And the Sun Rises Upon?

Text:  Matthew 5:38-48

Theme:  “And the Sun Rises Upon?”

7^th Sunday after the Epiphany

February 23, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are the good guys in that great motion picture we’ve come to know as Tombstone.  One of the bad guys – and a notorious one at that – is named Johnny Ringo.  Wyatt and Doc (the good guys) were talking about Johnny (the bad guy) one day.  Here’s the exchange:

Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?

Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has a great empty hole through the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.

Wyatt Earp: What does he need?

Doc Holliday: Revenge.

Wyatt Earp: For what?

Doc Holliday: Being born

Kevin Jarre, who wrote the screenplay for Tombstone, does touch on the subject of evil here – both its psychology and its pathology.

Jesus, on the other hand, doesn’t dig that deep; He’s not writing a screenplay or teaching a post-graduate level seminar on evil and what it means to have enemies.  Rather, in today’s gospel, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exclaims:  “(God) causes the His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

There is good.  There is evil.  There is righteousness.  There is unrighteousness.  The Lord is really quite upfront and plainspoken about these subjects.  He doesn’t dance around them.  He doesn’t dull the sharp edges of evil.  He doesn’t polish a tarnished good.  Painfully and wonderfully, He tells it like it is. 

We, on the other hand, have a more sophisticated approach – perhaps even a politically correct one.  We like to think – and perhaps even have convinced ourselves -- that we human beings have varying traits.  As the saying goes:  “There’s a little bit of good in the worst of us and a little bit of evil in the best of us.”  Thus, the thing we need to do is try to get along with everyone.  “Why can’t we all just get along?”

In the evenings, if I’m not catching a bit of the Olympics or watching House of Cards on Netflix, I’ve been burrowing into Margaret Macmillan’s incredible book, The War that Ended the Peace.  It’s all about the situation on the European continent in the years leading up to 1914 when an archduke was assassinated and the Germans marched into Belgium.  World War I – or “The Great War”, as it was called -- had begun.  On the one hand, you had Europeans, in seemingly every country during the lead-up, who thought that war was inevitable and we had best get on with it.  On the other hand, you had pacifists who hated the arms race.  There were radicals and reformers and doves and hawks and liberals and conservatives.  There was the landed aristocracy.  There were the common workers. A French medical doctor summed up the situation quite well: 

Neurosis lies in wait for us.  Never has the monster made more victims, either because ancestral defects accumulate or because the stimulants of our civilization, deadly for the majority, precipitate us into an idle and frightened debilitation.

What does that mean?  It means that there was good.  There was evil.  There was righteousness; there was unrighteousness.   There was idle and frightened debilitation. You spot it everywhere in the book.  People and nations of varying traits tried to get along.   As Jesus declared, the “sun rose” and the “rain fell” on all of it. 

The sixty-four million dollar question is this:  how are we to get along in our own day?  How are we to get along in a culture both idle and frighteningly debilitated?  How are we to get along in this admixture of good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness? 

Jesus, as is His way, has an answer.  He says:  “Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  There you have it; here’s your answer:  perfection – or, more specifically, divine perfection.  “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

So that’s how you live in a world where God’s sun rises on the evil and the good and rain is sent on the righteous and the unrighteous:  you be perfect.

Somebody says:  “Sheer nonsense!  That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.  That’s silly; it’s insane.  No one’s perfect.  Perfection?  It’s an unattainable goal.” 

But it’s not a goal.  It’s not like an Olympic medal or something else you try to achieve.  It’s a state of being:  BE ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. 

Follow me on this:  if perfection cannot be achieved by ourselves and if it is a state of being, then it can only come in one way:  as a gift.

That gift is yours in Jesus who turned the other cheek, who handed over the coat as well as the shirt, who walked the extra mile. 

An old general toasted another old general with a glass of wine.  Lifting his glass, he said:  “Confusion to the enemy.”  Jesus did not wish confusion on His enemies.  He loved them and He prayed for them.  He died for them. He rose again from the grave for them. 

His gifts suffice.  His grace is sufficient.  In a world where the sun rises on the good and evil and rain is sent on the righteousness and unrighteousness, life with Jesus and His gifts is…just perfect!

Amen.