Love over Justice

February 23^rd, 2014        “Love over Justice”             Rev. Heather Jepsen

Matthew 5:38-48

          Well, once again this week we are continuing my crazy idea of preaching all the lectionary readings from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel.  We’ve talked about Jesus’ upside down vision of the world in the Beatitudes, Jesus’ call for us to be just enough salt and light in the world around us, and unpacked some difficult lessons about anger, lust, divorce, and telling the truth.  This week we continue in difficult territory, and as I mentioned a few sermons ago, I am confident that the day that Jesus gave his sermon no one left the mountain feeling warm and fuzzy.

          Our reading for today is the famous lesson on turning the other cheek.  Jesus says “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.”  Jesus goes on to talk about love of enemies and concludes with the puzzling “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

          Man, do we hate this reading.  Our immediate response to this is always, “That can’t be right!”  Anyway you play it, what Jesus says here doesn’t make sense to us and for centuries well-meaning Christians and preachers have tried to soften Jesus’ words here.  Pastors have tried to spiritualize the reading, saying that Jesus is somehow asking us to do these things spiritually rather than as literal actions.  Others have said that Jesus is creating an ideal standard that folks were never intended to meet; that Jesus is setting an un-reachable goal that we shouldn’t even strive for.  Some Pastors have said that these standards can’t possibly apply in our modern culture, but were unique and specific to Jesus’ time and place.

          Perhaps the most famous interpretation of this passage in our modern era comes from theologian Walter Wink.  I am fairly confident that this church, our church, has been exposed to this theory before.  Walter Wink teaches that rather than setting out a literal way to live, Jesus is really describing subversive non-violence. 

          Beginning with the turn the other cheek bit, Wink explains that to hit someone on the right cheek would in essence be a back handed slap, a sign of humiliation rather than violence.  To turn the left cheek to the opponent is to say that you refuse to be humiliated and you challenge them to assault you as an equal rather than as a slave.  It’s a form of passive resistance.

          In regards to giving your cloak, the issue is about debt.  Poor folks would often be sued in court for their very last belonging, often a garment.  If you are sued for your coat then you should give away your cloak as well because than you would be naked in the court.  In the Jewish culture, anyone who saw you naked would be shamed, the person who sued you most of all.  Again, it is a form of passive resistance.

          The final comment about going the second mile relates to the Roman occupation.  At the time Jews were under the power of the Roman Empire and a Roman solider could compel a citizen to carry a backpack for the distance of one mile.  That was the limit though, forcing someone to carry a pack farther than that would be breaking the military code.  A soldier caught forcing a citizen to go farther than a mile could be disciplined for such an action.  Therefore, to go the extra mile is to risk the soldier getting in trouble and it is a way of saying that you won’t allow yourself to be controlled by the state.  Again, it is passive resistance.

          Walter Wink gives a wonderful interpretation of this passage based on the historical setting.  It’s great, and it could be just the thing that Jesus was talking about.  This scripture has inspired many a great non-violent leader from Martin Luther King Jr to Mahatma Gandhi.  I’ve preached that sermon on non-violent resistance and it is a good one. 

But this week I could not come to terms with that reading.  I don’t find a sermon based on Jesus teaching passive resistance to clearly line up with the way that this text makes me feel in my gut.  Jesus’ words here make me anxious and uncomfortable, and as a sermon writer I have always trusted that the spot of the text that bothers me the most, is the spot where the sermon is.  Like some sort of sadistic dentist, I feel called to find the place where it hurts and poke around there for awhile.

Wink’s interpretation, while perhaps true, is still lowering the bar of Jesus’ sermon.  All of us social justice oriented individuals can breathe a sigh of relief with that sermon.  “Whew, I knew Jesus didn’t really mean it.  He is just talking about non-violent resistance and I’m all about that.”  Suddenly we are off the hook and can let this scripture fall to the side into some sort of ancient Israel obscurity.

This week I thought that was too easy.  This week I didn’t want to take the bite out of this sermon.  This week I wanted Jesus to really mean what he says; “Turn the other cheek, give away everything, do more than you’re asked, be perfect.”  That’s where the hard sermon is, and the hard one is always the right one.  The sermon that makes us squirm, the one that makes me squirm, is always the one to preach.

