Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Pray with me, God, source of all light. By your word, you give light to the soul. Pour out upon us the spirit of wisdom and understanding that being taught by you in Holy Scripture, our hearts and minds may be open to know the things that pertain to life and holiness through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
And now reading from Matthew 5, verses 27 through 30, which is on page 786 in your pew Bibles, you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: So Yesterday was the 250th birthday of the United States.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Happy birthday, USA.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: This is a shot from the fireworks over the Altadena country club back in 2013.
Now, 250 years might seem like a long time, right? But we are in the midst of a World cup where the United States men's soccer team may be taking on competitors like France.
And from a French perspective, 250 years, not so very long.
After all, it was more than 1500 years ago, or 6 times 250, that much of northern and central Gaul was brought together under the rule of Clovis
[00:01:54] Speaker C: I to become one extensive family Frankish kingdom.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: But then when I was in Idaho, I was talking to a friend who had recently visited Egypt, and she saw artifacts like this vase made 5,300 years ago.
So the soccer team that defeated Australia this past Friday, Egypt could argue their people's history is more than 20 times the length that of another World cup team called.
And if you want to look back to the earliest inhabitants of this continent before the nation called the United States of America was even founded by English Puritans who had immigrated from Northern Europe, you could go back to the Paleo Indians, who recent studies suggest arrived to this continent via the Bering Land bridge about, oh, 20,000 years ago, give or take a few thousand, that means the history of these first peoples of the continent. People like Mona, who spoke recently at this church and is a member of the Tongva Gabrieleno people pictured here have a history more than 80 times the history of the United States of America.
So in the grand scheme of Human History and Prehistory, 250.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: Maybe not such a big number after all.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Still, it represents more than two and a half centuries. More than two and a half times the span of years any of us here will live to see, Bryce. Even you or Marilee.
And so it's worth reflecting on those 250 years this July 4th weekend, as so many in our nation are doing this weekend. And wow. So many different ways to look at history. So many different lenses to choose from. If you look back over the past 250 years of national history, we could use the lens of US Presidents and go through historic periods, president by president.
We could reflect on military conflicts in US history. This is a painting of the Revolutionary War.
We could look at protest or resistance movements, social change efforts in our country. This is a photo of leaders in the anti slavery movement. And in the top right corner, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. In the lower left, we see leaders in the women's suffrage movement at a protest in Philadelphia back in 1917.
And yet another way we could look at US history is examining a stated value at our nation's founding and exploring to what degree that value has actually been embodied in policies and practice and
[00:04:47] Speaker C: to what degree it has been, well, not so embodied.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Martin Luther King Jr. Famously took this approach to history in his celebrated I have a Dream speech in Washington D.C. he quoted this statement from the Declaration of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self
[00:05:07] Speaker C: evident, that all men are created equal.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: And while he pointed out in detail in his speech ways the nation had failed to live out that value, he stated this as well. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live
[00:05:25] Speaker C: out the true meaning of that creed.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Now you could certainly say the political system the United States established at its founding was meant to expand political power from the hands of a monarch to a greater number of people who each had a vote. That democratic push to disperse power to an electorate, together with the Republican emphasis on representative government, we Presbyterians valued those things largely before the US was founded. And they were both ways. The nation sought to live out of value that one monarch was not greater than other citizens. It was a way to move towards a greater kind of equality when it came to political power. One person, one vote.
However, when the first U.S. president was elected in 1789, in most states it was only white male property owners who
[00:06:20] Speaker C: were allowed to vote.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: A group that historians tell us made up maybe 6% of the US population.
Now there were a few states at our nation's founding that did allow free black men to vote, and New Jersey, of all places, New Jersey even allowed unmarried or widowed women who owned property
[00:06:41] Speaker C: to vote as well.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: But in terms of that value, that all men are created equal, or if we were to expand that statement yet further, to say all people are created equal, you could trace a fascinating history of struggle in this nation when it comes to how that value was lived out in terms of the vote, who has it and who doesn't. A struggle still playing out today.
