JESUS’ SERMON ON THE MOUNT
VIII. “Surprising People”
10-29-06
Ken Peterson
Mtt. 5:38-42
INTRODUCTION
This month began with a terrible tragedy in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, PA when Charles Roberts barricaded himself in a Amish schoolhouse shooting 11 girls, all under the age of 14– killing 5. Yet, in the weeks following, I think we’ve all been amazed at the words spoken by the grieving parents and community of Amish. From the beginning, there have only been words of forgiveness for the attacker and words of trust in the providence of God. They have been modeling for our nation the Spirit of Jesus.
This whole incident has brought back painful memories for Polly and me. We spent a decade among the world’s largest Amish population while we were in our last church. We’d only been there about a year when, just three miles outside our village, a teenager with no drivers license was careening down a narrow road, driving way to fast. He came over a rise, lost control of his car and plowed through a group of ten Amish children walking home from their cousin’s birthday party. Five were killed and five critically injured. Many of the emergency medical responders and firemen who arrived on the scene were members of our church. The grief and anger in our community was beyond anything I had ever experienced. But, the anger was all from the non-Amish population– I never heard a word of anger spoken by one of the Amish. Their sorrow was deep, and yet almost the first words from their lips were words of forgiveness for the driver.
Of course the Amish had their own funeral services, not open to the non-Amish population. So, our church held a memorial service for the rest of the community so we could all reach out to God in our sorrow and seek His grace in our time of need. How do you deal with those memories and intense feelings? I think of the tearful Amish father handing his dead two-year-old son to one of the fireman saying, “Can’t you do something?” Roy and Erma Weaver lost three of their children that afternoon.
Meanwhile, the driver was not seriously injured and his attitude at the scene of the accident was that it wasn’t his fault, his brakes had failed. That proved to be a lie. Yet, within days of the funeral, the parents who had lost children insisted on visiting him in jail and speaking to him words of forgiveness. In the quotes from the driver reported in the news media, he said he was sorry, but he always seemed to somehow excuse what he’d done. I always felt he really didn’t get it. There seemed to be a hardness and an unwillingness to take full responsibility for the devastation he’d caused. Then I received a call from the jail a couple of weeks later saying he had requested me to come and meet with him. I assume I was selected because I’d conducted the memorial service. While I agreed to go, I wondered what I would say and do– I was dreading that meeting, concerned about my own anger toward him. I was working on forgiving him, but I wasn’t sure I was there yet. They said they’d get back with me regarding a time. Then I never heard another word– apparently he changed his mind, so the meeting never took place.
class=Section2>The Amish have taken Jesus’ teaching in this morning’s text very literally. But, apart from groups like that, we don’t see much application of these verses in our world. And, it is understandable if such literal application seems impractical. Doesn’t it open us to abuse where we will get taken advantage of? Something deep down inside us believes we will be annihilated if we do not fight back. We know we live in a world where people are glad to step on us if we let them. Just what is Jesus teaching us here AND, how can we carry it out?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a classic book called The Cost of Discipleship. In it, he says disciples are to be a "surprising people." I like that phrase, and think it is a fitting the title for this sermon. It works two ways:
1) people should be surprised when they see how we live and handle things;
2) also, we should surprise others with how we respond to them– especially to the dirt they do to us.
Living like our text describes will certainly make us surprising people. BUT, does it make sense?
THE LAW
The old eye-for-an-eye commandment Jesus refers to is given Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Exodus gives the fullest expression:
But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. (Ex 21:23-25)
The intention behind this command was two-fold. First, it checked wild revenge and second it taught the administration of justice. Thus, justice had to be appropriate to the infraction. That means, if your dog messed on my lawn, I couldn't shoot your dog or burn down your house. What the law is saying is, you are basically entitled to equal compensation. If you knock out my tooth, I can knock out yours and if you put out my eye, I can put out yours. So, while it sounds severe today, it was a means for the law to check excessive revenge-taking. Jesus goes on to give an incredibly shocking, "But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person (39)", which he then applies to four cases.
