Sermons
25th May 2008 - Trinity 1
G K Chesterton said ‘Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.’
And you can see why it hasn’t been tried hearing today’s gospel. Jesus teaches his disciples on the mountain, and they must have thought that his head was in the clouds so impractical are his suggestions for how we should behave: ‘Do not resist an evildoer...turn the other cheek...go the extra mile’. The sayings have become proverbial but I wonder how often we try to put them into practice, and indeed whether we should. If we disturb a burglar in the house at night are we to offer assistance perhaps give him the keys to the safe or show him where the credit cards are kept? If we are mugged should we make sure that the mugger gets wallet as well as mobile phone? Should we cheerfully accept an unjust redundancy settlement?
There is much in our present culture that encourages us to act in the opposite way. We are encouraged to know our rights and to stand up for them should they be infringed. If you ever have the misfortune to be stuck in front of day-time television you will be bombarded with adverts from law firms offering to sue anyone and everyone to get you compensation for the unfortunate operations of chance. If you fall over in the street you are encouraged to search out the negligent council to get what is due to you. We are a becoming a litigious society, a society based on our so-called inalienable human rights, the right to life, the right to free speech, the right not to be tripped up by the council. And with these rights goes a system for calculating compensation, so much for loss of dignity, more for loss of a limb, even more for loss of life. So, if you are really unfortunate you could end up quite wealthy. This ‘compensation culture’ is nothing new and it is something that Jesus fulminates against. ‘No win, no fee’ is our own version of ‘an eye for an eye’.
But human rights do not exist like some kind of Platonic ideal, nor are they are something innate to us, they are legal fictions invented for providing rules of engagement. They may be necessary, but they are also dangerously attractive. There will be no human rights in heaven, they will not be needed, and as Chesterton implies, the only reason they are needed in this world is because ‘Christianity has been found difficult and not tried’.
But if Christianity, if Jesus teaching about escaping the circle of revenge, is impossibly hard, what use is it to us?
Jesus teaches his disciples within the context of discussing the Jewish law. ‘An eye for an eye’ is from the book of Exodus and it is part of a legal practice which sought to limit revenge. Although it sounds barbaric to us –just think for a moment of carrying out this legal precept – its purpose is to prevent vengeance becoming vendetta, to prevent an escalation in violence. But Jesus makes the radical shift from what must have seemed a reasonable system of recompense – you take an eye therefore you lose one, you take a life therefore you lose your own – Jesus jumps from this to absolute non-retaliation. He says that if someone does you an injustice, you are not only to reject retaliation, you are to pray for the one who has wronged you. Jesus teaches that his followers should not insist on their personal rights, they should allow themselves to be exploited and hurt rather than hurting or exploiting others. But if, in real life, this cannot by most of us be lived out at an absolute level how can this teaching help us? Not surely by making us feel guilty by setting an unreachable target, that would seem unlike the God who is fully revealed in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps it is a little more like that saying of Oscar Wilde ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars’. If we have this absolute pattern of non-intervention and non-retaliation to look up to, we can learn the dangers of getting drawn in to the attractions of retribution,
you compensation for the unfortunate operations of chance. If you fall over in the street you are encouraged to search out the negligent council to get what is due to you. We are a becoming a litigious society, a society based on our so-called inalienable human rights, the right to life, the right to free speech, the right not to be tripped up by the council. And with these rights goes a system for calculating compensation, so much for loss of dignity, more for loss of a limb, even more for loss of life. So, if you are really unfortunate you could end up quite wealthy. This ‘compensation culture’ is nothing new and it is something that Jesus fulminates against. ‘No win, no fee’ is our own version of ‘an eye for an eye’.
But human rights do not exist like some kind of Platonic ideal, nor are they are something innate to us, they are legal fictions invented for providing rules of engagement. They may be necessary, but they are also dangerously attractive. There will be no human rights in heaven, they will not be needed, and as Chesterton implies, the only reason they are needed in this world is because ‘Christianity has been found difficult and not tried’.
But if Christianity, if Jesus teaching about escaping the circle of revenge, is impossibly hard, what use is it to us?
Jesus teaches his disciples within the context of discussing the Jewish law. ‘An eye for an eye’ is from the book of Exodus and it is part of a legal practice which sought to limit revenge. Although it sounds barbaric to us –just think for a moment of carrying out this legal precept – its purpose is to prevent vengeance becoming vendetta, to prevent an escalation in violence. But Jesus makes the radical shift from what must have seemed a reasonable system of recompense – you take an eye therefore you lose one, you take a life therefore you lose your own – Jesus jumps from this to absolute non-retaliation. He says that if someone does you an injustice, you are not only to reject retaliation, you are to pray for the one who has wronged you. Jesus teaches that his followers should not insist on their personal rights, they should allow themselves to be exploited and hurt rather than hurting or exploiting others. But if, in real life, this cannot by most of us be lived out at an absolute level how can this teaching help us? Not surely by making us feel guilty by setting an unreachable target, that would seem unlike the God who is fully revealed in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps it is a little more like that saying of Oscar Wilde ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars’. If we have this absolute pattern of non-intervention and non-retaliation to look up to, we can learn the dangers of getting drawn in to the attractions of retribution, the dangers of getting into the habit of paying back aggression against us in its own coinage, the dangers of getting drawn in by the language of rights and restitution to an attitude that supposes we should seek tit-for-tat, what we are due, an eye for an eye.
And why should we bother trying to emulate Jesus, why should we try to reach after this unattainable pattern of behaviour? First, because in doing so we emulate God himself. We model in our own actions the way in which God’s love is offered indiscriminately to the world; Jesus says it is like the rain or the sunshine, quite impartial. Secondly, because if we try just a little bit to follow this pattern of behaviour we will stand out in society for who we are as Christians. People notice utterly unselfish behaviour because it is rare. So if we can’t throw out our attachment to rights, if indeed we need to use that attachment to protect those who are vulnerable rather than as a system for squeezing a few pounds out of some body in compensation, we nevertheless can hold out the following of Jesus’ teaching as our ultimate aim. Then perhaps we can begin an answer to Chesterton’s devastating critique, then perhaps we can say in response, Christianity is indeed difficult, but nevertheless we are willing to try.