Cultural Additions to Faith

Six times in the greatest sermon ever preached Jesus led into a new aspect of how to live with the line, “You have heard it said, but I say to you…” The whole first third of the Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is built around this notion of rethinking morality, deconstructing religion, and reimagining what makes for human flourishing.

In the first five of those instances when he leads with that provocative line, Jesus is quoting from the scriptures. In our devotions tomorrow we’ll think some about how radical that is. But for today we’re going to look at the one instance where Jesus mixes his references.

You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you… - Matthew 5:43

This is the final time Jesus leads with “You have heard it said… but I say to you…” No doubt by this point in the sermon people would have been expecting him to draw another quote from the scriptures, but he doesn’t. Instead he intentionally mixes a line from the scriptures (love your neighbor - which comes from Leviticus 18) with a line from the culture (hate your enemy - which was common practice). He’s still speaking to the spiritual practices of his community, and he’s still radically challenging them. But this time he’s pointing out that so many of us believers have added cultural elements into our religion. Hating our enemies is what the culture tells us to do, but not what God tells us to do. So often we’ve baptized our own prejudices by saying that God is against whoever it is that we are against.

As an example, think about how many Christians have practiced exclusion of LGBTQ people from their churches and families 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ, and most of them have been forced out of their homes because their parents’ religion. This would be a great contemporary example of adding to what scripture teaches (it goes far beyond what even a more traditional interpretation of gay marriage would call for) - and yet it is so predictable that it’s commonly accepted in so many Christian circles.

What is the appropriate way for culture to influence our faith and vice versa? Where do you see cultural add-ons to your faith? What might Jesus be saying to our churches today? To our culture? To ourselves?