Dangers of Mercy

Text: Matthew 5:38-48
Other texts: Leviticus 19:1–2, 9–18

The Bible is full of information about how God wishes the world to be. It contains lots of statements about what we should do as a culture, a nation, and as individuals within communities, to make it that way. We loosely refer to all these statements as laws. The Ten Commandments are examples, and though they are more accurately called the Ten Words (decalogue is the formal name), they are clearly commands. Imperatives. Do this and do not do this.

The laws of the Bible are like guides, though not guidelines. They are designed to show us the way and keep us on track. We might think of them as guardrails, except they do not physically keep us from going over the edge, as a rail might do. Or we might think of them as those ropes that keep people in the ticket line, except that they are not physical hard-to-ignore-but-possible-to reminders, as the ropes are. Instead, they are more like the white and yellow lines painted on the asphalt.

It is easy to cross them, but it is not wise to. Adhering to their guidance keeps us safe and leads us on our way. At least, that is what they are designed to do. If we all observe the imperatives of the lines, we are protected from veering off into some large and stationary object, or over the edge of a dangerous boundary, or into the path of an oncoming driver. Not everyone follows the lines, and we are therefore still subject to the effects of others’ (and our own) mistakes or malfeasance. We all of us are only human, subject to distraction, exhaustion, stupor, and meanness. But if we are law-abiding, we have a chance.

In this way, the laws we see in the Bible are gifts, given to us by God, to guide us on a good way.

The laws exist, first of all, because we in fact are inclined to do the things they tell us not to and not to do the things they tell us to. Otherwise, we would not need a law about it. And second, because the things they ask us to do or not do are helpful. If everyone stole things all the time, we would be even more frantic than we are about securing our goods. If everyone slept with the spouses of others all the time, social ties would fray even more than they do. If everyone violated the sabbath all the time, greed and poverty would rule even more than they do. If we dishonored our parents all the time, we would be even more likely to repeat the sins of previous generations than we do. This is practical morality.

Leviticus is the central book of laws in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. The portion we just heard in the first reading contains rules for relationships. Listen to the things we are not supposed to do: cheat, lie, steal, defraud, revile, exploit, promise without intending to deliver. These are about getting along with other people in the world.

In this passage is the rightly famous and summarizing law: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But the whole section, and much of the whole set of laws, is about neighbors, which is another word for the people with whom we are a community. Neighbors are not known by their geography but by their relationships with us. Sometimes this word is translated as “fellows” or perhaps “fellow citizens.” Companions, friends, people with whom we share life. Thus Leviticus talks about leaving food not just for other Israelites but for the aliens—foreigners, immigrants—all neighbors because we share lives.

These are not religious laws in the sense we use the term religion now. There was no distinction between church and state. These are laws of citizens in a nation, or in our case in a world. These laws tell us what we should do, and how the world is supposed to go.

The Gospel reading today from Matthew makes up the last verses of the Sermon on the Mount. The similarity of the Ten Commandments and the sermon is not coincidental. Like the commandments, the words of the sermon also tell us what we should do, and how the world is supposed to go. In a sense they are a reflection on Leviticus, a commentary, and an application of old laws to a new particular time. I did not come to abolish the law, Jesus says. Jesus’ words adjust the notion of neighbor to a people occupied and oppressed, and they interpret the meaning of love.

Like all the laws, the commands of the Sermon on the Mount define a way for the world. Jesus calls this in Matthew the “kingdom of heaven.” It is a different sort of world than the one most people live in, but not a different location. A different way of being. Just as the nation of Israel was defined by Levitical laws as a different way of being. Like those laws, the words of Jesus deal with things that we usually do or do not do, and like them, they are helpful. Though it may not seem so to us. Which is partly the point.

It is an odd sort of world, we think, where people do not retaliate, where they give or lend to all who ask, where they practice extravagant generosity, where they not resist an evildoer, where they love and pray for their enemies. Where we freely acknowledge that God willingly provides nourishment to the righteous and the wrong-headed equally.

