Hard Sayings
I read Luke 6 the other morning, and it touched me in a deep place. The question is, did Jesus really mean what he said?- "Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. [...] Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets."
- "Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back."
- "[L]ove your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked."
- "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart."
- And, finally, the hardest one: "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?"
Do I really believe Jesus?
Though Jesus was the most loving being ever to walk the earth, he still set some pretty hard standards for those who would claim his Lordship--as millions do, including me. I simply cannot do everything he says, though. I don't even come close to trying most of the time.
My comfort comes embedded in another hard saying: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." Yes, I must show love and compassion where it is not deserved, where I have been mistreated and rejected, where I have every right to come down hard. But the reason I must do so is because God and his son do the same. Even when I do not always "do as he says," my Lord gives when I ask and lends without expecting repayment. If I want to be like him--and who doesn't want to be like God--I will increasingly reflect this mystery in attitude and action.
Thank God he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, and God help me be quite the opposite!
posted by Lynn @ 5:14 AM
2 Comments:
"Will you also go away?" Jesus asked.
"To whom shall I go? Who else has the words of life?"
I wish to answer the same way the disciples did.
His instructions are most of the time quite different from the psychological stuff we hear these days...harder on the self. But what other way is there to live in freedom from the tyranny of self(ishness)? How merciful that trying to live His way sometimes gives us a glimpse of that great freedom, even if we aren't perfect at obedience.
I like what Geza Vermes does with the two versions of the "Lord, Lord" statement:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers' (Matt.).
Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord', and do not do what I tell you? (Luke 6.).
Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.' But he will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you come from; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity!' (Luke 13).
The two halves of the saying are distinct, as is indicated both by their content and by the fact that they are presented in separate chapters in Luke. Their coupling is the result of Matthew's editorial work. The maxim calling Jesus 'Lord, Lord' is a distinct unit which neither evangelist could properly accomodate. In Luke it is attached to the saying, 'The evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil' [...] and applies to insincere followers of Jesus in his own time. Matthew on the other hand uses the phrase as a preface to a post-Parousia dialogue between the final Judge and the failed disciples of Jesus and recalls the parables of the ten virgins and of the last judgment [...]. The self-defence pronounced by the guilty and the Judge's words of rejection are linked in Luke quite naturally with a scene of the ultimate reckoning. It is hard to decide whether Luke or Matthew represents the more original form of the saying, 'Lord, Lord.' However, Matthew's statement about obeying the will of the heavenly Father is undoubtedly a genuine Jewish formula (see mAb 5:20) which is one of the fundamental requirements of the piety of Jesus [...]. Hence it can be acknowledged as an argument favouring authenticity."
--Vermes, Geza. The Authentic Gospel of Jesus. New York: Penguin, 2003. 318-19.
All Vermes is doing here is trying to decide which version of the statement was closer to the original context. To me, that the formula "my Father in heaven" is genuinely Jewish does not necessarily add to the authenticity--it could just mean that the people who wrote Matthew were just as Jewish as Jesus was. I may use some of the language of my church community, but it doesn't mean that I am an accurate representation of its thought in each and every point.
So, that's just some interesting schtuff.
I pray that I may be like God for God's sake. And I pray that even when I do not wish to be like God for God's sake, that God at least for "his" own sake will grant my prayer and kindly overlook my baser motives that leaven my piety. My religion may have begun with bribery ("if you were to die tonight ..."), but I hope it does not end there. Till then, I remember the simple philosophy of Qoheleth.
You're beautiful.
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