Rules or Relationships?
This is the message I shared last Sunday at Bethel Lutheran Church in Portville, NY, where I have the privilege of serving as pastor. It is based on Matthew 5:21-37.
The Ten Commandments don’t sound that
hard, do they? Is Jesus doing away with the law? After all, that’s the Old
Testament. It doesn’t really apply to us today…or does it? Jesus’
interpretation makes it sound like he’s making it a lot harder. Jesus doesn’t
let any of us off the hook, but levels the playing field. We all fall short and
we’re all guilty.
In today’s gospel, Jesus
uses various examples to demonstrate that simply committing the act is not the
root of the problem. The root is the intention behind the action. Another way
to put this is that it’s not the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law.
Jesus breaks down the act of murder to its root of anger with others and
insulting others. We may have never committed murder, but I’ll bet that we have
been angry and maybe even said things we shouldn’t have said. If nurtured, that
plant of anger grows into hatred and ultimately murder. God considers
reconciliation so important that it takes precedent over the ritual of giving
gifts to God. Reconciliation takes precedence over legal settlements as well.
Jesus goes so far as to say that if God’s people are the victims of such
activity, they are responsible to restore the relationship. We are to overcome
anger by becoming the opportunity for repairing broken relationships.
We need
to treat each other with respect rather than anger. Once our hearts are right,
our motivation will be that of love to our neighbor and our enemy. Jesus is
calling for his people to see relationships differently. He wants our lives to
demonstrate God’s vision of a new humanity of restored relationships in our
broken world. The Christian life is all about relationships—relationship
with God, relationship with each other and relationship with our community.
Does that sound familiar?
Jesus uses
the example of marital infidelity to demonstrate the importance of
relationships. In Jesus’ time, adultery referred to dishonoring a male of one’s
community by having sexual relations with his wife. It was all about a woman
being the property of her husband. Once again Jesus goes to the heart of
infidelity—relationship. Where loyalty, trust, and giving of oneself to each
other, epitomizes a marriage, there
is no room for adultery. Objectifying others as a means to satisfy our physical
desires by lusting after them is the root that grows into adultery.
The ultimate sin in marriage
is not divorce, but the lack of mutual sharing and giving of oneself to the
other. Divorce in Jesus’ time was more like abandonment. Once again, the spirit
of the law goes to how we treat people. “Jesus allows no room for divorce in a
culture in which divorce is an assault on the value of persons, an abuse of
power, or a trivializing of faithful commitments (Long, 60). People should not be treated as disposable.
In contrast to a world where women were treated as property, Jesus gave women
dignity to the point where they were invited into his mission as disciples.
Jesus
sounds extreme when he speaks of tearing out one’s right eye or cutting off
one’s right hand. These are statements of intentional overstatement to make a
point. God’s law is not meant as a killjoy, but as something that is for our
own benefit. It’s like limiting what our children do because it just isn’t good
for them. How many of us have told our children these things: don’t play in the
street, don’t play with fire, and treat each other nicely and play together? We
limit children’s activities because we love them. God is doing the same thing
for us. The purpose of the law and the 10 Commandments were to set the
boundaries in which we are to live as a civilized society. They shouldn’t be
looked at as a series of “Thou shalt nots,” "If you do this, you’re going
to be punished." What God is saying is as long as you live in a certain
way and conduct yourself within these boundaries, you’ll be alright. When you
go beyond these boundaries, there will be consequences that will cause hurt to
yourself and to others. As Luther stressed, maybe the law is the precious gift
of an adoring parent given to beloved children, showing them how to treat each
other well. All the talk of cutting off body parts serves to demonstrate just
how important our relationships are to God.
Jesus’
teaching on faithfulness flows right into the teaching on oaths. The oath
taking of this passage has nothing to do with taking oaths to testify to tell
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth like we do in court.
Swearing falsely doesn’t mean cursing God either. It boils down to bearing
false witness when we lie, when we distort, conceal, and evade telling the
truth. Jesus again takes our responsibility one step further. Jesus calls his
disciples to lives of integrity and of faithfulness to promises. A person like
this has no need to swear that they are telling the truth because their nature
is being truth-tellers.
The
concern was to honor God’s name, not to profane it by making an oath using
God’s name and then failing to perform it. Invoking God’s name was to invoke
his presence. To do so lightly was to seek to use God’s power instead of
putting oneself at God’s service.
We
should speak and act truthfully in all our dealings, and then we have no need
to make oaths at all. Our word should be our bond without need of making false
promises by invoking God’s name.
God
cares deeply about how we treat each other because he loves us so very much
Jesus is calling his people to live lives that lift up God’s desire of a new
humanity of restored relationships in our world.
Martin
Luther wrote:
This is true comfort that
does not rest on our ability, but on the fact that we have a gracious God, who
forgives our sins; on the fact that we believe in Christ and not in our own
worthiness, he cleanses us from day to day; on the fact that whenever we fall
short we should always place our hope and trust in Christ. See, this is the
main drift of our Gospel.
Jesus is
calling us to view and live our relationships in a revolutionary way, the way
of his kingdom. Can you imagine what life would look like if we did this? We
would be demonstrating God’s vision of relationships of healing and
restoration. Our relationships are meant to show the love of Christ to those
around us. In John’s gospel Jesus said, “… everyone
will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John
13:35).
What might that love look
like? It might mean you visit someone in the hospital, drop him or her a card
to cheer them up, call someone you have been thinking about for a while, or a
whole host of other activities. As far as our life together as a body of believers,
it means we won’t spread half-truths about each other and gossip about
something at church or about someone that bothers us. Of course, we know the
whole problem with church is the people that go there. They’re a bunch of
sinners! Yes, that’s true but at the same time, each and every one of us are
also saints. The problems cited in today’s gospel are divisive and destructive
for the life of the church. The real issue is how members of Christ’s body
engage each other. Remember, God wants us to live his vision of a new humanity
of restored relationships.
Let us be God’s good news to a world
in pain and invite them to walk with us as together we live and proclaim God’s
way. Amen.
Fred B. Craddock, Preaching Through the Christian Year A
Thomas G. Long, the Westminster Bible Companion Commentary on Matthew (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997).
David Lose, workingpreacher.org
Alice M. McKenzie, http://www.patheos.com/search/jsp/templates/primaryJSP/fullview.jsp?Submit=Search&keyword=edgy+exegesis
The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/weekly-seeds/heart-of-the-matter.html
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