In Right Relationship

Deuteronomy 30: 15 – 20

Matthew 5: 21 – 32

Whew….some weeks, it is harder to face the scheduled readings than others.  I am reminded in this week’s gospel of Adam Hamilton’s reflections this fall on those scriptures that are hard or impossible to read – that make it very hard to say “this is the word of God…” and “thanks be to God.” 

I read  this Matthew text as a woman who is divorced and remarried. And I have heard it preached to me as a woman who is divorced and remarried. 

This is what is known sometimes as a “hammer text.” That is to say it gets used to “hammer” others sometimes.  It is used to hammer home what is sin, what is wrong, what keeps us from God.

I’ve been made to feel unworthy, sinful, wrong.  Damned.

Has anyone ever used scripture to make you feel badly?

Over more than 1000 years, scripture has been used as a hammer – to judge women who speak in church, to judge households with debt, to judge sexuality, to justify oppression, slavery and anti-semitism. 

Over years, I’ve learned to sit with the discomfort that reading these texts can create. To seek to understand both the words recorded at a point in time and my hearing of them in a different time.  We do that by entering into the story, by looking at each moment in the context of the larger story of God, and by peeling back the specifics of context to hear what the word says for us here and now.

Let’s go there together today. Let’s look at what Jesus is doing in this teaching in his time and place, and what he is saying about how we are with one another and with God here and now. Let’s hear again what he’s saying about what is vital and important.

Today, we continue in Jesus’ sermon on the mount as it is captured in Matthew’s gospel, and specifically in this passage, we’ve moved on from proclamations about who God is from the beatitudes two weeks ago, who we are, who Jesus is from last week, …on to some very specific interpretations of the law this week.

Let’s start by remembering or reclaiming what the law was and is.  The law was NOT simply a list of dos and don’t handed to the Israelites. It is bigger and deeper than that.

The law, originally handed to Moses, was given so that the Jewish people might live in a way that demonstrated right relationship with God and the world.  If you dive deeply into the Old Testament, particularly into understanding Torah, the law expressed across the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures (which were JESUS’s scriptures!!), the intent is for Israel to be a light for all the nations.  Not just to be kept from SIN, but to be an example of how to love God and neighbor.  These are ethical guidelines for being a shining example of how to live in community with God.

Here early in his ministry as recorded in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is reinterpreting these laws for a changing situation, for a new time and for new places, to reflect real lived experience.  Jesus is asserting that it is vitally important not just to keep the law but to keep the law in ways that transcend the norms of the religious establishment. 

Because ultimately, the Law is not about keeping us from sin – the law is about helping us to be an example of how to live in God’s way in the world. So, for example, in the text we read today, Jesus is exploring a few widely accepted teachings from the law…and he’s intensifying them. He’s making them bigger and more far-reaching.

Beginning with murder, Jesus affirms that it is not only wrong to murder, but also to express the anger that might lead to such things.  Or to leave a disagreement unreconciled between people.

Yes…you heard that right. Obviously it’s not ok to take another’s life in the heat of anger.  But it is also not ok to have a grudge between you. It’s not ok to bear your anger into life in ways that hamper relationship.

And it is not only wrong to engage in an adulterous relationship…but it is wrong to even let your eyes wander. And should your eye or hand wander, dispose of them.  Don’t be coveting that which is not yours.

And finally in this set of teaching, yes, the law “technically” makes provision for divorce, but if you leave your wife, even for cause,  you are responsible for causing her lawlessness…

Wow. That is intense stuff.

Jesus isn’t kidding around here.

Maybe you remember that last week we talked about a division among the religious elites – there were those among the Pharisees that thought the best way to preserve Jewish tradition was to consolidate and isolate – to form ghettos or tight communities of Jews.  Alternatively, there were those who were so angry that they were willing to use violence to reject Roman occupation. The Zealots were an angry bunch.

Into that space, Jesus has something to say about anger – essentially, it is wrong to kill, but it is also wrong to bear the flame of anger and resentment.  It doesn’t serve your relationship.

And THAT is key.

The teachings about divorce and remarriage are rooted in a specific economic reality – one in which the family was a primary economic engine and the wife bore children and tended children and kept home fires burning in order to fuel the family economic engine. Let’s be clear that marriage had nothing to do with love and happiness and attraction and shared vision and mutual growth. Marriage was an economic arrangement and divorce created economic ruin for the wife. Jesus is highlighting the bind that is created by a law that makes provision for divorce – it can be done, but at what cost?

So…you know me well by now.

You know I have sat with this all week…and it is the lens through which I have reflected on my relationships, my conversations, the news cycle.

This week, I sat with someone who shared how ostracized they feel because of their political convictions.  They talked about being treated differently.  About having fewer invitations to share meals, company, laughter.

This is a sister in Christ.  This is someone with whom we share a common mission to love God and one another and make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

When we look at the divided world we are living in and then gaze at it with squinty eyes through Jesus’ teaching about murder and anger or even divorce and adultery…I think we might find ourselves pretty guilty of not keeping the law as Jesus taught it.

I have been swimming this week in our human tendency to use poor interpretation of scripture to beat one another over the head.  And how really sound interpretation of scripture might actually be the key to calling us back to seeing one another as beloved children of God. 

So let’s focus in for just a moment on the very first part of the Matthew scripture we read today.  

5:21 "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.'

5:22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.

5:23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you,

5:24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

This is why we passed the peace with one another in the context of worship here at Faith. Not because it’s nice to say how do you do, to check in about your latest vacation, to comment on what a week it’s been. But to receive one another, to be reconciled with one another, to say that my relationship with you is much more important then the issues we disagree about.

And I was reminded studying this passage about the right placement of the peace. Before we offer our heart to God, through our prayers are presents or gifts our service, we offer to be reconciled with one another. To be clear that doesn’t mean that we necessarily forget the differences between us. We prioritize our shared belovedness in God.

Once again this week, pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes spoke into all of this with poetry that likely transcends my teaching:

If you love the people of the world
and know them as your siblings,
if you care, you will clearly see injustice
and you will be furious.

Let your rage burn.
Do not quench its flames.
Let yourself be angry at what should not be.
The Teacher is not lulling us into docile politeness
in the face of demons;
but let your rage be against the demons,
not against the people possessed.

See how the Teacher turns our mind first
from being wronged to having wronged others.
First sweep your house of your own demons.
Seek forgiveness
and be reconciled to those you have wronged
before you make demands of those who wrong others.
Let the furnace of repentance refine your rage
into desire for kindness for all.
Some things need to be burned down, but not people.
Let nothing diminish your love for wrongdoers
even as you go at what diminishes their love.
Oppose the oppression, not the oppressor.

Let your rage be the fire of love,
not the ire of not getting your way;
the refining fire of justice,
not the consuming fire of anger.
Let your rage be refined with sorrow.
Out of the death of grief let passion rise,
burning desire for love among all.
Let that passion fuel your work for restoration,
the fire of love be your courage
to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God.

May it be so.

Amen.

Source:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
www.unfoldinglight.net

February 13, 2020