What did he mean by that?

Okay, folks, I'm about to drop something heavy on you, which for you Lutherans, should be pretty straightforward.  After all, we believe that 'Is means is' in regards to the Lord's supper, that the body and blood of Jesus Christ are truly present in with and under the bread and wine.  And if you can grasp that, that the body and blood of Jesus are truly present at the altar because he said they would be then the next step should make sense as well.  Ready?

Turn the other cheek means turn the other cheek.

Is means is, turn the other cheek means turn the other cheek, etc.  The thing about Jesus and his words is that we all grasp them until we get too smart.  Then we get to thinking that the words of Jesus Christ can't possibly be understood, they are too multi-leveled, after all.  There are tons of ancient near eastern customs, practices, and so on that help to illustrate exactly why when someone strikes you, you should hit them back.  And we tend to fall into the same patterns that our first mother did when confronted with the Devil, that monstrous demon from the dim mists of time. For when the Devil spoke to Eve about the forbidden fruit that she craved, he began by saying

"Hath God really said....?"

The deception began there, by attempting to get Eve to question what God had said. God had told our first parents not to consume the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but Eve's deception began by asking what did God mean by that.  Now note that the command of God in the garden wasn't hard to understand.  "Don't eat that, it's bad for you" is a command so simple that we could give to children, and in fact, frequently do.  Don't eat that, don't touch that, don't do that, simple things that we tell children, and we expect them to listen to and to understand.  And they by and large do, until they become reasoned enough to begin to question your commands, and to ask what it is that you really meant by what you said.  And it is far easier for us to say that if we mean what we tell our children, then perhaps God means what he says when he says it to us.

The best person to listen to in relation to this issue is, of course, Dietrich Bonhoeffer himself, that most wonderful of pastors who put himself in harm's way, who stood up to Hitler, who sacrificed himself and all that he had for the benefit of those around him.  And when he talks about cheap grace, we should really take him seriously, given that he is definitely prepared to put his money where his mouth is.  Which he absolutely did.  At any rate, when he discusses these words from Christ, and our modern understanding of them, he says this much.

"We in our sophistry differ altogether from the hearers of Jesus' word of whom the Bible speaks.  If Jesus said to someone 'leave all else behind and follow me; resign your profession, quit your family, your people, and the home of your fathers.' then he knew that to this call there was only one answer - the answer of single-minded obedience, and that it is only to this obedience that the promise of fellowship with Jesus is given.  But we should probably argue thus: 'Of course we are meant to take the call of Jesus with absolute seriousness, but after all the true way of obedience would be to continue all the more in our present occupations, to say with our families and to serve him there in a spirit of true inward detachment.' If Jesus challenged us with the command 'Get out of it,' we should take him to mean 'stay where you are but cultivate that inward detachment.' Again, if he were to say to us 'be not anxious,' we should take him to mean 'Of course it is not wrong for us to be anxious, we must work and provide for ourselves and our dependents. If we did not we should be shirking our responsibilities.  But all the time we ought to be inwardly free from anxiety.'  Perhaps Jesus would say to us 'Whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him to other also,' We should then suppose him to mean 'The way to really love your enemy is to fight him hard and hit him back.' Jesus might say 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God,' and we should interpret it thus, 'Of course we should have to seek all sorts of other things first; how could we otherwise exist? What he really means is the final preparedness to stake all on the kingdom of God.' All along the line, we are trying to evade the obligation of single-minded, literal obedience."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 'the cost of discipleship,' Grace and obedience.

These words of Bonhoeffer are humbling, but only because they point back to the words of Christ.  And the funny part of it all is that we like to pretend that there must be another interpretation to these words from Christ, he must have meant subverting power structures, or being metaphysically nonviolent, or Christian anarchism, or blahbitty blah, and bloobitty blooh.  In other words, Jesus of Nazareth meant anything except what he said.

But if we believe that, that's not Christianity anymore, folks.  That's another kind of religion in which you are trying to justify yourself. And if you know your scriptures, you will know that every time someone tries to justify themselves, Jesus shuts them down too.  As Christians, we have to understand that the Devil hasn't changed how he operates, you know.  He continues to operate the same way he always has, by whispering to you and I 'Hath God really said?' designed to have us change the word of God to fit what we are already doing.  And look, I know why the temptation for the sophistry is there, I really do.  I know why it's there because when I look at the word of God from this Gospel passage, I don't want it to apply to me either.  I don't want to lend to anyone who asks, I don't want to turn the other cheek, I want Jesus to tell me to look out for number one.  But when I consider the Gospel of Christ, I come face to face with a realization, which is that I find in these words commands that I don't want to adhere to in relation to other people, but commands I want people to adhere to in relation to me.  It's not as though I would look at these words and say that they are bad for humans to follow, in fact quite the opposite.  I want everyone else to do them all the time!  What a great world that would be!  But I don't want to follow them myself.  And nor does anyone else.  And there's the rub.

