Epiphany 7 A: Telos
Dear Partner,
Ahh, the temptations we preachers are going to feel as we read this difficult passage! I’ve preached it enough, and you probably have to, to be familiar with at least two of them.
The first will be to not take it seriously. I call this the “Lutheran temptation” simply because when Lutherans get to really difficult says from Jesus, we tend to assume that Jesus didn’t really expect us to do these things, only to remind us of our inability to satisfy God’s commands so that we might flee to Jesus for forgiveness and grace. While I’m not sure this actually reflects Luther’s thought, some of his descendants have figured that, knowing the outcome, we shouldn’t even bother trying all that hard but just flee to Jesus’ forgiveness immediately. But what if Jesus was serious? I mean, if you read it this way, pretty much the whole sermon on the mount was a set-up, climaxing in these difficult words and the seemingly even more outrageous ones to follow: “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
The second temptation will be to take them too seriously. As in, believing that we’ve got it in us to do all this. I call this the Pelagian temptation, as the heresy of that 4th-century monk who so vexed Augustine was his belief that we can overcome sin – in ourselves and in the world – and do all that is necessary. And, frankly, I think Pelagius’ overconfidence still haunts us. Oh, I know, none of us thinks of ourselves as Pelagians. But each time we urge our folks to rid themselves (the conservative version) or society (the liberal version) of sin and sit back waiting for it to happen, we fall prey to the temptation to think ourselves sufficient and end up not really needing God’s grace, only God’s instruction and encouragement.
So what’s an honest working preacher – okay, I couldn’t resist – to do? How about this – jump to the end of this passage first. You know, the ridiculously hard part: “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” One key observation here: the word we translate “perfect” is actually the Greek word telos and implies less a moral perfection than it does reaching one’s intended outcome. The telos of an arrow shot by an archer is to reach its target. The telos of a peach tree is to yield peaches. Which means that we might translate this passage more loosely to mean, “Be the person and community God created you to be, just as God is the One God is supposed to be.”
Interesting. Read this way, Jesus’ words are less command than promise. God sees more in you than you do. God has plans and a purpose for you. God intends to use you to achieve something spectacular. And that something spectacular is precisely to be who you were created to be and, in so doing, to help create a different kind of world. Jesus calls this new world the kingdom of God – where violence doesn’t always breed more violence and hate doesn’t always kindle more hate. Martin Luther King, Jr. captured the logic of Jesus’ kingdom well when he stated, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Can we do this – turn the other cheek, love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us? No, not perfectly. On some days, maybe not at all. But that’s not really the point. It’s not our job to bring in the kingdom; Jesus does that. It’s our job to live like we really believe Jesus actually is bringing in God’s kingdom, and to realize that we get to practice living like Jesus’ disciples and citizens of this new kingdom in the meantime.
This approach doesn’t forget or even minimize the presence of sin in us or in the world. But neither does it assume God is limited by our sin. Rather, it takes seriously that we are always being called by Jesus to be more than we thought we could and invited to claim our identity as God’s chosen and beloved people as we live in the world. Jesus’ message here – returning hate with love, turning the other cheek, praying for those who stand against us – is incredibly counter-cultural. I mean, this will not win you an election. But it may help change the world for the better. Change, not save. Again, that’s Jesus’ job, and because Jesus has promised to do that, we’re free to take care of the corner we live in, practicing to live like Jesus’ disciples throughout the week and then returning to church each Sunday to be reminded of Jesus’ grace and forgiveness and to be sent out once more to live as part of Jesus’ kingdom.
Martin Luther once said that the Christian life is not about arriving but always about becoming. And St. Augustine at the Lord’s Supper would invite people to “receive who you are” and then “go become what you have received.” This Sunday is a chance to continue receiving the identity God gives us and to become the person God has created us to be, and we might invite our people both to consider who they are called to be and begin practicing it, perhaps by trying to pray for someone with whom we struggle. It’s a small step, but one we might take in grace and freedom.
You’ll know how best to help your community receive this gift of identity and promise of purpose, Dear Partner. Please know as you do that God has called you to share God’s word and promise of grace, identity, and presence, and I am grateful for how you live into that calling. Blessings on your proclamation.
Yours in Christ,
David
Dear David, you have made this passage easier to understand, especially when you assert that we are called towards a goal, and not perfection. I have always wondered how can we be called to be “perfect” when we are constantly under attack from the evil one. We can only arrive at the goal by seeking refuge in Christ. Many thanks.
