Sermon on the Mount: Peacemakers

A Sermon preached at United Presbyterian Church of Lone Tree, Iowa on May 17, 2015

Scripture Text: Matthew 5: 38-42

Before Easter, when I started preaching on the Sermon on the Mount, I spent three weeks on the Beatitudes.

In one of those early sermons, I said one purpose of the beatitudes is to paint images. The beatitudes give us vivid images to help us exercise our imagination. They provide us with a vision for what the Kingdom of God looks like as it comes in our midst.

One of those sayings in the beatitudes is, “Blessed are the Peacemakers for they will be called children of God.” And in this text for today, Jesus fills out for us a bit more of what that picture of peace might look like:

• Do not resist an evil person.

• If someone strikes you, turn the other cheek.

• If someone sues you for your shirt, give them your coat, too.

• If someone forces you to go one mile, go with that person another mile.

• Give to whoever asks, loan to whoever wants to borrow.

I probably don't need to tell you, these words of Jesus are a real challenge.

Some say they are naïve. Others have tried to tone them down. Many say they are impractical. And scores of people simply ignore them and pretend they aren't even there.

Thankfully though, more than one commentator on this passage said something like this. Something, I have found quite helpful. They have said:

We do a disservice to Jesus and to his words if we diminish, discount, or otherwise dismiss what he says here. This text calls the church and the world to ask uncomfortable and fundamental questions about the way we choose to make our way in this world.

I feel I need to tell a personal story about my struggle with these words of Jesus.

This call to be a peacemaker, for me, is one of the deepest struggles I have had with the Christian faith and with Jesus' words. It's a struggle I have engaged with over the past 15 years

You see, I think if we are to take Jesus seriously, then we need to take his call to be peacemakers seriously. And even if we don't agree with how to live these words out, I think we really need to struggle with them, to listen to one another, and to let them challenge us.

It's been almost 14 years now since the horrific attacks of September 11th.

On that day, we all watched in shock, in fear, and many of us in rage, as our nation was held hostage by those who high-jacked our airplanes and sent them plunging into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

The year that followed those attacks, saw a build up to a war in Afghanistan, to root out the training grounds of Islamic terrorists hiding in the mountains.

As that war was building up, I was preparing to enter seminary. I was also subscribing to an email publication by Sojourners, a Christian based organization which promotes the work of justice and peace.

Those Sojourner's e-mails kept coming and they kept promoting and calling me, as a Christian, to support the pursuit of peaceful means to the problems we were facing as a county. They kept on urging me to not support the war.

I'd read these e-mails and I'd think: Don't these yahoos have a clue about the reality of the facts on the ground? Don't they know that our nation has been attacked and we have to do something about it and we have to do it now?

One day I got so fed up with their e-mails, I sent off a fiery response telling them to get a grip and to take me off their e-mail list because their anti-war position was not grounded in reality.

And yet, even as I fired off that e-mail, I knew deep down in some significant way, I was struggling to hear and to heed Jesus' call and his words, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.”

“Do not repay evil for evil.”

“Turn the other cheek.”

“If someone asks for your shirt, give them your coat also.”

Jesus words kept nagging at me. Day in and day out.

I struggled with those words so much that, by the time our nation began to buildup to the next war that followed, the war on Iraq, I'd finally come to the conclusion that as a Christian I could no longer support the aims of war.

I realize Christians of good conscious can and will disagree with that. As you might.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what is right or wrong. I realize too that we all have friends or loved ones who were involved in those wars, or that you, yourself may have sacrificially served our country in the military.

But I still have to say, Jesus' words here should make us uncomfortable and we should struggle with them.

No matter what position you or I may have on that war, or on any other war, I simply can't comfortably get around the fact that if we are to be serious about our faith, then we are called to honestly and continually struggle with Jesus' call to be makers of peace.

Personally, I think our biggest impediment to becoming people of peace is that we have such a hard time imagining another world. We are so deeply rooted in a world or violence, revenge, retaliation, and securing ourselves from all danger that we simply have a hard time imagining another world.

And yet that is what Jesus calls us to do.

One purpose of this text is to help disciples exercise their Moral Imagination.

Those who would seek to follow Jesus are challenged to see that a better world might be possible by giving up our human tendency to return violence with violence, to seek revenge and retribution for evil done to us, or to solely value the protection of what seems rightfully ours.

I love how one person who wrote about this passage said Jesus is calling us to be a “Surprising Person.”

Jesus calls us to confront the one who does evil with a surprising non-violent response; to turn the other cheek, to go the second mile, to hand someone our coat as well as the shirt they have sued us for.

Personally, I love stories that help me imagine another world. I love when they reveal to me people who are surprising and who refuse to live and function as much of the rest of the world functions.

One such story comes to mind from a movie, “To End All Wars”

If you've not seen it, I highly recommend it. It's quite a remarkable film and one of the best in a long time to show the power of Christian faith to overcome tragic circumstances.

The movie tells the mostly true story of a group of Allied Prisoners of War captured by the Japanese during World War II. They were forced under brutal & downright awful treatment to build a railroad through the jungles of Thailand.

Some of the POWs spent their time and energy fostering hatred of their captors and developing a plan to escape the camp. Others realized the futility of that way and instead worked the best they could to accept their condition.

One of the prisoners, Major Campbell, wants an "eye for an eye.”

He encourages his fellow prisoners to resist everything asked of them by their captors and to use every opportunity to plan their escape. The major holds dearly to the belief that they must fuel their hope for survival by nurturing hatred for their enemy.

In the end, Major Campbell's life is spared, but his philosophy of revenge and willingness to fuel his enmity against his captors ends up destroying his very soul.

In stark contrast is Dusty Miller, a Roman Catholic prisoner.

Dusty lives by a different code. He makes a positive difference in the lives of his fellow prisoners through simple acts of kindness, love and sacrifice. His faith gives him a peace beyond measure in spite of horrible circumstances.

Dusty and a fellow POW start a school for their fellow prisoners. Other POWs step up to teach and pretty soon scores of men in the prison camp are learning philosophy, ethics, Shakespeare, and even playing music in a makeshift orchestra.

At first the school is kept a secret because the prisoners are not allowed to gather in groups, but when the Japanese learn of what's happening they discover the school is making the prisoners better workers in the effort to complete the railroad. So, they publicly encourage the school's efforts.

I won't tell you much more about the film other than to say the actor who plays Dusty does a remarkable job of portraying him as a gentle man full of a deep and abiding peace. A sense of peace exudes in everything he says and does.

That, I think, is the real essence in what Jesus is asking of those who follow him.

Does a sense of peace exude in everything you say and do?

Are you willing to show mercy to others, just as God has shown you grace and mercy?

Are you willing to be disarmed and disarming knowing that Christ did the exact same for you?

Does a sense of trust in God, in God's provision, in God's will and purpose – no matter what the circumstance might be - drive you in how you live your life?

If so, then friends, in the words of that famous blessing, may you:

Go out into the world in peace:

have courage;

hold on to what is good;

return no one evil for evil;

help the suffering;

honor all;

love and serve the Lord,

rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the blessing of God Almighty,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

   be upon you, and remain with you forever. Amen.