SermonStudio

Every now and then someone suggests that it would be wonderful if everyone lived by the Sermon on the Mount. Well, it would be wonderful for thieves, bullies, lazy Roman soldiers, and people who borrow money with no intention of paying it back. Someone breaks into your house. Do not resist. Someone strikes you on the cheek. Turn the other one. A Roman soldier forces you to go one mile with his belongings. Go with him the second mile. Someone with quite shaky credit wants to borrow some money. Lend without asking questions.

If everybody lived by these ideals, there would not be people breaking into your house or empires based on forced conscription of civilian labor or dishonest borrowers. But in the world we live in, it would be wonderful for some people if everybody else lived by the Sermon on the Mount -- wonderful for criminals, cheaters, and violent people. Live by the Sermon on the Mount? Are you kidding?

What are we to do with these hard sayings? Since they were given to us by Jesus, we agree that something important is being said. What do they mean? Are they to be taken literally? If so, consequences follow that are disastrous for ordered, civilized living. If we do not take them literally, are we betraying Jesus by watering them down so that they lose their clout? Christians have wrestled with these hard sayings for centuries. They stand out in their stark absoluteness with all their uncompromising demands. They leave us to make of them what we can. It may help to examine some of the ways Christians have interpreted them in the past.

It is because they put impossible demands on us, say some, that they are valuable. The very purpose of these sayings is to show that before the law, we are condemned. They bring us to our knees as sinners who have no hope unless God accepts us as we are and forgives us. Law is the iron rod that drives us to the grace of Christ. Certainly the notion that we are saved not by our good works but by the free gift of God is a strong note in the New Testament. But does this viewpoint win too easy a victory? If the demands are simply impossible, that may lead to complacency. They lose any power to require anything of us and may lead to a reliance on "cheap grace" (Bonhoeffer).

A second approach is that these hard sayings assume that the world will end soon. The usual responsibilities do not hold. Ordinary duties can be foregone, since the world will not last very long anyway. Hence, we are free to show extraordinary love to whoever happens to confront us in the moment. Jesus apparently did believe that this age was running out very soon. Since we do not live in the expectation of the imminent end of things, we have to reinterpret these sayings for our own time. Maybe so, but how much should we make of the point?

Let us suppose that I am on my way to a nearby village with life-saving medicine for people who have been struck by an epidemic. A Roman soldier confronts me and forces me to carry his things a mile. Shall I volunteer to take them a second mile while people die waiting for the medicine I have for them? No, I think not. Only the certainty that the world will end before I could get to the village will suffice to suspend my obligation to save lives. The mere possibility that the world will end in the near future is not enough to eliminate ordinary, short-term responsibilities.

A third and more promising alternative arises. These sayings assume that we have only one neighbor to be responsible for. Therefore, we can serve that person without reservation. Once other people come into the picture, the whole situation is changed. We have to decide how to distribute our love among many neighbors. Let us go back to the example. I may properly refuse to go the second mile with the Roman soldier in order to get the medicine to the sick people in the next town. I have many neighbors to be concerned about. I cannot give my full attention and loving service to the soldier who happens to be right here right now.

Maybe we are on the right track now. Nevertheless, before we assume the problem is solved, let us take one more look. Assume that we eliminate any responsibilities that I have for other people. I am alone with only myself to take care of. Am I under obligation to go the second mile? To turn the other cheek? To lend money to anybody? According to many Protestant theologians of the last generation, we can make a good case for saying yes to these questions. Christian love, they say, is heedless of the self. It sacrifices the self for the sake of the neighbor. It gives all to the other without any thought for being loved in return. The commandment that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves really means, love your neighbor instead of yourself. You know how you love yourself? Well, that is the way you should love your neighbor.

This self-denying, sacrificial love is the kind that Jesus had. It is love that led him to the cross. It is the self-giving love we are obligated to demonstrate to our neighbors. Sacrificial love is unconcerned about what it costs us. It does not consider what we might get in return. Greater love has no one than the person who lays one's life down for a friend (John 15:13). We are to love with no regard for the merit of another. God shows love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Everywhere in the New Testament love is utterly self-giving. It sacrifices the self for the sake of the other. That seems to be the idea of love that is present in the Sermon on the Mount.

Before we conclude the matter, let us go a step further. Consider the examples again and heighten them. Suppose the Roman soldier makes me go not one mile but ten miles and finally forces me to become his permanent slave. Do I willingly serve him without protest? Suppose I turn the other cheek and the bully not only strikes it but also knocks me down and beats me with a stick. Do I put up no resistance? Suppose I have lent out all the money I have. Do I go to the bank and borrow so that I can make more loans to people who may never pay me back? Suppose the would-be borrower is rich and I am poor? Do I lend that person money too? An intruder breaks in and threatens to kill me. Am I to be totally non-resisting even if the opportunity arises to save my life by hitting him over the head?

Is there no point at which I draw the line? Are the poor to sacrifice for the rich? Are the sick to sacrifice for the healthy? Are the powerless to serve the powerful without restriction? Am I utterly forbidden to take myself, my needs and wants, into account? Am I always to sacrifice without any limit for the sake of the other, no matter what?

To say yes to all these questions leads to unacceptable and even contradictory conclusions. The very purpose of love is to benefit people, to serve needs, to reduce suffering, to liberate, to set the oppressed free. But if in serving my neighbor, I end up oppressed, humiliated, and degraded, love's very mission is destroyed. I too am a person. If my needs are denied, if I am destroyed, then the community of equals united by bonds of love in the praise of God is undermined. I am to love my neighbor because my neighbor is a person of great value. I too am a person of great worth, for whom Christ also died. Surely God counts the need and value of one person equal to that of any other person. Surely my just interests are worth defending, even if I have to defend them myself. To take these hard sayings literally would lead to the denial of the very community of free and equal persons that love itself seeks. To understand love in terms of self-sacrifice is offensive to justice, which love itself craves.

