Live without Sin, Tell the Truth-Matthew 5
Tell the Truth (powerpoint). Whatever else we do as Christians, always tell the truth. In the first part of Matthew 5, we contrasted Jesus’ blessed disciples vs. the admiring crowds. But consider that Matthew 5–which is overwhelming, confounding and seemingly impossible to live by–is who Jesus is and it is also the life Jesus intends for his community of new people–called the church–are to live: “perfectly” (“without sin”) in accountability to each other, beginning by telling the truth—collectively to one another. Thus, “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’” (Mt 5:37) and “Be perfect” (Mt 5:48).
Better things to do than to lust or be angry. Regarding the six anti-thesis, Jesus is not recommending that we will our way free of lust or anger (Mt 5:22, 28). Rather he is offering us membership in a people that is so compelling we are not invited to dwell on ourselves or our sinfulness. Alone we cannot conceive of an alternative to lust, but Jesus offers us participation in a kingdom that is so demanding we discover we have better things to do than to lust or be angry. If we are a people committed to peace in a world of war, if we are a people committed to faithfulness in a world of distrust, then we will be consumed by a way to live that offers freedom from being dominated by anger or lust.
Growth by witness not biology. Perhaps nothing is more indicative of the world Jesus brought into existence than his suggestion that some of his followers will not marry. For the people of Israel, to refrain from marriage and having children would be a challenge to what it means to be God’s people, for to be a Jew means first and foremost to have a child, whose existence is a sign of God’s care of God’s people. But the community called into existence by Jesus does not grow by biological reproduction, but by witness and conversion. Singleness and celibacy are practices constitutive of the mission to the Gentiles.
Infidelity is a sin against the church. Jesus’s teaching on adultery and divorce, the latter directed against male privilege, must be understood as expressions of the new body made ours through his crucified body. Bonhoeffer is right to observe: “Jesus does not make either marriage or celibacy into a required program. Instead, he frees his disciples from πορνεία, infidelity within and outside marriage, which is a sin not only against one’s own body, but a sin against the very body of Christ (1 Cor 6:13–15). Even the body of the disciple belongs to Christ and discipleship; our bodies are members of his body. Because Jesus, the Son of God, assumed a human body, and because we are in communion with his body, that is why infidelity is a sin against Jesus’ own body.”
Strength for chastity. Jesus’ body was crucified. The apostle says of those who belong to Christ that they have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24). Thus, the fulfillment of this OT commandment becomes true only in the crucified, martyred body of Jesus Christ. The sight of that body, which was given for us, and our communion with it provide the disciples with the strength for the chastity Jesus commands. (Bonhoeffer 2001, 127)
Understanding marriage. Those using Mt 5:32, in particular those trying to determine the meaning of “except on grounds of porneias” in order to decide if and when divorce may be justified, unfortunately transform the text from one of permission to a legalistic exchange. What is crucial is not the question of when a marriage may be dissolved, but given the new dispensation the question should be how Christians should understand marriage. In similar fashion the question is not whether a divorced woman should be allowed to marry, but what kind of community must a church be that does not make it a matter of necessity for such a woman to remarry. If Christians do not have to marry, if women who have been abandoned do not have to remarry, then the church must be a community of friendship that is an alternative to the loneliness of our world. A community capable of sustaining singleness as a way of life must be a community based on trust made possible by speaking the truth to one another.
Oaths are a sign that we live in a world of lies. If we tell the truth not only to others but especially to ourselves, oaths would not be needed. Oaths hope to safeguard us from lying, but they also can encourage lying just to the extent that oath grants a certain right to the lie. Therefore to “let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’” is Jesus’s way of saying that for disciples our speech always takes place in the presence of God: “Thus disciples of Jesus should not swear, because there is no such thing as speech not spoken before God. All of their words should be nothing but truth, so that nothing requires verification by oath. An oath consigns all other statements to the darkness of doubt. That is why it is ‘from the evil one’” (Bonhoeffer 2001, 129–30).
Christians say no more or no less than what needs to be said. We commit to plain speech. Speech so disciplined is not easily attained. Too often we use speech as a weapon, often subtly, to establish our superiority. To learn to speak truthfully to one another requires that we learn to speak truthfully to God, that is, we must learn to pray. That is why the Psalms are the great prayer book of the church because they teach us to pray without pretension. The Psalms allow us to rage against God and in our rage discover God’s refusal to abandon us.
Be honest about your sins. The Psalms also train us to speak truthfully because they force us to acknowledge our sins or to have our sins revealed. Jesus is God’s psalm, as Matthew tells the story of Jesus through the Psalms. Bonhoeffer is right that the truthfulness of the disciples has its basis in following Jesus, through whom their sins are revealed. Just as Israel refuses to hide its sins in the OT, so Matthew refuses to be anything but honest about the sins of those who would follow Jesus. There is no truth toward Jesus without truth toward other people. Lying destroys community. But truth exposes/rends false community and founds genuine fellowship. There is no following Jesus without living in the truth unveiled before God and other people. (Bonhoeffer 2001, 131) Only the cross as God’s truth about us makes us truthful. Those who know the cross no longer shy away from any truth.
