12 February 2023 Epiphany 6
Epiphany 6. Deuteronomy 10.12-22; Psalm 119.1-8; 1 Corinthians 3.1-9; Matthew 5.21-37I
Last week, Jesus said that he came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and not a letter, or even a stroke of a letter, would be lost. Yet today, he appears to be changing the law, ‘you have heard it said, but I say’. So what’s going on.
We often see this passage as judgemental and descriptive. We see it telling us what not to do, and we usually struggle to see what it is telling us to do. This is the third section of the ‘Sermon on Mount’ and given that the preceding sections were full of what blessings God is offering us; we are blessed, and we are to bless others; we are salt and light; why then do we reverse this good news and see this section as prescriptive and threatening.
I suspect that it has a lot to do with our image of what God is like. For a lot of people God is ‘judge’, God is ‘law maker’, God sits in heaven with an accusing finger permanently ‘at the ready’. And it is easy for this image of God to be reinforced by this gospel reading. There appears to be a very heavy emphasis on law and penalties for disobedience.
But rather than being judgemental, I see Jesus calling forth a new community; a blessed community; a beloved community. He is calling forth a community which will follow in his footsteps and share divine love to a world that is hungry for hope and healing.
If we look on Jesus’ words about murder, anger, reconciliation, adultery, lust, divorce and oath-making as instructions given in the hope of building and sustaining a community which is both blessed and commissioned to bless, then we glimpse a God who cares about human dignity. A God who cares deeply about our relationships with each other, and sincerely wants us to treat others with the deepest respect, dignity and love.
‘you have heard that murder is wrong, but I say’; it is not enough for you to coexist without killing each other; if you want a beloved community, it is just the first step. Think about the ways we ‘kill’ relationships through rage or resentment or spite or unforgiveness or hateful words. How many times have you heard people say – ‘I’ll never speak to them again; that person is dead to me; I can never forgive them for what they did’. We may spare a person’s life, but we still commit unspeakable murder through our refusal to love.
And when we look at Jesus’ words about adultery; he tells us that not sleeping with another person’s spouse is just the barest foundation of a Christ-centred community. But how often do we cheapen or objectify others for our own pleasure. Why can’t we help others to succeed in marriage and other relationships instead of making it harder for them, and us, to fulfil these vows. Jesus calls us to take seriously our responsibilities in encouraging others to live lives which are whole, abundant, faithful and life-giving.
And what about the one on swearing oaths. Yes, in Jesus’ day, all deals and agreements were ‘sealed’ with a verbal oath, but Jesus is telling us, why not just tell the truth and accept the word of others as truth-telling. Why do you need to get someone to ‘swear’ when it is so much easier to simply accept that their word is truth. In God’s beloved community there is no manipulating or conniving language because we remember that all words are spoken in the presence of God, and we respect and care for all people in the way we speak.
Discussion about divorce is tricky in today’s society, but in Jesus’ day, when a husband divorced his wife, he abandoned her and any children with her to destitution and starvation; she could not return to her family home, she would be abandoned by friends, she had no financial backup. And what Jesus is saying is, it is not enough to ‘follow the letter of the law’ and give your wife a certificate of divorce and abandon her – you still have a moral obligation to care for her well-being. In the beloved community that Jesus is shaping, we all have a responsibility to uphold the dignity of all people as brothers and sisters in Christ – even if our relationship with that spouse or partner has ceased to be viable. Divorce is sometimes the best option for a fractured relationship but that does not remove our responsibility to care for the other person. A piece of paper cannot remove our deeper responsibility, it continues regardless.
This gospel passage often leaves us feeling uneasy, but if we sit and explore it slowly, we see a caring and attentive God. A God who desperately asks us to care for each other; a God who cares for our dignity; a God who does not want us to create a community of ‘bare minimums’, a God who wants us to show our communities the fullness of divine love, mercy, grace, and generosity.
Jesus is not condemning us; he is reminding us of truths we already know intuitively. The way of love is hard. It is costly. It often hurts. And if we choose easy and austere legalism instead of arduous, radical love, we are condemning ourselves to our own living hell.
So let us focus our attention on what’s important. Jesus tells us we matter. How we live matters. What we say and do, what we focus our attention on, and prioritise, matters. Our choices have life and death consequences, so Jesus is inviting us to take our lives seriously. Settling for bare minimums will only make our faith harder. So, he is begging us to reconcile with each other, protect each other, speak truthfully to each other, honour each other. And we do these things, not because we want to earn God’s blessing, but because we are already richly blessed.
Imagine a community, or better yet, a society, where we helped each other to succeed in all the ways this Sermon on the Mount describes. Jesus says over and over again, But I say to you, that so much more is possible than you have yet comprehended. Reach for it. Walk into it. Sustain it. You are loved, and blessed, right here, right now. You do not have to earn anything; everything is there for you to share. Be the beloved community you long for.