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“Guided by Love” Rev Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany—February 20, 2011 Matthew 5:38-48 “Guided by Love” Rev. John C. Wohlrabe, Jr., Th.D. Worship Report May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. The text for our message today is from the Gospel lesson read a bit ago. Friends of Jesus and Friends of Mine: The text for today is one of those portions of Scripture that I suspect you read through, scratch your head, and say, “Well, that doesn’t make much sense;” then you go on to something else without really thinking about what Jesus intended by those words and what they mean for you. Picture, if you will, a family who is facing a serious dilemma based on this command of Jesus! This is something that has been in the news a lot lately. The mom and dad have taught their son, Bobby, a strong, healthy fourth grader, that as a Christian he is always to turn the other cheek. Bobby does his best to practice this. Then, one day, the bully of the school finds out that he has someone here whom he can use as a punching bag. So day-after-day on the way home from school the bully picks on this Christian boy. And day-after-day, Bobby tries his best not to fight back. Day-after-day he comes home hurt because of what this bully has done. The mom and dad are perplexed. “Here are the words of Jesus; here is our son. What do we do?” I think that if many of us, particularly if we are Bobby’s grandparents, were visiting when Bobby came home with a black eye, we might “him-and-haw” and then mumble something like, “Well, you have to defend yourself. Jesus didn’t intend that Bobby get hurt like that. Why don’t you as Bobby’s parents, just tell him to haul off and punch the bully? Even if Bobby loses the fight, the bully will probably leave him alone, because bullies are generally cowards anyway.” But, afterward we would probably be unhappy with that answer. You and I as Christians are called by Christ to be different from the world; but that was the same kind of answer anyone else would have given. As we read through the Gospel lesson for today, we see other potential dilemmas lurking there: such as not only giving your coat to someone who asks, but your cloak as well; and we are to go two miles for someone who forces us to go one mile; and we are not to refuse anyone who would borrow from us. On top of this, we are to love our enemy and pray for our persecutor! Those words are extremely difficult, and we need to look more closely at what Jesus is saying. I suspect that we deal with “cheek turning” and all the other commands of Jesus listed here in his Sermon on the Mount in one of three ways. The first way is that we follow them when it is convenient, but when they become difficult, then we ignore them. If you are employed in a place where many people work closely with one another, you know that you need to turn your cheek many times. Marriages and family life require a lot of cheek turning, not from physical hitting hopefully, but from things that are said or done. Someone makes a thoughtless, insensitive statement and you let it go. A neighbor borrows something from you, and never returns the item. You may get angry, but you turn the other cheek; at least you do so for awhile. But eventually, resentment builds up, and like a pressure cooker that has no relief valve, suddenly, one day, you explode harshly because all that accumulated anger and bitterness finally has to get out. At that point, you ignore what Jesus says. And yet, the words of Jesus are still there: “Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” A second option is that we try hard, and maybe even succeed outwardly, but we still fail inwardly. This is what is happening with this Christian family dealing with the bully. I’m sure they are extremely frustrated and angry. They are angry at the bully; and I suspect that they may even be angry at Jesus for having given this command. They live in a sinful world, and they know that. There are people who will take advantage of other people, particularly Christians, and Jesus knew that too, even as he spoke these words. Maybe Bobby and his parents thought the bully would reform, that he would see Bobby’s conduct and would say, “There is a Christian. I’m going to change my life.” But, that wasn’t happening. The Christian parents took this word, this law, to its conclusion, and the conclusion wasn’t working for them. Plus, as we saw last week when we talked about the section of the Sermon on the Mount just before this, we can’t control the evil thoughts and sentiments in our hearts, even when we may control our actions. Anger and hatred in our hearts toward our neighbor are still forms of murder, even as is lashing out with our fists. You and I can undoubtedly predict what would eventually happen in the story of the bully and the young Christian boy, Bobby. One day Bobby will get fed up with being hurt and will punch the bully. The bully will go away and leave him alone. The conclusion that Bobby will draw from this is really harmful for his Christian faith. He is going to say, “Well, the things in the Bible are fine, but they belong to a special, spiritual world. In the real world, they don’t work.” So on Sunday he will join his mom and dad and other fellow Christians and sing “Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to Thee;” but during the rest of the week he is going to live without the Word of God informing his daily actions. He may even conclude, “This is a dog-eat-dog world. I’ve got to look out for myself first. Do it to them before they do it to me.” Faith and life will then be totally separated in Bobby’s life. This happens – probably more often than we would like to think! A third option in dealing with the command to turn the other cheek is to admit that we can’t keep this Word of Jesus. Our Lord concluded this section of the Sermon on the Mount with words that simply won’t let us dismiss his commands nor allow us to keep them only partially. After all of these hard sayings, Jesus concludes: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” These words of Jesus eliminate the first option, that of ignoring his command. They also eliminate the second option of putting religion into a compartment just for Sunday mornings. The will of God is unbending. It enters into every area of life. The Law’s function is to show us our sins. It can never provide a solution in and of itself because we are by nature sinful. It can only show us that there is no solution to be found in our keeping of the Law. The Law reveals our complete helplessness and our need for a Savior. That is why Jesus came into our world. He came not to remove the Law, but to keep the Law for us. The Bible says that “While we were yet sinners,” while we weren’t turning the other cheek, God’s Son came for us sinners. He was reviled, but he did not revile back. Jesus is the greatest cheek turner that the world will ever know! His death on the cross was as our substitute, in our place, taking the full wrath of God over our sin. In Jesus Christ, God turns his cheek for us and our sins. Yet, the family who had the problem with the bully is a Christian family. They are looking at the command of Jesus from this side of the cross. They weren’t saying, “if we keep this Law, then we will be saved.” They know they are saved only by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. They were saying rather, “Because we are Christians, therefore, out of love and gratitude for God’s love towards us, we should turn the other cheek.” Only Christians can say that! But, there is still something wrong here. This family is making the rule the final word. To live only by rules and laws in our lives as Christians is to say that nothing else matters, nothing else needs to be considered except for the keeping of these rules and laws. The other people who may be involved don’t matter, the bully doesn’t matter, even our faith in Christ as our Savior doesn’t matter, only the keeping of the rule matters. But, when we think like that, we become like scribes and the Pharisees. Some time ago, a famous playwright and his wife were mugged on the streets of New York City. The wife was horribly beaten by the attackers. Afterward, she praised her husband who had done nothing to help her, because she claimed he had remained true to his pacifist beliefs.
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