We can all look at this passage and agree that these things should be done, no problem.  But the difficulty comes in understanding that these aren't just rules for other people, they're rules for us too. That's the issue more than anything else you know.  And the trouble overall is the fact that these things are good and right and should be obeyed by everyone, yet we all tend to believe that they should only apply to other people, instead of us.  That's how slavery works, you know, because we can believe that us owning other people is okay, but other people owning us would be a great moral ill.  That's how theft works, that if you steal from Metallica, that's fine, but someone stealing your Metallica albums from you would be a crime.  You have to understand that these things aren't different.  They only seem to be different because they're happening to you.

Hopefully now we can get to some kind of clarity here, which is not that the law of God is bad for people, but only that it's hard for us.  It's not that we think that it is unreasonable, on the contrary we expect the people that we see around us to follow it, and we act as though they will. We expect people to forgive us, to respect our property, to give without asking for anything in return, that kind of thing, but we remain perpetually surprised when almost everyone seems to act as though they are the exception to the rule.  But none of us are.  This is why the scriptures tell us that all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God: because none of us are actually all that good at keeping up with these commands.  And this is precisely why the perfection of Jesus Christ takes centre stage, you know.  It does so because of what Jesus does.  He doesn't come to abolish the law, nor to make it easier.  He comes to fulfill it, and that's different.  So far, we've been talking about how we can tell that the law is good for other people to follow, and Jesus just goes one step further - he knows that the law is good for everyone to follow.  But unlike the rest of us, he doesn't stop there; he actually fulfills the law, lives it out perfectly.  He does what should be done, and we can see him living it out in the pages of the scriptures, Jesus prepared to live out what he advises us to do himself.

This passage from the Gospels, where Jesus reminds you of what is expected by us from other people, he is also giving us an idea of the lengths to which he will go to fulfill that law for us.  Do these things sound difficult to the point of impossibility for us? Sure they do!  Are they the right thing to do? They sure are!  And that's why they exist within the wheelhouse of the one and only perfect human being to have ever lived, who will take on these things, and accomplish them fully.  With examples.

For instance, when Jesus says to love your enemies and do good to those who hate you, he lives it out in this moment:

When Jesus says to turn the other cheek when someone strikes you, he lives it out here:

  When Jesus says that if someone takes your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either, he puts that into practice in his own life:

All I want you to understand is that when Jesus speaks about what good and evil are, he's not purposefully exaggerating, nor is he talking about some strange middle eastern custom that secretly means to do whatever you want to do in the first place.  He is telling you in language so plain and straightforward that children can understand it.  Don't want to do it? I understand that, because nor do I . But Jesus did not come to abolish the standard, but to fulfill it.  That's his role, and it's extremely serious.  He doesn't come to make a hard rule easier to follow, he comes to keep the rule, and to offer up his obedience to us.  We are people who live in the shadow of the cross, where the perfect penitent made the perfect sacrifice.  The rules that we think are important for others to follow are still there and still remain.  We now get to live in a world where the perfect life was lived on our behalf.  We acknowledge that there is a good standard, we repent that we do not live up to it, and we give thanks that the perfect life was lived for us, so that when God looks upon us, he sees only Christ's righteousness.

Casting a net

We have great sports here in Saskatchewan.  Great sports indeed.  It's a sportsman's paradise out here, with lots of most amazing animals to catch.  Deer, moose, elk, and innumerable fish.  And it's the fish that I want to talk about today.
Fish are eminently catchable out here, mainly because we have thousands of lakes, and the lakes have thousands of fish, and it's a match made in heaven for the amateur or even pro sportsman.

But fishing out here in the wilds of Saskatchewan is, well, it's angling, really.  It's angling because you catch fish one at a time.  One by one.  And the skill at rod and reel fishing is that it's a battle of wits between you and a fish.  Now, you'd think that this would be a very easy situation for you to handle, big smart human vs pea-brained fish, but the skill that goes into this fishing experience is that you're trying to fool the fish.  You're going out of your way to deceive it, to trick it into biting down on that tasty tasty hook.  You can't just sidehack your way out of this, you have to make your hook enticing, you have to make it something that the fish is going to want to bite down on, but it'll never bite down on a hook just hanging there by itself.  You have to put bait on it, trout marshmallows, or little swimmers, things like that, that will hide or disguise the hook so that the fish will choose to bite down on it.  And you're genuinely trying to get the fish to choose to bite down on your hook, overriding its will and tricking it into eating your hook.  That's the skill, that's the strategy.

