THAT’S PERFECT!


Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matthew 5: 48 – NAS)

So Jesus comes to a “pause moment” in the Sermon on the Mount, where the Gospel editors have chosen to break the text into a new chapter, letting this declaration stand as a wrap-up to what has gone before. And it is quite the capper, isn’t it? “Be perfect, just like God.”

Come on, it’s easy!

Isn’t it?

The problem for us is that we have such vague ideas as to what is meant by “perfect” when it comes to our own actions. We know that God is perfect in all things, and we are quite willing to concede that Jesus is so also. But how are we to be perfect, when we know – “perfectly well” – that we are not. We know that we make mistakes, we know that we often intentionally do things to poke and jab (if not outright hurt) others because of hurts we have received.

We have a tendency to regard “perfection” as being without sin in any of our thoughts or deeds. And certainly, what Jesus is teaching in the Sermon is intended to guide us toward that objective. But Jesus is talking about the here and now, not some future goal. “Be perfect now.”

When I look up the definition of “perfect” in the dictionary, I find something broader than “entirely without sin.”

Perfect: being entirely without fault or defect, flawless; satisfying all requirements; corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept; faithfully reproducing the original; legally valid; expert, proficient; total, pure; absolute, unequivocal; mature; certain, sure; contented, satisfied.

My Ryrie Study Bible suggests that here “perfect” is meant as “not without sin, but mature and complete in the likeness of God.”

When we look at these definitions we see a lot of possibilities. “Mature.” Okay, that’s not so difficult to strive for. I can easily choose not to react like a four-year-old or even a twelve-year-old. I can be “adult” about things. How about “contented and satisfied”? Can we be content in our actions, that we have done our best (whether it was completely successful or not)? Of course, that presumes that we have actually attempted to do everything Jesus has told us up to this point. But even that is within our reach.

So “perfect” is not so very far away from us, if we look at each action individually. Certainly, the object is to be perfect “like our Father” in all things at all times. But for now, we can strive to be perfect in this thing at this time. It does take practice.

I think this is where we let ourselves off the hook, or alternatively delude ourselves that we have indeed done everything possible.

We let ourselves off the hook by wrestling with the concept of achieving total perfection all at once and finding it impossible to do – at least all at once. We say to ourselves, “It can’t be done. I can’t be totally perfect, I’m only human! But God loves me anyway, so that’s enough, isn’t it?” When we get into this mindset, we stop trying to be perfect in individual actions and choices. If we get into a dispute with a fellow believer, and we feel that we are in the right, we stop. Well, after all, there’s Jesus’ recommendation to “let your no be no.” That’s enough, isn’t it? (We just overlook everything that was said about being merciful, peacemakers, and, oh yeah, not coming to the altar when we know a brother has something against us that we have not resolved.)

But it is also easy for us to stop really following through on what Jesus has taught us because we get frustrated, or conflicted, or uncertain about what to do next. “We did everything we could.” And so we stop. We know that the problem or the difficult situation remains, and yet because we’ve reached a seeming impasse, we tell ourselves that God can’t expect more from us. Because, after all, “we’re only human.”

“Only human.” But Jesus has already told us that we can be so very much more, that God wants us to be so much more: inheritors (that is rulers) of the earth, adopted as Sons and Daughters of God, given the authority of heaven to command. Is that “only human”? I think we ought to expect that a little more effort than being “merely human” is required.

I don’t think Jesus expects us to wake up one morning and know that we have mastered each of these skills and points. That sort of mastery may come after a lifetime of following Him. But I do think He expects us to wake up each morning and with this problem in front of us try to perfectly follow His guidelines for dealing with it. If we lapse in another area, He understands. But we’re not excused from trying.

“Be perfect.”

Nobody really wants to admit that they’re not perfect. “I’m only human” is our preferred way of expressing that. But Jesus sees what we could be, and He’s waiting for us to become that.

A GIFT FOR MY ENEMY

You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

(Matthew 5: 43-47)

Jesus seems to love to challenge our ordinary human inclinations. He pushes His followers to look even further into matters, to go further beyond their usual emotional reaction to events. Our reaction is to go, “What do you mean, ‘Love your enemies’? Can’t we just ignore them? Can’t we just dismiss them as people we should not deal with?”

And Jesus answers, “No.”

Jesus wants to raise up a body of people who will be extraordinary, who can indeed be called the Children of God. And He says that to get to that title, we have to do more than the ordinary person.

But wait .... That phrase, “you may be sons of God,” doesn’t that ring a bell? Didn’t He say something like that just recently?

And when we look back to the Beatitudes, there it is – “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”
So Jesus is just elaborating further on that declaration. Loving one’s enemies is how one can become a son or daughter of God.

Loving the enemy. Hmmm. Something to think about. What does that look like?

In the course of everyday exchanges, when conversations verge into discussions of politics, I see disturbing things happen in many of my fellow believers. Whether they are conservative or liberal, they start to demonize the political leaders of the opposing ideology. What makes it worse, to me, is that these political figures frequently are fellow believers, with records of regular attendance at some church, and often reportedly inclined to confer with their pastors. Yet, I've seen people behave as if it is an impossibility for those politicians to be genuine in their choice to follow Christ. Even the commitment of their pastors to truly following Jesus has been called in question. Where is the love in this? Nowhere.

And that dismissal of nominal fellow believers who hold a different political agenda becomes even more magnified when the person openly stands outside the Christian faith. Dismissal and rejection become even more stringent.

This is not what Jesus calls us to be doing. There is no excuse for it. No cause for righteousness will excuse our failure to bring love into the mix. If we act without love, we are “no better than the Gentiles.” Of course, everyone finds it easy to love those who share their beliefs. There is a sense of safety when we are inside a closed circle, an “In Group.” Even those who we stand against know that feeling. “Go where you are loved” makes the greatest sense in the world to us.

But it is not enough in the eyes of the Lord.

Oh, how we wish we could get around it. Oh, how we wish we could ignore it. But we have here the words of Jesus, telling us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Just how well do we follow this instruction?

I don’t think we do it very well at all.

Oh, I hear and see plenty of “praying for those who persecute us.” Of the sort of prayer that goes, “Father, Those People are all wrong! Change their hearts! Make them stop persecuting us! Make them see the error of their ways!”

Do we ever consider what that sounds like in God’s ears? “Father, I don’t like or understand that person’s attitudes. They are all wrong! Rap their knuckles and discipline them! They’re mean to me! Make them stop!”

Where is the love?

In the course of studying the Sermon on the Mount, I don’t often look outside of it. Not because there are not pertinent scriptures that might apply, but rather because, for me, I want to stay focused on what Jesus is charging me to be doing in my life. But this whole matter of loving the enemy makes me look to what Paul gives as the image of Love.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteouness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 – NAS)

What is it that I see when I look at my fellow believers commenting about those with a differing political outlook? I see impatience, unkindness, and arrogance. I see people speaking in unbecoming fashions, sniping and belittling those they disagree with, creating horrible nicknames to plaster on their political opponents. I see believers who harp on wrongs done them, broadcasting them loudly and angrily. I certainly do not see believers bearing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. And it grieves me.

Not to say that I’m perfect at this “loving the enemy” thing myself. I can get resentful of slights and dismissals. I can be as cutting and spiteful as the next person. But I’m at least willing to admit that I shouldn’t be doing it.

But even publicly admitting we shouldn't be sniping and spiteful, that is not what Jesus calls us to be doing. I know some who will not tone down their rhetoric of condemnation, because they believe their cause is righteous. They believe that they have to stand up and be vocal about what they believe is important and godly. But I cannot help but think that they grieve the Lord greatly because these zealots do it by tearing down those who oppose them with vicious verbal knives.

Where are the peacemakers? Where are those who will be called the Sons and Daughters of God?

The crusaders of causes believe they have already earned that title. I think that is at the heart of it. They presume they wear that title and so are now free to follow their sense of righteousness, even though they behave without charity toward those they stand against.

But that title, Son or Daughter of God, is not something we can claim. It is something bestowed upon us – by others, by the Lord. We gain it because we are willing to do the service for it. Jesus said, "They shall be called" by that title, not "They shall call themselves the Sons of God."

Make no mistake, God loves all of His creatures. Always. And He calls all of us His children, in the sense that He will never on His side of matters cease to love any of us. But we shall not all of us earn a place as Inheritors, entered into the Royal Line of Heaven, given rulership and authority. Jesus has told us that that power goes into the hands of those who can give love even to those who persecute them.

Love is not arrogant, love does not keep records of wrongs done to it. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is the gift that Jesus commands us to give to our enemies and persecutors. Can we do it?