And that struggle reflects yet another question you could use to examine not just the 250 year history of the United States, but the entirety of human history and prehistory. You could ask, to what degree did people in that time and place, or in this time and place, treat other
[00:07:25] Speaker C: people as well, fully human, fully human?
[00:07:31] Speaker B: And to what degree do people treat other people as less than fully human, less human than themselves? You could examine the rise of empires this way, going back to ancient Egypt and the Pharaoh, and look specifically at policies and practices around forced labor and some people being assigned a kind of godlike status greater than or maybe more
[00:07:54] Speaker C: equal than other commoners.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: The philosopher Immanuel Kant once argued, all of ethics comes down to the principle of treating others, quote, not merely as
[00:08:05] Speaker C: a means, but always as an end. Not merely as a means, but always as an end.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: While I believe ethics is far more
[00:08:15] Speaker C: complicated than that, it's still a powerful question.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Are we treating others as more than merely tools or instruments for our purposes?
[00:08:26] Speaker C: Or are we treating them as people, as fully human, as we are equally human?
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Are we treating them as we would
[00:08:35] Speaker C: wish or expect to be treated ourselves?
[00:08:40] Speaker B: These questions seem to me to get right to the heart of the question Jesus raises in today's passage from the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew's Gospel, the document Jesus was looking to was not the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. That would come nearly 1800 years later. He was looking at a document called
[00:09:03] Speaker C: the Decalogue, or the Law and the Commandments.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: But just like you or I could look to a document like the Declaration of Independence and ask, what are the underlying values here?
So Jesus is looking at the Commandments in his Sermon on the Mount and saying, let's not just stick to the very letter or the minimal approach to the law. Let's look at the values behind these laws, behind these foundational documents of our
[00:09:31] Speaker C: people, these laws where we sense the very call and claim of God.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: It's not enough, Jesus argues, simply to avoid committing the act of adultery. Let's Talk about the value behind the seventh commandment. And to get at this value, Jesus pinpoints the opposite.
We're in the midst of a sermon series right now on the seven deadly sins or vices. And in this series, we're trying to look at the opposite as well. What's lifted up as the virtue or good or alternative to that vice or sin.
And what Jesus is sometimes doing and does here is highlighting a vice or sin, like a sculptor who wants to hammer away at a stone so that by chipping at what doesn't belong, the sculptor might allow a glorious work of art that had been in his eye all the time or her eye to emerge a glorious work of art. Jesus points to what is a blessed alternative to sin and vice time and again with the term the kingdom of heaven in Matthew's Gospel, or the kingdom of God in Mark, or you might
[00:10:44] Speaker C: say the beloved community.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: It's crucial to know the wrong direction to chip away at that stone that doesn't belong in the piece. So you can better see what was intended by the artist, that work of art, according to Jesus in Matthew's Gospel,
[00:11:01] Speaker C: that is the kingdom of heaven.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: And what Jesus pinpoints as the problem, what he hopes to chip away at with his sculptor's hammer, can be summed
[00:11:11] Speaker C: up in a single word, lust.
Lust.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: In the original Greek, the word that's translated into English as lust is epithemao. And that word, epithemao can also be translated as covet in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament that was popular in Jesus day. When we get to the tenth commandment in Greek, when it says, thy shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, it is precisely this word, epithemao, that is used
[00:11:47] Speaker C: in Greek and translated covets.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: So you could refer to epithelmeo as
[00:11:55] Speaker C: lust or as covet.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: And in today's passage, it's like Jesus is connecting the seventh and tenth commandments, saying, don't just focus on the letter of the law and that. Imagine yourself as righteous. Simply if you avoid committing adultery, go deeper. Go to the heart, in your heart and ask, is there lust or epithelial or covetousness there?
