It is no exaggeration to say that hyperbole never occurs in the teachings of Scripture

Sarcasm? yes. Irony? sure. Hyperbole? never.

Matt 5.42-48

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

When Jesus says “give to everyone who asks” almost no one thinks he’s serious. We say it is hyperbole: a literary device designed to remind us to be more generous: that we (who do not deserve God’s grace) should act in a similar way toward similar undeserving people.

Yes, we should be more generous. Yes, we should place a much higher value on what God has done for us and act towards others accordingly. But if Jesus had wanted to say that, he could have. There is no deficiency in the Greek that prevents him from saying “be more generous” if he wanted to.

We change Jesus’ words because we have been conditioned to change them when there is a conflict. We do it because we are told it’s okay: He couldn’t have meant it because it’s impossible, so he used hyperbole to get us to consider its deeper meaning. Still, there’s something in there. It bothers us. We feel uncomfortable saying Jesus didn’t mean it: that when we measure this against the whole of Scripture we see that we are allowed (we must!) round off the edges a bit. Still, a faint voice asks whether the conflict is between Christ's words and the rest of Scripture... or us.

We say that is Jesus had said “be more generous” his teaching would have lost its force force. We say Christ was skilled at turning a phrase and the fact that his teachings have been quoted for two thousand years, both within and without the Church, prove that he was a master wordsmith. We hear the phrase “consider the lilies” and immediately images of a field of lilies gently swaying with the breeze pop into our imagination and our hearts warmed as we (again) marvel at God’s love for his creation and for us as his children. An old woman speaks of her deceased husband as a man who was “the salt of the earth” and we know immediately that he was a hardworking, decent, down-to-earth sort of man.

The problem with something becoming memorable is that often that means it becomes common. Kimberly-Clark doesn’t like us calling just any old paper tissue “Kleenex” so they insist on a long, clumsy branding of their product: Kleenex® Brand Facial Tissues. Other brand names that have been cursed with fame include Xerox (not only a name, but a verb), Hoover, Photoshop, Google, Skype (also verbs), Aspirin, Teflon, Linoleum, Coke, iPhone, Formica, Styrofoam, Cellophane, Scotch tape, Super Glue, Thermos, Tupperware, Velcro, Escalator, TV dinner, Band-Aid, AstroTurf, Mace, Taser, Adidas, Weed Eater, Jeep, Caterpillar, Plexiglas, Bubble wrap, ChapStick, Vaseline, Popsicle, Q-Tips, Ziploc, Zipper, Yo-Yo, Frisbee, Hula hoop, Jacuzzi, PowerPoint, and even Heroin. Once something means too much it often no longer means the real thing. It might even refer to a low-quality version that demeans the brand (Champagne and Parmesan for example), or worst of all, a brand name that more often than not conjures up a negative image: Spam being the most obvious victim.

“Turning a phrase” often turns it into something the speaker didn't want.

Saying that “consider the lilies” or “give to everyone” is an effective literary device does not elevate it: it is a way of killing it with a compliment. The fact that we have thousands of experts and millions of lay people agreeing that it is hyperbole makes the demand of Christ essentially worthless. If Jesus expected that memorable phrases and imagery (consider the lilies, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, the beam in your eye, wolves in sheep’s clothing, the house upon the rock, new wine in old wineskins, a tree is known by its fruit, the mustard seed, the pearl of great price, the eye of the needle, unless you become like children, render unto Caesar, the parable of the talents, the prodigal son, the good Samaritan) would motivate us to do what he says, he failed miserably.

The acid test of whether the demand of Christ is hyperbole is to ask whether Christ did it. If he did it, then he is only asking us to be like him. That’s not hyperbole: it’s following Christ.

the lie is still alive and well

Satan lured Eve with the attraction that she would be like God. It was a lie. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God: God wanted them to be like him. He wants us to be like him too. He says so, right there in verse 48: Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The lie is not that we can be like God. The lie is that we can be like him without being like him. God aches for his people be like him! What a world it would be if we loved like him, gave like him, forgave like him: without limits, without fear.

The demand is not an exaggeration. If it is, then God is an exaggeration. Jesus tells us to love our enemies because he does. Jesus tells us to pray for those who persecute us because he does. God puts the demand in front of us so we can be like him. Truly, does anything else make sense? Can we be like God and not be like him?

Satan told Eve she could be like God by disregarding his word. And pathetically, that’s the same thing we tell ourselves: that we can disregard his word and still be like him.

O to be like thee!

God wants us to know what it’s like to be him. He wants us to know that being like God is a desperately difficult thing to do. He wants us to not just know him, but to understand him.

It is a serious demand because God seriously wants us to do it: to be like him, to act like him. How can we know what it’s like for God to give to everyone when we say it’s silly? It’s not silly. It’s the way he is.

Being like him is a key requisite to working for him. He does not entrust his work to people who don't know what he wants and how he wants it done. What people think of him is directly related to what people think of his workers, and he does not like being embarrassed. No one knows exactly what the boss wants on the first day of work, but in time and with experience, we understand better, and then he can give us more responsibility. It's a process. Start, learn, stay with it, get better, understand better... it is something we all know how to do at work: it is largely the same with the work of God.