STAND YOUR GROUND

You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
(Matthew 5: 38-42 - NAS)

When people get into this section of the Sermon, I think they often pause after the cheek-slapping bit, treating the three verses that follow as separate units for consideration. But when I look at it, I see Jesus structurally using “You have heard it said” as the introduction to a thought and its consequences. So I’m looking at it as a full group. Which means there’s much more going on here than we usually allow ourselves to consider.

“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” Jesus is referring back to declarations of appropriate retribution, given in Exodus 21: 24 and Leviticus 24: 19-20. The Leviticus passage goes thus:

If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him.

Indeed, the Leviticus passage wraps up in verse 22 with this: There shall be one standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the Lord your God.

It is a harsh justice, but one which we recognize as “fair” in our human nature. We want our tormentors to suffer as we have suffered, our oppressors to experience the confinement and restrictions we have suffered. Tit for tat. We feel there is balance in that approach. And look, see, God recognizes it!

But Jesus now puts forward a new, radical suggestion. He presents a new way of responding to these situations. He tells His followers not to resist evil!

Wait, what?

I don’t think by “not resisting evil” He means that we are to give into evil, and become evil. Certainly not. What He is saying is not to put up a fight about it, nor to let it drive us away from that person, to flee like a defeated army.

And that is a challenging proposition, even alarming.

I was once in a Bible study where we completely broke down on the cheek slapping verse. The issues of domestic abuse were brought into the discussion. Some wondered if this verse meant that a woman was supposed to stay with an abusive spouse, to the endangerment of her very life. And this was a group of intelligent people. Would God really require someone to endure that kind of evil, if they had the option to leave it? All our instincts tell us that it would be wrong for a woman to stay in such an abusive situation, and yet the Lord tells His followers to not only not strike back when struck on the cheek, but to turn the face and present the other cheek for a second blow.

Are we really to take a beating and do nothing?

I don't think that is quite what Jesus is speaking to here - although he has already told His followers that they will be persecuted, so He’s not unaware that He’s commending a dangerous life to them. Certainly He expects us to endure the tortures of those who imprison us, to return to them the grace and courtesy of the Lord. But I don't think domestic abuse is what Jesus is talking about here.

Jesus is talking about facing evil. By standing our ground when the face is slapped and presenting the other cheek, we have not run away, we have not cowered down like a subservient slave. Instead we have remained standing, facing the attacker as an equal, unafraid and yet ready to do something entirely different. The attacker is probably expecting “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” but Jesus commands something different from us.

What is that “something different”?

Instead of striking back, Jesus goes on and tells us to pay attention to what the oppressor needs. And to overwhelm them with generosity. If someone wants to sue you for your shirt, give him the shirt and then add your coat to it as well. If someone makes you tote something for a mile, do that, and then go even further. Give, give, give. Repeatedly and beyond expectation. And not the blows that the oppressor was expecting in the very human understanding of appropriate and just retribution, but something much more startling. Give what that person needs.

What is it that the person confronting you needs? Can you look beyond the anger and violence and discover what prompted the blows you have received? Assuming that you have done nothing to provoke the violence, what hurt within the other person gave power to that action? Can you stand, looking the person in the face, to discover what it is that that person needs from you? You need my shirt? Here, take it. I give it readily. In fact, if you need covering that badly, take my coat as well. Do not leave me while you still need something.

Again, because so many trip and stall over the issue, does Jesus really expect abused spouses and children to stay with someone who is a constant danger to their very lives? No, I do not think so. We are never condemned for seeking protection for our very lives.

But He also challenges us not to be always fleeing when faced with evil. If no one ever stands to face evil, how can the kingdom of heaven be increased? If we never show that Love is stronger than evil, how would anyone know the power of God?

“You have heard it said ... but I say to you ....”

Do we have ears to hear this? Do we have the courage to try it?

UPON MY WORD


Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.' But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the City of the Great King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be 'Yes, yes' or "No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil.
(Matthew 5: 33-37 - NAS)


When I look at this passage, I cannot help but think of how little we pay attention to what Jesus says here. Oh, we remember the Commandment that warns us about “taking the Lord’s name in vain,” and so we try and refrain from using His name when we are venting exasperation. And we understand Jesus’ warning about making false vows, promising to do something when we have no intention of doing so. But, as always, He is trying to cut deeper into our understanding of what we are doing.

How many of us have tried to bargain with God? At a guess, I would say all of us have done it at some point in our lives. “Do this, Lord, make this happen for me, and I will always do this other thing!” And then, after a good start, we end up falling doing on that which we have promised the Lord we would do. We don't “fulfill our vows to the Lord.”

So when Jesus tells us not to do such things, when He tells us to stop making such promises, what does He mean? Are we to stop doing things in service to God?

No. I don’t think so. I think His recommendation here has more to do with our reactions to our own failures. Eventually the gaps between our intentions and our actions catch up with us, and we go around feeling guilty about our failures to deliver on our promises. And when we feel that we have failed God in some way, we tend to back away from Him. We become even more conscious of our own unworthiness.

That is the last thing that Jesus wants to see happen, our withdrawal from God, for whatever reason.

So He forces us to look at all the ways we try to convey our earnestness in making promises, to God or to anyone else.

Because He knows how easily we slide off the point, Jesus tells us to make no oath at all. We should not swear by heaven, or earth, or by Jerusalem, or by your own head. Do we do these things? Of course we do! “I swear on my mother’s grave!” “I swear by the life of my children!”

I think in reality, these days, we have gotten so far from understanding the whole point of making an oath or vow that we treat all such declarations very cheaply. We make oaths “on” things we do not even value, that have little meaning to us. Do we even understand what we are doing in the Eternal Realm when we make such a vow? I don’t think we do – not deeply enough, at the very least.

God wants us to refrain from making such vows because we frequently bind ourselves unnecessarily to actions or commitments that are not worth that commitment for all sorts of reasons (a temporary relationship for work purposes, a trivial matter, or worse, a declaration intended to deceive the other person).

When we invoke God as our witness, we involve the Eternal One – the one who never forgets – in our actions. Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind declares, “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” We understand that the character is determined. By the time she makes this declaration, we have seen her go to great (and dubious) lengths to achieve her ends. But now she invokes God to pay attention to her actions. And we know she may be willing to do anything, no matter its moral value. And now she’s going to drag God along with her.

We invoke the Eternal and Everlasting for our mundane and trivial matters. In doing so, we cheapen the sanctity of God and heaven. Jesus goes on to point out that swearing by earth is no better, for its sanctity comes from being God’s creation, “His footstool”. So we backpedal, to less obviously sacred things to swear by: “By my own head!” But how much control do we have over that, in its real nature? Oh, we can artificially dye our hair, chemically re-energize hair growth, let our hair grow out or cut it. But we can’t really change its core nature. We have no power over it.

What would we do if God withdrew His mercy toward these follies of ours and enforced the binding nature of our oaths? Do we ever consider that possibility? What would we be doing to our lives and the people around us?

In watching the reality show Survivor, we’ve seen players make promises to other contestants swearing on the lives of their children, vows they never intend to honor. All they want to do is persuade the other player to go along with “the plan.” But what if God really did step in? “You swore upon the lives of your children, and you broke your vow. The lives of your children are now forfeited because of your faithlessness.” Ooops. “You swore on your mother’s grave, and you have broken your oath. Her remains shall now be vomited up from the earth, and shall be left exposed and unsanctified because you failed to honor your promise.” “You swore on your life you would do this thing, and you have failed to fulfill that promise. Your life is now over.”

Are we really willing to face those sorts of consequences?

The vows made at a wedding are intense, rightly so. A marital partnership is the most intense relationship we can have, short of our relationship to God. We commit our body, heart and soul to the sustaining of our partner until death parts us. That is the intent, at least.

In court, we vow to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – so help us God.” And then people lie under oath. What would happen if having made this oath (whether or not we include “so help me God”, and God enforced it? Would we be ready to deal with that exposure?

This is why Jesus says that going any further than “yes” or “no” can fall into evil territory. Because it is only God’s love and mercy for us that keeps Him from enforcing our oaths upon us, even our most foolish ones. It would be far better for us to learn to just stick to the simple basics. “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’”

When I sat down on that summer afternoon back when I was in junior high school, reading my way through the Sermon on the Mount, this passage struck me strongly. It made me very cautious about making promises and commitments. I don’t like being forced to commit to something when I don’t know what my circumstances will be, especially when other people are involved. I know that people rely on others to “keep their word” about things, so I try to be as exact and precise as I can about what I can and cannot do. Maybe from the outside that seems wishy-washy on the one hand, or excessively stubborn on the other. But the fact is, if I say “yes” to something, it is because I really want to do the thing, I really want to make that commitment, and any failure on my part to deliver on it will come from circumstances outside my control. That is the intention, at least, one that I try to stick to. “Maybe” and “I don’t know yet” end up being my response to many things initially.

