An Illuminating Episode (Matthew 17:1 - 9)

     This week was the anniversary of the death of the most beloved Presbyterian minister of the last century ... do you all know who that is?  Of course ... it was Fred Rogers, and on his show, he used to have a word of the day.  He’d be addressing the camera, maybe putting on his sweater or his tennies, and he’d say “The word for today is ‘cow’” and he’d ask us “can you say cow?” and then a beat: “I knew you could.”  And I liked the word of the day so much that I decided we needed one for today, so our word of the day is “intertextual.”  Can you say intertextual?  I knew you could . . . and though Mr. Rogers would have had a cool little low-tech puppet show about it, you’ll just have to be content with this boring old sermon . . .

     But why “intertextual?”  Well, it describes a way of reading scripture that all us seminary types are taught, but doesn’t get much play out in the pews . . . We usually read the Bible in chunks we call passages, isolated one from another.  Problem is, that’s not usually the way it was meant to be understood.  Though few—if any—writers of scripture knew what they wrote would end up as scripture, they were all written with a body of literature in mind.  The books and letters we call the New Testament were written with the Old Testament Scriptures in mind; thus the themes and events depicted in the Christian scriptures echo, play off-of, and play around with themes and events in the Hebrew Scriptures.  In a similar way, part of a New Testament book will often reference another part of itself or, indeed, another book in the New Testament altogether.

     If we don’t pay attention to these things, we miss a large part of the meaning intended by the author.  It’s like in a film, when you’ve seen an actor before, you can’t help but be affected by it, you can’t help but make the connection, even if only on a subconscious level, and it colors how you view the present film.  Filmmakers take advantage of this all the time, most obvious when an actor is cast against type . . . nice-guy Tom Hanks was cast as a mob killer in The Road to Perdition, and it gave the role part an extra resonance, another layer of depth . . . and the director wanted this to happen, was counting on it . . . and so writers of Scriptures counted on their audiences to get the intertextuality, to make the connections, to add that little extra fillip of meaning to their own writing.

     And today’s passage is the poster-child for intertextuality, it’s positively lousy with the stuff, so it behooves us--as the careful biblical scholars we are--to take it into account.  First, the most obvious, the Old-Testament angle . . . who else do we know who had a theophany on a mountain top?  Of course, we just heard it a few minutes ago . . . Moses goes up onto the mountain, and a cloud covers the mountain, and the glory of the Lord settles on Mt. Sinai . . . and the cloud covers it for six days, and on the seventh day—get it, seven?  The earth was created in that many days, so the establishment of the law is the new creation?—on the seventh day, the day God rested, God calls out of the cloud . . . and it’s during those 40 days on Mt. Sinai that the Hebrew religion is established . . . a new creation indeed . . .

     In our passage, Matthew is careful to situate Jesus’ mountaintop experience “six days later,” and six days later than what, you ask, and if we read just before our passage, we see that the transfiguration happens six days after Jesus predicts his own second coming: “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.”  And now—six days later, on the seventh day—Jesus trudges up the mountain, and as with Moses, a cloud has descended upon the mountain, and God speaks out of the cloud, just like with Moses, and it’s clear that we’re supposed to read this as a new creation, just like with Moses.  And is it conceivable that Matthew also wants us to view Jesus as a kind of a new Moses . . . perhaps bringing a new covenant?

     In a few minutes, we will take the bread and break it and take the cup and pour it and it is indeed the new covenant in Christ’s blood . . . and ours is the new covenant, and Jesus is the new Moses . . . and as if to emphasize that fact, there’s Moses up there with him, and Elijah to boot, and here’s Jesus hob-nobbing with the two greatest figures in Israelite history, or at least two pretty great ones, anyway, and again, the message is clear:  Jesus is of a kind with Moses—who brought the Law—and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets.  He’s right up there with the law and the prophets, one with them, in a sense . . . it’s like all those political endorsements with the candidate being photographed with the movie star . . . Jesus is of a kind with the Moses and Elijah, with law and prophets.

     And Peter’s down with that, he’s cool with it, so much so that he wants to build three booths—our translation has dwellings, but it’s better as booths—he wants to build them booths, one for Jesus and one for Moses and one for Elijah, he wants them to stay together—perhaps to celebrate metaphorically the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, to celebrate this oneness of Jesus and the Judaic past.  But even as he’s speaking, God cuts him off, a bright cloud envelops them—again, like Moses—and a voice comes out of the cloud, and says “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him.”