I was reading this week and came across this sentence “Jesus is the definitive disclosure of the character of God.”  When I read that, the key to this week’s sermon popped into place.  Jesus is the full disclosure of God, and what does God do if not turn the other cheek, give away everything, and go the extra mile?  Jesus Christ is the full manifestation of God, and when struck with the whips of roman soldiers, God turns the other cheek and is struck again.  When Jesus is crucified his clothing is taken from him, and though it is within his power and right to prevent it, God hangs on the cross in underwear alone.  Jesus carries his cross through the streets of Jerusalem all the way to Golgotha, God carrying the weight of the unjust Roman Empire the extra mile and beyond.  In all these acts there is no passive resistance, no one was shamed, no injustice was pointed out, nothing happened to right the ways of the world.  Jesus Christ, the full manifestation of God, did all these things willingly, and this scripture teaches us that that is the picture of perfection.

So often, as people, we want perfection to mean justice.  To turn the other cheek and give away everything isn’t right because it isn’t just.  That is not the way the world should be, that is not fair.  That’s why we love that Walter Wink interpretation so much because he brings justice to where there is none.  To see this as passive resistance is to suddenly infuse it with a sense of justice.

But perfection here is not about justice.  The perfection that Jesus speaks about is grace and love, and we bristle at it, because it is not fair.  And yet, this is the God we see and know.  God made visible in Christ, God spoken of in Scripture, God experienced in daily life.  This is the God who dies unjustly on the cross, executed by the state for a crime he did not commit; a God who could avoid execution, a God who could pursue a just trial, but a God who chooses not to.  This is the God who continually welcomes sinners into God’s midst; a God who could justly punish and condemn us all, but chooses not to.  Throughout the gospel narrative we are confronted with a God who chooses love over justice.

This is the perfection Jesus speaks of and calls us to.  It’s clear in his language here.  We are to love enemies and those who actively seek our harm.  Not justice, but love; just as God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on good people and bad alike.  That’s not justice.  That’s love.

And so we are called to do and be the impossible.  To do all things out of love and mercy and grace and not out of a desire for justice or what’s right.  The message that Jesus preaches here makes us squirm, and I have no balm for you today.  Today I will not open the back door, and let you through thinking that this doesn’t apply to you, or you don’t need to worry about it, or Jesus just didn’t know what he was talking about.  Today I want you to sit here with me and the plain truth of this scripture.  To really consider the demand to turn the other cheek, to really truly love the one who hates you, to strive for perfection as if it were attainable, to embrace God’s love over and above justice.  Today that is our call, to be perfect as the God of heaven is, the one who lives out of love alone.  Amen.

The Inner Life

February 16^th, 2014      “The Inner Life”        Rev. Heather Jepsen

Matthew 5:21-37 with Deuteronomy 30:15-20

          All this month we are studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel and our reading for this Sunday picks up right where we left off last week.  This morning’s reading is a section of teaching where Jesus deepens the understanding of God’s will for humanity.  In this series of lessons, Jesus gives an example of the traditional Jewish law regarding sin, and then takes it deeper, exposing the root of that sin in our lives.  Taken as a whole, these lessons reveal the importance of our inner life of faith.  Fair warning: we will spend most of this sermon outside of our comfort zones.

          The first issue that Jesus discusses is anger.  He says to his followers, “You have heard that you shall not murder, but I tell you that you should not even let anger fester in your heart.”  Jesus’ lesson is less about having anger, than about what one does with the anger that they have.  Anger is a natural human response to things in the world that threaten or upset us.  In the scriptures we read about both God and Jesus being angry at times.  Rather than a flash in the pan moment of justified anger, Jesus is warning against the holding and festering of anger in our hearts.

          We all know those people who are good at holding a grudge.  Perhaps we might hold a few of our own.  This is just the type of anger Jesus is warning us against, an anger that simmers in our hearts continually.  It is this anger that leads us to hurt the other person in subtle ways.  We begin to look down on the person, to call them names, and in essence, to not see their humanity anymore.  It is this anger that leads to resentment, and before we know it there is nothing we can do to return to a civil relationship with this person. 

Jesus is warning us that this type of anger destroys a relationship as much as murder does.  We might think that we are OK, since there are no outward signs of our sin.  But in reality, we are broken and in broken relationship with the people around us.  When we hold anger in our hearts, then the inner life we live poisons our outer actions. 

Jesus even warns us against calling other people “fools” or “idiots” as this lessens them as people in our eyes.  I would like to say, “I never do that”, but anyone that has ridden in a car with me on snowy roads knows that’s not true.  I might not call people “idiots” to their face but I certainly yell at them in their car.  Any parent knows that it only takes one time of a child mimicking you in the car to feel truly convicted.  My words of anger betray my inner spiritual landscape. 

Jesus teaches the disciples that they cannot have a proper relationship with God unless they have a proper relationship with each other.  They should leave their offering at the altar, go and heal the relationship with the other person, and then they will be able to properly worship God.  Jesus teaches us that even though we don’t murder, we still need to be on guard for hurting someone with the anger that we hold in our hearts.

