Category: News

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Hespeler, 12 February 2023 © Scott McAndless
Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 119:1-8, 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, Matthew 5:21-37 (Click to read this passage in both NRSV and GNT translations)

The passage that we read this morning from the Sermon on the Mount came from the Good News Bible. And I’m glad that it did because this passage, as it has been traditionally translated, has likely caused as much mental anguish as any passage in the Bible. I know that there was a time in my life when it caused me no end of feelings of guilt and grief. I suspect that I am not the only one.

In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is going through various laws and teachings from the Old Testament. He affirms these Old Testament laws, but then teaches his followers that he is expecting even more from them.

The Teaching on Adultery

And when he comes to the law concerning adultery, what he asks of his followers seems, at first glance, to be very extreme, at least the way it has usually been translated: “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.” I don’t think we’re quite sure what to do with the teaching like this.

Jesus is suggesting that we can commit the most heinous of sins merely by entertaining a stray thought in our minds. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always feel as if I’m in complete control over the thoughts that come into my mind.

Serious Thoughts

I mean, if I get mad or really upset, I might entertain, if only for a moment, the thought of doing something awful to someone. I wouldn’t do it of course. I’m sure that none of us would. But what Jesus seems to be saying with this commandment is that that doesn’t matter. It is enough to have merely had the thought. That is just as bad as doing whatever horrible thing crossed your mind.

And, just in case you didn’t think that Jesus was serious about this, he goes on to add: “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 then he says the same thing about your hand. So, just in case you didn’t get it before, Jesus is saying that this thought crime he is talking about is so serious that it will get you sent to hell, directly to hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

A Specific Kind of Thought

But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that the language as traditionally translated, leads us to assume that Jesus is talking about a very specific kind of thought that is going to get you sent you know where. And we all think that we know exactly what kind of thought he is referring to. I don’t think I need to spell it out for you! The idea of the wickedness of that kind of thought is something that is encoded deep into our culture.

A Natural Kind of Thought

And what is the problem with that? The problem with that is that the kinds of thoughts and desires that we associate with that word are actually built into our very humanity. I would go so far as to say that we have been created by God to have such thoughts and desires.

That doesn’t mean that all expressions of such thoughts are bound to be good. It certainly doesn’t mean that such desires can’t become twisted or misdirected. But to feel such things, is simply a part of being human. It is something that has been placed within us in order to help us to propagate the species, form strong bonds and is part of an expression of who we are.

It is also something that is generally felt more strongly by people in their youth. And so, what has often happened is that young people have read this saying of Jesus and have struggled with immense feelings of guilt and even self-hatred as a result.

Some Very Negative Results

This has sometimes led to self-destructive behavior. It is also led some to suppress natural and healthy feelings and thoughts in a way that has been very unhealthy to themselves and can sometimes lead to relationship problems down the road. As I say, I think that this passage has had a lot of negative impact.

So, I have got to ask. Is this really what Jesus intended for us to understand with this teaching? Did Jesus really want us constantly monitoring our thoughts and diverting our eyes away from anything that might send our thoughts in some dangerous direction? Did he really mean to say that self mutilation was somehow preferable to having the wrong thoughts? I believe that these are very important questions, and you deserve to have an answer to them.

The Old Testament Law

What Jesus is doing in this part of the Sermon on the Mount is making commentary on the Old Testament law. He is not doing this in order to critique the law, but in order to encourage people to follow it according to its deepest intention. And so, he introduces this part of the sermon by saying, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

Three of the Big Ten

The particular law he is talking about in this section is, of course, one of the big Ten Commandments, the one that says, “You shall not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14) That is important to realize because, when Jews like Jesus quoted a short passage from the Torah, they would have expected their listeners to have the verses that surrounded the one that they quoted in their minds.

And do note that immediately after the commandment against adultery in the Book of Exodus, the very next commandment goes like this: “You shall not steal.” And then, two commandments later, we have the final commandment that goes like this: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”

Aren’t They all Saying the Same Thing?

There is something odd about these three commandments. There is a sense in which they all three are saying the same thing. The commandment against adultery means you shouldn’t take someone else’s spouse. The commandment against stealing means you shouldn’t take someone else’s stuff. But then we get to the “thou shalt not covet” commandment and, all of a sudden, we seem to be going over the same ground, don’t we?

Except now, instead of saying that you shouldn’t take your neighbours’ stuff, it is saying that you shouldn’t even want to take your neighbour’s stuff. And, since your neighbour’s wife is also included in the list of your neighbour’s stuff (which I know is problematic, but we’ll come back to that), this commandment also seems to cover the prohibition against adultery.