This is contrasted with the efforts at fishing that Zebedee and sons were doing.  Simon and Andrew, James and John, they were fishermen, professional ones at that, and their whole work was grabbing fish from the lakes, and pulling them ashore for consumption.  Because unlike today, if you wanted a tasty fish, you were really going to want to eat a fish that was caught that day.  Sure, you could dry fish out, but realistically, fresh fish were only good the day that they were dragged from the depths.  And Peter and Andrew, James and John, they'd been fishing all night, and had pulled up zero fish. At that moment, Jesus walks by on the shore, and tells them to continue fishing, to let down their nets for a catch.  They dismiss him partially, and for good reason.  After all, what does this carpenter know about fishing? Do you really mean, thou son of a carpenter, that you know more than we do about fishing? For shame, really.  You make the table, and we'll put the fish on it, that kind of thing.  Simon is more diplomatic than that, and elects to, essentially, humor Jesus 'Master, we toiled all night and took nothing.  But at your word I will let down the nets.'  He does, and when they let their nets down, they enclosed such a large number of fish that the nets are close to breaking.

This great miracle is the revelation of Jesus to these fishermen, the first of the disciples called to the service of Jesus Christ.  They understand that he is the Lord when he has mastery over these elements.  And as usual, when they are bringing the masses and masses of fish aboard, when they are dragging fish on board the boat so numerous that the nets are breaking, and the boats start sinking, they aren't just giving Jesus the thums up, they're not thrilled nor delighted.  They're terrified.  They understand the magnitude of what they have seen, they understand that what they're looking at is the power of Christ manifested in the world.  And even though it had the result that they said they wanted, they were still, as the Authorized version would say, 'sore afraid.'

This is why when something majestic or miraculous happens, Jesus has to go out of his way to say 'Do not be afraid.'  He has to tell them not to be afraid, not to be startled, not to be bothered nor disturbed, but they still are.  When encountering the majestic power of the Lord, they are frightened, even though they understand that they do want this.  They want to see God, to encounter and to approach him, but they are terrified when they do see him, because the presence of God is mighty and terrifying for sinful people.  We sinful people cannot stand in the presence of God himself, his majesty is overwhelming.  And every time he manifests his divinity, every time he is clear and shows himself, people are rightly afraid.

And when we evangelise, this is what we are trying to accomplish.  We are trying to get people to bite down on the hook because there is no way that they would bite down on the hook of the Gospel unless they were tricked into it, right? Jesus tells the four fishermen at this moment that 'from now on, you will be catching men.'  And we, as people living in the great commission, we are still working on this today.  We are still called to evangelise the world, now perhaps more than ever.  We are called upon by Christ to continue to bring the Gospel to a lost and fallen world, and we seem to think that if were to present the power of Christ in its full majesty, that no fish would ever bite down on it.  So we feel as though we have to conceal that mighty power.  We feel as though we have to hide the hook, right? If we're fishing for people, we have to bait the hook.  We have to deceive that people that we are evangelising, to hide the Gospel in social justice or in community.  We have to hide the Gospel in potlucks or teas, stashing it behind groups and gatherings.  We don't present people with the naked Gospel, for knowledge that there is no chance in this world or the next that anyone would bite down on that hook if that is all that it was.  And we're probably right!  The Gospel is so other worldly that none of us would ever choose it.  The Gospel of Christ is so other-worldly, telling us that the world we are living in is perishing, that God cares for us and wants to bring us from destruction.  The Gospel tells us to be in the world but not of the world, and that the world around us is falling away.  This is not a message that you have to hide, though, it's a message that the human heart is designed to need.

Now, I know what your temptation is, to try to hide the Gospel, or to conceal the hook, to try to cut holes in the net to make it not so hard for the fish, but here's the deal, which is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is exactly what the human heart craves, what it wants, and what it needs. To swap it out for other things to make it more palatable just makes it work less well. God's word does not return to him void, you know.  It accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent.

So, to recap, the hard part of evangelism has been done for you. The net exists already, the word is already there, the Holy Spirit is already at work.  All you need do is to know the net, be able to use it, and then go where the fish are.  It seems so simple, but evangelism is simple. It's as simple as sharing the word of God, scattering the seed, casting out the net and letting the word of God do the work for you.  That's what it's there to do, you know.  

Fulfilled

The Bible is like every other book: There will be parts you like, and parts you don't.

It is unlike every other book, however, in that the parts you don't like are the parts you really should be reading.  