So, how closely do we pay attention to what we say when we make promises? Not enough. We all fall short. By the wonderful Mercy of Our Father, we are not always called to face the eternal consequences of our failures to fulfill our oaths and vows. But we should not abuse Him so, by forcing His commitment to our own follies. Let us be much more careful about what we promise, and how we promise to complete our vows.

SHATTERED RELATIONSHIPS


It was said, 'Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce'; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.  (Matthew 5: 31-32 NAS)

This is a hard one. I don't know if I've found my way to a complete answer on it. For I have had a number of close friends - believers - who have gone through divorces. And I do not question their virtues. Those of the ex-spouses, maybe. One woman I know had been utterly committed to the sanctity of marriage, not “believing in divorce.” Yet when her marriage fell apart (later revelations showed he never treated her as an equal partner), she was greatly distressed at the prospect of divorce. In the very conservative congregation she attended, she became shunned for leaving a marriage that was actually smothering the person God intended her to be. And it's not as if she promptly fell into promiscuous behavior. She did not. She was eventually courted by a godly man, who treated her with the proper respect and concern -- in fact they are still adorably in love, years later. It is a good marriage, and I believe God has blessed it. 

So what are we to make of what Jesus says here? I expect that the following verses about the nature of vows have a great deal to do with this passage. But for now, let’s really look at what He is saying.

When He begins with “You have heard it said,” Jesus is acknowledging that Hebrew law does have a means of providing for divorce. The law is an acknowledgement that we live in a fallen world, where relationships do not always work out. Jesus is well aware of that fact. I don’t think He’s turning a blind eye to the suffering that comes in toxic relationships. But once again, He is looking deeper into things, to their eternal consequences.

“Sending the wife away.” What a discrete phrase that is for the whole scenario! We see it often enough in our own age, on both sides of the gender fence. One spouse lets his or her interest wander, it settled upon a younger, brighter, sexier prospect, passion ignites and so the wandering spouse is ready to jump ship from the older relationship.

In the ancient Jewish culture, the man in the marriage had most all of the power. Even if his wife had been faithful and dutiful in the marriage, the husband had the power to “send her away.” What made the practice harsh on the woman was that culturally, the act of marriage was a ceremonial cutting of the woman’s ties to her family. She “married into” her husband’s family. If she was “sent away,” where was she to go? She might be sent back to her father’s house, but if she’d been married for any length of time, what was to become of her there? She was, in effect, damaged goods, and her father was not likely to find any useful new marriage alliance for her. If her own family shunned her because of the divorce, she was worse off, for there were few honorable ways for such a woman to make a living. If she had skills such as weaving or pottery making, she would still need money to buy the materials and equipment needed for the work, and far too often she would not have such money.

There were disastrous consequences for the woman who was “sent away.” There is an objectification lying behind that careful phrase. “She was sent away.” To what fate? But that is no longer the former husband’s concern. She’s out of his life. Not his responsibility.

Jesus begs to differ with that attitude.

It has always seemed to me that Jesus takes this hard-line stand on divorce because there is something eternal about the bond of marriage. (Actually, I think the intent is that even the mere physical act of sexual union creates an eternal spiritual bond between the participants, but let us stay with what Jesus directly speaks to here.) God has sanctified a union that the man is choosing to break.

Once again, Jesus zeroes in on the importance of relationship. We are expected to consider the consequences of our actions on the people around us. When it comes to divorce, most individuals have reached an emotional point where they do not want to consider what will happen to the rejected spouse. Most of the time, they in fact DESIRE that the rejected spouse suffer dire circumstances. That relationship that began as something sanctified to God has become only so much garbage to throw out.

Except....

Jesus refuses to let us treat others as garbage. Look back to the Beatitudes, and how many of those are about relationship. Blessed are those who mourn – Jesus doesn’t just mean “those who are sorry for themselves.” We mourn the loss of other people who are close to us, who are important to us. Blessed are the meek, the gentle – this is specifically about how we conduct ourselves toward others, it is a social behavior. The attitude of a hermit living alone is whatever it is, for there is no one to interact with. But meekness and gentleness are qualities we extend to other living beings. Blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers – again, these are behaviors that spring from relationship, from interaction with other people. It is clear. Jesus does not think human beings are disposable trash.

It follows then that the marital relationship is one where these matters are amplified. If we are to be meek and gentle, merciful and peacemaking with the general populace around us, how much more are we expected to do these things in our most intimate relationship?

Very much more.

It still does not give us an easy guide book for dealing with shattered marital relationships in our day and age. I suppose that is the point: it is not supposed to be easy.

EXTREME MEASURES FOR SMALL THINGS


If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
(Matthew 5: 29-30)

In the middle of discussing older Laws and the expectation of righteousness that Jesus calls His followers to, He pops in this cautionary warning. And it seems rather extreme.

Just what is this?

“If your right eye makes you stumble.” Okay, that’s odd. When do we see with just one eye? When do we see something that makes us stumble? Doesn’t stumbling usually come about because we did not see an obstacle? What does He mean by this?

What is it that we mean when we say “Out of the corner of my eye I saw ...”? Doesn’t that fit the image of seeing with one eye?

What sorts of things do we look at that way? Usually they are objects that are not, and possibly should not be, our primary focus. They are things we are passing by, not things we are intent upon. Sometimes we look at things through the corner of our eye because we are trying to hide our interest in the object. But hide that interest from whom? And why do we need to hide the interest?

When we start considering these questions we realize that it is very easy for such behavior to cause us to stumble.

And what about the cutting off of the hand?

From ancient times, one of the punishments for theft has been the loss of a hand. Perhaps it was considered preventive medicine: if you used your hands to take things that did not belong to you, perhaps if you lost a hand you would be less able to carry off stolen goods and you might think twice about stealing again.

But Jesus is not saying this to keep us from the act of stealing. He is trying to get at the heart of things, at the heart of each of us, to touch upon why we do these things.

What is it in our natures that makes us look surreptitiously at things. Or, more specifically (since he had just spoken of adultery), what makes us look with hidden lustful and covetous glances at other people, at the spouses of other people or someone other than our own spouse? Jesus says it is better for us if we just lose the eye that is “looking wrongly.” He says it is better if we lose parts of the body than for the whole body to go to hell.

What’s that again? The other option is “going to hell”?

The point He is making here is that little things can lead to complete corruption. That is why He makes this shocking declaration about the “better solution” to the small acts of unrighteousness.

The married man walks down the street and passes a pretty woman going the other direction. He tracks her with his eyes as he goes by, enjoying the view. He stops thinking about his wife and his marriage and wonders what the pretty woman is like, but he goes on.

The next day, he sees the same woman coming toward him, and he watches her more openly. He was wondering if he’d see her again. She glances at him and smiles. He hadn’t thought of his wife ever since he walked out of the door of his home, and now he continues thinking about the pretty woman as he goes on to work.

The third day he leaves home quickly without saying good-bye to his wife, because he’s hoping to see the pretty woman again. Sure enough, here she comes toward him and she smiles at seeing him, so he gives her a “Hello!” as they pass and she returns it. Her voice is beautiful. The married man has not thought of his wife all morning.

And so it goes, all the way down the path of adultery. The whole of the married man’s being has been corrupted by the desire to commit adultery. It would have been better if he had not looked askance at the pretty woman at all.

Human beings are not particularly honest with themselves about their motives. Self-examination and self-reflection take work and we just don’t like to do that work. We don’t like looking into our hearts and realizing that we’ve been letting our fidelity wander away. We don’t like admitting that we’ve let a “little anger” fester and stew.

But consider the options Jesus gives us for that lack of self-attention: cut out the part of our body that is leading us astray, so that we have a drastic physical reminder of how close we came to losing the rest of our entire being.

“But it was just a glance! Where’s the harm in that?”

“That office stapler wasn’t worth more than two dollars! Where’s the harm in my taking it?”

When our thoughts during that glance move from “She is beautiful to see” (something I do not think God objects to our acknowledging) to “I want her to look at me,” we move from an appreciation of the beauty of God’s creation to a desire to be an object of the appreciation of others. When we covet or lust after someone, it isn’t just that we want to possess that person, it is also that we want to be the center of their attention.

All these little things that we let slide because they are “little” are in reality the first steps down a path that takes us away from the Lord.

