Sermon for 15th January
Texts:
• Dt 30:15-20
• 1 Cor 3:1-19
• Mt 5:21-37
My father told me once how he’d been given a New Testament and was told to read the Beatitudes. He did so, but he told me that he couldn’t possibly do all that stuff Jesus commands.
He was of course perfectly correct to say he couldn’t. But he was missing something vitally important – that if we ask, seek, know, God will by grace help us to meet God’s demands. As Jesus tells the disciples apropos the rich young man, “With humans it is impossible – but with God all things are possible”.
What do you trust God for, what is your faith all about? For me, I trust that God in his mercy and love will make me the person he wants me to be – God gives the growth, as St Paul tells us today.
As Lent approaches, we get readings from the Beatitudes, from the Sermon on the Mount which involve us in letting God do his work in us, to make us what he wants us to be – both individually and corporately.
Jesus employs in the Gospel today, a constant refrain, “You’ve heard it said, but I tell you this”. Jesus comes, he says, not to abolish but to fulfil the Law – in his very own person he interprets and lives the Law perfectly. He represents what Israel was always meant to be but usually failed to be, holy and righteous under God so as to be a good witness to the Gentile nations. To belong, to be “in Christ”, we need to be not perfect but at least facing the right way. Jesus comes to intensify the Law. “You heart it said; But I tell you this”. Yes, mostly we do keep the Law inasmuch as few of us are murderers or adulterers; mostly we don’t covet our neighbour’s donkey. But the question Jesus will put to us is, “OK Bob, but do you commit murder when that idiom cuts across your bow on the motorway; Do you commit adultery when you see the girl next door; What in other words is going on in your mind, your imagination? Jesus would have us examine our hearts.
According to Australian Catholic priest, Geoffrey Plant, St Matthew is probably writing his Gospel in defence of Christians who were being accused by some Jews of relaxing the demands of Torah, the Law. But Jesus would reply to his critics, “Do not think that I have come to abolish, but to fulfil the Law”. He is not lowering standards, he is offering something much more demanding. In his life, teaching and mission he is making Torah reach it’s true goal, it’s completion, “Not one stroke or dot will pass from the Law until all is accomplished in me”.
The priestly sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple were the very heart of Israel’s worship. But Christians saw Christ’s sacrifice as the definitive one, the one that fulfilled all that the Temple rites and rituals anticipated. Nor was Sabbath observance important now – Christians worshipped on the first day of the week, not the Sabbath.
These sort of things, and all those dietary laws and purity codes had reached their goal, they were fulfilled, they were for a season, to reinforce Israel’s identity.
Christ himself has become the place where God meets us. He is our identity.
And so, in the Gospel reading today, Jesus takes commandments like “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery” and so on, and he reveals their deeper meaning. When it comes to murder, Jesus acknowledges that often comes about from anger, usually anger that has been carefully nurtured until it becomes hatred. Dr Goebbels was a past master at that – but we see it alive and well today as Jew attacks Palestinian and Palestinian attacks Jew. Jesus urges reconciliation because “Blessed are the peacemakers”, those who use their righteous anger at injustice to good effect.
Next in Jesus’ list is adultery and no doubt he has in mind Israel’s failure to be the image of God to the Gentile nations that surround her. She (and yes, Israel is often described as a female), she commits adultery by forsaking her one true God for foreign gods. Solomon is condemned for having foreign wives who lead the king and his people astray. Behind all adultery says our Lord, lies lust which is strongly related to covetousness which the tenth commandment prohibits. We can lust after just about anything, but Jesus’ focus here in on men’s treatment of women. Lust tends to be a peculiarly male attribute – it’s a symptom of a deeper malaise – it expresses a desire for intimacy, a craving to be valued and affirmed which in turn comes from insecurity and feelings of inadequacy. “I must therefore gain power over others in order to prove my worth.” A false god over and against the true God who loves us just as we are.
The one true God will leave us sometimes to struggle with murderous, lustful thoughts, thoughts about divorce. Our weakness once faced can be re-framed by God into something very positive. Think King David and his lusting after Bathsheeba; but how David repents. Think Mary Magdalene who becomes the Apostle to the Apostles. Think St Paul, “Please God, take away this thorn”; “No”, says God “I am using your thorn, your temptation, to strengthen you for further mission work”.
God wants us to gain authority over snakes and scorpions, the power of the enemy. If he simply removed the temptation, we would never develop as St Paul says, never develop character, perseverance and hope.
God wants to change our hearts; he will supply the value, the intimacy with himself and the confidence we lack and which we’ve tried in vain to snatch from others.
Jesus goes on to divorce. In England (sorry, I don’t have the figure for New Zealand) one in five marriages end in divorce after five years. We may have gained sexual liberation but we can see no comparable growth in mature, mutually enriching relationships. “You are not ready it seems for solid food” as St Paul tells the Corinthian Church. Marriage needs the “transcendent third” i.e. God.
The trials of life, including those we go through in marriage, should create intimacy with God – we share a little in Jesus’ passion and death so that we will also share something of his resurrection life.
And there’s another thing; no doubt God could deliver you from all those evil thoughts – but then, how could you relate in any way to those who experience similar tests or trials? You have to know what others are experiencing and you do that by having experienced these things yourself. “Apart from me in my trials, you can do nothing”, says Jesus. And once you’ve encountered him, sinful thoughts really are truly boring!
The words of Jesus about your “right eye and right hand causing you to sin” – “It is better to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be cast into hell” – that of course is precisely what Jesus acts out – he, one man, dies for us, his body. Indeed, the word for “better” here in the Greek is exactly the same word the High Priest Caiaphas uses in John’s Gospel – “You Pharisees know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed”. It is only in him that we can become what God wants us to become, only in him will our right eye and right hand be destroyed. His hands are nailed to a cross but his whole body is resurrected so that the psalmist can say, “My times are in your hands”; that is, my destiny and your destinies are at his disposal. He stretches out those wounded hands to us to bring us to want solid food, for a desire to be intimate with God and so to put other desires in their proper place.
Finally! – Jesus talks about oaths / vows. We may for example say we love God or that God loves us. But that’s really just an abstract idea you’ve been told, just as the Beatitudes were for my father. It only becomes true for us when we’ve experienced something of that love, for example we receive something of God’s love when we fall in love with another person. In other words if you were to make some vow, perhaps when you marry, the vow must come from the whole of you, not just the head – it must come from the heart. And that is perhaps what Lent is all about – making God real.
Rev’d Bob Driver