          Jesus’ second lesson is about lust.  He says, “You have heard it taught that you shouldn’t commit adultery, but I teach you that you shouldn’t even lust after someone in your heart.”  Now we all know that we are biological creatures, and it is impossible to control what pops into our heads at certain moments.  Sometimes our bodies think things we don’t want to think.  Just like with anger, what Jesus is talking about here is what we do with these thoughts.  Jesus doesn’t warn against natural biological reactions, he warns against deliberate lusting after another person.  The Greek phrase translated “to look at” here can also be translated “to stare at” or “to leer.”  This is not simply glancing at a beautiful woman or man; this is about staring at people with the express purpose of fostering lustful thoughts in our hearts and minds.  This is about objectifying people. 

          When Jesus speaks, he sets it only in the male gender and that is really significant.  “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  At the time, when someone did commit acts of adultery, it was often the woman who was blamed, no matter what she did.  What Jesus teaches in this passage is radical.  Women were no longer held solely responsible for enticing men; rather, men are asked to control their own thoughts and urges.  In a strictly patriarchal society this would have been a very edgy thing to say.

          Of course in our own time and place, there is no end to lustful imagery presented to both men and women.  Jesus’ eyes would have been boggled by the images that we are bombarded with on a daily basis.  Sex sells everything and we see it on TV, in magazines, newspapers, the internet, everywhere.  Even at the Olympics, since when was ice skating supposed to be sexy?!?        

Once again, the sin of lust that Jesus is referring to is all about our inner spiritual landscape.  If we are spending time in meditation and prayer, considering the needs and struggles of others, then we are more likely to see the other as a whole person like us.  The sin of lust, while it may occur solely in your own mind, is no less sin since it objectifies another person. 

When we engage in lustful thinking, we refuse to see our neighbor as a whole person, and instead focus on specific body parts that arouse our own desire.  This behavior is dehumanizing and wrong.  Such that, Jesus warns a proper punishment would be for us to be separated from our own body parts, just as we separate people from their’s when we lust after them.  That’s why there is all that talk about cutting of hands and plucking out eyes.  Jesus teaches us that it is not enough to simply not sleep around, rather we will be held accountable for the sleeping around we do in our minds as well.  Jesus calls us to account for our inner life as much as our outward one.

          Jesus’ third lesson in our reading is about divorce.  Now this is a sticky one in our modern world, where half the people in any given congregation are divorced.  So let’s begin with a bit of background on divorce in Jesus’ time.  The rules of divorce were pretty lax in Jesus’ day; any man could get a divorce at any time for any reason.  If he didn’t like his wife anymore, he basically just signed a piece of paper and she was gone.  The problem was that the wife didn’t have any say in the matter.  Plus, in a society where only men could hold land or work, without a husband a woman would be unable to provide for herself.  If she were to marry again to find support, she and the new man could be charged with adultery.  What Jesus is teaching is a limit on this divorce practice.  Only in the case of unchastity is divorce permissible, he says.

          Once again, Jesus is referring to that inner life of faith.  How do we truly see the people around us, from our own spouse to the other married and single people we might encounter in any given day.  When God created humanity, God created us in a pair.  We were meant to be paired or married together as a binding agreement or covenant.  This theme of marriage is used to describe God’s relationship with Israel and Jesus’ relationship with the church.  This is God’s ordered plan for creation.  But, humans live in broken relationship, the selfishness of our inner lives is revealed in our outward actions.  And so we hurt each other and break these covenants we have made.  Jesus warns against the casual breaking of these vows.  These are not simply covenants to be thrown away at our whimsy he says; rather they are to be taken seriously before God.

          Now as your Pastor, I must tell you that I believe that there are times to take this covenant seriously and to work through our martial problems.  That is always the first and best choice.  But, at the same time, there are unhealthy unions that foster more broken relationships than healed ones.  There are marriages where people are repeatedly hurt and abused and I do not believe that it is God’s will that these covenants be maintained.  Sometimes, healing in relationships necessitates the breaking of the marriage bond.  But, just as Jesus warns, marriages are not to be thrown away; they are a binding contract before God that should be honored as much as possible for the health of both individuals.

          Jesus’ last lesson in this morning’s reading is about taking oaths.  Again, we need a little background.  In Jesus’ time, if you wanted your word to be taken as truth you would swear by something that would stand by your word.  It’s like when we were kids and you would use the language of “swear to God”.  Or like when people are on the witness stand and they take an oath over the Bible.  Lying in general is bad; lying under the oath is a punishable crime.  You get the idea.