As we did before, we have to ask what kind of world would it be if everyone did the opposite of these laws. People would seek retribution all the time, they would withhold from those in need, they would be stingy, they would be quick to strike back, they would seek to harm their enemies.

It would be as this world is. Jesus understands this, using the behavior of the gentiles as an example of the prevailing standards. If you did all those things, he says, you would be just like everyone else.

But you are not. You are my people. You follow me.

We try to make sense of these absurd commands of Jesus. It is difficult. They are not designed to give an edge of power to faithful Christians. They are not methods designed to shame or embarrass our enemies into submission. They are not designed to make us feel good about ourselves. They are not some impossibly high standards designed to motivate us to be a little better.

The words of Jesus—whom we follow—are guides to living in the kingdom of heaven. They are how people in the kingdom of heaven are expected to behave, just as the laws of Leviticus are how people in the nation of God’s people Israel are to behave.

But even if these words could not be explained in any way—by common sense or thoughtful reflections about the kingdom—even if not, we would still be called to obey them. That is because we are Christians. We follow Jesus. We call Jesus teacher and lord, guide, or master. It is not that Jesus is naive or mysteriously spiritual. Jesus is aware of the dangers of mercy, he is just not—as most of the world is—he is just not afraid of them.

Laws are a gift to us only if we value them. People flocked by the thousands to hear what Jesus had to say in this sermon and in other times. That is because they were eager—or desperate, probably—to know how to live in a difficult time. They were looking for a way. What would the kingdom of God be like? What could Jesus tell them about it? How was he going to help them to get from the usual world to a better one? They needed to know this. We do, too.

Just because we follow Jesus does not mean that his commands are easy to follow. They are hard. But they are not suggestions. And they are not invitations. They are commandments. They are laws. Guiding us in the same manner as white and yellow lines painted on dark asphalt guide us. They show us the way.

Because they are hard, we need to take these words seriously, as seriously as if they came from God as we profess they do.

The laws in Leviticus are surrounded by centuries of argument, interpretation, scholarship, and investigation. They have gotten and continue to get a lot of attention. Christians need to pay this much attention to the Sermon on the Mount (and the other commands of Jesus).

We need to stop dismissing them or explaining them away and instead debate how to apply them. What exactly—what exactly—do they mean for us in our homes, and streets, and world? For our policies, our productions, our work, our loves?

This is my beloved son, God will say next week in the story of the Transfiguration. Listen to him! What is he saying?

Let your word be ‘yes, yes’ or ‘no, no’

Text: Matthew Matthew 5:21-37

This sermon preached by Abbie Engelstad, Vicar at Faith.

I have a confession to make, and it is now a public confession. The way we do liturgy in this church the person who reads the gospel ends the selection for that day by saying “this is the gospel of the Lord”—my confession is that the first time I read this gospel out loud, that part came out as a question. “This is the gospel of the Lord?”

I had to sit and puzzle over that spontaneous question mark for a while. What was this gospel triggering in me that I found unsavory? Jesus is being harsh in this passage, and not altogether likeable. Just a couple verses before where we picked up today Jesus has corrected any perceived nonsense about what he is here to do, he says to his listeners, “Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.” He seems to be chiding with a finger waggle “Don’t think you’re getting off easy because I’m here changing the rules.” And then he goes on to say in our Gospel for today, in fact, I’m not abolishing the law I’m making it more severe. Jesus paints this picture for us dramatically. By the established law those who murder are liable to judgment, but in Jesus’ words those who are merely angry with a brother or a sister deserve the same punishment as those who murder, which is nothing compared to the seemingly even more mundane offense of calling someone a fool, which deserves eternal damnation. It is from this passage that we get Jesus’ famous words that have haunted many in Christendom about lust in the heart as equivalent to adultery and the near unacceptability of divorce. Jesus demands what generation after generation of Christians have proven to be impossibilities—if it’s not the anger, it’s the name calling, if it’s not the name calling it’s the lust, if it’s not the lust it’s the divorce, or the simple swearing of an oath. Contemplating our most assured failure in at least one of these categories is none too comforting.

