The Continuum We Embrace

Sermon of 16 February 2020, at First Christian Church of Hampton VA.  The lesson from Matthew 5:21-37 contains some of what are referred to as the “hard sayings” of Jesus.  If we are willing to walk with them all the way, we just may discover a perspective to guide us, if we are to remain true to Christ.  As always, I welcome comments or the opportunity to discuss. 

To read today’s reading from Matthew 5:21-37, click on this link:
Matthew 5:21-37 (NRSV)

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INTRODUCTION

I’ll admit it.  Today’s reading from Matthew has been uncomfortable for me, especially given I have been the counselor amid too many awful situations.  It just seemed easier to look at the other readings.  Maybe, it’s been uncomfortable for you as well.  Yet, Jesus doesn’t let any of us off the hook and the day comes a day when, like the thief in the night, the door is opened.  Suddenly it makes sense!

As I let this progression in Jesus’ words percolate through me over the past week, each time there is how Jesus opens with: “You have heard it said,” referencing those among the ten commandments of God that address our relationships with one another.  I have no doubt, the audience to whom Jesus spoke would have gotten the references, as he drew them – and now us – into deeper thought on just what it means to be his disciple within this part of the “Sermon on the Mount.”.

WHY I BRING THIS UP

Within this larger teaching as to what discipleship is all about, giving instruction as to the ethical perspective is THE WAY in this life, Jesus takes us deeper by setting forth a short trail of examples to make his points.  In our age, what he describes could well be called the “continuum of harm” – a progression, as he helps us see the ways we can too easily move away from God’s intent for our lives and our treatment of others.

FOR INSTANCE

For instance, Jesus reminds them “You shall not murder” [Matthew 5:21].  Then he goes on to describe how murder is much more than of the body, but of the spirit, which covers a broad range of actions, as he said “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister… insult a brother or sister… say, ‘You fool’” – there is liability before God [Matthew 5:22-23].  This is completely consistent with the words of Proverbs 18:23, where it is written:  “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”  It becomes deeds, after all, so it is that Jesus calls us to reconcile with our brother or sister so that good feelings – Godly feelings – may overcome what it evil with holy love [Matthew 22:39] – even of our enemy, as he points out later [Matthew 5:44].

“You shall not commit adultery” [Matthew 5:27].  Jesus draws out the violation of the seventh commandment as much more than a physical act but also links it to the prohibition of the causative factor which is the tenth commandment as to coveting [Exodus 20:17].  Now, I don’t think Jesus is suggesting that everyone who looks at a another is guilty of adultery, but it is when dwelling on the desirability of another’s mate – specifically, women – that is harmful.  In effect, the sin is the same whether the person commits the physical act of adultery or would do so if the opportunity presented itself.  Then speaking even more bluntly to the men, Jesus went on to speak of divorce in an age when women were really without a voice – and all a man had to do was say “I divorce thee” three times; women themselves having no right to divorce.  Thrown out, penniless, with no real future, cut off from children, would be their fate.  Deuteronomy 24:1-4 gave a husband the right of divorce if he found something unseemly, and this had become exploited, with interpretations among some to be justified by something as simple as the wife burning dinner.  I’m not kidding.  That was a school of thought in Jesus’ time.  The only thing positive that one could say was that the “bill of divorce” was better than most societies of that time in that it freed a woman to remarry.  Nevertheless, immediate physical as much as economic and social survival for the woman would likely be in question.

 “You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord’  [Matthew 5:33].  Then Jesus draws out how it is much more than giving false statements, but adds “Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’…”  These words were so instructive to early discipleship that they are quoted almost exactly in the Letter of James 5:12, and furthermore I would suggest their spirit is evident in the Book of Revelations 3:15-16, where it is said of one of the seven churches: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!”  Jesus thus introduces his disciples to a higher standard, one that is to keep language simple and actions honest, living so as to make oaths actually unnecessary by evidencing such an integrity that people can trust a simple Yes or No to be a guarantee.

In short, Jesus sets forth not a legalism but a holistic perspective, an ethos to guide us.  Eyes opened, we are asked to perceive

any form harm that kills the heart of another,

any harm that dwells upon others inappropriately – be it with the unholy lens of sexism and misogyny, prejudice and racism, or any another way our thoughts, words and deeds would demean the life of another of God’s children, and any harm breaks our word with God, shattering our integrity.

The bottom line, Jesus draws, is that to treat God and people as though unworthy, anywhere on the continuum of harm is wrong.  We cannot justify it as it is the very denial of God’s value upon each and every life, even as it move one ever farther from having empathy – distancing oneself from one’s own humanity even as it fails to reverence the lives of others.

It is a hard word.

That’s why Jesus speaks in Matthew about deepening our self-awareness and stopping at the thought – the very starting place of a sequence of ever deeper harm.  Thoughts matter, Jesus is saying.  Words matter, Jesus is saying.  Actions matter, Jesus is saying.  Each represents a progressive harm on this scale leads away from the covenantal relationship with one another as human beings and our Creator.

As we find ourselves on that hillside, listening to Jesus confront every age where destructive behavior has become normalized and loss of moral conscience common, we must be honest.  We have become too comfortable with leaders who admit doing such freely because someone else did it first and/or because there was money and/or power to be had in pursuit of whatever agenda.  Core morality is absent.

Lying doesn’t matter, if there is an advantage to be gained – we are told.

Stealing doesn’t matter, if one can win the game – we are told.

The list just goes on… and always ends where Jesus said it would – the devaluation of people.

We must confess that we live amid a society wrestling over what ethics will fundamentally define us.  It’s hard to miss what is clearly contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and yet increasingly normalized among some who say they follow Jesus – because access to power matters more, the ends justifying the means, something Jesus rebukes in today’s reading.  What is called “moral relativism” is holding ever more sway, even as it cuts across nearly spectrum of society – undercutting awareness of the continuum of harm as reflected in the very words of Jesus.

As the center for applied ethics at the Jesuit-run “St Claire University” defines “moral relativism” it is “…the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms of one’s culture.  That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society in which it is practiced.”

In sum, there is no absolute right or wrong; it’s what we say it is.

Yet we all know societies can be wrong, just like people.  We have but to look at our own history.  At one time we had slavery in this country, and interracial marriage was banned for more than a century longer.  Native Americans were not allowed to speak their native tongue.  Japanese were interned for simply their race in wartime.  These days we have 40,000 people in cages because they simply want a better, safer life, with a large chunk of them young children.  Society can get things wrong, especially when it devalues anyone because of who they are… instead of valuing them because of WHOSE they are.

If such a moral perspective abdicates any personal responsibility and gives no space for the integrity of the commandments of God, nor the love of Christ – it does so by diminishing the belief in any absolute truth.  This will rot the integrity out of faith as everything becomes infinity negotiable in this selfish realm.  Moving ever farther away from God, in self-deception, yet it is into this darkness that Jesus shines his light, as the One who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life.

It can be kind of bright.

In 1938, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the great theologians of the last century, preached a sermon in 1938 for those who had accepted Jesus in their Lutheran confirmation class.  He spoke to “the radically uncompromising call and cost of discipleship in following Jesus that challenges Christian communities to decide where ultimate allegiance lies” [Gordon].  Bonhoeffer did so just before Hitler’s Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and its “Master Race” philosophy took another step toward its goal of annihilating Jews.  Amid that moment of clarity Bonhoeffer preached, and his words bear listening to afresh:

“You have only one master now.  But with this ‘yes’ to God belongs just as clear a ‘no.’  Your ‘yes’ to God requires your ‘no’ to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and poor, to all ungodliness, and to all mockery of what is holy.  Your ‘yes’ to God requires a ‘no’ to everything that tries to interfere with your serving God alone, even if that is your job, your possessions, your home, or your honor in the world.  Belief means decision.”

Anything less is a mockery of what is holy, for as Jim Gordan writes in his commentary on Bonhoeffer’s sermon:

“The mockery of what a society has deemed to be holy, pushes back boundaries and rewrites in coarser and less humane language what is acceptable, decent and for the common good.  Eventually people themselves, those who hold on to what is holy and to be respected by consensus, are themselves mocked, diminished, and devalued” [Gordon].

This “social toxin,” as Gordon calls it, flows through the veins, “weakening of the immune system, making minds and wills less receptive and increasingly resistant to moral values of human worth, dignity and fundamental rights.”  It simply does not act and therefore believe that all are equally the children of God.

