But I Say
This is the sermon I preached last Sunday, 2/16 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The gospel text was 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. Jesus is not giving us a new, harder list of rules. Rather, he is talking about the intention of the commandments. Jesus is saying, “Yes, I am challenging interpretations of the law that are not consistent with its heart: whole-hearted love of God and neighbor." 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 o