When I picture Jesus in this scenario, chastising, throwing around imperatives, demanding more, I think of this club I was in in high school. It was a surprisingly liberal suburban high school, where everyone had a good cause and a nice car, and we had a club that was focused on this one social justice issue and the leader of this club was insufferable. For him every action item we suggested was an insult to the severity of the problem, and he let everyone know that no matter what we did we were complicit, already guilty of the atrocities. It was in the memory of this student with his nose in the air, that when I read this gospel aloud for the first time I ended with “this is the gospel of the lord?”

Then I read it again. For two reasons: 1) because I’m not about to stand up here in my second sermon ever and insult Jesus. And 2) because somewhere I knew that the figure Jesus became in my head in this Gospel wasn’t Jesus at all, it was me in all of my fallen self-righteousness. It was the president of that club. Jesus became Ralph Nadar. And that’s nothing against Ralph Nadar, god bless him, but that’s not Jesus.

They have things in common. Ralph Nadar, if you’re unfamiliar, has a vision for this world and he continues to fight tirelessly for that vision despite the constant barrage of doubt and slander thrown his way. He never married or had kids. Ralph Nadar, and we could name many activists here, dedicates his waking life to changing this world into a better world. That might sound familiar. That is a project many of us claim. We endeavor to hold ourselves and those around us to a higher standard. These are indeed the conditions for nobility, vocation, altruism—and self-importance, righteousness, and judgment. Christ is not Ralph Nadar.

So how do we make sense of the gospel for today? How do we conceive of Christ as a reformer, an activist, a visionary, without making him susceptible to the pettiness of the human ego? We could ask that question another way: how do we hear these exhortations differently, when we recognize that Christ is not susceptible to the pettiness of the human ego? When we do what we were born to do, and trust that God is God, what do we hear?

I’ll share with you what I hear. I hear a God who knows this world intimately. And not only that, I hear a God who knows the kingdom of heaven right now, in this world, in this life. Christ knows differently than we know. Christ sees differently than we see. He knows the plan for a better world not in predictive way, not in an intellectual, prescriptive way, Christ knows the plan for a better world in his body. He knows it from meditating in the wilderness for forty days, from having his feet touched with so much love, he knows it from having the privilege of touching someone no one else will, he knows it from wading into the Jordan river and feeling John the Baptist’s arms around him, supporting his body, and allowing himself to be submerged in the waters of baptism. Jesus knows the kingdom of heaven right now, in his flesh. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus calling us into this knowledge because if we only knew. When I remembered who Christ was, I heard a God who wants me to feel what God feels, to exist beyond the possibilities of legalism and to imagine what a world could look like and what a world could feel like, and perhaps what it already does.

We cannot know exactly what Jesus’ world feels like, and for us, unlike him, when we try re-create that world we stray into self-righteousness. But Jesus gives us some clues as to how we might imagine the world he knows. This is a world where not only do we not call each other fools, we don’t even have the urge to call each other fools, where we forgive our accusers spontaneously and immediately, where we not only refrain from swearing an oath, but where it doesn’t even make sense to swear an oath because we recognize that everything is God’s, we are entitled to nothing, and even the aging of our bodies is given to us through joyous grace.

We are bound to forget, to get caught up in self-righteousness, to believe we know what is best for this world, to fight for it and sacrifice for it, and then call our neighbor a fool. We are bound to turn piety into judgment. We are bound to fail. And for that we should try to forgive ourselves sometimes. And we should do our very best to remember, as often as we can, that Jesus will never stop communicating to us exactly what we need to hear. In your baptism, whatever that looked like in your life, God touched you and said you are already good, but we forget.

