Jesus, Clint Eastwood and Me: Judgment in the Sermon on the Mount ~ Matthew 7:13-20 (Sermon on the Mount series)

¹³ “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. ¹⁴ But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.¹⁵ Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. ¹⁶ By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. ~ Matthew 7:13-20

This Sunday we are beginning to come to the end of a long series on the sermon of mount and today’s text is quite a doozy. At first I agonized over our scripture passage for the day – reading it over and over. I worried what to say about Jesus’ words – they’re admittedly stark, a bit scary and final, and felt tinged with the look and tone of a “Go ahead make my day” Clint Eastwood-esque-sort-of-menace (Jesus with a loaded gun saying, “Do you feel lucky, punk?”). At least that’s how I heard them initially. That’s the voice I supplied without even realizing it. “How would I explain them?,” I wondered. But then at 3 am on Wednesday night I awoke to a reality that has given me some peace – I realized that these aren’t my words, they aren’t my warning, and they aren’t Clint Eastwood’s either. So how should we read/hear these words. What’s important for us to take away about Jesus and judgment?

          1.    Jesus said it.

Yes, Jesus said these things but these aren’t his only words. They belong with everything else he said and did. These are the words of the one who came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. They were said by the one who healed the sick, released captives, and welcomed children. The one who challenged the rich, blessed the poor and spoke endlessly about the love of God. Remember that he said these words in a particular context - at the beginning of his ministry and at the end of this particular sermon, in which he said, “blessed are the meek”; “pray for your enemies”; give alms “in secret.” This should not detract from their warning -  but the point of the matter is that the warning is part of a greater whole and the “who” of the warning is as important as the “what” of the warning or the “how.”

Who says something has everything to do with how you hear it. The speaker or subject alters the very meaning of the content. If you tell me, “Well, you don’t look well and though I am not a M.D. but have a Ph.D. in New Testament I think that you have cancer and should start chemo immediately.” You wouldn’t be surprised, hopefully, that I don’t really take your warning seriously. Kids understand this. If they say " mom says. . ." it gives their words more weight. It might make me move a bit faster, come with more urgency, listen more intently.

But more than take it seriously because Jesus said it. I can listen with a certain confidence knowing that he says it for our benefit. One of my children was little and playing in the living room when I discovered her about to shove a spring-loaded window breaker (a device that helps you escape from a car by shattering the window) into a glass that she was holding. I screamed, “Stop! What are you doing?!” And the child pitched backward in fright, terrified at my yelling and horrified by my words, screaming in fright. She was too young to realize that my warning was motivated out of the deepest love that a parent can have.  Jesus’ warning is scary but no less loving – it was meant to keep you safe.

Finally, if Jesus said it I don't have to defend it. Yet this is not an endorsement of that fundamentalist-sort-of-hermeneutic I imbibed as a child, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Truth be told, Jesus’ teachings are often neither easy nor settling. But the gospel stories reveal that I can ask questions about them – like “Why only a few, Lord?” Am I a wolf in sheep’s clothing? What about fruit in my life which seems so rotten?” In other words, even if Jesus says it, I can still in good conscience question it.

Either way, my job as a pastor is to tell you that Jesus says to walk the narrow way, watch out, and bear good fruit and that there are consequences if you don’t. But remember, it’s not me or my voice and not Clint Eastwood’s either – it’s Jesus saying these things.

          2.    Jesus lived it.

Jesus does more than say these things to us. The whole point of the sermon of the mount is that this is how we are to live. That he lived it. The words “way,” “road,” and “path” in the Old Testament and at the time of Jesus often represented a way of life, that is, habitual actions which determined moral meaning and ultimately one’s fate or consequences (see, for a few examples, Ps. 1:1,6; 16:11; 119:35; Prov. 2:18; 4:14, 18; 6:23; 7:27; 14:12; 16:25; Jer. 21:8).

