The Heart of the Matter

(Scriptures: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
I Corinthians 3:1-9 Matthew 5:21-37)

Are there any fans of the TV show “Law and Order” in the house this morning? Every episode begins with a standard introduction: “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.” This introduction pretty much sets the agenda for the show – for the first half of the show, more or less, we watch the police investigation, and for the second half, the criminal trial plays out. Both sections of the show have their twists and turns, but the unfolding of the trial can often be infuriating, as decisions about the inclusion or exclusion of evidence often turn on technicalities. Often both the district attorney and the defense lawyer know perfectly well that the defendant is guilty – at least of something – but the whether the jury gets to see various pieces of evidence depends on the manner in which the evidence was obtained, how a witness was interrogated, that sort of thing. These rules of evidence are in place for good reasons – we don’t want police breaking down the doors of random citizens at 4 in the morning, we don’t want false confessions extracted under torture or people locked away for life on false evidence planted by police. But lawyers on both sides of the trial are experts at exploiting loopholes in the wording of statutes or case law to include or exclude pieces of information from a trial.

This morning’s Gospel reading from Matthew is a continuation of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The ministry of Jesus represents the reign of God breaking into a world corrupted by sin. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is an extended description of life within the Kingdom or Reign of God. As Christians, we live in a time of transition, when God’s reign is already present, but not fully – we’re caught in the tension between God ruling now, but not yet fully. Because of this tension, Jesus’ description of life under the Reign of God will likely make us rather uneasy….we recognize the utter righteousness of what Jesus says, and yet it is far beyond our tendency to want to settle, not for what is best, but for what is “good enough to get by”.

Jesus teachings on murder and adultery begin with the basics, both for his original listeners and for us. The Ten Commandments, which most of us learned as children, include the words “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not commit adultery.” Even those with little or no religious training know that killing and adultery are wrong. But here’s where our inner lawyer wants to argue us into settling for obeying the letter of the law….for example, I don’t think anyone here has murdered anyone in cold blood, I hope not anyway, so we can claim obedience to that commandment against killing. Mission accomplished! But Jesus goes beyond the mere letter of the law, to speak of the intent of the law, the spirit of the law, we might say. Murder destroys our relationship with the one killed; once we’ve killed someone, it’s obviously not possible to relate to that person again. There’s no putting the pieces back together again, no turning back the clock. But Jesus says that anger and insults break relationship in the same way that murder does. Perhaps there’s some family member from whom we’re alienated, with whom we’ve stopped speaking, and if someone asks about that person, we respond, in words from the HBO series the Sopranos, “he’s dead to me.” That’s a bit of a cliché, but let’s let those words sink in…..“He’s dead….to me.” Any relationship I had with that person is dead, and as far as I’m concerned, the person himself may as well be six feet under. Anger and insults are the first steps on a slippery slope that, if followed to its conclusion, leads to murder. So for Jesus, staying in relationship, even with a difficult person, is key: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” This is why our order of worship places the confession of sin and assurance of pardon so early in the service: before we can be open to truly hearing God’s word and responding with praise and offerings, we need to restore our relationship with God and neighbor by confessing our sin, not just in private to God, but publicly, as the gathered body of Christ.

In the same way, Jesus starts out with the familiar words of the commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Again, our inner lawyer wants to get into technicalities about whether this act or that act constitutes sex or adultery, into technicalities about what the meaning of “is” is. But Jesus goes beyond the letter of the law, to the intent of preserving relationship. Jesus recognized that fantasizing about someone other than our spouse or partner, has the potential to go from thoughts to actions, to breaking up a family or household. Fantasies are about pictures, about surfaces, about what’s on the outside; they have nothing to do with really knowing another person, their hopes and dreams, what makes the other person tick. A lasting relationship can’t be built on the shifting sand of fantasy. And again, Jesus is all maintaining relationship. We might also remember that, in Jesus day, there was little safety net for an unmarried woman, so for a man to divorce his wife – and that’s generally the way things worked back then – would be to condemn her to poverty and misery for the remainder of her life. So Jesus’ prohibition of divorce was also about social justice for wives. He wouldn’t give his listeners – and won’t give us - an easy out to divorce a spouse just because, “the old grey mare just ain’t what she, or he, used to be, many long years ago….” We'd like to think that in the church, things would be different - but recent headlines show that church folk can be among the worst offenders.

In our Epistle reading, Paul saw the squabbles of the Corinthian church as a symptom that they were still spiritually immature, in need of milk and pablum rather than solid food. It’s about helping us mature in our faith, growing to the point where, in Paul’s words, we can stomach solid food rather than milk, meat rather than pablum. Our reading from Deuteronomy offers us a stark choice: life and prosperity, or death and adversity. God calls us to choose life, to speak and live in ways that are lifegiving, that build up rather than tear down, that keep us in relationship rather than separating us into warring camps.

The bottom line of Jesus’ sermon is the two great commandments: love of God, love of neighbor. It’s about preserving our relationships with God and neighbor, forthright relationships in which we say what we mean and mean what we say, where “yes” means “yes” and “no” means “no”, relationships transformed by the saving, lifegiving love of Jesus Christ. As Christian author C.S. Lewis wrote, “the holiest object presented to your senses, next to the blessed sacrament itself, is your neighbor.” And so Jesus’ sermon is, ultimately, about recognizing the sacred presence of God, not only within the walls of the church, but in our neighbor, our coworker, our children, our spouse – the sacred presence of God in each of us, a sacred presence not to be leered at or sneered at or dismissed. And this sacred presence of God is also within our neighbors, here in Bridesburg, and wherever God may lead us. May we honor God’s presence in all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
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Come join us for worship at 10 am at Emanuel UCC. We're on Fillmore St (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org