Sermon: Intense

February 16, 2014 ~ Intense from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A  sermon preached at John Knox Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on February 16, 2014.

I Corinthians 3:1-9
and Matthew 5:21-37

I went to college at a place called Grinnell,

a beautiful, bucolic school sitting on 120 acres of a rural Iowa town

pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

In fact, to the North and to the East you could cross the roads

that marked its boundaries and find yourself in cornfields

and maybe imagine your self in your very own

Field of Dreams movie set.

It was a wonderful place to study.

Not really a great place to get out and party,

as many college kids really need to do, too,

but somehow we made do.

Once I was in an Economics class one spring

and it was suddenly beautiful outside.

The snow from the previous weeks had melted

and the sun was out and the squirrels were frolicking

and no one, no one,

wanted to be in the classroom for class.

And the professor, bless his heart,

didn’t want to be inside either.

So he suggested that we find a comfortable spot, outside

under a tree or something,

where we could have class for the day.

And we did. Twenty five or so of us took a square of grass

and circled around the professor to discuss the lessons of the day.

And I’m not sure if it was the freedom of that setting

or the transition from winter to spring

and the fresh smell of new grass

or the obscurity of the lesson

we were ostensibly supposed to be debating

Whatever it was,

suffice it to say that we got nothing done that afternoon.

Every proposition the professor made—

students would raise their hand

and make contradictory comments.

or you could tell they weren’t listening.

Every effort to explain, another student would crack a joke

or point off to some kids playing ultimate down the hill.

It was maddening.

Finally, after about 15 minutes of effort,

the professor gave up and dismissed us

and we never tried that little experiment again.

We were never able to get serious, and to focus

and instead wasted a wonderful opportunity to learn

                                             and to grow and to stretch ourselves a little bit.

* * *

So, I never really had the chance to have a productive outside class.

The opportunity was squandered, as it sometimes is

by distracted youth or distracted adults

enjoying a measure of triviality when confronted

by serious, weighty, complex things.

I don’t want to draw too strong a connection here,

but it isn’t too far a stretch to imagine Jesus,

here in this stretch of fascinating, challenging words

that we call the Sermon on the Mount,

its not too far a stretch to see Jesus in a teaching mode.

The text tells us as much, when Jesus climbs the mount

and takes the posture of a traditional teacher, sitting down

with his students—the disciples and the crowds

gathered around him.

And this collection of sayings of Jesus have always come across to me

more as the careful lecture notes of an attentive student

missing the bullets or the marginalia

but moving from point to point with surgical precision

of the teacher’s main arguments.

I don’t think the student here or the class assembled

were nearly as flippant as we were at Grinnell that sunny afternoon.

There is clear attention to the detail and the arguments being presented.

But there is also a clear back and forth going on:

Jesus, having given an introduction to the blessings of God’s realm

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the Meek

Blessed are those who strive after righteousness, justice…

You can almost see the hands going up

and the questions being asked of the students…

What do you mean, these people are blessed?

                  How are they blessed?

And the notes continuing: you are salt of the earth, be salty.

Don’t lose your use and be tossed underfoot…

keep your light bright…

And the hands going up again:

What? What does that mean?

         And what about all those people who say

                  that you’re teaching people to ignore the Law of Moses?

         You don’t follow the Sabbath?

You are clearly unconcerned with the Law, isn’t that so, Jesus?

And the lecture notes continue:

Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it!

Woe to anyone who doesn’t fulfill to the letter the law!

* * *

There is a give and take quality of the interaction going on here

that we sometimes miss if we think that this is just a monologue.

Jesus is engaging people who do not treat these matters as SPORT at all

but who are deadly serious about them,

who are concerned to get every little external detail just right

because they are convinced that THAT is how they are

made right with God.

What you ate mattered, because the LAW proscribes

certain things to eat and certain ways to eat them

and certain people you could eat them with.

Who you talked to mattered, because the LAW had a cleanliness code

that rendered you unclean if you breached it

and if you were unclean, you couldn’t offer sacrifices

or pray properly

or gather with others. You would be outcast.

And that’s no fun.

Nor is it very safe.

These were serious matters.

And they were all about following the right sorts of behavior.

Doing the right things, to the letter of the law.

And I believe this was rooted in a healthy impulse to WANT

to be good people

to yearn for God’s favor

to seek to make the world the kind of world

that God would want to redeem.

* * *

So what happens when this impulse meets Jesus,

teaching on the hillside,

imploring his listeners to be salt, to be light,

to bear God’s love into the world….?

Well, we have a bit of a nasty confrontation:

You have heard it said…Jesus begins

do not murder.

But I say to you anyone who is ANGRY is liable to judgment

any who says YOU FOOL will burn

In fact, anyone who knows anyone who has a beef with you

go and be reconciled BEFORE you even try to

burn that ritual offering

lest you find it an empty gesture.

You have heard it said…Jesus goes on

don’t sleep with a married person.

But I say to you: don’t even lust after another person!

And this system of divorce we allow,

do you think that frees you from responsibility!

Truly, you’re causing one another to burn,

better to cut off an eye or a hand,

than to do that!

You have heard it said…don’t swear falsely!

But I say to you: don’t swear at all!

either by heaven

or by earth

or by Jerusalem

or by the hair on your head

Say yes and no, and be truthful….

* * *

Sometimes its hard to get the sense of what is going on

when you read someone else’s class notes.