How you Obtain Other People’s Stuff

So, what is going on here? Are not all of these commandments in a sense saying the same thing? Well, not exactly. According to the Hebrew way of thinking, stealing somebody else’s things was bad, but stealing was not the only bad way of getting what properly belonged to someone else.

The Bible also teaches that if you get your neighbour’s property by doing things that we would consider perfectly legal, like lending them money, charging them excessive interest and seizing their property when they couldn’t pay, that was pretty much just as bad. It was also problematic if you managed to amass profits to yourself by taking away from others what they needed.

And so, the commandment against coveting was meant to address all of the ways in which people sought to take what other people needed to live. So, while stealing and committing adultery were really bad, the root of the problem was coveting. The root of the problem was greed and desiring what other people had that they needed.

The Word Translated as Lust

Okay, so why does that matter? It matters because Jesus jumps directly from talking about adultery to looking at somebody with a certain kind of desire. But the word that is translated there is actually the same word that is used to translate the word covet in the Ten Commandments. Jesus is actually making an explicit reference to the tenth commandment.

So, what Jesus is actually saying here is not that we need to be fearful of having certain thoughts, and that any such thoughts will immediately condemn us to hell. He is actually inviting us to shift our focus instead to the commandment against coveting. To put it another way, of course stealing and committing adultery are bad, but let’s not just focus on how we take other people’s stuff, lets focus on why we want what other people need.

The Real Problem

And the problem with why we want what other people need does not have to do with it being motivated by a certain kind of desire, at least not as that has been generally understood in western culture. It is actually about the way you treat things that other people need. It is about not being greedy when you deal with other people. That means, not robbing them by illegal means, of course, but it also means not seeking to take from them through unsavory or unethical business practices. It is about treating people properly by respecting what they need to thrive in life.

Treating Women Like Objects

Ah, but there is one other issue in all of this that we struggle with as modern people. The Old Testament law against coveting, as I mentioned before, assumes a woman is a mere object. The law lists, among your neighbour’s possessions, your neighbour’s wife. That certainly does not mean that women actually are merely objects. Of course not! It’s just that this law was written within a society where women were seen that way. And even divine laws like the Ten Commandments were filtered through the cultural understandings of the people who received them and used them.

But is Jesus saying anything about all of that when he points us to this commandment about coveting? I believe he is. The laws against adultery both in Old Testament times and in Jesus’ times were based on patriarchal assumptions. That is to say, they assumed that your neighbour’s wife was part of your neighbour’s property. The law had to be formulated according to the assumptions of the society, otherwise it would have made no sense to people. And so, adultery was considered to be a property crime.

Jesus Comments on the Assumption

But notice what Jesus does with that. When he says that you ought not to look at a woman with a covetous attitude – because that is what he is saying – he is in effect saying that it is wrong to look at a woman as a piece of property.

Now isn’t that interesting! And when we come to read it that way, we realize that what Jesus is really concerned about is not that we might entertain, however fleetingly, certain thoughts or ideas that are actually a part of the way in which we have been constructed to operate.

Jesus Ultimate Concern

No, what Jesus is ultimately concerned about is how we treat women, how we treat people. He wants to make sure that we do not treat people like mere objects. He is concerned that we deal with them as persons who have their own thoughts, needs and concerns. I would even say that there is, in this teaching, an implied criticism of the patriarchal society that Jesus lived in and the way that it operated.

So, what do we do with this passage of scripture that has caused so much misery for those who have strived to be the people that Jesus has called us to be? I think, first of all, that we can all relax a little. It was never the intent of Jesus for you to live in constant fear of the things that you might think. Jesus never taught you to be afraid of what you might see or how you might look at something or someone.

How you Treat People

No, Jesus was much more concerned with how you see people. If you are a man, do you see women, as possessions to be used and manipulated? Or do you respect them for the people God created them to be? And of course, that doesn’t just apply to women but anyone because it has always been so easy to fall into that habit of treating people like objects.

The notion that this is all about thinking the wrong way or looking at things in an unacceptable way has actually prevented us from dealing with the real challenges that face us, living with full respect for all of the people that we meet.

