February 23, 2014 – Matthew 5:38-48
Matthew 5:38-48
Grow Up!
7th Sunday after Epiphany – February 23rd, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The Shock Rocker (and, I believe, son of a Lutheran pastor) Alice Cooper, once said:
Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy.
But being a Christian, that’s a tough call. That’s rebellion.
He might have been talking about the place we’ve gotten to in the Sermon on the Mount.
Yikes!
Jesus sounds a little rebellious here as he outlines what life in God’s reign looks like.
Here’s Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message for you:
Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
Jesus is envisioning for us here a new reality, a new way of living and being together,
rather than the one we’re currently in.
This is a reality in which good overcomes evil, in which love overcomes hatred,
a reality in which God’s Spirit is with us.
Jesus is not advocating weakness here, but strength: the strength to love.
He certainly doesn’t mean that we should ever condone the abuse of the weak,
or that we should be doormats for others to walk on.
Rather, what he’s saying is that Christian disciples should never let
someone else’s vile behaviour give rise to a similarly vile response.
Instead, return evil with good.
Let your responses always be conditioned by the people God has made you to be:
people of blessing, of salt, of light.
A people of dignity, and honour, and strength, and love.
Jesus continues in Peterson’s translation:
You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best – the sun to warm and the rain to nourish – to everyone regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the loveable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that.
In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.
I love Peterson’s translation of “Be perfect” as “Grow up,” which is probably better.
Better still would be a translation that captures the promise in the Greek:
You will grow up. You will. You will become mature.
“Be perfect” isn’t so much a command to be morally perfect,
or technically perfect like an Olympic figure skater.
It is more a promise that in Christ you will grow up and mature into what you were meant to be,
like a tree that grows up and matures so that it can bear good fruit,
which is what it is meant to be and to do.
Remember, Jesus names us blessed, and names us salt, and names us light right at
the beginning of this Sermon on the Mount.
Here he is promising that if we live our lives in him, we will become that.
We will grow up, we will mature, we will bear good fruit when
Jesus’s life takes root and grows in ours.
As I’ve said many times before, Jesus sure seems to have a lot confidence in us.
Jesus is confident that we were made for the job of loving and blessing and healing this world
and every person in it.
Sometimes – okay, a lot of that time – that confidence seems misplaced.
But the thing is, though, that that confidence, I think, is based in God, not really in us.
The confidence is placed, I think, in who God is, and who this God has made us to be.
God made us in God’s image.
God made us in order to reflect this God’s character.
Who makes us is important.
Who makes the child’s car seat is important: you need to trust that person!
Who makes the carbuerator is important: you need to trust that person!
Who makes the wine is important: you need to trust that person!
You need to trust that the car seat has been made in such a way that it will fulfill its purpose:
to keep your child safe.
You need to trust that the carbeurator has been made in such a way that it will fulfill its purpose:
to enable the car to go!
You need to trust that the wine has been made in such a way that it will fulfill its purpose:
to give delight.
You need to trust that you have been made in such a way that you will fulfill your purpose:
to reflect the character of the triune God.
That is what you’re for.
To grow, to mature, into the character of the triune God.
Jesus gives us a glimpse, I think, into the character of the triune God this morning.
Within God’s very self, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit relate to one another
in very specific ways.
Within God’s very self, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit love one another with a perfect love.
Within God’s very self, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit share generously with one another everything they have.
Within God’s very self, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit go the extra mile with one another.
Within the triune life of God, there is no stealing but only liberal sharing.
Within the triune life of God, there is no exploitation but mutual honouring.
Within the triune life of God, there is no marginalizing of any person,
but perfect acceptance and inclusion and equality.
Within the triune life of God, there are no enemies.
Now: imagine a community – imagine a world – that reflects that God.
It’s what we’ve been made for:
the Christian doctrine of the Triune God and that God’s creation of the world and
the making of human beings in that God’s image affirms that.
The Christian writer Daniel Clendenin invites us to imagine a community that reflects this God.
Imagine a community where people didn’t steal, but rather shared liberally with others in need. Think what work would feel like if witnesses never gave false testimony and judges didn’t accept bribes. Dream about a world where women and girls were not trafficked for profit, and where the aged, the alien and the infirm were honored instead of marginalized.
(at http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml)
Imagine a world where there were no enemies.
Where every person placed the welfare of every other single person as highly as their own.
Imagine a world where there was no retaliation.
Where people seek to bring out the best in one another rather than the worst.
Jesus doesn’t care that that sounds completely unrealistic.
Jesus looks you in eye this morning and says:
Hey! The whole point of my being here is to invite you into the life of the triune God!
So start living it already!
Let me live in you – and I will live it for you.
It’s what you’ve been made for.
You have it in you.So grow up! Grow up into me and into the life you were created to live.
Okay, yes: it’s tough. This is a tough call.
Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy.
But being a Christian: that’s a tough call.
When your neighbour is lonely it’s easier to stay home and drink beer alone.
When the hungry have nothing to eat, it’s easier to trash your hotel room.
But in so doing, you’re trashing your life.
Jesus is saying, Get out there! Live generously!
Don’t trash your life and consign it to the trash heap! You’re worth way more than that!
Jesus is calling us to live in communion with one another the way that
the members of the triune God are in communion with one another.
It’s why the church is so important:
reflecting the life of the triune God can only be done in community.
It’s not something that can be done alone: you can’t really be a Christian without the church.
When Paul says this morning that you are God’s temple, the you is plural, not singular.
Together – by the way you live together, reflecting the life of the triune God together –
together is how you become a place where the triune God dwells.
This afternoon we’ll have our Annual General Meeting,
and so the questions we must ask are:
Does our life together and does our budget reflect the Triune God’s character?
The triune God’s generosity? The triune God’s love? The triune God’s honouring of all people? The triune God’s constant reaching out in love?
Alice Cooper was right: this is a tough call.
So come: come to the table and let that life of communion and generosity and feeding and
forgiving take root in your own as it is given you as a free gift from the Triune God.
Let that life take root in you and grow into something beautiful,
something that bears nourishing fruit.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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