related on radio by Paul Harvey. A woman from Des Moines, Iowa, contacted a Tennessee newspaper seeking to congratulate the boy's father.
Hence, he was cast in the eyes of the nation as "Matt the Brat," symbol of the quintessential kiddie tennis menace. After Matt had cooled down, he had just one thing to say to his father for creating all of the embarrassing notoriety: "Thanks."
"I didn't talk to him for a day after the incident," says Matt, who has continued to play the school-boy circuit. "We did not ride home together after he pulled me out of the state tournament. He left right away, and I stayed and rode home with my coach. But, the next night at home, my dad called me in and we sat down together and talked about what had happened, why he did what he did. He explained that he did it for my own good. He said that he did not want to see me acting that way in public, that I was hurting myself even if I did not see it at the time.
"He said he knew that he made me mad, embarrassed me, and hurt my feelings, but he hoped that I understood that he did what he felt was in my best interest."
Did he buy that?
"Yes, I did," said Matt. "I have all of the respect in the world for my father. I believed every word he told me. I know he did what he did because he cares about me, and I appreciate it."
Matt, a polite youngster off the court with a tendency to grow horns when play starts, says he's better for the experience. But, he admits that he was angry and confused at the time.
"It was kinda hard to take," he said. "I couldn't believe my father had made me forfeit the match like that." In the TSSAA Tournament, Turner wasn't playing well and the crowd was razzing him. "They were really on my case," he recalls. "I finally let everything get to me - playing badly and the crowd and everything. I guess I kinda lost my temper." Matt made obscene gestures at his tormentors. The crowd got even rougher. Matt responded with more gestures. And, suddenly, his father was at courtside, instructing the coach to get his son off the court.
"I've seen enough," said Larry Turner, a Knoxville restaurant comptroller. "Go tell him to put up his racquet."
During a July 1988, tournament at Duke University an opponent wandered over and asked Matt if he was "the" Matt Turner - the one he had read about in USA Today.
"I told him I was," said Matt, adding, "That was a tough way to become famous." It was tough - tough because Matt happened to have a father who acted upon what he considered to be his bottom line.
I do not know if Matt's father goes to church, reads his Bible, or prays on a daily basis. Perhaps he is religious. Perhaps he is not. Religious or not, he did not need to call in outside help in speaking to his son. He did not resort to swearing. He just said "no" to the behavior of his son. As a result of his honesty, there is now, and probably always will be, a strong relationship between that father and his son. What if Matt's father had not acted? What if he had been silent? What if his bottom line had been "win at any price"? What if winning the trophy had been more important than playing the game with decorum?
I expect there were some church-going, Bible-reading, praying people in the stands that day who would not have done what Matt's father did. Who is closer to God? Those who are consistent in their religious practice, but who would say nothing. Or, those who never darken the church door, but whose words are simply "yes" and "no".
If you had been sitting in the stands that day, would a solid relationship with your son, based upon integrity, be more important than a victory trophy?
"Let what you say be simply 'yes' or 'no'." Those who care about the primacy of relationships will not need the scaffolding of an oath to persuade others about that which is true.
Matthew 5:38-48
Eighth Sunday after Epiphany
Beyond the Ordinary
At 7:00 a.m. every Monday, I teach Bible study. About twenty of us meet from 7:00-7:15 a.m. for coffee, juice, and a light breakfast. Each week, a different member of the group brings the food for the rest of the crowd. The fare consists of biscuits, muffins, bagels, and various breads complete with the appropriate condiments. For fifteen minutes, we sip hot coffee and nibble on high-calorie homemade delights. After breaking our fast, we settle in for the Monday morning Bible study.
When we studied Matthew 5:38-48, one member of our group said, "What Jesus said sounds good, but it will not work in real life." Well, I want us to see if we can hear what Jesus is saying. I want us to see if his words can speak to our situation today. Will the truth of Jesus' words hold up in the real world? Will the truth of Jesus' words work in a world which sees truth in a very different way?