In the Epistle for today Paul addresses the Corinthians, not as spiritual people, but as infants, people of the flesh. He is trying to knock down egos and reign in hubris and fantasies of self-sufficiency and remind the leaders of the church in Corinth that they belong to God, and that the work of the church is not theirs to claim. Paul is calling them out. The world ‘we’ build, the world where we are constantly forgetting that we are already good, that we are baptized, needs Pauls, activists, visionaries, people who call each other out about not living as spiritual people.

But the beauty of this Gospel is that Christ is addressing us as spiritual people and as infants. Christ knows all of us, and says in the waters of baptism “you are enough” now listen for all the ways I try to remind you of that. He walks ahead, beckoning, welcoming, encouraging, sometimes harshly saying what he needs to say so that we might hear it again and again, trying to remember that God is God and this existence is already good. This is the gospel of the Lord.

When and Then

Text: Isaiah 58:1-12

Central to Christianity as Lutherans know it is the tenet that God’s love and favor is given to us unconditionally. God is a God of grace, demonstrated in various ways that include, not the least, the presence of God among us in the person of Jesus Christ. We do not hold that we deserve God’s good favor. If we had to perform some special deeds to be in God’s good graces, then we would all be out of luck.

We inherit our stubborn defense of this idea from Luther, who was fighting a church at the time that made getting into heaven contingent on special works that the church required. Luther was a polemicist. He was in a battle. He could give no credence to good works as required by God (though good works were still good to do for the world). So, for example, he argued that the book of James should be taken out of the Bible because it said What good is it … if you say you have faith but do not have works?

This stubbornness is warranted because as soon as we allow that God’s love for us is conditional—contingent on even one thing—if it is up to us (if we do something then God will love us or not)—then we are in a mess.

We need to know without reservation that we are a loved child of God. That as Paul says, nothing can separate us from the love of God. That nothing we can do puts us beyond the pale of God’s regard for us. Grace thus frees us to take radical risks.

But as soon as there is one conditional work, we can never trust whether we are good with God or not. We get trapped again. We wonder: who decides what that thing is? Who metes out forgiveness? And how do we trust that we have performed that one thing adequately? People will use that undone work to condemn us, or we will use it to condemn ourselves. As a colleague puts it, the demons of the world (and in our own heads) tell us lies.

Thus we emphasize our trust in a God of grace, and we are fearful to talk about judgment. But what, then, are we to make of this passage in Isaiah, whose verses drip with judgment peppered with conditional Ifs and Thens?

The people of Israel have returned from exile. They have been fasting and praying. Yet is seems they have some complaints about the results. Why do we fast, they say, but you, God, do not see? We humble ourselves, but you do not notice. They evidently feel that by fasting and worshipping that they ought to have earned God’s favor. This idea would not have been out of line with the widespread theology of their day (and sometimes even in ours) that acts of worship and piety are the way to the heart of God, who will reward them with prosperity and safety.

But God is having none of it. You act as if you were a nation that is doing the right thing, God says, and that you are following my commands. But you are not. You fast, you worship, you bow down to me. But you are self-serving and you exploit your workers.

Is this what I want, God asks rhetorically? What good is that? (God sounds like James.) What I want, God says, is justice. I want you to be just. I want you to share what you have with the hungry so that they are no longer hungry. I want you to take the poor into your own homes so that they are no longer homeless. I want you to free those you are oppressing. You think, God implies, that you are the victims. You think you are getting a raw deal. But in fact you are the victimizers, the raw deals are the ones you are making.

When God accuses the Israelites of hiding from their own kin, God is using an idiom that means that they pretend that the impoverished and destitute people do not exist. They have turned a blind eye, we would say, to the needs of others. It also means figuring that someone else will take care of the afflictions of others. We hide from the annoying and impertinent pleas of our own brothers and sisters. It is hard to deny that God is judging us.

