Matthew 5:21-37
21 "You have heard that it
was said to those of ancient times, "You shall not murder'; and
"whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' 22 But I say to you that if
you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if
you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you
say, "You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you
are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or
sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and
go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your
gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to
court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge
to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will
never get out until you have paid the last penny. 27 "You have heard that
it was said, "You shall not commit adultery.' 28 But I say to you that
everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her
in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it
away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body
to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off
and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for
your whole body to go into hell. 31 "It was also said, "Whoever
divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 But I say to
you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity,
causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits
adultery. 33 "Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient
times, "You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made
to the Lord.' 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for
it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by
Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your
head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be
"Yes, Yes' or "No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil
one.
I recently received what I am sure
will be one of the most talked-about books published in recent years. Its
title, Christianity after Religion: The
End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening by Diana Butler
Bass. I’ll give you a quick overview of what I’ve read so far: the Church is
not nearly as relevant, effective, or meaningful as it was just a generation or
two ago, and the Church is not nearly as relevant, effective, or meaningful as
those on the inside might like to think it is. People (especially young people,
people my age, people often referred to as “millennials”) are leaving organized
religion. Not because they don’t like the pastor, not because they don’t like
the music, and not because of worship schedules, none of the old “Red Herrings”
of church decline in decades past. No, they are leaving because the church has
grown stale, self-absorbed, and primarily focused on preserving the
institutions that made religion the cultural presence it once was.
These same people have grown disenfranchised with what the Church has
become: in fact, they make up the third largest “religious” group (and, by the
way, the youngest group) in the United States. Some refer to them as the
“nones,” people “with no single issue, theology, or view of God…the ‘nones’
include atheists, agnostics, ‘nothing in particular,’ religiously oriented and
secular unaffiliated people.” According to one recent survey, cited by Dr.
Bass, “If these trends continue at the current pace, ‘nones’ and other
religions combined will outnumber Christians in the United States by about
2042.”[1]
There are some in the Church who would argue that the way to prevent these
folks from leaving is to program around them, accommodate ministries in the
church in order to attract these folks. There are churches that swing from one
worship trend to the next, from one form of outreach to the next, from one
minister to the next, all in an attempt to draw these “nones” into their
congregation, believing that their church is somehow the exception to the rule.
The trend of declining church attendance and affiliation, however, continues.
Now, for many of you, this isn’t really news. You’ve read about the
so-called “nones;” you’ve heard about the overall decline in church attendance
and religious affiliation. It seems one can’t pick up a magazine or open a
social networking website without coming across some article about the
staggering decline in religious activity. But can I tell you one thing that
very few folks are writing about? Can I tell you the one thing that just might
prove just how serious the whole issue is? It’s something I came across in Dr.
Bass’s book, a note from a pastor named Paul:
After 20 years of
parish ministry I am leaving it. My wife, who has been a faithful companion in
this journey, is also leaving the church. I have resigned from all my denominational
roles, and no one has said a word…Yet, we are sad to leave, because of what it
means. It means to us the church has become irrelevant to us. We care about spiritual
disciplines of study, worship, confession, and forgiveness, discernment,
fellowship, and mission. In the church, I spent more time discussing the
replacement of the church roof than on discerning our purpose as a church. We
miss the liturgy [i.e. worship] and the
relationships, but I do not miss the constant bickering over meaningless garbage,
evening meetings, and working every weekend.[2]
You see, as much as those who are leaving the church have grown
disenfranchised, disillusioned, and dissatisfied with what they have found,
those of us inside the church—even those of us in the clergy—are becoming as
equally dissatisfied. But why? What is it that is really causing people to
leave the church? What is it that causes ministers like Paul to leave ministry
after two decades? What is it that has caused so many of my friends—gifted,
talented, called women and men of God—to walk away from the church they once
loved and felt called to lead? What is it that is causing these troubling
statistics about church attendance and religious affiliation? Well, if I knew
the answer, if I held the “silver bullet” that could solve these issues and
reverse the trends, I seriously doubt that I would be standing here in this
pulpit this morning instead of writing books and speaking in seminaries and
theological schools across this country. I do, however, have a hunch as to what
a major part of the problem is, and I am convinced that Jesus’ words to us this
morning speak to that problem.
Some of you may think I’m talking about Jesus’ words in verses 21-26. There Jesus takes the
literal words of the law, “You shall not murder” and gets to
the very heart of the matter: “But I say to you that if you are angry with
a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a
brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You
fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.” Jesus then goes on to
give an example of proactive reconciliation. With these words, Jesus emphasizes
the sin of hatred, of that anger that controls our hearts and our lives and
separates us from others. Jesus even speaks against the sinful, hateful act of
name-calling. He equates these behaviors with murder. But I’m not talking about
Jesus’ new definition of murder.