          Jesus is teaching that all our words should be true.  We shouldn’t have to swear by anything, because everything we say should be truthful and reliable.  Our speech should be simple, our yes is yes and our no is no.  Again, we return to that theme of the inner spiritual life.  If we are fostering a healthy inner self and spirit then we won’t feel the need to lead others astray.  The truth of who we are will shine through everything we do and say. 

          So the challenge for us today is to ask, what can we do to cultivate a better inner spiritual life.  Well, there are lots of things, chief among them being prayer.  If we are a people grounded in prayer, then we will be a people who are just that, grounded.  We will be less swayed by the immediate emotions of anger, lust, or selfishness.  Times of intercessory prayer, when we remember others before the Lord, and times of silent prayer when we simply sit in the presence of God are imperative to cultivate a healthy inner spiritual life.

          Other spiritual disciplines are important as well.  From reading the scriptures for understand the teachings of God, to sharing the things that we have with the world around us, to attending worship regularly and being held accountable in a community of believers, there are many outward things we can do that will help foster the inner spiritual life. 

          The task for us today is to choose to do these things.  It takes time and energy to focus on our inner spirits and the world around us is constantly calling us away from God.  Like our reading from Deuteronomy, God has placed choices before us.  We can choose life, or choose death.  We can choose to follow God or we can turn and walk away.  Jesus’ lesson today from the Sermon on the Mount reminds us that it is not as easy as simply being mindful of outward action, we are called to mindful of our inner dialogue even more.

Throughout this reading, we find that Jesus is going to the root of our sins.  Where we might think that only the outward actions of our lives were liable to judgment, Jesus warns that we will be held accountable for even the secret thoughts of our hearts.  Your inner life is just as important, if not more important than the outward life you live for the world to see.  We need to discipline our intentions as well as our acts, because not only our behaviors but our attitudes and emotions also fall under the scope of the law.  We will be called to account for the whole of who we are and who we have been.

It is my prayer today that we would all strive for a healthier inner life.  And in the words of Deuteronomy “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying God, and holding fast to God; for that means life to you” (and to those around you).  Amen.

Elements of Faith

February 9^th, 2014       “Elements of Faith”        Rev. Heather Jepsen

Matthew 5:13-20

          We will spend the entire month of February studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.  Last week we read the Beatitudes and I shared with you Barbara Brown Taylor’s thoughts on seeing the world from the position of standing on our heads.  Today we continue in Jesus’ sermon examining his famous lessons on salt, light, and our relationship to the law and prophets.

          As a person who loves to cook, I find a lot of nuances in Jesus’ lesson on salt.  I am one of those people who have a little bowl, or more properly cellar, of salt right next to my stove.  Salt is like a magic ingredient that one adds at varying stages of a recipe.  When making a batch of soup you add it at the beginning to flavor the vegetables and then you add it at the end to enhance the flavor of the whole combination of ingredients.

          The neat thing about working with salt is that it takes practice, it’s touchy.  The key to using salt is that things that are salted shouldn’t taste salty.  You add too much and you spoil the dish.  But if you add too little, then you have missed an opportunity for your dish to be at its most flavorful.  Knowing how much salt to use takes practice and often I will taste a dish and add a small amount of salt numerous times before I am done.  It’s pretty cool.

          In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells the disciples that they are salt.  Not that they are becoming salt or that they will be salt, but that they are salt.  They are salt, just the way they are.  As salt, they are challenged to bring just the right amount of the flavor of faith to the world around them.  Like our modern use of salt, the use of our faith salt can be touchy, we can use too much or too little.

          We all know those people that are a little too salty.  They bring their personal understanding of faith to every situation and every conversation.  It’s over the top and it puts people off.  I’m thinking of characters like Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.  Too salty, too much, instead of adding to the flavor of life, characters like this just leave a bad taste in the mouth.  Like Lot’s wife looking backward, these folks are nothing but salt itself.

          We also know people that could use their salt more.  Like missed opportunities in the soup pot, these folks are too shy about sharing their beliefs.  So afraid that they will turn the stew too far, or turn people off from church all together, folks neglect to mention or show their faith in anyway.  Like Jesus mentions, these folks have lost their saltiness all together and aren’t good for anything.  It takes finesse to share our faith with the world around us, but if we aren’t salty at all then we are nothing.

          After his salt metaphor for faith, Jesus switches gears and uses light as a metaphor.  Similar to the use of salt, the use of light is all about having the right angle and amount.  Light is one of the most important aspects of life, you can’t get anything done if you don’t have light.  Throughout this week’s winter storm, I was most aware and grateful for light.  So often the snow knocks out power to homes and suddenly we are plunged in the dark, unable to engage in our daily tasks.