     And if that sounds familiar, it should: it’s more intertextuality, more echoes from the past, this time the recent past, and from the book of Matthew itself.  These are the exact same words that come down from the cloud at Jesus’ baptism—"This is my son the beloved with him I am well pleased" and we are reminded of that dove and that time when the mission of Jesus came upon him, and we can see that our vision of Jesus and Elijah and Moses cut from the same cultic cloth is only partially correct, in Jesus we’re dealing with the beyond, the over and above, not just the along-side, and this freaks Peter and the others out, and they fall on their faces in fear, with the words of God ringing in their ear—this is my Son, and to the words from the river, the voice adds "listen to him," and when they do, what’s the first thing they hear?  "Do not fear . . . get up, and do not be afraid" . . . and when they do that, when they look up, there’s no more Moses, no more Elijah, no more transfiguring light, just Jesus, and they get the picture:  there is nothing but Jesus, the lone fulfillment of Law and prophets, there’s nothing but the Christ.

     And now, today, 2000 years later, this story has become our scripture, our text of texts . . . and we are charged with reading our own life, of examining our own narrative intertextually, in light of those texts written so long ago . . . it can be argued that this is the task of interpretation, of preaching, even, that we read our own stories and find echoes in them of our scriptures . . . that it’s in those echoes that we sometimes find application, overlap, places where what was written so long ago become available to us, here and now, today . . .

     And of course, the obvious echo for these times is the transfiguration itself, and in Greek it has a stronger sense, of transformation, of metamorphosis . . . and we are seeking this transformation, seeking to open ourselves to God’s transforming grace, knowing full well that—as was the case with Jesus on the mountain, and Moses on his mountain before him, it is the spirit of God who will do the transfiguring, who will descend upon us like a dove and create in us a new morning.

     The temptation is to be like Peter, to set up booths, to build houses to protect and enshrine the past, but the God of transformation, the Spirit of transfiguration, booms out of the clouds, out of the fog of the future, and says No!  This is my son, the beloved that you are proclaiming.  Listen to him . . . and like the disciples there on that mountain, we cover our eyes, we fall on our faces, we are sore afraid . . . but then Jesus touches us, and we remember God’s words—This is my son!  Listen to him, and when we do, when we turn our eyes upon him and him alone, we hear the words that are as germane to us as they were to Peter and James and John:  Get up, get moving, and above all do not fear.  Amen

An Embarrassment of Riches (Matthew 5:21-37)

     I’m always struck by the somewhat slippery nature of biblical interpretation.  Now, hold your cards and letters … I mean slippery in a good way, of course.  Down through the ages, these texts have been interpreted by very different people using very different methodologies, and they continue to be a comfort and a blessing to the people of God.

Of course, misinterpretation, and over-interpretation, of Scripture has led to some ridiculous understandings over the years . . . and this is at least partially because the way any given of passage is heard depends on the location—not only geographically, but historically and socially—of the one who is doing the hearing.

And nothing illustrates this point with more clarity than today’s passage . . . it contains four seeming injunctions, two of which are positively embarrassing.  It says everyone who looks at a woman with lust has committed adultery . . . didn’t Jimmy Carter get into trouble taking that one literally in the pages of Rolling Stone?   And then there’s the follow-up: “If your right eye, presumably the one you looked at the woman with, causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away?”  Really?  If every guy who looked at a woman, ah, lustily got his right eye pulled torn out, the eye-patch makers couldn’t keep up with the demand.

And what about swearing?  Jesus isn’t talking about cussing here, but the swearing of oaths . . . are we really supposed to not take oaths of office, or swear before a judge, and et cetera?  Only a few sectarian groups retain this injunction in toto as listed here, and maybe that’s one reason they’re sectarian.  How are we supposed to get along in secular society without swearing affidavits, or without putting our old hands on the Bible?

Hmmm . . . let us investigate further, brothers and sisters . . . maybe Jesus isn’t talking literal proscriptions here, just like he probably doesn’t want us to not do nothing  to make a living, like the lilies of the field, even though that’s what a literal reading of a later statement from the Sermon implies.  Maybe he’s talking a bit more generally here . . . maybe he’s painting with a broader brush.

First, let’s look at the context of this passage, specifically about four verses earlier where he says “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  Next, notice the structure of these admonitions.  First he quotes a piece of the Hebrew Law, then gives them his take on it: “You have heard that it was said X, but I say Y.”  He reads the law, then interprets it, like any good preacher does.   Now: remembering what Jesus said just a few sentences earlier—about fulfilling the law—do you think it’s a coincidence that not five verses later he begins quoting and interpreting it?  Neither do I.

