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"'You Have Heard That it Was Said, But I Say to You:' Accountability to God In and Beyond Scripture"

Monday, February 21 2011

Rev. Leah Atkinson Bilinski; February 20, 2011; Ephiphany 7, Year A; Lectionary Texts:  Matthew 5:38-48 and I Corinthians 3:10-23 

Because my children’s time/sermon introduced the message of my sermon, I will include them here, before the text of my sermon.  My Call to Worship also helped to introduce my focus, consisting of call and response Biblical texts often viewed as contradicting one another. 

Children’s Time/Sermon (introducing the message with our children’s help):  For children’s time, I brought the pulpit Bible with me as I sat among them, as well as two pictures:  one of a household drill, the other of an elaborate axe that looked like it belonged in “The Lord of the Rings” movies.  As the children identified the pictures, I pointed out how one picture was a tool and the other a weapon.  Then I asked them:  “Which of these do you think our Bible is supposed to be more like?  The tool or the weapon?”  The children said the tool.  I told them I agreed with them, then saying, “But unfortunately, there have been and still are many people in our world that use the Bible as a weapon.  Now I don’t mean that they actually pick it up and hit someone with it, but they do use words out of it to hurt other people.  And I want to talk to you about one way in which a lot of people did that about 150 years ago.”  I then told them about how many people in the history of our country used words from the Bible to support and keep people in slavery.  There are many, many places in the Old and New Testaments that talk about slavery without speaking against it, and even places that speak for it.  150 years ago, many church pastors like me stood up even stood up before their congregations, held up their Bibles and said that because it was in the Bible, God was okay with slavery.  Then I asked the children, “What do you think of that?  Do you think that God is okay with slavery?”  They decidedly answered, “no.”  “I don’t think so either,” I said, “and I don’t care if it does say that slavery is okay in the Bible – because in my heart, I know God isn’t okay with us treating other people in that way.  And there are a whole lot of other passages in the Bible that help me to know that – that talk about God’s great love and desire for justice for everyone.  I closed by holding the Bible up again and saying, “You know, this is the most important book of our faith.   But we mustalways read and use it carefully, like a tool and never a weapon, and our use of it must always honor the larger picture in it of a God who loves everyone and values us all the same.  Will you pray with me in repeat-after-me style?    Jesus, help us / to be smart / when we read our Bibles.  /  Help us never / to use them as weapons / but always as tools / to build your Kingdom of love. /  Amen.” 

I love this passage from the Sermon on the Mount.  I know you hear me say that a lot with different scripture passages, but there’s so many that are just so saturated with rich meaning at many different levels.  I love that as Jesus begins this portion of his sermon, he has already blown his crowd’s mind with surprising new ways to view the world, and that he doesn’t stop the surprises with today’s text.  In verses 38-48, he questions scripture, making bold statements that at first glance, might seem like suggestions that the oppressed acquiesce to power, but which can also be seen to be about powerful, peaceful resistance.  How appropriate to the struggles for democracy happening in our world today.  For the slave being struck on his right cheek by the one who called himself master, Jesus suggests offering the other cheek as well – an action that would have peacefully professed that the master held no power over the slave.  For the powerful person taking away the coat, Jesus suggests giving the only remaining piece of clothing – the cloak as well.  This would have left the person naked and disgraced the powerful person in his greed.  For the soldier forcing the common man to carry his pack the one mile allowed by Roman law, Jesus suggests going also the second mile. 

All of these actions kind of remind me of a game kids play – a game where you stand face to face with another person and clap your hands together, trying to see who can knock the other over first.  The way to win the game is to put your hands down, taking the other person by surprise, so that the force they try to exert on you causes them to be knocked off balance. 

To me, Jesus is talking about knocking oppressors and oppressive structures off balance with actions of love.  Love in the ancient sense, that is -- not lovey-dovey love, but the kind of love that draws a person in closer like that game, the kind of love by which you bound yourself to another in a deeper way of relationship and greater commitment.  The actions he suggests are careful, calculated moves in which peaceful resistance, love and the grace of God are all intertwined.  The actions are not meant to benefit either party, but to benefit and glorify God by declining the restitution called for by scripture.  Rather than an eye for an eye, rather than violence for violence, Jesus suggests actions that say, “the violence / ends /  here.”  I love that, and I love it especially because the nature of the actions he suggests is itself, accountable to Jesus’ and God’s nature.  Humbling himself to death on a cross, didn’t Jesus as well speak to power in a dissolving rather than acquiescing way?  In a way that said, “the violence ends here.”[1]

Wow.  There is so much there that we could talk about with this passage.  But as I prepared toward this morning’s sermon, I felt a pull in a different direction.  I felt a pull to speak to power myself by preaching on a part of this passage that often gets missed or only given a cursory glance:  the “You have heard it said, but I say to you” part -- the part where Jesus contradicts scripture. 

