God loves us disproportionately – Matt 5:38-48

Continuing the series on the Sermon on the Mount for Old College with the last two antitheses.

You have heard it said: “An eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth.”

But, I say to you, do not oppose the evil-doer, but to whoever strikes your right cheek, offer the other.

And to whoever wants to sue you and take your tunic, give up also your cloak.

And with whoever wants to force you to go one mile, go two. 

Give to whoever asks of you, and from someone wanting to borrow from you, do not turn aside.

You have heard it said: “You shall love your neighbor” and you shall hate your enemy.

But I say to you: love your enemies and pray for your persecutors, so that you will become children of your Father in heaven, since he makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and makes it rain on the just and the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more do you have?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

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The sun produces energy at a rate of 400 Yotta-Watts, that’s 400 Yotta Joules each second, that’s 4 with 26 zeroes after it.  That’s the equivalent of this: if every man, woman and child on God’s green earth had their own nuclear power plant, and ran it for fifteen years, the total amount of energy produced would be the same as what the sun produces each second. That’s powerful.  That’s energetic.  That’s a tiny fraction of God’s action in the world, of God’s love, of God’s grace.  God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good.

That’s what lights up everything Jesus calls us to in the Sermon on the Mount.  “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” – that’s Biblical.  That’s God’s gift.  That’s good.  The intent is to limit and define vengeance so as violence doesn’t escalate – you lost a tooth?  The greatest penalty you can demand is a tooth.  You spilt hot coffee on your lap?  You don’t get a million dollars in damages.  It’s got to be proportionate.  That’s a good rule.

Jesus has better.  He says: look.  You can only look because of this light, because of this brilliant sun that shines, on the evil and on the good.  God does not give us a well-proportioned response to precisely measured sin: He gives disproportionate, extravagant grace: always intimate, always personal, but always indiscriminate.  It’s 400 Yotta-Watt brilliance and then some, shining on the evil and on the good.  So if your cheek gets slapped, turn the other one.  It’s a small lamp to shine in the face of darkness, but it’s all Jesus asks of us.

Moreau had his novices memorize this and I’m sure he etched it on his heart too.  Because on his darkest night when the congregation he had brought up and nurtured, at the brink of financial ruin, turned on him, he turned to God.  He was at rock bottom and it was other people’s fault.  But, he didn’t turn on them, he turned to God.  He turned to God full of anguish, with the piety of a desperate friend of God and banged his fist on the tabernacle.  He stood, staring at the crucifix.  He knocked and he stared because he knew that there dwelt Love, the 400 Yotta-Watt prodigious Love, the Love he must be bathed in if he was to be able to treat his brothers how he knew Jesus commanded him to.

Friends, live in the light.  It’s brilliant.