The world's truth nods with great assurance and says, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But, Jesus' truth takes a differant position. It says that disciples should "resist not evil." The violence of the wrongdoer should not be met by violence, either by way of revenge or by getting one's blow in first. This requires a radical change in the attitudes of disciples. The attitude required by Jesus is only possible if we learn to despise suffering. If we despise the suffering that can be inflicted on us, then we must also despise the suffering that we have the capability of inflicting on others. Thus, we, as disciples of Christ, should resist evil and overcome it with good.
Overcoming evil with good is more than mere nonresistance. It is responding to active enmity with active love. Jesus used three extreme examples to illustrate his point. Those who live by the higher ethic of over-abundant righteousness are to turn the other cheek, give away undergarments, go the second mile, and give to any who borrow. In my judgment, these are not laws to be obeyed. Here, a certain spirit is being commended. These regulations are not to be slavishly carried out. But, this does not give us license to evade the demand which Jesus put forth in the extreme case. Jesus meant what he said; his followers are to manifest the spirit of His teaching in the various situations that arise in real life.
It is not difficult to see that the truth of Jesus and the truth of the world are not the same. Jesus' truth stands for overcoming evil with good. The world's truth screams at us to meet violence with violence.
But we must admit that the truth of Jesus is not very practical in a world like this. When Jesus said what he said, did he know what our world would be like? Ours is a society in which violence and crime are increasing at an alarming rate. Illegal drugs have become the curse of the century - a plague as virulent and as deadly to our cities as the plagues of the Middle Ages were - wrecking a kind of societal havoc against which we seem to be defenseless. They tell us that there are all sorts of people on drugs, and that these people are trying to get more and more money so they can buy more and more drugs. They tell us that if we leave our cars unlocked in Hillsboro Village, in Brentwood, or in Belle Meade, we are doing so at our own peril.
What are United Methodists to do about situations like this? How are we to respond? First, we should do what everybody else does about it because we are very much like the rest of the world. We should lock our doors and take precautions. There is nothing un-Christian about protecting ourselves and those we love from harm. If that is all that we are expected to do - to protect ourselves - we could close this service right now and go home early. But, that is not all. We, as Christians, are also not to spend our time and energy trying to figure out how to get even with those who are involved in drug traffic. That would be the easy thing to do.
There is another part - the hard part. Christians should respond entirely different from the way the rest of the world responds. The hard part, according to Matthew, is not responding to evil with evil. The hard part is trying to discern what it means to go the second mile with those who would do us harm. The hard part is attempting to live the truth of Jesus in a world that does not know and does not care about the truth of Jesus. At times, it is difficult to know which is the genuine truth - the Gospel's truth or the world's truth. Most of the time, we live in the land somewhere between the truth of the Gospel and the truth of the world. Often, we are not willing to trust the ways of the Gospel's truth. But once we have met the Gospel's truth, something makes us very uneasy with the path of the world's truth.
It is difficult to live out the Gospel's truth because what controls Christians also happens to control non-Christians - very human instincts and impulses. And yet, Jesus said that there is another possibility. There is the possibility that when we are controlled by what love demands, we will be different from other people. When we are controlled by the spirit that lies behind turning the other cheek and going the second mile, we are not like the rest of the world. The society in which we live measures itself by the standard of an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The difference between these two ways of relating to others is vast and almost incomprehensible.
Christians also live by a different truth when they practice love toward their enemies. The world's truth calls people to love their neighbors and to hate their enemies. Jesus held up the notion that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor." (Leviticus 19:18) It is crystal clear that, by "neighbor," Leviticus meant fellow - Israelite. The Rabbis gave to "neighbor" the widest possible meaning by including under the term not only born Israelites, but also converts to Judaism from the Gentile nations. There was nothing in Leviticus 19:18 to indicate to a Jew, in Jesus' day, that he ought to love Pontius Pilate. Indeed, there was a great deal in the first five books of the Old Testament to justify the opposite. Since the Pentateuch was regarded as inspired, it was clearly understood that love was limited to certain human boundaries. It is not surprising that devoted Jews inferred from Leviticus 19:18 that their duty was to love their fellow-Jews and to dislike their Roman enemies. But, Jewish literature does not yield any evidence that such a conclusion can be explicitly drawn. In my research, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy" cannot be found. This infers that the words "and hate thine enemy" are an interpolation. With the antithesis removed, the true force of the saying pushes into the light. The true meaning of this saying is simply "Love your enemies as well as your friends," and not "Love your enemies rather than hate them."
