Leviticus 19:1–2, 9–18; Psalm 119:33–40; 1 Corinthians
3:10–11, 16–23; Matthew 5:38–48
As I have been thinking about the
scriptures for today, I have also been watching the Olympics. Some of the
events are pretty “normal” – figure skating, downhill skiing, hockey, curling,
combinations of skiing and shooting. Some of them fall into what is for me the
arena of extreme sports. Snowboarding half-pipe, where the goal is to use
physics to fly above the snow and spin and somersault in the air; short-track
skating where the action is so fast I wonder why so few go flying off the
track. Extreme sports test the will and skills of the competitors.
In this text, I suggest that Jesus is
calling us into extreme giving, extreme loving, and extreme holiness. He is
challenging the interpretation in his time of the Hebrew Scripture. People, then
and now, have a tendency to brag that they have the right to poke out someone’s
eye if the other person made them lose an eye. It’s called retaliation.
The original intent of this type of
law, called lex talionis, is to limit
the amount of violence. The loss of an eye should not result in the loss of
life, for example. But, Jesus is saying that we should not answer violence with
violence. That simply contributes to a cycle of unending violence.
In a more positive sense, this means we
should give more than is asked for. Extreme giving is described in the passage
from Leviticus: leave enough of your crop for the needy to harvest, so they can
feed themselves. In other words, give some of what you have, so others can live.
Give your coat, and your cloak,
Jesus says. Since most of the people Jesus was talking to had very little
clothing, they were being told to give up a significant portion of their
belongings. In today’s setting, perhaps Jesus is saying, give up your tablet and
your cell phone, or your car and your truck, or your Social Security and
your retirement. In other words, be willing to give up an extreme portion of
your possessions.
There’s a story about a Lutheran pastor
who is talking with a wealthy parishioner. The pastor has just learned that the
parishioner gave $1 million to Robert Schuler, to help build the Crystal
Cathedral. The pastor asks the parishioner why he didn’t give that money to
their church. The man replies, “You never asked me, and Schuler did.” While the
man certainly had plenty of money left, a million dollars is to me a pretty
extreme gift. I don’t want any of you to accuse me of never asking. So, if you
have money you are thinking of giving away, I’m asking. Hope is still here in
great part due to the generosity of those who made substantial gifts.
Jesus says, love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you. What is more extreme than loving your enemy? Of
course, for that to make sense, we first have to identify who our enemy is. It
was hard for us in class to identify a real enemy. Of course there is al Qaeda,
and similar terrorist groups, but in our real world, we don’t give them a lot
of thought. They are extreme enemies, and it takes extreme love to forgive
them.
So, we need to define enemy differently.
What happens when I ask: against whom do you have a grudge? Who is hard to
forgive? Even if we have forgiven, it is still hard to forget the hurt. These
folks are our enemies, too. These folks deserve our prayers … not a prayer that
they would agree with us, but that we both would be healed. This is extreme
loving.
In recent weeks, there has been a lot
of conflict in Kiev, Ukraine. The people have been demonstrating against the
leadership, because the leaders have been too controlling. The conflict has
been violent, with a number of deaths. The priests have tried to intervene,
literally standing in the gap between the two groups, between the army and the
rebels. Thankfully, perhaps because of so many prayers, there has been a
resolution to the conflict. Now, we can pray for the new goals to be
implemented.
The other day there was an incident
along the highway. In a traffic slowdown, a mother heard her infant stop
breathing. He wasn’t feeling well and he had been screaming. Suddenly, he was
silent. The mother pulled off the road and got into the back seat, where the
baby was already turning blue.
She panicked, and couldn’t think. She
stood shouting for help outside her car. Another women stopped and helped out.
She had recently taken a course in CPR, so she knew how to breathe and give chest
compressions on the baby. Other drivers called 911, so there soon was professional
help. In spite of the hurry to get to wherever they were going, a number of
people stopped and helped. They shared of themselves and offered the sick baby
some extreme love.
Of course, the best example of extreme
love is Jesus himself, who gave up his life so that we all might know the
extent of God’s love for us. We are not called necessarily to literally give up
our lives for Jesus, but we are called to give and love extremely.
At the end of this portion of the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus urges us to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is
perfect. I strive for perfection, and at times suffer from an obsessive need
for some things to be perfect. Not all things – as my desk readily witnesses. But
this need to be perfect is not what Jesus is talking about. He is referring to
the perfection of holiness. In Leviticus, God’s people are called to be holy,
as God is holy.
Sometimes, we get into a tizzy thinking
about how imperfect we are. We sin in big and small ways all the time. We
think, there is no way we can be perfect, no way we can be as holy as God calls
us to be. Jesus is really saying, he knows we cannot be perfect as humans
define perfection, or as holy as humans define holiness. But through Jesus’ extreme
sacrifice and extreme love and extreme giving, we are perfect enough, we are
holy enough in God’s eyes.
It is not what we do or don’t do that
makes us holy or perfect. It is what Jesus has done. It is how much God loves
us. We are perfect, we are holy because that is how God sees us. We love,
because of how much God loves us. We give, because of how much God gives to us.
This week, you may not have an
opportunity to offer extreme love, or to give to the extremes, but watch for
times when you can love and give a bit extra. Watch for examples of loving and
giving by others. Love and give this week because you are already holy; you are
already perfect.
Please pray with me. Loving God, we
give you thanks for your extreme love and care for us. Thank you for accepting us
as we are. Help us see opportunities to be loving and giving to others. Amen