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Hespeler, 29 January 2023 © Scott McAndless
Micah 6:1-8, Psalm 15, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, Matthew 5:1-12

In 1966, the American Bible Society published a book that would transform many people’s understanding of the Bible. That book was called “Good News for Modern Man,” and it was a translation of the entire New Testament into modern, everyday English. Despite what would be a rather problematic title today (What, is there no good news for modern women?), the translation was a tremendous success. Actually I would hold out that success as an important lesson on how much the English language has actually changed since it was first published.

Ten years later, the entire Bible was published under a better title, The Good News Bible. And the American Bible Society never looked back. Ever since their translation has remained one of the best loved and most widely used, though today it is often referred to as “Today’s English Version.” It is the translation that is used in our Sunday School and for the readings that are pre-recorded for our worship services. Joanne read from it today.

Copies in the Church

I know all of that publication history because the church that I grew up in had purchased several copies of Good News for Modern Man and, when the Good News Bible came out, they bought enough copies to place them in all of the pews.

And I remember that – oh boy, do I remember that! I remember that because, though I was just a kid, I happened to be in the room when a bunch of adults were discussing the new Bibles. They were not impressed!

An Overhead Discussion

And I remember exactly what they were talking about. They were talking about the very passage that we read this morning – the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. You know what they were upset about? They were upset about the very first word.

The translations that everyone had grown up with up until that point (both the King James and the Revised Standard Versions) had translated it like this: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But, the man who was talking complained, the Good News Bible had had the unmitigated gall to translate it like this: “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the kingdom of heaven belongs to them!”

“Happy? Happy??” he cried, “that just has to be wrong. It doesn’t make any sense. It says, “the poor in spirit” (yes, he was still stuck in the old translation), and what does “poor in spirit” mean except that people are unhappy! So, it is just plain wrong because that would mean, “Happy are the unhappy!”

The Impression it Made

That diatribe made an impression on me and stayed with me. It is actually probably one of those formative events that birthed in me a deep desire to understand the Bible and what it is really saying. That is, of course one of the things that led me to seminary and to the kind of work that I do now.

In the course of my studies, I had the wonderful opportunity to learn some New Testament Greek. And, while I wouldn’t say that I am an expert, I did learn to read the original Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew for myself.

And so, if I were able to time travel back to that room where that discussion was taking place in the late 1970s, I could actually say something intelligent about that criticism of the Good News Bible. And do you know what I would have to say? I would have to say that, actually, “happy” is a perfectly good translation of the original Greek word into contemporary English.

Why Blessed may not be Best

The word in the gospel refers to people who are in a contented and fortunate state. Even more importantly, it was an ordinary everyday word. It was the word you would have used to describe anyone who was enjoying some good fortune. It would have been how you wished them a happy birthday or congratulated them on the birth of their child.

And here’s the problem, blessed is not an everyday English word. It is a special word that is normally reserved for religious situations or experiences. So, yes, happy is a good translation and probably better than blessed.

A Better Translation

But do you know what? There is actually a translation that might have been even better. But I suspect that the translators of the Good News Bible were a little afraid to use it. It would have been a little bit too much for those old men in the church where I grew up, but I’ll bet they considered it. A better translation might have been “congratulations.”

Oh, can you imagine how that would have gone over among those righteous religious folks of the late seventies? I can hear them now! “Congratulations? Congratulations! Now that’s just not right. How could Jesus possibly have said something like, ‘Congratulations you who are poor in spirit. Congratulations you who mourn, and you who are meek and you who suffer for doing the right thing’? Those are simply not things that anyone would congratulate anyone for. That’s just a bad translation.”

It Doesn’t Make Sense

And you know what? They would be right about one thing. Not that it is a bad translation, but that it doesn’t actually make any sense. No one would say something like that. But here is the thing: Jesus did. Jesus looked out across that crowd that had gathered at the top of the mountain and he literally congratulated all of those people that he saw who were weeping and mourning, who were poor, who had been abused and mistreated for no good reason. They were all present and he congratulated them all. That is what he was saying.

And the people who were standing in the crowd listening to him actually reacted much like those men in my church did. They were all looking at each other and asking, “Did that guy really just say what I thought he said? Is he really standing up there congratulating people for being poor, hungry, meek and persecuted? That just doesn’t make any sense!” You see, that is exactly the reaction that Jesus was trying to provoke when he said it.

Using Special Churchy Language

This is one of the problems that we have with many of our Bible translations. It is not that they aren’t accurate translations. Most modern translations are really good. It’s just that they often resort to special churchy language that seems to be so far removed from the lives that people are living day by day. But Jesus and the disciples never spoke like that. They always used real everyday language.