The background to this imagery was important for survival in the desert, where taking the wrong path could be fatal because it would not bring one to the next water source in time. Hence the Bedouin proverb, “The path is wiser than the one who walks upon it,” meaning the path was made by survivors who discovered the correct way to go. Jesus is saying – I am the one who knows the correct way to go. I know the right path – the way God wants you to live so that you have abundant life. So while it’s tempting to immediately here Jesus’ words as primarily about destination - ones eternal fate or destiny - it’s important to realize that he is also referencing the real consequences of the journey, if you choose not to follow his way.

And to that end there is another reality – Jesus words redefine what we mean by “success”. Jesus, himself, lived the sermon on the mount – even his own warnings. These same things happened to him even though he lived the sermon perfectly! I wonder if he knew that ahead of time? He didn’t simply love his enemies, pray in secret, or forgive others. He experienced the difficulties of the narrow way and betrayers in his midst. I wonder, “Did he have to reference his own sermon for comfort and say, ‘Oh yeah, I said there would only be a few.’?” Look how many followers he ends with at the time of his resurrection – a mere 120. Look at what happens to him among his own followers. He's betrayed by Judas, the others flee and even Peter will deny knowing him. This follower of God’s way ends up facing his fate alone. So being faithful should never be assumed under the traditional vision of successful. In fact, maybe “successful” is just one more piece of sheep’s clothing.

But what about this warning of potential false prophets in our midst? Sheep who are inwardly ravenous wolves? He tells us to be watchful, to be aware but why doesn't he tell us what to do with the wolves?  Is it because he already had?  Read Matthew 5:43-48 again. Love them. Pray for them. And friends, that should give us a certain confidence. If these are Jesus’ words then wolves can be tamed, brought back into the fold, made right with the community and God. Prophets need not be false forever.

When we recognize that these are Jesus’ words – solid and true - they also take on the pastoral quality they were meant to, which, I believe, we might otherwise miss. Martin Luther points out that by acknowledging the presence of the camouflaged wolves in our midst it allows us the freedom let go of traditional markers of identity and success, piety and prestige: one’s wealth, clothes, gender, marital status, or any other marker that we might use to determine someone’s connection to God becomes utterly irrelevant. Therefore, Jesus’ teaching helps keep us safe from all kinds outward masks.

Martin Luther says: “The comfort is that we should not be frightened or worry ourselves to death . . . As we have been instructed by His Word, we should reply this way: ‘I knew beforehand, when I made up my mind to be a Christian, that it would be the way that Christ, my Lord, predicted . . . Christ himself had His betrayer Judas with him. . . Therefore we must not mind our Judases either.”

          3.    Jesus does it. 

Finally, despite a certain watchfulness and warning that Jesus give us we must always remember that we are commanded to do very little in this passage. It is Jesus who judges fruit. We are never commanded to “cut down” and “throw” anything anywhere. It's true that we also have a part to play in that discernment, in figuring out the health of our trees, fertilizing one another, allowing ourselves to be pruned, even recognizing that some have said they were an apple tree and only produced acorns. And we need to remember that even a good tree might have a bad season, a few bugs, might struggle with drought. But our job is not to cut trees down or make kindling. But we are not spiritual lumberjacks but instructed to be loving gardeners and fruit pickers– aerating one another, offering water, and dealing with each other’s manure (Luke 13:6-9).

But Jesus is more than simply the final judge – he is also the way (John 14:6), the gate (John 10), the lamb who was slain (Rev. 5: 8-14) and the very root of the tree (Isaiah 11:1-3). He is more than a teacher, more than a guide, more than the one who cuts things down but the one who does for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

This is the real rub of the sermon of the mount and the paradox which lies at the heart of the gospel message and the Christian faith. Jesus instructs us how to be what God intended, how to be most human, how to live in such a way that is abundant and pleasing to God and a blessing to others. But he also lives that life and will do so on our behalf. So the New Testament speaks about Jesus in two ways that we should never fundamentally separate: imitation and participation.

Jesus wants us to walk the narrow road and he is that way.

Jesus reminds us to suffer wolves and he also suffered them on our behalf.

Jesus wants us to bear good fruit and reminds us that we can bear his.