This is how the scriptures work, you know.  I know that you can go through the Bible, reading what you like, seeing what you want to see, and being perfectly comfy with that so far, that works.  But the problem with the Bible is that you're going to find a lot there that you don't like.  There's going to be an awful lot in the Bible that you won't care for, and that you will resist.  You won't like to see great swaths of the Holy Scriptures, which is why you think to yourself that you have the luxury of skipping these things.   But when Jesus was walking around in the flesh, people didn't have the luxury of skipping those passages:  Jesus is the word.  He is the passage.

When the people of Christ's time wanted to skip the passages that they didn't care for, they did so by taking Jesus out to the top of a cliff, and trying to toss him off.  They were so angry with what Jesus had to say and who he is, that they moved in their minds to murder.  They wanted to end this topic of conversation 100%, and instead of just closing the book, they wanted to throw it away, and to stop it from ever being read ever again. Thus the trip to the top of the cliff.  Thus the proposed murder.

Now, you can always tell when Jesus is saying something important or impactful, and you can do so by checking the reaction of the Jews that he is speaking to.  When they get mad, Jesus has said something important.  Now, this shouldn't be a surprise to you, because there is nothing new under the sun.  That is, you should be well aware that we have been instructed to only say things of little to no import.  That is, you're allowed to talk about the style pages, movies, the weather, sports, that kind of thing.  But you're really REALLY not supposed to talk about things that matter.  Your conversation is never supposed to get you to the point where people, whether close family or strangers, get worked up, agitated or involved.  You know, involved to the point that they care.

But here comes Jesus and does what we say we want him to do - he speaks truth to power. And that's good, right? We want him to speak truth to power.  We want him to drive out the moneychangers from the temple, we want him to be in charge of history, we want him to restore justice and to convict those that we dislike.  But that's not the business that Jesus is in.  He's not in the business of convicting people way over there.  He's not in the business of making sure that you are well taken care of and that he is going to despoil the people that you hate. That's exactly what an idol is, you know. And the number one sign of idolatry is that the god that you have made up hates the people you hate, and loves the people you love.  If your god seems to favor you an awful lot, if he seems to be a tribal god who seems to love your tribe, who seems to hate your tribe, then you have to ask yourself where that God came from.  Is he the one who made heaven and earth? Is he the one who formed and fashioned all of creation? Or is he the product of the people that he seems to care an awful lot about.

For you see, Jesus Christ is the Lord and God who is in charge of everything, who made the entire universe and everything in it. And because he exists outside of humanity, external to it, he isn't going to say things that we always like or agree with.  Quite the opposite actually. Jesus holds to an external standard of right and wrong against which all other things are measured.  And more than anything else, his standards don't change when they become unpopular.  This is bigger news than we think it is, especially since today, since we have dispensed largely with the idea of an external right and wrong, we believe that we can, with ease, change and alter what right and wrong are, using only the passage of time for justification.  But the shocker is that Christ's righteousness, being external, doesn't depend on changing times, or, more importantly, on being the right kind of people.  In fact, quite the opposite, as Jesus himself points out in the Gospel reading.  He points out to the Jews who are listening to him that there were plenty of gentiles in their days who were given blessings by God over and above the Jews at the time.  The Jews expected God to like them because they were them. They didn't expect the opposite, which was that God is interested in righteousness that fits the external form of righteousness that he brings.  It's not about where you were born, what your background is, how well you fit the fashion of the time, or anything like that.  Rather, it requires you to be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.  

And if you're not perfect, well, you have troubles.

Now, the way the Jews of the time, and the way most of us have squared that circle is to say that we can just redefine perfect to be whatever we are currently doing. That is, we define moral based on our behavior, rather than changing our behavior to fit our morality.  This just leads to us calling immorality moral after long enough, not because it is moral, but because we do it.  And that's a massive problem, because it doesn't lead to any actual righteousness at all, and quite the opposite.  The only other solution is to approach the Lord with your lack of perfection, and throw yourself on his mercies. And that's what the examples from the Old Testament did that Jesus brings up.  There is right and wrong, good and evil, and the activity doesn't become good or evil based on the person who does it.  This is a hard teaching, harder still for the churches today.  For here's the absolute truth - membership in a church is no guarantee that you're on the right side of things you know. And if, when you read that, you're tempted to toss rocks, or to throw someone of a cliff, well, welcome to the world of that 1st century synagogue.

Ultimately, it's up to us to work out and to determine that the word of Christ applies no matter what.  Our place in any particular part of the world, our place in any particular church may just lead us to the unfortunate space in which we worship God with our lips but our hearts are far from him.  We desperately need a level of revival that revives our own consciousness, where we realize and recognize that these words of Christ apply to us on an individual level, and that no institution can believe for us.  It's up to us to believe as individuals, and to be forgiven as individuals.  And once we understand that, then we find a group of like minded people who seek salvation as much as we do.

And that's what the church actually is.