AN OPEN AND CLOSED CASE
Leviticus 19: 1-2, 9-18 and Matthew 5:38-48
As you have heard already, Julia and I were asked at short notice to stand in for
Rev Ian Wilkie this morning. Whilst this is pure speculation, I wonder if Ian had a
look at today’s gospel reading, with its command to turn the other cheek, go the
extra mile, give your coat as well as your shirt and, supremely, to love your enemies
and pray for your persecutors – did Ian hear all of that and then decide it was just
too difficult to preach on today? I jest, of course, but many a true word is said in
jest. Is our text truly practical in the real world in which we are forced to live? In
the world of Donald Trump, in the world of Islamic State; in a world with beggars
on the streets, burglars around the houses, and a general culture of me, me, me …
how on earth are we meant to follow the ideals that Jesus presents in his Sermon
on the Mount?
That in a nutshell is the challenge we are faced with this morning. And it’s a tough
nut to crack. Let’s see what we can do in reflecting on this passage together.
Fortunately, it is only a few weeks since Julia went through the ordeal that is the
District Candidates’ Committee. [Went through and, I may say, passed with flying
colours, so Julia we all wish you God’s blessing as you go on next month to the
final assessments days in London.] I say that this is fortunate because for that
meeting Julia was asked to study Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book “The Cost of
Discipleship” and I was asked to quiz her about it. The book itself is a treatise on
the Sermon on the Mount, so we have both recently had cause to study one
seminal theologian’s views on this difficult passage. It is as good place as any from
which to start.
Bonhoeffer asks:
How can the precepts of Jesus be justified in the light of experience? It is obvious that
weakness and defencelessness only invite aggression. Is then the demand of Jesus no more
than an impractical ideal? Does he refuse to face up to realities? There may, of course, be
a legitimate place for such an ideal in the inner life of the Christian community, but in the
outside world such an ideal appears to wear the blinkers of perfectionism, and to take no
account of sin.
Bonhoeffer then considers the formula that was concocted during the
Reformation, a formula that distinguished between personal sufferings and those
incurred in the performance of one’s duty, one’s role in society. The Reformists
concluded that in the former case the precept of non-violence (of turning the other
cheek) applies; whereas in the latter we are not only freed from that obligation, but
even sometimes required to do the opposite in order to meet force with force and
thus to overcome evil. Broadly speaking, it has been through this distinction
between the personal and the public realm that Christianity as a whole, and
individual Christians in positions of authority, have managed to reconcile
themselves both to the world and to the gospel.
But Bonhoeffer is scathing about this bifurcation. He finds it wholly alien to the
teaching of Jesus, and he wonders why we accuse Jesus of all people of ignoring
reality and the power of evil. Jesus, he points out, lived and spoke in the public
realm, Jesus acted upon his own teachings in that public realm, he was the one
who vanquished evil through suffering, and he the one who calls us to follow him
to share his passion. And, famously, Bonhoeffer did just that, being martyred in
Nazi Germany in 1945. So the words of both Jesus and Bonhoeffer come to us
with a large dollop of moral suasion.
If we take the challenge seriously, then at the very least, we should be suspicious of
a neat separation into private and public realms, with the Sermon on the Mount
only applying in the former. Yet it remains true that a generous, passive response
is hardly likely to be effective when dealing with Donald Trump or Benjamin
Netanyahu or Kim-Jong Un, to say nothing of terrorist organisations. We need to
delve a bit deeper.
A tool to aid our reflections in this matter was released in our cinemas last month.
I’m talking about Martin Scorsese’s film, “Silence”. Have you seen it? It’s an
amazing film – not the normal Hollywood material, being 2.5 hours on the
persecution of 17th Century Jesuits in Japan. Essentially the Jesuits had a choice
between apostasy (this involves defiling a Christian icon) and torture. Some hold
out for longer than others, but ultimately they all either give in or they die. The
title “Silence” seems to refer to the response that those who refuse to apostasise
get from God, as they pray ever more desperately to Him.
By focusing on apostasy, not a word you hear much these days but one that means
a total desertion of one’s religion, the film actually draws attention to what it
means by faithful. It is a hard film to watch, despite its lavish cinematography and
A-list actors, because one is drawn both to empathy for the Jesuits and yet also to
feel frustration on their behalf, for they had an incredibly narrow view of what
faith is about. Would it really have mattered to God, I found myself asking, if they
had chosen to rub grit onto an image of Christ, and thus avoid torture? Wouldn’t
that have been a good thing, and not a denial of faith?