This love for enemies and friends is shown in three concrete examples. First is the appeal to God's way. In the order of nature, God grants sunshine and rain to both friend and foe. God loves both so much that the common watering of the earth is held from neither.
Secondly, the "higher righteousness" required of disciples demands much more than the sort of kindness and affection found among publicans and Gentiles, to say nothing of that found among Scribes and Pharisees. This conventional kindness is no longer sufficient for disciples of Jesus.
Thirdly, the higher standard that followers of Jesus strive for is the perfection that can be found in God. Since God's love is displayed for all persons, disciples should embody that same love.
Perhaps, the lady at Bible study is correct. Maybe this teaching of Jesus does not work out in real life. Perhaps, the truth of this passage does run counter to society's view of truth. Jesus never thought about the practicality of this passage. Obviously, it was not very practical for Jesus. He wound up on a cross because he practiced it. It certainly did not "work" in his life. Instead, it contributed to his Crucifixion, the death penalty for an insurrectionist.
What then is Matthew saying to us? The Sermon on the Mount, we now believe, was written by Matthew to give to new converts - people who had just been baptized. When people had been baptized and received into the church, the Sermon on the Mount was the document that Matthew helped put together to give to these new believers. Matthew was saying that a certain kind of love makes the church distinctive. Matthew, no doubt, used extremes in order to make his point. Christians cannot love themselves and others in the characteristic way. Instead, there is, for Christians, a distinctive characteristic. Matthew was saying that Christians are to love in ways that go beyond the ordinary - to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to give away their underwear, and to have sympathy for those who beg and borrow. That is the kind of love that distinguishes the Christian love from conventional, ordinary love.
But Matthew was also saying that Christians are called upon to love beyond the boundaries of life. "If you love only those who love you, what reward have you?" he said. He was saying that, as Christians, we should try to practice a distinct kind of love that cuts across barriers and jumps over boundaries. Blacks can love whites, and whites can love blacks. People under thirty can love those over thirty, and people over thirty can love those under thirty. Blue-collar workers can love those in management, and those in management can love blue-collar people. Activists can love conservatives, and conservatives can love activists. Those in establishment can love hippies, and hippies can love those in establishment. The militant can love the pacifist, and the pacifist can love the militant.
Why do you think Matthew asked his readers to practice the kind of love that has no boundaries? I have a feeling that Jesus asked us to love beyond boundaries because Jesus knew that through loving our enemies, we would wind up loving ourselves. We become more and more loving as we learn to love those who oppose us. We become more and more loving as we learn to love those who differ from us. We become more and more loving as we try to love those who hurt us and strike back at us.
As I learn to love my enemy, I find that I have a healthier self-love. Jesus loved sinners and lepers and tax collectors, not only to save sinners and lepers and tax collectors, but also to save the Pharisees. Paul loved the Gentiles, not only to save the Gentiles, but also to save Israel. We are called upon to love our enemies that we might be saved.
I grew up in a neighborhood that had a nickname. The nickname for my neighborhood was "Pinch". I suppose that my neighborhood got that nickname because those of us who lived there were always in a pinch. Economically and socially, we were always in a pinch. As I grew up in "Pinch," I was programmed by my community, my family, and my church to know my enemies. As a child, I knew who my enemies were. "Pinch" had taught me that. The institutions had taught it; the family had taught it; the social environment had taught it. I can still rattle the labels back to you. I am not proud of that, but that's the way it was. My enemies in the early Forties were Japs, Jews, Catholics, Blacks, and the little Chinese families who ran the stores in our neighborhood. I knew who they were. I had been programmed to believe that they were the outsiders, and I was an insider. They were my enemies, and I had to do something to resist them and to stand against them.
In "Pinch," I knew where the boundaries were. I knew that there was an invisible line that separated "Pinch" from Railroad Shanty Town. And, another invisible line separated "Pinch" from the Hollywood community. Another invisible line separated "Pinch" from Chickasaw Gardens, the home of the wealthy. I knew where I belonged. I belonged within my boundaries. That was clearly understood.