Now, it's important to note here, Jesus is not critiquing sexual desire itself. That's not what he is referring to as epithelmeo. He's critiquing instead desires that violate bonds and commitments, desires that make the other merely an instrument or tool for our
[00:12:41] Speaker C: purposes and don't honor the other's full humanity.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: That humanity is realized in a web of human connections and commitments, like marriage. And it's in reference to adultery specifically that Jesus speaks of epithelmeo. That's the context. Read the Song of Songs if you want to see a book from Scripture that celebrates, even basks in human sexual
[00:13:07] Speaker C: desire and how that can be reached, realized in love.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: As we read the story of creation in Genesis, sexual desire seems part and
[00:13:17] Speaker C: parcel of the fullness, humanity, and of
[00:13:19] Speaker B: the goodness of God's created order. We wouldn't be here today, nor would we have families were it not for human sexual desire.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Praise God for that.
That is not episthenaos or lust, or coveting a neighbor's spouse.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Epithelmeo is looking to the other with
[00:13:41] Speaker C: a kind of blindness to their full
[00:13:44] Speaker B: humanity, blindness to bonds they and we
[00:13:47] Speaker C: have, blindness to all but our own wants and appetites.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: In Second Peter, this word epithemao is connected to the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. And if you read that story from Genesis 19, you'll note, of course, that the sin that's highlighted in that passage is not related to second sexual orientation
[00:14:10] Speaker C: as it has sometimes been interpreted in history.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about sexual assault, sexual predation by those in power, specifically the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, when strangers came to their town.
[00:14:27] Speaker C: Rather than offering these strangers hospitality and
[00:14:32] Speaker B: protecting the vulnerable, the people of Sodom, we read in Genesis 19 saw the sojourner, the stranger, the immigrant, as a tool for their appetites. And Second Peter argues that kind of
[00:14:44] Speaker C: blindness was marked by lust or epithel.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: That was the sin, a violation of hospitality and the bonds of community.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: It was a kind of willful blindness
[00:14:57] Speaker B: to the full humanity of the other,
[00:14:59] Speaker C: a neighbor we're called to love as ourselves. And turns out in that story of
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Coase, the sojourner or stranger or immigrant
[00:15:08] Speaker C: turned out to be angels.
As Hebrews will later write, show hospitality to strangers. In doing so, many have entertained angels unawares.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: But those in power in Sodom, we read, could not see that they were blind to it. They could only see what they wanted,
[00:15:27] Speaker C: not who the other truly was.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Well, the portrait Jesus paints in Matthew of the kingdom of heaven is one of rich relationship, where our full humanity is known in a web of loving, honoring relationships with one another, with the God who has called and claimed us, and with a good gift of God's creation. When humans violate those relationships, the ramifications we see in Scripture can be severe. And so Jesus warns against epithemia or Lust or the objectification of another with the most hyperbolic language, he says, if your right eye is what causes you to see the other as nothing more than a tool or object of your desires and blinds you to their equal
[00:16:15] Speaker C: humanity, cut that offending eye out.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Better that than suffering the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, who treated the stranger in their midst not with care and compassion, but pursued sexual assault instead.
If your right hand is what you use to mistreat your neighbor, to degrade
[00:16:34] Speaker C: or dehumanize them, cut it out, stop it, end it, cease.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Don't go down that path, for horrors await you and your neighbor when you
[00:16:47] Speaker C: don't see rightly that Jesus is certainly
[00:16:51] Speaker B: not counseling that people literally injure themselves.
Don't go and do that, please, and say your pastor told you to.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: But he is trying to make a
[00:17:03] Speaker B: point with the strongest language possible.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: Epithelial lust covetousness is serious business.
The full and equal humanity of our neighbor is serious business.
So much of literature has stories warning
[00:17:25] Speaker B: of the ramifications of lust, as if to say this is an issue human
[00:17:30] Speaker C: beings have wrestled with through time and space.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Think of the Iliad, that epic poem of ancient Greece told by Homer. That's the story of how a war begins when one man, Paris, sees another,
[00:17:44] Speaker C: Helen, with the eyes of epithelmeo.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: He sees her not in her full humanity, not as one with her own will and soul and bound to others in webs of relationship like marriage.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: Paris sees Helen as a prize for him.