God’s demand for justice is right in the middle of the message of Isaiah and the other prophets. Let justice flow like water, Amos says famously. And justice in this case does not mean criminal justice and does not mean retribution for sins against us. It means taking care of widows and orphans (seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow; so Isaiah says earlier—economic and political justice). And all that the widows and orphans represent: which is oppressed, suffering, and disenfranchised people.

God defines a new kind of fast. Not forgoing food for a while with the intent of influencing God, but a spiritual discipline nonetheless. A kind of overriding attentiveness to the demands of others, demands that call us with authority simply because the others are people. Not deserving or good or friendly or pathetic, just people.

This fast is not designed to persuade God but to transform us. If you give food to the hungry, satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then, says God, your light will shine forth like the dawn. If you stop quarreling and fighting and trying to blame each other, then your light will shine in the darkness. God will be with you, God will have your back, God will guide you, God will fulfill your needs.

This sounds like a deal God is making with Israel. If you want my favor, then do these things. This is conditional. If you go about the old way: such fasting as your do today will not make your voice heard on high. In the heavens, God will not hear you. And if you fast by doing justice, then God will answer.

But these pairs of Ifs and Thens are not so much conditional as consequential. This is the judgment of physics. If you shake the apple from the tree, it will drop. It is inevitable, but not transactional. These paired statements are less If and Then and more When and Then.

When you live out your life according to the justice that God commands, then you will find God guiding you. When you care for the afflictions of other, then you will find your cities will prosper like a watered garden. You will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets to live in. And when we deny justice to the poor, as we seem to be doing, things fall apart and it appears that God is far away.

This is about God’s love, but that love is not at risk. We are at risk, and God’s words in Isaiah are warnings. They are not threats of abandonment or punishment. They are cautions about the consequence of our actions. And they are hopeful prophecies about the way things will be when we do as God teaches us. We will hear God say “here I am.”

Bead Work Blessings

Text: Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12

[Often the readings of the lectionary—the list of readings for each Sunday—seem like a bunch of beads in a bag. Maybe related, but mostly not. But today is seems to me that each reading is like a bead on a string, held together loosely, but in order, with a beginning and an end. We start with God’s disappointment in the people of Israel. We end with God’s blessing. We’re going to follow that string like a rosary.]

What have I done, God asks, that you should be weary of me? This is a disappointed and sorrowful God. Israel, God’s people, whom God brought out of Egypt, whom God redeemed from slavery, led across the wilderness, given a safe and sacred home, has abandoned God’s law and betrayed God’s blessings.

Earlier in Micah, the prophet lists Israel’s sins. God speaks through the words of Micah, saying: The powerful covet fields of others, and seize them, and take away their houses [2.2]. They cry “peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who have nothing to put into their mouths [3:5]. The rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets [prophesy] for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, “Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us.” [3.11]. These sins against the people (unfortunately familiar) make God more sad than angry.

In this passage we just heard, the people in response ask what they might do to repair the breach they have made with God. What acts of piety do they have to perform before God is pleased with them? How about sacrificing a whole calf? How about a thousand sheep (which is more than the richest king would own)? How about ten thousand rivers of olive oil? The proposals are absurd. The prophet is sarcastic. The question is wrong. Pious posturing is not what God desires.

God’s desire is not a secret. To the Israelites or to us. The good is known. God has told us what it is. God has told us what is required. To do justice. To love kindness. To walk humbly with God.

This sweet list is not one of high-minded intentions, but practical acts. Acts of grace. To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.

Justice comes first. The order is not an accident. Justice is the basis for living as God’s people. Nothing comes before it. Justice is harmony, the right relations between one person and another, reconciliation of trespass. The opposite of covetousness, of indifference to the plight of others, of self-glorification, of engineered advantage over those who are weaker. Just actions are ones that repair lopsided economic and political inequity. A just world is the one God intended at creation. Just actions are those that heal this world that has been broken.

