“The Radical Jesus”
Matthew 5: 21-48
February 23, 2014

With what image of Jesus do we operate?  How do we see Jesus in our mind’s eye? 
Is he the “gentle savior, meek and mild?”
Is he the Good Shepherd who is ever loving and seeking out his lost sheep?
Is he the nice, sweet Rabbi who gladly welcomed children into his presence?
Is he the humble, servant leader who dared to take up the basin and towel and wash the disciples’ feet?
Is he the crucified Lord who allowed the Romans and Jews to put him to death on a cross?
Is he the risen, victorious Lord who will one day rule over all that was, is and ever will be?
Each of us operates with an image of others — both those we see and know in our daily life and those we see and know only through media, television, books or film.  For instance, in my generation we just knew that Rock Hudson was the ultimate ladies man.  Who could have imagined that he was anything but a ladies’ man?
Where do these images of others originate?  Usually from a combination of the other’s actions and our perceptions.  Both are important parts of the process.  Remember the adage: “What you think about me says more about you than it does about me!”  How one sees others depends, to a large extent, on who is doing the “seeing,” does it not.
When it comes to Jesus, our images are usually the result of what we are taught as children in combination with how much we have really read/studied the New Testament as adults.  For instance, Jesus as the Good Shepherd is a common beloved image because that’s the common portrait of Jesus we are taught as little children.  We are introduced to the 23rd Psalm or John 10 as portraits of Jesus caring for his sheep.  Each of these images of the “nice Jesus” is a true image of Jesus — but while they may be popular among us, they are incomplete at best. 
There is an image of Jesus of which we seldom hear in our churches: the strong, courageous, even “radical” Jesus who, following in the footsteps of the prophets, challenged the religious leadership, religious laws and social standards of his day.  (If we are honest, he challenges ours as well.)   Rather than “go along to get along” Jesus confronts those in authority with the illegitimacy of their religious, ethical and moral practices in light of God’s command and will.
What was the point of Jesus’ radicality?  I do not believe that he wanted to abolish them as much as that he wished to reform them that they might serve their original purposes.  Jesus was trying to paint a picture of a stark contrast between what God had intended and what Judaism had become.  The further one goes into the gospels the more one realizes that eventually Jesus reaches that point of no return, the place where his statements and actions have so alarmed the “authorities” that they cannot allow him to exist, much less teach.  Why?  The Jewish leaders are desperately afraid that his “heresy” will bring the condemnation of God upon them — not to mention the boot of the Roman military!  For their part, the Romans are angry that Jesus, whom they perceive as a two-bit, would-be revolutionary, is causing trouble for them in one of their provinces.  They do not fear Jesus — they only wish to be rid of him much as a stallion flicks away the fly which is pestering it.  They knew how to deal with revolutionaries; crucifixion worked quite well — both in removing the problem and discouraging others.
Why is understanding the radical Jesus important?  Why ought we to pause this morning and spend time looking at this radical Jesus? Simply put, if we do not know this Jesus, then our knowledge and understanding of him is at best incomplete and inadequate.  Jesus was not crucified for being nice, gentle, humble and loving.  Jesus was crucified for being radical and courageous in the face of a corrupted institutional religion and secular government, both of which he saw as failing its purpose and calling under God.
The Jesus of Matthew 5: 21-48, who dares to challenge the status quo by re-interpreting the sacred Torah, is just as much our Lord and Savior as the Jesus who died on a cross.  If we do not know and understand this Jesus, we cannot claim to know, understand or love Jesus.  For to follow Jesus is to accept all of Jesus — every aspect of his life and teachings.
How does Jesus confront and challenge the status quo?  In our morning text we find a very interesting pattern of statement and response used by Jesus:
“You have heard it said unto you…” after which Jesus would quote Jewish law or convention.
“But I say unto you…” after which Jesus would give his own interpretation of how we ought to live and behave.
Notice what Jesus is doing:  he takes the law back to its foundation, to the basic “principle” underlying the particular statute.  He then calls upon his disciples to make this the basis of their action.  Jesus sees the “law” as they know it as a development of a particular ethic or way of living.  Unfortunately, the law has become so convoluted that Jesus must strip away all the overlying layers of tradition to return to the primary meaning of the statute.  What is important is the principle — and it is to that principle which Jesus turns time and again.
Look at the text this morning and consider these situations.  In each of them, Jesus takes what they have commonly accepted as God’s law — and moves it a step or two backward to the original principle.  It is that principle, according to Jesus, which is to inform our behavior more than the law.
