Sermon: Gehenna and the Kingdom

Matthew 5:21-37

A member of this congregation once told a story that’s endearing and powerful at the same time. She knew a teacher who lived in Colorado. The teacher taught 4th grade, and she had just finished a unit on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. How many of you have read that book? It’s a classic children’s book by C.S. Lewis - the most popular and well-known one in his Narnia series. Lewis wrote a series of seven books about a mythical land called Narnia, and the books that have become famous as allegories for the Christian life. The teacher had just finished the unit on the book, and the kids loved it. And to top it off, the movie of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was just coming out. So now it was time to give the kids a chance to enter the story for themselves. . .

The 4th grade teacher created a world for her young students. She found a refrigerator box and decorated it to look like a wardrobe. She was setting up the scene for Narnia. She placed the “wardrobe” in a classroom that was connected to the school library. When the children arrived, she told them that she had a surprise for them: “I’m going to take you to Narnia today,” she said. She took them from their classroom, down the hallway, through the library, and into the adjoining room which would become their world for a while. It was empty, except for that special box.

Little by little, a few kids at a time entered that cardboard wardrobe, and they were transformed. It didn’t take long for them to lose themselves in their wonderful world of play. Now they were Lucy and Peter and centaurs and elves. . .

It didn’t take long for the world of play to become fully alive, and along with fully alive, it became fully loud too! The librarian was next door and was gradually becoming more and more irritated at the noise. Eventually, she couldn’t take it any more. She marched into that room and disciplined the kids. “The noise level in this room is inappropriate! I want it quiet in here! Don’t you know where you are?!?”

She was looking for the obvious answer. She wanted to hear, “We’re in a library,” and obviously libraries are meant to be quiet places. But instead, a sweet 4th grade girl, poked her head around the refrigerator-box-turned-wardrobe and innocently replied, “We’re in Narnia.”

It was so matter of fact. We’re in Narnia! Of course, we’re going to act differently! Of course, we’re going to feel differently! Of course, we’re going to play differently! Narnia – this is a different world – a world of dreams, and myths, and joys, and transformation. And that world – Narnia - was breaking into their world – into a simple library. These kids were in a refrigerator box. But they were also in Narnia.

And as we study the Sermon on the Mount this semester, we have an opportunity to enter a world too. And we won’t be leaving this world to get there. In fact, we’ll be entering this world more deeply – more richly. We’ll sit at Jesus’ feet on that holy mountain, listening to him, and we’ll learn that God’s kingdom is continuously breaking into this world – right here! And we’ll live differently as a result. Some may begin to ask us, “Don’t you know where you are?!?” And from this church and those classrooms and those dorm halls and those streets surrounding this campus, we will peek around and joyfully proclaim with our very lives, “We’re in the Kingdom of God!”

And maybe that framework will help us enter this scripture passage tonight. As Jesus continues in this Sermon on the Mount, he shows us that he’s not talking about another world “out there somewhere,” but he’s talking about this reality. His feet are firmly planted on the ground; he’s living fully in this world – in this world where he teaches that a Kingdom reality is breaking forth, calling us to live differently.

He’s living fully in his context. And this may seem obvious, but it’s an important and wonderful thing to mention: Jesus was a particular human being. He lived in 1st century Palestine. He lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire. He was Jewish through and through. So when we hear him saying, “You have heard such and such, but I say to you. . .” Jesus isn’t being non-Jewish - as in “Well, the law says this but I am standing over-and-against the law telling you something else. . .” No, Jesus is being fully Jewish. He’s living and acting as a Rabbi. He is teaching what he believes to be the true spirit of the law, and he’s calling us to act in particular ways – again, calling us to enter this world more deeply by living according to God’s reign which is breaking into this world. That’s quite a call. That’s quite an opportunity.

And what sort of things does he have to say? Well they aren’t easy. But sometimes, the most difficult teachings are the most profound opportunities, aren’t they? Jesus teaches about anger. Jesus teaches about lust. Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce. And Jesus teaches about vows.

All of these are human experiences that were swirling about in Jesus’ day just as they’re swirling about in our day. As God made flesh – as a particular human being - Jesus had witnessed anger. I don’t think this passage is telling us that we should never be angry. Anger is very real human emotion, and at times, our scriptures tell us we should be angry; there is such a thing as righteous indignation when we witness or experience injustice. And Jesus felt anger too. It made him angry when he saw human suffering. He was angry when he overturned those tables in the temple, watching people abuse a house of worship for personal gain. Jesus felt anger just like we did. He was human like us.

But I imagine this passage shows us that Jesus had also observed others using anger differently. Maybe he had personally witnessed how anger can eat a person alive. It can also cut people down. When we’re angry to the point that we hold grudges – when we’re angry to the point that we wish horrible things for others, we often find ways to dehumanize them. We don’t recognize them for the children of God they are; and in our anger, we murder their spirits. That’s strong language, but it can happen in so many ways. We gossip. Oh wow, do we gossip! We say horrible things about people sometimes. And when we do that in our anger, in a certain sense, we’re kind of murdering in a way – we’re cutting people down in the eyes of others. And when those people hear about it, they feel often dehumanized. And maybe we’ve felt that way before too when we’ve been gossiped about. Perhaps we could say that reputations have been murdered.
And think about what ongoing, unhealthy anger does to us! When we wish bad things upon other people or when we hold grudges, we sometimes mull over it so much and get frustrated by it so much, that we destroy ourselves! We dehumanize ourselves with our own anger! Anger is a healthy and human emotion, but when it’s used for evil, it seems to destroy everyone involved. I’m sure that Jesus had witnessed this in his own context.

