One of the difficulties of the English language is that we can never be quite sure whether we’re being addressed personally or collectively. We can’t distinguish other than by context between you (singular) and you (plural). So when we hear Paul saying to us this morning ‘You are God’s temple’ and ‘God’s spirit dwells in you’, who is he speaking to? I wonder how many of you thought you were being addressed personally – you as an individual have God’s spirit dwelling in the temple of your body. And how many of you thought you were being addressed as a congregation – you the people of St John’s are collectively a human temple inspired as a community by the Spirit? On the whole I suspect we all think about ourselves first and foremost individually rather than collectively. Although I know myself influenced by family, friends, teachers, work colleagues, the media and the place I live – all these influences make me who I am as an individual who has to stand up for myself, assert myself, take responsibility for myself and be myself. That’s the kind of culture we often seem to live in – a culture of people struggling to find and be themselves. Thinking in terms of ‘us’ rather than ‘me’ is an effort. If I’m part of a close knit and supportive family ‘us’ can make deep sense. Businesses, corporations, sports teams strive to inculcate a sense of ‘us’ – the government is struggling to find a sense of a British ‘us’. This year’s Lambeth Conference of Bishops from the worldwide Anglican communion will be struggling to find a way in which they can all talk about ‘us’ rather than using ‘us and ‘them’ in the highly conflicted struggle for Anglican identity.
St Paul clearly wants the rather argumentative Corinthians to understand and experience themselves more collectively. He is struggling to make them see that each of them is like a brick in a building or a limb in a body; so far they have tended to identify themselves as free individuals behaving as they choose, assuming that they have a freedom in the spirit to do what they like; they have also identified themselves in small but competing groups gathered round a particular leader. What Paul wants them to see is that leaders and teachers are less important than the sense of themselves as a community which every individual can help build up or break down. The community is a spirit filled temple, the community is where each of them is to find his or her essential life and identity so that it spills over into all the other groups and communities they belong to.
So if Paul is addressing us all collectively this morning who is Jesus talking to in his words on the mount? Here we do tend to assume he is addressing the crowd collectively; he is laying down a law for the church – this is how you are all to behave. This is how you are to expect each other to behave, on the basis of this teaching you are to judge one another if someone fails to behave in this way. That’s what we assume the sermon on the mount is for – and because we assume that, we can get into a great deal of difficulty. We only have to look at the first instruction not to resist the evildoer and then consider the case for pacifism to see how difficult the collective application of the sermon on the mount can be. So who is the ‘you’ in Jesus teaching?
Jesus seems to have thought of himself as preparing for and even inaugurating the kingdom of God. Perhaps controversially we might say that Jesus did not want to change the world – he wanted to prepare as many people as possible for the change that God willed to bring about. When, where and how God’s great change would come he could not clearly say. And so he taught in parables and wise sayings, and rarely answered directly any of the questions the religious authorities put to him. Parables and wise sayings are a rather personal from of communication. Through them Jesus hands you something to think about. He looks you in the eye, as it were, and says what do you make of this, how are you going to apply this to your life? The best way in which to read or hear this sermon on the mount is to imagine Jesus is saying it to each one of you. How are you going to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, love your enemy? The difficulty with all this is that by and large we often find it difficult to think of ourselves in situations in which such teachings might be applied. It is I suppose inevitable therefore that we shall begin to apply these rules to communal, cultural and political situations – and I’m not sure Jesus wanted us to do that – at least not in so far as we think about those who govern us.
Take the pacifism issue as an example. A non resistance movement arises only out of individual choices. I will not try to defend myself – but I can only not go to your defence if we have both agreed not to defend each other. And so it spreads out. But even then a deeper moral complexity arises if and when a Christian group says to a government we do not want you to go to war on our behalf, or more locally we do not want you to torture terrorists on our behalf even if they are planning to blow us up. In such circumstances there will always be others outside such a Christian group who will belong to the same society who may well want their government to defend them, to fight a war, or torture a terrorist for the sake of those whose lives might be saved by the information he has to give. The Leviticus code in our first reading points to the importance of caring for the alien – so as Christians we have a duty to defend those alongside whom we live even if they are not with us. Unless they do not want to be defended our responsibility is to defend them even to the laying down of life. That is not the last word in the complex matter of pacifism but it shows how difficult it is to apply the sermon on the mount collectively.
So Jesus looks us each in the eye and challenges us to find ways of taking up the challenge of this radical teaching for ourselves. Its fundamental presupposition is that we try to imitate God in his undiscriminating goodness. God does not choose to whom he wants to be good – his creative generosity is poured out without regard to whether we deserve it or not. Only to be concerned for those who are like you and whom you like is to be a gentile. To be respond to the teaching of Jesus is to be able and willing to greet and be available to everyone, not just the brother or sister that are part of our special group. Yet when Jesus then tells us that we must be perfect as God is perfect the challenge seems overwhelming. There is somehow something impersonal in this outpouring of concern for everyone that we feel in danger of loosing all those things which give each of us distinctness and a sense of self. The individual becomes lost in the collective; how can I be available at all times to everyone? But that is to misunderstand the true life of community which is hinted at in the teaching of Leviticus which Jesus reiterates –‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ To serve, care for, and so love your neighbour you need to be the recipient of serving care and love yourself. A Christian community is not like a group of enthusiastic boy scouts looking round for someone to do a good deed for. Individuals in the Christian community know how to ask for and receive help as well as give it; and that is a difficult thing to learn. We have so many phrases at our finger tips: I didn’t like to ask, You’re so busy, I really need a member of the clergy, it’s not that important, no-one would be interested, I can cope. But a mature Christian community will have put aside such phrases, The community, and its clergy, will be learning how to be helped as well as to help. And that of course means you, and you and you and you and you but there isn’t time to address you 120 times individually so it has to be collectively you. It is I suppose like addressing God, who is always you singular and you plural, always individually Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but always one God ever to be worshipped and adored. Amen