Jesus says our concern should not be merely with avoiding murder, but going behind murder to see the attitude of anger and family division which results in murder.  People are created in God’s image and to be loved and valued as we live in relationship with one another.
Jesus says not only are we not to commit adultery, but that, going behind that act, we are not to look with lust upon another person.  Why?  Because people are created in God’s image and are not to be objects of our passions; we are to live with love toward others and to use no one for our purposes.
Jesus’ strong words about divorce are directed to a society in which men could casually toss aside one wife after another if so desired.  Jesus says no, you cannot treat women as property…they are full human beings.
Look at these words about swearing: they apply, by the way, not to saying epithets with God in them, but to making vows based upon God or anything else in creation.  Jesus is calling upon us to have personal integrity in both saying what we mean and meaning what we say.
Yet, there come times when Jesus lays not only the law aside, but even principles as well.  This is where Jesus becomes even more radical.  When push comes to shove,  Jesus values people and relationships over law and principle.  For Jesus people are primary; rules and laws are secondary.  Why?  Because God is primary — and God is love.  Created in God’s image, people are created to love and live in love.  Therefore, love and relationship is primary to Jesus, not rules or laws.  “The Sabbath is made for humanity, and not humanity for the Sabbath.”
This presupposition is so foundational to Jesus that is literally can be found in every teaching, every action, and every word of his life.  Jesus is more concerned about people than he is legal or even social convention.  This is why he accepts sinners, hugs and heals lepers, and reaches out to the prostitutes and thieves (tax collectors) of his day.  This is the reason he allows women of the night to anoint him and plain fishermen to be his disciples.  This is ultimately why Jesus goes into the temple and overthrows the tables, driving out the money changers and challenging the entire temple system.  For Jesus, people trump law every time, every last time.
His name was H.S. Sauls — and when I was young he was ancient.  He was the Director of Missions for the Mobile Baptist Association — and I dreaded when he showed up at church.  He would come on Sunday night and my dad would call on him to pray.  Understand, we had been at church for all morning, back again at 4pm and it was now at least 8pm.  I was churched out — what 10-13 year old would not be?  Dr. Sauls could pray with the best of them; 10 minutes was nothing for him.  To make matters worse, it was always the Benediction and the congregation would be standing the entire time.  More than once I staged a small protest by just sitting down.  I have heard sermons shorter than his prayers.  I thought him to be one of the dullest, old-foggiest hardliners I had ever known.
Several years later — at the age of 18 I went back to that R.A. Camp, but this time as a camp counselor.  He was still there — looking just as formidable and foreboding as he had some 7 years earlier. On Thursday night after the last chapel service, before we went home the next day, several of us counselors got the idea to go skinny dipping in the lake after lights out.  Now, how we thought we would do this unnoticed is beyond me — but if you can understand the adolescent male brain you are ahead of most of us.  So, we quietly slipped out and made our way down the path to the lake.  I can still see that light shining from high on a pole across the still lake waters; we stripped down and just jumped in — all males, I might add.  The female workers had refused to join us. Evidently female adolescent brains are more highly developed than male adolescent brains.  Anyway, we are having a good old time when all of a sudden there appear some car lights shining across the water and straight into our eyes.  We are caught bare-naked, so to speak.  Dr. Sauls orders us to come out of the water — which we do while scrambling to maintain our modesty and get dressed.  I’ll never forget one friend who tried to stay under the dock and hold his breath…it didn't work.  He had to come out as well.
Well, we got the lecture you would expect: he was disappointed that we had left our campers in their rooms without supervision.  To be honest that was not entirely true; we had left one wimpy counselor behind but he was the one who told on us after the pillow fight broke out between rooms.  As I walked back up the hill I thought, “Uh-oh…when word of this gets back to Dad I am toast.”  It really had seemed like a good idea at the time.
The next morning went off as usual…nothing was really said about our ill-fated escapade.  I realized that this man really loved us, really cared about us — and when he was our age he would probably have been right there with us.  Here this man I thought to be an old fogey, the one whom I thought would lay down the law was really the one who knew that people mattered more than rules.  He knew, I learned, that those who challenge the laws/mores are often those who have more inside of them than those who are nicely obedient.  He knew, it turned out, more about the gospel than I knew at that age or would know for years to come.  In the end, people are more important than any rules, laws or even principles we may possess.
“You have heard it said unto you…but I say unto you…”  Come to think of it, Jesus really knew something about life, love and law, did he not?  Maybe, just maybe the radical Jesus is really the loving Jesus?