A community of truthfulness cannot be afraid of conflict. That Jesus requires us to confront one another if we believe we have been sinned against is not a recommendation for “just getting along.” The truth that is the church means that the lies of the world will be exposed by the way Christians live. Such a people, as told in the Beatitudes, can expect to be persecuted. But a people who have learned to “rejoice in the truth” would desire no other life.
A people of truth will have enemies—sometimes even within the “church.” This makes Jesus’s command against retaliation—as well as his call for those who would follow him to love their enemies—all the more extraordinary. He does not promise that if we turn the other cheek we will avoid being hit again. Nonretaliation is not a strategy to get what we want by other means. Rather, Jesus calls us to the practice of nonretaliation because that is the form that God’s care of us took in his cross. In like manner Christians are to give more than we are asked to give, we are to give to those who beg, because that is the character of God. Indeed, as we learn in Jesus’s parable in Matthew 25, just to the extent we have not responded “to the least of these” we have failed to respond to him. Jesus’s charge that we are not to retaliate against those who would seek to do us harm—as well as his demand that we are to love our enemies—makes clear the apocalyptic character of the entire Sermon on the Mount. To so live requires the patience that has been made possible by God refusing to let our sin prevent him from becoming one of us, from joining our time, through the coming of Jesus. It is the same patience that animates those blessed in the Beatitudes, for they are examples of the kind of people who have the time in an unmerciful world to be merciful. To be a disciple of Jesus, to be ready to be reconciled with those with whom we are angry, to be faithful in marriage, to take the time required to tell the truth—all are habits that create the time and space to be capable of loving our enemies.
Triumph through the cross, not the sword. The patience required by the Beatitudes and the antitheses makes no sense if, as we are told in the Revelation of John, “the lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power!” The heart of the Sermon on the Mount is the conviction “that the cross and not the sword, suffering and not brute power determines the meaning of history. The key to the obedience of God’s people is not their effectiveness but their patience. The triumph of the right is assured not by the might that comes to the aid of the right, which is of course the justification of the use of violence and other kinds of power in every human conflict. The triumph of the right, although it is assured, is sure because of the power of the resurrection and not because of any calculation of causes and effects, nor because of the inherently greater strength of the good guys. The relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not a relationship between cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection.” (Yoder 1994b, 232)
We are called to be perfect, which is our participation in Christ’s love of his enemies. Perfection does not mean that we are sinless or that we are free of anger or lust. Rather, to be perfect is to learn to be part of a people who live without resorting to violence to sustain their existence. To so live requires habits like learning to tell one another the truth, to be faithful in our promises to one another, to seek reconciliation. To so live can be called pacifism and/or nonviolence, but such descriptions do not do justice to the form of life described in the Beatitudes and antitheses, for that form of life can be lived truthfully only if Christ is who Matthew says he is, that is, the Son of God.
What about oaths for public service? This ethic has often challenged Christians who have sought to be responsible for the social order. For example, Frederick Dale Bruner, commenting on the command not to take oaths, observes that obedience “to this Command will eventually raise serious questions about how far disciples can participate in government service where oaths are frequently required and administered. What of military service and its oaths?” (2004, 235). That question has often been answered by drawing a distinction between how I should respond to injury done to me personally and harm done that effects me as bearer of an office. I am in the former case to act as Jesus would have me act, but to the extent I occupy responsibility for maintaining order I am obligated to use violence in the name of that order. Indeed the latter obligation is understood to be an expression of the love demanded by Christ.
Leave everything to follow Jesus. Yet Bonhoeffer rightly observes that this distinction between the private person and the bearer of an office is unknown to Jesus. Jesus nowhere suggests that the disciples who have left all behind to follow him should not also leave behind their public responsibilities. Jesus has even asked them to leave behind their responsibilities as sons. Bonhoeffer notes that no one is ever a private person, but rather we always exist constituted by responsibilities. So if we are attacked we are so as parent to children, as pastor of a congregation, or as diplomat. Exactly because we are so situated is why Jesus commands us not to resist evil by using means that are evil. Jesus calls us to resist evil, but he does so by empowering us with the weapons of the Spirit. Those weapons must be shaped by the suffering of his cross:
“Only those who there, in the cross of Jesus, find faith in the victory over evil can obey his command, and that is the only kind of obedience which has the promise. Which promise? The promise of community with the cross of Jesus and of community with his victory. . . . In the cross alone is it true and real that suffering love is the retribution for and the overcoming of evil. Participation in the cross is given to the disciples by the call into discipleship. They are blessed in this visible community.” (Bonhoeffer 2001, 136–37)
Reference:
- Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 2006. Reviews.
