"A Greater Righteousness"
Matthew 5:17-37
I sometimes wonder why so many Christians speak fondly about
the Sermon on the Mount. Public and
private figures talk about the Sermon on the Mount as if it’s a safe way of
showing that they are respectfully religious… that they believe religion is
generally a good thing.
But anyone who has spent any time
soaking up the Sermon on the Mount knows, as one of my colleagues suggests, that
“this sermon is no pretty, comforting set of teachings, but one apparently
meant to drive off followers.”[1] As Jesus instructs his followers on what it
means to be disciples, he demands huge sacrifices.
The Rev. Amy Butler, a Baptist
colleague, shared what happened the Sunday she decided to scrap her plan to
preach the sermon she’d written on the passage from the Sermon on the Mount the
lectionary assigned and, instead, “preached” the entire Sermon on the
Mount. She read all three chapters.
At coffee
hour, several people came up to tell her that they didn’t like or didn’t agree
with some of the parts of the sermon that day.
As she says: “Read from the BIBLE.
The words of Jesus.” But, she continues, “The Sermon on the Mount is counter-cultural. That’s the point.” [2]
Of
course, there are some parts of the Sermon on the Mount that we really like. But then there are the hard parts. The part about loving your enemies… about not
being a hypocrite… hard words about divorce.
There are parts that can make us feel uncomfortable. So, as Amy Butler suggests, we have been guilty of watering down the Christian faith, turning the practice of following Jesus into a tepid list of suggested behavior, or a fool-proof recipe for wealth and happiness, or worst of all, a license to exclude or even hate people who don’t believe exactly as we do. In other words, we tend to distort the Christian faith.
This week’s passage brings some
major challenges: dealing with anger…
adultery… divorce… and taking oaths. So,
as a preacher, I wondered: where to
begin? I could do a whole series of
sermons on the text: focusing one week
on anger… one week on adultery… another on divorce… and so on.
But I keep coming back to what
Jesus said about the Law. “Don’t think I
came to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish—but to fulfill…. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds
that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew wrote his Gospel to a
community of Jewish Christians, people who had been raised on the law of Moses
as the embodiment of God’s will for human life.
In family worship, Jewish children were taught to ask their parents,
“What is the meaning of the decrees and statutes and ordinances that the LORD
our God has commanded you?”[3] Their parents were to answer: The LORD commanded us to observe all these
statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our lasting good, to keep us alive.”[4]
In the Jewish faith, the law is
seen as a blessing… a good gift… a source of life.
But what about the Jewish Law for Christians? This was an important question in the early
church.
Tom Long suggests that there are
two obvious and diametrically opposed resolutions to this question. What we have long called the Old Testament--Torah
law-- remains in full effect for Christians—every commandment. Or we can decide that the new freedom in
Christ cancels and abolishes the requirements of the law. So, in simple terms, either Christ leaves the
whole law intact-- or Christ replaces the law with something new.[5]
But in the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus rejects both of these options, and offers us a third way. The law neither remains as it is-- nor is it abolished. Rather, it is fulfilled and transformed in
Jesus Christ. As we live into the kingdom of heaven, we need to see and
interpret every aspect of the Law and the Prophets in the light of Jesus Christ.
Professor Long suggests that we
think of a powerful searchlight scanning the night sky. The way a beacon works is that a relatively
small source of light is passed through a great lens, which magnifies it into a
powerful radiance that spreads over the sky. Now, think of a laser beam. Here the energy source is concentrated. Its
power is transformed into a light of razor-shape intensity.
In Christ, the law becomes both a
searchlight and a laser. When the law
passes through the person and event of Christ, it is both focused and enlarged. Its potential to illumine and to guide human
life are both amplified and intensified.
Jesus said,
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.” He isn’t saying, “Now, the old law said this,
but I’m throwing it out and giving you a new law in its place.” No,
even the smallest commandment stands. But
now, each and every commandment is seen through the eyes of the new thing that
has happened in and through Jesus Christ.
What we’re hearing
here in Matthew’s gospel is Jesus interpreting the law for his disciples and
followers and Matthew interpreting what Jesus said for the people in his community.
So what
does this mean for us as Christians today?
How do we view the commandments in the light of our Christian faith?
As we live together in Christian
community and try to discern God’s will for our life, we need to ask of every
commandment, every piece of the law, “What is the will of God that stands behind
this commandment?”
