"Even Al Capone...."

Christ United Presbyterian Church

February 23, 2014

Sermon:  “Even Al Capone….”

Matthew 5: 38-48

One of the easiest things in the world is to become a Christian. For example to join this congregation all that you have to do is: 

a. profess  your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,

b. renounce evil and affirm  your reliance on God’s grace,

c. declare your intention to participate actively and responsibly in the worship and mission of the church.

Just words.  Do that, say those words, and you are a Christian and a member of this Presbyterian church.  What could be easier?   

But one of the most difficult things in the world is to be a Christian.  In the lesson is Matthew this morning Jesus tells us some of the things we have to do to actually be a Christian; that is, to live the life of a follower of Jesus.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’  But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also… [Matthew 5:38-39].”

No less today than in the First Century, a slap across the face is a serious insult. Despite all the ways we have devised to torture people, spitting in someone’s face and slapping them across the face – open palm and then backhanded – are still two of the most insulting things that we can do to someone. And of course that’s exactly how Jesus was treated.   

If someone insults me, I’m pretty sure that my first impulse is to get them back.  That’s just the way we are wired.  That's the way we think. 

Jesus said we should take it and offer the other cheek for them to slap as well. He was talking about personal revenge, retaliation, or retribution.  These are not appropriate feelings or actions for a Christian.

 "… and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well (v.40).” The terms that Jesus used in this passage were very meaningful in Jesus’ day.  They didn’t have Minnesota winters, and most people weren’t particularly rich. Back then, if one person took another person to court, and the person did not have the money to pay the judgment, the court could order payment in clothing. You could take the man's coat, his tunic; you could take the man's shirt, but you could not take his coat.

What Jesus calls the coat was a type of undergarment, perhaps like a tee shirt. The cloak was an outer garment that served as a blanket at night. Most people in those days owned only one cloak and perhaps one or two coats.  The cloak was the most valuable piece of clothing that most people owned back then.

But Jesus directs us to a course of action that goes beyond the requirements of the law,  goes beyond both the law of the land and the Mosaic Law.  He’s saying if you really did something sufficiently offensive so that you lose this law suit, then go beyond the minimum requirements of the law.  Do everything that you can to set things right.  Don’t just make restitution.  Do whatever is necessary to make things right again between you and the person who sued you.  That’s what God wants.  God wants our relationships with others to be on the best footing that we can get them.  So go out of your way to reconcile even if it means that you have to go beyond what might be legally and usually required.

"… and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile (v.41).” A Roman soldier could compel a Jew to carry his weapons, or anything that he was carrying, for a distance of one mile. People marked off one mile from their house and had memorized the exact distance. If a Jewish boy or man was compelled to go that mile, he would walk that mile down to the very foot, drop whatever he was carrying, and declare: "not one foot more."

  

Now many of the religious leaders had boiled their religious lives down to the minimum. They practiced what I call a "minimum legalism." They spent hours defining the absolute minimum that had to be done in order to meet – they thought – the requirements of the Lord for a religious life. .

Jesus probably wasn’t overly concerned about this obligation of a mile.  He knew that this approach – this minimal legalism – was the same approach that so many people took to living out their obligations to God and to one another.  That was his real point.  I wonder how many of us apply that same minimalist approach to our Christian lives. 

But at the end of this lesson Jesus hits us with the real measure of the Jewish life – or the Christian life.  In the end, Jesus gives us a measure that cannot be readily reduced to some minimal legalism.  In the end – as he always did – Jesus returns to an all-encompassing demand for love.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? [43-47]”

“What more are you doing than others?”  He expects more from us than the things being done by others.  He expects more from our love than what most people think love demands.  Now we have arrived at the hardest part of being a Christian.

Love.

CS Lewis wrote a book trying to understand this most difficult demand of Christianity.  It’s called The Four Loves. He knew that in English we have a blurry idea of what love is, and so he tried to clarify what Jesus meant by love.

Lewis says that human love – regardless of the context – deserves to be called “love” only insofar as it resembles that Love which is God.  How’s that for a tall order?

He begins by making a simple distinction between what he calls “gift love” and “need love.”  “Gift love” is what God has given to us.  “Need love” might be understood as the love that sends a frightened child into the arms of his parent.  It is the love toward God that we display when we realize our helpless state and our need for God’s presence in our life.  Lewis is trying to fully grasp the love that scripture calls us to live, the love that Christ commands us to share.

He decided to examine the four “loves” that are spoken of in the scriptures:  “stor-ge”, which might be thought of as a simple affection; “philios,” which he translates as friendship; “eros,” which he prefers to describe as what we call “falling in love.”  All of these he refers to as “natural loves.”  He makes it clear that he is not disparaging the “natural loves” but merely pointing out their limits in the absence of some further overarching love:  the love of God which can shape our natural loves into an eternal love that comes to define life itself . 

The Greek word that he fixes on is “agape,” but as ever he looks at it differently than we usually might.  Lewis believed that the first and greatest expression of this love on our part was not the love that we gave but rather the realization of the love we have been given.  The realization that we are not worthy of the love we are receiving.  A realization that we are not loved because we are lovable, but because God is love. 

When we finally accept that we are loved even though we are unlovable, then our expression of the natural loves changes. This realization of what it means to receive God’s love redefines the relationships of our natural loves.  The natural loves all have limitations, but when we come to realize that we are loved by God while we are quite unlovable, then the way in which we love others must change. 

It no longer matters if we like someone; it no longer matters if we have a great many things in common with someone and want to spend hours talking and being with them; it no longer matters if we are “in love” with someone.  It only matters that the love we give is the love we have received:  a love that we must give to all just as God has given His love to us.  A love that is lived and given by us without judging the lovability of others. 

Jesus asked: “What more are you doing than the others?”  It’s said that even Al Capone loved his mother! 

Love doesn’t fit those nice little pigeon holes that we all seek when we resort to religious legal minimalism.  Being a Christian isn’t easy.  Perhaps we’ve made it seem too easy by making it so easy to be called a Christian.  To be a Christian is to want with all your heart to love all the people of God’s creation with the same love that He has given you and me. To love with the love of God as our model won’t fit a comfortable black and white view of the world.  But that’s how to respond to God’s love. 

If we say they are undeserving then we haven’t really accepted that we are as well.  We don’t really recognize the greatness of the gift of love that God has given us in the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We don’t recognize how precious we all are in God’s sight. 

Amen.