Year A February 16, 2020
Matthew 5:21-37
A moment of confession: This is not this pastor’s favorite week to preach; there is so much going on our Gospel reading this morning – and we just can’t hit it all or I’d be preaching for an hour – and no one wants that. Our Gospel text for this morning is admittedly a difficult passage that has been used and misused in a variety of ways. In particular, Jesus’ strict words about divorce have been used in incredibly harmful ways, keeping people in abusive marriages or marriages that are unhealthy or just not working anymore (for whatever reason). Even though it is only two verses of this lengthy passage, these words on divorce ring loud, clear, and harsh, in part, because most of us know and love someone who is divorced and some people here have been divorced. Just in my family, both sets of grandparents divorced, my mom divorced her first husband before meeting my Dad, my uncle has been divorced twice, and I have three cousins who have been divorced at least once. To put it bluntly, without my mom’s divorce from her first husband, I wouldn’t be here. It is a hard text to hear with modern ears.
However, today, I hope to take today’s passage seriously looking at both the function of law and the context of relationships in the Kingdom of God as we begin to engage with this text in its entirety. Because it isn’t just or even mainly about divorce - it is about relationships and how we are in relationship with one another. It is about what life looks like in the community of the kingdom of God. Then, we maybe, just maybe we can better engage what Jesus is proclaiming on here the mount.
In seminary, our beloved Old Testament scholar, The Rev. Dr. Ralph Klein, talks about the Ten Commandments, particularly the 8 negative commandments - the you shall not commandments - as God’s playpen. Think about a playpen; we have them for pets and for infants. They create a boundary in which a child or a pet can play freely and ideally also safely. There is a boundary. But there’s a lot of room to play, to grow, to explore. Likewise, these eight commandments form the boundaries for the community of God’s people. Within those boundaries, the people can play and live with relative freedom. As long as you refrain from taking the Lord’s name in vain, refrain from murdering your neighbor, refrain from committing adultery, etc., you’re within the community’s boundaries. And there’s lots of room to play, to grow, to explore life together in community and in faith. There’s lots of room for wrestling, for questioning, for figuring out what life together looks like. However, breaking these laws, places one clearly outside of the boundaries of the community.
In this way, the Commandments curb sin for the sake of the greater good of the whole community. The law, then, is not meant to be a burden, but a gift – a gift given for the sake of the health and wellbeing of people and of the community. Remember, the law was given AFTER God had chosen Israel as God’s beloved people. The Law isn’t about earning God’s love; it is about living in a community formed by God’s love. Certain actions and behaviors are ruled out because they damage the community, but there is a great amount of freedom within those boundaries.
I wonder if my professor’s theory can help us figure out what is going on in today’s passage. Jesus takes several commandments from Hebrew Scripture - you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not swear falsely – and, on one hand, digs deeper to what lies underneath them. Underneath committing murder is unresolved anger and underneath adultery is unrestrained lust. And on the other hand, today, Jesus pushes back against societal norms that can create unhealthy and dangerous situations. For instance, instead of putting the onus on women to “cover up” or to avoid being objects of the male gaze, Jesus says “no, the responsibility is on the person looking at another person to see them as a beloved child of God.” Jesus’ words today go against the culture of “boys will be boys” and “locker room talk” that has existed throughout the millennia. It isn’t about what a woman is wearing (or not wearing). It is about how one looks at another human being. Do you see an object – one to be lusted after or to be used for one’s own pleasure? Or do you see a fellow human, made in the image of God?To briefly turn back to Jesus’ comments on divorce. Divorce, in the ancient world, put women at risk. Only men could ask for a divorce. Women weren’t allowed to own property – because they were considered property. They couldn’t enter into contracts. Often, divorce, for a woman meant either returning to her parents’ home in shame or homelessness and (possibly) a life of prostitution. A divorced woman was placed in real danger. Whereas today, divorce sometimes is the most life-giving choice one can make, in the ancient world, divorce was a real threat to the life and the livelihood of women.
Making these comments, Jesus not only further defines or explains the boundaries for the community’s playpen, but also speaks to the environment and the relationships within the community’s playpen itself. What makes for a life-giving environment? The community is whole and healthy when the relationships within it are also whole and healthy. To be clear, Jesus is not contradicting the Law, but rather he is interpreting and expanding upon the Law to point us toward his vision of what ideally the Kingdom of God looks like.
