Hollowell  20[th] February 2011: 3[rd] Sunday before Lent
I was thinking the other day about what similarities there might be between those of us living today  and, say, an ancient Egyptian, an Inca, a coachman on the Dover mail in the 18[th] century or Red Indian.   Not much one might think.   
Yet  anger, depression,  happiness,  love,  fortitude,  betrayal, loyalty  etc.  all these human attributes seem to have been around for thousands of years. We know that from literature, or from painting even architecture in something like the Taj Mahal  -  a supreme  visual expression of love of a man for his wife.   
Yet in one important area we seem to be very different from our ancestors.  Our brains are fuller and as a result  we tend more and more to surf the net of life, flitting from thing to thing following fashion, switching channels cultivating a butterfly mind.   When he graduated from university it was said that Gladstone, the 19[th] century PM, knew all that there was to know.  Only half in jest.   
 Today quite impossible. 
We've lost the ability to concentrated, to focus.  We hear but don't listen very much.  Gladstone spoke for 4 hours when presenting his budget of 1860 and it was but the third longest speech he made.  Concentration span these days is short.  
I know I bang on a bit. When I get to eight minutes instead of the regulation 6, I can sense the concentration of my listeners ebbing away.   Not for us the hour glass that stood on the pulpit in the days of Oliver Cromwell when the congregation stood and cheered as the preacher tuned it upside down for further hour.  But they of course were not going back to their computers and TV screens. 
"What is this life if full of care.  We have no time to stand and stare".   So how am I  - briefly as I am reminded regularly  -  to do justice to our reading to day?
As you heard,  it came from St. Matthew's Gospel.   That is actually a very small book: but it has changed more lives, I dare say, than the Communist Manifesto, or the works of Freud   or  Darwin's  On the Origin of Species.   
It has shaped whole civilizations and some claim that it is not just a Gospel but The Gospel.  But we are bound to ask because we are born in a sceptical age into a world of papers and investigative journalism  -  Is it true? 
Did a virgin really conceive and give birth to a boy child in Bethlehem?   Did wise men, guided by a star  come to worship him?  Did he grow up to be able to walk on water, to perform miracles, found a church and rise from the dead? 
No :  we should not go there into pointless, arid, argument and  negativism.   Our educated, scientific, modern minds will surely decide that no one ever walked on water; that no virgin conceived and that corpses do not come to life. 
If we do enter into that pointless negativism, however, we reject one of the most extraordinary books ever written not, as we may think on intelligent, reasoned, grounds, but because you and I are hemmed in by our lack of imagination and too often do not see what St. Matthew is doing in this book. 
So before we apply so called rational  tests to what is described in this Gospel, the sort of things one would apply to say a newspaper article or a TV documentary, imagine the chapters of this little book that describe  the trial and crucifixion of Christ set to music in Bach's St. Matthew Passion for example.    
Consider the millions of people who in the last 2000 years have recited, as we did earlier, the prayer that begins "Our Father".     Think of the old women who in defiance of the KGB and Stalin  recited stubbornly  that verse from the Sermon on The Mount,  " Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted".
This is a Gospel of power and passion. It makes us think.   And today we have heard one of the most celebrated passages from the central part of that Gospel  -  an extract from the Sermon on the Mount.  
The message is arresting. An eye for an eye , and a tooth for a tooth.    Rather, turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile.   That way you have moral superiority, that eventually turns into mastery over one's opponent.
We've seen it in Egypt, where people came back time and time again in the face of harassment by the authorities; we are seeing it in Bahrain at present where the government has lost its moral authority in the face of peaceful protest.  And in a lesser way we saw David Cameron do it last week in the House of Commons. 
Question:  "Can you tell us whether you are happy with your flagship policy on forestry?" 
Answer:    "The short answer to that is 'no'." 
" You have heard it said : an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"  
Jesus  is reminding His readers of what they already know. This principle was the basis of much of  justice, and would immediately have been recognized by his audience.   It was put into place to restrain unlimited blood vengeance.  It limited what damages one could expect for a perceived injustice  to what was considered proportional, equal and fair. 
But what this idea often led to was a tit-for-tat kind of thinking that permeated all relationships. This attitude is certainly still pervasive today. 
We often work to keep things as even and equal as possible. Children begin very early to argue when they believe something is "not fair." If someone hurts us in some way, we are tempted to hurt them back.  Don't get mad, get even, as the Americans say  -  is a philosophy that is very pervasive.  
Suing is out of hand.   We want what we believe is our share,  and our leaders encourage this. We can also be concerned about keeping things even so that we are not beholden to others.  This is very common in Japan where everyone looks to avoid the imposition of obligations.  
 If one is given a gift of certain value, for instance, we will think through what action or gift would "equal" this present and so keep things even. Keeping and getting even directs so much of what we do.
What a restricting way to live! We are then tempted to decide how to act toward others according to how they act towards us. When we are wronged, our thoughts are focused on how to "get even."  We want them to pay for what they have done. This can become our one obsession. We see people today, consumed with a desire for revenge that is so deep, that this passion comes to define their whole purpose in life. Evil begets evil, and it becomes a perpetual course. 
"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" can help limit the evil of a retaliation, but there is no life in it. It can only keep things "even." It cannot bring joy, grace, or life into the relationship. To live by this mindset is to be bound within a cycle of reaction and action. It does not lead to freedom.
What Jesus is arguing here, it seems to me, is that we should in our relationships with one another put ourselves in the background and think more of others.   It's not an easy thing to do, running counter to so much of what we see and hear around us day-to-day.  Me, me, me. 
But Jesus makes it clear that we should not only deal with people who have something in common with us, our friends.  
" For if ye love them that love you what reward have you?  And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?  
What we have to do, then, is to get out there and show love towards people who do not necessarily love us, and more importantly probably do not expect us to love them  -  and perhaps have no love in their own lives.  
We may have the chance to do put this teaching into practice  in a modest way here in Hollowell in the next few weeks when the group from Community Payback comes to clear our brambles in  the churchyard and paint the Village Hall. 
No fun having florescent jacket advertising your bad behaviour.   This is not a "serve you right" exercise.    We can turn it into something good for them and for us, by taking an interest in their work, making them feel valued in society and thanking them for what they do  -  even if it is under compulsion. 
"Be ye therefore perfect even as your father in Heaven is perfect" is how the reading ends.  Well, that is tough challenge.  The moral of our gospel reading today it seems to me is not about virgins giving birth, Wise Men worshipping or bodies rising from the dead.   
It's about  seeking a perfect form of life here on earth within the Christian teachings.    We won't be able to be perfect.  But as someone once said " Even if we are in the gutter, we can still see the stars." 





 