          No light is no good, but too much light is also not good.  At our house it is not uncommon to suddenly find yourself with a flash light shining directly in your eyes.  Some well meaning and excited child wants to share the joy of light with you but instead of shining the light in such a way for you both to share in the experience, they shine the light directly on your retina, temporarily blinding you.  Whoa, too much light and you cannot see!

          Our faith is a light in the world around us.  It brings necessary light, awareness, and vision to our daily activities.  When the power goes out, we can’t get things done, when the faith light goes out, we can’t live.  When we shine too much light in a rude fashion we end up in the same situation as too much salt, we blind people and turn them off of the church all together.  Like the issue of salt the use of faith light in the world around us is a matter of finesse.

          After speaking of salt and light, Jesus begins to discuss the law and prophets and his role in the history of the church.  Lest some folks think he has come to do away with the religious system, Jesus tells them that he has not come to erase the old system, rather he has come to fulfill the promises that the earlier generations have made.  In fact, Jesus will spend a good portion of this sermon, reinterpreting the laws for a new generation of believers.

          Like the salt of faith which brings out the true flavor of any person, and like light which shines in the world so we can more clearly see God’s creation, Jesus has come to bring about the true message of the tradition in which he was born.  Like a good helping of salt, Jesus will bring to the front the true flavor or meaning of the law.  Like light shining on old scrolls, Jesus’ teachings will make clear the true intent of God’s word for God’s people. 

          Similar to the discussions of salt and light, Jesus seems to be saying that with the law we also see cases of too much and too little.  Folks that aren’t willing to follow the laws of the faith and encourage others along a similar path will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.  Not enough emphasis on the laws, willing to cast them aside willy nilly, is not the path of faith.  People that follow the laws too zealously also put themselves in a bad position.   Jesus mentions the scribes and Pharisees who think that the law alone will save them.  Zealous following of the law and ignoring the greater will and purpose of God is also a bad path to be on.

          From salt and light faith, to the relationship between following and upholding the laws and traditions, the path of the Christian is one that we must walk gingerly with finesse.  It is not a black or white situation; do this – not that, salt or no salt, light or dark, law or no law.  Rather, it is a situation of gray areas and in-betweens.  Be salty, but not too salty.  Shine your light, but don’t blind people.  Follow the laws of the faith, but don’t assume that they alone will be your salvation.  It is a tricky situation and a difficult path to be on, and that is why the journey of faith takes a lifetime and is not just something we do one Sunday morning in our lives.

          These kinds of grey areas, this kind of uneasy ground, can make for a difficult journey.  Sermons like this can make you uncomfortable, especially if you came here today simply looking for instructions on how to live the good life.  Fortunately, I have something more than just a sermon for you this morning.  Today we are also celebrating communion.

          Gathering as a community around the Lord’s Table can serve as a grounding experience for us.  When so much of life and faith becomes questions and insecurity, the communion table is a place where we can gather on solid ground.  When we gather here, we know where we stand.  We know who we are, who our God is, and who our God calls us to be.  We gather humbly, admitting our sinfulness and the places where we have been too salty, or not bold enough in our seasoning.  We gather in hope, as our faith shines a light on our world and brings vision to the future God promises for us.  We gather in fulfillment, aware that Jesus, the crucified savior, is the lens through which the traditional faith of law and prophets can be understood.

          Perhaps more importantly, we gather knowing that no matter where we find ourselves on the spectrum of salt and light, on the interpretation of law and prophets, we are a people who are loved.  This table grounds us in the knowledge of God’s love for us, God’s desire to reach out to us, and God’s willingness to do whatever it takes to touch our hearts.  When we take communion we are in community with God as we share as a church family and as individuals in the elements of God’s love.  “Christ’s body broken for you.  Christ’s blood shed for you.”

          This month as we continue to study Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we will be continually called to examine our own lives of faith.  Jesus’ sermon is not an easy one to hear, and I am sure the people gathered on the mountain that day did not leave the worship time feeling warm and fuzzy.  It is a challenge to consider how we have responded to the teachings of Jesus and how much we are willing to share our faith with those around us.  Are you too salty or too shy, are you too bright or too shady, are you too zealous or too lax?  All of us err on the scale in one way or another.  And perhaps that is the message.  When it comes to faith, none of us are perfect.  We are always trying, always growing, always making mistakes, and always improving in our walk with Jesus in the world.  May God be with us on the journey, and may we find balance in the elements of faith.  Amen.