Before we consider those four applications, Jesus’ first words, Do not resist an evil person, lets us know He has already judged them– they are evil. That is the general, overarching statement applied to specific examples. Also, the application is specific and individual. He gives four second-person singular examples. So we’re talking about personal relationships here, not dealing with larger groups of people or social evil or the role of government.
The first case is, If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also (39).
Striking on the cheek can be anything from a fist to a slap in the face. I don’t think it is stretching things to say this includes insults and in an injury to honor. Things that demean us, threaten our standing, our worth and value as a person we even sometimes refer to as feeling like “a slap in the face.” We can include gossip, name calling, and other ways others try to hurt us. Whether it is a metaphorical slap or a physical slap, there is an instant desire to strike back, and to get even. “You hurt me and I’ll hurt you!” The story is told of a big Scotsman who received a blow to the face from another man. At that, he gave this warning: “Me Lord told me to turn the other cheek, but beyond that, he gave no clear instructions!”
The second case involves litigation. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well (40). The tunic was worn next to the body, like a long shirt and the cloak was a loose outer garment. Here, a person is suing to literally take the shirt off your back. Now the law said, you may take a man's tunic as a pledge, but not his cloak. We read in Ex. 22:26-27– "If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him before sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? Now when you think of our crammed clothes closets, this may not make much sense. But commonly in that day, at least among the poor people, a man had only one cloak. The tunic undergarment and the cloak were the only two pieces of clothing generally worn. And clothing was quite valuable, an asset that could be seized. Here Jesus is talking about lawsuits that come against us. Here, Jesus is saying, don't stand on your rights and defend them through litigation. Instead, voluntarily give the person more than he's seeking to gain from you through the courts. In other words, it is better to go naked than fight.
The third case involves the bullies in life. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles (41). The reference here is that any Roman soldier was allowed to force a civilian to carry his pack for one mile, but not more than that. Now remember, the Romans were the enemy, the occupiers of the land. You can imagine how unpopular that was! I can imagine at times, the soldiers made full use of this– so you end up a half-hour late to work because you were conscripted to carry a soldier’s pack. Jesus says, do the surprising thing– volunteer for another mile. Here we come to forced labor, exploitation, and those times when we are put upon by others. They may be inconsiderate or just deliberately misuse us. People take us for granted, leave us to do all the cleanup while they enjoy visiting with one another. Jesus is saying we can break our resentment and anger by graciously doing more than we're asked.
The fourth case involves moochers and borrowers. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you (42). Here we deal with a sense of rights in terms of possessions– it's mine. We fear loss through what is loaned out. We want to protect our resources by not giving to those who have needs and ask for our help. There are those who would exploit us and there are plenty of pushy people out there. Jesus says, don't withdraw from others out of fear of being taken advantage of.
Before we go on, I want to outline a few principles of interpretation we'll need to apply this to our lives. (Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones is helpful here). Jesus never meant for any of these teachings to be applied mechanically. That was the problem of the righteousness of the Pharisees. It was legalistic and missed the issues of the heart, the motivation. Scripture never contradicts itself, so if our interpretation of a confusing passage is in contradiction to other clearer teachings in Scripture, we need to question our understanding. And, if our interpretation leads us to a ridiculous, untenable position, we do well to question it. What the Lord teaches are always sound principles regarding human nature and behavior. This is not to suggest we judge Scripture according to our reason, but reasonableness is not irrelevant either. God did give us our reasoning capacities, though they are corrupted by the fall.
class=Section4>WHAT IS JESUS SAYING?
There is within us not just a desire for justice, but also a desire to take revenge, to harshly punish the other person– hurt them worse than they've hurt us. Jesus is addressing the roots of our fallen human nature in our desire for vengeance. It makes for a violent world. Parity is never achieved. Suppose, in anger you slap me in the face and then I return the favor, hitting you. However, in the process of returning your blow, my blow is a bit higher so your eye is also blackened. So now you blacken my eye. But that’s two hits to my one– and on it goes. The same thing happens with put-downs or gossip. We can never hurt the other person in exactly the same way and same amount as they hurt us. Or at least we’ll never judge it as the same. So we start down a slippery slope of violent words and actions to satisfy justice. But it is never quite accomplished. And that doesn't even begin to cover complex cases such as the drunk driver who kills a little five-year-old. Someone said, all this law insures is that we will all be toothless and eyeless.
