7. Sunday of Epiphany , 02/20/2011

Sermon on Matthew 5:38-48, by Samuel D. Zumwalt

³⁸ "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 the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would 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, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For 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, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

THE BRIDEGROOM AND THE BRIDE: 7. WHEN LOVE IS TOUGH

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we are continuing our series on Christ the Bridegroom and the Church as His bride. Last week we applied that image to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:21-37 about the many dangers that abound in this broken world. We thought together about what our heavenly Father wants for Jesus' Bridegroom the Church and particularly what He wills for the men and women joined together in marriage.

Today we continue to listen to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Here we have more challenging words from, what one person called, "an uncomfortable Jesus": the Bridegroom calls His disciples to reflect a maturity that serves the difficult neighbor especially when it's tough. The key verse to memorize today is: "Therefore, you shall be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect" (5:48).

At the outset, it is important to remember that only God's Son Jesus, the Bridegroom, perfectly reflects His heavenly Father's perfect love. As we have previously noted, Jesus is the righteousness of God, and, His Bride the Church can only be made righteous by Him in the washing of Holy Baptism. It might be helpful, at this point, to remember that God's Law (No) afflicts the comfortable and God's Gospel (Yes) comforts the afflicted. The Lord Jesus' intention here is not to say to the comfortable listener: "Well, we all know you aren't perfect, so no sweat. Just try to be as nice as you can."

Several weeks back when we read the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), we thought about seeing things from God's viewpoint, the view from eternity. We remembered then that by hungering and thirsting for Jesus the Bridegroom as He comes to us in bread and wine we receive what we need to endure when it seems like our lives have been cursed. This sacramental union with Jesus is much more powerful and infinitely comforting than a kind of Gnostic "spiritual" Jesus that so many churches offer as a kind of emotional Band-Aid. Augustine called the sacraments "a visible Word," and his teaching breaks open the power of Christ's incarnation, the Word embracing earthly matter. Hence, receiving Jesus in bread and wine is so much more than a spiritual escape from this world. He is Emmanuel, God-with-us, right where we are in the midst of the fray!

Today the Bridegroom of the Church speaks to us His Father's good and gracious will over and against the kind of rabbinic teaching that drew sharp lines around neighbors one could write off and even destroy. Here Emmanuel reminds His Bride that the sacramental waters of Holy Baptism provide no such outside boundaries. Serving the neighbor as God the Father wants the neighbor to be served is often tough, especially when the neighbor is as close as a spouse that has strayed and is working hard to be an enemy. Along the way, today, we will remember again that freedom in Christ is a freedom "for" more than a freedom "from!"

On Hurting Them Back

If we are honest, most of us must confess that our old Adams or Eves (the old sinners in us) have played through a number of mental scenarios in which those we exact our revenge on those that have hurt us the most. I'm not talking here about the small stuff of church politics. I've often said that the reason church politics are often so petty is that the stakes are so small. The antidote to church politics, local or beyond, is to remind each other that, no matter how long we've been here, this is Christ's church not ours!

So, I'm talking about the big stuff where the people that we have let most fully into our hearts and lives decide that they will betray our love and trust. If you listen closely to those that do such nasty and brutish things, they always have a good excuse. It usually begins with, "Well, you did such and such, and so I am justified in having done what I have done." Then, to top it off, sometimes you hear: "I'm sorry you feel hurt." As my dear wife likes to say, "There's always a good excuse for why people fail to do what they're supposed to do." It's called sin. We do not fear, love, and trust God above all else.

We heard last week that the rabbis taught one could not be reconciled with an adulterous spouse, the one-flesh relationship of marriage having been broken. We know the worst case scenario was to punish the adulterer(s) with death by stoning, and one still hears occasionally about that kind of bloody vengeful response to adultery in some places among Muslims. At the beginning of Matthew's gospel, Joseph was wrestling with what to do about pregnant Mary. His options, as a "righteous" man, were to put her away with malice or to put her away quietly. He wanted to do the latter until the angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph that the Mary had not violated the vows made at their betrothal.

Here, in today's Gospel, Mary's son and God's teaches us a still more perfect way to respond to the deep betrayals that can come our way in life. The adulterer who offers her or his excuses for why she or he betrayed seeks to justify the unjustifiable. No one held a gun to her or his head and said, "Break your vows to your spouse." Just as love is a choice, so is betrayal. It speaks volumes about the hole in that person's soul. Of course, the dance of anger that couples often perfect in their wounded life together sometimes makes it easier for one to betray the other. The choice to betray is about that person's spiritual immaturity. But, the choice to betray does not happen in a vacuum. There are things done and left undone, as we confess so often, that shape the environment in which someone in her or his weakness of character chooses poorly and often malevolently.

So, then, how are we to respond to betrayal from someone we love? The easiest choice is to write the person off. The second easiest choice is to respond as punitively as possible, and there are lawyers and counselors who will gladly drain you of your assets by stoking your "righteous" anger. The children of these broken marriages need not to be treated as pawns in the war between the spouses. Parents who do that to their kids may well be guilty of loving their children too little. Rather, children need to be always safe and always loved wherever they are. They ought not to be drawn into the tawdry details of their parents' broken lives. This means that the adulterous spouse ought not to try to include her or his new "friend" in the children's lives. It's wrong to do so, and it shows a lack of spiritual and emotional maturity on the part of the childish parent.

