Message 03-09-08
Series: Following
Scripture: Matthew 5:27-32
Title: Do You See this Woman?
Just a couple of days ago I was in a conversation with a couple of people and a woman was commenting on an incident that made her very angry. She was asking for opinions on how to respond to the person involved. And as she did she made the aside of looking for something other than an “elbow to the nose”. One of the people in the group immediately said, “Well, that would be wrong. You don’t want to do that.” To which the woman replied, “But it would give me such a satisfied feeling.”
That’s the issue with anger that Jesus lifts up when he begins explaining how to live in the kingdom of God. It’s that desire for a taste of satisfaction, of getting a bit of our own back from the person who wronged us. This is what Jesus says that we have to turn our back’s on. How do we do that? Well, remember how he begins the Sermon on the Mount? He starts by telling us how blessed we are in all the situations that might seems destructive or damaging to us, he tells us how close God is, how connected we are to the resources of God’s kingdom, and how we should enter life with our identity and security firmly based there.
When someone wrongs us, we want to pay them back. That’s the natural response when we feel insecure, demeaned or dismissed. But if our security is in place and if our identity is not built on what we can prove about ourselves, then we don’t need to look out for ourselves but to consider the other person and their well-being.
Jesus teaches us to live as his apprentices by giving us the grounding of our being – we are blessed – and then how to live in the reality of the kingdom of God in practical ways. When we began this study we began by looking at Mabel – this woman who was stuck in a wheelchair in a state-run nursing facility where no one spoke to her or cared about her with real attention for some 25 years. Half deaf and completely blind when it finally came about that someone gave her attention it was discovered that not only was she surviving, but that she was satisfied. She drew on the resources of God and the kingdom of God to survive.
Jesus opens us up the resources of God to us and then tells us that we are the ones who will bring this to the rest of the world. He tells his followers that we will live lives that are more deeply righteous than people whose life’s work was being perfect. And the good news is that he doesn’t leave us there. He gives us the practical guidance we need to do that. But he gives us a new understanding of the law, the requirements of God.
He talks about anger and desire. He speaks directly into that desire we have for satisfaction. But what he speaks to is our fantasized satisfaction. Jesus speaks directly into our hearts’ desire. We want satisfaction out of life. When someone puts us down or hurts us we want to get back at them. When someone attracts us we want to “possess” them. He speaks directly into our relationships – how to avoid breaking them down and how to avoid losing intimacy. Think for a moment how deeply we are attracted to the desire for satisfaction in our lives. Think about how much time we ache to be satisfied. Think of the promise of commercials and advertisements that tell us how satisfied we’ll be if we just buy.
Jesus tells us that God gives us a place of satisfaction so that we can find each day with confidence, satisfaction we don’t have to work for or purchase. That satisfaction provides us with our sense of identity and an assurance of strength and peace beyond our own efforts. And as we live within it we can recognize when we are pulled from it. Our conscience is really a warning bell reminding us that we already have true satisfaction.
So we get angry when someone dismisses us. Anger is just an emotion and there’s nothing wrong with emotion. It’s inappropriate for human beings to treat each other in a dismissive sort of way, however, so we don’t have to stay angry at someone for that. We can overcome our fantasized satisfaction. We realize that they don’t get it and so we can challenge them to act as true human beings – to reconcile with us.
In the same way lust is a fantasized satisfaction. In the simplest terms our bodies and minds are just reacting to what is in front of us. Being tempted by anger or tempted by lust can not be resisted. Giving into the temptation is what sin is all about.
We really do need to understand Jesus’ words here. Our verse here, that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart, can be easily misunderstood. It’s impossible to avoid the experience of lust. What is not impossible is to do what Jesus actually said. Jesus said that when someone looks on another “with a desire to lust” or “with a desire to produce lust” then they have committed adultery with them already. [You notice I included the women in my nonsexist language. This is not just about men.] People have tried all sorts of remedies for lust – to try to stop it. Some have actually damaged themselves physically in order to try to stop lust, but lust is in the heart. It is not an issue of physical response. It is an issue of our heart’s desire. It’s a fantasized satisfaction.
This has been with us since the beginning. Many scholars believe that the book of Job is the oldest book of the Bible. Listen to how Job deals with lust. Job 31:1-12. Did you hear him talk about whether his heart follows his eyes and whether his hand has been defiled? Jesus brings this up as well. And we have to consider for a moment how we hear Jesus when we read his words. For some people, Jesus is a deadly serious person and he is giving lawful instruction here. For others though, and I have to admit to be one of them. I see Jesus smiling most of the time. Jesus has just told his followers that their righteousness has to be greater than the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. These words of Jesus – when he says to gouge out an eye or to cut off a hand – are said with a smile I believe. I believe that Jesus is saying to his followers that if you really want to follow the law then this is how legalistic you need to be. Some people have taken it much more seriously than that. Not that’s he’s suggesting mutilation but that he’s saying how serious we need to be in dealing with sin. Our friends in the recovery community understand this. Some of then know that they need to draw severe boundaries in their lives in order to escape the temptation of their addiction. It may be that lust is an issue for you and that you can not allow your computer to be separated from the community of your household. You need to have it out in the open so that anyone can see what is on the screen while you’re working or even playing.
