"Leapin' Lizards!"

(Scriptures: Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
I Corinthians 3:10-23 Matthew 5:38-48)

You may remember the movie trilogy Lord of the Rings, based on the books by J R R Tolkien. Sauron, the evil one, forged the One Ring, which gave great power over others to anyone who wore it. However, with the power of the ring came corruption and domination by Sauron – it was Sauron’s “one ring to rule them all.” Those who hoped to use the powers of the ring for good, even those with the purest of intentions, even those who may have wanted to use the power of the ring to overthrow the evil Sauron, found themselves irresistibly drawn to acts of domination, violence, the ways of death. The only way to break the power of the ring, and ultimately to defeat Sauron, was to destroy the ring, to throw it into the fire so it could be melted and never be restored.

Tolkien’s stories – and JRR Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic – could almost be taken as allegories to illustrate Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount, which form our Gospel reading for today. In our reading today, Jesus continues to draw a contrast between the former ways of doing things and the new life within the Realm or Reign of God. We have a series of contrasts between the way life has always been – “You have heard it said of old, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; you have heard it said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” These former ways are drawn from Torah – mostly, anyway; the “hate your enemy” part is not – but mostly from the Bible of Jesus' day. And they had a place: allowing the people eye for eye, tooth for tooth would restrain them from taking the eyes and teeth, not only of the offender, but of his whole family – after all, an eye for an eye is better than ten eyes for an eye, ten teeth for a tooth.”

But Jesus is calling his hearers to a standard of conduct that goes far beyond keeping a running tally of all the people who have offended against us, far beyond having some people on our “good” list and others on our “bad” list.

Researchers studying the mind have compared our brains to those of other animals. While human brains are much more developed than those of animals, there are some parts of our brains that are said to be very similar to those of lizards and other reptiles. This part of the brain is said to control much of our automatic or instinctual behavior – making sure we breathe and eat, but also controlling our ability to monitor our environment for potential danger, or to take advantage of something or someone else’s weaknesses, our impulse to fight or flee when we’re threatened, our desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain, our desire for safety and security – in a word, our survival instincts. Behavioral researchers sometimes say that people who behave in a selfish, angry way, as if they were being attacked or their survival was otherwise being threatened, that these people are thinking with their lizard brains. And those lizard brains, or survival instincts, are there for a reason. They’re really good at keeping us alive. The problem is, they’re really, really bad at telling us how to live peaceably with other people, how to share, how to cooperate, how to be friends, how to love, how to live in community. If we act as if our existence is a tooth and claw fight for survival with everyone around us, people will not line up to be friends with us. We’ll survive, but our life will be a lonely lifelong running battle with everyone and everything around us, until we moment we draw our final breath.

Much of the behavior that Jesus classifies under “you have heard it said” is behavior that appeals to our lizard brains. Examples: If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. You hurt me, I’ll hurt you back. You take my parking spot; I'll key your car. After all, we tell ourselves, that’s only fair. But, as it has also been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth produces nothing but eyeless, toothless people. The new life Christ offers can’t be built on that petty “tit for tat” sense of “fairness”, can’t be built on “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Jesus is asking his listeners to rise above their basic survival instincts, their lizard brains, to behave in ways that show that Christ is in us, that we are living the new life of those who are part of the Realm of God. It’s a life in which we act with love toward those who treat us with contempt. It’s a life in which we do not respond to evil with more evil, but, as Paul says, to overcome evil with good. We cannot use violent words or actions and then say that the ends justify the means, that we can use violent, hateful methods to coerce people into behaving as we wish. To build on the Lord of the Rings analogy with which I started, those who sought to use the power of the One Ring, even with the best of intentions, were inevitably corrupted and enslaved by the power of the ring. In the same way, when we act in death-dealing ways, even with what seem like noble intentions, both our actions and ourselves will be corrupted in the process. Or as the rather troubling saying goes, when we gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into us.

We can overcome hate, not be returning the hate, but by acting in love. Or as Edwin Markham wrote, ‘He drew a circle that shut me out – heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win; we drew a circle that took him in. In the same way, if someone compels us to go one mile with them, one response would be to kick and scream and drag our feet all the way. Another response would be to make the choice – a free choice now, not coerced, of going a second mile with them.

Overcoming hate with love is not a quick process. Nor is it free of pain. It can be quite costly. In an age that loves instant fixes, this is not one of them. It’s not like a sledgehammer smashing the walls of hatred and injustice. It's more like a bush sprouting near a wall, whose roots and branches eventually crack and break through the wall. In the same way, love can overcome hate, not by answering violence with violence, but by slowly and steadily sprouting and growing and undermining and ultimately overwhelming it.