Love of mercy comes second. Mercy is sometimes called kindness, or loving kindness, or devotion. It is compassion more than pity. Being merciful is not a request to temper deserving punishment (as in: have mercy on me) so much as treating all people with kindness because they are God’s people just as you are.

Love here means less all weak in the knees and more faithful or loyal or steadfast. The kind of fidelity that is the basis to friendship or marriage or close relationships. We love mercy not because we choose to feel nice about someone but because we are faithful parts of a community of God’s people.

Walking humbly with God comes third. To walk with God is to follow God’s direction. God’s direction is given in the commands of God. The commands of God are gifts to God’s people that guide us, that show us a way to live, that instruct us how to be just and merciful to one another. To walk humbly with God is to accept God’s guidance rather than our own. To accept God’s sovereignty, to trust in God’s word. It defines us as God’s people, as the ones who follow God.

Yet, like the Israelites, we find God’s guidance to be difficult. Today’s psalm lists some requirements of a godly person. One who is blameless, it says, speaks the truth, never dissembles, does no evil, holds no contempt, does no wrong, never reneges, never loans money for interest, and does not take bribes. I think this psalm is a little Biblical joke. There is no such perfect person. No one is blameless. Everyone does some wrong. Everyone is a sinner.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth. There is an issue in the church. Some people there think a lot of themselves. They seem to think they are not sinners, but good and law-abiding folks. Perhaps they think that they embody Psalm 15 and have it posted on their refrigerators.

They think they are different from the riff-raff with whom they share the church. They are standoffish, and eat by themselves, and put on airs. Paul in this letter reminds them that Jesus comes for the weak and the foolish, for the sinners. This is a shock to the powerful and wise, for in Paul’s culture, as in ours, they are usually not only respected sycophantically but admired and catered to.

This makes the list of blessings in Matthew—which we call the beatitudes—seem so strange. It was strange to those who first heard it and strange to us. To be blessed is to be favored, to be fortunate—endorsed by the fates—and empowered. In what universe are the meek, the heartbroken, the hungry, and the discouraged fortunate?

It would be a mistake to sentimentalize the condition of the subjects of this list. It stinks to be poor, to mourn, to starve. This is a not a recipe for spiritual success. Not some key to the happy life. And not a reward for pure living.

The people who are listening to Jesus at the foot of the mountain are a motley bunch. People who are ill and suffering, people on the margin. When Jesus tells these unlikely folks that they are blessed, he is not celebrating their suffering. But he is celebrating them. The beatitudes in Matthew are addressed to the people Jesus came to heal. They are the broken people, and Jesus comes to minister to them and to change the world in which they are allowed to suffer. When Jesus calls them blessed, he is declaring their worth to him. They are his purpose and his people.

In the Gospel of Mark, the first public thing Jesus does is perform an exorcism. In Luke, the first thing he does is to describe his mission. In John, the first thing he does is to perform a miraculous sign of his divinity. But here in Matthew, the first thing Jesus does is to bless the poor and the outcast.

The beatitudes are a preface to the Sermon on the Mount which follows them. (And which we’ll hear more about during the remaining weeks in Epiphany.) In this way, they serve as an introduction to this sermon. They are not themselves an ethical imperative—not a command to moral action—but they put into context a speech that is. The world is unjust. Those who suffer embody that. But the world does not have to be that way.

The sins of the Israelites against the people was made possible by their forgetting (or feeling free to forget) that God exists. Or of acting as if the commands of God were amusing rather than serious. Historical, mythic, and irrelevant to modern conditions. That deciding that whether or not we are obedient to them makes no difference in our lives or the good of the world.

Yet God’s desires are not secret. God has told us what they are. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminds—as we often need reminding just as much as the Israelites did—reminds us that we have committed to be God’s people. That we who follow Jesus are commanded to do justice and to love mercy. And Jesus teaches us how to walk humbly with God.