A challenging passage. I received more feedback from people after the service than I typically do, so the text/sermon must have struck a chord with some.
I deviated quite a bit from the written text this week, so what you read below is not as close to what was preached as is usually the case.
“Dancing with Jesus: the Cheek Turn”; Matthew 5: 38-48; Leviticus 19: 9-18; July 9, 2023; SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp
Matthew 5:38-48 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
43“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Introduction: We continue with our Dancing with Jesus preaching series.
A fun, easy little dance, but the bible passage it refers to is anything but easy.
Move 1: No easy way around this passage.
a. these words of Jesus are from what we know as the sermon on the mount.
1. Like Moses who ascended on a mountain to receive the law (that commandments) from God, Jesus speaks from a mountain about the law.
2. We know that God’s people spend a lot of time discussing the law.
dissecting the law
figuring out what it means in their daily lives.
the Leviticus passage we read is just one example of that.
2. As Jesus addresses the law, he offers a series of statements in which he says things like, “you have heard it said, but I say to you….”
3. He is not analyzing
or exploring ways to interpret
or finding ways to make the law more palatable
4. 4Jesus Is not letting followers off the hook, but instead pushing the people to expand and see how demanding the call to discipleship is.
3. colleague - daughter (again, a colleague, not me) had a phone message from her daughter, who was going to be the liturgist.
Is this passage in other gospels where it says it differently? if so, I want to read that one because, well, when I read Matthew, I think Jesus is wrong? (Barbara Essex, 383, Feasting on the Word).
6. Jesus’ words we read this morning are challenging.
b. Bottom line - How are you going to respond when you are wronged?
1. Dance - what is your next move after someone strikes you on the cheek? Or sues you? or wrongs you in some fashion.
2. how are you going to respond?
3. WE can do all sorts of interpretive gymnastics with this passage:
turn the right cheek - backhand,
going the extra mile in the context of people who have been conquered and have the enemy in control of their land
in our context, the world operates differently, so Jesus’ words have to be adjusted accordingly.
4. But none of the analysis removes us from the challenging call to change how we might respond.
5. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. would both develop their non-violent approach to protesting and initiating change based on this passage.
6. how are you going to respond?
Move 2: How we respond should reflect who we understand God to be.
a. Douglas Hare in his reflections on this passage(Interpretation series) notes that this passage is about renouncing rights.
1. the question he notes, is not a question of obedience. As in, do we obey these words of Christ?
2. Instead, Jesus calls us to see the nature of God, see who God is, and respond.
3. The world says, "The world says ... that it is your legitimate right, your dignity, and your duty to bring suit against the one who injured you, to press her until she has redressed the wrong, to accuse her, to punish her until her hurt at least is equal to yours. This is just. This re-establishes the order her sin destroyed. (Hare references Walter Wangerin's book, As For Me And My House)
4. But, that does not reflect who God is.
5. God acts differently.
6. God is the aggrieved party in our betrayal and turning away.
God ought to bring suit against us;
Reestablish the right relationship through punishment
7. Instead, God responds with grace and forgiveness.
8. God decides that the burden of reconciliation falls on God, the aggrieved party. (p. 99) (http://gluthermonson.blogspot.com/2017/02/matthew-538-48-gospel-text-assigned-for.html)
b. We see this most clearly in the choices Jesus makes.
1. he is the aggrieved party - falsely accused and then crucified.
2. Does Jesus respond by demanding those who falsely accuse him or betray him or turn away from him be brought to justice and punished?
does he demand justice?
3. No, Jesus offers forgiveness and chooses the way fo the cross.
c. How do you respond?
1. Jesus invites us to a new way of life
2. A new way of life patterned after God’s way of taking on the burden of reconciliation.
3. a way of life that goes counter to the world’s demands for retribution and justice.
Move 3: An invitation to join Jesus on a journey of forgiveness
a. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
1. Hard to imagine being perfect like God is.
2. As we do so, however, allow one more observation. The last line of this passage — “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” — helps to reframe the whole of this passage.
1. For while telos, the Greek word Jesus employs, can indeed be translated “perfect,” it typically denotes something not so much morally perfect as it does something that has grown up, matured, and now reached its perfect end.
2. That is, telos is the goal or desired outcome of a thing. A fruit tree’s telos, we might say, is to grow mature and tall so that it can bear fruit. (https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/the-revolution-starts-here)
3. Jesus invites us on the journey to change our lives from patterns that reflect the ways of the world to patterns that reveal the God whom we follow.
b. You may not recognize the name Phan Thi Kim Phuc, but if you are my age or older you probably remember her photo, which is one of the most remembered photos ever. In fact, it won a Pulitzer Prize.
Kim is the nine-year-old girl, forever frozen in time, running down a South Vietnamese country road in June 1972. She is naked; her clothes burned off from an American-ordered napalm strike on her village.
I saw a TED talk recently where she described her journey since that horrific day - a journey filled with surgeries; dealing with her physical appearance;
journey of her agonizing recovery from the third-degree burns that covered her back, shoulder, and one arm;
her difficult relationship with the media exposure that both saved her life—journalists who witnessed the attack helped get her treatment—and later became a burden to her;
her struggle to establish a normal life in the West. A journey that has taken her to Canada where she now lives with her husband.
she describes how her journey was changed forever when she read the Bible and discovered as she calls it, “the radical forgiveness of Jesus.”
It led to her becoming a Christian and changing how she viewed her life and lived it.
she was able to move beyond her need for vengeance or justice or getting answers to questions like “why her?” and live into a new life.
One stop on her journey was on Veteran’s Day when she met at the ceremony at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC with Capt. John Plummer, the man who ordered South Vietnamese pilots to make the fateful air strike on her village.
Kim uses the phrase “her journey of forgiveness”
A journey that began when she encountered the radical forgiveness of Jesus.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx_k7WZdj5k)
Conclusion: Jesus does not make it easy to follow him;
the challenge is great, but so is the reward.
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