Identifying the problem

There is a story about a young soldier in Italy during WWII who jumped into a foxhole just in time to avoid bullets screaming overhead. As he frantically dug to deepen the hole, he came across something metal, and brought up a crucifix, left by a former resident of the foxhole. A moment later, another leaping figure landed beside him as the shells exploded overhead. When the soldier got a chance to look, he saw that his companion was an Army chaplain. Holding out the crucifix, the soldier gasped, “Am I glad to see you! How do you work this thing?” Sometimes I feel like that soldier when I try to understand Jesus’ teachings. I want to ask an expert, “How do you work this thing?” Or, more appropriately in this situation, “How can I use this teaching of Jesus?”

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught that those who are peacemakers will be happy. And He made it clear that we are not to resist an evil person, but turn the other cheek when struck, and give the person even more than he has taken forcibly. Taken literally, this teaching presents a real conundrum. It goes against all my natural self-preservation instincts, all that I have been taught since childhood, against common sense and against the whole nationalistic idea of fighting for freedom that has been so much a part of my public education and church experience. Is it any wonder that so many Christians ignore or spiritualize the message?

For me, the solution was a little of each. Spiritualize the sermon, making it talk about minor grievances instead of actual physical abuse. Emphasize the “eye for an eye” part of the instruction rather than the “turn the other cheek” part. But basically, I have just ignored it altogether. I have been taught to defend my home, family and country at all costs. I have believed those who have told me that to die for one’s country on the field of battle is the highest honor one can achieve in death. I have served in the armed forces and would have killed without regret if ordered to do so. I have many times said that if a person violates the sanctity of my home or the safety of my family and I have the means available, the violator will be carried away in a bag. And I meant every word of it.

But something has begun to change in my thinking. As I have reconsidered the SM, I find myself thinking that those were not biblical responses, but instead fleshly, worldly responses to fleshly, worldly threats. And it is not just the words of Christ that I find unnerving. As I look at Jesus’ life and death, I see Him modeling how we are to react when we are treated unjustly, unmercifully, viciously and inhumanely. We say that He lived a life that we are to emulate. Can we say less about how He reacted to those who wanted to (and eventually did) take His life?

In my last post, I mentioned a conversation with a Mennonite after our tour of Behalt in Berlin, Ohio. As we talked, I asked him if he was a pacifist. He said he would not call his position pacifism, but Christian nonviolence. That wasn’t good enough for me. I asked him point blank: If someone broke into your house and threatened your family with bodily harm, what would you do? His response not only gave me insight into his own journey with the SM, but also gives me some hope for continuing this quest I am on for a faith worthy of the name “kingdom citizen.” He said: “I’ll give you two answers: the first is what I would probably do; the second what I would want to do. The person who threatens my family, not my home, would have to reach them by killing me first. But I would want to be able to trust God, even in that situation, and not respond to violence with violence.”

So what would happen if I decided to live out this understanding of Jesus’ SM? What are the implications for my daily life? I’ll visit that set of problems in the next post.

Lord Jesus, show me how to live as a disciple of the Prince of Peace. Amen.

Next installment: What would happen if I really…?

Blessed are the...

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Now there’s a message that can wreak havoc with your concept of the Christian life. Oh, it doesn’t attack your suppositions with frantic accusations. It just quietly bites you with the inconspicuous truths of the kingdom of God, and then moves on to allow you to scratch the itches it has produced. I’ve heard this message called the most important passage of the Bible, the whole of Jesus’ ministry in one sermon, the Christian Magna Charta, the Christian Manifesto, the Rules for Living, and on and on. I have read chapters 5-7 of Matthew’s gospel innumerable times in my 40-plus years as a Christian, and preached through it several times in my pastoral career. And until just recently, I was sure I had a pretty good handle on what Jesus was saying.

Let me summarize my approach to the passage over the years and see if you can relate. It seemed obvious to me that Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God, that perfect heavenly version of what we know as the broken world today. Matthew records that Jesus had announced that His presence made the kingdom a reality (Matt. 4:17), and Luke (4:43) records Jesus as saying that His purpose in coming was to preach the kingdom. So Jesus must, I concluded, have used this lengthy and very early address to summarize what we who are His disciples will all look like when the kingdom is realized in its fullness. Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, He surely couldn’t have been describing how we are to look today. The standard is far beyond the reach of any but the dead saints of old, and since they are not around to provide verification of their saintliness, I’m not so sure I trust the accuracy of their biographers. You can see where I am going with this. The demands of the Sermon on the Mount are so outrageously superhuman, I reasoned, that they are to be spiritualized and were never intended to be taken literally.

Result? Well, when Jesus says the poor in spirit, the gentle, those hungering for righteousness, and the peacemakers are blessed, I added “those who try to be” before each descriptive word or phrase. Blessed are “those who try to be” gentle, blessed are “those who try to be” pure in heart, and so on through the list of beatitudes. Later in the message, when we learn that to be angry with a brother makes us as guilty as a murderer, or that we are to turn the other cheek when struck, I could only understand those as intentional exaggeration, hyperbole meant to drive home the point that we need to set a higher standard for ourselves regarding civil and moral behavior than the world does.

That was then. This is now. At some point over the last year or so I have become convinced that my understanding of this important passage has been deeply flawed. And it comes to a head with Jesus’ words from Matthew 5:38-42, verses that I feel are a commentary on the phrase from Matthew 5:9…”Blessed are the peacemakers…” Don’t assume that I have received some insightful revelation that will open the meaning of this crucial message of Jesus. I haven’t. But what I have come to understand about the message is rocking my theological boat. This article and the ones to follow that complete my thoughts on the topic are only my way of asking for help with some very troubling questions I must now answer. I invite your thoughts and comments.

Father, I have put my faith in your living Word and the record of His teachings. I have trusted your Holy Spirit to guide me as I try to learn and become like Jesus. Forgive me for reading my own thoughts into your revelation and for taking the easy way out as I seek to apply scripture to my life. Open the eyes of my heart to know your truth. And keep me from misleading myself and others as I seek to grow in this blessed faith. Amen.

Next installment: Did Jesus really mean…?