Six times in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges scripture with those words:  “You have heard it was said…but I say to you…”  Six different times, with six different topics of focus on that breezy, beautiful hill in Galilee, Jesus repeats this phrase and shocks the crowd gathered.  And I want to dwell on that fact today because I think it makes a very powerful statement, in line with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount -- about an accountability to God that requires of us…great care in our approach to scripture.    

How we understand the Christian life depends not only on how we hear Jesus in passages such as the one we have in our text for today, but more broadly, it depends on how we read this book we call the Bible.[2]

Some people will tell you that there is ever only one way to read the Bible.  That the way of the Christian life is plain and simple and clear, right there in black and white (and sometimes red), never to be deviated from or questioned or heaven forbid, have our minds changed about.  They will reason away the many, many contradictions of the text, such as those that made up our Call to Worship this morning.  When they feel the need to rationalize their ways of thinking or push their beliefs in your face, they have no qualms about conveniently cherry picking whatever text they want from any page of the Bible, divorcing it from its context, using it for their own and holding it up as the inerrant Word of God.  When the text suits them, this method works great, and when the text doesn’t suit them…well, if it’s an Old Testament text, they can simply dismiss it with the claim that the new covenant in Jesus Christ has freed Christians from the Law of Hebrew Scripture.  

Churches made up of people and pastors who believe and act in such ways with the text are not hard to identify.  You can usually pinpoint them by sermons that jump around in scripture like a popcorn machine, grabbing one verse here, and another there, a little bit here and there and everywhere, appearing impressive and “Bible-based” (as is popular to claim), but often just skimming the surface of passages, dishonoring the Biblical text by choosing their topic before their texts, deciding what they want to say and proof texting their way to their points.  If you go to churches where people act in this manner, you may notice that they often use the Bible more than they peruse it, holding it up as a sort of huge “how to” manual, an elaborate list of “do’s” and “don’ts” and a recipe book on how to get to heaven.  Such churches will look to the Bible almost as a fourth person of the Trinity to be worshipped.[3] They will look at it in this way…rather than...a text that points beyond itself, like a finger pointing to God, like a window on the Divine rather than the Divine itself, as a book of multiple authors’ lenses through which we can look…and come to better understand God.[4]

A finger pointing to God, a window on the Divine, a collection of lenses focused on God.  I think those are beautiful and very helpful images – images that recognize the rich array of diverse experiences of God present in our Bible.  And people of faith who recognize this book we hold sacred as an account of widely varying experiences of God, such people will joyously have no problem with the fact that how Paul spoke of “the way of Jesus Christ” was different than “the way” to which Jesus called his disciples when he said “follow me.”  How the pseudonymous author of First Timothy spoke of discipleship and a right way of living was much different than how Paul spoke of it.  Such people will have no problem with the fact that stories and words of Jesus in the Gospel of John are much different than stories and words of Jesus in the earlier written Gospels.  Nor will they blink at how scripture records Jesus himself as both refuting the Law or Hebrew scripture and saying that he had come to fulfill it.  These differences are not to be ignored or pounded together like puzzle pieces we force to fit into one, uniform, unchangeable, frame-able Biblical interpretation.  /  These differences are to be honored by being recognized and valued and intentionally examined because we want to be the best Christians we can, drawing…ever…closer…to God.  The multiple and different experiences of the Sacred that we read and encounter in our Bibles help us on that faithful journey. 

The editors of the Bible didn’t try to hide its widely varied views and stories, so why should hide them?  Or hide from them?  It’s a thing to be celebrated that we have a Holy book that includes very different views and accounts, a Holy book that was put together by editors and other people of faith who were a-okay with Jesus saying things like “You have heard it said in scripture, but I say to you.”  //  I love that we have two very different creation stories, left side-by-side rather than one replacing the other, two interwoven accounts of the great flood, FOUR accounts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and letters to the early Christian churches that contradict one another, but surely spoke words that each early Christian church, in its very unique context, needed to hear.               

 “You have heard that it was said…but I say to you…”  You can bet that with those words, Jesus ticked off quite a few of the more self-proclaimed, “Bible-based” believers in his midst – biblical literalists like the Sadducees, who rejected the notion that God had spoken any more than what scripture recorded, let alone the idea that God was still speaking to the world.[5]  Jesus takes them all by surprise, shaking their supposed foundations– their scriptural foundation – that foundation of the Law upon which their lives were built.  Jesus questions their very foundation with just twelve little words:  “You have heard that it was said…but I say to you.”  I can guarantee you that many people did not hear anything he had to say beyond those twelve words.   