And Jesus says it is better to hobble our way on the path to the Most High, broken and incomplete with a lost hand or eye, than it is to have our full body but be lost out in the wilderness on no track that leads anywhere near the Lord.

If we are not going to pay attention to our “little sins” than extreme measures will be necessary.

INTIMATE MATTERS


You have heard that it was said 'You shall not commit adultery'; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.(Matthew 5: 27-28 – NAS)

To our eyes, the word “adultery” seems connected to the world “adult,” for so many reasons. The act of adultery is something we expect among adults, mainly because we view it entirely as an aspect of grown-up relationships. But the two words actually come from different roots. The word “adult” comes from a Latin term meaning “to grow up,” whereas the word “adultery” comes from one that means “to add something other,” to add an alternate. Add-alterate.

Adultery changes things. It’s not something separate and outside. It is something that gets added into an already established relationship, and it is something that ought not to be there.

I have always thought that Jesus was being a bit sarcastic when He begins this declaration by saying, “You have heard it said.” If they were good Jews, of course they had “heard it said,” since it is one of the Ten Commandments, the Laws of Moses that were given to him by God Himself in the desert. It is a rule that ought to be inscribed in our hearts and minds as one of the basics from God. But Jesus is also aware of our frailties as humans, and how easily we shuffle aside even the most basic consideration.

What’s so important about this, then? Let’s start with the Commandment.

“You shall not commit adultery.”

Although God prizes us as individuals, He also considers our relationships to be precious, and how we treat those relationships matter to Him. Most especially, He cherishes the quality of our most intimate relationship. The bond between spousal partners is a reflection of the bond between the Creator and His creatures, between God and us-as-His-children. It makes for a Trinitarian union, when it comes to marriage then: each partner has a personal bond to God in addition to the bond to the spouse. The triangle is a very stable form.

But what happens when one of the spouses commits adultery?

All of a sudden, the geometry of the relationships becomes weirdly disrupted.

First off, the Outsider has his or her own relationship with God. After all, God loves all of His creatures. So there is now suddenly another line coming into the structure from outside. Additionally, the Straying Partner has broken his or her connection to the spouse in order to have a relationship with the Outsider. So the base of the triangle has been disrupted. Instability has been introduced to the primary partnership. And because the Outsider is an outsider, it means that the neglected partner does not have a real relationship with that person either.

It’s easy to see when looked at this way just how disruptive adultery can be. Broken relationships between partners, injury to the neglected partner, imbalance in relationships with God. Okay, these are not good things.

So, we won’t act that way.

But Jesus knows that is not enough. Once again, He addresses the fact that our outward behavior does not always reflect our inward conditions. And it is in our inner conditions, the state of our hearts, where our relationships with God are grounded. This is why He says that just lusting after someone causes us to commit adultery in our hearts.

But what does He mean by that? Are we never to look at other people? Never to admire others?

I don’t think so.

I think that God knows our inclinations to see beauty – whether outward or inward – and appreciate it. Indeed, the ability to appreciate beauty when encountered is very important to the maintenance of a loving heart. But appreciation is not the same as a covetous desire to possess the object of appreciation.

That is what lust is: to look upon something with that hungry desire to have, to hold, to consume as one’s own.

When a spouse looks at an Outsider with that sort of hungry desire, he or she is already starting to shred the bond of intimacy with the partner. Indulging lustful thoughts for someone outside the ternary relationship contaminates each side of the sacred partnership. It isn’t just between the Wanderer and the Spouse, it is between those two and God as well.

Most of the time, we don’t want to think of God’s involvement in our relationships, especially our most intimate ones. We get a bit resentful at that possibility, in spite of the fact that it is the love of God for each partner that provides the true energy that keeps the relationship healthy. When we start “wanting what we want” and thinking we ought to have “what we want,” we start treating God as if He were an electrical power outlet, always ready to power up our relationships no matter how many times we break a previous relationship.

But what about God’s relationship with the neglected or abandoned spouse? Just because you abandon a partner, that does not mean that God does. And if you turn your back on a relationship God has entered into, are you not also turning your back on God? What do you do to your own relationship with God when you start pulling your heart out of the bond?

That’s why Jesus is driving home the point that intimate relationships can be broken by our hearts and thoughts long before we take any physical and outward action.

“But it was just casual sex!” we cry, trying to justify some fling.

I don’t think there is such a thing as “casual sex” in the eyes of the Lord. That is the nature of intimacy – to be as close to another person as we are to God. It isn’t just a pretty metaphor, a descriptive likeness – it is the REALITY. God is there. God is a party to our intimacy. When we treat it cheaply, we slap God in His face. We treat Him as if He’s just the electric outlet we use to power the pleasure machine.

 "You have heard it said ....”

COURT COSTS


Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.
(Matthew 5: 25-26 – NAS)

After Jesus has made a very dramatic statement about how we should deal with those closest to us (and the awful consequences to our spirits if we do not), He moves a step further out in our social circles. He says that if you are in conflict with someone else, such that you are on your way to court (especially if it is a matter of debt you owe), make peace quickly with that person.

It is interesting that He doesn’t say anything here about who is in the right and who is in the wrong. Instead, He says that we must make peace. Even the statement about paying up the “last cent” is not necessarily about a debt to the opponent, for it can also mean the fees to the court or to the jail (since prisoners were often liable for the costs of their incarceration on top of everything else). Jesus focuses on the spiritual drag on our natures by the conflict itself.

What Jesus expects from His followers at this point requires a great change in the way we respond to conflict. Our first impulse, our strongest impulse, is to demand justification. Not justice, though we like to believe that is our motivation. No, we want to be justified. We want to be told that we have a right to the anger we feel toward someone else, that we have cause for our hostile feelings, that the other person is in the wrong, is sinning greatly, even. We want the upper hand.

But Jesus tells us not to go about things that way. He says that if your conflicts have gone so far that you are actually heading to court, you’ve got things wrong. If you get that far as a follower of Christ, you will not find mercy in the court. Instead, your opponent will hand you over to the judge, the judge will likely find you in the wrong and off to jail you will go

Jesus doesn’t pull any punches, and this seems very harsh. “But Lord! We are your followers! How can you say the judgment would go against us?”

I think by this point in His sermon, Jesus expects His audience to start to have a grasp of the kind of character He expects us to have as His followers. The Peacemakers, the Merciful, those Who Mourn: all that. If you have gotten this far in listening to His words, He’s expecting you to start treating others a certain way.

For the sake of discussion, let us say we know someone who is in conflict with another person, and they are about to enter the court to have a judge resolve the conflict. What sort of person has gotten to this point?

First off, Our Representative has some baggage called Anger. This would have to be the case if things have gotten so far as going before a judge. One or both of the parties to the conflict has become so emotionally entrenched that he cannot step back. Anger is in the air.

Secondly, as I mentioned, there is the desire to be justified, vindicated in the eyes of the community. If Our Representative is willing to take the conflict to court, he wants the community to know what is going on. It is no secret any more. It has become everybody’s business. And Our Representative wants to be center stage.

Thirdly, if things are headed into court, Our Representative has set aside any claim to being a Peacemaker. And in setting that aside, he is also letting go of his participation in the kingdom of heaven. He is letting worldly concerns become more important than his relationship with God.

If that is the portrait of a so-called follower of Christ when that person insists on taking things to court, is it any surprise that Jesus says that person is likely to receive the unpleasant consequences of a worldly judgment?

“But what if you are justified in taking the matter to court? What if you are truly striving for genuine justice? What if you have attempted all the possibilities of reconciliation, and they have failed?”

When we step into court without having reconciled with our opponent, we carry the weight of that failure with us. We carry the load of anger in our hearts, where it smothers the life of love by taking up so much space. When we enter the court without reconciliation, no matter what the decision might be we shall remain bound to the other party.

I know a single father who is very vigilant in seeking justice for his two children. His former spouse ought to be paying child-support, but she doesn’t. He works hard at humble jobs to take care of his children, and his love for them is great. He is a model of good parenting. But every time he has to go to court to try and have the child-support enforced, it opens up a box of anger for him. It is the burden he has to deal with, struggle with, for a resolution is beyond his power.

Jesus knows that matters will not play out ideally for us in this world. That is why He began this teaching with the Beatitudes, and why that set of admonitions ends with reminders that as His followers we will be persecuted. There is very little that is easy about the life He calls us to. Every little thing has an effect on every other little thing. Because the reality is that in God’s eyes there is nothing that is little about our lives.

If you are in conflict with someone, work toward reconciliation. And be prepared for the consequences if you cannot achieve it, for they are costly.

