The text for the sermon this week is Matthew 5:21-32 (Additional readings for the week are Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 119:1-8, and 1 Corinthians 3:1-9).
I’m reading the Newberry Medal winning book, When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. The narrator is a 12 year old named Miranda. There is a girl in the book named Alice Evans who apparently has a small bladder. A group of mean girls likes to keep her occupied when they see she has the need for the restroom. Their goal is always to embarrass her. During a music assembly at school Miranda has an epiphany:
…Alice Evans was about to pee in her pants.
I turned to Alice. “Hey,” I said, “I have to go to the bathroom. Be my partner?”
Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It’s like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to. It was like that when I asked Alice Evans to be my bathroom partner. I wasn’t one of the girls who tortured her on purpose, but I had never lifted a finger to help her before, or even spent one minute being nice to her.
She stopped squirming and looked at me suspiciously. “You have to go?” she said. “Really?”
“Yeah.” And in that moment, I wanted nothing as much as I wanted Alice to feel safe with me. “Really.”
As I reflect on Matthew 5 and Jesus shining a new light on our lives with his explanation of the law, I feel the same way. What seemed like obedience before now is revealed as totally lacking love, therefore totally breaking the law. Frederick Dale Bruner says, “Jesus’ ethic is not heroic in being geared to unusual situations but in asking for unusual Christians in all the usual situations.” Thank you, Rebecca Stead, for capturing the truth through the eyes of a 12 year old girl.
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