Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
April 27, 2008

Rev. L. John Gable

YOU'VE HEARD IT SAID, part 2

Matthew 5:21-48

Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts I do understand”, and the passage we are looking at today surely is one of those parts.

We re-read the section Ryan preached on last Sunday so that we can hear this entire section of Jesus’ teaching as a single unit.  I sympathize with Ryan on the texts I gave him to preach on last week on the law, murder and sex.  As we were leaving town for Tabfest my wife Kristin and I stopped by the church office briefly to pick something up.  When Kris saw the passage I had given him, she called and left a voicemail apologizing for what I had done to him.  But folks, truth be told, the teaching doesn’t get any easier today.

We have already seen in our study of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus is giving His followers, then and now, a glimpse into life as it is intended to be lived, “life as it one day will be lived when God finally has His way with us.”  His intention is to cast a vision for us of what the Kingdom of God is like so that we can begin preparing ourselves for it.  Yet we quickly recognize that life as it will be is very different than life as it is now, so we find Jesus’ teaching to be radical, confrontational, convicting challenging, and as we’ve said “counter-cultural.”  And if it is not these things to us, then we need to read it again more carefully.
         
But I hope we will also experience something of a longing as we read these words of our Lord.  I hope they will instill within us something of a desire to live life in a way that is pleasing to God.  We mustn’t forget that these words come to us from a God who dearly loves us, who designed and created us, and who desires what is best for us.  So we mustn’t discount or disregard this teaching no matter how hard or unreasonable or even irrational it may sound to us.  Rather we need to prayerfully pay attention to it as we seek wisdom and understanding as to what it means and how we can best apply it to the living of our lives.
         
Each week during the Pastor’s Bible study on Wednesday morning we read the texts for the week and I generally open the discussion by saying something along the lines of, “So, what do you think?”  When I asked that question this past week someone muttered under her breath, “Impossible!”  Yes, that about sums it up, doesn’t it?  We hear this teaching of our Lord and feel a bit overwhelmed by its demands.  It does seem impossible, particularly when He concludes with the kicker, “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” 
         
Now, given that that is our first response, let’s look more closely not just at what Jesus says, but at what He means, because His desire is not that we be so discouraged that we give up, but that we be so inspired by the vision of life as God has designed and intends it that we commit to follow Him more closely.
         
We live in a world filled with rules and regulations, dos and don’ts.  While at times these seem restrictive, for the most part we will admit that their intended purpose is for our benefit and for the maintenance of a orderly society.  Without laws and rules and regulations there would be, at best, chaos and, at worst, anarchy.
         
The original 10 Commandments were given to the Children of Israel in order to help shape them into being the people God intended them to be.  Some of the laws are directed vertically in order to establish a right relationship with God, and others are directed horizontally in order to maintain a right relationship with their neighbors.  Now wherever there are rules there are rule “keepers” and rule “benders” and rule “breakers.”  Over time those original 10 Commandments were expanded into 613 individual laws and those were further expanded into tens of thousands of rules and regulations.  Someone has calculated that we now have 35 million laws trying to enforce the original ten.
         
So Jesus comes along and, as we read last week, says, “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it”, and we can almost hear the disciples groan, even as we have.  If the law is a reasonable expectation of how reasonable people are supposed to live given a reasonable amount of effort, then it seems that Jesus has become unreasonable by raising the bar so high that we are all doomed.  He seems to be laying down an even heavier burden than did the scribes and the Pharisees, if that is even possible.  But I don’t believe that is what Jesus is doing at all.  I don’t believe He is adding more legislation.  Rather, I believe He is showing us that laws alone won’t get us where we need to go.  We need more than a change of behavior; we need a change of heart.  So, He is pointing us to a new ideal, to a new way of “being” that will change our way of “doing”.  He is accentuating the “Spirit” of the law rather than the “letter” of the law, which makes this teaching life “giving” rather than life “draining.” 
         
To those who think they can live up to this new standard on their own, this will be a hard and harsh word which convicts us of our sin and our complete and utter inability to live as God intends us to live. But for those of us who know our need for God, who live with the attitude of the Beatitudes, this message offers a beautiful word of grace as it throws us completely on the mercy of God.  This “bad news” really is the prelude to the “Good News” we desperately long to hear.  Jesus is leading us beyond mere obedience to more and more rules and regulations into a deeper and deeper relationship with God and one another.
         
As we look at this series of teachings we are struck first by the way Jesus says, “You have heard it said…” making reference to the Old Testament law and prophets, but then He goes on to say, “But I say to you…”  Jesus is claiming authority here that only God can give or claim.  He is saying that His words are equal to, if not superior to, God’s Word.  This is yet another way that Jesus says, “This is who I am, so listen up!”
         
He begins by saying, “You have heard it said, you shall not murder.”  This is a good place to start because most of us can honestly say, “Of the Big 10, I have not done that one!”   But then He goes on to say, “But I say, if you are angry you are liable to judgment” and suddenly all of us stand condemned.  Now, that sounds rather extreme, so what could He possibly mean?
         
Remember, Jesus is talking ideals here and the importance of establishing and maintaining good relationships.  So He reminds us that anger, like any temptation, is on a continuum.  No one wakes up in the morning and says, “I think I’ll go out and kill someone today.”  No, it starts way before that, in an offense taken that plants a seed of anger or resentment in our hearts, which in time takes root and grows to the point where we start wishing the other harm, and at the extreme of the continuum our rage turns into murder.  So Jesus says, “If you don’t want to end there (murder) don’t start here (anger).”  The latter is simply the action that arises out of the attitude of the former.  Jesus raises the bar only in that He addresses the inward attitudes that underlie our outward behaviors.
         
