Gospel Reading: Matthew 5:21-37
I want to take you back to the last part of last week’s Gospel reading. Remember it? Well, if not, I’ll guess I’ll tell you again. Jesus tells his disciples and the crowds that he has not come to abolish the Law and the prophets. At the very least, he was rumored to have a cavalier attitude towards the commandments. Jesus wants to clear himself of that charge. He says that anyone who does and teaches the Law will be called great in the kingdom of heaven; and that anyone who does not do and teach the Law will be called least in that kingdom.
But then he
says something that really gives them pause. He tells his disciples and the
listening crowd that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and
Pharisees, they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. One can imagine the
consternation that this might cause. For the Pharisees were devoted to God’s
law. For the Pharisees, the key issue facing God’s people was not the proper
sacrifices in the Temple, or the restoration of the Davidic kingship, important
though those things may have been. It was the obedience of the people of God to
the Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Moses had
told God’s people that there were two ways they could follow in the promised
Land, one leading to life and prosperity, and one to death and adversity.
Keeping the commandments delivered to Moses by God would lead to good results
for the people, one would lead to bad results for the people. And this wasn’t just
the Ten Commandments. The Pharisees had identified 613 commandments in the
first five books of the Bible which God’s people were to keep religiously, as
it were.
That is one way
to think of it. The other is that there was something flawed in the way the
Pharisees were living out God’s command to be righteous. Now this does not mean
that every single Pharisee was a bad person pretending to be good. But a
strange thing had happened. Jesus perceived that in many cases, the legalistic
observance of God’s life-giving Law was actually making room for death.
We may
wonder: why does Jesus prohibits the swearing of oaths? Certainly there can be
nothing wrong with swearing that one will fulfill one’s words and then carrying
them out. But there are several problems that I can see. One is that when we
make an oath, we may call God’s curse upon ourselves or another if we do not
keep it. Another is that an oath can be a cover for a lie, giving in the
untrustworthy oath-maker’s words by attaching them to someone or something
trustworthy. Finally, when a person makes an oath in a certain situation, one
might ask if that person’s words are trustworthy when no oath is sworn.
Besides, if you read the Bible or Shakespeare or even Tolkien, you know that no
oath sworn in a fit of passion ever works out well.
Now some of
us may have taken an oath in court. We might be worried now. Probably not. But Christian
teaching has generally distinguished between the ‘making of oaths’ that Jesus
talks about here, and the ‘taking’ of public oaths in court. Nevertheless, the
Constitution refers to Jesus’ words here by providing the option for a person
elected President of the United States to ‘solemnly affirm’ rather than
‘solemnly swear’ that he or she will faithfully execute the office.
A similar
thing is happening when Jesus talks about divorce. Those men who had given
their wives a legal divorce believed that they had fulfilled the righteousness
required by God’s law. But Jesus perceives that a man who believes he is doing
God’s will simply by dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s can hide an awful lot
of violence or apathy in this way. Ironically,
Jesus’ own words about divorce have been legalistically used to keep
women (or men) in relationships which are marked by physical violence and
mental cruelty. In both cases, God’s life-giving words are used in a way that
makes room for death.
When our
Lord expands the commandment against adultery to include a prohibition of lewd glances
and suggestive stares, he makes us understand that participation in the way of
death begins here, just as a seed grows hidden under the earth before bursting
forth into the light of day. When he expands the commandment against murder to
prohibit insults and name-calling, he calls us to remember that words of
violence, as well as deeds of violence, have consequences, both for the hearer
and the speaker.
Moses set
before the people the two ways, one of life, one of death. Jesus reveals to us
that the way of life involves more than simply checking off boxes and keeping
up appearances. If we attend church regularly (which we should) and yet
belittle and mock and look down upon the others who worship with us, are we or
are we not walking in the way of discipleship? If we are pro-life and yet do
not act in love towards those who oppose us, if we use either God’s law or
man’s to either trample truth or stifle mercy, can we claim to be hungering and
thirsting for righteousness?
When, at the end of a day, we review its events and its interactions, what we’ve done and what we have not done, we might do well to ask, have I received the creation as the living gift of God, has everyone I’ve encountered been encountered as a person uniquely created by and redeemed by God for life? Have my words and deeds been life-giving or death-dealing? If we reflect in this way, there will be reason for thanksgiving because of the good we have been permitted to give and to receive. But there will also always be reason for humility, and reason for repentance, for people honest with themselves know the deviousness of the heart. ‘The human heart is a factory of idols,’ said the Swiss theologian John Calvin, and the peculiar characteristic of an idol is to give rise to the lie that human beings can be self-sufficient, without need for God or others, free to use and discard them as they please.
So, Jesus
does not come to abolish God’s law. But that is not the whole story. For he
says, ‘I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill.’ In Jesus of Nazareth we see
a man who perfectly embodies the song of praise to God’s will: Happy are
they whose way is blameless, who walks in the law of the Lord! Happy are they
who observe his decrees, and seek him with all their heart! Who never do any
wrong, but always walks in his ways. His every word is true, his every act
is life-giving – forgiveness of sins, protection and rescue from evil,
resurrection from the dead. He fulfills the Law for us, and he fulfills the Law
in us, for when our words and deeds make space for life, they are the
works of his Spirit of life in us. We are humbled, but not humiliated, for in
Jesus Christ God himself has chosen the way of life for us, making a way for us
to follow rejoicing.