THE LITTLE MURDERS OF THE SOUL


You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court and whoever says, ' You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.(Matthew 5: 21-24 – NAS)


Jesus consistently addresses our inner lives when it comes to the consequences of following God’s laws. The meticulous behavior of the scribes and Pharisees in His day, where they strove to abide by every stricture of action, gave Him plenty of fodder to criticize. They followed the letter of the Law but were totally divorced from the spirit of it.

That is why in this passage He is so emphatic.

Everyone can easily agree that murder is not a good thing, that if you commit murder, you can and should be hauled to court and punished. By murdering someone you have stolen that person’s life, removed everything he might have accomplished, everything she might have given. We understand that much.

But Jesus pushes it further. He says it is not enough that we understand that truth. It goes deeper. “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.”

Wait! What?

Is Jesus really equating being angry at a sibling with murder? That is certainly what it looks like, especially since He elaborates on that statement, adding two more examples.

Why does this matter so much, we wonder? Because anyone who has had siblings knows how easy it is to get into fights with that brother or sister.

Jesus is not talking about the flashes of friction that spark up due to close proximity. He is talking about the type of passionate anger that we can carry around with us day in and day out. He is talking about the kind of anger that makes us refuse to look even our closest relative in the face. This is the type of anger that even if it does not turn to active violence, it pulls out the verbal weapons and with every conversation makes cutting jabs at the heart of the sibling. “You worthless idiot!” “You incompetent!” “I wish you’d never been born!”

Most of us do not have defenses against our immediate family. Our emotions, our hearts, our very souls are laid bare to them because they are family, bone of our bones. Even when it is a family of adoption, these are the people that share the air we breathe, who eat from the same dishes. Our very nature is to give our families our total trust (whether or not as individuals they deserve or have earned it). God designed us to love and trust our families.

But in this fallen world, even those closest to us can do us great damage. Because they are so close, because our defenses are not raised against our family, the wounds they can inflict are the worst.

Most people have been on the receiving end of some sort of wound inflicted by a family member, whether intentionally or not. We carry the memory of those injuries with us wherever we go. And when the wounds have been words spoken in anger, words that cut away our sense of identity, our sense of self-worth, we have a hard time recovering from that.

So we have all suffered from this sort of anger.

But do we remember when we ourselves have lashed out?

How easy it is to say harsh things to our siblings (of blood or of choice – for that is what our close friends are, siblings-of-choice), especially when we are angry or irritated with them. But anger, once indulged that way, can take root in our own hearts and minds, becoming a toxic venom that we can inject into even casual conversation without realizing it. Anger breeds contempt in our souls, and contempt sneaks into our words with tiny dismissals and belittlements. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Why should I listen to you?” “Don’t start up with that again. I don’t want to hear it one more time.” When we stop looking at the face of our sibling, when we start plugging our ears when our sibling speaks, we are behaving as if they are of no value. We are killing them in our hearts, behaving as if they are dead to us.

“Oh, no! I don’t do that! You must be mistaken, Lord!”

But we all do it. And we all ignore it. And we go before the Lord in worship, only vaguely thinking of seemingly minor clashes we’ve had with those close to us. But surely they weren’t important. Worship is important, right? Do that first.

What we forget when we choose to let anger and disagreements ride is that every individual is precious to God. And that includes the person we are angry with.

From God’s point of view, as He looks down upon us coming into worship with unresolved conflicts in our hearts, He sees someone who doesn’t care about what God values, but only about what that worshiper values. He sees His wounded child that we’ve left outside somewhere, bleeding and losing strength. And we’re not even thinking about that person. They’re not important to us.

And we expect God to love and favor us when we treat our siblings with contempt. Just how foolish can we be?

But Jesus doesn’t leave us there. He points out that the remedy is within our power. He says, “If you know your brother has something against you,” do something about it. I have always loved the way this is expressed, for He captures the point that the conflict goes in both directions at once. “If your brother has something against you” can be both your brother’s anger against you that is wounding you and your anger against your brother that is causing you to wound him. It doesn’t matter “who started it.” It matters that the anger and wounding are there. And Jesus doesn’t say “Go back and win the argument.” He says “Go and reconcile yourself with your brother.”

Reaching reconciliation is no easy thing, of course. It’s not about winning an argument or making a point. It is about restoring balance between two people. That can mean forgiving the person for injuries they didn’t even know they’d inflicted. It is not about being a doormat for the other person to walk on, but rather about doing what you can to cleanse your own wounds and whatever wounds you might have inflicted on someone else.

God waits for us to come before Him. And He knows that many times we may come with open, bleeding injuries. Those He can heal. But if we have let festering wounds scab over, leaving rotting flesh underneath, or if we are engaged in delivering little stabbing cuts to the brother standing in front of us, those are not circumstances that please Him.

Reconcile with family first, for those angers are the most deadly.

WHY KEEP THE LAW?


Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5: 19-20)

Jesus offers up some interesting tidbits in these two sentences. First off, there is preferential treatment in heaven for those who do keep the Laws of God. And secondly, that it might not be very easy to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Let’s look at that second one first.

“Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Elsewhere and many times we can find Jesus condemning the so-called righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. But the point about this statement is why he condemns them: their righteousness is all on the outside. They “keep” all the laws in their actions, but never let the laws touch their hearts. The scribes and the Pharisees have forgotten God’s purpose in giving the laws. The failure of the scribes and Pharisees is not that they keep the Laws, but rather that they no longer see the Laws as a means of coming close to God but rather an end in themselves. To the scribes and Pharisees, the Laws must be kept simply because they are the Laws of God. They have lost all perception of the love of God, and because of that they have come to believe that God is somehow in the Law, rather than beyond it.

How many bow down before the rules and regulations as if they are an end in themselves? How many stick so strictly to the guidelines that they no longer see where the guidelines are going nor what the Big Picture is? We all know people in our lives whose perceptions are set that narrowly, who worry more about the Law and keeping it than they do about why God laid out the Law in the first place.

That is why Jesus says that to enter into the kingdom of heaven, our righteousness must be greater than the scribes and Pharisees. He isn’t talking about keeping the Law better than the scribes and Pharisees. As we continue on through the Sermon on the Mount, we’ll find that He is very aware of how easily we stumble. What He is talking about is how well we remember the purpose of keeping God’s Laws: that they are designed to bring us closer to the Holiness of God, to bring us into His presence to stand before Him. The Most High wants to bring everyone to that place, because He loves us so very much. He doesn’t want to leave anyone out. But the reality is that His very presence burns away unrighteousness. And if we have let the substance of our being become so contaminated by unrighteousness, there won’t be much left of us when we stand in that place.

Which brings us back to the warning Jesus gives in the first part of this passage. Whoever annuls or alters even the least of the commandments of God, and who teaches others to do likewise, that person shall be among the least in the kingdom of heaven.

Now that is an interesting point. Jesus does not say that such a person -- someone who is righteous enough to remember the purpose God has in giving the Law and who still decides to dismiss one such – is condemned and excluded from the kingdom of heaven. He just says that they are the least. He goes on to say that the person who does keep the Laws and teaches them to others will be called great in the kingdom. Such a one will be near to the throne of God and not far off.

These two verses are like breathing in and breathing out. We need to remember both parts of the passage, or we can end up like the scribes and the Pharisees, rigidly following forms while forgetting their purpose. The forms are necessary to get where we want to go – into the presence of God – and yet they cannot become more important than the destination. We cannot mistake the forms that are supposed to be our means of transportation for the final destination we are trying to reach.

We can ride the train of the Law right into the station called Heaven. We have to stay on the train, though. For the only entrance to the station is the gateway through which the tracks are laid. You can jump off the train and try to get to the station by other means, and you may indeed find the outer walls of it, but there is no other entrance to the final destination, the lobby that is before the throne of God. Let us not be one of those who has become so enamored of the train ride that we refuse to get off the train, even when it has reached the station.

Do not mistake the means for the end. The Laws are to bring us closer to the God who loves us. He has His reasons for them, and even if we don’t understand the specific reason, we should trust that He has a point to it. But most importantly, we should remember that our Lord is a merciful God, and His desire is that we strive to come as close to Him as we can. We are not excluded for failure to keep specific Laws, we exclude ourselves when we forget the purpose of them.

LAYING DOWN THE LAW


Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.(Matthew 5: 17-18 – NAS)


In these two verses we see Jesus addressing something that certainly hounds many believers today – wanting to get out from under “The Rules.” I find it interesting that He saw the same impulse in His followers back then. Evidently, some who followed after Him thought He would relieve them of their obligations to God. And perhaps, the “religious authorities” of the day were also complaining that Jesus was not only breaking all the rules but even throwing out the ones He hadn’t broken yet.