A Christian will work to be reconciled even with an adulterous spouse. It may mean stepping back at first and allowing that person to be as foolish as possible, waiting for the day when she or he comes to her or his senses. Obviously, when children are involved, the betrayed spouse has to look out for their best interests, protecting them from experiencing the worst of the straying parent's lifestyle. But, again, children are not to be treated as pawns in the parents' private war.

Jesus' teaching on turning the other cheek and in not refusing to give to the one who asks does not mean harming the children's future by liquidating all the assets for the benefit of the adulterous spouse. You do not have to add insult to the children's injury by providing for someone's on-going irresponsible lifestyle. Rather, in the case of a marriage that cannot be reconciled due to the stubbornness of both parties, the goal would be to be as fair as possible without being petty or punitive. The one who has done the betraying really ought not to expect to benefit from having destroyed the marriage. Childish people often think otherwise and need to be challenged to think like adults.

On Selective Serving

Christian love is making the choice to serve everyone as our heavenly Father expects. Here the Lord Jesus teaches us that God's people are called not to curse but to bless. The drawing of lines between who is a neighbor and who is not, who is worthy of our care and who is not, is the stuff of sin...not the mark of the Bride of Christ whose Bridegroom laid down His life while we were yet sinners!

The soap opera vision of the world in which holidays are a gathering of one big happy dysfunctional family with multiple ex-spouses present along with various former lovers is not the goal here, I hope, obviously! Many young people today are hesitant to enter into marriage, because they neither experienced the love and safety they needed. Instead they often got to be party to the latest wackiness of their childish vindictive parents who doubtless thought normal was what they saw on the "soaps" or something they heard about on a TV talk show. I've met more than a few "doctors" who, if all families heeded their teaching, this world would be even more messed up than it is.

If we apply the Lord Jesus' teaching here to marriage and family life, then it means that somebody has to stop fighting first. We cannot stop someone from thinking of us as an enemy. Usually that's really about their own stuff, and we do well not to get caught up in their need to have enemies in life. Yes, Rabbi Friedman, guru on religious family systems, said that such thorny behavior is a way to get closer to us. Sometimes, yes, but sometimes not, as anyone who has lived through a nasty divorce can attest.

The goal for Christians is to be reconciled even when adultery has broken the sanctity of the marriage bed. Of course, it takes two to be reconciled, and there is a time after a lengthy season (usually years and not a couple of months) when one finally knows that the marriage cannot be restored. The Christian will have been praying for God's help to forgive the betrayal and the grace to be reconciled as spouses. When the marriage cannot be restored, the Christian will not treat the former spouse as an enemy. They do not have to be friends and probably cannot be...especially if one or both remarry. But the Christian, especially if children are involved, will choose to serve the ex-spouse neighbor as one who is more precious, lovable, and valuable than Christ's own life...as one for whom Christ died! This, perhaps, is when love is toughest! We love because God first loved us!

Wade in the Water

At the outset, I spoke about the sacramental union between the Bridegroom and His Bride when Christ Himself is present in the earthly stuff of bread and wine. Paul's claim becomes palpable as we eat and drink Christ's body and blood: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). What we cannot do on our own, the maturity that often escapes us because of sin, we can do with Christ's help. As Luther said, "For Christ Himself fights by our side with weapons of the Spirit" ("A Mighty Fortress").

So...what to do when we are struggling...as may come upon us in marriage and family life? What we don't need is the modern day equivalents of Job's friends who give us advice that isn't helpful. Also...we don't need to stay away from the services of God's house because (surprise, surprise) we may not hear what we want to hear...which is usually that we're just fine the way we are...justified in feeling the way we do...and are doing the right thing by refusing to be reconciled, by being petty, and by making a spouse into an enemy. None of that, please!

Doubtless your Mama taught you that when you fall in the mud you need a bath. And so if you have been wallowing in the mud of adultery or revenge or guerilla warfare with your spouse or your ex, then wade in the water, children! Holy Baptism is not a one-time thing we do for God. It is God's gracious claiming us for Christ's sake...drowning the old sinner in us and raising us up with Christ to a new life that goes on forever. Now think about it. Because life with the Triune God goes on forever, there's no room for the immature and the imperfect stuff that comes from falling in the mud of sin, death, and evil. God became flesh to live the life we cannot live and die the death we cannot die. All that He did, says Luther, that we may be His own...not that we may be our own!

Private confession is a good thing, as Martin Luther reminds us. Private confession is not for the voyeuristic tendencies of the punitive confessor. Private confession is for getting out the stuff that's been killing the child of God in us. And sometimes, wading in the water, children, involves finding a confessor who will listen and then offer words of comfort and encouragement to build up the child of God in us.

Paul says, in Galatians 2, "I have been crucified with Christ, and now it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me." To remember our Baptism, it's a good daily practice to stand under the shower head or to slip under the bath waters having renounced again the forces of evil, the devil, and all his empty promises. It's good to remember the one true story that has enveloped us in God's grace, mercy, and love for Christ's sake: "I believe in God the Father, creator of heaven and earth...." Of course, that's a kind of daily reminder accompanied by Bible reading and prayer that can sustain us between the weekly unions of the Bridegroom with His Bride at the table of the Lord.

Life is often tough, and love is often tougher still...especially when you're trying to keep marriage vows that reflect the eternal faithfulness of Christ the Bridegroom to His Bride, the Church. The promise of perfection, of maturity, is both a reminder of what we are not yet as sinners but of what we are and what we shall be as children of God forever!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

STS Samuel D. Zumwalt
Wilmington, North Carolina USA
E-Mail: szumwalt@bellsouth.net

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