A Mountain of Evidence

We have come to the final chapter in this segment called, The Kingdom and the Law in which Jesus draws a distinction between how the religious teachers interpreted the law (kingdom of self) and God’s original meaning behind the law (kingdom of heaven). And although we have covered much ground between these two past segments, there is really only one lesson that Jesus has been drilling into our heads (or more importantly, our hearts) thus far, and that is that we are to be distinctive, not instinctive. In this chapter, we are looking at a passage where, in the final verse, Jesus sums up this whole comparison between the believer and the law. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Some time ago, Nan and I had a meal with some dear friends at Cracker Barrel and while waiting for the ladies to make their way through the gift shop, Farrell and I sat down outside to play a game of checkers. He started first and boldly put his piece out there daring me to take it, but I refused. I refused, because it was only going to result in a tit-for-tat. In fact, as I studied the board looking at my possible moves, I could only see a string of take one-give one moves. At that rate, the winner would just be determined by who is left standing after all the blood and mayhem. So instead, I chose a different route and refused to take his bait. He got a little frustrated with me and that is pretty much the last thing I remembered as he proceeded to teach me that in checkers, it does not pay to take the high road. And because I did not quite learn my lesson after the first game, he decided to teach that lesson to me twice!
But in all of that harmless fun, he gave me a great illustration to explain my lesson from this passage and my friend Farrell plays the bad guy. Where he was playing instinctively, I was attempting to play distinctively. I was trying a different path, while he was perfectly content letting his thirst for my blood guide his every move. When it comes to dealing with conflict, the world generally likes to play checkers, trading slug for slug until the last man is standing. But God wants us to play a different kind of game. He wants us to play distinctively. Bonhoeffer calls it peculiar, extraordinary and unusual.
In a word, Jesus wants us to play chess. You see, chess uses the exact same board as that of checkers, but to win, it is a completely different strategy. Instead of trading slugs as in checkers, in chess, you measure your response to your opponent’s response. Instead of going head to head, there is a constant maneuvering and measuring to fully understand your opponent’s motives. There is much patience involved in playing chess because to move too soon could certainly result in your downfall. But the biggest distinction between the two games is in chess, each move is focused on the final objective which is to get to the king.
That is how God wants us to view conflict in our own lives. He wants us to take a distinctive approach with an end-goal in mind of winning the hearts of our enemies for our King. After all, that is really the only way to rid one’s life of its enemies—to make them friends! President Abraham Lincoln was once asked about his attitude toward his enemies, “‘Why do you try to make friends of them? You should try to destroy them.’ ‘Am I not destroying my enemies,’ Lincoln replied gently, ‘when I make them my friends’?”
Jesus begins the passage by stating the way of the world, like Farrell the checker player, love your friends and hate your enemies, but then He commands us to look at our enemies differently, He commands us to love them and pray for them. Of all of Jesus’ teaching, this is by far the hardest of them to accept. After all, how does a person become an enemy? Usually by hurting you, cheating you, stealing from you, lying to you, or just plain out being nasty. With that kind of history, who could blame us for wanting to retaliate? More importantly, who in their right mind could command us to love them? Yet that is precisely what Christ commands us to do. He commands us to be distinctive.
Of those of you reading this, there are those who have never told someone who has done you wrong that you love them and want the very best for them. Our instinct is to play checkers, return slug for slug, but Jesus wants us to be distinctive and play chess, go for the King! Adam Clarke calls this, “the most sublime piece of morality ever given to man. Has it appeared unreasonable and absurd to some? It has. And why? Because it is natural to men to avenge himself and plague those who plague him… Jesus Christ designs to make men happy. Now he is necessarily miserable who hates another. Our Lord prohibits that only which, from its nature, is opposed to man’s happiness. This is therefore one of the most reasonable precepts in the universe.” Everything that is good in the world comes from God (James 1:17) and it is not His will that we should have turmoil in our lives. As long as you have enemies who have hurt you, wronged you, etc., you will be the only one to lie in bed at night tossing and turning because of the offense of the other person. The offender will be sleeping like a baby.