Jesus has an answer to all that, and the answer is “No, I’m not throwing out the Laws.”

The point that Jesus wants to make here is that the Laws of God shall always have value. The Lord gave His Laws for a reason. God has a purpose in mind, and He gave guidance for how we are supposed to achieve that purpose.

But the Lord knows the difficulty we have in trying to follow the Laws. We get pulled one way and the other, and have a hard time sorting out what to apply to any given situation. Eventually, it becomes so confusing that we just give up and stop paying attention. Because we lose sight of the purpose of the Laws, they become dry and harsh, and we let them kill our hearts and souls.

There is something unbending about the Laws of God, and we break ourselves upon it. Or we break others upon it. For some people, the Laws of God seem draconian in their intent, unreasonable and harsh, unjust even, and thus they turn away from them. They often say, “If God would smite someone over this matter, then He is unjust and unworthy of allegiance.” For others, who are happy to have rules they don’t have to figure out, the Laws of God become something to hide behind. For these people, the Laws become a rock wall between them and the World, something they can continually push outward, letting the wall crush those on the other side. They don’t have to really see or interact with those on the other side of the wall of Law, so surely they are “of God.”

But the problem is that both of these sets of people have lost sight of the purpose of the Laws of God. And the purpose is to bring us closer to the holiness of God, to bring us into His presence intact.

So Jesus tells his followers that He has come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.

“Fulfill the Law”? What does He mean by that?

He came to show us how to walk through our lives in such a way that we could every day fulfill the intention God had in giving the Laws. So that we could with each step draw nearer to our Father in Heaven.

Instead of cold words carved in stone, we would have a living, breathing example of what it would look like in a person. In Jesus.

“What Would Jesus Do?” That became a catch phrase a while ago, a populist reminder that we should be trying to “live the Christian life.” But how seriously did the people who touted the phrase follow it? Did they apply the instructions of Christ carefully to their interactions with their friends, and forget to apply them when they encountered a pan-handler outside the convenience store? But even though the phrase has been trivialized down to initialism (WWJD), the point of it gets to the heart of what Jesus meant by His fulfilling the Law.

He doesn’t mean that since He lived the perfect life and obeyed all the commandments that was the only purpose of the Laws and they could be shoved aside. No, He means that the whole purpose of the Laws was to let all of God’s people become like Jesus, perfect and worthy to stand in the presence of the Most High and Holy One.

Jesus drives this home by saying that not even the smallest bit of the Laws of God will be tossed away until everything is accomplished. We can’t be sure what that means. So we might as well stick to the guidelines we have. We don’t know how long this “not yet accomplished” state will go on. Jesus says that the time to throw away the Laws would be when “heaven and earth pass away.”

It seems that God will unmake heaven and earth before He will undo the purpose of His Laws.

For me, when I am confronted with situations where I don’t know which Law of God to apply, that perspective is what I turn to. What is it that God’s over-all purpose is? It is to bring us closer to Him. So, then, which choice do I make when it seems that ethics and justice are being challenged? I go back to ground level: God is Love.

It disturbs me when I see believers use the Law to brow-beat and castigate others, when they take the harshest stand of judgment of the actions of others. I know they feel they are making the righteous choice. I know they feel that they are in the right in condemning others who they see as breaking God’s Laws. But when they lose all sense of mercy toward others by clutching to the shape of the Law, when they use the Law to hack down those they disagree with, I am really left thinking that perhaps they do not understand the purpose God has in mind. When we use the Law to crush someone else for their choices, are we not hardening their hearts toward God? We tell them, “The Laws of God say that This is what is righteous. And because you will not do This, you will be condemned!” Why are we not remembering that God more than anything else wants to draw people to Himself?

For the overriding commandment is that we love God, and then others. That is the ultimate Law of God.

BE SHINY!


You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.(Matthew 5: 14-16)

I think this is something that many believers often overlook and downplay, at least in the sense of how these words of Jesus reflect upon their self-identity. It is easy to understand that as His followers we are to be bringing His message to others, for He is the Light of God, after all. But they don’t look at this passage closely.

Jesus does not say “You are bringing my light to the world.” He says, “You are the light of the world.”

Each of us, individually, as the person God created us, we are the light of the world.

In other words: none of us are wall-flowers, easily overlooked, so stop trying to disappear.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

I live in Los Angeles, in the midst of a tremendous, sprawling empire of urban development. When I was growing up, I would hear stories of how big LA was, but I had no reference or comparison. I lived in Houston, which is a rather sprawling city in its own right, and I thought I knew “big.” That lasted until the day I flew into Southern California for the first time to attend a conference, in Claremont, east of Los Angeles. The plane crossed over a mountain pass, and immediately below I could see the beginning of the urban carpet. From those mountains to the ocean shore, about 70 miles away, it seemed to be continuous city. Suddenly I knew what they meant by “greater Los Angeles.” Even though there are many independent cities in this conglomeration, they get bunched together for reference purposes. There is no hiding that this is a City.

Jesus tells His followers that this is what they are like. Something that absolutely cannot be overlooked. He mentions the city likeness to drive home the point about what kind of light He is calling His followers to be.

“You are the light of the world.”

We have all at some point been stuck in pitch darkness without a light. We know the power and attraction of discovering some small spot of light in that darkness. We are drawn to it. We cannot see in the darkness, but we can see in the light, so we move toward even the tiniest flicker of light.

And as believers we treat ourselves as Christ’s witnesses as if we are that little flickering candle. That little bright spot that others can see. Friendly, humble little wax candle, limited in scope, with a small magnitude of light. We can illuminate our little spot. That’s enough, right?

The truth is, we do behave like we’re trying to hide our lights away, to put them under baskets because we don’t want to be noticed. Jesus reminds us that nobody really does that with their lamps. He points out that the lamp is there to illuminate the whole house. It is mounted high, so the light can reach the far corners.

I always liked His humor in saying that nobody puts a lamp under a basket. Baskets, woven of dry, combustible materials are definitely not something you want to put over an open flame of any sort. Because you know what will happen in fairly short order – the lamp will set the basket on fire!

You are the light of the world.

Certainly, Jesus wants our behavior before others to reflect well upon our Lord. He says people should “see your good works and glorify our Father in heaven.” But notice that He makes that a consequence of our being light and not the definition of it. We ourselves are the light.

God created each of us to be individuals. He gave us each specific talents, a specific heart and desire. He doesn’t repeat Himself. Even identical twins end up having distinctions between them, because they are indeed individuals. Nobody else has had exactly the same experiences we have had, made exactly the same minute choices we each have made. And God prizes each individual.

That is what Jesus is calling “the light of the world.” The person you are, right down to the smallest part of you. Everything that you are was meant to be bright, shiny, glowing, beautiful in the darkness. There is nothing that you were made to be that is not of God’s light.

How much do we consider that? How much do we hide away for whatever reason? It doesn’t even have to be because we are ashamed of some aspect of our personality. It could simply be that there is something about ourselves that we do not value. So we “stick it in a corner” and neglect it. Maybe the World tells us that a particular aspect of our nature isn’t important, that it is worthless or ugly, that it isn’t useful. And we let their judgment of that override our sense of self, of who God created us to be.

Jesus tells us that our Father made us to be bright lights, to be people that cannot be overlooked.

And yet we hesitate about really being that noticeable. We’re willing to be the small flickering candle, because we can understand that, perhaps even control it. But little candles are easily snuffed out, whereas big cities on hills are not wiped out quite so casually. Is it that we fear the attention bright lights can bring? In an age that easily falls into worshipping celebrity, that craves attention, you would think that our reactions would be different when it comes to being “the light of the world.” But the thing is, we want to be in the light, so we can show off and then slip away. We don’t want to be the light.

Light is attractive in its own right. But it also shows the world around it as it really is. It drives away shadows that can hide realities. It exposes the nature of objects: something that looks handsome and solid when sitting in shadows is shown to be painted, feeble cardboard when it is brought into the light. Because not only is light beautiful, it has a job to do. And we don’t always want to be doing that job, perhaps because we think it might be difficult.

Jesus tells us that we are already the light. If we are the person God created us to be, we will by nature do the job of light. We will so shine that the people around us will wonder at it and know God made it so.

We need to stop trying to remake ourselves, stop trying to be what others want us to be. What we really need to do trust what God made us to be.

Are you hidden under a basket? You, the light of the world? Set that basket on fire.

 Be shiny.

HOW TASTY ARE YOU?


You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
(Matthew 5: 13 – NAS)

In the modern world, we are so rich in salt that we use it to excess, to the endangerment of our health. We appreciate what it can add to foods in terms of flavor, but we no longer register the other aspects of salt that made it so valuable to the ancient world.

