Turn the Other Cheek

Turn the Other Cheek

Feb 23/2014       Matthew 5: 38-41

The hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life time is parenting – nurturing, loving and disciplining my children in the hopes that they will grow up to happy, healthy, and productive members of society – sometimes it feels like I know what I am doing and things go reasonably well but often it feels like a crap shoot – where you roll the dice and hope the choice that you have made to deal with one of their issues is the right one and you are not going to screw up your children so that they will need years of therapy after they are grown up. 

My most challenging child so far– and he know this so I am not sharing any family secrets here – it’s my middle son Foster – He was an easy baby – loved the bath, liked to cuddle, and slept through the night really early – but after he turned one and began to walk things began to change – first it was his need to go bolting away from me at break neck speeds off into parking lots and across busy streets – then we began to notice that he really did not interact with his peers – when we would be at play groups Foster would be in the sand box while all the other kids rode the tricycles – and when the other kids would be in the sandbox, Foster would be on the tricycle.  By the time he reached school – we knew that there was something different about my son but it was hard to put your finger on just what – so he struggled and we struggled to find some way to help him cope and adjust to school.  It was not only at school either – his struggling with his peers crept into beavers and hockey and swimming – pretty much any area that required participating in a group.  A child who does not fit in is a target – a target for other kids to pick on and picked on was something that Foster experienced many many times throughout his school years.  

The very worst time for Foster coincided with my very worst time of my life as well – he was 14 , and his father and I had just separated, I had to find new employment and so within a very short time line I accepted a appointment to a new church and my sons and I moved the second week of September.  This was the year Foster started grade 9 – and as an outsider and a kid who did not know how to handle social situations – it was a disaster waiting to happen.  Right from the get go – Foster was targeted – on the bus, in the halls, in the classroom.  He would come home from school with his clothes torn – food on his coat (they would throw food at him from the bus as he walked down the street)  and stories of persecution.  I spent a lot of time on the phone with the school and in the principal’s office trying to figure out how to make Foster’s year better for him.  The worst of the perpetrators was a boy named Max – he lived in the same small town we did so Foster was unable to escape him even on the weekends.  Max looked like a bully – he was a big boy who outweighed Foster by about 50 lbs, he used to wear those slouchy jean that fall of the kids backside –and a hoodie that he kept pulled low over his head.  He often had a sullen look on his face , everything about his appearance said he was mean.   Foster hated him – he could not and would not see anything in Max that was good – and as a mother who was trying to teach my children how to forgive, how to care for and to relate well to others, how to live compassion instead of vengeance, how to live love instead of hate– this boy Max was Foster’s undoing.

Once, however in the midst of the bullying that my son Foster was experiencing, I was outside raking leaves – and piling them up and putting them into bags.  My sons were in the house – ignoring what I was doing hoping I think that I would forget that they were there so that they would not be asked to help.  As I was working on this beautiful fall day – Max walked by – I knew who he was and I knew how tormenting he was to my son, he turned and asked if I wanted help – flabbergasted I said sure and handed him a rake.  For the next half an hour he helped me rake and bag leaves – and then when the lawn was clear – said goodbye and sauntered off.  I just witnessed something in Max that I never expected, and the longer we lived in the community, the more I learned about Max and his situation – the more this bully’s face became human – he was the child of a father that was a known wife and child beater – the rumour mill talked of incidents where Max was poorly treated by his father – and his mother was unable to protect him. 

We don’t always know why people do what they do and what trauma’s they have experienced in their lives that cause then to act out in meanness towards others – I would love to be able to tell you that Foster and Max were able to get by their conflict together and are now the best of friends – but that is not what happened – what happened is that the more Foster got to understand that Max’s life was a struggle – the more understanding came and the less hate Foster had for Max – and now when they pass each other on the street because they both live in Owen Sound – they can nod politely at each – say ‘hey’ other and carry on in their separate lives.

Turn the other cheek –says Jesus – give your cloak - walk the second mile – hard stuff – it is something that feels impossible when you are Foster and you have been bullied so often – but that is exactly what we are called to do –and it is to us that Jesus is talking to this morning.

We are still on the same mountain we have been on for the last three weeks – we are still listening to the same dialogue that Jesus is sharing with his disciples and the crowds – remember the words that Jesus began with – blessings of the poor, the meek, those who seek righteousness – not the usual people you think of when you hear the word blessed – and then he reminds the people who are listening about who they are and their relationship with the God – You are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth – we carry the God light within and are commissioned to shine this God light back to the world and then we get to this part of the discourse – these antithesis – is what the scholars call them – the ‘You have heard it said – but I say to you’ speech that we heard the beginning of last week and hear the rest of them today -  you have heard it said “an eye for an eye” – but I tell you this – turn the other cheek, give you other cloak, walk the second mile…, if you are anything like me – this is really hard stuff – really radical stuff that Jesus is talking about.  We as humans often when feeling persecuted, victimized, oppressed, or misunderstood – respond by retaliating, seeking revenge, plotting distruction, running away or curling up in a ball and ignore all the feelings of hurt and disappointment.  

But here Jesus is saying, there is another way. Not repaying violence with violence, not cowering in submission, but responding without violence, by acting in a different way – by choosing a different way of responding – turning the other cheek, walking the second mile, sharing you other cloak – by forgiveness of those who trespass against us.

