Choices that influence our lives – Part 2
Choices that influence our lives – Part 2 – Matthew 5:38-48
Last week I was covering some of the Sermon on the Mount that spoke about choices we make that can influence our lives. Now we certainly know that every choice we make does have an influence as every choice leads to a decision and a path in life. We are also aware of how those choices have either led us to a good decision that has had a positive effect on our lives or led us to a bad decision that has had a negative effect on our lives. We also are very much aware that choices others make in their lives can have a positive or negative effect on our own. Truly no one of us ever can live in total isolation from those around us in family, church, work or community. Our very presence in this world brings us into contact with one another and will cause our words and actions, our decisions to affect not only ourselves but others as well and their words and actions to affect us.
Jesus clearly knew the interrelatedness of everyone and realized how the way in which we deal with one another can have a positive or negative effect. It is also clear that the goal of the Sermon on the Mount was to remind us of our social and ethical obligations as the people of God.
Reflecting on what we have already learned through the Sermon, we have been encouraged to know that when we mourn, when we are meek, when we are merciful, when we seek for God with a hunger and thirst to know more, when we seek to be peacemakers and when we seek to live an honest life without deceit or guile; when we give evidence of such things in our lives, we will be blest by God.
We have also been reminded that our call to be the people who are the salt of the earth is to show ourselves honest and trustworthy in all our dealings in word and action, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically. We are to not hide who we are but allow our true nature and faith to shine before others that they may be attracted through the light that is our lives to the greater light that is God.
We have been encouraged to seek to be more righteous than even those whom we presume to be righteous – not that we are to show ourselves better than others but rather that we seek to faithfully follow the words and instructions of God and so show ourselves to be honouring God and others with our lives.
We have been encouraged to not just follow the letter of the law – be it the law of man or God but to seek to go beyond the letter of the law and find the spirit that informs that law. So we are to realize how hurtful our words and actions can be even if we do not kill physically and we are reminded to seek for a peaceful solution to issues that cause us and others hurt and division. We are reminded to honour each other’s lives and to not seek in any way to harm the relationships of one another and finally we are encouraged to let our word stand on its own and not need to be backed up by oaths and protestations. We need not say “You can trust me.”
Today Jesus speaks to the people of more key elements in our ethical and life choices. The first is a change in attitude toward those who might or have done us harm. It is so tempting to seek for revenge or retribution for a hurt real or imagined. The idea that we can inflict harm on another person as compensation for the hurt they have caused is at the heart of so much of our modern society. And it is certainly tempting to want to do that. It is very human to want to do that. But we begin to realize that to break the cycle of hurt, we need to act in a way that is unexpected. The unexpected way is to turn the other cheek which is a way of saying that we refuse to allow the harmful action or word of another person to influence our choice to seek for peace. We may not be successful in achieving the peaceful solution we desire but we are not to fall into the trap and continue to foster an unending cycle of hurt. Difficult to accomplish? Certainly! Worth trying and trying again? For sure.
But more than words or actions that may cause us to seek revenge, Jesus encourages the people to go beyond the expectations of others in every way. As a conquered people, the Jews were expected to obey any demand made upon them by the Romans. This could mean being asked to surrender an item of clothing or to carry the load of a soldier. There were strict rules about this so as to limit what could be lawfully demanded. Jesus wants the people to show the Romans that even though they can be ordered to do certain things, they are willing to go even further. By doing so, they reveal to the Romans that while they may obey Rome, they owe allegiance to One even greater than the Romans. In our day, we may wonder who the Romans are to us but the important thing to remember is to be willing to go beyond what is expected and in so doing people may begin to ask why you would take the time to do so. When we make that choice, we do so not in response to a demand from another but in response to the God to whom we owe our life.
Jesus expands on this further by challenging the people to see beyond the borders and divisions created by people in the world. We still suffer from this today as we struggle to understand how we can find peace and harmony in the midst of divisions of language, culture, religion and country. All of us have a pride in many things: our language, our culture, our religion and our country. We have come to consider some in this world to be our friends and neighbours and see others as the enemy. Even within our own communities, we struggle with the reality that some are more of a neighbour to us than others and some we might even say are our enemies either because of their words, their actions or their philosophy.
In a very telling disclosure, Jesus reminds the people and us that the sun rises upon the whole world and all the people – not just those we count as friends. He reminds them that the rain falls on everyone. And so, in effect, he encourages us to understand that to love just those people whom we feel are lovable is to ignore and even condemn others in the world whom we feel are not worthy of love and yet are loved by God. We may not achieve the perfection that is sought by God but we can strive for it.
In the end it is about choices. We have the right to choose. We have been given a mind that can make decisions and we have been given the opportunity to live in this world in a way that will challenge others and – we pray – will lead to a world where life will be respected and protected and we will learn to appreciate our individuality and learn to share the truths that lie at the heart of humanity and the world as God intends it to be.
AMEN