And it was very valuable indeed. The word “salary” comes from a salt reference – it was the money paid Roman soldiers so that they could buy their personal supply of salt. The city of Venice built its trading empire on the production of salt. Celts in middle Europe became wealthy mining salt and trading it to the Mediterranean region.

Salt not only adds flavor to foods, it helps preserve them. This is part of what created its value. Mint adds flavor too, but it doesn’t have the power to keep meats edible as long as salt does. Salt is also important to the process of tanning animal skins, making them useful as garments.

Our bodies need a certain amount of salt. It helps us retain water in our cells, preventing dehydration. Because of its quality of absorbing fluids, it is useful in cleaning wounds (yes, it stings, but it helps dry out the wound).

So when Jesus calls his followers “the salt of the earth,” He is declaring that they are very valuable. He looks to them to accept their place as crucial parts of the society they are in.

It makes for an interesting question then: just how necessary are we to the people around us? What do we bring to their lives?

Salt brings out the flavor of a food. You could say that salt makes a food taste more like itself. Do we do that for the people around us, or do we try to make them into what we think they should be? Do we try and reshape them into being someone else, either some made-up personality or reflections of ourselves? It’s a danger mentors run into, making the mistake of creating mini-versions of themselves, instead of guiding their students into being more fully the individuals they were meant to be. As salt in this situation, we should be encouraging each other to be better, brighter versions of themselves, whatever that might be.

But more than that, salt also has its own flavor. If we are “salt,” what sort of flavor are we to those around us? Are we tasty and pleasing, or are we bitter and sour? Are we bland and flavorless, or exciting to encounter? Are we so distasteful that people find a single encounter is more than enough, or are we so flavorful that people keep returning to be with us?

How often do we think of this as a commandment from Jesus: “be the life of the party”? So often the person that gets tagged with that title is actually the pathetically dangerous drunk who has lost all restraints. But, to be the true life of a party or of any gathering, we would have to be that which brings life to others. In other words, function like salt.

What about the other qualities of salt? How well do we act like those? Are we any good at preserving things so that others can use them? Do we, by nature, take care to sustain those around us? Are we any good at cleansing wounds, whether they are physical, emotional or spiritual? Are we any good at drawing the toxicity out of a hurting soul and cleaning that heart so that it can be healed by God?

When Jesus calls us the salt of the world, there is so much more than being tasty, then. We have functions, duties, uses. And they are obligations that are subtle because they are part of the very fabric of life.

We should be nearly invisible as we go about our jobs as salt. For that is another quality of salt, it is for the most part without major color. It absorbs itself into fluids and substances, and doesn’t leave much visible trace – unless too much is used.

But Jesus has a warning for us as well. He reminded His followers that the salt they knew could lose its flavor and become useless.

We could stumble over this in the modern age, dismissing it, because our basic high school chemistry tells us that “salt is salt.” It doesn’t really change. This is where knowing a little bit of history and basic use becomes important to understanding what Jesus is talking about here. In His time, salt was not purified the way it is for us now. There were often minerals mixed in with the salt. Additionally, exposure to humidity could leach the salt off the minerals. If care was not taken to protect the salt, it was easy enough to lose those aspects of it which made it useful. What would be left when this sort of thing happened? Inedible particles of minerals and bitter salts. Nothing useful could be done with this, so it got tossed out the door into the walkways of the community.

When we are struggling with the basics of our own lives, we have a hard time thinking about this call from Jesus to be flavorful for other people. Where are the salt-people of our own lives, we wonder? But are we looking for the over-load of salt on a potato chip (a less than nutritious “comfort food”) or are we looking for the light seasoning that makes bland food better?

“You are the salt of the earth.” Go be tasty, useful, necessary, and nearly invisible as you work your saltiness.

THE COMPANY OF PROPHETS


Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you, because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.(Matthew 5: 11-12 – NAS)

After telling his followers that they are blessed when they are persecuted for standing in righteousness, he goes on with the cheerful news that they can expect even more persecution because they are His followers. It’s almost as if He is really challenging them, testing how deeply they are committed to following Him on the path He is showing them.

I’ve always thought that was the distracting thing about reading the Beatitudes. All those sentences beginning with “Blessed are” create this calm, serene atmosphere like an empty church sanctuary lit by warm light setting stained glass windows glowing. But then the qualities Jesus speaks of are nitty-gritty, down and dirty, hard-nosed actions. Perhaps that is one of the things that contributes to our not giving these verses close attention.

Everything that has come before this moment has had its pragmatic point. But here Jesus removes the last worldly veil of what He is talking about. Here He tells us that because of Him we are likely to become the targets of persecution. And not just attacks and hostility, but lies and slanders about our characters and actions, all because we follow Jesus. For that is what He means by “falsely saying all kinds of evil.”

Nobody likes to have their character or actions misrepresented. We do take pride in our integrity. It pleases us to shine in our own virtues, as it were. So when someone comes along and throws figurative mud on us, we do not take it well or easily. But Jesus warns us that even though we will be blessed because of those virtues, our commitment to following Him will also bring these unpleasant attacks.

He makes a point of comparing this “fate” to the treatment that the prophets were given in older times. Treated as outcasts, outlaws, disturbing personalities, the prophets of old rarely got soft treatment. Few people wanted to have a prophet in their house. But in the elder days, a prophet was also usually a selected individual, selected by God, and usually alone in his era.

But when Jesus tells His followers that they were likely to be treated the way the prophets had been treated, I think He is also indicating that unlike “those who were before you,” His followers were each blessed as prophets. No longer was the message from God to be brought to people by individual, isolated prophets, but rather every single follower of Jesus. They would be a company of prophets.

Suddenly, the mantle of Elijah falls not just to his chosen heir Elisha, but to every single person sitting there at the feet of this teacher from Galilee – and to all of us who follow Him even now.

Oh, my. Do we even consider that these days? Or do we just look at the part about being persecuted for the sake of Jesus? Ah, martyrdom! Pious images of the committed believer patiently enduring being stoned, as Stephen was. Deep in our commitment, we want to believe we can stand that ground and not give in and grovel for mercy. But let us remember that Stephen wasn’t silent as they killed him. Like one of the prophets of old, he continued getting his message out.

We may be willing to accept the possibility of being persecuted and lied about. But are we willing to be prophets? I don’t mean in the sense of fore-telling the future, but rather as being messengers of God. To really stand up in public and speak of what is important to the Lord?

We generally do not see prophets as being followers. They don’t sit quietly in pews listening to insightful instruction from pastors and then spend the rest of their week with their attention on their mundane job. They aren’t contented with singing praise songs in worship and then returning home to lunch and football games. Prophets stand up in the middle of things and take our attention off worldly things by talking – loudly – about God.

It would seem that Jesus expects us to have that kind of passion about our commitment to Him. But He also tells us to rejoice about this, because our reward in heaven will be great.

Now, that must be something indeed, for we know already that just being part of the kingdom of heaven is a great and marvelous thing to start with. Yet Jesus says that in all that glory, when we are persecuted because we are His followers, we shall be the great among the great, the glorified in the midst of glory.

These beatitudes challenge us about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And He gives us these challenges before He even unfolds the greater details of the way to live a godly life. He makes no pretense that this is going to be easy. He even goes so far as to say explicitly it will be difficult, painful, and possibly even deadly. But if we stick it out, our reward is great.

PERSECUTION AND AUTHORITY


Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.(Matthew 5: 10 -- NAS)

This is one of those points where what Jesus has to say boggles our minds. “Wait!” we exclaim, “Persecuted? I’m going to be persecuted? And you expect me to think of this as a good thing?” We really don’t want to go there.

Everyone at some point has felt put upon or bullied. Some have endured even more intense abuse. But are these necessarily “persecution”?

The term “persecution” gets used for a very focused pursuit with intent to cause injury and agony, usually because of the victim’s beliefs.

So, being harassed just because someone dislikes you is not the same thing as being persecuted, at least for what Jesus is talking about. And that’s an important thing to remember, the “for the sake of righteousness” qualifier that our Lord included in this statement. Many people who become the target of public criticism try to put on the cloak of self-righteousness, claiming to be “rising above” the perceived attacks. Is that what Jesus meant?

We looked at the matter of righteousness before, when we considered those who hunger and thirst for it. It’s that mixture of a sense of justice and balance, and a commitment to the divine order. There’s nothing in all that about our own ego or vanity or self-image. When we are committed to righteousness, we’re committed to God’s causes.