(Slide One/Two)

In Great Britian there is a remarkable organization called the Forgiveness Project – you can read on the screen what they are all about – in a nut shell they are about helping people choose to forgive those that trespass against them – and freeing themselves of anger and a need for retribution and the pain that lingers  from not forgiving another who has hurt you.  I would like to share a few stories from some of the people who have learned the value of forgiveness.

(Slide Three) Meet Julie Chimes

In 1986 Julie Chimes let an acquaintance wait in her cottage for her boyfriend who was a doctor to get home.  The acquaintance was schizophrenic and recently had taken herself of her medication She attacked Julie with a kitchen knife in a mission to save the world in the name of Jesus.
Julie was saved because she managed to get out of the house and passerby were able to disarm the assailant and call for an ambulance. 
Julie says:  “I have learnt that this inner place of forgiveness and peace is available to everyone, everywhere and in any circumstance. I now know when there is understanding there can be compassion. When compassion arises there can be forgiveness. Where there is forgiveness there is peace.”

(Slide Four) Meet Tom Tate

In March 1945, airman Tom Tate was on special duties over Germany when his plane was hit by fire. The crew bailed out. Seven of them were captured a few hours later near the village of Huchenfeld, close to the town of Pforzheim. A month earlier Pforzheim had been destroyed in a massive RAF bombing raid killing 18,000 people. Revenge was in the air. The British airmen were dragged to a nearby cemetery to be executed by a group of Hitler Youth. Only Tom and one other crewmember escaped.
Tom was caught the next day and placed in a prisoner of war camp.  The perpetrators of the crime were tried at the War Crimes trials in Essen the following year, and the ringleaders were sentenced to death.
Tom says:  “I had no compassion. I despised them and said to my wife that I was never going back to Germany.”
But then, 50 years later, Tom read in a magazine about a village that asked for forgiveness – it was Huchenfeld.  They were holding a ceremony Tom did not attend but went to the community the following week.  These his words about his reception in the town:
“I arrived the following week I was given such an enthusiastic welcome. It was clear I had become a symbol of reconciliation. I was greeted by so many people, all of whom wanted to shake my hand. Guilt had hung over the village for years, but by going there it somehow changed things for them. I was so welcomed, and so well looked after.  When someone comes with arms open to embrace you, you can’t feel enmity any more. The act of friendship invites forgiveness.”

(slide five) Meet Bud Welch

In April 1995, Bud Welch’s 23-year-old daughter, Julie Marie, was killed in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Unable to deal with the pain of Julie’s death, he started self-medicating with alcohol until eventually the hangovers were lasting all day. Then, on a cold day in January 1996, I came to the bombsight – as I did every day – and I looked across the wasteland where the Murrah Building once stood. My head was splitting from drinking the night before and I thought, “I have to do something different, because what I’m doing isn’t working.”
About a year before the execution I found it in my heart to forgive Tim McVeigh. It was a release for me rather than for him.

(slide six)  Meet Andrew Rice

Andrew’s brother David was killed in the World Trade Centre. Andrew is a member of Peaceful Tomorrows, a group founded by family members of September 11 victims seeking effective non-violent responses to terrorism.
They were contacted by the mother of the alleged 20th hijacker, Zacharias Moussaoui.  She wanted to meet some of the families of the victims and ask for their forgiveness.
A small group of us agreed to meet Madame al-Wafi in New York City in November 2002. Andrew shares his experience:  “As we waited in a private university building, a mother whose son was killed in the World Trade Centre went down the hall to meet her. We heard footsteps, then silence. Then we heard this sobbing. Finally they both came into the room, both mothers with their arms around each other. By now we were all crying. Madame al-Wafi reminded me a lot of my own mother, who had cried so much after David died. She spent three hours with us and told us how the extremist group had given her mentally ill son a purpose in life.” 

(slide eight) and Penny Beernsten  reminds us that forgiveness is equally as hard when you need to forgive yourself

 (slide nine)  Desmond Tutu
“To forgive” says Desmond Tutu: “is not just to be altruistic, it is the best form or self interest”

(Slide 10 and leave it here until the end of the sermon)
And Jesus sits on a hill and talks to the people – at their level, to their hearts – speaks to them of things that matter.  It may not be what the people want to hear – it may not be comforting words or even soothing words – but they are true words – words and thoughts about how the world should be when God’s kingdom comes – words and thoughts about how people should treat each other, and care for each other and let go of stuff such as vengeance and anger and malice and retribution.

We know that each and every one of us at some point in our life time will be at that place where someone will

·       hurt us

·       slander us

·       abuse us

·       neglect us

·       torment us

·       bully us

·       lie about us

·       betray us

·       cheat us

·       or cheat on us

We know that for each of us there will come a time when we need to be able to forgive.  And we have a choice – to get the eye for an eye – to seek revenge, strive for retribution – or knock out a tooth for the tooth knocked out, and pursue payback –it is the message our world give us - but God wants something different from us – God wants love and concern and caring and valuing of each other and not vengeance and anger and retaliation.

God wants us to forgive the sins of others as our sins have been forgiven us.  To turn the other cheek, to share the extra cloak, to walk the second mile, to forgive those that trespass against us.  And as we are in relationship with one another and with God, we can know that there is something beautiful to be found in the process when love and justice work to restore brokenness, seek forgiveness, and strive for reconciliation. God’s kingdom comes and God’s will is done.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.