So maybe we need to keep the word “fulfill” in the back of our heads when reading this passage . . . how does his version of a law—which in every case seems to make it more strict—in actuality “fulfill” it?  Let’s look at his first example: “You have heard that it was said: ‘You shall not murder;’ and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.'  But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.”  If we put aside the hyperbolic “hell of fire” thing—suffice it to note that Jesus is probably not referring to what we think of as Hell—putting that aside, you can see that he’s made it seemingly more stringent.  Not just murderers are subject to judgment, but those who are angry with a fellow Christian are as well, or those who insult another . . .

Again we need to put aside that “judgment” thing, except to say that he doesn’t specify (a) what the judgment will be, (b) when the judgment will occur or (c) who the judgment will be by.  And if we do, maybe we can notice that Jesus doesn’t make it tougher so much as he broadens it, or makes it more full.  It may be that he “completes” it, which is one of the constellations of meaning of the Greek word pleroow, translated in the Sermon as “fulfill.”

And how does he broaden it?  He includes more than just killing someone . . . he extends the Ten-commandment proscription against murder to unresolved anger and enmity.  He gives an entire mini-discourse on relationships between members of the body of Christ.  If you are angry with a brother or sister, and insult a brother or sister, and say “you fool,” you will be subject to judgment.  This is about relationships, and everything he quotes damages them.  They damage personal relationships, making it harder for folks to get along.   But of equal importance is that they make it harder for a community to function.  Animosity and bad blood impede the mission of the Body of Christ.

     Here’s the upshot: if you’re offering your gift at the altar, which is an ancient way of saying “if you’re at worship,” and you know that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar—in other words, stop your worship—and first be reconciled to that person, and then come to worship. Enmity between members of a congregation spoils worship, it poisons it, and worship is the food-source, the nourishment of the body of Christ.  If you think about your own experience, you can see it’s true: if there is bad blood between you and another member, it can be hard to even show up on a Sunday morning, much less worship with any integrity.  But if we make it up with him or her, our souls are cleansed, and we can enjoy our time with God once again.

And notice that Jesus doesn’t say if your sister or brother has something against us and it’s our fault, in fact he lays no blame at all . . . he just says to do it.  It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, we’re just supposed to do it.  There is a strain of humility needed here, as there is in all of these examples.  We are to reconcile with one another not only for our own good—everybody knows how good that can feel—but also for the greater good of the worshipping community.  Again, we’ve all been in worship where you can feel the enmity, feel the division in the air . . . well, Jesus is implying, you might as well not even bother if that is the case, you might as well not do it, because it is not doing you or the body of Christ any good.

Then Jesus makes an interesting move, as we preachers say: he expands it to outside the community, telling his followers to settle with an accuser—is it the same brother or sister from the previous verse, or an outsider?  At any rate, Jesus tells us to settle on the way to the courthouse, presumably in front of the entire community.  Not only does this make sense from a personal viewpoint, keeping one out of jail, but from a witness viewpoint as well.  Remember that “don’t hide your light under a bushel basket” line a little earlier in the Sermon?  If we settle our disputes, whether in the community or outside of it, without being drug into court, it is a witness to others outside our circle of faith.

Well.  This first example, about interrelationships and their healing, provides an interpretive lens for the rest of the passage . . . “You have hear it said  'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  Jesus knew, even before modern-day sexual harassment laws, that leering at women does not a good relationship make.  Or a good workplace, or a good community of faith.  We are not to treat others as objects, to objectify one another, whether the opposite sex or not.

Note that he treats it as one-sided . . . then just as now, the power balance was tipped decidedly in the male direction, in the direction of the patriarchy.  It’s not an accident that he targets men . . . men are the ones with the power.  And in a relationship based on an imbalance of power—one which I believe Jesus came to rectify—staring openly at the less-powerful is a sign of that power, a sign that one does it because one can get away with it.

I find that peoples’ views of this passage are clouded by hazy notions of what Jesus meant when he said “adultery.  Adultery in the biblical world was defined as extramarital sexual intercourse between a man and another man’s wife. It arose out of the property laws in ancient Israel, where the wife “belonged” to her husband, and the extramarital relationship violated the rights of her husband. A man could have such a relationship with an unmarried woman and not be guilty of adultery, but if the woman was married, both he and she were guilty.  Note that this was not because of some abstract notion of what was “moral” and what was not . . . it was based upon the very concrete notion of women as property, or chattel.  One which we do not hold today.