When we hear Jesus say, "Love your enemies," we likely want to start making a list of exceptions: surely Jesus didn't mean (Muslims, gays, immigrants, fill in the blank....) But that is part of the “love your neighbor but hate your enemy” way of thinking that Jesus explicitly rejected and wanted his followers to get past. Any determinations about who is outside the circle of God’s love are God’s alone to make, emphatically not ours, and it is deeply, even profoundly sinful to exalt ourselves to the point where we attempt to take on prerogatives that are God’s alone – indeed, that’s the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount does not give us permission to hate anyone. We are to treat everyone as a beloved child of God. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan cast as a neighbor a despised foreigner who would have been considered an enemy by Jesus’ listeners. So even our enemy is our neighbor. Even those with whom we have profound and bitter disagreements, even those who have hurt us badly, even those we consider great sinners before the Almighty – we are to love and even to go before God in prayer for them. No exceptions.

What does it look like? We might remember Gandhi’s nonviolent leadership of India’s independence movement, or the black civil rights struggle in our own country. Those protesting the status quo were very effective at making their views known. But they did so non-violently, and they did so in a way intended to appeal to the best in others, even in those whose views were most steadfastly prejudiced. Now, this is not a soft, sappy, warm and fuzzy, romantic kind of love that would pretend that our enemies haven’t hurt us. Indeed, it’s not about us and our feelings at all. Rather, it’s about willing ourselves to demonstrate a durable love that keeps on going despite the hurt. These methods do not promise instant success, and our culture is much more enamored of solving problems quickly by shooting people and blowing things up. This kind of love is costly – of those who worked for India’s independence and of those who marched for civil rights in our country, many were injured; some were killed. But many have found that nonviolence witness, however costly, is the way to social change, not to demolish an enemy, but to overcome the enemy with good. Sometimes what seems like the long way ‘round may be the short way home.

A word to those in abusive relationships: it must be said that Jesus’ words have been misused by those who abuse spouses and partners and children, to keep those they abuse in their place. These are difficult, incredibly painful situations. Sometimes the sins of others have hurt us so badly that for our own survival, we need to leave the situation. I do not believe Jesus calls us as Christians to be punching bags for the amusement of others or doormats for abusive people to wipe their feet on. Even so – even though we may need to get ourselves out of these situations, may need to get some emotional or even physical distance from an abusive relationship or break it off for a time – maybe for a very long time – we should do so in a way that does not leave us seething for the rest of our lives in anger and bitterness toward that person. Even at a distance, we can pray for those who have hurt us, that God will heal the situation and change their hearts. There may be times when that’s all we can do – but these costly prayers can be powerful when brought before the throne of Grace. Where we cannot for our own health and safety be with an abusive family member, our prayers can go the distance.

Jesus concludes this section of his sermon by saying, “Be perfect.” (To which I'm apt to snark, "sure, I'll get right on it....") He’s not using the word in the sense of saying “don’t make any mistakes ever,” but rather, the sense of being complete, wholehearted, not doing things halfway. Luke’s version of the text – in Luke 6: 36 quotes Jesus as saying, “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” And in Jesus’ parable of the rich young ruler, after the young man had told Jesus that he had kept all the commandments, Jesus says, “If you would be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and come, follow me.” Jesus’ words “be perfect” are about being merciful, generous, abounding in love even for those who are utterly unloveable. It looks impossible – and from a human standpoint, it is impossible. We cannot do any of this work on our own. It is only by God’s grace that we are given the new life in Christ that enables us to live in accordance with the words of Jesus. And, yes, sometimes our lizard brains will take over, and we’ll behave in ways that are selfish, greedy, vengeful. Fortunately, God likewise does not take eye for eye, tooth for tooth, return sin with sin. We are called to take our sins to the Lord in prayer, to take our sin to the throne of grace and leave it there.

I’ll close with a poem by Kent Keith, called “Anyway,” which was adopted by Mother Teresa and put on the wall of her children’s home in Calcutta. Some of you have heard it before. For this morning, I’d like us to think of it as a dialogue between our self-centered, fearful survival oriented lizard brains and the Spirit of Christ within us.

"People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway."
Amen.

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Emanuel United Church of Christ welcomes you to worship with us at 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings. We're on Fillmore St (