The reverse is also largely the same. If you're not a good worker your boss will not give you more responsibility. If we want to be useful, we need to act as he does. If we want to be like him, we need to act like he does. If we want to know him better, we need to act like he does. It is impossible to know God better by disregarding his word and his work. It is only in doing it that we truly appreciate and understand the work—and it is then that we begin to gain insight into the mind of God. His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. Unless we do things his way, we cannot understand him. If he gives to everyone and we don't, we cannot know him. If he loves his enemies and we don't, we cannot know him. If he gives his only Son and we refuse to give anything of value, we cannot know him. We cannot get close to him by keeping our distance.

God said of David that he was “a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” David proved himself by standing up to the enemies of Israel, while also refusing to touch the Lord’s anointed. David did what God wanted no rather the cost to him personally. He understood that giving God what he wanted was more important than anything he wanted. He understand what the more important things to God were. God entrusted David with important things because David regarded those important things as more important than anything he wanted.

Abraham did not say no when God told him to sacrifice his son. He rose early in the morning to do it.

Gideon did not say it was absurd when God had him send 32,000 soldiers home and attack the Midianites with only 300.

David was astonished that none of the soldiers one would fight Goliath so he did it himself.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego gave themselves to the fiery furnace rather than worship the golden statue.

Daniel was thrown to the lions because he insisted on obeying God rather than the king.

John the Baptist wore rags and had to forage for food but he stayed where God put him.

Paul was stoned and left for dead, but he got up and kept going.

What a different Bible we would have if all of these had said, “What? You can't be serious!” It's a lot easier to save your life than risk it on something you can't win.

God uses anyone at any level, but he rejoices in those who do not retreat from fearful things and do not say no to the impossible. Little by little they move closer to Christ: filling up that which is lacking in his afflictions. Little by little they understand better how things are done. These people are truly useful: the ones who say yes.

making God happy

God wants to enjoy us. How happy you are to ask your child to do something and get a quick happy response, and how heavy it is to ask again and again and get no cooperation. God loves his children and you love your children, but enjoying that relationship is often put to the stress. God is a person—a real person—that likes it when his children say “okay” with a smile and doesn’t like it when they do what they want and refuse to listen.

Why can’t God enjoy his people? Why can’t we just do what he wants? Why must we say he’s not serious? Can anyone seriously expect to please God—or understand him—by calling his word silly?

it's about him, not us

It is required that we look at God's demands from God’s perspective. It’s his word after all.

If your boss gives you an assignment your first impulse is to ask, "hmm, how is this going to make me a better person?", right? No! You were given your job to provide benefit to your employer. There is no other reason. Yes, it's nice if you also enjoy it, but that's not the point. You took the job and now you're required to do it, no matter how it benefits you.

We react against the demands of Christ because we think it's about us. If we don't want to do it, we don't. It's that simple. We don't consider what God wants, we don't see him as our boss, we think we have the right to say no, and so we lightly dismiss his word because it doesn't suit us. But Jesus didn't die so we would be more generous. (Didn't we already know that?!) Jesus died so God could accomplish something very important. We say “God has a wonderful plan for your life” because we think it is about us. We are the center of God's universe. But the plan of God is first about himself and only secondly (or even incidentally) about us. God did not tell Abram to leave Ur because it fitted into Abram’s plans. He did put Noah on the ark so he wouldn’t drown, or free the Israelites from Egypt to make them happy, or make David king of Israel as a honor to David, or raise up the prophets because it was what they wanted for their lives, or throw Saul to the ground on the way to Damascus to make his life better. Yes, God had a wonderful plan for their lives, but it was his plan, not theirs, and he did it in spite of what they wanted for themselves. God wanted it, he wanted it because he has something to do, and he will keep looking until he finds people who understand that: who understand him.

Paul says in 2 Cor 6.15 that Christ died so that we might no longer live for ourselves. Our salvation is not the end. God has a reason for building the Church and it is not so people will be sipping coffee in the narthex. John the Baptist warned Israel that God could raise up stones to be the children of Abraham. The message is simple: God yearns for us to pay attention, but if we don't he moves on.

God wants to accomplish something. He wants to accomplish it through us. Everything he has done in creation and redemption is for his purpose. He will include us, but if we refuse, he goes on without us. God does not allow his work to be sabotaged just because his people refuse to do it.

it's a lot easier not to know him

If you did it, you’d know, and then other passages in Scripture that touch a nerve wouldn’t be painful either. If you did it, you’d understand Scripture, you’d understand more about God, you’d get closer to him, and he’d be closer to you. If you did it, you’d start making progress. If you did it, you’d actually begin to like giving to everyone and anyone.

But you’d rather live with the light momentary affliction of pebble in your shoe because you’re betting that God is good and you’ll get treasure beyond all measure in eternity regardless. You’re betting you know God well enough by going to church and listening to the sermons and paying your tithes. You’re betting it's good enough to be on the same level as everyone else.

You're probably right.