Now, I want to be very honest in saying that learning to get rid of those boundaries and learning to love those enemies has been a painful journey for me. And, I am not there yet. There are still reservoirs of hatred in my life that continue to fester like a cesspool. But as I have gone along, I have learned that the more I love my enemies, the better I feel about myself. The more I have learned to cross boundaries, the more loving I have become. At one period in my life, I set out to love my enemy so that my enemy would become better. Now, I know that's not the case. Whenever I have loved my enemy, I have become more loving.
The lesson for today is that we are to love, not only our neighbors but our enemies as well. But how do we find the strength to live out Jesus' truth when it is contrary to the world's truth? Matthew said that we find the strength by praying for those who persecute us. When we pray earnestly, persistently, and lovingly for those who oppose us, something unexpected often happens. That "unexpected something" is that we begin to change. We begin to see life differently. We begin to understand why a particular people and a certain group are wired up the way they are. Through prayer we find the needed resource to love, not only our enemies, but also our friends. It takes constant prayer to overcome evil with good. It requires not one minute of prayer to meet violence with violence, to not go the second mile, to not turn the other cheek, to not give to those who ask, and to turn away from those who want to borrow. Praying for those who stand against us is the only way to find the kind of love that reaches out to both friends and enemies. And, we must not deter from this because Jesus put it on the line when he said, "If you love only those who love you, what reward have you?"
This way of living and looking at life is beyond the ordinary.
We are living in a society which does not stress the primary importance of human relationships. Other things are more important than the ultimate significance of people being properly joined to one another.
For many people "the bottom line" is more crucial. "What is the bottom line?" is commonly asked about almost every concern. For college students, the bottom line is the grade posted at the termination of the semester. For business people, the bottom line is the final figure in the profit and loss column. For athletic teams, the bottom line is the number posted on the scoreboard when the final second of the game ticks away. For church officials, the bottom line is how much money has been raised and how many members have been received.
In Pat Conroy's book, The Prince of Tides, there is a character who yearns to have one of her recipes printed in the most prominent cookbook in the city of Colleton, South Carolina. She does everything in her power to get her pet recipe in Colleton's premiere cookbook. She experiments with various food combinations. She presents herself to those people who will make the decision about which recipes will and will not be accepted. For her, getting a recipe in the fashionable cookbook was the bottom line. Her validity as a worthwhile person depended on seeing her name in that book.
When I was in high school, I worked in my uncle's plumbing shop. Every plumber and helper in that plumbing company did greasy, filthy work except for Raymond Brigance. Raymond did what we called "inside work." He went from house to house repairing sink faucets and fixing toilet tanks. His work did not require many tools and not many parts. Raymond was never called upon to dig a ditch, clean a sewer, repair water lines, install a hot water tank, or put in drain lines. His work was ordered, predictable, and clean. Every single plumber at Hill Services wanted Raymond's job. Getting Raymond's job was the bottom line for those plumbers whose work was forever in the sludge. Raymond's job was, for them, the symbol of success and the top of the ladder.
Today's Gospel lesson speaks about the bottom line in the teachings of Jesus. The bottom line, for Jesus, was the "tending to" and the maintenance of strong relationships among people. His teaching about swearing clearly illustrates the primacy of personal relationships. Jesus said that his followers should not swear falsely. Nor should they swear at all. They should not swear by something as high as heaven, as common-place as the earth, or as spectacular as the city of Jerusalem. Swearing will not change things. It will not change our physical characteristics like the color of our hair. "Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil," taught Jesus.
Disciples of Jesus should have an integrity of character that does not need the scaffolding of an oath to persuade others of her or his truthfulness. Disciples do not need super-structure to support their words. Truth, for the disciple, does not need to call in outside help. The disciple who tries to live by the standards of "over-abundant" righteousness does not need any props for truth-telling. This was "bottom line" talk for Jesus.
And, there was a reason that Jesus spoke about the importance of integrity. It is almost impossible to be related to one another when truth is absent. Sound human relationships can only be built on the foundation of truthfulness. Not telling the truth destroys human relationships. It is difficult to have a good relationship with a person who is perceived as not telling the truth. Likewise, it is difficult for others to live with us if we are perceived as not "ringing true."