As such, the whole basis for the divorce passage is invalidated, but it still is instructive that Jesus seemed to consider normative a loving relationship between marital partners.  And it is not an accident that Jesus addresses the divorce problem from the male perspective \ only.  Note that in his saying, it is the man who causes the woman to sin.  Is this not a significant turn-around from Genesis, where Eve corrupts Adam, not the other way around?

Finally, we come to the proscription on swearing . . . in a community of faith, or in any community, for that matter, a person’s word should be her or his bond.  Simple honesty is what Jesus calls for, both within and without the community.  Relations within are strengthened thereby, and we are a light to the rest of the world if we model these things outside.

Brothers and sisters, this can be a hard passage, even with our observation that it’s about relationships.  It is hard for two people to reconcile, it is difficult and scary, and it requires a subsuming of our egos that can be foreign to those of us brought up in today’s culture, where we’re taught that self-promotion—taking care of old number one—is the path to success.  It is hard to go to a person who has wronged us and reconcile . . . everything we see, everything we read, from television to popular fiction screams about fault, and that the one who is to blame is the one who must make amends.

But as Paul points out in Second Corinthians, perhaps picking up on this important theme, we have been given a “ministry of reconciliation” and we are to proclaim a message of reconciliation to the world.  And what better way to proclaim it than to be examples ourselves?   Our communities and our lives are better if we live in harmony, in peace with one another.  And f we, who have Christ on our side, who have power of the Holy Spirit on our side, cannot do this, who can?

If you’ll remember a couple of weeks ago, we noted that although we think of Jesus as addressing a huge crowd of onlookers, if you look carefully at the very start of chapter five, the whole Sermon on the Mount is preached to his disciples, not to the crowd.  And that is the word of hope here . . . it is only in the context of our relationship with Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit that comes upon us at our baptisms, that we will ever be able to live it out.  God does not ask impossible things of us, but provides us through the Spirit the power and grace to put it into practice.  Hallelujah!  Amen.

Satyagraha (Matthew 5:38-48)

     It was hot, brutally hot in the tropical sun.  The farmer was bent over, had been bent over, it seemed, for centuries, though it had only been since that morning, when he looked up and it seemed like a vision, as if it had just . . . appeared out of nowhere, he could’ve sworn it wasn’t there a minute ago, then he looked down to his work, and back up and there it was, as if born out of the tropical mists.  He had the irrational urge to pinch himself to see if he were still awake, but he didn't . . . what he did do was look back down at the earth, at the fruits of his morning’s labor, and then quickly back up to see if the phantom had disappeared, but it hadn't--it had just gotten closer.  Close enough that he could now see it clearly: a bald, middle-aged man, wearing the traditional dhoti and shawl, with sandals on his dusty feet.  He was surrounded by similarly-clad men, and suddenly, the peasant-farmer knew who it was: it was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, otherwise known as Mahatma Gandhi.

He also knew what the great man was doing: he was marching to the sea, in protest of the British overlords’ control of the most important compound of human civilization, apart from air and water, that is.  He was protesting the British Colonial government's control of salt.  Despots know that to really control a peoples, to really keep a tight choke hold around their collective neck, it is important to control the basic elements of life.  The British were experienced colonialists, adept at the subjugation and maintenance of their colonies, and a major tool was the absolute control of salt. The British Raj awarded the ability to manufacture salt—of course to a favored British company—taxed salt production, which was of course passed on to the consumer, and forbade anybody else, whether company or individual, from making it.

Not only did the farmer know where Gandhi was going, but he knew just what he was going to do when he got there.  He knew this, because Gandhi had publicized the event ... A large-scale protest did nobody any good unless people—both oppressed and oppressors—knew about it.  So Ghandi had announced that when he got to the sea at the small town of Dandi, he was going to do one only one thing: he was going to make salt.

And such was the power of his personality, and so heavy the yoke of British rule, that the march grew, accreting marchers so that by the time they reached the sea, more than 50,000 were gathered to watch Gandhi break the law. The farmer was one of those: he'd left his field and followed him along the way, because he understood that this road, this road, in the end, meant freedom.

Jesus would have understood this as well—after all, Gandhi learned about nonviolent resistance from him, and today’s passage is ground-central of his teaching on the subject.  And if this is news to you, it's because for centuries the church has taught 'passive' behavior in the face of power and worldly (or church)  authority.  We have been seduced by teaching that we should bear abuse or being used by those in power, what Paul would call the “powers that be,” and this passage has been used to support it.  Women should 'go the second mile' and endure a broken, abusive marriage.  An man who’s been hit by another shouldn’t fight back, he should just 'turn the other cheek,’ as should a child that is being bullied or a wife who is being abused.  We are not, this interpretation suggests, to resist at all, we’re to be passive, to receive the abuse and, tacitly submit to more.

