Matthew 5:38-48 "Coloring Outside the Lines"

         A pastor was giving a sermon based on today’s passage.  He decided to try some congregational participation.

         So he said to the folks sitting in the pews, “I’ll bet that many of us feel as if we have enemies in our lives. So raise your hand if you have many enemies.”  Now, this congregation being a very honest one, quite a few people raised their hands. The pastor smiled and continued.

         “Now raise your hand if you have only a few enemies.” And about half as many people raised their hands.

         “Now raise your hand if you have only one or two enemies.”  And even fewer people raised their hands that time.
         “See,” he says, “most of us feel like we have enemies. Now raise your hand if you have no enemies at all.”

         The pastor looked around and finally, way in the back, an old man raised his hand. The pastor acknowledged him.  The gentleman stood up and proudly announced to the pastor and the congregation, “I have no enemies whatsoever!”

         Needless-to-say, the pastor was astonished and invited the man to the front of the church.          

         “What a blessing!” the pastor said.  “How old are you?
         “I’m 98 years old,” he replied.

          “And you have no enemies?” the pastor asked once again.

         “Nope,” the elderly man said.  “Not a single one.”
         The pastor put his hand on the old parishioner’s shoulder and proclaimed, “What a wonderful Christian life you lead! Tell us how it is that you have no enemies.”
         The old man looked him in the eye and replied, “I outlived them all!”

         Friends and enemies:  That is what this passage we just read seems to be all about.  It is yet another excerpt – and a difficult one too - from the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus has been up on that mountain preaching for quite some time now – four Sundays worth of verses, as you well know if you have been in the church the past few weeks.  And what he has to say to us this morning is no Sunday School picnic. 

         We have come a long way since we reflected on the Beatitudes (or Blessings) together.  We have imagined ourselves as light and salt.  We have struggled with anger, divorce, lying, and adultery.  And today we are looking our enemies and those who seek to bring us down – looking them square in the face and pondering what in heaven’s name we are to do about them in light of the Gospel message and our calling as Jesus’ 21^st century disciples. 

         As one blogger I read noted, “If you weren’t poor in spirit at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, you are bound to be by the time you finish.” Jesus does not go easy on us this morning. 

“If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.  And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”

         How are we to make sense of those outlandish demands in our crazy, mixed up, dog-eat-dog world?  Even Jesus must have known that you do not get ahead being a doormat and that Casper Milquetoast never had a prayer of ending up as CEO.  Is Jesus trying to show us up as deficient, imperfect, well, OK, human?  Let’s look more closely and see what he might be up to.

        Jesus begins by tossing aside the so-called Law of the Tooth, words to live by in first century Palestine.  Gone are the days of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” in the Kingdom about which he preached.  You see, God’s dream for the world is not founded on retribution. 

         Did you know that this Law of the Tooth was originally meant to keep violent retaliation from escalating?  The logic was that, if someone poked out your eye, then you had the right to poke out one of his eyes – but no more.  Likewise, if someone knocked out your tooth, then you were entitled to knock out one of your assailant’s teeth – but just one, no more.  In other words the punishment was to perfectly fit the crime.  Fair is fair, right?

         But Jesus seems to imply, “No.  It is not a question of fairness.”  And he gives three examples that really must have set his listeners back. 

         The first had to do with getting slapped in the face: “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek….”  Now, most scholars agree that Jesus was talking about being slapped with the back of the hand – which was a gigantic insult to even the lowest of the low. 

A slap on the cheek like that was tantamount to saying, “You are scum” – or as the Irish would say – “The back of my hand to you.” Contrary to erroneous interpretations, Jesus was not talking about a physical assault, like a punch in the mouth. And he certainly was not telling his listeners to roll over and play dead.

         However, he does say that simply taking the insult is not enough, “…turn to them the other cheek also.“ He seems to be imploring his audience to break the cycle of vengeance.  Fairness is not the question – or the answer.  He is asking us to color outside the lines, to go beyond what we know and are comfortable with, to offer more than what we are required to offer.

         The second example is this:  “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt…” Again, most scholars agree that a shirt was one of two garments people wore, a cloak being the other.  In this example then, you were literally being asked to relinquish the shirt off your back – even though what you wore was all you owned.

         But then he goes on to say that doing so is not enough:  “…hand over your coat as well.”  Jesus is telling his audience that, in this example, they need to give up their other garment too – and finish the day in their skivvies – or even less than that. 

         Like the first example, he seems to be asking his audience to break the cycle of reprisal.  Fairness is not the question – or the answer.  Jesus is asking us to color outside the lines, to go beyond what we know and are comfortable with, to offer more than what we are required to offer.

         Here is the final example:  “If anyone forces you to go one mile…”  Again, most scholars agree that Roman soldiers had the authority to demand anyone to carry their pack for a mile.  A soldier could pull you away from your fishing vessel or shop or grab a kid playing stickball.  Such a show of power! 

         But Jesus admonishes his audience one again that that is not enough:  “…go with them two miles.”  Once again, he seems to be asking his audience to look beyond retribution.  Fairness is not the question – or the answer.  He is asking us to color outside the lines, to go beyond what we know and are comfortable with, to offer more than what we are required to offer.