When Jesus spoke to the crowds, he was not trying to make them feel special spiritual feelings. He was not trying to elevate them so far into a heavenly plane that they were no earthly use. He was intentionally provoking them, pushing their buttons, as a way of getting them to look at everything in their lives from a completely different point of view.

Struggling with that First Word`

So, if you really want to understand what it would have been like to stand there on that mountain and listen firsthand to that most famous sermon ever given, you probably shouldn’t start by trying to figure out what by “the poor in spirit.” You shouldn’t start by asking when he said “blessed are the cheesemakers,” whether he intended for people to take that literally or “it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.” (I’m sorry, I simply cannot do a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount without can at least one Monty Python reference.)

No, understanding the Sermon on the Mount starts with understanding the very first word – the word that is traditionally translated as “blessed” but that I’m suggesting we ought to translate as “congratulations.” You need to understand what Jesus is doing when he says that to you, because Jesus is saying it to you. That is the point.

Congratulations!

Jesus is looking at the very thing that you are struggling with right now. Are you tired this morning because you have just been working too hard? Jesus is looking at you and saying, “Congratulations!” Are you worried, maybe crippled with anxiety because you’re not quite sure how you’re going to pay the bills this month? Congratulations! Are you worried about your health? Congratulations! Grieving someone you’ve lost? Congratulations! Are you just so upset because there’s somebody who hasn’t treated you right? Congratulations!

Are you feeling any of those things or can you imagine going through such trials and somebody comes up to you and says, “congratulations”? Can you imagine how confused or maybe how mad you would feel towards someone who said such a thing as that to you? Well, that was exactly the kind of reaction that Jesus was trying to provoke with his beatitudes. And unfortunately, the saintly and religious language we use in our translations have hidden that provocation from us for many years.

The Reaction Jesus is Looking for

Jesus wants you to be confused and maybe even mad when you hear these things, but that is only the beginning of the reaction he is looking for. What he’s really aiming to do is to shock you into looking at all of those kinds of circumstances in your life in a very new way.

After you get over the initial confusion, Jesus is actually challenging you to look at the circumstances in your life that you are inclined to regret or even complain about. He wants to force you to ask yourself the question, “What, in this, could I possibly be congratulated for?”

Not Mere Optimism

Please understand that I don’t mean by that that you should just try to look on the bright side of the bad things in your life. Even more important, I’m not saying that you ought to just put up with the bad or evil things in your life.  There are far too many stories of people who put up with terrible things like abuse in the pursuit of spiritual goals. Jesus never called for that. He never said to be happy about being poor or hungry or persecuted. But he did congratulate the people who didn’t need to face those things alone because the kingdom of heaven had come for them.

What he is really doing here is challenging you to look at where God is at work in the things that are afflicting you. When for example, he congratulates you who are mourning, he is definitely not saying that grief itself is wonderful; of course it isn’t. He is saying that, if you are open to it, you will receive divine comfort in your grief. And that is something truly valuable.

An Opportunity to See God Work

And even when Jesus speaks of those who are being abused and mistreated for doing the right thing and not doing anything wrong, of course he is not saying that there is anything good about being in that situation. But I suspect that he is congratulating people for the opportunity they will see to trust in God as they speak out against the abuse, for example, or as they call out for change in systems that allow abuse to happen. The congratulations are for the fact that we can see God at work when we step out in faith and work for the kingdom of God in this world.

So, take a good look at the things that you do struggle with. Listen for Jesus’ congratulations and let that set you off on a quest to find how you can see God at work in and through the difficult things you face in your life.

Another Application

I do recognize that this can often be difficult to see when you are in the midst of such very personal trials. So let me suggest another application of this teaching of Jesus that is a little less personal but perhaps more powerful. We are in the middle of a process that involves, among other things, taking a good look at some of the challenges that the church and that this congregation face at this particular moment of difficult change.

And I know that, as we look at this, there’s a lot that feels very hard. We feel fearful about the future, and we feel immense grief and sadness for some of the things that we feel that we have lost in the church. Of course, these are not easy things to deal with.

But I would just challenge you with one thought today. What if Jesus is looking at all of us and all of these difficult thoughts and feelings we are struggling with and saying congratulations? Jesus is saying congratulations, but not because Jesus doesn’t understand how difficult this might all feel for us, but because he understands how exciting it is to be a part of the beginning of God doing something entirely new. And when you begin to capture the excitement of that, you will start to discover the true nature of the kingdom of heaven.

For everyone who wants to learn a bit more.