Epiphany 6A
Text: Matthew 5:21-37
sermon by the Rev. Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
February 19, 2020
Bigger
I want Jesus to mess with me!
I want Jesus to mess with me!
All along my pilgrim journey,
O, Lord, I want Jesus, to mess with me!
It appears that the way Jesus wants us to be, is bigger. “You have heard it said you shall not murder,” he begins his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, and we all nod our heads at that; we have all heard it said, indeed, and we understand ourselves to be in compliance with that little bit of expectation. “But I say to you,” Jesus goes on: if you are carrying anger against someone … if you have insulted another … if you have run down another, speaking of them in some diminishing way: “you fool!” Jesus expands the ethic from a small narrowly-focused thing with which we can all pretty much comply –I’ve never murdered anybody! – to an expectation that is big enough to genuinely mess with us. Jesus keeps talking, until it gets big enough that I know, that Jesus is talking about me.
And this turns out to be a repeated pattern in the new way of obedience that Jesus puts before us. “You have heard it said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that if you have ever used the other for your own gain, … if you’ve ever manipulated someone else, … if you’ve ever – how big is this going to get? – if you’ve ever made this about what you want of her instead of about who that other person really is, then you are liable to judgment. Jesus keeps talking, until it gets big enough that you know he’s talking about you. “You have heard it said … but I say to you,” until it gets big enough, to mess with us. It appears that the way Jesus wants us to be, is bigger.
But wait, there’s more. Jesus wants us not only bigger in size and scope – quantity – but also bigger in heart – quality. Because he’s not asking us to be morally upright – you know! Successfully moral! – in that way that can shrink your heart and harden it and make you more severe with others. He wants us to be bigger than that. So the first test of whether we’re living up to what Jesus asks is not whether it makes us morally tougher, but whether it also makes us mercifully more generous. I gotta say that again: the first test of whether we’re living up to what Jesus asks, is not whether it makes us morally tougher, but whether it also makes us mercifully more generous. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the merciful. You got a beef with your brother or sister? Don’t go to church that Sunday, Jesus says. Forget about church for this week, and first – first! – be reconciled. Has that brother or sister got something against you? Fine, but the way I want you to be, Jesus says, is bigger than that.
I believe that the way Jesus wants Faith Lutheran Church to be, is bigger. Now, when I say “bigger” there, now you think I mean something different, don’t you? Well, yes and no.
Yes, when I say bigger there I do mean that Jesus wants us to grow in size and scope. I believe that, because I believe that what we say about the Gospel here – We are open to all God’s people; we are centered in Christ; we are sent to serve God in the world – I believe that is balm for a hurting world. You hear those words as blessing, I know, and I believe that Jesus wants more people to come to know the blessing that you know. I believe that life is truer, richer, better, when lived in engagement with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and when lived in Christian community. I know that blessing myself, from living with you, intimately. You may know that blessing, too, and if you do then you also know it is a blessing that is just meant to be shared.
But yes and no I say, because then again, there’s no difference at all, between the way I use that word there, and the way Jesus is talking in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon he blows up the commandments to be big enough that they genuinely mess with us. Jesus wants Faith to be bigger; that means that the words of Jesus, the expectations that Jesus has for us, are going to be big enough to genuinely mess with us. What are the barriers to engagement with the Gospel that are maybe not readily apparent to our old eyes, but that we might come to see and to change if we looked at our community with new eyes of faith? How can God help us discover new ways to have faith in ourselves and in the prospect God has given us, to have faith that God is indeed working through us? As this faith community moves forward, this stuff is going to mess with me, and it’s going to mess with you, too. There’s no gospel that comes without some serious messing around.
One more thing about the Gospel lesson this morning. When those commandments stay small and limited they’re relatively easy to keep. But when Jesus blows them up big enough to mess with us, then you start wondering like the disciples did when in the gospel of John they say, “This teaching is difficult; who can keep it?”
Who can keep it? The answer, believe it or not, is you. Yes, Jesus’ expectations of us are big, but when he blows the commandments up like this and expects the world of us we should take that as an incredible gesture of faith, in us. The challenges are huge, and we look around and wonder sometimes, but I have faith in you, that the Lord can use you to bring about this great work of his. I have faith in you, because Jesus does.
I’m going to end with a great line on this score, that I heard years ago. In those days I volunteered in a homeless shelter in the city, and there was this guy named Dave there, another volunteer, but Dave was kind of there all the time and he kind of ran the joint.
Which was a good thing, because Dave was one of those people who was just so darn good at heart that it was a pleasure to work with him. You probably have some people like this in your life, too, right? Once I heard someone pay him the most poetic compliment I’ve ever heard: “He’s such a generous spirit, you’d be embarrassed to behave in a small way around him.” Isn’t that a great line? “He’s such a generous spirit, you’d be embarrassed, to behave in a small way around a guy like that.”
People of Faith: let there be no behaving in small ways among us. The way that Jesus wants us to be, is so much bigger than that!