20 February Matthew 5:38-48

20 February Matthew 5:38-48

My recent study at seminary has given me the wonderful assignment to hear your stories, your stories about your faith and this church. Though we have a ways to go, I’m hearing again and again your fascinating stories of a deep and rich faith in God and an unshakable love for Genesis Church, for our history, and an unwavering commitment to staying together.

I’m also beginning to learn more about you, intimately and personally, and how your compelling stories of steadfastness have woven you to be who you have become. Throughout these visits and in our informal conversations, I hear again and again the important stories that have formed your life, grounded your faith, and brought you to proudly say, we are this church, this is our home, we love one another and we wouldn’t be anywhere else.

As you speak your mind, I have heard you use distinct words and phrases. Though different, you all speak with your own unique and individual voice as you are describing, explaining and professing the facts, beliefs and the feelings in your lives. While there are common themes, there is no one voice, no single phrase or term you have all used.

That is not true of Jesus. In these weeks we’ve spent with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has often repeated the same familiar refrain when speaking with his followers. It is sort of a yes, but statement. Jesus uses it to draw us in, “You have heard that it was said,” and then to set us apart, “But I say to you…”

So often Jesus will acknowledge what this world is saying about life and faith and then stop us in our thinking with his, “But, I say to you.” Jesus sets us up to recognize ourselves, our stories, the way we view life, the way we find our lives to have unfolded in this time and space only to then say, yes, but, I say to you there is another truth, there is another way, there is another life for you to consider.

The Sermon on the Mount has grown to be larger than we can live. How often as our life unfolds has someone told us, yes, but. How often have we heard society tells us, in the all too familiar tapes, to look out for number one?

Then Jesus interferes, “Yes, but”, listen instead to my opposition teaching, the teaching we all learn when we come to church with phrases like; “Turn the other cheek.” “Go the second mile.” “Love your enemies.” “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

We understand the point, we know the teaching, we’ve been told again and again - difficult, yes, but, all things are possible with God. But, we aren’t God, and some days we don’t feel we are even with God. Far too many days, we feel utterly alone in this world.

Alone, yes, but not so alone. You see, we have our own yes, but, responses, don’t we. Love our enemies? But wait, surely not these ones. They are such enemies. Respond to body blows opening ourselves up to more blows? But wait, surely we are not to stand for abuse. Pray for our persecutors? But wait, they persecute, surely they are to be judged!

With these justifications on our lips we never quite hear Jesus’ final command. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Yes, but, wait, like the woman in the car insurance commercial claims, I was perfect all along!

Now it’s Jesus’ turn. He has heard it said, by us, how justified we have made ourselves. Yes, but, Jesus says, listen to my commands. And he means it.

We do listen to Jesus’ commands, we know them well. It’s just that we are surrounded by the reinforcement that in this world, in this time and place, it is all about me, or you. Yet, we know all too well that there is little perfect about us or our station in life or even our potential. We are inherently flawed, aren’t we? Yes, but, Jesus offers us an alternative. Jesus offers that today we can be perfect. Yet, we resist.

Barbara Essex, Minister for Higher Education and Theological Education for the United Church of Christ counters Jesus’ claim with her reminders, “it is easier to be mean, hold grudges, ignore those in need. If we give to everyone who begs, we will have nothing left for ourselves. If we turn the other cheek, we will get slapped again, if we get sued, we are hiring the best lawyer we can afford to find a loophole in our favor. If we love our enemies, we will be more persecuted or even killed. If we are too nice, we will be seen as weak, a pushover, a doormat.

Jesus doesn’t say what the payoff will be: to inherit the reign of God. What do we get for loving, forgiving, being kind and gracious, and offering generosity?

And what about the claim to perfection, anyway? How many of us have labored under the burden of the elusive quest for perfection, be it for grades, the right job, the right spouse, or house or kids, only to realize the folly, the vanity of it all. Then, being reduced to depression and feelings of unworthiness and failure, we dig ourselves deeper into despair. Yes, but, others will say, “I’m only human.”