In its original context, however, this teaching did not advocate Christians becoming doormats for our enemies.  It did not advocate that we give in to evil in some kind of misguided attempt to show that we are morally superior, or that evil will somehow be defeated by our getting tromped upon.  As Gandhi pointed out, Jesus was never passive, he always resisted evil, he just didn’t do it with violence.

Biblical scholar Walter Wink points out that there are two standard responses to being confronted with violent abuse: fight or flight.  In fight, a person resists violence with violence . . . if you’re struck, you strike back.  If you’re attacked, you retaliate in kind.  In flight, you get away as fast as you can, you put yourself out of the situation.  The problem is, neither way really solves anything.  If you hit your attacker back, the violence escalates, and somebody might get hurt badly, or even killed.  If you flee, you haven’t really solved anything, it’s liable to happen again, because the dynamic hasn’t changed—your attacker has come to the—correct—conclusion that his way works, and that he can get what he wants that way.  Neither way, in other words, teaches your enemy anything, neither way invites him to change.

Jesus’ way, Wink explains, is a third way, that is neither submissive or violent, and he illustrates them in the teaching in our passage.  First, the cheek thing: “If anyone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other also.”  Though it seems like a milque-toasty thing to do, it actually subverts the status quo.  To see how this is so, consider that Jesus very specifically says “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek”, and this specificity is the key to its meaning.  The first thing we have to know is that in the first century, nobody in their right minds would hit someone with their left hands, it was considered dishonorable, shameful: the left hand was considered inferior.  If a person were trying to beat down an opponent, to show who was boss, or even if it was in the heat of the moment, a first-century person would never hit someone with the left hand.

To see how this plays out, I need a volunteer from the audience, er, the congregation.  (gets a volunteer)  Now.  Remembering that I have to hit him with my right hand, and Jesus specifies that I’m doing it on his right cheek, how do I have to hit him?  (demonstrates)  I have to backhand him, and backhanding is the way masters hit slaves, they slap them as if they were inferior, as if they were not equal.  By hitting him with my right hand on his right cheek, I have asserted my dominance over him, that he is my inferior.  Now: turn the other cheek.  Note that it’s the left cheek, and notice further that to hit him there, I have to either (a) hit him with my left hand, which is shameful, which a civilized, free man would never do or (b) hit him with my closed fist, which only an equal would do.  Either way, by turning the other cheek, he has asserted his equality, and caused me, the attacker, to risk extreme embarrassment—turning the other cheek is hardly a passive way to resist my attack, it forces me to acknowledge his equality, and has the potential of embarrassing me to boot.  And oppressors hate being embarrassed.

Now.  Let’s look at the second stricture: if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.  It sounds like he’s saying “If anybody breaks into your house and steals the silverware, give him the television too, or if anyone holds you up and demands your watch, give him your wallet as well, but in the context of first century Palestine, that wasn’t it at all, and to understand why, it helps to know a couple of things.  First, the Greek word translated here as “coat” describes an outer covering—thus the translation—but the one translated “coat” describes the inner clothing.  Second, the economics of the day were similar to the company store of Tennessee Ernie Ford fame, where the coal company both paid the workers and owned the store from which they must buy food and clothing.  In this case, in the uncertain middle-eastern climate, small farm-holders had to borrow from wealthier land owners during bad years, but in good years never made quite enough to pay them back, so they got further and further into debt, and they literally were sued by the wealthy land-owners for the coat on their backs, just before they took their land, that is.  And so Jesus tells them that if you are sued this way, give him all your clothes, so that you’re naked, which is extremely embarrassing for the one doing the suing.  And in fact, in Hebrew tradition, it was shameful to see somebody’s nakedness—remember Noah’s sons walking in backwards to cover their dad’s nakedness?  So this tactic both shames the oppressor and exposes the injustice to the public.

Ok, there’s one more … go the extra mile.  Note that Jesus again is very specific: “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile,” and it’s because this addresses a specific regulation of the Roman army.  One of the things occupying armies do—and they were under occupation, remember, by the Romans—is to live off the land, to take food, strip crops, etc from the folks being occupied.  One of the secrets to the longevity of the Roman empire is that they made this burden as light as possible, to keep things below revolutionary boiling point, and there was a regulation that a centurion could only make a peasant carry his stuff one mile, so Jesus counsels that the peasant carry it two.  Now picture this: at the end of the prescribed mile, the centurion goes to take his pack from the farmer, but he continues on, and the soldier, afraid of being punished, keeps trying to take it back, and on down the road they go, the centurion begging to get his stuff back and the farmer refusing . . . it’s a ridiculous picture, isn’t it? And the onlookers would jeer, and the centurion would sweat, and once again injustice would be unmasked and ridiculed, two of the major aims of non-violent resistance.

