Star Trek, Jiu Jitsu, and Jesus

Transcription

1 Star Trek, Jiu Jitsu, and Jesus Matthew: There are some passages of scripture that I m not sure I quite understand...and then there are other passages that are perfectly understandable but I m not so sure I WANT to understand or obey them. Today s scripture reading from Jesus Sermon on the Mount falls into the latter category. It seems to be a list of impossible or at least thoroughly impractical instructions. I mean, listen to these, as if we are actually to follow them: Do not resist an evildoer; if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; If anyone forces you...forces YOU...to go one mile--go the second mile as well. Give to EVERYONE who begs from you and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now if you want to file those under vaguely inspirational quotations, things that we SAY but don t fully DO, you ll have no argument from me. If you even want to water them down a bit, so that love your enemy becomes be generally civil to people you don t like, give to everyone who begs becomes give what you can spare to every DESERVING person who begs, and be perfect means in terms of kindness and consideration, be consistently above average, then I will say, any decent person would do no less! But let s be honest here, can we agree that Jesus simply can t mean what he says?!? I mean, REALLY. Is he trying to make us into marshmallows? Maybe he s telling us one thing...but actually expecting another. Let me show you what I mean. When I was in college, I worked as a waiter in restaurant--a nice restaurant. But I noticed that every time someone ordered a steak, the chef sent it out one step too rare. 1

2 It was just his way--if you told him the customer wanted their steak medium, meaning slightly pink, he d send it out only slightly cooked, with the result that the steak would be sent back, nearly every time! So, I learned that if I wanted the desired results, I had to speak to the chef in exaggerations: If the customer wanted their steak rare, I went into the kitchen and asked for medium, so they d GET rare and not raw; if they ordered medium, I placed the order for well-done. If they ordered well done, I wrote BURN IT on the ticket and underlined it twice. If I exaggerated how done I wanted it, Percy, the chef, would get it done just enough to be right. So maybe THAT S what Jesus is up to in the Sermon on the Mount--KNOWING that we ll underperform whatever he says, maybe he is exaggerating his expectations so we ll get it done just enough to be right. Understood in that way, what this passage would realistically mean is, Do these things whenever you possibly can. Love your enemies for just as long as you can stand to do so. Give until it starts to hurt a bit--but then withhold. Turn the other cheek--unless you just can t. You see, Jesus, we might say, THAT would make these demands workable in the real world. You have to understand, Jesus, that the world is imperfect. Violence is the only language that some people speak. In the real world, it is good to be peaceful as long as you can be peaceful--but sometimes, honor demands--or practicality demands-- or JUSTICE demands--that force be met with force and that fire be fought with fire that that an eye be met with an eye and a tooth with a tooth. 2

3 In the real world, Jesus, you walk softly--as softly as ever you can--but you carry a big stick. To which Jesus might reply, I can imagine: I know all too well how the real world works. I come to teach you how the kingdom of heaven works. I did not come to condemn the world nor to be conformed to the world but to transform the world. And how you are responding, how you are living in the real world --will never change the world or usher in the kingdom. If you hope to harvest a crop of peace, you cannot do it simply by sowing fewer seeds of war. Jesus is not seeking to teach us about living better in the world we know--he is trying to teach us the way OUT OF the sort of world we are trapped in and into the kingdom of God. Our common sense, real world behaviors only entrap us! An illustration will help me to make my point. It comes from an episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation. Now I know, it isn t cool to like Star Trek, but that s okay, I couldn t find my way to cool if you gave me Mapquest directions, so I m using a Star Trek illustration. 3

4 In the episode, the Starship Enterprise has become ensnared by the gravitational pull of a field of asteroids and the trapped ship is being bombarded by deadly radiation that will soon kill the entire crew. To make the possible outcome of their predicament all too clear, the hulk of a previously entrapped vessel drifts nearby, manned by a literal skeleton crew. If the Enterprise crew members remain where they are, they will certainly die as well. But the trap is insidious. Whenever the crew increases power to the engines in an attempt to escape--the power is absorbed by the surrounding asteroids and the radiation increases, actually hastening their death. If they try to increase power to their shields that expended power is also absorbed, the radiation redoubles. It is like a snare--the harder they struggle, the tighter it grows, or like quicksand, the more they fight it, the faster they sink. They cannot fight the power that ensnares them by responding with power. The only eventual escape from the asteroid snare, they discover, is counter-intuitive. They must DIMINISH their use of power, thereby giving less power to the snare. That is the point I believe Jesus is making in our scripture lesson. If you meet the world on the world s terms, you cannot escape from the ways of the world. You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Jesus says, but I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. 4

