Powerful, Playful Protest Matthew 6: Feb. 2, This is our fifth of seventeen weeks with the gospel of Matthew. You are all invited to read

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1 Powerful, Playful Protest Matthew 6: Feb. 2, 2014 This is our fifth of seventeen weeks with the gospel of Matthew. You are all invited to read through the gospel of Matthew yourself and discover what s there. To this point Jesus has been born, baptized, and called disciples. We have read that he has Messiah credentials because he has been named the son of David and the son of Abraham. He s already fulfilled prophecy of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and his story mirrors that of Moses. Moses escaped an evil Pharaoh as a baby. He passed through the waters of the Red Sea, wandered with Israel in the wilderness and went up Mt. Sinai to receive the law and then he starts teaching the law. Likewise, Jesus life is in danger as a baby, his parents flee to Egypt, then escape Egypt, Jesus passes through the waters of baptism, wanders in the wilderness and then immediately goes up a mountain and starts teaching. This way of telling the story only happens in Matthew. As Abby suggested last week, it s almost like Jesus is a living, breathing torah. So we should pay attention to his teachings. The Sermon on the Mount is not a sermon, it s a collection of teachings. Our teachings for today: turn the other cheek and love your neighbor, are among the most famous of Jesus teachings. They are also among the most misunderstood teachings and the most ignored. A clear ethic of non-violence springs from these teachings. Pacifist strands of Christianity, Quakers, Mennonites, other Anabaptists, see this section of the Sermon on the Mount as foundational for Christian life. There are many Christians who ignore these teachings and their implications too. Those Christians who maintain that we must be a

2 Christian nation and we must maintain the largest military in the world aren t placing a high priority on these verses. The teaching to turn the other cheek is not only misunderstood, but the common interpretation is often dangerous and it doesn t make much historical sense. The common understanding of this passage leads to what I think of as doormat Christianity, or walk all over me Christianity. Many women in abusive relationships have heard that their duty as a Christian is to turn the other cheek. You have to stand there and take it. That interpretation isn t good news, that interpretation is horrible. And that interpretation doesn t make historical sense. If this is what Jesus was teaching, You should be a doormat, you should let everyone walk all over you, how could he have developed a following in the 1 st century? I can t imagine a 1 st century peasant saying, Oh yeah, let people walk all over me, that s helpful. I want to hear more of what this guy has to say. They would have walked away. I also can t imagine authorities thinking that this teaching was a threat. Oh, here s someone telling the peasants not to resist the powers that do them harm. Oh, that s so scary. We d better crucify him. So we are looking for an interpretation that s helpful in our time and that fits the larger story of Jesus. I think scholar Walter Wink has a very persuasive interpretation, so I m going to walk through his interpretation for a while. Wink says that the Greek word for resist antistenai, is a technical term for warfare in the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, what Matthew would have been using. Jesus is saying, in the face of an evildoer, do not resort to violence, armed rebellion. Instead do this: When someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other one also. Jesus doesn t say face or cheek he says right cheek. If you take a moment and turn towards your neighbor (go ahead) and act like you are going to punch them with your right hand (act like!!) you will find that you would be striking the left cheek. We can assume right handedness here, no one is wanting to sit at the left hand of God because the left hand was used for unclean tasks. In order to hit someone on the right cheek, what would you do? You would slap them with the back of your hand. The backhand was an insult. You backhanded inferiors to put them back in their place. Masters backhanded slaves, husbands backhanded wives, parents backhanded children and Romans backhanded Jews. Jesus says turn the other cheek. This makes it hard to backhand.