Truthfulness, as a bottom-line way of life, is facing hard times today. The keynote speaker at the National Democratic Convention said, "they [the Republicans] have lied to us." The Republican response said that the Democrats were dishonest in their presentation of the way things are. Both parties had assumed that the other political faction had lied. Political parties cannot live in correct relationship to each other if it is passively assumed that each lies to the other. Countries cannot be properly related to each other if both assume that the other is lying. Dubbing Russia an "Evil Empire" does not foster truth among nations. Labeling the U.S.A. an "Imperialist Aggressor" does not add a plank to the foundation of truth.
This notion about truth being the glue for national and international relationships also holds true in the area of personal relationships. In my almost thirty years as a pastor, I have officiated at hundreds of funerals. Most, though not all, of these funerals have called for a homily, a time to proclaim the Christian faith in the face of death. In many of these homilies, I have spoken about the values to which the life of the deceased had witnessed. In some of these services of death and resurrection, I have not been able to say that the person, while living, practiced a life of integrity. When I have not been able to say that one thing, one of the most important things that could be said has gone unsaid. No higher compliment can come to a person than to say that he or she spoke and lived the truth as he or she understood it.
Which is more important: to say that a person earned and spent a fortune, or to say that a person needed no scaffolding for truth-telling? To say that a person climbed to the top of his or her profession or to say that integrity was practiced? To say that a person hit a home run every time he or she got up to bat, or to say that he or she was a person who knew how to say "yes" and "no"?
Surely, there is at least one person here today who knows the importance of being honest, but who has a difficult time being a truthful person in the "everydayness" of life. All of us know how difficult it is to quietly and humbly tell the truth. Deciding to risk telling the truth is one thing; living that out in the concreteness of daily life is another. How often simple truthfulness breaks against the rock of everyday mundane existence! The slow, endless, lapping of the waves does more to turn rocks to sand than the fury of the occasional storm. Not speaking and living the truth, in things both large and small, can grind us up into people who cannot be trusted and on whom others cannot depend.
But, it is not easy to humbly follow the admonition of Jesus to say "yes" and "no". It is not easy because we believe that not being truthful will gain us some advantage in life. It is not easy because speaking the truth will, in some situations, bring opposition and rejection. It is not easy because truth is often slippery, error is subtle, and there is a human appetite for illusion. It is not easy because we have to decide with less than perfect knowledge. But, nothing should be of higher value to the Christian than to see the triumph of truth. We should pray passionately that it will prevail. And, we are called by Jesus to love it more than our own prestige or sense of security. Christianity teaches that to love the truth and to love God are one and the same. It is so crucial that none of us wants to see truth overcome by our hands. Without it, relationships are broken; and we, as individuals, are compromised. But it was a bottom line for Jesus, and so it should be for those of us who follow after his way.
In May of 1988, sixteen-year-old Matt Turner was unceremoniously yanked out of the Tennessee state high school tennis tournament by his dad. That put-a-foot down stand by a parent was so stunning that it drew national attention. The story appeared in USA Today and was related on radio by Paul Harvey. A woman from Des Moines, Iowa, contacted a Tennessee newspaper seeking to congratulate the boy's father.
Hence, he was cast in the eyes of the nation as "Matt the Brat," symbol of the quintessential kiddie tennis menace. After Matt had cooled down, he had just one thing to say to his father for creating all of the embarrassing notoriety: "Thanks."
"I didn't talk to him for a day after the incident," says Matt, who has continued to play the school-boy circuit. "We did not ride home together after he pulled me out of the state tournament. He left right away, and I stayed and rode home with my coach. But, the next night at home, my dad called me in and we sat down together and talked about what had happened, why he did what he did. He explained that he did it for my own good. He said that he did not want to see me acting that way in public, that I was hurting myself even if I did not see it at the time.
"He said he knew that he made me mad, embarrassed me, and hurt my feelings, but he hoped that I understood that he did what he felt was in my best interest."
Did he buy that?
"Yes, I did," said Matt. "I have all of the respect in the world for my father. I believed every word he told me. I know he did what he did because he cares about me, and I appreciate it."
Matt, a polite youngster off the court with a tendency to grow horns when play starts, says he's better for the experience. But, he admits that he was angry and confused at the time.