He goes on to say, “You have heard it said, do not commit adultery.”  Again most of us can say, “Oh good, He’s not talking to me”, although studies show that the behaviors of good Christian folk are not strikingly different than those of the general population, so maybe He is.  And certainly He captures all of our attention when He says, “I say to you, anyone who looks at a woman (or we may equalize this teaching and say a man) with lust has already committed adultery with her (or him) in his heart.”  There He goes with that heart thing again.  Our outward action (adultery) begins with an attitude of the heart (lust), so it must be checked early before it goes any farther. 
         
When Jesus comes to the teaching about divorce, in a word, He says, “Don’t”, and if you do, “Don’t remarry.”  Admittedly this is a hard teaching that seems to add an even heavier burden on those who are already carrying enough.  So how can we understand what Jesus is saying?  He is lifting up the ideal of marriage.  It is intended between a man and a woman for a lifetime.  He is stating the divine ideal.  Marriage is a God-given institution and divorce is a deviation from that ideal; it is a concession to the brokenness of our relationships.  Now, as hard as this teaching is, we really wouldn’t expect Him to say anything less, would we?  We can hardly imagine Him setting the standard lower than the ideal.  It would be inconsistent with all of His other teachings if He said, “I’d really like to see if maybe 75% of marriages can last.  I’d like for you to try to be faithful to your spouse at least 90% of the time.”  No, He points us to the ideal, to the divine intention of right relationships between men and women in the covenant of marriage.
         
In the same way, His teaching on oaths and swearing really points us to the ideal of truthfulness and honesty in all of our relationships.  I read a study that 91% of Americans say they lie regularly.  My guess is the other 9% were lying when they took the survey.
         
Oath taking and swearing is really just a pathetic acquiescence to our own dishonesty.  It is yet another way of admitting that our own words are not likely to be trusted so we start raising the stakes by saying, “I swear to God.  I swear on the Bible, or as we said as kids, “cross my fingers hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”  Jesus is saying none of that is necessary if only we will be a people who speak honest, simple truth.  “Let your yes be yes and your no, no.”  Conduct yourself with such honesty and integrity and truth that people will take you at your word and believe you.
         
I have a friend who has no signed contracts for the business that he does.  When he negotiates an agreement the two parties shake hands and consider it done.  He abides by his word and trusts that his clients will do the same.  Now, I can hear you saying, “You can’t run a business like that today!”  Well, he seems to think he can, and he does so quite successfully.
         
Jesus says, “You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  This was the rule of the day which was based on the Old Testament law called “Lex Talionis”, the law of retaliation, and as barbaric as it may sound to us, it was really a movement toward civility.  Prior to this law of “measure for measure” there were no laws restraining retaliation or retribution.  So, just and helpful as that law was, Jesus again points us to the ideal and says, “even restraint in retaliation is still retaliation.”  Revenge is sweet, but still it is revenge.  Ghandi interpreted this teaching well when he said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone blind and toothless.”
         
So Jesus makes a radical call to break the cycle of violence and retribution, by saying, walk away.  Turn the other cheek.  Forgive the injury.  Go the extra mile.  Forgive the debt.  Disarm your enemy with kindness.  Find a new way to resolve your differences without retaliation and retribution.  Find a way to break the cycle of violence.
         
And then, as if He hasn’t said enough, He ends this section of His teaching with perhaps the most radical message of all.  “You have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.”   Jesus has now gone from “preachin’ to meddlin’”.  His teaching is shocking, radical, wholly impractical and utterly unreasonable, yet this is exactly how Jesus lived His life and how He intends for us, as His followers, to live ours.  He modeled for us the ideal.
         
On the evening of September 11, 2001 we rather spontaneously gathered as a church family to talk and pray about the events of that day.  We, none of us, hardly knew what to say or how to pray that day, so we sang hymns and read Scripture and prayed.  I remember leading us in prayer for the victims and their families; for the responders; for our nation and our leaders; and for our collective response to the attack, and we were comforted.  But then when I dared to pray for our enemies there was a visceral response that I felt within myself and among that gathered fellowship of God’s people.  Oh, we knew that that was what we were supposed to do, that that was what we were called to do in Jesus’ name, but it didn’t make it any easier on any of us. 
         
“To return evil for good is the devil’s way.  To return good for good is the world’s way.  To return good for evil is God’s way.”  Jesus ends this teaching with a call to live by a new order, a new standard, a higher righteousness.  The old order says, “Love those who love you”; the new order says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” for in this way you show yourselves to be children of the Heavenly Father, the One who loves us completely, unconditionally and indiscriminately.
         
This is what Jesus means when He says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  It is a call to be complete, whole, filled, mature, living the ideal life God intends for us to live.
         
These are challenging words indeed, but at some point we have to ask ourselves, “Do I want to be right or do I want to be made whole?”  I know, we can argue against every one of these teachings and say, “That will never work; it just isn’t practical; it doesn’t make sense; if I do that people will walk all over me”, and the list of our objections and rationalizations can go on and on.
         
But then, at some point, we have to stop and ask ourselves, “I know I’m right in all of my objections to this teaching, but do I want to be right or do I want to be made whole?  Am I intent on living life on my own terms, or am I willing to try to live life on God’s terms?  My way or God’s way?”
         
These are Jesus’ words to us and while they may be hard for us to hear sometimes, we need to be reminded of who said them, and of how much He loves us, and of what He did to prove His love for us.  In that light, I confess that I would rather be whole than right, so I pray, not out of resentment, but out of resignation to the truth of this message, “OK, Jesus, have it Your way; have it Your way with me.”