When Mahatma Gandhi got to the coast, he broke the salt laws in front of flash-bulbs and whirring newsreel cameras, and the entire world learned about the unjust laws of the British Raj . . . after the action in Dandi, Gandhi continued on down the coast making salt as he went, and after his inevitable arrest, the action was carried on by successors, who extended it to other locations, and cameras followed them, and the British government was mightily embarrassed, and though the action brought no immediate relief, it triggered a wider Civil Disobedience Movement that contributed significantly to the eventual negotiated end of British rule.

Gandhi considered civil disobedience a tool in a larger way of being that he called satyágraha, which is a cognate of two Sanskrit words: satya, or truth, and agraha, for force or strength . . . truth strength, as it’s sometimes called, or soul force, as you might have seen it rendered.  There is strength in telling the truth, in unmasking the oppression, in embarrassing the oppressor, and that is what our three examples from Jesus do, isn’t it?  They all expose the injustice, they unmask the inequality that is inherent in each situation.  Forcing an attacker to either give up the attack or hit his victim as an equal exposes the inequality to the world. Forcing an oppressor to strip you naked exposes him to ridicule and underlines and exposes the injustice in his position.  Finally, the idiocy of the Roman occupation is unmasked by the spectacle of a centurion following a farmer and begging for the return of his kit.

But if those these acts of satyágraha, of truth force, reveal the injustice to the world, they reveal it to someone else as well: to the oppressors, to the one perpetrating the evil.  And that explains why Jesus couples this teaching with a command to love our enemies . . . it’s not some mushy, love-boat love, not some saccharine valentine’s-day sentiment, Jesus’ is talking about an active doing, a service to the one being loved.  And what better service, what more important thing can we do to those enmeshed in evil, than to gently point it out, to give them an opportunity to see it from a different perspective, and an opportunity to change their ways?  More importantly, it gives them an opportunity to become part of the inbreaking and already here—in the person of Jesus Christ—Kingdom of God.  As Walter Wink put it, loving our enemies means enabling them to see their sin and giving the opportunity to turn from it, thus becoming a part of God’s kingdom on Earth.

Gandhi formulated his doctrine of satyágraha almost two thousand years after Jesus laid down the principles in this oft-misunderstood teaching . . . and can you imagine a church in this country that lived by this third way?  That resisted unjust laws and renounces the use of violence in the doing?  Can you imagine what would happen if instead of throwing up our hands and saying “what are you gonna do?” we practiced Jesus’ third way in everything we do?  Amen.

Motion Verbs (Luke 9:51-62)

      We’re well into Ordinary Time, which is anything but ordinary, actually . . . it’s the time when the lectionary readings turn to discipleship, how we should behave in the world, both as a church, as the body of Christ, and individually.  It’s kind of what this time of year’s all about, and let me tell you it can be as painful for me as for anybody else, when I compare my life, to the Christian ideal . . . today’s passage is a case in point, it’s a turning point in Luke’s story, when Jesus turns to Jerusalem.  Biblical scholars recognize this as the beginning of Luke’s central section, but we know it as the journey to Jerusalem, and we alsoknow what happens when he gets there . . . and so did the original audience for the Gospel, the folks Luke wrote the gospel for, some fifty years after Jesus’ death . . . the people in Luke’s church knew what happened at Jerusalem, so the first sentence of our passage is freighted with meaning, with pathos,because before he was “taken up” into heaven on that cloud, he was nailed to a cross.

      And this foreshadowing sets a mood for this whole section— it reminds us right off the bat that whatever we sayabout livingthe Christian life is in the framework of Christ’sdeath, and further, everything we’re toldabout Christian living, all we’re asked to do and give up, pales next to what Jesus did. . . we’re told that he “set his face” to go to Jerusalem . . . he set his faceto go there.  He is resigned to going, no matter what is fated to happen at journey’s end, he’s determined. . . Luke repeats the phrase, it’s so important.  And those Gospel-fall-guy Samaritans wouldn’t receive him precisely becauseof this, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

