Epiphany 7 C: Command or Promise?
Dear Partner in Preaching,
It occurred to me when reading this familiar passage how easy it is to dismiss Jesus’ words. We might dismiss it by assuming Jesus is setting up an impossible command, forcing us to admit our need, sin, brokenness (or however you choose to define it) and driving us to the good news of Jesus’ promise of forgiveness and grace. (I’ll admit I think of this as the Lutheran option.) Or we might dismiss it as the naïve instructions of a dreamer, someone who’s head was always in the clouds, someone who clearly didn’t understand how the world really works. (I think of this as the cynical option.) And sometimes we dismiss it by assuming we actually follow it pretty well (which, of course, takes a fair amount of self-delusion) and taking on the responsibility, burden (and, I suspect, secret delight) of making sure others are following it. (I think of this as the pietist – whether liberal or conservative – option.)
Each of these ways of dismissing Jesus’ words – whether done consciously or unconsciously – are similar in that they hear Jesus’ words on the plain as a set of commands or rules. Commands and rules to drive us to despair, that are naïve or ineffectual, or to enforce on others, whether in the name of morality, family values, or justice.
But what if these aren’t commands at all, but instead are a promise. The promise, essentially, that it doesn’t have to be this way. That there is another option. That we can treat others the way we want to be treated. That there is enough, more than enough – love, attention, food, worth, honor, time – to go around. That no matter how hard you play by the rules of the world you’re still trapped in the death and loss that is part and parcel of this world, but that this world isn’t the only one, maybe not even the most real one.
And that’s the thing. Jesus isn’t offering a set of simple rules by which to get by or get ahead in this world but is inviting us into a whole other world. A world that is not about measuring and counting and weighing and competing and judging and paying back and hating and all the rest. But instead is about love. Love for those who have loved you. Love for those who haven’t. Love even for those who have hated you. That love gets expressed in all kinds of creative ways, but often come through by caring – extending care and compassion and help and comfort to those in need – and forgiveness – not paying back but instead releasing one’s claim on another and opening up a future where a relationship of – you guessed it! – love is still possible.
I have at times read or heard some of the better known atheists of the day talk about the ridiculousness of religious faith in a cause-and-effect world. There is no room, they argue, for miracles, let alone a Divine Being, in the cause-and-effect, closed-system world of the physical universe. One miracle – let alone resurrection, let alone a God who lived and moved and continued to create – would bring down the whole orderly universe.
And yet each time we forgive each other, are we not interrupting the cause and effect laws of this world. I mean love deserves love, hate deserves hate, deeds both good and bad should be repaid in kind, force must be returned with force, violence begets violence, and so on and so on. And yet when you forgive, you interrupt this endless cycle and create something new.
Love itself, when you think about it, makes no sense in this kind of mechanistic view of the universe. For love, defined most simply, is seeking the good of another above your own. Love is not a means to an end, it is an end unto itself which, in turn, creates morality and justice and all the rest of the things we strive for yet fail to find or manifest absent love.
So… command or promise? If command – that is, one more thing someone has told us and that we’ll be held accountable for – then we’ll likely continue to live in fear and, while we may behave a little better, at least when someone’s watching, ultimately be no different. But if a promise, then we might just imagine that there is another world, available to us at this very moment, and see each other as gifts of God and experience the transformation Jesus offers.
When you imagine that Jesus is offering an invitation rather than simply giving a new set of rules, everything sounds different: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
Everything sounds different because, well, everything is different. Thank you for sharing this word of promise, Dear Partner. The world has never needed it more. Blessings on your proclamation.
Yours in Christ,
David
Thank you. As I read this week’s gospel, I let out a big “whew!” Finally, a word of permission to longer keep score of slights, hurts, and insults. It’s been so exhausting to live in our nation as of late as we’ve grown to mistrust one another so. This passage is permission to give it all up and just love. A big relief!