What the Jesuits found was that turning the other cheek, time after time, after time
just led to death. Furthermore, far from growing closer to God with each turn of
the cheek, they felt gradually further removed from, and eventually abandoned by
God. Does that sound familiar? Remember Jesus’ words from the cross, that
moment when he also felt entirely forsaken by God. And yet, despite all this
provocation, many of the Jesuits did not apostasise, just as Bonhoeffer took did
not give up his passive resistance right, just as Jesus refused to take the easy way
out but handed himself over to death on the cross. Martyrs, all of them, and an
inspiration to resurrection faith.
And yet… And yet … is such martyrdom really what the gospel is calling us to? Is
that what Jesus really meant in his Sermon on the Mount?
Here’s an analogy. It’s not a usual analogy for a Methodist because it involves
gambling. Suppose you are at a roulette table, and you stake £10 on a particular
combination that has a 1 in 10 chance of success. If you win you make £80. So
there’s a 1 in 10 chance of an 8 to 1 gain. Which means that, on average, the house
always wins, and the gambler always loses, and that’s why sensible people stay well
away. But what if, when you do lose you immediately go straight back and stake
twice what you staked the first time. Now if you win you cover your losses and
make more money overall. And if every time you lose, you do it all over again –
every time doubling your stake. Eventually (and statistically its inevitable) you will
win. Hardly anyone has deep enough pockets to follow this strategy through to
the end, but just to make sure there will be a house limit on the size of bet that can
be placed; that way even the richest person in the world can’t beat the house.
My point is that there is one rule for almost everyone (don’t gamble!) and another
rule for the elite few. Similarly martyrdom may be the house rule for an elite few,
those who can carry on time after time after time turning the other cheek, but what
about the rest of us? Is the language of turning the cheek and going the extra mile
to be taken literally, the commands followed to the letter, or is there a more
metaphorical, a more paradoxical but still genuine, interpretation of the text?
Once again Bonhoeffer can help us. He says that: “the paradoxical interpretation
must include the literal interpretation”. What I think he means is that we can very
reasonably argue that Jesus was talking hyperbolically, so that what he was actually
concerned about was not so much our actions as our attitude, especially our
attitude to others when they speak or act against us. It would, for example, be
entirely wrong to say to a woman suffering domestic violence “go back and endure
another beating”. It would be entirely wrong to tell a man struggling to feed his
family to give away all the possessions that he owns.
But what we must not do is exclude entirely from our interpretation the possibility
of the literal response. It may be very rarely invoked, just like the gambling house
limit, but it has to stay in place just in case. For who knows, I may yet be called
literally to give my coat to the one who takes my shirt, or literally to give all that I
have to the poor, or literally to following Jesus to crucifixion. And unless I keep
open that possibility, mine is not the response of faith.
Having got to this point – recognizing that in these texts we are looking at
extraordinary situations (a word in fact that Jesus himself uses) and not at a
handbook for daily living, let’s look in a little more detail at the most
uncomfortable of Jesus’ examples. If someone hits you on the cheek, the natural
reaction will be either to hit back or to run away. The one we chose will depend
on the circumstances and our temperament. But either way it is what I would call
a closed response – it narrows down the possibilities of what happens next. To
run away is to attempt to end the relationship, to hit back is to force the scene into
a fight. In contrast Jesus tells us to adopt an open response. If we turn the other
cheek we leave open several possible scenarios for the development of the
relationship: repentance and reconciliation is possible, but equally we may have our
cheek slapped again. And we voluntarily give up control, and allow the other
person to choose which way things will go.
The Old Testament law was to a large extent based on a system of closed
responses. The long lists of “do not” commands come from the stable of
restrictive practices, and teachings such as an eye for an eye are firmly based on
retributive justice. However, notice that even here it is a limiting response – do
not punish any more than is justified. And some parts of the Levitical Code, such as
we read this morning, indicate a surprisingly open attitude, especially with regard to
provision for widows, orphans and the poor.
Jesus takes things forward one small step, but it’s one giant step for mankind. He
was radically focused on open attitudes, open responses, open actions. In him we
see the invitation of love, making no attempt to control our response, nor limit our
freedom to choose. Here is the nature of a gift, placing no demands on anyone to
receive, no restrictions on how to respond. Here is the completeness of an
offering, exerting no power over others but instead giving them the power to be.
Here is openness in all its vulnerability, all its love, all its beauty.
Christ on the cross is the most open action that the world has even seen. He lays
himself open to whatever others will do to him. Only exceptionally and
extraordinarily are we commanded literally to follow him. Few of us are Jesuits or
Bonhoeffers. But, paradoxically, the very openness of Jesus does make demands
on we who choose to follow his way; demands to open ourselves, to give
ourselves, to offer ourselves to the world for which he died.
And so, he say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. AMEN