Epiphany 7A Matthew 5:38-48 Holy Spirit, Gulf Shores, February 19, 2016
If you are a football fan, you know that an audible is a play called by the quarterback at the line of scrimmage to make a change from the play that was called in the huddle. Peyton Manning, who played 18 seasons in the NFL, considered one of the greatest football quarterbacks of all time, became notorious for shouting "Omaha" just before the play is about to start. "Omaha" is his audible call for a sudden change in plans. Whatever play he or the coach may have called, now he is deciding to reverse the play. If he had planned to go to the right, he now is going to the left. /
These words, "You have heard it said... but I say to you" in this section of Jesus' teaching in the gospel of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is a first century rhetorical style of audible. With these six "antitheses" Jesus’ commands a world view change in the thinking of his audience, completely opposite of the world standards, a reversal, or radicalization of the pre-existing game plan standard for the day. Whatever the tradition was, whatever the strategy had been, Jesus is now calling an audible, a reversal of the original plan.1 If anyone strikes us on the check, turn the other check, if anyone wants our coat, give him also our cloak or cape or poncho as well, if anyone forces us to go one mile, go the second mile,/ give to all who beg from us, do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from us./ ThenJesus ups the ante even further by telling us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If that is not enough, Jesus finally ends it all by telling us to be perfect.
How can ordinary people like you and me, not saints or world spiritual leaders learn how to follow Jesus’ new commandments, especially about people we perceive as our enemies? I think I can best explain this by sharing an award-winning story by writer and poet Raymond Carver called A Small Good Thing.
Like Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver shows in his excellent short stories the “almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, the Holy Spirit” in the worlds he writes about. In this short story, a young mother, Ann, goes to a baker to order a special birthday cake for her son’s eighth birthday. She chooses a cake decorated with a spaceship and launching pad under a spring of white stars and a planet made of red frosting at the other end. His name Scotty would be in green letters beneath the planet. But before she can pick it up, the next day a terrible thing happens: Her boy is hit by a car and slips into a deep coma. She and her husband, Howard, spend several frantic days at the hospital, forgetting of course about the birthday cake.
During this time, when they do return home to change clothes, they start getting angry phone calls from an unidentified caller who says, “Have you forgotten about Scotty?” and then hangs up. They have no idea who might be calling them and become furious that someone would make abusive nuisance calls to them at a time like this. All of the anger that is accumulating inside them because of their son's terrible condition and the doctors’ seeming incompetence becomes directed at the caller.
About the time they receive the news that their Scotty has died, they also figure out who is calling. It is the baker. They had not thought to call him about the birthday cake, and he is getting his revenge with his angry nuisance calls! He had spent a lot of time preparing the expensive $16 cake and now will not be paid anything for it. As soon as they realize that it is the baker, they drive in the early morning right to the bakery to let him have it, ventilating all the anger that accumulated as they watched their only child slip away. “I’d like to kill him,” the mother says, “I’d like to shoot him and watch him kick.” It is after-hours, but they get the baker to open up his shop and immediately listen to his ranting about how long and hard he works. Then the couple goes after him, telling him what of course he did not know: that their son was hit by a car and killed. “Shame on you,” the father says, “Shame.” I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but this is what happens next. The baker throws off his apron and invites the bereaving couple to sit down with him as he says how sorry he is, asks for forgiveness and tells a little of his own lonely story about how the grueling long hours of working by himself for other people’s pleasure has now made him almost not human, without feeling and concern for others. The baker gets coffee for both of them. He stands up and says 2 “You probably need to eat something. I hope you’ll eat some of my hot rolls. You have to eat and keep going. Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this.” 3 He serves them warm cinnamon rolls just out of the oven. They eat rolls and dark bread and drink coffee and begin to talk and listen carefully to the pain and loneliness each is bearing. They talk into the early morning and they do not think of leaving. /
So how is Raymond Carver modelling for us how we can learn to follow Jesus’ new commandments to love our enemies? He is teaching us that we learn by hearing details of each other’s story and especially by sharing our feelings about how we have been harmed. We learn how we each became the way we are because of our many trials along the way. We move from victim to survivor. We are healed by feeling a connection to the pain each of us has known, realizing we are not alone in our suffering. /
If you are having trouble with this idea, think about starting small. You start by connecting with those with whom you have difficulty that you may have the best chance of finding a healing relationship with./ Start with members of this very congregation that you may find difficult.4 Now certainly there may not be people in this congregation with whom you have difficulty getting along. But just in case, / try this. Sit down just the two of you, preferably over a meal and tell your story and listen to the other person’s story just like the couple and the baker in Carver’s story. Share a meal together, pray for presence of Spirit. I did forget to tell you that the presence of the Spirit is the only way you can be reconciled, for finding a healing relationship is not yet a major part of our human DNA./
Jesus is telling us, do not fight fire with fire. Fight fire with water, living water.6 Evil is overcome with good, not with a stronger version of evil. Jesus is telling us to break the cycle of evil and suffering. Let it stop with us. Break the cycle with the person sitting three pews ahead of you. Break the cycle with your estranged brother or sister. Break the cycle with your spouse or child. Break the cycle with the person you work with or your next-door neighbor. With God’s help, we can do it. Christians are called to be Christ-like, to counter evil with good, to allow the power of Christ, the Spirit to live within and through us out to others. / Is there any hope for us? No one can be Christ-like by sheer will power or discipline. Christ, the Spirit has to do it within us. Pray for this. Put yourself in the place where the Spirit can lead you. // And that is exactly why we are here, right now, at this place! I do not need to remind you that this church called Holy Spirit each week gives us one more chance to begin this world-changing experiment. In a few minutes, all of us also will have the perfect opportunity to begin the process by sharing a meal together, a small good thing, shared with each other at this altar.
1 Phillip Quanbeck 11, Thursday, 2/20/2014.
2 William Barnwell, A small good thing summary, DOCC.
3 Raymond Carver, “A Small Good Thing,” Cathedral.
4 Edwin Search, “Reflection on the lectionary”, Christian Century, February 8, 2011.
5 Steven P Eason, “Matthew 5:38-48”, Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Volume 1, pp. 113-115.
6 Matthew Myer Boulton, “Matthew 5:38-48”, Feasting on the Word, year A, volume 1, p. 385.
Joanna Seibert