Yes, Yes, No, No

In Matthew's gospel—the First Path/Chapter of the Gospel journey—Jesus is forcefully blunt. In the face of chaos, shame, and blame, do not flee to what is less than the reality of the actual situation. Do not make more of something than it is, and do not make less of it, either. Let your response for this time, and in this first path, be simply Yes, Yes, or No, No. Given the struggles and challenges faced by Matthew's community this must have been hard to hear and accept, let alone live. And it is likely hard for us when we encounter our “Matthew moments”, or Matthew weeks or months. In fact, our response to what Jesus states in Matthew 5:21-37 may be that this is impossible!

I am reminded of Scott Peck who began his marvelous book, The Road Less Traveled, with this statement: “Life is difficult.” And then he goes on the say that most of our difficulties would be greatly eased if it were possible for us to accept those three words as reality. It is our fighting against them and our fleeing from the difficulties we encounter that bring forth a large number of our problems.

In times of significant change the temptation is to knee jerk our way out of the situation, as though that were in fact actually possible. And the knee jerk is almost always an “objectification” of a situation or a person. All objectification is a refusal to accept a fuller version of our situation, and a dehumanizing of ourselves and the “other.” Gone is acknowledgment of the ambiguous layering of human reality. Gone is a narrative of a broken human life. Gone is any desire to listen, seek understanding or show mercy.

Take the teaching about murder and anger. To kill another human being is to say that they are nothing but an impediment or an offense to me, or to us, as in the case of war or capital punishment. They cease being human, and instead are an object of our fear and loathing.

To be angry with a brother or sister, to engage in name-calling of a person, group, culture, is a rejection of the rich tapestry others bring to us. To commit adultery harms marriage and friendship and the community, but to harbor lust for another person does so also: again, such a thing turns another human being into an object for one's lust (I was about to write, satisfaction, but in fact, if lust is our modus operandi, we will never be satisfied). What is missing is real love with its eagerness to truly know another human being in order to accept the fullness of their experience and story, and their hopes and dreams.

And what complexity and pain is inherent in divorce! In Jesus' day it was possible for a man to divorce his wife by simply writing, I divorce you, and the woman was cast out into a world on her own, disgraced or worse. Divorces like that still happen, and the objectification of a spouse in such cases is obvious. More likely for most people now to divorce a wife or a husband is a painful last resort of a badly deteriorated situation often involving betrayal or irresponsibility on someone's part (including a refusal to work on the relationship or becoming “bored” and yearning for the excitement of someone or something new), leading to what is experienced as relational futility. Divorce, as a poignant example of our human brokenness, often leads to great difficulties for one or both partners, the extended families, the circle of friends and/or faith community, and even the larger community in some cases, and along the way, it is almost impossible to avoid objectifications. This, too, is a feature of our humanness.

All this is enough to make us feel like cursing, the very thing Jesus commands we must not do! And why not? Again, objectification of the world and our place in it. Cursing is a way of pretending we have more power than we do. Did you see that cute Super Bowl commercial with the little boy in Darth Vader costume, attempting to use “The Force” to make things happen? He has no luck until he aims his hands a daddy's new car, and then the car turns on! (Daddy of course making this happen by the remote key.) But the childlike desire to have such power is what connects us with that little guy in the commercial. We know that desire, that dream. And every curse and sworn vow is a sign that we have objectified God into a robotic wish-granter or ourselves into something we are not: a god-like being, whose will ought to be done.

For our own sakes and the sake of the world we now face, in the chaos and challenges of this first path passage, wisdom says, keep it simple. Pray to see reality for what it is. Be humble enough to know that you do not know everything! It is sufficient for you (both the personal you and the communal you) to know to the best of your ability who and what you are, and to withhold condemnation of others, even when those others may betray us with a kiss and mock us in our troubles.
The apostle Paul wrote to his really messed up congregation in Corinth (who gave him no end of trouble), 'As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been “Yes and No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.”' [2 Corinthians 1:18-19]

Of course, Paul had plenty of No to say to them on a number of issues, but it was never a No regarding their essential worth and dignity as children of God. It was a No to all that detracted from that worth and dignity.

“Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one,” commanded Jesus.

This is wisdom: to say Yes, to community and to the ambiguity and complexity of what is truly human in all we meet, know, see, and hear; and to say, No, to attitudes driven by anger, lust, or fear that prevent us from agreeing with Christ in the deep and abiding Yes of God for us and for all.