3 You will hit the nose. Instead if you were hitting someone on the left cheek with your fist you were hitting an equal. Jesus is saying, don t resort to violence but demand to be treated as an equal. That s a teaching that I could imagine an oppressed people being intrigued by. That s consistent with the good news of the Kingdom of God, where everyone is valuable, everyone has a place, and everyone has enough. And that s the sort of teaching that would get you killed. And there s more. Jesus says, if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give them your cloak as well. This example is set in a court of law. Deuteronomy 24: said that a creditor could take as collateral a poor man s long outer coat but the coat had to be returned each night so the person would have something in which to sleep. Extreme debt was common in Ancient Israel and it was a direct result of Roman policy. It was common to have to go to court to give up your coat. Jesus says, Give up your cloak as well. The cloak was the underwear. Walk out of the court naked, Jesus says. Nakedness was shameful in ancient Israel but it was shameful for the person who saw the nakedness. Jesus is saying, You are not at fault. Bring shame on the creditor, bring shame on the whole system of injustice. Then Jesus says, If anyone forces you to go one mile, force them to go a second. As Roman soldiers moved their baggage from one village to another they would find anyone on the street and demand that they carry their stuff for them. Villages would sometimes flee because they knew they would be forced to carry all this equipment. But it was against the imperial code to force someone to carry your stuff for more than a mile. When Jesus says, force them to go a second, the peasant carrying the baggage would be forcing a violation of military code that would cause that soldier to be punished. Jesus is teaching resistance to oppressive powers. That resistance isn t violent. It isn t warfare. Instead the resistance is creative, almost playful. The resistance is certainly not without risk. This resistance uses whatever resources are at people s disposal. And this sort of resistance is visible. It becomes a sign of hope and it is a threat to the powers that be. It is immediately followed by the command to love one s enemies, to pray for transformation. Don t cut off relationship. Stay connected, remember that everyone is a child of God.

4 This interpretation of this passage can change our understanding of what Christianity is and how Christians should be behaving in the world. Christianity has long been sanitized for our protection, actually for the power s protection. King James hired translators to come up with a different version of the bible because of the seditious, dangerous and traitorous tendencies printed in the margins of the Geneva Bible which included the right to disobey a tyrant. Through Christian history you see people in power trying to control the message of Christianity because it was a threat to them. In the sermon on the mount Jesus says that we are to resist powers that do us harm. We aren t to resort to violence, but we are to creatively resist. Our resistance may be small, simple actions, but that still counts. There are so many places where this teaching applies. If we are in relationships that are not equal, that are abusive in one way or another, Jesus teaches to use whatever resources we have (short of violence) to stand up for ourselves and preserve our dignity. If there are issues of injustice that we see or experience, Jesus teaches that the church is to be right in the mix, creatively resisting. I ve been thinking about this in relation to the issue I follow most closely which is climate change. The reliance of the world economy on fossil fuels is already oppressing some of our poorest neighbors around the world. The people of the island nation Kiribati have been there for thousands of years, and now the whole nation is preparing to evacuate because rising seas will swallow their island. Our children and grandchildren will inherit a planet that is more volatile, dangerous, and hostile to human beings. Despite this overwhelming problem, I m hopeful because of the creative resistance I see, and churches as a part of this resistance. I went to the Climate Summit at St. Olaf a few weeks ago. The participation was incredible, over 700 people and the place was crawling with First UCCers. Keynote speaker Paul Douglas, a Republican and Evangelical Christian, was very clear on a few things. First, the data is clear that climate change is happening and weather is becoming more volatile. Second, to reverse the course of climate change we will have to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Third, the money behind climate change denial is coming from the oil companies. Of course, talk about climate change is a threat

5 to their product and profit. How do people resist the most powerful corporations in the world? Creatively. Last year at this time I mentioned the beginning of a movement to encourage divestment from fossil fuel companies. In a year, that conversation hasn t disappeared but it has gotten louder. There are student and alumni groups working on divestment at 10 colleges in Minnesota, even Luther seminary has a group going. The city of Minneapolis is actively engaging the conversation as well. I can t divest until the denomination does, so I m working with a few Minnesota clergy and a handful of others around the denomination to see if we can get 500 UCC clergy to say, We want a fossil fuel free investment option, UCC pension boards please provide us one. I talked with someone in personal finance this week who said he was in conversation with people about creating a better green mutual fund, one that avoids the worst 200 oil companies and is a good investment vehicle. The idea of a better green mutual fund is a result of the divestment conversation. It wouldn t have happened otherwise. Churches are starting to have climate conversations that mirror the conversations about marriage that happened during the marriage amendment. Many Churches, including ours, are considering solar installations for their roofs (we re working on it) and some churches are thinking about developing teams to go door to door asking community members to invest in larger community owned solar arrays. This resistance is creative. It s bubbling up all over. I think these acts are acts of resistance, like turning the other cheek. The church and others are saying, We have power too, and we are going to act differently create a different world. May we turn the other cheek wherever we are called to, turning from violence, but saying to those powers that do us harm, We have power too. Amen.