"It was kinda hard to take," he said. "I couldn't believe my father had made me forfeit the match like that." In the TSSAA Tournament, Turner wasn't playing well and the crowd was razzing him. "They were really on my case," he recalls. "I finally let everything get to me - playing badly and the crowd and everything. I guess I kinda lost my temper." Matt made obscene gestures at his tormentors. The crowd got even rougher. Matt responded with more gestures. And, suddenly, his father was at courtside, instructing the coach to get his son off the court.
"I've seen enough," said Larry Turner, a Knoxville restaurant comptroller. "Go tell him to put up his racquet."
During a July 1988, tournament at Duke University an opponent wandered over and asked Matt if he was "the" Matt Turner - the one he had read about in USA Today.
"I told him I was," said Matt, adding, "That was a tough way to become famous." It was tough - tough because Matt happened to have a father who acted upon what he considered to be his bottom line.
I do not know if Matt's father goes to church, reads his Bible, or prays on a daily basis. Perhaps he is religious. Perhaps he is not. Religious or not, he did not need to call in outside help in speaking to his son. He did not resort to swearing. He just said "no" to the behavior of his son. As a result of his honesty, there is now, and probably always will be, a strong relationship between that father and his son. What if Matt's father had not acted? What if he had been silent? What if his bottom line had been "win at any price"? What if winning the trophy had been more important than playing the game with decorum?
I expect there were some church-going, Bible-reading, praying people in the stands that day who would not have done what Matt's father did. Who is closer to God? Those who are consistent in their religious practice, but who would say nothing. Or, those who never darken the church door, but whose words are simply "yes" and "no".
If you had been sitting in the stands that day, would a solid relationship with your son, based upon integrity, be more important than a victory trophy?
"Let what you say be simply 'yes' or 'no'." Those who care about the primacy of relationships will not need the scaffolding of an oath to persuade others about that which is true.
Matthew 5:38-48
Eighth Sunday after Epiphany
Beyond the Ordinary
At 7:00 a.m. every Monday, I teach Bible study. About twenty of us meet from 7:00-7:15 a.m. for coffee, juice, and a light breakfast. Each week, a different member of the group brings the food for the rest of the crowd. The fare consists of biscuits, muffins, bagels, and various breads complete with the appropriate condiments. For fifteen minutes, we sip hot coffee and nibble on high-calorie homemade delights. After breaking our fast, we settle in for the Monday morning Bible study.
When we studied Matthew 5:38-48, one member of our group said, "What Jesus said sounds good, but it will not work in real life." Well, I want us to see if we can hear what Jesus is saying. I want us to see if his words can speak to our situation today. Will the truth of Jesus' words hold up in the real world? Will the truth of Jesus' words work in a world which sees truth in a very different way?
The world's truth nods with great assurance and says, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But, Jesus' truth takes a differant position. It says that disciples should "resist not evil." The violence of the wrongdoer should not be met by violence, either by way of revenge or by getting one's blow in first. This requires a radical change in the attitudes of disciples. The attitude required by Jesus is only possible if we learn to despise suffering. If we despise the suffering that can be inflicted on us, then we must also despise the suffering that we have the capability of inflicting on others. Thus, we, as disciples of Christ, should resist evil and overcome it with good.
Overcoming evil with good is more than mere nonresistance. It is responding to active enmity with active love. Jesus used three extreme examples to illustrate his point. Those who live by the higher ethic of over-abundant righteousness are to turn the other cheek, give away undergarments, go the second mile, and give to any who borrow. In my judgment, these are not laws to be obeyed. Here, a certain spirit is being commended. These regulations are not to be slavishly carried out. But, this does not give us license to evade the demand which Jesus put forth in the extreme case. Jesus meant what he said; his followers are to manifest the spirit of His teaching in the various situations that arise in real life.
It is not difficult to see that the truth of Jesus and the truth of the world are not the same. Jesus' truth stands for overcoming evil with good. The world's truth screams at us to meet violence with violence.
But we must admit that the truth of Jesus is not very practical in a world like this. When Jesus said what he said, did he know what our world would be like? Ours is a society in which violence and crime are increasing at an alarming rate. Illegal drugs have become the curse of the century - a plague as virulent and as deadly to our cities as the plagues of the Middle Ages were - wrecking a kind of societal havoc against which we seem to be defenseless. They tell us that there are all sorts of people on drugs, and that these people are trying to get more and more money so they can buy more and more drugs. They tell us that if we leave our cars unlocked in Hillsboro Village, in Brentwood, or in Belle Meade, we are doing so at our own peril.
