Here are three truths of life:
Number one: God is perfect.
Number two: I’m not.
Number three: Neither are you.
Now, that may all seem pretty obvious, and we’d probably all agree with each one of those statements. Here’s the thing, though. How do we square that with what Jesus said in our reading from Matthew?
Here’s what Jesus says. First, he says we should not strike back when someone attacks us. Instead, if someone hits us on the right cheek, we should turn the other as well. Then, Jesus says that we should not refuse someone who demands something from us. Instead, he says if someone wants to sue and take our shirt, we should give our coat as well. Then, Jesus says that if someone tries to force us to go one mile, we should not resist them. Instead, we should go a second mile as well. Finally, Jesus says we should not hate our enemies. Instead, we should love them and pray for the people who persecute us. Then, after telling us to do all these things that are not only really hard but are the exact opposite of what we’ve been told to do all our lives, Jesus says this: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.”
Most of us have heard about all these things before. Even people who are not Christians have heard the phrase “turn the other cheek”, although they may not know where it comes from. How many of us, though, actually try to live that way?
I think we can safely put these verses on the list of things we wish Jesus had never said. We know them, but a lot of times, we tend to gloss over them. We might think they sound nice in theory, but most of the time, we don’t even try to live our lives according to them.
We‘ve been talking in this sermon series about what the church is. We’ve said that the church is the people of God, and that the people of God should be enthusiastic about our faith in Christ. Last week, we talked about how the church is founded on love of everyone, with no exceptions.
This week, we flesh that out. In these verses, Jesus gets specific. He tells us just exactly what it really means to love everyone, with no exceptions.
Now, Jesus knew how weird this was going to sound to people. He knew this was going totally against the grain of what everyone was taught. That phrase “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is usually just treated as a cliché now, but it was part of the law given by Moses. It shows up in Exodus, it shows up in Leviticus, and it shows up in Deuteronomy. The people Jesus was talking to would’ve known that. Jesus knew he was telling people something completely different from what they’d heard all their lives.
There’s a reason Jesus said these things, though. Jesus told us what it was. This is the part we tend to forget. Jesus asks us, if we’re only friendly with people who are friendly with us, if we only love the people who love us, how does that make us, as Christians, any different from anybody else?
See, that’s the thing about being the church. The people of God are different from anybody else. The people of God do not do what the rest of society does. The people of God are supposed to be different, and that difference is what makes the people of God perfect.
The thing is that very few of us like to be different. Being different is not something that feels comfortable to us. There’s something inside almost all of us that wants to fit in. We talk about peer pressure all the time in regard to kids, but it’s not just kids who feel peer pressure. We all do. None of us wants to be looked at as odd or strange. People might not like us. People might look at us funny when we go downtown. That does not feel good to us. Most of us want to be liked. We want to be thought of as normal. We don’t want to be thought of us as different.
When we look through the Bible, though, we see a whole lot of the greatest people there who were not liked when they were actually alive. We see a whole lot of people who were thought of as different.
That’s especially true when we read the New Testament. John the Baptist was out in the wilderness wearing clothes made of camels’ hair and eating locusts. You think people thought of him as normal? You think people did not look at him funny when he came to town? He was probably one of the strangest dudes around. Yet, he was the one who was called by God to prepare the way for our Savior, Jesus Christ.
How about Paul? Paul had one of the strangest journeys to faith anyone ever had. He started out as one of the greatest persecutors of Christians who ever lived. Then he showed up one day and started telling everyone about this vision he’d had, and how he now believes in Jesus as the Messiah. You think that made him popular? For a while there, everyone was opposed to him. The Jewish leaders hated him for being a traitor, and the Christians did not trust him any farther than they could throw him, because just a few days ago he’d been their worst enemy.
Even after they got past that, Paul was still different. Paul was saying Jesus was not just the Savior for the Jews, he was the Savior for everybody. Paul was saying people did not need to follow the Jewish laws to be saved. Those are things we take for granted now, because Paul’s views have been accepted as right, but they were really controversial at the time. Paul was taking a stand that was not popular, a stand that was not the majority view. Paul was never somebody who was considered normal. Paul was different.
And, of course, Jesus himself was different. Here was this guy, who’d grown up in an ordinary home in an ordinary family, who looked and sounded just like everybody else. Here was this guy who, as far as we know, went the first thirty years or so of his life just kind of fitting in, being normal, not doing much of anything to call attention to himself. Then, all at once, he starts going around preaching and teaching and healing people and attracting followers and being called the Son of God. Once he started doing that, he could never fit in again. He could never go somewhere and just relax and be himself. Everywhere he went, he attracted attention. He was different.
You and I are supposed to be different, too. If we’re going to be the people of God, we have to be different. We cannot claim to follow someone who’s different while we just blend in with the crowd. We cannot claim to be disciples of someone who’s different while we just go along with everyone else. If the one we’re following was different, then we need to be different, too.
But in what way? After all, there are lots of ways to be different. Lady Gaga is different. Casey Anthony is different. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is different. Being different is not always a good thing. That’s why Jesus did not just tell us to be different. Jesus told us to be perfect, just like God is perfect.
But there’s that problem again. We hear that, and we think, “That does not make sense. I cannot be perfect. I’m not God. I’m only human. I’m weak. Why would Jesus tell me to do something I cannot possibly do?”
That’s probably what Jesus’ disciples thought, too. The thing is, though, that Jesus understood completely how weak humans are. After all, he was surrounded by them. In fact, when we read the gospels, we can see how he was constantly frustrated at our human flaws and weakness and limitations, including those of his closest disciples. Still, he told them and us to be perfect, just like God is perfect. Why would he do that? What did Jesus really mean when he told us to be perfect like God is perfect?
Let’s look at our reading from Second Corinthians. Paul writes about how weak he is, too. Instead of using it as an excuse, though, Paul says he will brag about his weakness.
That’s kind of strange, don’t you think? He’s going to brag about his weakness. Most of us try to improve the things we’re weak on. If we cannot improve them, we try to cover them up and hide the. Yet, Paul says he’s going to brag about them. What’s that all about.
Listen to this part. This is great. Paul says he asked three times for God to take away his weakness, but God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness. Paul says that’s why his bragging about his weakness. He says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”
Is that not great? We’re right. We cannot be perfect. Not by ourselves. The more we try, the more we fail. The harder we try to be perfect by ourselves, the farther away from perfect we get.
Jesus does not say, “make yourself perfect”. That would be impossible. Jesus says, “be perfect”. How can we be perfect? By trusting God. By having faith in Jesus as our Savior. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, took the punishment for our sins. Even though we cannot make ourselves perfect, Jesus’ sacrifice makes us perfect. When we confess our sins and believe in Jesus as our Savior, the Holy Spirit enters our hearts. When we admit our weaknesses and acknowledge how much we need God, the power of Christ can take hold of us. When we admit how weak we are, that’s when we become strong. We’re not relying on our strength. We’re relying on God’s strength.
When we rely on God’s strength, we can live the way Jesus told us to live. We don’t need to take revenge on people who’ve wronged us, because we’re not relying on our strength, we’re relying on God’s strength. We can give generously, because we’re not relying on ourselves, we’re relying on God. We can love everyone, even our enemies, knowing that God will take care of us and reward us.
The church is different, because the church is perfect. The church is perfect, not because it’s full of perfect people, but because it is full of weak and imperfect people who rely on God’s strength and God’s power. When the church relies on God’s strength and God’s power, it will constantly look for ways to show God’s love to all people, and it will enthusiastically find ways to do it. Then, the church will truly be the people of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment