Exceeding Average

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/exceeding_average.mp3[/podcast] What’s expected of you? What does your spouse, parent, child, friend, boss, or employee expect from you? We all resist living up to others’ expectations. But what if instead of meeting expectations, you exceeded them? What if you forgave when people didn’t deserve it? What if you gave to people who normally take without asking? What if you went above and beyond the demands of others? Imagine what it might do for your family, future, or career. Imagine how it might increase your influence in the lives of the people who matter most to you. The expectations are always high with me. People expect more from me on most days than they do from themselves. It’s kind of sad if you think about. But I’m sure you know what I mean. Just this week, I got an email from somebody telling me their opinion about something they didn’t help work on. Here’s the best part, they criticized me because while they were being lazy and just sitting there not helping, and it was a lot easier to criticize somebody for trying something that wasn’t perfect than for somebody to do nothing at all. Honestly, I could just hit that person with a baseball bat and rub their face into the garbage their mouths just spewed. But it’s funny, this thing called expectations. It causes us, at least most of us to react or act in certain ways and live into those expectations. But maybe that was not really the type of expectations you were thinking about. The type where people expect you to do something without helping you do it. Let’s forget that because those people can be labelled haters, and haters gonna hate. But let me tell you that there are some people who expect you to do something and you need to live up to those expectations otherwise they expel you from their presence. This could be work expectations, school expectations, family expectations, etc. The pressure is not doing the bare minimum to meet those expectations, we want to stand out a little bit and let people know where we are with those expectations. Am I right? No one wants to be average. You don’t want to be an average spouse or parent. You don’t want to be an average boss or employee. You may not want to be extraordinary, but you probably want to stand apart from the crowd. You probably want to avoid the pitfalls you see in the lives of some of the people around you. I want to talk about what is average and then talk about how to exceed it. But to really understand that I think we have to think back on the expectations others had that shaped you as you grew up. Let’s have a small discussion right now, I think we’re small enough group that we can do something experiential like this. What expectations other people had of you shaped you the way you grew up? For me, I don’t know how many you don’t know, but my dad was a pastor. There was this crazy expectation for me, as the pastor’s kid to fall into one of two categories: 1. Super smart, super Christian guy; or 2. Super gangster prodigal son, Super Christian guy. In fact, all the pastors’ kids my brother and I grew up with fell into one of those two categories. So it was expected that we would live into that. Problem is, we didn’t. So we fell into a third category of pastor kids—the ones nobody talked about because doing so would be the equivalent of saying the name Voldemort. It was because of that, I grew up on the outskirts of everybody and in between everyone, floating between people. In fact, I rally people who don’t fit in and encourage those people to jump out ahead of their average. Then I became Jesus’ guy. Let’s share. Jesus was no stranger to this. People expected him to grow up and be a carpenter. He became a rabbi. People expected him to lead an army, most of the guys that hung out with him couldn’t perform their jobs correctly. He died to save us and gave us a choice to love him. He didn’t live into the expectations people placed on him. He lived into uniqueness of God. This morning, I want to read from an excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount. The section of this sermon is entitled “Retaliation,” but when I read it, I don’t see retaliation, I see exceeding expectations.

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹ And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. (Matthew 5:38-42)

When Jesus was speaking to the large crowd that was around when he was preaching, retaliation was not tit-for-tat. Rather, it was like you disrespect my mother, I kill you. Or better example, you cut me off on the desert highway with your donkey, I’m going to take my camel and trample you and your wife and your kids to death. So a guy name Hammurabi created this thing called a code. The code says, an eye for an eye because he wanted to retaliation to be “normal” – expected. There should be an average punishment to all and any crime or offense. Yes, exactly, there had to be an average or a standard way of getting revenge without having to kill your family and your family’s family. Look at this first statement in verse 39, “Do not resist evil…” is not that Jesus appears to be telling us to lie down and let evil overtake us. That is clearly not what he is saying. I’m going to tell you straight away that Jesus isn’t talking about being a pacifist. If somebody is out trying to kill you and your family, you need to protect yourself and your family. That’s not what he’s saying here. There is a law of self-preservation which causes you to live and to live for God and fight to live for God. For example, if a Hitler is on the move and seeking to bind the world in tyranny and destroy entire ethnic groups, it would seem very clearly wrong not to oppose him with force. In fact, to let someone murder when it is in your power to stop them is completely contrary to our moral sentiments. Most of the time, the most effective way to overcome evil is by not resisting. If someone says a mean word, it is far more effective to respond with kindness than with another mean word in return. If someone tries wrongly to cut you off on the freeway, it is usually best just to let them do it. If we would learn these principles, our lives would be much more peaceful and, ironically, we would be vindicated more often. Look at the second part of verse 39. What Jesus is saying is this: if you have been attacked, maybe not physically or perhaps physically, by a person who was scorned or angry because he or she had a bad day or what not, don’t even bother challenging him or her or even retaliating. He doesn’t even say walk away. He says get ready for more, because it’s not good enough that you’ve been embarrassed by being slapped on the right cheek—that’s a backhand slap. If you want to exceed average, you don’t only take that shameful insult, you need to absorb that second slap that’s coming. When you do this, because it’s not doing “nothing,” It’s not non-resistance. Rather, it is proactively enduring shame with joy. The cycle ends with you. You’ve exceeded expectations or cyclical stupidness. You stopped it from becoming ridiculous. Let’s be straight here, some of us are going through that slap in the face and it might not be from who we think of as evil, it might be from somebody who is considered overtly Christ following. Let’s continue, verse 40: And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. The cloak is your underwear! Basically go naked? Go with less than you know you deserve? But the question is why would Jesus say that. It’s like he wants us to be losers. Like he wants us to give up? But look at how Jesus is telling people to figure out their quarrels and we know this by the language he uses as it hasn’t happened yet. The key being “if anyone would…” Take the matters, whatever matters they are, and get it resolved in quiet and don’t be bothered by it. This is contrary to what was expected. Because everybody wants to fight or wrangle. Jesus says, you want to be different, stop wrangling over your jacket or pants, give them your underwear and be done with it. Again you are exceeding the average by doing what isn’t and should be expected of you. Now here’s the kicker, verse 41. Everyone can go one mile, what would happen if you went two? This is not about running, but it’s about the law. Roman law said that centurions and soldiers can have a local man carry their stuff for one mile and one mile only. So the Jews would count the steps out for one mile, because carrying military gear is heavy. When they reached that last step the Jews would stop walking and drop the soldiers stuff because their obligation was completed. Jesus says, why stop there? You see, people want us to go with them one mile and they say junk like, “walk in my shoes.” Jesus says, screw one mile, go with them two because it’s crowded when people walk one mile with somebody, it’s when you go beyond expectations and go for that extra mile that you’ll find that it’s not crowded and it changes average. Do you know someone who is living the kind “average” life we described this morning? Perhaps these people are average because they are burdened with debt, dissatisfied with work, not as healthy as he or she could be, lacking generosity, etc, etc all because they do what is expected of them. They just meet expectations. I want us to really think about it, what are some ways to help people aim for something higher when they seem content with average. After all, Jesus preached this sermon for one reason and one reason only: so that we can be a part of something more than expected. When you exceed what is expected of you, you can do things like Jesus. He didn’t live to meet people’s expectations, he changed the expectations of themselves by living a life worthy of sacrifice. He changed the world by changing the way the world operates in the law. He fulfilled the law so that the law wouldn’t kill us cyclically. We were liberated by his sacrifice on a cross, as a peace offering to God. His blood splattered onto us so that the wrath of God would pass over us and grant us safety and peace. I want us to exceed the average of embarrassment, of quarrels, of empathy, and generosity. Let’s do more than what’s expected of us. Let’s pray.