Let us see, then, if we can make a fresh start. At the outset I want to say right out loud that I know of no interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount that is without difficulties. Every attempt to relate these hard sayings to the complexities of human life in this world runs into trouble at some point. All I can say is that this is the best I have been able to figure out up to now. One place to begin is with the commandment that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Three points can be quickly made.

The first is that we are to regard our neighbor's need equal to our own, no less and no more. That is a very high demand in and of itself. The Christian motivated by such love seeks a community of free and equal persons mutually devoted to the good of each and of all. Individuals are united by love in the common pursuit of goods to be justly shared. The ideal is that people should show equal regard for each other.

The second point is that my regard for my neighbor is to be absolute, unconditional, and unrelenting. No matter what the other person does, I must continue to honor the worth of that person and promote that person's fair interest in the life of the community. My obligation to meet the needs of the other person and to promote the welfare of all my neighbors continues under all circumstances, no matter what everybody else is doing.

My obligation to consider the neighbor's good equal to my own never ceases. If someone breaks into my house, this does not mean I should be totally unresisting. It means that in defending my just interests, I am not to forget that the intruder is a person made in the image of God for whom Christ died. I am not to hate that person. I am not to seek revenge, not to resist beyond what is actually necessary to protect my own worth and value as a child of God for whom Christ also died. My neighbor's good remains equal to my own. I am to seek that good even if the neighbor is an intruder with violent intentions. But my own needs and my own good do not cease to matter either. Hence, I am not required to let others utterly destroy me or oppress me or subject me to their own unjust demands or exploit me without limit. Yet in resisting, I continue to regard the would-be oppressor as a person whose own real needs and basic welfare matter equally with my own.

Finally, in the third place, Christian love is not sacrificial by nature. It becomes sacrificial when my neighbor's need exceeds my own or when the greater good of the community takes precedence over my own particular interest. The Christian takes the initiative to promote the other person's good, no matter what everyone else is doing. But he or she resists when the other person tries to deny his or her own equally valid interest in the goods of this life. Love is sacrificial when the situation calls for it. It is protective of the just interests of everybody, including one's own self, when attacked. Always and without ceasing, Christian love seeks justice for all in a community of free and equal persons.

Whether this helps to get some perspective on the hard sayings of the Sermon on the Mount, you must judge. It is the best I can come up with for now. I have been led to one other conclusion. Love has many facets. It lives in multidimensional splendor. In particular, it assumes two forms relevant for the issue at hand. I call them the ecstatic and the ethical dimensions of love. In making my three points just now, I was speaking of Christian love in its ethical form. Here we have to measure, count, and distribute in accordance with rules in order to treat everyone justly. We have to decide between competing claims to make sure that all get what they are due without anyone being left out or treated unfairly. In ethics we make choices that involve trade-offs and compromises. We calculate and make intuitive judgments about where one's just interest ends and another takes up. Love bids us to make the best ethical judgments we can in the light of the Christian ideal of a free and equal community of people united by love. This is the realm we live in most of the time when are trying to be Christians. This is the everyday world of stubborn facts and complex decision-making.

But love has another dimension. It sometimes rises to heights of joyful overflowing with affection and concern for another that goes beyond ethics. Love in the ecstatic mode bubbles and boils over with feelings of delight, passion, and pleasure in the very existence of the loved one. It is enthralled, thrilled, and captivated in the presence of the other. When we are in this mood, we want those we love to have the very best we can give them. We reach out to do everything we possibly can without hesitation, without counting the costs or looking for anything in return. We give ourselves in joyful abandon, lost in wonder, totally devoted to the needs and pleasures of those we love. We become excessive in the outpouring of affection, care, and undivided attention. We give all. We hold nothing back.

It is the love that parents sometimes feel for their children, that lovers have for each other in the height of passion. It is the love that we have for our friends in those precious moments of intimacy we share with those close to us. It is the kind of love the woman showed who poured the perfume on Jesus' feet. She was in an ecstatic mood, whereas the ethically minded disciples thought she should have sold the ointment to get money and buy food for the poor (Matthew 26:6-13). If we give beyond what reason would suggest and what justice would demand, it is not felt as a sacrifice. It is what we most want to do, what makes us happy, what fills us with overflowing joy. We give without restraint or without in the least worrying at the moment whether our devotion will be reciprocated. Love rarely reaches this ecstatic zenith of affectionate feelings. Most of the time we have to live in the ethical dimension in which we distribute our concern with care in order to have enough to go around and not leave anyone out or with less than they deserve.

Many passages about love in the New Testament persuade me that they were written in an ecstatic mood. Joyful abandon for the other is the most natural and spontaneous thing in the world when love overflows. It may help us to read the Sermon on the Mount if we think about what love would intend, feel, and do when caught up in the ecstatic regard for the other in which affection and desire to serve know no bounds in moments that scandalize justice and offend the careful cautions and calculations of cool reasonableness.

We cannot rise to the acme of spontaneous joy and overflowing regard for another by simply taking thought. But if we have by grace and good luck had the fortune of feeling the ecstasy of love in our own hearts for someone we care for unconditionally and without restraint, perhaps then we will know at least for a moment what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount.