Strive to Make them Your Brother, Your Sister

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Over the past few weeks I have stressed the importance of the Sermon on the Mount to the Christian faith. I believe for each of the teachings of Jesus in his Sermon are designed to transform the hearers. He acknowledges the vicious cycles that leads to prison, judgment, divorce, and war. Among those in the crowd listening to his words are people who were the victims of people’s greed, people’s anger, people’s abuse of power. These teachings are not about passivity but an initiative to confront those that harm others.

When the crowd hears: “Turn the other cheek” they are hearing, “When someone slaps you on the right check. An insulting act by someone who was taking you as inferior. Turning the other cheek means to stand up to the one who struck you and affirm your own dignity as an equal, human person, but without violence.” It seizes the initiative, Jesus suggests, grabbing hold of the moment and creates a retaliation that is transformative. The one who struck you will either have to recognize your dignity as an equal person by striking you on the left check or would have to back off (Stassen, Glen. Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiative for Just and Peace, pg. 64).

When the crowd hears: “Give up your coat” they are hearing, “The law and the prophets spoke of how creditors who would lend to someone who was needy and taking their coat as a guarantee would need to return to them at the end of the day because it might be their only source of warmth. Because it would be impractical for someone to sue for your coat, because they’d have to return it every night, the rich person is suing you for your shirt instead. Give them your coat as well.”

Like turning the other cheek, it is not a passive action. It is an opportunity to seize the initiative and confront in a transformative manner. It is transformative because it means “you are standing there naked in front of the one suing you, in court. In Jewish culture, this is a huge embarrassment for the creditor and everyone else. It confronts the creditor with his or her greed and his or her unjust violation of the spirit of the law, if not the letter. And Jesus’ Jewish audience would have laughed at the audacity, the embarrassment, and the disclosure of the creditor’s greed, exposed for all to see, just as naked as your naked body. Thus you, the poor person, seemingly without power, seize the initiative and confront the injustice, putting great pressure on the creditor to repent and be transformed. It is no strategy of passivity. It is a transforming initiative” (pg. 66).

When the crowd hears, “When someone demands you walk with them a mile, go a second,” they hear: “When the Roman solider forces you to carry their pack a mile, as they are allowed to do by the Roman government, instead of begrudgingly doing so, go a second mile.” Jesus offers an alternative response to a practice that bred anger, resentment, and rebellion that leads to war. He urges the hearers to respond to a hostile entitled command in a form of voluntary escort after the prescribed mile. Such goodness and graciousness would disarm the Roman and he would be astounded. The hearers would take the initiative away from the Roman soldier and evil is repaid with good and in all probability in the course of the second mile a friendly conversation will be begin to develop (pg. 66).

Jesus is making a clear case, not for passivity or pacifism, but transforming responses, initiatives that break the vicious cycles and allow us to fully participate in the kingdom of God, to be active participants in God’s Movement. When injustice is done, Jesus says, do not remain still. Do not remain inactive. Do not simply turn the other cheek and say, “May I have another, sir?” Confront the adversary. Confront the wrong done. Confront the harm caused. Seek to transform them in the love of God. But instead of repaying evil with evil, violence with violence, repay with overwhelming goodness so that you might win him!”

As this is settling in, Jesus makes another proclamation to drive home his point and when the crowd hears: “You have heard it said, “love your neighbors and hate your enemies” but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your God,” they hear, “Love of one's enemies means far more than covering things up with a smile by tolerating enemies or holding them at a distance with politeness; it entails an honest effort, a campaigning and struggling with them, so that they change, give up their hate, and become reconciled. In short--a theopolitics of little loving steps aimed at making the enemy cease to be an enemy” (Lapide, Pinchas. The Sermon on the Mount, pg. 97-98).

“Strive against your adversary,” Jesus says again, “Strive to make him your brother.” Strive to bring him in instead of alienating. Strive to give grace. Strive to give love. Strive against your adversary and strive to make him your brother.”

Jesus himself was struck and slapped, and his garments were taken from him. So these are actions that imitate Christ. These actions imitate Simon of Cyrene who was forced to carry the cross of Jesus to the place of the skull. These actions are actions of sacrifice. These actions are actions of a follower Christ. These actions are actions of participants of God’s movement.

I think I may have shared this story before, we’ve reached a point to where I may be retelling stories, but I want to share this one again. Several years ago, I made a reluctant trip to Argentina as a part of our Mission Immersion Experience in seminary. The church we visited in Buenos Aries was one of the poorest churches in the area. It was a storefront style church sitting among the retailers and businesses surrounded by chaos and busyness. A few years before our visit, Argentina had experienced an economic collapse. Inflation became so bad that within a day a candy that cost .50 cents in the morning was almost $3 by the afternoon.

On that day, several of the wealthiest people in Buenos Aries lost their jobs and were suddenly in danger in losing of their way of life. After weeks of prayer, the poor church in downtown decided to pull together their meager resources, rented a storefront office and began to minister to the wealthy. They took their limited resources and went to them. They went to their adversaries, to the ones who dined in the scraps of a trickle down economy went to the ones who dined in luxury. Instead of rejoicing at their downfall, they said to one another, “They are children of God too and we must strive to make them our brothers and sisters.” They turned the other cheek, they gave their coat; they walked the second mile. They did not repay evil with evil but with overwhelming goodness. And they succeeded.

Why should we become participants in God’s Movement, in the Kingdom of God? Because Jesus says so? Well, yea but it’s more than because, as Mr. Rogers says, “As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has--or ever will have--something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression."

Do you know why our youth are leading the children in worship once a month? Because one day they decided they wanted to be active participants in God’s Movement. They no longer wished to sit there, merely bystanders, instead they wanted to use their gifts and I said yes. I said yes because I believe that one day, 3-10 years from now, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, or seventy of them will stand before us ready to attend seminary, become missionaries, teachers, doctors, lawyers, or go into the jobs of their dreams, and we will lay our hands and ordain them to the ministry of Jesus Christ. I believe that. Shouldn’t we all?

The Sermon on the Mount breaks the vicious cycles that keep us from seeing one another as our neighbor, as a fellow child of God. We seek to strive to make our adversaries and our enemies our brothers and our sisters because they are a fellow child of God. When we break these vicious cycles, when we chose to follow Jesus, and participate in the kingdom of God, we share our blessings with others, we hunger and thirst for righteousness. We give out of what we have, knowing everything belongs to God.

The truth is we have been participants in the vicious cycles that continue to send us into war and that creates division and alienation. If we look closely, very closely to the acts of our youth, we will see how they teach us to break the vicious cycles we buy in to. Instead of seeking to separate themselves from our community, they seek to include. They seek to lead from within. They hunger and thirst for righteousness by reaching out to their younger church family, to their friends. Sharing God’s love through their service to others. They freely give of themselves instead of holding on to what they believe is theirs. To quote Mr. Rogers again: “The real issue in life is not how many blessings we have, but what we do with our blessings. Some people have many blessings and hoard them. Some have few and give everything away.”

Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount with a story and I feel it’s only right to do the same: “Everyone who hears these of mine,” Jesus says, “and acts on them will be like a wise person who built her house on rock. Down came the rain, up rose the floods, out lashed the winds. They all cut at that house, and it didn’t fall! Because that house was on rock foundation.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and fails to act on them shall be like a foolish person who built his house on the sand. Down came the rain, up rose the floods, out lashed the winds. They all cut at that house, and what do you know, it fell! And my, oh my, what a great fall it was (Matthew 7:24-28 NRSV & Cotton Patch Gospel).”