2-16-14: Sermon on the Mount, Part 3: The Law of Jesus

Sermon on the Mount, Part 3: The Law of Jesus

 

Matthew 5: 21-37 (NRSV)

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

 

 

This week we’re continuing with the Sermon on the Mount, from exactly where we left off last week. And I’m willing to argue that this particular section of the Sermon on the Mount might be the hardest for us to hear—especially those of us that don’t like having to follow rules.

Really, this week’s lectionary-appointed portion of the Sermon on the Mount is all about “the rules”. The phrase of this week is “You have heard that it was said.” He says some version of that four times in this week’s Gospel lesson, followed closely by the phrase, “…but I say to you.”

“You have heard that it was said.” Said by whom, Jesus? Well, Jesus doesn’t give us an answer for this question, but it’s mostly because the people listening to him, his twelve disciples, didn’t have to ask. His disciples, all Jewish men, knew exactly “who said” these phrases that Jesus quotes to them. All these quotes are coming from the Torah. To us sitting here, that’s called the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. To Jesus’ disciples, “Torah” is a very familiar Hebrew word that means “Law”. What law? The Law. The Law of Moses. Those many, many, many laws that are laid out for us to read in those very books that we call the Pentateuch. Those Laws that Moses dictated to his people, the Hebrews, after his sacred conversation on Mount Sinai with God.

I’m telling you that this can be a very difficult section of the Sermon on the Mount to read or hear if you don’t especially like hearing rules spelled out to you. For Jesus’ twelve disciples, this part of the Sermon on the Mount was equally hard to hear, for exactly the opposite reason—because they loved their rules. That is to say, they loved their Law.

In our modern minds, it can be really hard to wrap our heads around this. Sure, we’re familiar with the Ten Commandments, and perhaps can name them, but how familiar are we with the rest of the many, many laws laid out in the Pentateuch? My guess is not very.

But Jesus’ very devout disciples were well versed in their Hebrew Scriptures, and knew the Law of Moses. More than that, the Law was incredibly important to them. It was revealed to Moses, their great ancestor. The one who delivered their people out of Egypt and to the Promised Land, the one that God chose to be the first leader of their people. The one who conversed with the Lord himself.

Even the disciples, Jesus’ closest companions and dedicated followers, would have to be thinking right about now: Who does this man think he is? What kind of man is this, who presumes to change the Law of Moses?

But, rest assured, disciples of then and today: Jesus told his disciples in verse seventeen, from the portion we heard last week, that he came neither to change nor abolish the Law. Rather, he came to fulfill the Law. Up to this point, Jesus’ Jewish friends and neighbors had followed the Law of Moses. From now on, they’d be following a richer, more complete Law: the Law of Jesus.

Well that’s great, Pastor Natalie, but it still doesn’t make these words of Jesus any easier to hear—or follow. And if you feel a little hesitant or reluctant hearing this morning’s Gospel lesson, you’re right. And honestly if you didn’t react that way, you really should.

Because these aren’t like any other rules, or like our own laws. Frankly, some of the Law of Jesus doesn’t make a lot of sense, even to those who may have heard these verses many, many times over the years. And even if you think you totally follow Jesus through all these verses, if you’re being honest with yourself you must be thinking, Well that’s great in theory, Jesus, but no real person could ever live up to these expectations.

Just consider Jesus’ first new Law. He tells us:

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

Let’s think about what we just heard there. “You shall not murder”. Alright, no argument there, great law. But we can’t even be angry? And we can never resort to put-downs? Ever? Not even when we’re driving and some other guy cuts us off? Really Jesus? I understand that’s not model behavior, but it really seems like there’s way worse things that could come out of your mouth in a moment of anger than “You fool.”

Well, if this sounds unreasonable, understand first of all that it is. It’s not just those of us in this room that couldn’t live up to these words—Jesus himself couldn’t live up to these words. Not all the time. Anybody remember that time that Jesus confronted the money changers in the Temple, and called them robbers and flipped over all their tables? I’m no expert here, but I think he just might have been a little bit angry that day. Or what about all the times that the Pharisees confronted him? Sure, he handled those encounters well, but he wasn’t always exactly cordial. One time he even outright snarled at them and said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” I think he was a little angry that day, too. And, come to think of it, I’m not so sure calling a group of people “hypocrites” is any better than calling one person a “fool”.

If you weren’t convinced before, then be convinced now: Jesus was fully God, and fully human. And humans have feelings. Anger is one of those feelings. It’s a reaction we experience to what’s going on around us. It’s our mind telling us something is very wrong here.

So we need to change the way we think of “laws”, or “rules”. A lot of us don’t like rules because we don’t like the idea of someone telling us what to do. We especially don’t like the idea of someone telling us what we can’t do. When we think about rules, we think about what they have to do with our actions, or our behavior—what can we do?

The Law of Moses made a lot of sense to the Jewish people for exactly that reason—it was all about a person’s choice of actions. It was a very long but clear list of what a person could and could not do. Perhaps not easy to memorize, but easy enough to understand and follow.

But the Law of Jesus is different. Because Jesus wasn’t as concerned as Moses about your choice of behavior. Rather, Jesus was concerned about the consequences for your behavior.

The Law of Moses gave exactly what the Hebrew people needed at the time. It was for a people that weren’t ready to hear out a man like Jesus—they were just getting used to life as a people freed from slavery, and they were struggling in the wilderness, trying to find their place.

Thousands of years later, Jesus’ followers were finally ready to hear what Moses’ followers couldn’t. And today, two thousand years after Jesus, we’re mature enough to know and hear the whole truth.

And the whole truth is this: in the real world, you’ll get angry sometimes. In an imperfect world, you’ll hear people swear and make promises they can’t keep. In our imperfect world, you’ll meet people who did get divorced. In our world, sometimes bad things happen, and we need to do the best we can to cope, and that might mean making one less-than-desirable choice, in favor of a better outcome. And, in the real world, some people practice bad behavior all the time, and have enough luck to get away with it.

We’re not perfect. In this time, in this place, we can’t be, and we shouldn’t be. But what Jesus teaches us this morning is that even when we’re not perfect, we’re smart enough to know that all of our actions have consequences.

We’re smart enough to know that it might not be the worst thing in the world to call someone a name, or throw out an insult when we’re mad, but that if we chose to watch our tempers and show just a little restraint, we might hurt each other less. We’re smart enough to know that we shouldn’t have to “swear” anything—if we respected each other enough, and spoke with enough integrity, then our friends and loved ones would be able to trust without any fancy language that we mean what we say. We’re smart enough to know that our romantic relationships are a gift from God, and we should take them seriously, and treat our partners with respect.

We can’t maintain this kind of conduct all the time, and Jesus knew that. He knew, and knows, that we aren’t perfect. But God’s Son set the bar very high for us because God loves us that much. And by our actions, even our simple ones, we might see better consequences—we might see a world that looks even just a little bit more like the Kingdom of God.

Amen.