      And so this introduction to Jesus’ final journey is packed full of significance . . . we’re meant to feel its finality, its fate, its inevitability . . .  Jesus set his face toward his destiny, which was the cross.   And all of a sudden, we’re blinded by a flurry of motion verbs, verbs of movement, that are conspicuous in our English translation, but reallystand out in the Greek . . .there are five different verbs of motion – going, going out, coming down, entering, following  – used fifteen different times.  Going, going, going, going, going.  It reminds me of somebody who just can’t sit still before the start of a trip . . . I myself have been know to be a little – how shall we say it? – impatient at that time.  Well, maybe that’s too genteel a word, perhaps obnoxious better.  You ready?  Come on . . . you can do that in the car.  We’ve gotta go, get down the road, if we don’t go, if we don’t leave, we’ll just never get out of here . . . aren’t you ready yet?  Why didn’t you do that before now?  What have you been doing all morning?  Let’s just go . . . and my long-suffering family has put up with it all these years, though it’s a wonder they haven’t done something totally un-Christian and thrown me off an overpass . . .

      And our passage is all about that, all about going, going, going, it’s all about the motion, the journey.  It’s about the Christian life as going,as following,as doing, only unlike my fruitless, fitful, manic-ness, our passage is about motion as ministry,movement as the mission of God.  It tells us what kind is appropriate, and what kind . . . isn’t. They’re negative examples, like on that BBC show what not to wear, only here it’s what not to do in the mission of God.  Jesus sends out messengers to prepare his way –does thatremind you of something? – and they enter a Samaritan town.  And we know all about those Samaritans, don’twe?  They’re like the poor cousins of righteous, God-fearing Israelites, but it’s really another kind of foreshadowing . . . Jesus will carry the Gospel to the entire world, even the hated Samaritans . . . but not yet . . . now he is rejected – like he will be at journey’s end . . .

      And James and John are mortally offended by the slight, they’re hungering for vengeance, itching for a fight.  “Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”  Huh? huh?  Do you?  Doyou?  They remind me of comic-book henchmen, saying to their mob boss “Can I hit ‘em? Huh?  Can I boss, can I?” But unlike the mob boss, who always gives them permission in the end, Jesus just looks at them and rebukes them . . . and this word rebuke is the same word Luke uses to describe Jesus commanding the demons of Capernaum and the wind and the raging waves  . . . it’s a word of power, of directive so this has the force of a commandment: Jesus commands them not to call down fire on the Samaritans.

      It’s important for us to see the pattern here.  He’s rejected, like he will be at Jerusalem, and he refuses vengeance, like he will at Jerusalem.  So the first thing “not to do” is “Don’t exact retribution.  Don’t seek vengeance.  Don’t use violenceto punish the Samaritans.”  Talk about your radical notion . . . it’s human natureto want to get back at someone who’s done us wrong, it’s the way of the world. Individuals do it, cities do it, governmentsdo it.  A large chunk of our foreign policy is based on the notion of deterrence – other nations are deterred from attacking us – theoretically, at least – for fear of what we might do in return.  As Teddy Roosevelt was supposed to have said, speak softly and carry a big stick.  Only here, Jesus commands James and John to put downthe stick, to notbe punitive, to notuse violence.  And it’s a policy Jesus will stick to his entire life, even in the face of certain death. He who could call legions of angels down to protect him, who could call down his ownfire from heaven, thank you very much, did not once use violence – or the threat of it – as a means to achieve his ends.

      And James and John – it’s curious, isn’t it, that it’s the same two who, over in Mark, ask to be first in heaven – James and John, after several years of running around Palestine with Jesus, still don’t get what he’s about.  They still don’t get that he’s about anything butbringing fire and brimstone down on some hapless Samaritan, no matter howmuch they dissed him.

      Well. The rest of the passage is framed by yet another motion verb – follow – only this time it has more than one connotation, it means more than just trailing around physically over the countryside.  When that first someone—notice Luke doesn’t say who, the teaching is about us all—when he or she says “I will follow you wherever you go” she’s saying both physicallyand philosophically, as in I will accompany you to Jerusalem and beyond, and I will be your disciple.  And does Jesus say “Thank you very much?” or “I’m very grateful for your support?”  No.  He comes out with a warning: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  In other words, if you follow me,it’s not gonna be to some comfy motel, or a nice room with a view of lake Cuomo, it’s gonna be tough and you’re not going to have any refuge, any shelter.  Jesus is truth in advertising personified: there’s nothing about the Christian life that’s comfy or cushy, he’s not like some of these televangelists who preach prosperity doctrine, who say if you just commit to Jesus, it’ll be returned, a hundred-fold, and you’ll have victory, victory, I tell you . . . and this is a consistent witness of Jesus and his followers, from Peter to James to Paul, right through the New Testament.  The Christian life might be fire insurance in heaven,but it sure ain’t here on earth.