What Jesus upholds here then, are those who are willing to take a stand on principle, regardless of the social consequences. And he is pointing out that such a choice will bring persecution down upon you. There will always be those who have no interest in seeing righteousness prevail.

“Seeing righteousness prevail.” That’s very “churchy” talk there. What does it actually look like? What are those right things in the world, those divine things? Refusing to break the law, when peers are urging it, that could be one instance. But seriously, how often do our friends do that? Well, except for things like grabbing the handicapped parking spot even though no one in the car is disabled, because it’s “just a quick run in and out.” Or asking a friend to lie about your absence so you can attend the football game where you’ve got seats on the 50 yard line. All around us, every day, there are the tiny cracking sounds of little bits of rule-breaking. But surely they don’t matter.

The problem is that we get so comfortable with tiny instances of rule-breaking that we stop distinguishing when the matter becomes more serious. And that can be dangerous. If you’re standing on a sheet of ice, and you’ve been ignoring all the tiny cracks running away from your feet, all the small noises of fractures forming, you could very suddenly find yourself dropped straight down into icy cold water that could kill you very easily.

We really don’t like it when someone with us says “You shouldn’t be parking in the handicapped spot.” We get unhappy when our close friend says, “No, I’m not going to lie for you.” We feel put-upon unjustly, even though the reality is not injustice but rather our immediate desire being thwarted. We run into a brick wall, and think it is the wall’s fault for not moving.

When we set our hearts upon righteousness, and are willing to hold onto that, there will be moments when we have to say “no” to the small rule-breaking that everyone urges us to do. By choosing righteousness, we are, in a sense, making ourselves part of the “brick wall.” Are we ready to face what will come as a result of that?

People don’t necessarily like being reminded of righteousness. It isn’t comfortable, when that’s not the route they’re choosing. They don’t like the reminder that they could be better people than they are. They don’t like the reminder that their choices could be damaging to others. And when they are reminded, their impulse is to blot out the reminder, tear up the envelope, throw the annoying message into the trash.

In a word, persecute the righteous one.

Jesus says that the person who has made the choice to stand upon righteousness, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I’m not sure that’s a “reward” we find easy to grasp. What does He mean by that?

I don’t think He intended it as a consolation for enduring the slings and arrows of outraged self-indulgence. I think He’s giving an affirmation to those who make this choice, to be principled, to stand their ground, to hold to righteousness. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” If they possess heaven, then, that means they have some aspect of the authority of heaven. They are in command. God puts His power into the hands of these people who are willing to stand up for righteousness and become targets.

Underneath this verse lies the issue of martyrdom, those who are attacked and killed because of their beliefs. Many people take up the causes of righteousness and boldly declare their intention to stand their ground, no matter what. They proudly declare that they are quite willing to be “martyred” for righteousness sake. And Jesus was not blind to the fact that being killed was a possibility. But “dying for the cause” is not what He is looking at here. Look again at what He says.

“Blessed are those persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” It isn’t “Blessed are those killed for the sake of righteousness for they get to go to heaven.”

In that moment when we are being attacked because of our stand upon righteousness, what are we thinking? Are we focused on defending ourselves? Are we feeling powerless to have any effect on others, other than impressing us with our rock-solid commitment? Do we ever remember in that moment that we have the authority of heaven in our hands?

And if we do remember that we possess the kingdom of heaven in that moment, that we are the wielders of the authority of God, what do we do with it? Do we browbeat and chastise our persecutors? Do we mock and ridicule them for their efforts? Or do we try and do as the Lord has done, dispensing justice and mercy and love to them?

You make a commitment to the Lord, and stand your ground on His law, for “righteousness sake”. And someone comes after you, persistently attacking you because of that stand. The authority of heaven is in your hands, you possess it. What do you do with it?

MAKING PEACE


Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
(Matthew 5: 9 – NAS)

Few people really want to be peacemakers. It is not a fun task. And yet, when one steps in everyone is thankful that the person was there.

We’ve all been in family or social or work situations where a conflict has sprung up between two people. The reasons for the conflict don’t even matter. These two people are clashing in public and are affecting everyone around them. The atmosphere becomes uncomfortable, and usually the onlookers cannot escape. Sometimes, the conflict spreads, as the onlookers take up one side or the other. The chaos and anger expands outward, disrupting everything.

Who in their right mind wants to get into the middle of all that? Who wants to step up and get between fighters? Who wants to become the sudden target of everyone whose emotions are caught up in the battle?

Nobody.

Nobody wants to do that, I should say.

Conflict throws things out of balance. It causes everyone to lose their equilibrium. And we need to have that in order to move onward effectively in our lives.

So someone has to step up.

What does it take to be a peacemaker, to restore balance to a situation?

It takes a sense of vision, to be able to see both sides of a situation. It requires the ability to know how each side arrived at their current place. The Peacemaker needs to be able to determine where things “went off the rails.”

It isn’t possible to resolve every single conflict around us. Some clashes run very, very deep and are beyond the ability of any one person to bring back into balance. But we all have the capability of nudging things back toward the point of equilibrium.

Telling anyone that they are wrong – even when they are – is no easy task. Because most people stand at a point believing they have done everything right. Pointing out to them everything they have done wrong doesn’t help, because they can’t always see it. It takes work to get some who is in a conflict to even look at the causes for the conflict, because hurt feelings and a sense of self-righteousness get in the way of direct examination.

I don’t like the vibe of conflict around me. But that’s an incomplete statement, for I’m as willing as the next person to get into an argument with someone about an idea or a principle or a choice. I can be just as passionate about my opinions as the next person. But there often comes a point when the arguments and disagreements move beyond mere contention and move into outright battle. And that’s where I prefer to stop. It isn’t that I fear being destroyed, though. I fear my ability to destroy others. I don’t care if I get wounded – well, not much, because I can recover from a wound. But how do I recover from so crushing someone that they bleed out (figuratively speaking)? Because I know I am just as capable as the next person in delivering such a blow. I pay attention to those around me, and I often know exactly what their weak spot might be. I’ve even been known to take jabs at those points, when I’ve been down, distress, and feeling resentful. Not a pretty picture.

But in knowing how easy it is to damage and crush someone, I find that the prospect of doing it gives me no pleasure at all. I want to get back to a balance where I can enjoy things.

And that is what can motivate someone to step in and risk being attacked by both sides of a conflict. It is the search for balance for everyone.

Making peace does not mean that everyone has to walk away all happy and lovey-dovey. That isn’t always possible. Sometimes, making peace consists of getting both sides to agree and acknowledge that neither will get everything they want, but yet a working balance can be achieved between them. This doesn’t have to be done in big ways, for even small things can have big consequences.

I once knew a man who, when I got to know him, spoke of his ex-wife almost always as “Annie’s mother” (Annie being the daughter they had together – and yes, the name has been changed here). Since he and I and the ex-wife (by this time happily remarried) all moved in the same social circles, I found his circumlocution ... disappointing, to put it mildly. It was, I felt, a way for him to deny his ex-wife’s personhood, and it didn’t really do any of them, or me, any good. So I refused to play along. I never said to him, “She has a name.” (Or at least I don’t think I did.) Instead, if she came up in conversation, I would refer to her by name. The change was not immediate, but gradually, as he became more willing to speak his ex-wife’s name, he also became more willing to be publicly gracious to her and get on with his own life. I like to feel I contributed a little bit to that, by restoring a balance that had been lost.

It’s one thing to do this when you are the disinterested third party, not directly in conflict with either of the contenders. It’s quite another thing to be the peacemaker when you are one of the parties in conflict.

To become the peacemaker in that circumstance means cultivating the ability to step back and examine one’s own behavior. It isn’t fun being honest with yourself about a clash you have with someone else. On top of that, the other person is often resentful and doesn’t want to deal with you. But if balance and peace are important to you, you shouldn’t put it off. You have to be honest both about your own actions and acknowledging how they obviously were received and about the actions of the other person and how they set you off. I’m not talking about accusing the other person of anything but rather simply a “When you did this, this is how I reacted, how I felt. And that’s why I then did this other thing.” Avoiding the matter of who is right or wrong means that the other person doesn’t have to dig in their heels to defend themselves. This is a harder process.

But look what Jesus says about those who can do this – “they shall be called sons of God.” Okay, so he was speaking to a patrilinear society where the position of women was rather subordinate, particularly in matters of inheritance. In one of his letters, Paul makes clear that the inheritance extends to all believers, and I think this is what Jesus is speaking to here. The Peacemakers shall be called the immediate heirs of the God of Creation.

What a splendiferous thing that is! If we choose to exercise this quality, we shall be seen and named as being of the direct family of God. Now that is a blessing indeed. Are you bold enough to reach for it?