Within those boundaries of God’s playpen - this world - what kind of community is hoped for? You have been saved by the grace of God. You have been freed from the power of sin and death. How do we enact that freedom in the community in which we live? You are recipients of God’s unconditional love. How do we live out that love in our community? how is our community shaped and defined by that love?
Jesus’ words today point to a hope that within God’s playpen the Kingdom of God will be fully realized - not just in some future afterlife, but in this world here and now - and it will be a life-giving community for all within it. Jesus’ comments today are about, in the words of our reading from Deuteronomy, choosing life – choosing the things that allow life not only to exist but to flourish. A life-flourishing community is one where people are reconciled and relationships are restored, where anger and lust are fleeting, and where people are trustworthy, where women are seen as children of God and protected, where people live up to their word (without the need for an oath). What a vision for community? Here, Jesus sets up some pretty high standards and expectations, not just within the context of marriage, but within the context of all of our relationships - relationships with family, with friends, with the neighbor and the stranger.
So on one hand, the law sets up the expectations for the community, curbing sin, trying to keep God’s people within the boundaries, yet on the other hand, it convicts us because we don’t live up to those expectations. Although we get glimpses of this Kingdom that is always pressing in, but we can also see WE so often miss the mark, our community so often misses the mark, the world so often misses the mark. Sin gets in the way. Our curved-in-on-self nature prevents this from being fully realized. Human brokenness leads to broken relationships with friends, with loved ones, with spouses, with others around us. That’s our reality. And that reality doesn’t live up to the ideal community of the people of God.
In reading this passage, I’m immediately convicted - and if we’re honest with ourselves most of us are convicted right from the beginning too. I have been angry with people. I’ve insulted people out of anger and frustration (and the insults in the Greek are relatively minor; I’ve used much worse insults than those words). And there are people in my life that I am not reconciled with - and probably never will be. There are relationships left broken because I haven’t put in the effort for reconciliation to happen (in other words, because of my laziness or negligence in that relationship). Yet if I’m honest, there are also relationships that I don’t have any desire to mend because I don’t want anything to do with that person (in other words, I’m actively choosing not to reconcile that relationship). The
hurt and the brokenness is too much. Based on Jesus’ words this morning, I’ll be thrown into prison until I can pay the last penny.
Last time I preached this text, I used a similar confession. In the handshake line, one of my beloved members said something to the effect of, “Oh good, so if Intern Pastor Alex can not be reconciled to people, then it’s okay if I’m not too.” Ehh. Not what I’m getting at. God wants better for us. God calls us to do better. That is absolutely clear in Jesus’ words today. Because God envisions a playpen that doesn’t just allow life to exist but encourages life to flourish and thrive. I’m looking honestly at the reality of the brokenness around us that infects our playpen. As much as we may try, we all do things that strain and break relationships with our neighbor. We all act in ways that fail to promote a life-giving community. We all fall short of the expectations of God and of the law. And without the Grace of God, Jesus paints a grim picture: judgment, imprisonment, and hell (or, better Gehenna, the trash dump outside of Jerusalem, a current reality – a “living hell” – not a future punishment in the afterlife).
Therefore, in addition to curbing sin and setting of God’s play pen boundaries, the law acts like a mirror showing us for who we are - sinners in desperate need of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Although within this passage itself, words of grace are absent, we can look to words of Grace found elsewhere in the Gospels for the promises of God through Christ. Thankfully, we have a God that recognizes that this world isn’t yet what it should be, that our communities aren’t yet what it should be, that our relationships aren’t what they should be, and that we aren’t yet what we should be. We have a God that through Christ that promises grace and forgiveness so that we don’t need to fear punishment and hell because of our sin and our shortcomings.
Each Sunday, we gather around the table, and we hear the words proclaimed, “This is the cup of the new covenant, shed for you and for ALL people for the forgiveness of sin.” We trust in that promise. Here at the table, Christ promises to meet us in our own sin and our own brokenness, promises to love us, promises us forgiveness of sin. Here Christ sets us back on a life-giving, life-flourishing path, giving us new life through his body and blood, so that, although so often we may miss the mark, we may try again and we may become agents of God’s life-giving Kingdom for all the world. Because of God’s grace, because we can trust that nothing can separate us from the love of God found in Christ Jesus, we are free to live life-giving, life-flourishing lives in God’s playpen. Because of God’s grace, you are invited into the kind of life envisioned in God’s playpen – the kind of life that reflects the kingdom of God – so we and all people can experience abundant and flourishing life found in the kingdom of God.Amen
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