Now, I know some of you may think that I’m talking about Jesus’ words in verses 27-32, where Jesus speaks
against adultery and divorce, that the core of what is wrong with our world is
a misunderstanding of marriage and the seemingly high rate of adultery and
divorce. It’s no secret that many Christians in this country have taken
marriage as their primary, cultural concern. But I think Jesus speaks to
something even deeper here: Jesus is saying to those living in a patriarchal culture
that women are more than pieces of property worth just a bit more than slaves
or children. Jesus is saying that women are not simply sexual objects of lust
and desire. Jesus’ words are in fact quite radical, for even his words about
divorce in this passage redefine the cultural practice in order to preserve the
dignity of women and cause men to take their commitments to their wives much
more seriously than just a simple, cultural transaction. But I’m not talking
about what Jesus has to say about divorce or adultery.
Perhaps some of you caught Jesus’ words in verses 33-37 where he speaks about making vows and swearing oaths.
This may seem a bit out there for some of us, because we don’t necessarily live
in a culture where we make vows and swear oaths to one another on a daily
basis, but Jesus’s words in verse 37
communicate something to us even now, two thousand years and thousands of miles
removed from ancient Judea: “Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes' or ‘No, No';
anything more than this comes from the evil one.” Jesus is speaking of
the righteousness of truth-telling, that when one is involved either in
business or simple conversation with another person, he or she ought to simply
tell the truth without the need to swear by something in order to get a point
across. But I’m not talking about what Jesus has to say about truth-telling or
swearing oaths and making vows.
No, I’m not talking about any of those things specifically. I think
Jesus’ words speak to something else, something bigger, something that lies at the core of the decline in religious
identity and congregational connectivity. You see, every word Jesus speaks in
this portion of the Sermon on the Mount has one very important thing in common. Whether Jesus speaks about the
hatred as murder, name-calling, the need for self-motivated reconciliation,
adultery, lust, divorce, making vows, swearing oaths, or truth-telling, Jesus is
talking about the ways in which we treat each other. In other words, every
single one of Jesus’ teachings in this passage aren’t meant to be picked apart
and put back together as dogmatic directives, aimed at those on the outside,
those we choose to see as unlike us. No, Jesus’ words in this passage speak to
the necessity of treating those around us, those like us and especially those unlike us, with the
dignity of human beings created in God’s image. That is what I believe lies at
the core of those troubling statistics. That is what I believe to be at the
core of why people are leaving the church and religion altogether by the
truckload.
People are not disappointed with the style of worship a congregation
offers on Sunday morning. People are not dissatisfied by the lack of service
opportunities, Bible studies, or worship services they are offered. Those who
are leaving the church (and those who aren’t coming the first place) are not
doing so because they don’t like Jesus and what he has to say about things. In
fact, it seems that it’s actually quite the opposite: people are leaving
because they find that the work of the Church doesn’t seem to line up with the
words of Jesus! In fact, according to a survey done by the Barna organization
in 2004, young adults outside of the church (whether they left the church or
were never a part of it to begin with) had some very negative views about the
Church formed, no doubt, by their own experiences with the Church: 91% of them
viewed Christianity as “antihomosexual,” 87% said Christians were “judgmental,”
85% saw churchgoers as “hypocritical,” and 72% viewed Christianity as “out of
touch with reality,” while only 41% thought Christianity seems “genuine or
real,” and only 30% thought that it was “relevant to their life.”[3]
Now, you can chalk this up to an increasingly secular society. You can
blame it on policies, politicians, celebrities, or the internet. But the truth
is, we believers bear the weight of the responsibility, because we have allowed
things like (in the words of Pastor Paul) “the constant bickering over
meaningless garbage” to get in the way of what Christ calls us to be. We have
allowed the preservation of institutions (whether they be antique brass, brick
and mortar, or antiquated practices) to take the place of the mission of God. We
have put the call to love our neighbor as ourselves on the back burner while
trying to halt the wheels of progress and slow the passing of time. We have
taken the words of Christ like the ones we have heard this morning and boiled
them down to points of finite doctrine in an attempt to justify our judgment of
others, all the while ignoring the real truth in what Jesus has to say to US.
If we truly want to reverse the trends, if we genuinely wish to see fewer
people leaving religion, leaving the Church, then we are going to have to start
being the kind of Church Christ calls us to be—and I’m not just talking about
this congregation, I mean the capital “C” Church. We must live out the truth in
Christ’s words we’ve heard today, that every human being is made in the image
of God and therefore worthy of dignity and love. We must learn that even though
the world might tell us otherwise, there is not a single soul that is above or
below another, so everyone (and I mean everyone)
with whom we cross paths we ought to treat with dignity and love. Jesus’ words
tell us that there are no loop-holes, no fine print that sets us free to treat
others as less than one made in the image of God.
So church, I want to challenge you this morning, each and every one of
you, to flip the script, to refuse to do church the way we’ve always done it
just because that’s the way we’ve always done it. I want to challenge you to be
the kind of person Christ desires you to be: the kind of person who reserves
judgment for the only One who has the authority to judge, the kind of person
who shares love and kindness with others because they are made in the image of
God, the kind of person who lives the faith she proclaims, the kind of person
who walks the faith he talks, the kind of person who helps create the kind of
church that says to those who are leaving, those who have never wanted to have
a part, “we are through with wasting our energy on self-preserving habits, and
we desire to live and serve in the way that Jesus call us.” I want to challenge
you to be that kind of person, to be that kind of church.
The change has to start somewhere, with someone. Why can’t it be you, us,
right here, today?
Let us pray…
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