Deut.11:18-21, 26-28; Rom.1:16-17; 3:22b-28; Matt.7:21-29
June 1, 2008; Proper 4 (9)

Rev. David B. Batchelder
West Plano Presbyterian Church

We come today to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the longest and most carefully structured uninterrupted speech in Matthew’s Gospel. It provides us with an excellent opportunity to think about Session’s decision to support the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Hanging along Custer Road is a banner that says - “Honor the Image of God: Stop Torture Now.”

There are a lot of words here in this sermon, about peace, righteousness, purity of heart, about non-retaliation and reconciliation, serving any master but God, and seeking God’s kingdom first; and at the end of it all, Jesus’ voice recedes and the narrator returns to say that - the crowds were astounded at Jesus’ teaching. Another translation says - “They were shocked!” because Jesus taught as one with authority! Our reading is the last section of this sermon. After so many words, Jesus issues a stern caution about claiming an allegiance with him that does not exist. He says, “Not everyone who says, “‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Why this warning at the end of this sermon? Because faith must take on flesh, our flesh. The Incarnate Son of God who is the Word made flesh, knows that to sever words from life is to walk the path of death, ours and the world’s. Therefore, Jesus insists that words of faith must grow a skin, with blood vessels, bone and muscles so that the words themselves become life-giving and continue what God intends: namely the transfiguration of humanity and the renewal of the earth. Already in Matthew’s congregation something is going on to distort the Gospel, disfigure the community beyond anything deserving of Jesus’ name. Already in this young church is a group who know all the God-talk, who profess orthodoxy but whose practice causes Jesus to disavow ever knowing any of them as followers. The warning is obviously meant for insiders to the faith. The fact that they readily use Jesus’ name saying, “Lord, Lord,” shows that they confess the highest Christology. These are active disciples in the faith community who expect to be commended for their piety and their extraordinary accomplishments. And what deeds have they done? They utter profound prophecies; they are able to exercise control over demonic powers; and they perform miracles, all in “Jesus’ name.” Nevertheless, Jesus devastates them with the words, “I never knew you. Go away from me you evil doers.”

This is a real crisis in Matthew’s church because it doesn’t just involve members in the church, but includes its leaders. They are deeply involved in its ministry. Though they are actually being admired for what they have accomplished Jesus rejects their unwarranted terms of familiarity and expels them calling them “evil doers” Jesus denounces their use of “Lord, Lord” as a perversion of language because it is saying something that is not lived. Claiming to act in Jesus’ name does not sanctify actions as God’s will. Thus, faithful speech is not the evidence of the conversion Jesus seeks or expects, but faithful actions, deeds done in accord with a Divine will that, as we have heard in this sermon, blesses peacemakers, those who thirst for righteousness, the pure in heart, and those who not only love their enemies but pray for them. No wonder Dietrich Bonhoffer spoke of this Jesus way of life as the narrow road (Stanley Hauerwas, in Matthew - Bazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, 2006, cites Bonhoffer’s Cost of Discipleship with respect to this text).

Often in history, the way Christians have dealt with enemies has been shameful and tragic. The history of the Christian church has been continually dogged by the scandal of claiming a faith that is contradicted by the practice of faith. Did you know that the practice of waterboarding did not arise in this or the last couple of centuries but has its roots in the Spanish Inquisition beginning in 1478.The Catholic Church undertook such practice against Jews and Muslims, and later against Protestants who themselves adopted this practice during the Reformation against Anabaptists (or re-baptizers) who denied infant baptism in favor of believer’s baptism. This use of torture was meant to curb radical religious movements and bring salvation to those who departed from the orthodoxy. How did they justify torture? Since at least the time of St Augustine, the commonly held belief was that punishment (even if lethal) could be an act of mercy that kept a sinner from continuing in sin. Spanish King Ferdinand called waterboarding [which simulates drowning] the third baptism and declared it a suitable response believing that it could deliver the heretic from his or her sins. You see, one way or the other, through the heretic’s repentance or his or her death, the sinning was brought to an end. In an article on this subject, ethics scholar William Schweiker (William Schweiker, Baptism by Water Torture. Ecclesia - 8 Feb 2008) recalls the wide symbolic meaning of water for the Jewish and Christian traditions in the great stories of creation, the flood, the exodus, water in the wilderness, Jesus walking on water, and the woman at the well, then he says,

In the light of these religious meanings and background to waterboarding, US citizens can decide to reject any claim by the government to have the right to use this or other forms of torture, especially given connections to the most woeful expressions of Christianity; conversely, they can fall prey to fear and questionable reasoning and thus continue to support an unjust and vile practice that demeans the nation's highest political and moral ideals even as it desecrates one of the most important practices and symbols of Christian faith.

What Jesus considers so dangerous, dangerous enough to call church members evil doers, is speech that just doesn’t substitute for practice, but enables an evasion of practice as well. Such has been achieved with the use of Presidential signing statements by which a policy of selective of torture can be preserved while the appearance to a commitment of non-torture can be given. Now, the reason Jesus’ objection is so strong, even disturbing, is because disconnecting reality from speech empties language of its meaning and makes it possible to disguise a practice as something other than what it is. In calling for an end to all deceptions which use the Lord’s name to escape God’s difficult grace, Jesus is calling all of us away from the path of death to life itself. Such a call is for the sake of our own salvation one we encounter week after week here in this place! Every gathering at this font for confession and pardon is a ritual encounter where we abandon deception and enter more fully our own salvation.

Sisters and brothers, Jesus’ harsh judgement today is not condemnation but the call for repentance and redemption, and a return to the only way of life open to humankind. It is a way that seeks first, above and before anything else, God’s kingdom and GOD’S righteousness, trusting that all things necessary to our well-being will be added according to God’s promise.

Thanks be to God!