I expect it must have shocked the crowd out of their complacency.  It should shock us.  Jesus had just said “You are the salt of the earth,” when he then added: “But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”

SO WHAT?

So what do we make of this?

Our belief, it is said, “means decision, not only one single decision after which it is business as usual; but a confirming decision that means all other decisions take their direction from that living and central commitment to Jesus Christ…” [Gordon]

Our belief must be a faithful NO to all in life that contradicts justice, goodness, truth, freedom, care for the weak and poor, and reverence for the holy.

Our belief must be a faithful YES to heed the call for us to die to all other claims upon our wills, our consciences, our hearts, our minds, and our bodies, in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  If we are to live on any continuum or progression, this I would submit is the path of holiness, the continuum of healing and not of harm, Christ’s witness to a broken world that the whole of life would be oriented toward a clear YES to God!

Jesus is right, we really cannot serve two masters.  We will embrace one continuum or the other.  Which voice will we speak to our society?

Amen.

NOTE: When I was preparing this sermon, what I wrote but then did not use was:  If you go looking for the phrase itself of “continuum of harm,” which I have known for nearly ten years, you will find it tends to be limited thus far to the specific area of sexual harm.  I know this well because of my former work as a trainer for seven years of both civilian and military personnel serving as sexual assault responders.  I know this well because during the last portion of my Naval career, every single week I provided care for anywhere between one and 14 sexual assault victims, each and every week.  It is a plague, but it doesn’t start out with assault, you see… it starts with thoughts, thoughts lead to words through gender-focused jokes, sexual comments and such…before moving to actions which progress from inappropriate advances, to physical touch, then threats, and finally assault.

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Cited Sources

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. “Ethical Relativism,” by Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer.  Accessed on 14 February 2020, at: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/ethical-relativism/ 

Living Wittily. “Bonhoeffer: “Your ‘yes’ to God requires your ‘no’ to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies…”, by James H. Gordan.  Dated 10 February 2020, and accessed on 14 February 2020, at:  https://livingwittily.typepad.com/my_weblog/2020/02/bonhoeffer-your-yes-to-god-requires-your-no-to-all-injustice-to-all-evil-to-all-lies.html?fbclid=IwAR3mcpPfVYHnCK3GZ_i1951JNLNDlORoZa4eawd92dhuTrZdhRTboX5MvsE

Sermon: ‘The Gift of Faith’, preached on April 9, 1938.  The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (ed) Isabel Best.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012, pp. 201-206.

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©2020 by Vinson W. Miller, Hampton VA.

Healing is a Process

Sermon of 01 November 2017, the first Sunday of being pastor of First Christian Church of Hampton VA. Perhaps an unexpected topic for that day, but I’ve never been one to shy from where scripture takes us and pastoral needs I perceive.

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GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 5:1-12 (New Revised Standard Version)

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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INTRODUCTION

People often ask where I am from, to which I usually reply “everywhere.” We were nomadic during my growing years as a pastor’s son, and I call North Carolina home because my father’s parents had a mountain house there.  It was the one unchanging place from my birth to graduation from college; everything else was in constant flux.  All that moving, starting in Florida, going to Oklahoma, a couple places in Oregon, then to eastern North Carolina, onto upstate New York, southern Illinois, and then to western North Carolina… where I met Julie. 

Every year, wherever we lived, we made an annual vacation trip to Miami Florida, where my mother’s parents lived.  Afterwards, all the way from Miami up into Georgia, on the day-long drive up the Florida Turnpike, my mother would sob. 

Every year. 

Every time.

The entire way. 

She hated to leave Nana and Grandpa, who weren’t in the best of health, but there always seemed more to it until Mom was in her late 40s when she remembered having comforted my grandmother after the loss of Mom’s 10-day old brother way back around 1930.  She had promised her mother to never leave her, a promise she was no longer conscious of, but which emerged as grief afresh each year when we broke that forgotten promise and left Florida, and Mom had been stuck in that pain.