Jesus will not let us get away with any of our excuses. Jesus has climbed to the top of the mountain to teach us. To teach us, in no uncertain terms, in God’s community there are people who think of others first. In God’s community decisions and actions are made for the common good. For in God’s place, all are sister and brother to one another and act out of love.
For Jesus, this love he preaches is possible due to the overpowering love of God, who is perfect love.

As we are reminded, we are able to be gracious, forgiving, hospitable, and generous because we are children of the God who showers us with abundant grace, mercy, love, and protection. Once we know God’s love in these ways, we can love our enemies; once we experience God’s forgiveness, we can forgive those who persecute us; once we realize God’s gift of generosity, we can give back to those who have little or nothing. We become able to do these things because in Jesus Christ, we live in God’s community of believers.

Even here, Jesus has a yes, but, teaching for us. Yes, these things are true, “but I say to you”. You no longer have to rely on hearsay, the written word alone, what your elders teach you, or what your preachers preach to you. To understand God and God’s will for us and for all people and for all creation we simply have to look and listen to Jesus. Jesus alone.

Yes, but, we want to say. We have to stay up on our current events, we have to listen to the experts or we will lose everything. We are present here and now. Jesus, well, Jesus has been silent for so long.

Dear ones. God’s word was made flesh. God’s word, made flesh, continues to live in our midst. Here. Now. God’s word is Jesus Christ. Alive, in us, here with us, for us, present and moving us toward our fulfillment as a Christian community. Within us are the marks of those fully embraced by God and empowered by God’s will. We have that mark upon us, received at our baptism, nourished as we come to table to receive the body and blood of our savior, empowered, energized and directed by God’s will.

There, I see it, in each of you. You wear your mark, your story, on your face, you tell your story by your blessing, you live your story by your duty, your calling to faithful discipleship, you wear it in your Christian maturity that results in more and more Godlike behaviors and motivations. It is there, you told me of it, you have shown it to me in your love for God, for one another and this church. Sorry, you cannot play your “yes, but,” card here.

We who profess Jesus as Lord and Savior cannot play a “yes, but” card because Jesus does not seek to set impossible goals for us. Jesus does not seek to shame folk who cannot reach perfection. No, instead, Jesus sets forth God’s vision of God’s world, where love, genuine and unconditional love, reigns. Jesus set forth God’s vision of God’s world, where to be perfect is not to add pressure to already overwhelmed lives; no, it is to assure us that we are not alone in the world and that God continues to work in and through us.

Barbara Essex reminds us, “Perfection is less about getting things right and more about living as God loves, and Jesus is God’s concrete example of that love.” And we are God’s concrete example of that love to one another and to those desperate for this Good News.

The world has seen us be that example. The stories we have heard: the survivor of a violent crime who is able to forgive her tormenter; black South Africans who work with their former oppressors to rebuild their country; the Mother Teresa’s of the world who give selfless service to outcasts; those who live modestly so they can contribute to the well-being of the less fortunate; and those who make a choice to commit random acts of kindness. And this church, rising like a phoenix to serve others.

Missionaries, who have grown up in the poorest of slums in Brazil, have been asked how they could live among the poorest of the world’s poor without danger of being robbed. They have said, “Simple. You can’t own anything anyone would want to steal. Lend to anyone who asks, give to all who want to borrow. Then you can live among God’s poor and receive the blessing of possessing nothing. For Jesus, God incarnate, possesses nothing, except our hearts.”

We are surrounded by our own stories from our upbringing, from our formative years through our adult life, random acts of love where we’ve experienced God’s realm as already alive and active and filled with grace.

Jesus’ teaching this morning is not an indictment; it is a voice of promise, a good news story to the world that offers the real possibility that we may love the world as God has loved us – fully, richly, abundantly, and completely.

A good news story, not to seek the perfection this world may allude to, but to seek the perfection of God’s pure love, a perfection God offers to us, a perfect love so powerfully available to us, that when we embrace it, I say to you, we become filled with God’s perfect son, our loving Lord and savior, Jesus, our Christ. This is the one story card God wants us to play.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Additional resources:
“Feasting on the Word”, Year A, Volume 1, D. Bartlett and B. Taylor, eds., pgs. 380 – 385.



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