      So the first things we’re should understand is that (a) it isn’t going to be any blooming bed of roses and (b) we’re not supposed to pretend that it is.  And now to one more motion verb—Jesus gives a command: “Follow me.” Followme. There isn’t a lot of room for wiggle, is there?  Pretty cut and dried, but the other tries to find some, anyway: “Lord,” she says, “Let me first go and bury my father.”  Now this seems perfectly reasonable, especially by our standards, where we’ve been taught to place the biological family above every thing else.  The person wants to go take care of family business, and what’s wrong with that?  Honor thy father and thy mother, for St. Peter’s sake.

      But Jesus isn’t having any of it: “Let the dead bury their own dead;” he says. Ouch!  Not very pastoral, is it?  You can’t have a week off to mourn, or even a day: “As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Loyalty to Jesus comes before any other loyalty, even loyalty to the idol of family.  But this shouldn’t surprise any of us, should it?  After all, there’s that seminal story in all three synoptic gospels – and by seminal, I mean “one we try to ignore” – where Jesus refuses to seehis family, saying that “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”  Contrary to what we’re taught in this culture, we’re not to worship our biological family, we’re not to use our family obligations to avoid the mission of God, to skip our responsibilities of discipleship.  Loyalty to Christ trumps loyalty to family any day of the week.

      Finally, one moreunidentified person comes up to Jesus and says “I’ll follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to the folks.”  And this certainly sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?  It couldn’t take toolong to do that, could it?  But Jesus answers in an elliptical – but clearly negative – way: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” And Luke’s readers would have understood this as a reference to Elijah, who allowedElisha to go back and kiss mom and dad – see, Jesus says, it’s harder to follow me that to follow Elijah,and you knowwhat a stickler hewas.  But wait, there’s more!  What happens when you look back while you’re plowing, while you’re walking along behind a mule or a horse?  The plowing gets messed up, doesn’t it?  The way becomes crooked, not straight, and we knowhow God loves a straight path.  You can’t look back in regret, you can’t have ties to the mundane when you’re doing the work of the Lord, or the way will no longer be straight.

      And again I say: Ouch!  This is harsh stuff.  Surely Jesus couldn’t have meant all this literally . . . there’s gotta be some metaphorical kinds of things going on here.  Service to Christ comes before service to family?  Proclaiming the word comes before putting food on the table? Maybe Jesus is just testing them, maybe he sees into their hearts that they’re not ready.  Maybe the father of the second guy isn’t dead, and won’t be for years . . . but none of that is even hintedat in the passage . . . just the opposite, in fact: all signs point to its being meant literally. When you look at the first part – the foreshadowing of the crucifixion and the renunciation of violence – and put it together with the last, it gives a coherent picture: Jesus was on his way to die for us,he set his face to Jerusalem, set his facetoward it, and it’s clear that the same kind of single-mindedness is required of the disciples as well.  Jesus gave the most precious possession for us, his own life, and we are required to return the compliment.

      I was talking to somebody from the board of pensions one time, and she complained that the rate of planned giving, the rate of bequests to the church, has fallen drastically, people just leave it to their families instead, and I shrugged and said: Well, what do you expect?  They’ve internalized the lesson the Christian church teaches, the lesson societyhas taught – for whatever reason – and we’ve acquiesced to the notion that biological family is all important.  There arefamily values on display here, it’s just that they’re not the values of Ozzie and Harriet – or even Ozzie Osbourne.  They’re Jesus’ family values, they’re Kingdom family values, not the values of the world.

      And I’m tempted to leave it at that, to let this uncompromising word stand alone, to let us all cogitate on it, chew on it, maybe get mad at it . . . after all, that’s what Jesus did.  He told the story and got out of the way, moved on down the road to another stop on the journey.  But though we don’t have time to unpack all its amazing ramifications, I’ll throw in a couple of few words.  Two, in fact: Christian community. “My mother and my brothers,” Christ said “are those who hear the word of God and do it.”  Just as he radically redefined society – the last shall be first, and the first shall be last – Jesus radically reimagined family.  In the Kingdom of God, our family extends to all Christians everywhere, and at any time.  We might not feel it all the time, we might not feela familial closeness in our individual congregations, but it’s true:  India, Africa, Kuala-Lampur.  Egypt, Iraq, Latin America.  We areone in Christ, sisters and brothers, heirs according to the promise of God.  Amen.