The Rev. Jeremiah
Williamson
Matthew 5:21-37
You have heard that it was said…
You know, you read
these teachings of Jesus, and honestly, it kinda makes sense that people turned
on him. I suspect he was easy enough to
love, if you were one of those people who wasn’t used to being loved, but for
most of the curious people in his burgeoning crowds, Jesus was probably not
quite so easy to like. I mean, you come
for a free healing and he tells you to saw off your hand. Jesus never made things
easy. In fact, he just always makes everything harder; he raises the bar to these
impossible heights.
In today’s Gospel, an
excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does just that. Probably the people in his audience were
feeling pretty good about themselves – before Jesus started talking. They were good, Law-abiding citizens; they
took the Ten Commandments seriously.
People got under their skin, but they didn’t murder them. Some folks were looking pretty good, but they
did not commit adultery. But then Jesus
starts with the “You have heard that is was saids…” and bums everyone out.
You see, the people in
that crowd they had heard that is was said.
And they were fine with what was said.
They could, for the most part, do what was said. But Jesus said more and the “But I say to you…”
part made everything much more challenging.
I understand that I am
making assumptions here, but I assume most of the people in Jesus’ crowd, and most
of the people in my crowd today, can somewhat easily avoid murdering. But anger, well, that is a natural by-product
of living in the same world as other people.
Jesus can’t honestly expect us to never be angry at other people. I’ve met other people; some of them have it
coming. Other people are: bad drivers,
mow the lawn too early, leave dog poop in your yard, share too many memes on
facebook, ask too many questions in the drive-thru, pee on the toilet seat and
neglect to wipe it up, root for the Pittsburgh Steelers, play Shawn Mendes on
the radio, and just generally disagree with my irreproachable opinions on
things and stuff. And so sometimes I am
angry with other people.
And probably you are
too. And so it is difficult to hear
Jesus condemn something that comes so easily and naturally to us.
The way this passage
is presented, it can feel like Jesus is saying something novel, something
shocking. And while the “tear out your
eyes” thing is a bit jarring, in this passage, Jesus isn’t making up new
rules. In fact, just before he launches
into the “you have heard that it was saids” he reminds his audience that he did
not come abolish the Law.
Archbishop Desmond
Tutu once said, “There comes a point where we need to stop
just pulling people out of the river. We
need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” That is exactly what Jesus is doing
here. He’s going upstream, to the
source. He is pulling out the roots
before they become too deeply embedded in our hearts. He is not ignoring the tenets of the ancient Law;
he is exposing the little actions and attitudes that stack and build; he is drilling
down to what is at the heart of the bigger problems, tearing out the tiny weeds
so that they can’t choke everything good out.
The anger that we cultivate
and nurture in our hearts manifests as real violence in this world and Jesus
knows that. Not always physical
violence; rarely murder, but violence nonetheless: words that wound, actions
that belittle, attitudes that dehumanize.
Anger does violence to the human dignity that we, as members of Christ’s
body, have promised to God that we will respect.
Jesus is not content,
however, to simply expose the problem of anger, he also poses a solution – and it
is ridiculous. He tells his followers to
be reconciled with those with whom they have a conflict. And that is a good and important idea because
resentment only grows if ignored or disregarded. But he uses some wild hyperbole to express
the urgency and importance of resolution.
The humor of Jesus’ example
gets lost because of contextual changes but he paints quite the picture. Jesus explains to his audience that reconciliation
is so dire, so consequential, that if an offense comes to mind it must be
addressed immediately; it soars to the very top of the to-do list. Even if one is in the Temple, about to make
an offering, reconciliation cannot wait.
And now this doesn’t seem like a big deal to us. In our modern times, maybe that means you
send an apologetic text and hustle back in before the offering plate passes. Or, if it is a big deal, maybe you actually
make a phone call and you hand your check off to someone else to put in the
plate.
But ancient offerings were a
little different; in the 1st century offerings often had legs. And instant communication was still centuries
away. And so what Jesus is telling these
people – to get his point across but perhaps also to soften the blow of his
demands with some humor – is to leave your rambunctious goat in the middle of the
busy Temple, walk the 145 miles back to Galilee, apologize, hike all the way back,
find your goat, which unless someone else already offered it (like finding a
$20 bill on the ground and dropping it in the plate) is probably still somewhere
in Jerusalem, and then, with your clean conscience and your angerless heart, make
your offering to God. And do it because reconciliation
is that important – that important to the human family and to the Body of
Christ and to the God who created each person in the divine image. In other words, it is worth losing your goat over.
And again, it feels like
Jesus is just making things harder.
Rooting the anger from our hearts and lives, apologizing to the ones we
have wronged, reconciling with other people, who might, let’s be honest, be difficult
to love: that is hard stuff; Thou shalt not murder is so much easier.
And yet, what Jesus is
asking of us, while difficult, is not complicated. He is really only asking us to love: to allow
love to dictate our actions and attitudes, to build our relationships on a
foundation of love, to read every commandment through the lens of love. Later in this same Gospel, Jesus will be asked,
“Teacher, which
commandment in the law is the greatest?” And Jesus will reply, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as
yourself.” And then Jesus added, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets."
And so you see, Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, but to make the
Law easier to remember. The Law, every commandment,
is fulfilled by love. When we allow love
to grow in our hearts – love of God and love of neighbor – there is no room for
anger to take root. Love changes the way
we look at the world; love changes the way we see other people; love changes us.
Jesus talks a lot about
love; he repeatedly commands us to love.
But he knew, perhaps better than anyone, how difficult the ask was. Life did not make it easy for Jesus to
practice what he preached. Love is always
hard work – “145-mile hike while worrying about your goat” hard, “swallowing
your pride for the sake of reconciliation” hard. But Jesus did the work.
And he set a staggering example
for us. On the cross Jesus had every
right to be angry; he had been falsely accused; he had reaped hatred from the
immense love he sowed in this world; he bore the crippling burden of cruelty and
violence; he was condemned to death. And
yet, on the cross, a victim of state-sponsored murder, surrounded by angry people
and their angry shouts, Jesus’ heart was not filled with anger; it was,
instead, overflowing with love. Just before
his breath gave out, he said one final prayer, a prayer for some other people,
people who were difficult to love, but apparently not impossible. “Father, forgive them…” – a prayer for the
ones who drove the nails. Jesus: always raising
the bar.
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