It's not enough...

Epiphany 6

February 16, 2014

Matthew 5:21-37

If there were ever a text that revealed to the world that there is truly no such thing as a biblical literalist, this is one of them.  “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.”  You can’t be serious now, Jesus, can you?  And the answer is no.  Jesus is merely using an exaggeration.  He really doesn’t want us to maim ourselves.  But he does want to get our attention.  And if telling you to tear out your eye or cut off your hand doesn’t do it then, well, you may be physically present but your mind definitely isn’t.

As we become witness to this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, we really have come a very difficult portion of the message this week.  Anger, lust, cutting off hands, divorce, vows…so much time and so little to think about…wait, strike that, reverse it.  A sermon on this passage, if we got really in depth, would keep us here until midafternoon...and seeing as though football season is over, NASCAR starts next week, and Olympics coverage doesn’t start until 2pm…let’s dive in!

Don’t worry, I’m only joking. 

There is a whole lot in this passage to unpack, but here is really what it all boils down to…God cares about our relationships.  God wants us to be in relationships that are healthy and life giving.  That was the ultimate purpose behind why God gave Moses the Ten Commandments in the first place, so that people would have a guide for how to be in relationship with one another and with God…so that they could, in the words of Deuteronomy, Choose Life.  But the problem is how these commandments have been interpreted.  According to Martin Luther, the 5^th Commandment – Thou shalt not murder – in the eyes of the Jewish community, only condemned a person as a murderer if they had physically committed an act of murder.  Therefore – as an example- in their eyes, David was innocent of murder when he had Bathsheba’s husband killed on the battlefield…because he was not the one to strike Uriah down, though we all know that David sent Uriah to the front lines because he coveted Uriah’s wife. 

And then there is 6^th commandment – Thou shalt not commit adultery.  When it came to marriage and divorce in the time of Moses there were a couple issues going on.  The first is that when a woman was married to a man, the act of marriage was seen as a business deal in which the woman was transferred as property from her father to her husband.  It then became her job to care for the house and provide children for him.  According to Deuteronomy 24, if a wife found no favor in the eyes of her husband, he could write her a certificate of divorce.  In some circles, the grounds for divorce were unfaithfulness.  But in most circles divorces could have been granted because the woman was unable to bear children, or because she did not provide her husband with a son, or, in the teaching of the rabbi Hillel, a man could write a certificate of divorce because the indecency he found in her was that she could not cook.  So, in essence we are looking at a situation in which women were seen as disposable and could ultimately be cast off from their husbands for any reason.  

Finally we come to the oaths.  There really is no commandment that speaks directly to oaths, however, the second and eighth commandments are related to it.  In the Old Testament, God set up a system for taking oaths.  In Leviticus 19:12 God says ““Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.” and then in Deuteronomy 23:21, we hear “If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin.”

So God takes oaths seriously.  But the interpretations of these commands from the Lord, like the interpretations of the 5^th and 6^th commandments, became so skewed that it actually became a basis for telling lies.  You see, back in the time leading up to Jesus’ day, there were considered to be stages of truth telling and stages of telling falsehood.  The system of taking oaths when telling truth and telling falsehood became so convoluted that you couldn’t tell whether a person was lying or telling the truth. 

So we have murder, adultery, divorce, and oaths.  All in one passage.  What in the world do they have to do with each other?

If we are looking at the trees instead of the forest, we see in all of these laws a violation of human relationships.  And, as Jesus said last week, he did not come to abolish the law but, instead to fulfill it so that now one letter or stroke of the letter of the law would be removed.

But it is not enough to not physically commit the act of murder, we must also refrain from letting angry words and actions prevent us from treating others with respect and value. For we know that the old adage, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, isn’t true…I’d prefer a stick or a stone to a word that breaks me down any day. 

It is not enough to not physically commit the act of adultery, we must also refrain from treating people as objects that satisfy our sexual desires.

It is not enough to keep the letter of the law when it comes to divorce, we must also refrain from treating our spouses as disposable and protect those who are most vulnerable when marriages do dissolve.   

It is not enough to take an oath so that people will believe that you are telling the truth, we must also be truthful and faithful in what we say and do so that people will believe our yes when we say yes and our no when we say no. In the Amish community, this portion of scripture is taken so seriously, that the Amish are exempt from taking oaths in a court of law. 

What Jesus is saying is that it is not enough to keep the commandments, we must go above and beyond so that we may do everything that we can to show those around us that we value who they are as human beings and that we honor and respect them.  And in relationships that have become broken beyond the point of reconciliation, that we would at least have peace so that any anger or hurt does not prevent us from fully living our lives.

God cares about our relationships. 

Jesus knows the importance of being in relationship with others.  His ministry was ultimately about the relationships that he had with those around him, those he taught, those he fed, those he healed, those in his inner circle.  Jesus showed us, through his own life, that every human life is valuable, if you notice in the Gospels, the people who labeled the folks that Jesus hung out with as sinners were the Pharisees and the scribes…never once was it Jesus.  He helped people who were lost to see that they are people of value because they are children of God and that as children of God, that they deserved to respect, love, and life giving relationships.

And not only did Jesus focus on the importance of relationships, he experienced firsthand the hurt that happens when the trust of a human relationship is violated.

That was not the end of it, though. For even on the cross, Jesus cried out “father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”