Jesus is a weakling
You don’t hear much about the Sermon on the Mount these days, and Jesus’ admonitions not to resist an evil person, pray for your enemies, etc. aren’t at the front of Conservative Christian thought, at least not in America. There is a fair amount of attention paid to gender issues and “traditional” morals.
But when it comes to the teaching of Jesus–the stuff he actually stressed while he was on Earth–most of it is treated as idealistic and frankly, not something anyone is actually supposed to go and do. Are you worried that it really is more likely that a camel could make it through the eye of a needle than a rich person could make it into heaven? I don’t think you are. And I don’t think that you and I feel we need to give to anyone who asks, or let our opponents hit us twice (the ‘turn the other cheek’ thing). Many times it seems smarter to hit the opponent first, and certainly we would be fools to deliberately let him take another shot.
The Sermon on the Mount and the verses that follow it are clear, but they are radical and against our basic natures. They aren’t practical. We treat them the same way we treat Jesus’ comment that you should cut off your hand if it causes you to sin. It’s hyperbole, a metaphor.
Okay, throwing away your eyeball/cutting off your hand is deliberately extreme, in order to make a point, but the message of Chapter 5 in the Gospel according to Matthew is not. It is a prescription for the way God’s people should live on Earth. And it is achievable–but only when we acknowledge that the Kingdom of God is “at hand”–it is here and readily available.
Jesus comes across as a weakling because he has all the power in the world–power that is available to those who enter this Kingdom. If he was some random itinerant preacher making these statements, he is a fool. If he is God, then he can back them up. That’s why he can instruct us to be overly generous, submissive and non-confrontational. That’s what life in the Kingdom is like when an all-powerful ruler is in charge and his people can feel free to be kind, generous and accepting.
A certain brand of Christianity ignores these words. Many people want a muscular brand of religion and a warrior messiah. Maybe they like the imagery of Revelation–but that book doesn’t pertain to how we are supposed to live our lives in the here-and-now. Jesus gave us the prescription, and we can trust him that if we actually behave as he instructed us to behave, not only do we have a place in heaven, but he will be with us as we live our lives as he clearly told us to.
petermaize 