         And then, if tossing aside the cultural laws that defined first century Palestinian relationships was not enough, Jesus sums up this part of his sermon by preaching to not just love your neighbor, but love your enemy – not just put up with him or her - as well –

the one who insults you with a slap, the one who takes your shirt and leaves you half-naked and shamed, the one who bullies you into dropping everything and being a personal slave.

         Make everyone your neighbor, Jesus says.  Love your enemies – don’t just put up with them – and even pray for them while you are at it.  It is not a question of fairness.  After all, this is God’s way.  This is part of God’s dream for the world.  This, in God’s eyes, will make you complete – or, as many translations say - perfect.

         That is certainly a difficult concept to embrace in our competitive, winner-take-all world.  I mean, really, if life is not based on fairness, then what is it based on?

         Episcopal priest Michael Marsh tells a story from his boyhood about going to a carnival with his parents and younger sister.   He writes:  “The only thing I remember about that day is the monkey on a stick. Mom and Dad bought us each a little fuzzy monkey tied to a stick by piece of elastic. We carried them around watching them bounce and swing. At some point we went back to the car and laid them on the backseat floorboard and then went on about the day. When we came back to the car my sister got in on my side. As she did she stepped on my monkey and broke the stick. It was an accident. Nevertheless, it was broken.

         (Marsh continues.)  I got in the car, reached over, and stomped on her monkey. I broke it. Then my dad reached over the front seat and slapped my leg. Contrary to Jesus’ admonition in today’s gospel, I did not offer him the other leg to be slapped.

         ‘That’s not fair,’ I yelled. It made no sense to me that she broke my monkey and I got slapped. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a monkey for a monkey. Now that made sense. That was fair.”

         How must we as followers of Jesus view our world, if not through the lens of fairness?  Surely the alternative is what Jesus was getting at in these verses.

         So – I ask you:  What if we were to see the world instead through the lens of love without limits – as difficult as that would be?  What if we really embraced the fact of the abundance of God’s love for us and shared this “overflow” love?  What if we made a commitment to go beyond what we have to offer and worked instead to give more in the name of that love?  What would our lives and the life of this church look like if we moved beyond fairness to trusting that the more we give away, the more we will have?  What if changing lives lay at the root of all we did as a church?  What if we colored outside the lines? What if this command to love that permeates all of the Sermon on the Mount, what if this command was a core value in our lives and in the life of our church? What if we truly embraced William Sloane Coffin’s admonishment that an eye for an eye will eventually leave the whole world blind?

         Giving up retaliation for reconciliation, retribution for pardon, vengeance for forgiveness, fairness for love seems overwhelming and even un-embraceable.

         And yet, Jesus is inviting all the crowds who listen to him down through the ages even to us to embrace a life that seems, in many ways, to be counter to who we have become as human beings. As UCC pastor Mark Suriano writes, he is issuing “a call to the highest and best within us, to raise our sights and join him in creating a more compassionate world, and to create among us a true community of respect based on self-giving.”

        Oh, the old ways will not just disappear.  They are still very much around us – poverty, war, fragmentation – but we – you and I – have, through our baptism, declared ourselves to be Christians and so have made a commitment to a new way of living based not on fairness but on limitless love.  And we cannot forget that! 

         We cannot singlehandedly end world hunger or disarm the entire world.  But we can start small – in our own lives – treating our families with compassion rather than sowing the seeds of revenge or demanding that life be fair or always keeping score.  We can color outside the lines, go beyond what we know and are comfortable with, and offer more than what we are required to offer.

          We can start small - in the life of this church – by supporting and expanding upon all that we do to change lives and create and transform community.  We can start small and support this church’s mission work even if that means going above and beyond our pledge, even if it means giving something when before we have given nothing.  We can color outside the lines, go beyond what we know and are comfortable with, and offer more than what we are required to offer.

         And how will we know if we have succeeded?  As Lutheran pastor, Carla Works noted, “When anger results in reconciliation rather than retaliation God must be at work. When enemies are overcome by love rather than violence God’s reign is present."

         Changing the world is overwhelming.  We cannot make Democrats love Republicans.  We cannot make conservatives affirm progressives.  However, we can change our own lives as well as the life of this church.  Let’s let that be where our focus lies this coming week. It may not seem like much in the face of all the world’s craziness, but it is a start.

         I know of an old wall – stones piled high by some ancient farmer and his son.  Each spring, in that wall, a single flower grows and blooms – no soil, not much sun, just a crack in the rocks. 

         Let’s be like that flower this week – taking our time but always persisting – small but important steps as we practice the faith that Jesus sets forth in these verses we read –

trying out love instead of fairness and compassion instead of retribution, trusting that we have it within us to begin to shatter the old way of doing things (even on a small scale), or at least to open some well-placed cracks in it, like that ancient wall, so that the new order Jesus preached can begin to flourish.

         It is as Leonard Cohen wrote:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in

         Let’s color outside the lines, go beyond what we know and are comfortable with, and offer more than what we are required to offer.  After all, that is how the light gets in.  That is how God’s dream will become a reality.