I Can’t Do What Jesus Says

I’m writing you in May and, next Sunday, I’m preaching at my home church.

I didn’t pick the text. My pastor assigned it as a part of his series on the Sermon on the Mount. And he gave me Matthew 5:21-26, where Jesus is teaching on anger. I love my pastor, but I do wonder if, in his pastoral concern for me, he assigned the text, hoping to fix me. I know, I know. That’s paranoid, but just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean my pastor is above that.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about anger. I was forced to do that, and frankly, it made me angry. Not really, but I would rather focus on subjects other than anger.

Jesus references three kinds of anger in Matthew 5:22: seething anger, spitting anger, and sarcastic anger. Jesus prefaces that teaching with, “You have heard it said that you shall not murder . . . but I say to you if you’re angry, you’re in danger of hell.” Whoa! 

The most salient thing I learned from that text is that I can’t do what Jesus says I should do. And it’s not just that text; it’s the Sermon on the Mount, the laws of Scripture, and almost all the proverbs. It’s not that I don’t want to do it, but I’ve tried, and I’m just not good at it. So, why would Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount tell us to do what he knew we couldn’t do? 

The Barna Group, a Christian polling firm in California, does the same thing. The difference is that they really think we can and should do what their polling discovered we’re not doing. For instance, the Barna Group found that only a minority (39%) of Christians are engaged in discipling others or are even a part of a church that practices discipleship. The Barna Group suggests that reflects a lot of things we ought to be doing but aren’t, like living a life of faith, being concerned with biblical standards, being obedient, being crucified with Christ and dying to self, fostering a biblical worldview and relationships . . . and it goes on and on. 

I like the Barna group and their mission, but I like Jesus better. The Barna folks (and a lot of other Christians, me included sometimes) expect and ask Christians to be better. Jesus knows we won’t, and there’s a “method in his madness.”

Do you know what that is? It’s his effort to force us to see how helpless and sinful we are and, thereby, to bring us to the end of ourselves. And why would he do that? Because he wants to do some truly amazing things through us, but he hardly ever uses good, self-righteous, and obedient people to do so.

If you read the Sermon on the Mount, including my text for next Sunday, you’ll note that Jesus takes the law of God and notches it up so much that it makes us wince: “You have heard, but I say to you . . .” Then the writer of the law himself (that would be Jesus, like a professor teaching from a textbook he wrote) points to what the law really means.

For instance, he says that you shouldn’t commit adultery, but lust smells the same. He says you should love your neighbor, but loving your enemies is even more important. He says it’s nice to be civil, but when someone hits you on the cheek, you should turn the other cheek, and if forced to go one mile, you should go two. He says divorce is wrong but that it’s also adultery. He says you should be generous and fast but not tell anyone you’re doing either. He says murder is wrong, but it’s not that different from being angry. And then, to make it far worse, he says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Pretty soon, unless we’re oblivious to what Jesus is doing, we cry out with the tax collector who prayed in the temple, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

That’s when the angels shout out, “He’s got it!” “By God, she’s got it!” “They finally understand!” And then, “We thought they never would!”

Of course, there is a price to pay when we get it, and it’s not what we think. First, we lose the pleasure of being self-righteous . . . and there is a perverse pleasure in self-righteousness.  

I talked to my friend, Tony Campolo, last week. (As you may or may not know, he and Peggy are going through some rough waters after he had a stroke a few years ago. If you think of it, say a prayer for them.) Tony said to me that we were good for each other because “I keep you from being a fascist, and you keep me from being a communist.” We both laughed because we knew the truth that, while we disagree on almost everything but Jesus, we help each other be better than we know we are, and we are both amazed that we are. Not only that, our friends are amazed, too.

When you understand what Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount, you not only have to give up self-righteousness, you have to ditch bragging rights, too.

Speaking of Tony, some years ago, Tony got off a train in Philadelphia and was mugged on the platform. As he took Tony’s wallet, the robber asked him what he did for a living. “I’m a Baptist preacher,” Tony answered. “No kidding,” the mugger said, “I’m a Baptist, too!”

Paul said, “ For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). The Bible doesn’t say so, but I think that amazement is one of the gifts of the Spirit.

And then there is one other thing we have to give up when we get what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount. We have to give up control. Jesus said (also a part of the Sermon on the Mount) that no matter what we do, we aren’t able to fix hardly anything: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them . . . And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:26-27).

Someone sent me a story of a small community where the places of worship experienced a horrible squirrel infestation. The religious leaders got together to discuss what to do. The Presbyterians prayed about it and decided that the squirrels were an act of a sovereign God and should be left alone. The Baptists noticed that the squirrels were fascinated by the baptistry and installed a water slide to drown them until they found out that squirrels could swim and invited their friends. The Episcopalians put out dishes of whisky to poison them with alcohol but discovered the damage a bunch of drunk squirrels could do. The Lutherans decided that the squirrels were God’s creatures and should be encouraged. The Catholic priest said he baptized the squirrels but never saw them except on Christmas and Easter. The rabbi said he had solved the problem: “I circumcised the first squirrel and never saw another one after that.”

Sorry.

Actually, you can’t control squirrels or people. Once you realize that you can’t control yourself, you mostly give up trying to control others, too. If we can’t fix or control ourselves, it’s a good bet that we can’t control others, either. That’s God’s business and way above our pay grade.

The church doesn’t exist to show the world how redeemed people do it right. The church showcases how sinners (former, present, and future sinners) change the world. When I hear criticism of the church—and I do a lot—I’m not offended. I’m surprised that God is reaching out to and loving very unlovable people, feeding very hungry people, giving water to very thirsty people, forgiving very sinful people . . . and doing all that through people who aren’t good enough, qualified enough, or know enough.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. If my pastor thought he was either going to fix me or use me as an example of an angry man, it was too late. Jesus is already working on both of those. Not only that, but I’m far less angry than I used to be. Some of that has to do with age, but a lot of it is Jesus. Until I started working on next Sunday’s sermon and wrote this letter to you, I hadn’t noticed it much.

That’s because I stopped trying to restrain my anger and started looking at Jesus.

That does wonders we never expect.

He asked me to remind you.