I made a promise to myself, way back when I started preaching that I wouldn’t use Dear Abby letters or Ann Landers letters in my messages. But, and as far as I know this is the first time, I can’t resist sharing the letter from yesterday’s paper.
DEAR ABBY: When my new boss, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, began working here five years ago, I immediately had a crush on her. Two years ago, I began working directly with her in the office and fell head-over-heels, smitten to the bone with her.
She's married, I'm married, and I have never made a pass. The problem is, I have become obsessed with her. I can't stop thinking about her all day. I dream about her at night. I feel I have never been in love like this, and it has reached the point where it consumes every second of my day.
I love my wife and would not want to jeopardize my life with her. But how can I stop this overwhelming passion that I feel for "Marilyn"? Please don't tell me to change jobs. That would be my worst nightmare. I can't picture my life without being at least able to see this woman and exchange pleasantries with her. -- LOST IN LOVE IN TAMPA
I hope you can see that this guy is not lost in love. But I was fascinated by Abby’s response.
DEAR LOST IN LOVE: You said it yourself -- you have become obsessed. This "grand passion" is not only unfair to your wife, it is also unfair to your boss because although she may remind you of Marilyn Monroe, I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that she would rather be taken seriously.
As I see it, you have several choices: psychotherapy, aversion therapy or another job. Because psychotherapy can be expensive, and you won't change jobs, try this: Put a thick rubber band on your wrist. When you catch yourself lusting after Marilyn, give the rubber band a strong "snap." It will not only bring you back to the reality of the task at hand, but also the fact that you're married. With luck, you will begin to associate lusting after this woman with pain, and stop daydreaming when you're supposed to be working.
She gives him a severe response, a physically severe response. That’s one way to handle it. Some people have beaten themselves for their feelings. Some have run away. We have had whole communities of men shut themselves away from women.
But do you understand what that says? It says that women are the problem. It’s not the lust within us that’s the problem. It’s the object of our lust.
Today, on the Presbyterian Church Calendar, is “Celebrate the Gifts of Women Day”. I find it fascinating that these particular passages of the Sermon on the Mount came on this day. Just kind of an intriguing coincidence – especially with the play about Jesus’ touch in the lives of women being performed this evening. Just intriguing. But it makes me think about the life of women at the time of Jesus. In one story, Jesus asks the people he is with – do you see this woman? And I think that question is at the heart of this guidance.
If we were to cut off body parts in response to lust, or shut ourselves away in response to lust, if we were to cut off our relationships, even our marriage, in response to lust, we are following a fantasized satisfaction. We would be wanting to prove that we are desirable and we can prove it by capturing someone else’s attention. This is one of the reasons for divorce at the time of Jesus – you just saw someone who appealed to you more. Now at that time men had all the rights and giving the woman a certificate of divorce was actually a sign of protection. It was given to a woman so that she could be married again or so she wouldn’t be stoned if she was seen in the company of a new man. But Jesus says the real reason was because of a hard heart.
What Jesus is saying here is not new law, but the reality of life. Jesus is explaining that this is how life works. God created people, men and women, to join together in a covenant relationship where they become one flesh. They were supposed to explore intimacy and grow in the safety of love. Divorce is the destruction of God’s plan and that’s why God says he hates it. But we should not receive Jesus’ words here as a new law. We should realize that we never break down the emotional ties we create sexually. The reality of divorce is that we separate ourselves from God’s design for us.
Now, please understand this clearly – this is not a word of condemnation. This is not law. This is Jesus explaining how life actually works. Something dies within our souls in divorce, through all the things that lead to divorce, through what is revealed about the nature of our relationship. That bit of death is what is found in everything thing that is sin. Sometimes divorce is the right choice. In Jesus’ time it could be used to save the woman’s life. In our time it might save someone from a slow tortuous experience of abuse. In any case it reveals a hardness of heart that we all share.
This is what Jesus came to die for. Jesus died to remove from our souls the true consequence of that death that is found within all sin. Jesus died in order to receive the consequence of all that death, that destruction in our relationships, that breakdown of life in our souls. Atonement made Jesus one with us in our loss, so that he could kill that death that would claim us – and bring us to life again.
