Lynn's Sermon

As a continuation of my post last night, I want to talk about the sermon I heard. Admittedly I walked in late, but I got the majority of it. Lynn's sermon is the kind that really holds my attention. It offered a new perspective on Christ and his teaching.

What exactly held my interest? The concept that Christ could have been suggesting putting people that use Christians in a position where their abuse becomes obvious. To illustrate his point, he showed a clip from Gandhi. In the clip Gandhi and several hundred people come up to a line of British soldiers. All the Indians do is approach. The soldiers beat them, and injured the Indians are carried off. Then the another line of Indians come up to the soldiers, and the soldiers beat them, too. This happens over and over. A man in the background, perhaps the soldiers' overseer (I haven't seen the movie so I don't know) looks on with increasing angst and embarrassment. This spectacle spurs a newspaper reporter to phone in a story stating that India was free--the British no longer had effective control. I was a little uncomfortable with this illustration. I always thought of Gandhi as a proponent of civil disobedience. That's not what Christ was about at all, but the point is similar.

The point Lynn was trying to make was about turning the other cheek, walking a second mile, and giving a tunic as well as a cloak--it would put the offending party into an embarrassing situation. According to Lynn, being struck on the right cheek is the only convenient way to backhand a person with one's right hand. Note that in this culture, only the right hand can be used as the left is reserved for unclean activities. If one is struck on the right, then turning the other cheek would involve a more overt and obvious act of violence. Being compelled to walk one mile was apparently a Roman soldier's prerogative if he wanted relief from carrying his pack, but he was compelled by law to only have the other carry it one mile. Having carried it past that first mile would be a breach either of law or military decorum. The clack/tunic combination was apparently the common combination of dress, with nothing really underneath. So if a person was to surrender his clack and tunic, he would be nearly if not completely naked. If a person forced to do something humiliating continued to do that humiliating thing long enough and in front of enough people, I could see how that would be very embarrassing to people who might be observing.

I always took this to be either an act of subservience or caring. That is, if I was forced to walk with a person for a certain distance, then walking with them a little further I would see as an act of forgiveness that shows I hold them no malice. But in Lynn's illustration, that same behavior is meant to induce embarrassment, possibly and maybe even probably to the detriment of the person doing the compelling. I think the main difference between my past thinking and Lynn's is the concept of observation. In my mind, all these would be private acts, with no observers. In Lynn's these would be public acts, plainly observable by many. Unfortunately, both our lines of thought are correct. Practicing these activities in public would certainly have a more immediate and possibly gratifying effect than doing them in private. But I think the more important point is how we respond in private.

If we do respond to a situation in one way while we're in public and respond to it a different way in private, what does that say about us? If we're still doing the right thing, i.e. not in outright rebellion or hate, then I think we're still probably ok. After all, how one responds to a person one-on-one versus how one responds in public can be quite different. What matters is that the message does not change. If we change that message, then that makes us liars and hypocrites, and we have no integrity. I recall that's how one of my teachers in high school defined a person of integrity: one who does the same thing in public and private. I subscribe to that theory. Unfortunately, it doesn't always hold, as much as I try.

Lynn did hold my attention, and he has now piqued my interest. I'm glad, because after hearing his performance in "Biblical storytelling," I wasn't impressed. I was very impressed after last Sunday. I'm looking forward to more.