What are United Methodists to do about situations like this? How are we to respond? First, we should do what everybody else does about it because we are very much like the rest of the world. We should lock our doors and take precautions. There is nothing un-Christian about protecting ourselves and those we love from harm. If that is all that we are expected to do - to protect ourselves - we could close this service right now and go home early. But, that is not all. We, as Christians, are also not to spend our time and energy trying to figure out how to get even with those who are involved in drug traffic. That would be the easy thing to do.
There is another part - the hard part. Christians should respond entirely different from the way the rest of the world responds. The hard part, according to Matthew, is not responding to evil with evil. The hard part is trying to discern what it means to go the second mile with those who would do us harm. The hard part is attempting to live the truth of Jesus in a world that does not know and does not care about the truth of Jesus. At times, it is difficult to know which is the genuine truth - the Gospel's truth or the world's truth. Most of the time, we live in the land somewhere between the truth of the Gospel and the truth of the world. Often, we are not willing to trust the ways of the Gospel's truth. But once we have met the Gospel's truth, something makes us very uneasy with the path of the world's truth.
It is difficult to live out the Gospel's truth because what controls Christians also happens to control non-Christians - very human instincts and impulses. And yet, Jesus said that there is another possibility. There is the possibility that when we are controlled by what love demands, we will be different from other people. When we are controlled by the spirit that lies behind turning the other cheek and going the second mile, we are not like the rest of the world. The society in which we live measures itself by the standard of an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The difference between these two ways of relating to others is vast and almost incomprehensible.
Christians also live by a different truth when they practice love toward their enemies. The world's truth calls people to love their neighbors and to hate their enemies. Jesus held up the notion that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor." (Leviticus 19:18) It is crystal clear that, by "neighbor," Leviticus meant fellow - Israelite. The Rabbis gave to "neighbor" the widest possible meaning by including under the term not only born Israelites, but also converts to Judaism from the Gentile nations. There was nothing in Leviticus 19:18 to indicate to a Jew, in Jesus' day, that he ought to love Pontius Pilate. Indeed, there was a great deal in the first five books of the Old Testament to justify the opposite. Since the Pentateuch was regarded as inspired, it was clearly understood that love was limited to certain human boundaries. It is not surprising that devoted Jews inferred from Leviticus 19:18 that their duty was to love their fellow-Jews and to dislike their Roman enemies. But, Jewish literature does not yield any evidence that such a conclusion can be explicitly drawn. In my research, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy" cannot be found. This infers that the words "and hate thine enemy" are an interpolation. With the antithesis removed, the true force of the saying pushes into the light. The true meaning of this saying is simply "Love your enemies as well as your friends," and not "Love your enemies rather than hate them."
This love for enemies and friends is shown in three concrete examples. First is the appeal to God's way. In the order of nature, God grants sunshine and rain to both friend and foe. God loves both so much that the common watering of the earth is held from neither.
Secondly, the "higher righteousness" required of disciples demands much more than the sort of kindness and affection found among publicans and Gentiles, to say nothing of that found among Scribes and Pharisees. This conventional kindness is no longer sufficient for disciples of Jesus.
Thirdly, the higher standard that followers of Jesus strive for is the perfection that can be found in God. Since God's love is displayed for all persons, disciples should embody that same love.
Perhaps, the lady at Bible study is correct. Maybe this teaching of Jesus does not work out in real life. Perhaps, the truth of this passage does run counter to society's view of truth. Jesus never thought about the practicality of this passage. Obviously, it was not very practical for Jesus. He wound up on a cross because he practiced it. It certainly did not "work" in his life. Instead, it contributed to his Crucifixion, the death penalty for an insurrectionist.