Take the commandment to keep the Sabbath. Later in Matthew, Jesus and his disciples get
into trouble with the religious officials because the disciples eat grain and
Jesus heals a man. Both of these things
are technically violations of the commandment to observe the Sabbath. But behind the Sabbath commandment is a God
who desires that human society be just and merciful and that human life be
nourished and restored. This is the heart
of the Sabbath commandment. Jesus, who
came to live among us, full of grace and truth, argues with the religious
officials that, by violating the surface of the commandment, they have
fulfilled the deeper meaning of the commandment.[6]
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
expresses this move to the deeper meaning of the commandments by saying:
“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
I agree with the scholars who
suggest that the word “exceeds” is referring to the quality of righteousness,
rather than to quantity. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to a
different kind of righteousness—a righteousness that expresses the merciful,
forgiving, reconciling will of God that is at the core of the commandments.
Jesus gave a series of practical
examples where the heart of the law leads to a greater righteousness. I think each of these examples is related to
some concrete concern in Matthew’s church.
And they all have to do with personal relationships… with how we live
together in human community.
In the verses we heard today, Jesus
is addressing some of the more contentious issues of his time. The verses on anger enlarge how we understand
the commandment against murder. Jesus
isn’t rescinding the prohibition against murder, but he places murder on a continuum
of outcomes related to anger. He
recognizes that human beings get angry, and he teaches that it can be transformed
by living as a peacemaker, acting in ways that show the reign of God in our
midst.[7]
In the verses on adultery, Jesus
expands the meaning of the term so that it includes both action and intent. According to biblical scholar Amy-Jill
Levine, when Jesus includes lust, it seems to suggest that no one should be
regarded as a sex object.[8]
In the verses on divorce, Jesus
recognizes the tradition that makes divorce possible-- but he places limits on
the grounds for divorce.
The
intent and the ideal is that the marriage will be forever. But in the first century, most women were
dependent on their fathers or husbands for their daily livelihood—indeed for
their survival. In a culture of male privilege, women could be
used and discarded. A woman who had been
seduced brought great shame upon her family. A woman who had been raped was considered
damaged goods, and her ability to marry well would be jeopardized. For those who were married, there would be
the threat of divorce. Wives could be cast aside for ridiculous reasons,
including burning bread,[9] or to marry a younger woman. In a world where
women were treated like property, where they could be coveted and used by men,
Jesus reinforced the dignity of women, and he included women as disciples in
his mission.
God's
in-breaking presence in Jesus Christ re-orders the relationships of this world
and re-orients how we live. During
Epiphany, we claim once again that we have a living God, incarnate among us,
not some far-off ruler up in the sky who keeps check-lists of when we’re
naughty and nice. We proclaim that the
"Word became flesh and lived among us,” the Word embodied in everyday life—in
inward attitudes and in outward actions.
In the realm of
God, relationships are not to be taken lightly.
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he said, “Love
God. Love your neighbor as
yourself. On this hang all the
commandments.” When we honor our
neighbor as ourselves, we live in mutuality and respect, in right relationship.
Jesus calls us to see the world in
a whole new way: to walk in God’s way of grace… forgiveness…mercy…and
love. When we live in God’s way of love,
God’s love will shine through us for all to see. People will know we are Christians by our love,
and God will be glorified!
The
God who was born in a manger enters the messiness of our lives, seeking to heal
and to save. This God offers us new life-- not a puny, flat life of avoiding a list
of the "big sins"-- but a life deeper and wider than we imagined.
Life
in the kingdom of heaven demands more and promises more. It is life abundant. Thanks
be to God!
Amen!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
February 12, 2017
[1] Lisa D.
Maugans-Driver, in Lectionary Homiletics (February 20, 2011), p. 23.
[2] The Rev.
Amy Butler, “The Sermon on the Mount is Counter-Cultural. That’s the Point,” in
the Opinion Section of The Baptist News,
February 17, 2017. https://baptistnews.com/article/the-sermon-on-the-mount-is-counter-cultural-thats-the-point/#.WJ9FcdySXq0
[3] Deut.
6:20
[4] Deut.
6:24
[5] Thomas
G. Long, Matthew. (Westminster John Knox
Press, 1997), p. 53.
[6] Matt.
12:1-14
[7] I am
indebted here to Marcia Y. Riggs, in Feasting
on the Word [Kindle
edition]
[8] Amy Jill
Levine, in Feasting on the Word.
[9] Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 192., cited by Carla
Works, in Commentary on Matthew 5:21-37 at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary
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