5 If someone strikes you, and you retaliate even in reasonable measure, then they retaliate, and then you retaliate, and so on, forever, until it is nearly forgotten who struck first. You cannot do that, it does not work, it will never work. It only gives power to the snare. To illustrate, think of North Korea and the current cycle of threat escalation we won t solve their aggression by making bigger threats. We escalate tension and increase the likelihood of conflict. What Jesus advocates, instead, is a form of moral or ethical Jiu jitsu. Jiu Jitsu is an ancient form of self-defense, but with a surprising emphasis. A translation of the name will explain--jiu can be translated to mean, gentle, supple, flexible, pliable, or yielding. Jitsu means art or technique. Jiu Jitsu, then, is the art of strategic yielding. To yield strategically is not simply to become a punching bag, however. Jiu Jitsu aims to absorb the force of the opponent s assault, and to turn it aside so that their own force is their undoing. Instead of meeting force with force, violence with violence, and an eye with an eye, if you will, the force is transformed. It cannot work, our sensibilities scream, it simply cannot work. If we turn the other cheek, the offender will simply strike again. If we give to everyone who asks, they will take advantage. If we love our enemies, then laughing, they will feast on our bones. This way that Jesus advocates would be great in a perfect world, but this world is not perfect and never will be. In this world, it is foolishness. Foolishness! Exactly so. The message of the cross, Paul tells us in the opening chapter of First Corinthians, is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, Paul writes; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus. In the birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God reveals to us the kingdom of heaven. God takes a world that opposed God, a world of enemies--and loves us, foolishly and world-transformingly, into friends. God takes a world of orphans and names us as God s own daughters and sons. God gives to us undeservedly and extravagantly. Or to say it in the words of Jesus from John s gospel, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. And here is the challenge of our faith: if we are loved that deeply, that foolishly, that extravagantly--how can we claim to follow Christ if we love less or differently than God loves us? 5

6 But Jesus is Jesus and we are only we, or another way to say it is, that is the world we hope for but this is the world we live in, and the way he advocates simply cannot work-- we have to be allowed a few field adjustments, don t we? Or maybe the way of gentle yielding DOES work. I m reminded of an old NPR news story: the story of Julio Diaz, who was mugged by a knife wielding teenager on a New York subway platform. The teen demanded Diaz wallet and Diaz complied. But as the teen turned away, Diaz said-- Wait a minute. You need to take my coat, too. What do you mean? the teenager asked. Well, if you re going to be out robbing people the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep warm. Or, if you want, I was just on my way to the diner for supper. Maybe you d like to join me. Well, surprisingly, the young man did. They visited throughout the meal. When the check came, Diaz said, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. But if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you." The young man, without hesitation, gave up the wallet. Diaz paid the bill and pulled out $20 and gave it to the boy--and then asked for his knife in return. The boy handed him the knife. Diaz summary of his encounter? "I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world." 1 The art of gentle yielding. Not to belabor the point but to illustrate it just once more, I offer this story of how gentle opposition transforms hurt and hate. You know of the Westboro Baptist Church--they are the church group known for picketing funerals and college campuses with signs like God hates fags, and Thank God for dead soldiers. They commonly announce their protests with press releases such as: WBC will picket the fag-infested, pervert run American University. It makes your blood boil, doesn t it? Despicable, hateful, detestable, and foul! How do you respond to a group like that? God Loves Poetry is a national movement in response to Westboro s God Hates messages. Whenever Westboro Baptist publishes a hate filled news release, participants in the movement take the release and black out the hateful words until only a message of love remains

7 You can see the example on the screen. Every word of the venomous screed has been blacked out except for the words: Every person with a platform should be using it to encourage forgiveness. At a Westboro demonstration at American University, one student transformed a flyer that included such words as, WBC will picket the fag-infested pervert-run American University. You shall see the truth. God hates you, Doomed America, for what you have done to your children! Her blacked out poem instead read: American University will see. truth. The face of God. God shall be.in thine heart. Teach thy children. that simple commandment. God is love. And a shouted message of hate was shouted down, not with an equal and opposite message, anger for anger, an eye for an eye--but with a gentle yielding, a Jesus-like Jiu Jitsu, a demonstration of powerlessness that put shows of power to shame. A hate pamphlet becomes a love poem. 7

8 The members of Westboro Baptist? Perhaps they were unchanged. But the situation? The University Campus? The lives of the people who witnessed it? The flow of the news story? Completely, utterly, powerfully transformed. Perhaps this message of Jesus is not a simple moralism. Not a mere nicety or a pie in the sky idealism. But perhaps this turning of the cheek, this offering of foolish generosity, this embracing of hostile counterparts and refusing to let them go-- perhaps, if we let it, it might change us. Our marriages and relationships. Our outlook. Our enemies. Even the world. As we join at the table of World Communion, we might ask ourselves what does world communion in fact look like? How do we escape the snare of violence, vengeance and self-serving self-interest? In Star Trek lingo, I believe the response is Shields down. May God grant us unguarded hearts. Amen 8