The Hits Keep Coming

We last left Jesus preaching against anger, lust, divorce, lying, and anything that separates us from our neighbor in yesterday’s Gospel lesson. We have to lay down our gift at the altar and deal with anything we are holding against our neighbor before we can be right with God. My colleague Evan gave such a clear message about our need to see this, as he said “there is a brokenness among us that can only be healed if we recognize that victory for our side isn’t as important as communion with the other.” After such a profound and pointed message from Jesus within his Sermon on the Mount, I am sure that when we open up the Lectionary to see this coming Sunday’s Gospel it will be a piece of cake… 

What? Are you serious? In this passage from Matthew Jesus says, “Turn the other cheek,” and “Give your cloak as well,” and “Go also the second mile,” and “Give to everyone who begs from you,” and “Love your enemies,” and “Pray for those who persecute you” and to top it all off, “Be perfect!” Come on man! Seriously? Could we not get a week of “It is okay to be mad at those who are mean to you.”? Or, perhaps “If someone slaps you it is appropriate to hit them back.”? How about “Be pretty good, for you are a pretty good person.” I mean this is asking a lot of us. And, in all seriousness that is precisely the point of discipleship, of following Jesus, and of taking on our true nature as a child of God. Being a Christian is not a hobby that we take up in our spare time!

As we travel through this part of Matthew we may feel as though the hits keep coming, and that every week Jesus ups the ante. We experience this sentiment because it is true. Discipleship as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount requires not just more and more of us, but all of us as we grow closer and closer to God and to one another. The examples Jesus used of how to follow God in everyday interactions with one another push us to examine how we treat ourselves, our families and friends, and our neighbors. A full life, a life in Christ, does not consist of retribution, vengeance, and defensiveness, but something else entirely.

To be a follower of Jesus calls us to live detached from the automatic, instinctive response when others treat us with disrespect, anger, or meanness. Not responding to disrespect with disrespect or anger with anger or meanness with meanness cannot happen overnight, nor can it happen on our own. We must live life differently than how we so often live. We instinctively follow the impulses in response to our thoughts, feelings, emotions, conditions, situations, or other persons. To turn the other cheek is to ignore the rage that wells up inside of us when we are mistreated, so how do we do this?

Jesus ends this passage with the answer to this question: being perfect (and this deserves more exploration throughout this week). Perfection is the way that we must live our lives if we wish to live differently than the world around us; however, perfection is not what we may think it is. It is not a perfect score, like on a standardized test or in Olympic Gymnastics, nor is it pitching a perfect game like in baseball (Pitchers and catchers report today by the way!), nor is it any other human measure of being really good at something. Perfection in the Father is about one thing: fulfillment. Being fulfilled not by the result or the outcome, but by growing ever deeper in relationship with our true self, our neighbors, and our God. Let us be fulfilled by our Almighty Parent!