Because of our sinful, fallen human natures, there can never be absolute justice in this world. We are selfish and my perception of my pain will always far exceed what I perceive to be your pain or trouble. Jesus is here saying, the way of revenge is flawed from the beginning. It could only provide some temporary restraint in society. But it is far from ideal. It was simply the best that could be done until Jesus came with His revolutionary, “But I tell you...” Ultimately it would be impossible without His power within us enabling us to do it. That is why He came, to not only tell us about and show us a better way but to give us supernatural power to live that way.
There is only one source of true justice, God. Only He can determine parity and equivalency in punishment. Only He can see into the depths of human hearts and weigh motives, the sorrow of repentance, human suffering, and need. Our efforts at exacting justice are really usurping God's place. And, most importantly, our desire for revenge reveals our sinful hearts.
Jesus is giving us a new way of conquering evil– especially the enemy within each of our hearts.
Evil is never satisfied with controlling one side of the situation. It always wants to infect everyone involved. So everyone has his or her dukes in the air and a loaded gun. Then the enemy (Satan) wins. The moment you hit back, the moment you curse them, you join them, no matter how good that may feel at the moment. And then you begin a descent that sucks you into more and more evil– more cycles of violence and revenge. When we repay evil with evil (Rom 12:17), evil is all there is, in bigger and more toxic piles. Jesus is declaring that the way to conquer evil is to absorb it– take it into yourself and neutralize it with love. Our lives can be a charcoal filter, filtering out the bad and the darkness, then turning it over to God.
Jesus is telling us to respond in the opposite spirit, and thereby unleash the Spirit of God to do what God wants to do. Where we meet anger, hatred, violence, and rejection, we are called to respond with love. Where we meet greed, we respond with the spirit of giving and generosity. We counter vengeance with forgiveness, evil with good, and darkness with light. That’s what Jesus did. He modeled this as he approached the cross. His prayer of relinquishment in the garden that last night was, "Nevertheless, not my will but thy will be done." He did not resist the evil men who crucified him. They plucked out his beard and He didn’t curse them or resist. He was spit upon, mocked, and He didn’t respond. He took all the meanness of the world and ran it through the filter of his own body on the cross, becoming the source of redemption of the world.
For us to do this requires a profound “letting go” on our part of our demands for justice. Instead we entrust that to God. That’s what Jesus did we are told in 1 Peter 2:23,
When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
Romans 12:14 and 17-20 calls us to the same approach:
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse....
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written:
"It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
To those struggling with an injustice, this is probably the most difficult relinquishment, letting go of trying to get even and surrendering it to God who’s place it is to avenge. The KJV here sounds a bit more authoritative to me and assuring, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." Paul, in this same Romans passage, reminds us that we do this so we won't “be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (21)."
WHAT JESUS IS NOT SAYING
I don't believe Jesus is advocating total pacifism here. As I mentioned earlier, these are personal examples. And Jesus, in Mtt. 18 advocates confronting a brother if he sins. Elsewhere, in the New Testament, the right of civil government to enforce its laws and punish evil-doers is seen as a God-ordained function. Romans 13 is one of the classic expressions of this, and it comes immediately after the passage we just quoted from in Romans 12 about not trying to even the score.
Also, Jesus is not advocating a door-mat mentality. There are times and places where we need to make a stand. Seeking justice on behalf of others is very much our calling. Sometimes on behalf of ourselves it may be right. In all these commands revisited, Jesus is driving right to our hearts. Our actions must not be hitting back or getting even. They must not be out of personal pique or revenge for a wound you feel. But, when you’ve relinquished those feelings and that carnal "getting even" syndrome, there may well be a Spirit-directed action to be taken. Those actions though are not for self-preservation but for the good of person the or the protection of society. You may forgive the drunk driver who injured you and not seek revenge. But, to say he should not have some consequences to move him toward the help he needs is irresponsible. Without consequences, he may go on to do more destroying if not checked. Human nature needs negative consequences to bring about redemptive change.