What then is Matthew saying to us? The Sermon on the Mount, we now believe, was written by Matthew to give to new converts - people who had just been baptized. When people had been baptized and received into the church, the Sermon on the Mount was the document that Matthew helped put together to give to these new believers. Matthew was saying that a certain kind of love makes the church distinctive. Matthew, no doubt, used extremes in order to make his point. Christians cannot love themselves and others in the characteristic way. Instead, there is, for Christians, a distinctive characteristic. Matthew was saying that Christians are to love in ways that go beyond the ordinary - to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to give away their underwear, and to have sympathy for those who beg and borrow. That is the kind of love that distinguishes the Christian love from conventional, ordinary love.
But Matthew was also saying that Christians are called upon to love beyond the boundaries of life. "If you love only those who love you, what reward have you?" he said. He was saying that, as Christians, we should try to practice a distinct kind of love that cuts across barriers and jumps over boundaries. Blacks can love whites, and whites can love blacks. People under thirty can love those over thirty, and people over thirty can love those under thirty. Blue-collar workers can love those in management, and those in management can love blue-collar people. Activists can love conservatives, and conservatives can love activists. Those in establishment can love hippies, and hippies can love those in establishment. The militant can love the pacifist, and the pacifist can love the militant.
Why do you think Matthew asked his readers to practice the kind of love that has no boundaries? I have a feeling that Jesus asked us to love beyond boundaries because Jesus knew that through loving our enemies, we would wind up loving ourselves. We become more and more loving as we learn to love those who oppose us. We become more and more loving as we learn to love those who differ from us. We become more and more loving as we try to love those who hurt us and strike back at us.
As I learn to love my enemy, I find that I have a healthier self-love. Jesus loved sinners and lepers and tax collectors, not only to save sinners and lepers and tax collectors, but also to save the Pharisees. Paul loved the Gentiles, not only to save the Gentiles, but also to save Israel. We are called upon to love our enemies that we might be saved.
I grew up in a neighborhood that had a nickname. The nickname for my neighborhood was "Pinch". I suppose that my neighborhood got that nickname because those of us who lived there were always in a pinch. Economically and socially, we were always in a pinch. As I grew up in "Pinch," I was programmed by my community, my family, and my church to know my enemies. As a child, I knew who my enemies were. "Pinch" had taught me that. The institutions had taught it; the family had taught it; the social environment had taught it. I can still rattle the labels back to you. I am not proud of that, but that's the way it was. My enemies in the early Forties were Japs, Jews, Catholics, Blacks, and the little Chinese families who ran the stores in our neighborhood. I knew who they were. I had been programmed to believe that they were the outsiders, and I was an insider. They were my enemies, and I had to do something to resist them and to stand against them.
In "Pinch," I knew where the boundaries were. I knew that there was an invisible line that separated "Pinch" from Railroad Shanty Town. And, another invisible line separated "Pinch" from the Hollywood community. Another invisible line separated "Pinch" from Chickasaw Gardens, the home of the wealthy. I knew where I belonged. I belonged within my boundaries. That was clearly understood.
Now, I want to be very honest in saying that learning to get rid of those boundaries and learning to love those enemies has been a painful journey for me. And, I am not there yet. There are still reservoirs of hatred in my life that continue to fester like a cesspool. But as I have gone along, I have learned that the more I love my enemies, the better I feel about myself. The more I have learned to cross boundaries, the more loving I have become. At one period in my life, I set out to love my enemy so that my enemy would become better. Now, I know that's not the case. Whenever I have loved my enemy, I have become more loving.
The lesson for today is that we are to love, not only our neighbors but our enemies as well. But how do we find the strength to live out Jesus' truth when it is contrary to the world's truth? Matthew said that we find the strength by praying for those who persecute us. When we pray earnestly, persistently, and lovingly for those who oppose us, something unexpected often happens. That "unexpected something" is that we begin to change. We begin to see life differently. We begin to understand why a particular people and a certain group are wired up the way they are. Through prayer we find the needed resource to love, not only our enemies, but also our friends. It takes constant prayer to overcome evil with good. It requires not one minute of prayer to meet violence with violence, to not go the second mile, to not turn the other cheek, to not give to those who ask, and to turn away from those who want to borrow. Praying for those who stand against us is the only way to find the kind of love that reaches out to both friends and enemies. And, we must not deter from this because Jesus put it on the line when he said, "If you love only those who love you, what reward have you?"
This way of living and looking at life is beyond the ordinary.