Confession frist that I still need to read this book, but I do love this quote of the purpose of the incarnation: “And this is the revelation: God is HUMAN … It is the great error of humanity to believe that it is human. We are only fragmentarily human, fleetingly human, brokenly human. We see glimpses of our humanness, we can only dream of what a more human existence and political order would be like, but we have not yet arrived at true humanness. Only God is human, and we are made in God’s image and likeness — which is to say, we are capable of becoming human.” (Walter Wink, Just Jesus, p. 102; and a parallel in The Human Being, p. 26)
Wonderful, David! My sermon title this week is “Bless them, change me,” based on a prayer I was taught decades ago. The idea is that, when we’re faced with enemies, people we don’t see eye to eye with, even people who have wronged us terribly, this passage in Mt calls us to ask God to bless them. Bless them with insight and clarity and new perspective and grace filled hope. AND change me; reshape my way of looking at this, give me the tools to behave differently here. We need this now more than ever.
Could you share that prayer?
I am really struggling with the ways this text has been used to reinforce social dysfunction: specifically, women being told to stay in their abusive marriages; more generally, oppressed people being told by those who benefit from their oppression to “turn the other cheek” as a form of resistance. I may be able to take David’s advice and start from the end of the passage, but I might just end up preaching Leviticus instead.
That’s a really important insight, Charlotte. I almost added a “PS” about a) our need to put it in its social context and b) the history of misuse of the passage. I don’t think it was meant to enable abuse any more than Gandhi or MLK Jr.’s embrace of non-violence was. There’s something incredibly strong about being able to refuse returning violence for violence. But it’s important to make those distinctions. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Jesus never intended to replace one injustice for another by trapping people in abusive marriages. He was ending the injustice of casting off women and sometimes her children into poverty without protection. My thought about “carrying the pack or turning the cheek” the oporesdor must fsce both their and your humanity. It changes them.
I missed the typos. How very human I be.
Loving a bully and the bullied means stopping bullies from bullying and protecting the bullied from harm. It doesn’t mean destroying the bully or sacrificing the bullied.
I too appreciate going to the end of the message and the translation
Of the word perfect on becoming.
In this walk we are becomingWho God created us to be sometimes we achieve and sometimes we Don’t but at least I will share with my members that Jesus wants us to stay In the game.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship
Says we should engage the world. I agree
Thanks Dr Lose I follow your posts and I appreciate the insight this week
Blessings
Roger
The Greek Interlinear Bible (available online at Textweek.com) translates the word “teleioi” as “mature” as well as perfect. This fits with the idea of becoming, and, as John Wesley urged his followers, “moving on to perfection.” I think Jesus is describing life lived fully in God’s kingdom, while he invites his hearers to grow into its full reality. How many fractured relationships occur because we react more like middle school children on a playground while teacher’s back is turned? Maybe Jesus’ response to our quarrels would be simply, “Oh, grow up!”
David,
The telos or “being who God is calling one or a community to be” aspect of your comment is relevant in my context. I am leading a congregation as an interim pastor. One of our tasks is to figure out who God is calling us to be. Thanks for this insight.
David
As disciples of Jesus we are to not retaliate. We are called upon to love…’Agape’ love. Slap on a face is an insult, do not return insult for an insult, but return love, go the second mile, boss who is exploiting, client who is exasperating ask them ‘Is there something else I can do for you?’…break the vicious cycle of hate and violence, in your speech, in your actions, if God were to send sunshine, rain and snow, and bless only the righteous, and good, how many of us would be recipient of these gifts from God? ‘You shall be holy for I your God am holy’ I Love Jesus, and am striving to walk on the path as he preached on Sermon on the Mount.It is difficult, but not impossible with prayers.
Varsha, the thing that must be lifted up (in my opinion) is that loving the enemy is not always recognized as love by the enemy. So, for instance, the black students who sat at the lunch counters in the south during the 60s even though they were told to leave were not “loving” the oppressors in the way those white segregationists would accept. They were, however, loving them enough to invite them into living a new reality– a world where black and white could eat side by side.
In my childhood, “love” looked like people pleasing. That’s not at all what Jesus is calling for, and this has been the point of my resistance towards preaching this text. Thank you for your comment. It’s one of the reasons I appreciate that the “you” who is being made perfect is a plural you. Thank God!
Charlotte, Biblical love, calls us to seek good of the others, including those who hurt us. The question is if I am not kind, gracious and seek good of all; how am I different from those who do not follow Jesus? It is in my loving others, praying for all, family, friends, and those who do not like me, it is in my living, ‘Practical divinity’ (John Wesley)striving to be Jesus to the world that I am a disciple of Christ.
Seeking the good of a bully includes restraining them from bullying. Loving a person who is acting destructively means challenging their actions. We are not seeking to destroy the bully, or the violent lawbreaker, when we restrain them. We are seeking to protect everyone so that redemption is possible. We make hard choices sometimes – but not out of hate for those we must stop from violating others or ourselves. We can choose to take a slap IF we see it will help the other come to consciousness. We cannot do so in an attempt to exculpate ourselves from responsibility.