But Jesus is trying to explain what it means

to say that he is not trying to abolish the law but fulfill it,

and he does this by looking at hallmark examples of the law

murder

divorce and adultery

oaths

ritualistic sacrifices

and turning it back on those who speak of honoring the law

by merely doing the external deeds it proscribes.

Its not enough not to murder.

The point of that proscription is as much the wrath behind it.

Its not enough not to commit adultery,

but to be concerned about the lustful heart

that can lead us to ruin relationships

Its not enough not to swear falsely

but watch out about thinking we can swear at all

on things we really cannot control.

In all of these things, Jesus is taking the outward compliance with the law

and turning our attention INWARD.

It is really an intensification of things:

the law is not just a set of external actions

but a question of where your heart is when you do them.

Time and time again, Jesus is going to make this distinction:

its not enough to be concerned about BEHAVIOR

when the real question is as much about INTENT

about heart.

* * *

Jesus is saying these things to challenge those who believe

that their purity of behavior is going to set them up well with God.

But given Jesus’ response, we’re all in trouble, I think:

Who among us hasn’t been ANGRY before?

I’ve violated that five times this past week, maybe more.

Who doesn’t have someone who is ANGRY at us?

Cut anyone off in traffic lately?

Brag a little too loudly at that Mizzou victory to your

K-State neighbor?

Who hasn’t promised something that just really can’t happen?

Who has promised vows to someone

only to see them not turn out the way we had hoped,

had dreamed?

We’re all in trouble, if that were the point.

But I don’t think that was the point, other than for us to realize

that for all our striving,

all our efforts,

all of our attention towards right living

we all fall short somehow.

No matter how intense we work to conform our external behavior

however you understand what God might we calling us to do

We fall short.

We fall short.

We fall short.

So maybe, instead of pointing at others and worrying about

the splinter in their eye

we might ponder with humility the ways

we can be salt,

we can be light just a little bit better.

* * *

Someone asked me this week if we’ve rationalized away these teachings

of Jesus.

We may not have come to a place where we permit murder

but anger is commonplace, is it not?

We seem to not care so much about lust anymore

just turn on the television, right?

and we all, myself included, see that sometimes

a married couple no longer ought be married.

But I think we do well not to look so closely at these teachings

with the same sort of eye that Jesus’ original contenders did:

Jesus is not pushing a legalism, but a conversion of the heart

where we see our brokenness

and strive for better action, more love, greater grace

one step at a time…

Where we all recognize that we’re in need of the grace and forgiveness

we find in our Lord and Savior.

Where we are urged to start looking at the world through the eyes of love,

the eyes of our savior.

* * *

One example might be found in our current culture war,

now raging in churches and courtrooms and now legislative halls.

Micah Murray wrote a blog entry last year

entitled “Perhaps Love Bakes a Cake.”[i]

The particular matter he’s talking about is the question of marriage

and who should be able to marry and have the rights of marriage

access to hospital rooms

and sacred decisions at the end of life

shared benefits on tax forms and in courtrooms

and at schools and health care plans

and on and on.

This question will be before us soon, here in Kansas and Missouri.

And Murray noted that one dust-up of this question

is particularly strong with people who deeply disagree

with the expansion of marriage to same-sex couples.

Should a police officer or government clerk who disagrees

be required to serve a same-sex couple?

What about a movie-theatre owner,

who doesn’t want to sell a ticket to a gay couple,

or  an innkeeper, or a baker, asked to bake a wedding cake?

Should any public business be allowed to not serve someone

because of the private moral judgment of the employee?

Hard questions for our society.

But Murray argues for a different Christian lens to use

when we as people of faith ponder these questions.

Here’s what he says:

What’s been conspicuously absent

in all this talk of the Bible and Christian Values and pleasing God

         is any mention of Jesus…

Christianity is a religion of love and of grace.

Whenever morality becomes elevated above love

we have veered away from the meaning of the faith.

Perhaps the most Christian thing of all

is to love God and love our neighbors.

Perhaps Love is patient and kind

and keeps no record of wrongs.

Perhaps Love covers a multitude of sins.

Perhaps Love doesn’t demand that everyone

live up to our standards.

Perhaps Love gives with no strings attached.

Perhaps Love meets people where they are

and cares about them as people instead of issues.

Perhaps Love bakes a cake.

* * *

Jesus is warning us, here in the sermon on the mount,

that our preoccupation with the external adherence to the law

misses the point that God is concerned about our heart too.

None of us quite live up to the external demands of God’s law.

 

But Love, love guides us and directs us and empowers us

to discern which laws give life and which take it away.

And, more importantly, love provides us a HOW

a WAY we’re supposed to go about our lives

making sense of the difficult choices before us.

Love enables us to speak truth to power

and to stand on the side of the oppressed and the hurting.

Love enables us to see that being RIGHT doesn’t matter

what matters is God’s field, as Paul says in Corinthians,

God’s family, God’s kingdom.

Love tells us that we fulfill the LAW

when we love God and love neighbor.

Jesus, he refused to follow the LETTER of the law all the time.

He taught on the Sabbath. He ate with outcasts.

He challenged the structure of the day.

But he never budged on the intent of the law: love God.

Love self. Love neighbor.

This Jesus: he is intense.

He demands an end to our preoccupation

with OTHER’S righteousness and a deep concern

about where OUR heart is.

He demands that we stand on the side of LOVE

so that God’s LOVE may be felt by those who can’t feel it yet.

My prayer is that we ponder these tough teachings of Jesus

and find simple ways to rest our heart in God’s grace

so that despite our imperfections, our failings, our faltering

we might still be agents of THIS LOVE for others.

May it be so. Amen.