Matthew 5:21-42
February 13, 2011
In the strange world of church calendars, with Lent starting so late this year, we get to hear more of Jesus’ sermon on the mount than we usually do. It’s been 9, maybe 12, years since this passage today has been in the lectionary. Because of this, I think, most of us really only remember the beginning of this chapters-long sermon: blessed are the poor, the meek, the peacemakers and so on. After all, we do get to hear that part with fair regularity in the church. And for the most part, the beginning of the sermon feels uplifting – it’s a vision of those who are down trodden in the present receiving something so much better when the world Jesus envisioned is realized. When you read on, however, the sermon gets more and more challenging.
Last week we were told Jesus said that not only should we obey all 613 commandments of the Torah, but we should do even more…obey the prophets who call us to a life of service to the poor and outcast. Pretty demanding. Next week, just to give you something to look forward to, we get to hear that we should love our enemies and, my personal favorite, that we are to be perfect just as God is perfect. And then there’s today. Jesus continues to demand more than most of us can deliver. He takes some of the laws from the Torah and basically soups them up.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘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 judgment.”
“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.”
It’s the 10 commandments…only harder.
As someone in our bible study pointed out, it feels like we should actually get some Christian kudos for having feelings of anger, attraction, and hatred but not acting on them. Unfortunately, Jesus doesn’t seem inclined that way. He seems to hold us to a standard that is basically unattainable, not to mention unimaginable – plucking out our eyes and cutting off limbs when we mess up?! Like the snow-plow-produced mound at the bottom of my driveway, I wish these passages would magically disappear.
As a pastor, it doesn’t make sense to me to preach to this congregation that you need to beat yourselves up for your feelings of anger, for example, because from what I see, you all do pretty well on the outward action thing. Not a lot of murdering going on here. So, I’m left wondering if this passage is best left out of the lectionary altogether. It can’t really be helpful to us in the life of faith, can it?
As I read and re-read this passage this week, I remembered that the author of the gospel of Matthew was writing to very specific people living 5 – 6 decades after Jesus’ death. In other words, the author wasn’t writing to us. There is no doubt that this is an important sermon Matthew shares with his readers. But this sermon can only have meaning for us if we first remind ourselves to whom Matthew was originally directing these words. In some ways the audience is very much like us, but in other ways they are radically different. And so, what the author says – the words he chooses and examples he uses – in order to make his point are words and examples that might actually cause us to miss the point today because of those significant differences between then and now.
In Matthew’s day, people were owned. Slaves and women were property – and so they were treated as such. It was objectification in the extreme. Now, to be sure, the Israelites, through their 613 commandments, were called to a different way of treating slaves and women. Much of the Torah law is meant to address injustices exactly like those committed against slaves and women. But following the letter of the law did not go far enough for Jesus because it wasn’t ultimately working for those who were most vulnerable. The way people were following these laws did not seem to address the way people viewed slaves and women. It did not affect attitudes, and so slaves and women were still not ultimately treated as human beings.
That is quite different from our reality today. It’s true that all of us can slip into objectifying others for all sorts of reasons. But, it’s just not comparable. We don’t own people. In addition, our list of “laws” is different. Our laws aren’t exactly written down, but most of us know them – be kind and compassionate, welcome people who come through our doors, go to church, give generously to those in need, eat casseroles on the 3rd Sunday. Our context, our understanding of what it means to be religious, is just not the same as those to whom Jesus was speaking and Matthew was writing 2000 years ago.
So, we have to look behind the specifics in this passage to get at the intention. The larger point of Jesus’ life, Matthew believes, is that following the law is not about legalism. In fact, legalistically following the law the law wasn’t doing what it was meant to do. Matthew is writing to those in the church who follow the letter of the law, but still have unjust and unreconciled relationships of some kind; he is wanting them to see these relationships must change. He tells them, through Jesus’ sermon, when the law is followed “correctly”, when it is the spirit – not the letter – of the law the drives actions, relationships will be just and will be reconciled.
