Saturday, February 26, 2011

Ooops

Sorry about that. It wasn’t me. Honest. I wouldn’t be offering you a suggestion on how to ... well, I wouldn’t. Really. La Donna met me at the office door this morning telling me that someone hijacked the Late Night Bible Study. What? I said. OK, not the most “on the ball” kind of answer I could have given. But it was the best I could do early Saturday morning. “What?’

I mean come on, who would want to hijack something like the Late Night Bible Study? With a spam message about ... well, come on! Now that I think about it, I remember seeing something about a new member joining the Bible Study group. The online one, not the face to face ones. And whenever someone joins on their own, as opposed to being put there by me, then it is usually trouble. Thankfully, not major trouble - not malicious virus or hacker trouble; just usually spam trouble, email to the group advertising something useless or embarrassing. So, if I don’t recognize the email address that adds itself in, I’ll delete it. But I didn’t get around to it this time. Oops. Sorry about that.

And then, I just spent a little while going through the whole list to find out who was “bouncing.” That’s Yahoo’s term for the email isn’t getting through. There were a lot. Sorry about that. Many of them were the Verizon/Frontier switch that I didn’t change. Oops. So, some of you will get a notice saying you’ve been added. That’s what it means, I fixed an email problem. Some of you still aren’t getting it. If you aren’t getting this then ... you aren’t getting it ... and won’t know that you aren’t getting it ... and can’t then tell me to change your email address ... can you? Hmmm. Oops. Tell you what - if you have a friend who used to get this bible study and now isn’t, their email address may have changed. Tell them to email me and I’ll fix it. Unless they simply got bored with my rambling about nothing much important and decided to get Rick Warren’s bible study where he gets to the point right away. Actually, I don’t know if Rick has an online bible study, but if he did, he’d get to the point. I’m pretty sure. Sorry about that.

Maybe I should just get to the bible study and quit all this waffling. What’s the bible passage about this week, anyway? Being perfect. Oops. Great. Just great. Well, read these verses while I try to get back on track.

Matthew 5:38-48 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give 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.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so 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. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Out of all the things we wish he had never said, this is probably right up there at the top of the list. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” No wonder we prefer St. Paul. He said some hard things too, to be sure. But he is also the one who said “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23 - in case you want to go and embroider it or something) That is a statement we can get behind. That is a reality to which we can shout “Amen!”

We are painfully aware of our shortcomings. We know too well how far off track we are, how failings, our slip ups and our bad moments. We know, better than we would like to, just how out of reach perfection really is. So, we read verse forty-eight with a heavy heart. As though Jesus has laid a burden on our backs that is simply impossible for us to carry. It is surely beyond us.

Maybe we should just ignore that last verse. Maybe we could argue that it was added later. Yeah, that’s it, an editorial addition. Jesus wouldn’t have said something like that. He was kinder and gentler. He would have said something more like “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” Umm.

Some commentators have made a great deal out of that “right cheek” thing. If a right handed person strikes you on the right cheek, it must have been a backhanded slap. Not a real punch, right? It was more about the humiliation than it was about the pain. Someone was trying to put you down. Someone was trying to make you look foolish. And you are supposed to ... well ... let them. Uh.

One writer said that by offering the other cheek you were turning around, and while you turned you were supposed to be reaching back to really let them have it. Right. That might make more sense in a TV kind of way, in a revenge movie kind of way. But it doesn’t really fit into the flow of the Sermon on the Mount. Does it? “Someone sues you for your coat, give them your cloak as well.” “Someone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.”

We spend a lot of time trying to explain all of this away because it is too hard. Because it doesn’t fit in with a vengeance culture. It doesn’t match our natural inclinations to get even, to pay back. So, Jesus must have meant something other than what it seems like he said here. Or maybe this is the advanced level stuff. Only the Mother Teresa’s and the Martin Luther King Jr.’s can measure up to this grade. This AP Christianity class is beyond the most of us.

So, maybe we should just let it pass. Stick with remedial faith issues - basic level stuff, be kind, don’t say bad things, that sort of stuff. But then Jesus says that doesn’t get us what we want. “If you love those who love you what reward do you have?” So it IS about reward after all? What do I get out of this? We are doing all this faith stuff just to get into heaven? To be one of the children of the Father?

Well, yes. But not as we usually think about it. The reward isn’t a ticket to heaven when we die. The reward is a life that is more complete, a life that is full of joy and hope and peace. The reward is a life that is bounded by love, choices that are made by love, decisions that are motivated by love. When we choose to love even those who don’t love us, then we are freed from a desire for revenge. If we are always seeking to serve out of love, then we can’t be taken advantage of because we’ve already surrendered.

Which is really what perfection means. It isn’t about never making a mistake, or never doing anything wrong. When Jesus invites us to be perfect, he is asking us to always be motivated by love. If our intention is always to do the loving thing, then we have reached the kind of perfection that Jesus describes. In other words, despite one of the worst movie lines of all time, love doesn’t mean never having to say your sorry. There will still be a need for an oops, even if we were to aspire toward perfection. Mistakes will be made, because our knowledge is always less than perfect. The Sermon invites us to allow his love to live in us perfectly. Which means it isn’t us, but Him. It isn’t our doing, it is His loving that lives in us. It isn’t our effort, it is our surrender to Christ. Be perfect. Now there was more I was going to say, but I’m out of room. Ooops.

Shalom,
Derek

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