WHY I BRING THIS UP

Grief.  Mourning.  They are a bittersweet part of the human condition, and while it may seem an odd topic to have as my first sermon here, it is both where we are in the larger church calendar on this Sunday after All Saints Day, and an essential part of who we are called to be aware of and minister to, in the name of Christ, in the myriad of circumstances that go on year-round in the lives of people.

FOR INSTANCE

Some commentators have suggested that Jesus is limiting this mourning of which he speaks to that specifically for our sins, our mistakes, our poor choices – whatever words we put to them. 

And they are to be mourned as no doubt they grieve the Holy Spirit, if not people too. 

Over the years I’ve noticed that folks often hold onto such spiritual suffering because such suffering becomes so familiar and it is not quite painful enough to take what seems like a risk for people to give up the familiar, even when toxic to their own spirits. 

The concept that “as far as the East is from the West, so far does God remove the transgressions from us,” runs up against self-judgment and sometimes just too good of a memory.  

To be relieved of that great burden, from what I’ve observed in others and yes, experienced myself – well, it’s really challenging to put such moral failures on God’s altar within our hearts, to pry our hands loose of them, to surrender them in trust to the perfect will of God, only to be surprised by grace.  Thus, in the mutual accountability of being church, we need each other as peers to move toward that path to divine comfort.

But while the causes of grief may differ, I would suggest that the God of all Comfort doesn’t limit his Word to that singular dimension of grief over sin. And so on this Sunday we also acknowledge afresh those who have gone on to rest in the Lord this past year out of our congregation, our families, and our friends, with the tacit recognition that mourning is very much an active tense when it comes to death, even as it is in this passage of scripture from Matthew. 

It never seems to go completely away, does it? 

We may grow more at ease with losses in our journey, hopefully integrating lessons and values we have learned from the departed, and perhaps finding more of the joyful or even funny memories touching our hearts. But let’s face it… sometimes we need that occasion which gives everyone permission to say there is still has a touch of hurt and the tears at times still well up. 

Now if one would spend a Friday evening at a Jewish synagogue, remembering the church did emerge out of them, one might notice a list of names on brass with a light beside them and how during worship some rise to speak those names of departed family members on the yearly anniversary of their death. 

It is potent reminder at each of their sabbaths, that compassion, comfort is still needed, that no one should feel uncomfortable or even ashamed to say it still hurts and there’s still the need for others to wrap their arms and hearts around them on those days when the hurt rises up along the journey of healing.  While we have lost sight that tradition, we would do well to grant such comfort, if we are to be church.

Folks also mourn for life’s misfortunes, such as injury or illness. 

I know that when I was severely injured in 2010, my life took a different path.  It was no longer what I had planned.  While a friend still calls me “Superman” because I survived being run over by a 3-ton SUV and recovered enough to remain on active duty, my body just isn’t the same, my career path as a chaplain changed, and while I was never tall enough to reach the top shelf in the kitchen cabinets I now live with some additional constraints not of my choosing. 

Sometimes our health does takes a hit and after all, none of us is promised the same physical resilience we had at 20 will continue for our entire life.  That is disappointing, but it can sure stick a bit in our proverbial craw, because who likes limitations at any age?  We have things to do! 

Or what about employment changes and how that can be a wound to folks’ hearts as much as their checkbooks? 

Or, when things don’t work out well for our children, or they take a path we would not have chosen for them?  

Who do we talk that through with, if not our fellow pilgrims, that we may experience or provide genuine comfort?

SO WHAT?

Truth is, there is a seemingly endless list of ways folks can experience suffering, whether of the body, heart, or mind… or a combination of them, and sometimes there is the “you can’t make this up” category of how people suffer and the losses they must grieve. 

And, well, like Jacob of long ago, in some way we all probably walk with a bit of a limp [Genesis 32:25], after an encounter we did not choose. 

However, such encounters may come to define our relationship with God – as humility and dependence upon His grace open us to His holy comfort, directly and through His servants. 

Some Sundays we may gather and it may be to have someone’s bandages changed and wounds redressed, or just may be to marvel at the miracle of healing.

But wherever any of us are on our respective journeys – for healing is indeed often more of a process than end state – we are blessed with comfort and called to be agents of comfort, in the witness of Christ our Lord and in his body gathered we call church. 

Amen.

©2020 by Vinson W. Miller, Hampton VA.