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A sermon preached by the Reverend James Brigl

You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You heard this a million times. I can't say the rest of it because this is church, but who said it first?

Robert DeNiro, 1976, in Taxi Driver

It's a famous line. Since the movie, that line has been quoted in a dozen other movies and a few TV sitcoms and countless jokesters at parties.

You Talkin' to me?

Throughout the Bible, particularly the Hebrew Bible, there is a lot of talkin'. A lot of it is praise as seen in the Psalms. A lot is supplication and desperate prayer, e.g., Job. There are prophets condemning the unfaithful and speaking brightly of the future. And… there are RULES… MANY OF THEM… as in Leviticus. Hundreds of Dos and Don'ts…. Over 1,000 actually. And you thought there were only 10 Commandments…?

The first reading has Moses, acting as God's mouthpiece, telling God's people how to be holy. It is part of what is known as the "holiness code." This distinguishes it from the rest of Leviticus which has rules related to sex, dress, feasts, blasphemy, and on and on. The holiness code is all about what you have to do to be holy.

There are 21 commandments in just this short reading. Most of them are prohibitions. The listener hears things like, 'you shall not… steal…. Lie… defraud…make fun of the blind…hold a grudge." You shall "Love your neighbor as yourself." You can almost hear the listeners say, "You talkin' to me?"

Perhaps most significantly, God says "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy." He says it a half dozen times in Leviticus. In other words, foreshadowing the New Moses of the New Testament, "You Shall Be Like Me—we are one. You and I -- we're in this together" and, "Oh, btw, I'm talkin' to you!"

The rules in Leviticus are all about fairness and justice.

Fast forward a couple of thousand years to Matthew.

Jesus is talking to the masses of people delivering what we know as the "Sermon on the Mount." There are no mountains in Galilee but the topography is interesting. There are a series of hollowed out hills that enable a speaker standing on top of the hill to be heard by many people in the hollow of the hill.

Jesus has just finished saying some puzzling things. Something about the poor being lucky and the meek inheriting the earth.

And then he says some really over the top things… The New Moses reinterprets the Law of Moses. Some would say he completes it.

The law of Moses says "an eye for an eye." Now before you conjure up judgments of how barbaric the ancient Hebrews were, it's really saying "keep your response proportional… don't escalate the vio0lence. Don't do anything more to them than they did to you." That's what is fair.

But then Jesus, in fulfilling the law, goes light years further."You heard it said, an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. If someone strikes you on the cheek, give him the other cheek."

"You Talkin' To Me?" Really?

Legally speaking, an offended person is entitled to redress. People reserve the right to get even with those trying to exploit or take undue advantage of them. It's just and fair. To get even, however, remains a right and not a duty. Jesus is inviting his followers to give up their right to get even. Why? Mahatma Gandhi said it this way: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

And again…

"You have heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Really?

Why would I do that? How do I do that? I don't know about you, but in my very DNA is a resolve to refuse to let anybody put me down or diminish me. We have a saying for it in my family. We call it proudly "getting your Brigl up." But… he's talkin to me!

The Brigl in me recoils at these new commandments. But the Brigl in me rarely gets me what I want or need. It more often shoots me in the foot. Fortunately, there are smarter people than the Brigls…at least than this Brigl.

Gandhi knew the power of love and nonviolence. Martin Luther King Jr. borrowed directly from this Gospel and the works of Gandhi to define his mission of nonviolent resistance. Some in the Middle East have experienced the power of nonviolence and some are still trying to know that power.

Rev. Mel White is the founder of SoulForce, an organization that uses nonviolent protests and civil disobedience to seek freedom for religious and political expression among sexual minorities. I've been proud to stand with them around meetings of bishops that seek to exclude a whole group of people. I'm not where White and King and Gandhi are but I'm beginning to understand it. White says it well for me… we have to love and pray for our enemies, not hate them, because they are held captive by their own view of what is right, not only for them, but for everyone else. They are not evil people, but they are not free people either. To the degree that we seek to dominate and insist on our way of things we are just like them. So we are humble and pray for them, not hate them.

In these days of charged speech and vitriol—some even spoken in the name of religion-- we could use a little more turning the other cheek and loving our enemies and a little less conviction that we have the right answers, not only for us, but for you too.

This way of life is a daunting challenge for me. It is perhaps my biggest spiritual challenge. But it is what God does. Over and over again. Our God is a loving God, not a vengeful God. Our God has offered God's child to us in the incredible sacrifice of the Cross. And in that moment of ultimate defeat and powerlessness, God prevailed and prevails to this very day. Our God is perfect. Our God invites us to be perfect with him.

"You Shall Be Like Me—we are one. You and I -- we're in this together" and, "Oh, by the way, I'm talkin' to you!"

May God be with us!

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