This is why, in Jesus’ first reworking of the commandments – the one about how to bring your offering to God – he makes it clear that, even though it would comply with the law, you can’t go through the religious exercise of bringing your offering without first reconciling with your brother or sister. This is why you can’t just divorce your wife because you want to – because she is not, for example, producing sons for you – even though the law says you can. That is treating her like property. Jesus is pointing past the insufficient letter of the law to the spirit – and the spirit is all about relationships, and right relationship comes from the heart – not the law.
In refocusing the laws to center on relationship, we see that Jesus actually wants more for us; not necessarily more from us. He wants us to regard others as God regards others and therefore to treat them accordingly. In the same way, Jesus wants for us to be regarded by others as God regards us. Jesus is calling us to look beyond the law and see its goal and end: the life, welfare, and health of all humanity. In this way Jesus’ hope for us a life in God's kingdom as constituted not by obeying laws but rather by holding the welfare of our neighbors close to our hearts while trusting that they are doing the same for us.
As I said earlier, we are not struggling with the same issues as the church folks in the 1st century. They needed to reconcile relationships by ending the unjust practice of seeing some people as property. But that leaves the question: What is the equivalent for us? What are our issues to which this passage speaks? I think the breech of right relationship is not as much about oppressing those we know as it is about keeping a distance from those we don’t know.
We are less likely to be in relationships that objectify as we are to avoid relationships with those unlike us – wit those most vulnerable to life’s whims. We can appear to keep our religious laws without ever seeing or spending time with people who suffer from poverty or violence. We can keep our distance from people who live in our own town but do not frequent the same places…do not run in the same circles. We can give money to help the poor – something we know we are called to do as people who follow Jesus – but never actually meet anyone who goes to Mica. In other words, we can follow the religious laws without living in relationship with our all of our brothers and sisters with whom we are not reconciled.
I don’t think this breech in relationships – this distance we keep between us and the most vulnerable in our community – exists for nefarious reasons. I don’t think we are bad people with malicious intent. I think things like busyness, and family and work demands prevent us from forging and nurturing relationships with those still not served by our religious laws.
Maybe if Jesus were here today, one of his commandments to us would go something like this: “You have heard it said, honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. But I say to you, honor the Sabbath by turning away from the busyness, and the demands, and toward people from whom you feel distant.” It’s not just about Sunday – not just about the religious practice. In some ways Sunday is the starting point – as Jesus says, the law can be good – we should still practice the Sabbath in the way we already are by going to worship – Sabbath is the moment when we stop and take a deep breath of the spirit of God, cease our “normal” work, and refocus. But it’s so much more than that. If we stop there, we may have fulfilled the letter of the law – but we’re missing the spirit. We need to remember those who aren’t able to rest – to have Sabbath – and find ways to give them rest. Sabbath should include giving Sabbath to others.
The problem is, if we can’t see people, if we can’t see what their lives look like and feel what their lives feel like, our practice of Sabbath will forever remain unconnected to their need for Sabbath. If we stay distant, if we avoid the suffering of others because we don’t have the time, the energy, or the inclination, we aren’t likely to sense how much our brothers and sisters need rest.
You have heard it said, “honor the Sabbath and keep it holy,” but I say to you, “if even one of your brothers or sisters is tired and run down, you have not kept the Sabbath holy as your creator God intended.”
The law is not an end in and of itself. The law is meant to form us into people who will live in reconciled and right relationships with one another. Our practice of religion should not just ban us from certain actions, but it should make us less likely to harbor attitudes and feelings that lead to suffering for others. I tell you, Jesus said, the law is not just about avoiding doing the wrong thing, it is about becoming more loving and more aware people. It is about seeing everyone as God sees them. You can’t legislate that. Rules alone will not make our relationships holy and right.
Look at Jesus’ life. His understanding of following the law included healing someone who was suffering on the Sabbath, even though the letter of the law said that was wrong. The spirit is focused on relationships – on healing, reconciling, restoring people. The law helps us, but it is not enough. It takes a heart centered on the God of compassion in order for us to live the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is, in the end, the only law that can lead us in our relationships with all of our brothers and sisters. Amen.