And there’s more. I imagine that Jesus had watched how people were objectified in his culture. And he had something to say about that: Adultery? You might let yourself off the hook if you haven’t gone that far. But where does adultery begin? And if even lust doesn’t lead to all-out adultery, how much do you harm another person by objectifying her for your own purposes? How do you harm a person by objectifying him for your own purposes? Our objectifying lusts can be so much like adultery. With our eyes, we begin to think we own people as property or our own possessions.

Jesus saw this happening to the women around him. It seems that he observed how lust can destroy the both the person being objectified and the person doing the objectifying. In both cases, people are not being treated as the children of God they are. One is being reduced to a sexual possession, and the other is hurting himself or hurting herself by living outside the call to love our neighbors for who they really are – people of infinite worth who cannot be reduced to sex objects. I’m sure that Jesus witnessed this in his own context.

And the same is true with marriage. Now want to approach the topic of divorce with care. Some of our parents are divorced. Mine are too. Sometimes divorce is a sad necessity, and I firmly believe that God’s grace continues with those who have experienced divorce and also with those who have remarried. It’s important to say that. And maybe it helps to continue to look at Jesus’ context. In 1st century Palestine, Jesus was watching how frivolously men were divorcing their wives. The Mosaic Law said that they could do this, but often men were doing it simply because they were displeased with their wives or simply tired of them. And in a patriarchal culture, women had little access to financial resources apart from their relationships to men - their husbands or their male family members. To send a wife away for any reason – simply because it was legal – was to send a woman out into the world with no financial protection. Her options were to remarry, to return to family (if they would have her), or to live as a prostitute. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it ethical. I’m sure Jesus witnessed this in his own context.

And finally, the same is true with vows. I’m sure Jesus witnessed the damage people can do when they make promises they can’t keep – or sometimes, promises they don’t intend to keep. And then, they invoke God’s name in the process. Jesus tells us to simply let our ‘yes be yes’ and our ‘no be no’ – to be someone who can be counted on. Don’t make promises that you can’t keep, and certainly don’t run God’s name through the muck in the process. You can’t even make your hairs white or black. Why do you make extravagant promises when you don’t know if you even have the power to keep them? Just because we make promises, doesn’t mean that you and I are consistent or trustworthy. I’m sure Jesus witnessed this in his own context.

So as we hear about Jesus’ context, it’s not hard to see how all of these teachings apply to us too. And as our own Teacher, how is Jesus calling us away from these realities into the deeper reality that is right here breaking into our world – a reality that doesn’t dehumanize people but showers them with love, a reality that sweeps them up into the very life of God? How is Jesus calling us away from objectification toward recognizing the infinite worth of others? How is Jesus teaching us to uphold the needs of others? How is Jesus calling us into this Kingdom?

Well as we’ve been saying tonight, the Kingdom is right here breaking into our world. And we can pray that God gives us eyes to see it. Jesus says something pretty difficult tonight in our passage: If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. Better to lose one part of yourself than to fully land in hell. Wow. When we hear that, we might start to picture flamey lakes of fire and brimstone. We might start to imagine devilish pitchforks. And maybe we feel afraid. Actually, what Jesus says is this: It is better to lose one of your members to be thrown into Gehenna. That’s the Greek word that’s used there.

Well what’s Gehenna? It’s an interesting word because Gehenna is the Valley of Hinnom – a real place, an earthly place. This valley was just on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It had a sordid history and a real foulness in Jesus’ time. During the time of the Israelite kings, Gehenna was a place where Israelites worshipped a foreign god named Molech by sacrificing their own children in the fires that were burned there. And because of this sordid history, Gehenna became the garbage heap of Jerusalem and everything unclean. It was a horrible place filled with all kinds of rot and decay – not only garbage but also the bodies of criminals and the carcasses of animals. Can you imagine that sight? Can you imagine the smell? This was a literal place - an earthly, visible reminder of everything that was unclean, rotting, and decaying. Gehenna was not a reality you wanted.

And so Jesus tells his disciples, when we don’t love – when we don’t value humanity – when we don’t treat others with respect as the claimed children of God, we are creating hell – not only for those we hurt but also for ourselves! So often, we create and participate in earthly forms of hell. We might as well be throwing ourselves right into the depths of Gehenna – that garbage heap on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

And so we have choices about the reality we choose to see. We have choices about the reality we live in. Like Narnia breaking into a school library, God’s Kingdom is breaking into this world – perhaps like scripture, we could call it the new, holy Jerusalem – and we can live into its fullness! Or. . . we can live our lives in Gehenna, a garbage heap.

And we often find ourselves living toward one reality or the other. I know that I do. My life is often sadly divided between Kingdom-living and Gehenna-living. I’m sure the same is true for you.

But here is some good news: When we find ourselves in that burning heap of trash-like living, we are not lost! We have been claimed. We are loved with a love that we can’t throw into the trash heap if we tried. There’s nothing we can do to un-do that love and that claim upon our lives! But the question is this: Will we open our eyes to it and let it affect us? Will we let it sweep up our reality in our daily lives? Let’s continue to practice saying yes – to practice living yes. We’ll keep doing that in response to this Sermon on the Mount. Amen.

Renee Roederer, Campus Minister