I share all of this because I feel called to help this Christians recognize that there is a danger in the blind acceptance of all scripture as God-given Truth, just as it was written or as we choose to hear it.  And judging by the prevalence of a default fundamentalism in our culture, ministers such as myself haven’t been faithful enough in helping their congregants to become more educated on scripture.  Granted, our road is a tougher one than that of other churches who tout that sweeping acceptance of all scripture.  The path before us is less traveled and of more intricate terrain as it winds through understandings of context and culture, history, editorial redaction and translation.  But a choice not to travel the path is an apathetic acquiescing to the power of voices that just speak more loudly.  And unchecked louder voices, especially ones that claim absolute truth in scripture, whether Christian or of any other faith -- are always dangerous. 

We have lived the effect of such dangers in the past.  In 1616, the Catholic Church condemned heliocentrism, the scientific theory that the earth revolved around the sun as “false and contrary to Scripture.”[6]  Subsequently, many were unfairly punished for supporting this view over a geocentric model of the earth at the center of the universe, with everything revolving around it.  In 1861, the Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church (a denomination with beliefs often not far from ours) chose to blindly accept a wide swath of both Old and New Testament scripture in making this statement:  “African slavery is a wise, humane and righteous institution approved by God.”  They were not alone, joined by Presbyterians, Episcopalians and many, many other churches who because of a blind acceptance of scripture, saw slavery as the will and way of God.  Through the ages, scripture has been used to subjugate women, force them to remain in relationships that do not glorify God, and even justify their abuse.  Scripture has been used to rationalize the abuse of children, excuse a lesser view of persons with disabilities, pass judgment on homosexuals, and even to support governments and governmental leaders promoting laws of injustice that are spoken against at other points of scripture. 

Yes, there is danger in refusing to hear how God says to us, “You have heard it said in scripture, but I say to you.”  Perhaps one of the most chilling statements that speaks to this danger in terms of both scripture and creeds comes from the first half of the 20^thcentury.  The quote goes…

I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed.  The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with.  It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected.  The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it.  The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it.”  -Adolf Hitler[7]                       

Fellow Christians, builders (as the Apostle Paul calls us), let us indeed choose with care how to build on the foundation that has been laid, a foundation testified to in scripture but a foundation notin scripture itself, but in Jesus Christ – in his life, in his death, and in his resurrection.  As Paul declared in First Corinthians (long before his private mail was canonized as Holy Scripture):  “Each builder will choose with care how to build on [the foundation].  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.”[8]

When it comes down to it, the Christian life is about being in relationship with God, living in accountability to God and God’s mission, period.  Scripture is essential in helping us to get there, but if we blindly accept it without reason, study or a critically conscious mind, then our relationship is with scripture, not with God. 

“You have heard it said…but I say to you…”  In that sermon-rocking statement, Jesus extended an invitation -- an invitation to listen and learn about what it truly means to live in accountability to God, beyond scripture.

So, how are we to respond to Jesus’ call to live in accountability to God beyond scripture?  Well, first and foremost, don’t you dare hear that it’s time to step away from our study of scripture.  Quite the opposite, in fact:  it’s time to become better educated in the Bible.  The Bible is the most valuable tool we have to grow in our knowledge of God; we just have to read it with the care and respect to read beyond the words too, appreciating all the lenses of the people who recounted the stories, of the editors that pieced the stories together, of the scribes who wrote them down.  We have to appreciate all the lenses…without seeking to wear them all, ourselves.  But just reading the Bible on our own isn’t enough, and the founders of this church knew that.  That’s why, since its founding, St. Peter’s has been a church that emphasizes Christian education as paramount to a life of faith.  And Christian education isn’t just for children.  In fact, it’s probably most useful to you as an adult, after your brain has finished developing and you are capable of abstract thinking.  We have several Christian education opportunities available at St. Peter’s.  Our Adult Sunday class meets an hour before Sunday worship each week, down in the atrium meeting room.  It is led by the Reverends John and Audrey Nourse, two studied pastors for the price of one, and that price is nothing…except perhaps the cost of an extra hour of sleep each week, given to God.  In addition to this class, we have our Wednesday noon Christian education class and our Wednesdays at St. Pete’s program that will be starting up on March 16^th.  And if all of those times don’t work for you, suggest other times to us.  We welcome your help in starting new groups hungry to better know God. 

“You have heard it said…but I say to you…” With those words, Jesus broke open scripture and took his listeners down paths they had not traveled before.  Paths that led to the Kingdom of God on earth.  May our paths do the same because we too have had the courage to journey, the courage to stand in question to power, and the courage to boldly live a 2000 year-old faith without 2000 year-old thinking.  Amen.