Matthew 5:38-48
Calvin breaks his dad’s binoculars. Calvin, as in the comic strip boy with the tiger of “Calvin and Hobbes” fame, not the reformed theologian John Calvin, to be clear. He breaks his dad's binoculars and is sweating about it.
He asks his tiger Hobbes, who is the voice of reason in the comic, what he should do. Maybe he can raid his piggy bank and buy a new pair without his dad noticing. He has about $6 and calls the store to see how much the binoculars cost. $600! Oh man! Calvin’s dad is going to kill him! Maybe we can put them back together, Hobbes offers. Calvin gets the box and pours out the binoculars that have been reduced to dust, instructing Hobbes not to sneeze. That’s not an option either.
Calvin doesn’t know what to do. He’s at the family dinner table and he’s sweating it out. Calvin thinks, “Look at dad, calming eating his dinner as if nothing was wrong. I know him. His ‘dad radar’ is beeping like crazy. He knows I broke something, he just doesn’t know WHAT. He can’t nail me until he knows for sure. He’ll just wait. I know him. He’s going to just sit there eating and let me stew in my own guilt. He figures sooner or later I’ll crack.”
His dad asks, “Calvin, can you pass the…”
“AAUGH! I did it! I did it! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!!” and Calvin confesses. Dad rants, “You BROKE the binoculars! Didn’t I tell you to be extra, extra careful with them?? Isn’t that exactly what I said?! WELL?! Those binoculars were brand new! Have you no respect for other people’s property??”
Calvin replies with a tear, “I have an idea dad, let’s pretend I already feel terrible about it, and that you don’t need to rub it in anymore. I didn’t mean to break your binoculars, it was an accident. I’m really sorry and felt like I was going to barf all afternoon.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you like I did, I shouldn’t have been so angry,” The dad says. “After all in the big scheme of things, that’s really not so bad.”
“Really?”
“Sure! In another ten years you’ll probably be wrecking my car.”
Calvin was so worried about the retaliation of his dad. He knew his father, he knew he’d go ballistic and he did everything he could do to avoid it. Yet the dad responded, after the initial flare of anger, with surprising grace. The dad responds in a way that isn’t punitive, but restorative. Later, he buys Calvin his own pair of binoculars and the two are reconciled and the relationship healed.
That is how God is. We spend so much time sweating things out. We resist confessing because we’ve been told that God is a wrathful and vengeful judge, but that’s not the God we find in Jesus Christ. You’ve heard all that, but I say unto you that God is life-giving and will restore you… so you must do the same. Live just like God. Have the virtues God has.
You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you, turn the other cheek. If they want your coat, give your cloak. If one of the soldiers of the Roman occupying army forces you to carry their things for a mile, go an extra mile. Restore the relationship. Humanize yourself to them. Risk being vulnerable to them.
Jesus knows we have enemies, or if not outright enemies then conflict in our relationships. Even the good ones. Jesus also knows that we’d sooner accept a God we are fed to than a God we are fed by. I’m going to say that again. Jesus knows, as theologian Robert Capon stated, we’d sooner accept a God we are fed to… that we have to sacrifice animals to and grovel and prostrate ourselves before… than a God we are fed by… who restores us, wants us to mend the relationship between God, the ground and source of our existence; our neighbors, the partners of our existence; and our environment, the context of our existence. Reminds me of a pity saying in some church circles, “God loves you just as you are, and too much to leave you as you are.” Love is transformative, changing, and restorative.
Many people talk of God a(continued)