In the case of borrowing or begging, the protection of your self or possessions are not the right reason to say "no." But it may not be good for the beggar or borrower. Perhaps what they are asking for is not what they really need, or in giving it we are cultivating irresponsible behavior. Would it contribute to laziness or irresponsibility? Yes, we must give, but it may be far different than what is being asked for. Peter and John are an inspiring example with the beggar at the temple gate when Peter says,
Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk (Acts 3:6).
The application in any case is not meant to be mechanical and legalistic. I’m sure there will be much interesting discussion in your Biblical Application groups this week. But with a surrendered heart, guided by the Spirit, our Lord will direct us into appropriate responses.
CONCLUSION
Bruner, in his commentary, notes the watermark of all four portraits is degradation– we are being personally degraded, hurt, taken advantage of by another. Jesus is offering a way for us to win the battle over self and become redemptive agents in our world, overcoming evil with good.
- When you are humiliated or affronted by a slap on the cheek or emotional blow to your sense of worth and value, instead of hitting back, choose to let yourself be vulnerable and remain open. Don’t close yourself off in a self-protective mode.
- When someone tries to take something from you, stay free of bitterness by offering them even more than they seek. Don’t cling to your legal rights. Be willing to let go of those for a higher purpose, as God directs. Bless them with the opposite spirit.
- When you are forced to do what you don’t want, choose your attitude. Don’t be surly, but instead break the spirit of rebellion by doing more than you are forced to do.
- When someone asks us to give to them, give– but do it while seeking God’s direction for the most appropriate response to their need.
Here again, Jesus shows us our need for His power and life within. The only way to live in the Kingdom is in the power of Jesus Christ. As we receive His mercy and grace, He doesn't demand justice and that we pay for all our sins. Because He gives freely to us in love and mercy, we too are called to be merciful. We need to respond to injustice by forgiving those who sin against us.
That rids us of the need to take revenge. Once we've forgiven and released the other person from our judgement, then, we can listen to God for the appropriate, redemptive response. When we do that faithfully, we are indeed will be "surprising people!"
An estimated 92,000 men, women, and children were murdered in the Ravensbruck Nazi
concentration camp. A piece of wrapping paper was found near the body of a dead child. On the paper was written this prayer:
“O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will,
but also those of ill will.
But do not only remember the suffering they had inflicted on us;
remember the fruits we bought, thanks to this suffering:
our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity,
the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this.
And when they come to judgment,
let all the fruits that we have bourne be their forgiveness.”
JESUS’ SERMON ON THE MOUNT
VIII. “Surprising People”
For Further Study and Reflection on Sermon for 10-29-06
Mtt. 5:38-42
1. These words of Jesus are so radical sounding, they startle us. Imagine the effect in Jesus’ time when these were uttered for the first time. What questions do you think it raised?
2. Has there been a time in your life (or someone’s close to you) when you (or they) “turned the other cheek?” What happened?
What is behind our natural fist inclination to defend ourselves either physically or verbally?
How does faith enter into this?
3. Here are some other verses not included in the sermon. Consider each one and the truth it conveys.
1 Peter 3:9– Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
1 Thess 5:15– Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.
Eph 4:31-32– Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
1 Cor 6:7– The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
4. Which of the 4 examples Jesus gives of not resisting an evil person is the most difficult for you?
Do you have an example you can share of successful application?
5. Do you agree with these statements in the 4th -5th paragraph on pg. 4 of the sermon:
- “Jesus is giving us a new way of conquering evil....
- “Jesus is telling us to respond in the opposite spirit and thereby unleash the Spirit of God to do what God wants to do?”
What does “responding in the opposite spirit” mean to you?
6. Consider the prayer found on a piece of wrapping paper next to a dead child in the Nazi concentration camp, Ravensbruck, with which Ken closed the sermon:
“O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will,
but also those of ill will.
But do not only remember the suffering they had inflicted on us;
remember the fruits we bought, thanks to this suffering:
our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this.
And when they come to judgment,
let all the fruits that we have bourne be their forgiveness.”
~ ~ ~
What is meant by “the fruits we bought?”
How can this idea change our experience of evil?