This is a depiction of Paris seizing Helen by the wrist. And up in the middle, above, is
[00:18:10] Speaker B: meant to depict eros, or the erotic
[00:18:13] Speaker C: desire that pulls at Paris. That seizure will lead to a slew of dead bodies, the Iliad tells us
[00:18:24] Speaker B: in the Trojan War, a battle set
[00:18:26] Speaker C: off by the lust of Paris.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Better indeed would it have been, had
[00:18:31] Speaker C: Paris torn out an eye or cut off a hand, rather than lead nations to war.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Or think of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy's masterwork, Anna Karenina.
In that novel, Anna, a married woman, engages in what seems to be an exciting affair with the handsome Captain Vronsky.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: Here's a recent film depiction of the
[00:18:55] Speaker B: pair, and in Anna's pursuit of that affair, Anna betrays her friends, her family,
[00:19:00] Speaker C: her child, and the novel argues herself her own sense of self.
Lust can be a kind of blindness
[00:19:11] Speaker B: where we fail to see the full, full humanity in the other, in ourselves, and the web of community that connects
[00:19:17] Speaker C: us to each other and to our Creator.
The good news of the gospel is that sin, including that of lust or epithemao does not have the final word.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: God came to redeem a people in Christ and in him, in his death and resurrection. For us, we are freed from sin.
Once we were blind to our goodness, our value in God's eyes, blind to that goodness and value in the other, blind to our shared humanity and its goodness. But God healed blind eyes. God showed us our belovedness and invited us into a glorious web of relationships
[00:20:03] Speaker C: called the Kingdom of Heaven, where we
[00:20:06] Speaker B: and our neighbor can live out our full humanity, enjoy the goodness of the earth. God's gifted us all with and know the riches of God's love in Christ
[00:20:15] Speaker C: by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: To know Christ personally, to be his disciple, is to embrace the fullness of the human condition.
[00:20:25] Speaker C: Christ redeemed Christ fully God and fully human.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: And in him by faith we are made fully, gloriously human. We know untold riches of relationship with God, one another and this good earth. May we see that wondrous God beloved
[00:20:46] Speaker C: humanity in ourselves and in our neighbor, especially the most vulnerable.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: And if epithelmeo or lust threatens to blind us, if we see it emerging in our hearts, let's just cut it
[00:21:00] Speaker C: out and keep our eyes on Christ and the kingdom he brought near.
Madeleine l' Engle was a writer of
[00:21:11] Speaker B: fantasy, like the novel A Wrinkle in
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Time that I grew up with. But she was also keenly aware of how fantasy can blind us to who the other truly is and who the self is too.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: She was married to the actor Hugh
[00:21:29] Speaker C: Franklin for 40 years before he passed away from cancer. And I hear Madeleine Langle's Christian faith powerfully at work when she writes these words about seeing rightly in that moment of relationships, marriage.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Because you're not what I would have you be, Langle writes, I blind myself to who in truth you are Seeking mirage where desert blooms mar your you.
Ah, I would like to see past all delusion to reality. Then would I see God's image in
[00:22:09] Speaker C: your face, his hand, in yours and in your eyes his grace.
Because I'm not what I would have me be.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: I idolize two who are not any
[00:22:23] Speaker C: place not you, not me and so we never touch.
Reality would burn.
I do not like it much.
And yet in you, in me I find a trace of love which struggles to break through the hidden lovely truth of me, of you.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Friends, at this moment in time and
[00:22:52] Speaker C: history, may we have eyes to see the glorious God given humanity and belovedness of ourselves and others, who we and our neighbor really are.
In a short bit, we'll be celebrating Communion. And with that sacrament, we get a glimpse together of that broken but redeemed community we know in Christ. A foretaste of the kingdom of heaven.
May we taste it and may we see it.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.
